The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson (Morning) August 2, 2024.

Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Letter No. 25.

Reader: Hello, we will be reading from the Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 25. You can find all of our texts in Sviva Tova on the Arvut platform. You can also ask us questions through the platform or here live, and if you do, please make sure to put the microphone close to your mouth, hold it close, and speak loudly and clearly.

Reading Letter: (00:43) Letter 25.

14 Kislev, Tav-Reish-Peh-Zayin, November 20, 1926, London

To my soul mate, may his candle burn forever:

... What you wrote, that you do not understand the innovations in the Torah that I wrote to you, they should have been clear to you. When you straighten out the way you work, you will understand them for certain. This is why I wrote them to you.

You explained regarding “sins becoming as merits to him,” that when one repents before the Creator, he evidently sees that the Creator forced him into his iniquities, and yet he willingly gives his soul to correct them as though they were his own iniquities. By this, the sins become as merits. But that still does not hit the target, as in the end you turn coercions into merits but not sins.

You also strayed further from the way by interpreting the sin of Adam HaRishon, condemning his soul to forced exile, and making the coercion a mistake. And what you explained, that it makes no difference whether the baby makes himself dirty or is made so by his father’s deeds, for in the end he is dirty and must wash, I wonder, how did dirt come out of purity?

Your last words are sincere, that because you went into a place that is not yours, and due to your habit to cloak yourself with clothes that are not your own, you did not understand my words, which are aiming precisely and only for you. I wish these words were enough for you to stop wandering in vineyards that are not your own, as it is written in The Zohar, “One must not look where he should not.”

Regarding what you wrote—that I seem to speak in riddles—it is written, “The needs of Your people, Israel, are many.” There is no time that is like another, much less those who go from door to door, to and fro, but the doors won’t open. There is an end to the changes in their states. While I write words of Torah, or verbally, I say them so they will furnish for at least a few months, so they will be understood in the good times over time. But what can I do if the good times are few, or the broken is more than the corrected and my words are forgotten?

Of course, the human intellectual mind will not examine my words at all, for they are said and are constructed from the letters of the heart.

And concerning your imagination that you entered and did not know how to come out because you grew tired of examining the matter, I will tell you that in general, one who repents from love is rewarded with complete Dvekut [adhesion], meaning the highest degree, and one who is ready for sins is in the netherworld. These are the farthest two points in this entire reality.

It would seem that we should be meticulous with the word “repentance,” which should have been called “wholeness,” except it is to show that everything is preordained, and each and every soul is already established in all its light, goodness, and eternity. But for the bread of shame, the soul went out in restrictions until it clothed in the murky body, and only through it does it return to its root prior to the Tzimtzum [restriction], with its reward in its hand from all the terrible move it had made. The overall reward is the real Dvekut, meaning that she [the soul] got rid of the bread of shame because her vessel of reception has become a vessel of bestowal and her form is equal to her Maker, and I have often spoken to you about that.

By this you will see that if the descent is for the purpose of ascending, it is regarded as an ascent and not as a descent. Indeed, the descent itself is the ascent as the letters of the prayer themselves are filled with abundance, and with a short prayer, the abundance is small for lack of letters. Our sages said, “Had Israel not sinned, only the Five Books of Moses and the book of Joshua would have been given to them.”

What is this like? It is like a rich man who had a young son. One day, the rich man had to travel far away for many years. The rich man feared that his son would waste his wealth by poor judgment, so he exchanged his properties for gemstones, jewels, and gold, and built a cellar deep in the ground where he hid all the gold, gemstones, and jewels. But he also put his son in there.

He summoned his loyal servants and ordered them to keep his son from leaving the cellar until his twentieth birthday. Each day they were to bring down to him every food and drink, but absolutely no fire or candles. They were also to check the walls and seal every crevice so that no sunlight would penetrate. For his health, they were to take him out of the cellar each day for one hour and walk him through the city, but carefully watching that he does not run away. On his twentieth birthday, they were to give him candles, open a window for him, and let him out.

Naturally, the son’s affliction was intolerable, especially when he would walk outside and see all the boys eating and drinking merrily on the street, without any guards or time limits, while he was imprisoned with few moments of light. And if he tried to run, he would be beaten mercilessly.

But he was most upset when he heard that his own father had caused him this affliction, for they were his father’s servants, carrying out his father’s orders. Naturally, he deemed his father the cruelest of all the cruel that ever lived, for who has heard of such a thing?

On his twentieth birthday, the servants lowered down to him a candle, as his father had commanded. The boy took the candle and began to look around. And lo and behold, what did he see? Sacks filled with gold and every royal delight.

