Morning Lesson August 30, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
“Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor in it in vain” - Selected Excerpts from the sources
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, in this line there are many interpretations in great depth. We are simply going to learn from all the interpretations Rabash typically gives to it and we will see what to do. It's a line from Psalms, written by King David, so in truth “unless the Lord builds a house it's builders labor in it in vain”. Meaning there is no reason to expect a person to do something to get involved with something on the one hand in building his soul, in building the Temple, in building a house, where he discovers connections with all created beings. Meaning with all the souls and with the Creator who fills them, he returns to the state of Adam HaRishon, one vessel and one lights and everything together supporting one another, holding one another. So unless the Lord builds this structure and fills it and arranges it and maintains it, then a person can't help it at all. Let's see what he says.
Reading excerpt #1 (02:20) “It is written in Psalms..”
2. R. (02:44) Meaning the will to receive which is a person's heart it has to be entirely in order to bestow, and then it will become a vessel for the bestowal for the Creator according to equivalence of form. And that's how we need to expect it to happen. The heart needs to be a holy house and a person cannot prepare it, so what to do? He says the labor is in vain.
Reading continues (03:26) “The labor in it in vain…”
3. R. (04:31) Meaning our participation in the building of the vessel from our corrupt desire, if a person has to say that I cannot build it but “if I am not for me who is for me”, if I am not putting in all of the labor, and I might reach despair in the end but only in this way I can demand to the Creator, i can ask Him to build this house. And, then and only then I can say that “unless the Lord builds the house then it's builder's labor in it in vain”.
4. S. (05:27) So what does it mean to build the house to bestow to the Creator?
R. All the qualities of a person, that a person wants to correct all its qualities so they become similar to the Creator’s and according to equivalence of form the Creator will fill this house, his heart. Meaning the sum total of man's desire should be similar to the Creator.
S. We build the house with the ten with friends, we gather and connect and at what moment is it possible that the Creator will complete the work, it seems like we're doing the work and we have some connection. Where's the addition of the Creator to finish the job?
R. As he says we will go through all the verses and it will become clearer. When we truly invest all our efforts and we see that it is not within our power to connect in order to bestow, each one to the other so that together we will relate to the Creator and bestow in order to bestow each of us and all of us together. That we are building a house and we see that we cannot do it and then from our zero power we put all the forces towards the connection between us and we fail, we cannot make this connection resemble the reception of the Creator in us, then we cry and what do we cry for: If the Lord will not build the house it's builders labor in it in vain.
Then we will receive help from above; The Creator does it and He doesn't help anyone, only everyone. From everyone He builds the connection called ‘a house’ or ‘the structure of the Soul’. Then we feel it according to the degree or the level of the connection between us, The Creator; the inner light that pierces within the soul.
S. Over time I see that we're growing stronger and the ten is becoming stronger and the friends are getting closer, so where should the despair come from, the disappointment?
R. What do you want from it? When you're saying you're getting stronger, what's happening with you when you become so strong like that?
S. Well we see great congress is taking place, the friends invest themselves, it's like I don't reach some despair from the friends in the ten that are weak and we cannot reach the goal, on the contrary it always seems that the goal is close and so forth.
R. You're still in the process that you wish to build the house by yourself, and after you invest all your strength in it that's good, that’s how it should be, you will see that you cannot build anything. That your forces and desires are not enough but on the contrary, after investing everything you will receive disappointment, true disappointment not that you say that you're disappointed. Rather you feel that there is nothing you can do, that you have no power to do anything, but after investing everything then you cry, because there is nothing to do. You cry out to the Creator that you cannot and He must help you, There's None Else Besides You with regards to what we can count on and what you can ask for and what we can turn to? And then we receive help.
S. The proximity to the Creator does it come at the same time with the inability that you understand that without Him you cannot do it?
R. I don't want to reply to you because you need to get to it; to detect it, to locate it and to attain and understand and to feel. In your intellect as you want, like an architect to build a house, that this and this and this behind that, you don't do it like that. Only after trying to build it inside, within ourselves.
5. S. (11:39) We see that we are not building in vain, how do we know that we are building it together with the Creator?
R. You need to reach connection to such an extent that you'll see that the Creator has to connect you, that is first. We try not for each one but for each for all of us together to build a connection between us, just like if we decide to build a small building. Then each one comes and we begin to build from pieces of wood and nails and all kinds of things, and as we build we begin to understand that it all depends on the connection between us. The more connected, the more we feel how best to organize our building. Also to the extent that we connect we begin to understand more and more that we are not building anything outside of us, rather on the contrary, we are building what has to exist within us: Which is the Soul, where we will be connected in our hearts and then our entire structure becomes the most important, not something external but something internal.
We come to that, afterwards when we try to understand that we have a special structure to build, an inner structure, we begin to discover that this inner structure is in the hand of the Creator. We are not landlords here; the Creator has a hold on our hearts so we turned to Him and we ask. And we don't ask Him to release our hearts so He shouldn't rule them? No. we don't know what to do with it. We only know one thing, the Creator needs to rebuild the connection of our hearts as they used to be, as it was in the beginning; it was one heart and He broke this heart into many pieces and we are now feeling that we are parts of that broken heart and we asked Him to once again connect us.