Only then did he understand that his father is truly merciful, and that all his trouble was only for his own good. He immediately understood that the servants would certainly let him out of the cellar, and so he did. He came out of the cellar, and there was no guarding, no cruel servants. Instead, he is a noble man, wealthier than the wealthiest people in the land.

But in truth, there is nothing new here, for it becomes revealed that he was so very wealthy to begin with, but in his perception he was poor and destitute, oppressed in the pit all his days. Now, in a single moment, he has gained tremendous riches and rose from the deep pit to the top of the roof.

Who can understand this allegory? One who understands that the “sins” are the deep cellar with the careful watch not to let one out. I wonder if you understand it.

It is simple: The cellar and the careful watch are all “privileges” and the father’s mercy over the son. Without it, it would have been impossible for him to be as wealthy as his father. But the “sins” are actual sins and not mistakes. There is no coercion from above. Rather, before he regained his wealth, that feeling dominated in the full sense of the word. But once he has regained his wealth, he saw that all these were a father’s mercies and not at all cruelty.

We must understand that the entire connection of love between the father and his only son depends on the recognition of the father’s compassion for the son regarding the cellar and the darkness and the careful watch, for the son sees in these mercies of the father a great exertion and profound wisdom.

The Zohar also spoke about it, saying that one who is rewarded with repentance, the Shechina [Divinity] appears to him like a soft-hearted mother who has not seen her son for many days, and they made great efforts and experienced ordeals in order to see each other, because of which they both were in great dangers. But in the end, they came to that longed-for freedom and were rewarded with seeing one another. Then the mother fell on him, kissed him, comforted him, and spoke softly to him all day and all night. She told him of the longing and the dangers on the roads she has experienced until today, how she had always been with him, and that the Shechina never moved, but suffered with him in all the places, but he could not see it.

These are the words of The Zohar: “She says to him, ‘Here we slept; here we were attacked by robbers and were saved from them; here we hid in a deep pit,’ and so forth. What fool would not understand the great love and pleasantness and delight that burst from these comforting stories?”

In truth, before we met face to face it felt as suffering that is harder than death. But as the word Nega [affliction] is because the Ayin [the letter] comes at the end of the word, but during the telling of comfort-stories, the Ayin is in the beginning of the word, making it Oneg [delight/pleasure]. However, they are two points that illuminate only once they are in the same world. Now imagine a father and son who have been anxiously waiting for each other for days and years. When they finally see each other, the son is deaf and mute, and they cannot enjoy one another at all. It follows that the essence of the love is in royal delights.

Yehuda Leib

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:15) In the article, he talks about an example with the son. Now I want to bring this closer to us. We are on a path to reach the revelation of the Creator too, and we have this element of time here. The question is, why, for us, when we see time passing by, our lives are coming to an end, soon we see that, with our eyes, we sense it, and yet there is no feeling of pressure, inner pressure, to reach that, to constantly check, there is this constant fog. What's the reason?

M. Laitman: What is the reason? 

Student: Yes, why is it so? 

M. Laitman: Because we are not yet ready, and therefore the time extends.

Student: Yes, that I understand, but on the other hand, it's not clear to me if with our senses, we see you're growing old, you have an X amount of time to live, now you're a certain age, you know you won't live beyond a certain age. You see time running out before your eyes, but yet, there is no feeling of great pressure to reach anything. 

M. Laitman: That we'll know later on. Now you can say that it is for, because the Creator wants to give us a bit more time for us to improve ourselves, by ourselves, to remember and see how we need to behave between us and with Him, according to what Kabbalists write to us. And thus, that's how we advance. 

Student: I see that on a personal level, though it makes total sense, it's still impossible to actualize from experience, I see that. The question is, can we as a society from a state we haven't achieved spirituality yet. Can we generate this inner pressure as though we've achieved it already, or can we do something like that?

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, of course, only together, where each one supports the others and gives an example for the others.

Student: So, it's something we can do even now, right? We can make each one here feel a positive kind of pressure, not negative, create positive pressure to advance, that depends on us?

M. Laitman: Undoubtedly.

Student: Now, another question, they ask this to, well, look ahead, a Kabbalist who feels this reality, does he not feel the opposite kind of pressure to always do things in time, right? Because thinking about what to constantly be doing, isn't that another kind of pressure, tension?

M. Laitman: It's pressure, but it's a kind of pressure that one wants to go faster and ask the Creator better to help the world, yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:11) I want to ask about the intention of this allegory. So, it turns out that this dungeon is built out of the sins. So, are those sins that the son may perform in the future? The father saw ahead, he saw what the son will need, and therefore..?

M. Laitman: No, he feels this is what separates between him and good life, let's say.

Student: If he simply waited for 20 years without the cellar, and then gave him all these treasures? 

M. Laitman: No, he wouldn't be able to receive them.

Student: Why? Because he wouldn't appreciate them? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, yes. 

Student: Can I ask another question? In the beginning, a bit before the allegory, he says that one must not look in a place where he doesn't need to. From the Zohar, what does it mean that a person should look where he doesn't need to? 

M. Laitman: That he doesn't have a need for correction.

Student: And forbidden, we know that means impossible, that it's impossible?

M. Laitman: Not that it's impossible, it's possible, but it's not good.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:58) He writes here, and so you will understand that if the descent is for the purpose of ascending, it's considered an ascent and not a descent. The descent itself is the ascent because the letters of the prayer are full of abundance. And he continues, but I have two questions about this. Why do we need to feel the descents? Why doesn't the Creator give us the ascents? That's it, directly. Here he says you need to reach great despair. Why do you need that? Why do you need the descents to turn into ascents? 

M. Laitman: So that you have a greater deficiency, so that you have a greater Kli.

Student: To build the vessel? 

M. Laitman: More fitting for the fulfillment.

Student: But here I come to great despair.

M. Laitman: It's still insufficient. It accumulates over a long period of time, and then you could be worthy of fulfillment. 

Student: Here it's not clear. He says that if the prayer is short, the abundance is lacking because of the lack of letters. And also he said that if Israel did not sin, they would only be given the five books of the Torah and the book of Joshua. What does it mean? 

M. Laitman: That our sins bring us much more suffering. However, on the other hand, the suffering itself is the Kli.

Student: So, without suffering, what he says here is that without suffering there's no chance to advance?

M. Laitman: Either you are sorry for something, for your sins, or you don't need to discover the sins, but you are sorry that you're still far from the Creator and you cannot bring Him contentment.

Student: I understand. And then the Creator helps me advance in the work. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:25) Baal HaSulam mentions two options here. He says, if the reader would read with that thing, it's a second paragraph from the bottom, and with this place that you entered that you don't know how to exit, I'll tell you that in general one who repents out of love is awarded with absolute adhesion, in the highest degree, and one who is ready to sin, he's in the bottom of the abyss. And those are the two farthest points from each other in this whole reality. What does it mean that one who repents out of love is rewarded with absolute adhesion? We need to reach adhesion with Him, right? So, what does it mean that one who repents from love is the one who is awarded with that?

M. Laitman: Repents from love, meaning that he doesn't have something to correct in terms of the data in his soul, but rather out of love, meaning not from minus, but from plus, he comes to adhesion with the Creator.

Student: To add, in love of friends? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:16) What connects between the preparation from above and the preparation of the heart from below?

M. Laitman: The Creator takes care into account, takes that into account, and He gives the person these kinds of difficulties that lead him to the goal. 

Student: So regarding the other allegory, why does remembering, looking back, the second parable there, why is there comfort in looking back?

M. Laitman: Well, because that's the overcoming that he did on the way, and this indicates his desire to reach the Creator.

Student: So, understanding, recognizing the actual value helps a person not to pull for his own benefit? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Now, maybe it's possible to explain the two last sentences in the letter, if they can be read, please.

M. Laitman: Really? 

Student: About the father and son that waited for each other anxiously for days and years, when they finally see each other, the son is deaf and mute, and they cannot enjoy one another at all. And it follows that the essence of the love is in royal delights.

M. Laitman: Yes, and what's unclear?

Student: Nothing is clear here. What does it mean that the essence of the love is royal delights when the son is deaf and mute? 

M. Laitman: Because he's still lacking a Kli, he's lacking a Kli, and therefore now he needs to discover it more, that specifically in those two, well, the conditions that the Creator gives him, he closes the vessel, meaning completes the vessel. And thus, he's willing, he's ready for the revelation of the Creator as required. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:04) The descent itself is the ascent. Is there such a thing as the quality of the ascent? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: When I'm in a state of descent, what is the work that can influence the quality of the ascent? 

M. Laitman: To the extent that you try during the descent to correct the situation and contact the friends and try to rise along with them to the mountain of the Creator. So that this whole descent becomes an ascent. 

Student: And this is how I accelerate the times?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:06) Regarding the parable of the cellar, what is to be learned from it?

M. Laitman: It's man's state, that he feels himself as if put in a basement, and that's his life. That everyone, all his friends go out to have a good time, they're happy, and he miserably stays in the basement, and that's his life. So he has to make an effort to think about the process and the purpose, and out of that come to justifying the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:11) I also have a question about the cellar. The child was in the cellar for 20 years, and he went over it, and he went through it rather, and he hated his father, he attributed it all to the father, right? It's not just a cellar where he feels bad, right? So that's a good thing already. And then he's brought the candle, and then he sees all the wealth, and he's joyous. So what is the work of the child here? The father did all the work.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And what about him? 

M. Laitman: Certainly, he would like to escape the basement, but he can't. How he was jealous of his friends that went out and played and were free, and he had to look at them from the basement, which is even worse than not seeing them at all. That's how it is. 

Student: And all this acted on him, right? 

M. Laitman: This is all in order to prepare him with the right deficiency for what he needs to receive in the future.

Student: What step should he take on his side through this path?

M. Laitman: To try and relate everything he has to a single cause, and to justify Him from all the states he has to go through.

Student: So here, we learn it always, maybe we need to internalize it, that when the Creator is revealed as evil, as bad, it means he is concealed. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And here he says, my father is so cruel, he put me in the cellar. He attributed all that bad. 

M. Laitman: He can't relate it to someone else. He can't, because There's None Else Besides Him. That’s already the first condition. 

Student: So that's the wickedness? Is that a state called wickedness? 

M. Laitman: I don't know what it's called, but that's the state. 

Student: Because he says that the cellar was the evil, the wickedness, and then when he sees the abundance..?

M. Laitman: Yes, the transgressions become merits.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:00) So, for 20 years he sits in the cellar. At some point, he discovers that it's his father's cellar, and the guards are employed by his father. For 20 years he sits there cursing his father. 

M. Laitman: What else can he do?

Student: Clear. So why is it that at 20, suddenly he's released? What changed? 

M. Laitman: Probably, he suffered enough and wanted to come out of the cellar. It’s not written here, but possibly, he first really cursed his father and then did not stop cursing, maybe began to understand a bit, that it's for his own good. Then he’s being taken out, and he sees that it really is all for his benefit.

Student: How does he begin to understand that it's for his benefit? The parable says that only when he's given a candle, he sees there's treasures there kept for him. Only then he sees things truly, only when the candle is brought. 

M. Laitman: Until he's brought the candle, he can't speak well.

Student: He curses more and more every day. Then he understands that it's his father, who arranged this for him.

M. Laitman: Yes, but there is also above reason. That he has to accept Providence as correct even though he doesn't feel that way and sees that way, but the mind and the emotion here aren't so helpful. One has to take it as coming from above, from the Creator.

Student: What moves him from the state of a person cursing to the state which I don't even know how to put it?

M. Laitman: I don't know how to explain this. He must rise against all those who say slander about his father.

Student: But they're all him. 

M. Laitman: No. He identifies his father in a different way with regards to everyone else.

Student: Why?

M. Laitman: Because he has a different attitude to his father.

Student: Where did that different attitude come from? 

M. Laitman: Because he's a son. 

Student: But his father is cruel. He curses him.

M. Laitman: Well probably, after all, through great suffering, he starts to come to a state, where he understands that the suffering doesn't come from just someone cruel, but rather someone who loves. Yes, that's how it turns out.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:37) So first I wanted to ask. He’s in the cellar, but each day he's brought out for a walk. What is that? 

M. Laitman: That he has some touch, some ability to feel the life outside the basement. Otherwise, he wouldn't feel that he's in a basement. 

Student: They're in both parables here: with the cellar and with the mother and child. Ultimately, in the end the person discovers that this was all out of love. That he really emphasizes here, that the iniquities are iniquities, right? The student says, no, I was forced by the Creator. But Baal HaSulam says, no. You should understand that this was actually your iniquity and so on, wickedness. Until a person comes to revelation, he needs to feel that the Creator is evil. He can't be telling himself stories. So, what does it mean that we learn, that we believe, ultimately, we'll discover that it was all out of love? If all the while, we have to feel that it's bad, and it comes from the Creator? So what does it tell? How does it help to know? 

M. Laitman: It prepares our vessels: great vessels, deep vessels, bitter vessels, and then we come to fulfillment. 

Student: The suffering prepares the vessels?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: But how does the knowledge that it all comes out of love, help us? 

M. Laitman: That's already fulfillment.

Student: But that will come in the end, eventually. But throughout our lives or the 20 years he writes, how does it help to know that?

M. Laitman: I don't know. I don't know. Perhaps one still has to believe that there is some good intention in that, as well.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:52) The candle the son receives, that's a new quality the son receives by which he can attribute his state to the Creator, right?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: He can agree and understand that even up until the point he received the candle, it was all for his benefit.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:32) He writes here, and you should understand that the connection of love between the son and his father, the father and his only son, depends on the son understanding the matters of the cellar, the darkness, and so on, because the son sees great and deep wisdom in the actions of the father. How do we, on this path, come to feel and understand that the Creator is acting upon us with love and mercy? We say that the Creator is The Good Who Does Good. So, how throughout the entire path we tread, can I reach a state, where I see that the Creator is The Good Who Does Good in all the states He gives us?

M. Laitman: Because you still can't compare between good and bad and darkness and light, all kinds of states the Creator influences you through. You still can't justify Him in every state, and you’re going to have to do that.

Student: Before that, he says that we need to understand the iniquities. Why? To turn them into merits? We have to understand them? So how do we understand these iniquities? 

M. Laitman: When you see for yourself, what you get out of the Creator, and how you weigh these things that you feel are going through you.

Student: Right. You say on the one hand, we don't have the vessels with which to perceive these things. How do I take things in such a way, where the Creator gives us the best? He's correcting us in the best way possible.

M. Laitman: That's the connection with the friends, faith above reason, yes.

Student: This whole path is the path of faith above reason?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:48) If I understand the parable correctly; the son could have justified the father, only after the father's good intention is revealed to the son.

M. Laitman: Well, that's not wise to do. 

Student: Exactly. That’s what I wanted to ask about. Can we justify the Creator only after we attain that He's The Good Who Does Good, or can we do it even before?

M. Laitman: We have to understand, we are in under concealment, and we have to work against the concealment as much as we can.

Student: So to aspire to justify Him, even before He's Good And Does Good is revealed to us?

M. Laitman: Of course. What is the matter, the issue? 

Student: Right. From the parable, I gather he couldn't justify the father before.

M. Laitman: He managed to be in the basement, and hold himself without, let's say, without cursing his father, and yet, aim himself towards the good future.

Student: He made a choice there, right? It wasn't completely forced.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:12) In the beginning of the letter, Baal Sulam writes, the student complains that he is not understanding the innovations of Torah written in the previous letters. And Baal HaSulam's recommendation is for him to straighten the path of his work. What does it mean?

M. Laitman: To try and determine the relationship through the study, through connection with the friends with the Creator. The friends, the study and everything that's happening here between us will come together. A person will take all of that together and join that with all his efforts in the states he goes through.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:32) There's a repeating theme in all the parables we read, and also in the Hasidic stories we sometimes read. It's like the envelope and the coin one pulls out of his pocket. A person in the vessels of reception feels he's lacking. He feels suffering. But with the vessels of faith he feels abundance. He feels that he has things. Is there a connection? A thread holding a person between the vessel of reception and the vessel of bestowal? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that’s the Creator; the reason for this and that.

Student: I'm asking from the perspective of, we say the light's entry and exit make the vessel worthy for use. There’s this linearity in how a person feels he gains confidence and the light enters gradually or something. In our spiritual life, it's like a roller coaster. Everything is emptied all at once, and there's fulfillment. Very sharp states. 

M. Laitman: Well, that's how you see it for now. 

Student: How can a person hold on to the path with this roller coaster?

M. Laitman: It leads him to a solution.

Student: We shouldn't expect this linear kind of confidence on the path, right? Where you constantly feel the light being revealed more and more. It's all sharp transitions, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. 

Student: And that's proper, yes?

M. Laitman: That's how it should be.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (48:24) What to do about the fact that over time, the more the years pass, a person feels that eventually, he'll just die in the cellar. And he also comes to agree with that, to accept it.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Where he doesn't believe it's even possible.

M. Laitman: To come out?

Student: Yes, to come out of the cellar. 

M. Laitman: He’s not going to come out on his own. They open it for him. A candle is put into the basement, and then he sees where he is. The basement becomes a palace. And then he realizes that he can go out freely and everything has ended.

Student: Can it happen even if he doesn't believe it's going to happen? 

M. Laitman: No, it cannot happen. No. 

Student: What to do?

M. Laitman: He has to try to expect it. As it says, I have expected salvation. 

Student: So, the more the years go by, there's this kind of repression of that desire, that desire is repressed?

M. Laitman: That's a desire that was only there in the beginning, in that way, but later a true desire begins to form where a person understands, like a boss, how to use the desire and how to go forward and how to demand from the Creator to realize it and so forth, that will come.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:12) To continue the friend's question, when you discover that the cellar is only getting bigger and darker, whatever you do, the more you ask, you only discover that the cellar is becoming darker and bigger, what to do?

M. Laitman: To speed up.

Student: To speed up in what direction?

M. Laitman: To finish the work in the basement so that it opens up to you.

Student: What does it mean to make haste? With every request you find a bigger and darker cellar.

M. Laitman: So once again, speed up until the basement becomes something lit.

Student: What does it mean to make haste, to speed up, to keep asking?

M. Laitman: Both ask and study and connect with the friends, all the things that have to lead us to an exit.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (51:22) What to do with a person who's already worn and tired in the cellar?

M. Laitman: That's not too bad, not too bad. The time will come and he will recover and rise up and demand to continue the path.

Student: And meanwhile the person feels that he's rotting in the cellar.

M. Laitman: Well, that's his state, that's his feeling, that this is how he feels. That's probably required.

Student: So it's a feeling which is a part of the process?

M. Laitman: Yes. I'm just asking you one thing. What do you want to hear from me? Do you have to continue or not? That's it. That's the question with regards to any moment and any question you ask. Do you have to continue? Yes. If not, then go, then leave.

Student: There's no question about having to continue and proceed. So the question is, what to do to give you stability when you feel tired?

M. Laitman: To know how to use a person's state in the basement in preparing oneself for an exit.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (53:02) Is it possible to rewrite this story?

M. Laitman: Why do you want to confuse us?

Student: I just want to ask about how to relate to the basement.

M. Laitman: So ask directly, without a story.

Student: If I don't agree to see it as a cellar, I want to act as though it's a palace.

M. Laitman: So you say that if a person is in a basement, but he imagines that it's a palace.

Student: Yes. In the Ten, I don't want us to justify, or rather, I want us to justify it and come to perceive through free choice that it's a palace. By that, do I hasten the state?

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. Of course, you hasten the time.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (53:54) The guards guarding the son, they were the son's connection to the Creator, right? Every time he saw the guards, he knew, oh, that's the Creator toying with me. And whenever he wanted to escape, they watched over him. So who are these guards in our lives, in the Ten?

M. Laitman: These are his father's servants.

Student: But in our reality, right now, here?

M. Laitman: Servants of the Creator.

Student: But we don't identify them as such.

M. Laitman: You don't identify, so what? What do you identify in life?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (54:43) What is this state where, with the work of connection in the Ten, we're given a candle? 

M. Laitman: Yes, after some time you are given a candle, and you begin to feel where you always were, that it was a basement. Here is the question of what about a lit palace? You don't have that. This imagination has vanished, and now you remain in a dark basement. And then by the candle you leave the basement.

Student: And how can we, in the Ten, yearn for that state? We don't know about the existence of the candle.

M. Laitman: Talk about it more, and you'll get there. 

Student: How can we do it faster?

M. Laitman: By discussing it, by delving into it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (56:08) Is it okay to see in the example from the parable, that the son is brought out every day? Is it the same as us coming here every day to the morning lesson? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, to something that is, well, you somewhat feel that it brings you closer to the exit, but you still don't leave. That’s how you're shown the difference between living inside the basement and outside the basement.

Student: After the morning lesson, we're returned to the cellar?

M. Laitman: Possibly.

Student: I wanted to ask, during the morning lesson, is there a time or a state where the person can influence what happens when he comes out of the lesson? Does anything he does in the lesson influence the time where he's returned to the cellar? 

M. Laitman: Probably so. 

Student: What do you recommend to do in the lesson?

M. Laitman: As usual, to pray, connect with the friends, and the prayer, the prayer. That's it. 

Student: What happens if a person doesn't know how to pray? He doesn't even know what it means.

M. Laitman: Then he should learn. He should learn. I don't know. He should cry for the Creator to help him.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (58:07) Why is it 20 years and not 30 or 40? What happens in those 20 years? What should happen?

M. Laitman: That's what's written, that's what’s written.

Student: Could it be that in 20 years he needs to alter his…?

M. Laitman: No, don't take it as years. That's how it is. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (58:34) I'll be very happy to look, the answer he gives here, before we even begin with the cellar. There's a piece here where he gives the answer to this whole issue.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, seemingly, we should be accurate about the word repentance, where it should have been written as wholeness, perfection. Everything is arrayed and ready beforehand, and each and every soul is found with its light and goodness and eternality. But because of the bread of shame, the soul came out with the restrictions until it is clothed in a murky body, and only due to that it can return to its root prior to the restriction. And it's reward is in its hand from this whole terrible maneuver, as the totality of the reward is true adhesion, meaning that it's rid of the bread of shame, because its vessel of reception has turned into a vessel of bestowal, and it equalized its form with its Maker.

So it's a very interesting text. He says that the cellar is the bread of shame. So first of all, what is the bread of shame? That's the first question. And also, how to get rid of the bread of shame? What do we do in the Ten? That's where we work, right? You want to come out? What does he say here? You want to come out of the cellar? Good. Then remove that bread of shame. Where does it come from? What is that bread of shame? And how in the Ten, in our work, can we get rid of it? 

M. Laitman: The bread of shame is a payment for the vessels of bestowal. 

Student: All right, so how do we remove it, right, in the work in the Ten, for example? How do we advance? How do I advance towards removing this bread of shame from myself? 

M. Laitman: By working with my friends and together with them wanting to bring contentment to the Creator, you come to such a relationship, such vessels, that you already feel that you can also do good things to the Creator, like Him.

Student: All right. So he says, only if you succeed in removing the bread of shame, then you can achieve adhesion with the Creator. Only then.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So all of our work is according to..?

M. Laitman: According to the equivalence of form.

Student: And if we remove the bread, what's removed? What happens?

M. Laitman: That you rise, well, from your will to receive, and by realizing the will to bestow, you begin to relate to the Creator.

Student: And that's my daily work, actually.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:02:07) He writes, who can understand this parable, who understands that the iniquities in the cellar, of the watch, not to flee there, not to escape it, what is the feeling of the wickedness?

M. Laitman: The feeling of the wickedness is the feeling of transgressions.

Student: But there's no wicked acts there. He's kept there, he's held there.

M. Laitman: Think about that. I don't have more to say. 

Student: Okay, and also, he talks about inadvertence sins and willful sins. Can you explain that? Willful sins become merits, but he sees that the Creator forced him to sin, and yet he gives his soul for their connection, for their correction, rather, and so the sins become his merits. Can you explain? 

M. Laitman: Yes. In the beginning, it seems to him that way, and after he worked and clarified it better, then he thinks about it differently.

Student: I'll think about it. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:03:34) We learned that the Creator is a law, a rule, something perceived as without emotion? 

M. Laitman: No, I wouldn't say lacking any emotion. Those who attain Him don't describe Him as senseless. On the contrary, the Creator does everything through emotion. It's not that, it's not nature in the sense that it does not hear and does not sense and does not feel. The Creator is nevertheless there. 

Student: Because here, there's a really emotional kind of description, saying that it was spoken of in the Zohar, it was said that one who is awarded with repentance, the Creator is revealed to him, divinity is revealed to him as a soft-hearted mother, and so on. It's a very emotional description, the mother falls upon him, kisses him, hugs him, speaks to him all day, all night. It's just, I can't really correlate that with the description of the Creator as a law, very dry.

M. Laitman: Who are dry, if these actions are, if they don't sense or do sense nature, then why can't it be a law?

Student: The way you relate to a law is that if you act according to the law, you feel one thing. If you work opposite to the law, you feel something else. There's no in-between. 

M. Laitman: So what?

Student: A soft-hearted mother, there's no rules. If you act, she'll always love you. 

M. Laitman: There's a law of love, and whoever works against it, then, from its perspective, it's opposite. That's even more powerful than anything else.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:59) There's a paragraph here. And your last words are honest. Since you went into a place that is not your own, and because you have this custom of wearing clothes that aren't yours, you did not understand my words, which aim directly to you and are for you exactly, and I hope that you will no longer go to vineyards that aren't your own and it's written in The Zohar, that a person should not look where he doesn't need to look. What does it mean not to wear clothes that don't belong to me and to look at things that I shouldn't look at in our work in the Ten? What does it mean?

M. Laitman: Well, probably he's talking about things that are forbidden and how we are punished when we engage in them. 

Student: That's forbidden for us in our study. 

M. Laitman: We should believe what the Kabbalists tell us.

Student: This exactly is our study. How are we deviating from that, straying from it?

M. Laitman: I don't know, think. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:07:40) The parable from the Zohar about the soft-hearted mother who says to the son, I was always with you for 20 years, you suffered here, and I was with you all along. It's very touching, very moving, but the father and the cellar, the father just went away. He wasn't with him. He gave him such trauma for 20 years. What did he get? He got some money. He became rich. It's not clear exactly. 

M. Laitman: No, the father couldn't have done it otherwise. He did it according to a law. The son has to spend 20 years in the basement. He goes into the basement for 20 years.

Student: So, what of it, of him getting all his father's wealth?

M. Laitman: Now he has life in front of him. 

Student: But his life is over. This material wealth, this corporeal wealth is…. 

M. Laitman: Specifically now, after those 20 years, he can correctly use what he got from his father.

Student: If I look at the parable, the way it's written simply, it seems very cruel, very cruel. 

M. Laitman: No, not cruel, rather correct. 

Student: We need not to adhere to the King's gifts. We need to adhere to the King Himself. The father wants to bestow upon the son. The son wants to bestow contentment, right? But ultimately, the son receives the gifts of his father, his wealth. So, what's in those treasures in the cellar that can compensate for the terrible suffering he endured for 20 years?

M. Laitman: He understood after twenty years of suffering that his father really planned everything in advance and loved him. 

Student: And how does this bring him to adhesion with his father? 

M. Laitman: Because he sees that the father didn't go according to nature but above nature, meaning his father wanted him to grow as a new human. And he also had no other choice, the father, but to take this path. He couldn't have educated the son without the basement.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:10:24) Continuing those last questions. There are two parables here, one about a father imprisoning his son in a cellar, tormenting him and the son knows that it's the father who's tormenting him but ultimately he comes out rich. The second parable is about a mother and son who go towards each other, right, and the son doesn't know that the mother is suffering just like he does, ultimately she comforts him and the reward is their connection, right, so why these two different stories? What should we take from them? 

M. Laitman: We should learn one kind of relation and another kind.

Student: Can you explain more?

M. Laitman: We talked about it. The son who's looking at his life, he sees a cruel father when all his friends are playing outside and doing all kinds of things and he has to be in the basement. 

Student: And the mother and son? The mother and son walking towards each other and suffering, trying to find each other. The son wants to find the mother, he wants a connection with her. But in the parable about the cellar, the son doesn't really want that, he just discovers in the end, what's the difference there in terms of our connection to the Creator?

M. Laitman: Look it's a matter of feeling. If you can feel one and then the other, these two examples, then you can tie them together or see them in life.

Student: Can I ask another question? The son is in the cellar with diamonds and gold, everything is right next to him, he can even feel it, but he can't see. So, he sees it, ultimately. So what, right? It's all next to him already.

M. Laitman: I don't want to get confused with all this, maybe he sees it, maybe he doesn't see it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:12:55) I've been in the cellar for way over 20 years, I'm 46 years old, 46 years in the cellar, and from the time I came to the wisdom of Kabbalah, you discover that there's a father, he even turned on the light for me, he showed me, but then he puts me back in the cellar, he says there's a group of people here, and until you bring them out of the cellar, you cannot exit. Is that kind of feeling, that direction, is that right?

M. Laitman: If that's what you tell us, we believe you.

Student: Now, people in the cellar, they don't want to come out of the cellar, and I'm stuck in the cellar because of them. Do you see that image? So, why is it my fault they don't want to come out of the cellar, why should I suffer?

M. Laitman: I don't know. 

Student: So, I turn to the Father, I ask, I pray, I do everything the Kabbalists say.

M. Laitman: But you see, what you're speaking about isn't realistic. 

Student: It's what I feel, maybe you can direct me better. 

M. Laitman: There's nothing to direct you, you're not realistic.

Student: So, when will I come out of the cellar? 

M. Laitman: When you'll be born at a different time.

Student: Sorry? 

M. Laitman: Next time you're born. 

Student: When will that happen, if I want to come out of the cellar today? 

M. Laitman: So, keep wanting.

Student: But it doesn't happen.

M. Laitman: Mister, you're starting to argue with me again. Sit down. You have a wrong example.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:14:24) Maybe my example will help. Each one should help his friend.

M. Laitman: Help that guy.

Student: I'm 72 years old. At 14, I was put in the cellar, so you can make your own calculations. It's a bit more than 20.

M. Laitman: Okay, next. 

Student: The coronavirus brought me out of the cellar.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:14:55) The friend spoke about the connection here. Actually, so long as we don't have the right connection with the Emanator, who is the cause, we are in the cellar, because we are in our vessels of reception, and we judge reality according to however we want to. And annulment, when we're brought that little bit of light, that candle, it's the candle that shows us who we receive everything we receive from, whether it's good or bad. And that makes an opening for us, allowing us to understand that good is there. So the friend, whatever you receive, and if you're in a cellar, or all the friends, we need to always aim for the reason, the cause, to bind ourselves to Him, and to rise towards connection above what we feel.

Reader: (01:16:13) We're going to go to the next part, and we'll hear a Nigun, and we'll go to the next part.

Song: (01:16:19)