We feel in our hearts, that my heart has a place where I feel all of reality from my heart to be connected to the hearts of the friends, and then inside our heart we begin to discover reality that is more and more real. And that is how you reach corrections, together with the correction of the hearts we also come to the correction of the brains. Because the closer are our desires the more they complement one another and connect, so we will begin to think and feel and to understand, to understand why? Because the heart understands, it all goes through the heart, through feelings and it all depends on the accumulation of our hearts and feelings into one.
6. S. (16:38) There's a fear that there won't be enough strength to raise the prayer when we get to the despair, so the question is if in the entire path we will raise a prayer to the Creator that He will build our new common heart is there a chance when we get to that complete despair that we will be able to pray?
R. Yes the best thing is if we pray all the time, it is written “may he pray all day long”. In this way we come to a state where the Creator will correct us in an open or concealed manner and then we will reach the right prayer.
S. Can we say when there is total despair it's this extreme method and way of the Creator and if a person learns how to pray then you can avoid that?
R. No, we shouldn't think like that. We just need to pray all the time and be in connection with the Creator.
7. S. (17:52) What is our active participation if the Creator to begin with gives us a point in the heart and ultimately He is the one who built the house?
R. Our participation constantly in each and every frame, each image, each movement, there is our participation; we wish to participate, we wish to push forward our connection towards greater connection. We wish to understand where we are. Our participation should be active and if we don't participate we won't advance. Because the building of this Temple, this building of Holiness, this vessel where the upper light can be revealed, the Creator, the Soul; this whole construction is on us, it's on our efforts. The Creator builds, the upper light makes this structure, He does it but only according to the raising of our MAN, the raising of our deficiencies.
8. S. (19:28) Does this mean we need to relate all of our success to the Creator and that's the point of choice if I choose adhesion or falling to my honor and my ‘other side’?
R. All the deficiencies, the Creator awakens them in us and the light that we raise back to Him on top of the deficiencies, He brings that too. So, therefore He's building the correct Partzuf, the face, the building of the general soul, He constructs it from the shattering He prepared for us, and He does it.
Of course He does everything and builds everything but only after we bring our deficiency. Imagine that you are playing with a little child and you're waiting for him to tell you, we need this block and we need that block and we need this or that, he's asking and you're doing, and then it comes to a state where the child gradually becomes smarter and he understands and he feels what is missing in the complete structure; how to ask from the upper one, the father, the Creator, to do this action and so on and so forth. Meaning we are starting here construction, corrections, and it begins from our relationships first to reach one heart between us, one desire aimed at the Creator.
S. But there is a matter of choice at this point meaning you choose to relate it to the Creator, the Creator's honor or your honor?
R. Everything has to be aimed through the ten, to the Creator.
9. S. (22:08) If we say the entire person's work is inner so what's the difference between the two parts, the stage of trying to do his own labor and what the Creator is doing, what's the difference in the person in these two sides of the work?
R. The difference is that a person from the beginning is in a state where he thinks it's all up to him to do.
Later his work is more in understanding that what's on him is really to ask the Creator to do, and until he comes to a state where he becomes partners with the Creator he detects what the Creator wants exactly from him and what his request should be and what should be the intensity of raising of this MAN, and then he turns to the Creator in more detailed way, in clearer way, on his part and it enters as the correct deficiency in the Creator, in the high degree. From there he awakens to build his degree, his correction. He begins to feel how much he is turning to the Creator and how much in return the Creator is building him and he's building his connections with the environment, with the others and how much the upper one is merely connecting the desires and the deficiencies but he also corrects them as much as these desires connect with other foreign desires and then the building is gradually being completed.
S. Also from your answer now I feel that these two things always go together and these two parts are not separated into two, in every action I need to feel how the Creator accompanies man's effort.
R. Correct, correct. These things come seemingly already made from above, and when we receive them we begin to see that we are getting each time a piece, a block from the spiritual structure.
10. S. (25:27) In the part we read with regards to, ‘If not for myself then Who, how do you know this is the maximum we’ve been able to do now that the Creator needs to help us?
R. We always need to see what is desirable and what is actually present, as much as we can imagine to ourselves that we are connected, as much as we can portray and see here that we don't have the wholeness that we yearn for, we can see that we need to accept to be in it and both in our mind and in our feeling we still don't have it, then we ask on each and every step we ask. The main thing is we need to cry for the fact that we are not able to feel to understand what we need and we are not able to feel what we are lacking, and so gradually more and more and more we come to the correct request.
Just as, look, I am saying again, look at the children you want them to ask exactly for Him to take a piece from the building and to bring it to us and we’ll point at where He wants us to place it because He can’t do it himself, that's what we want. Meaning we need to finish the work but the entire action is on Him, meaning on us, and then we become partners, the force comes from the upper one, the deficiency comes from the lower one.
S. It's not clear how it's expressed practically because let's say we work in the ten, now there's a friend who sees that if what we're missing now is say, to do more actions another one says no we're not scrutinizing things enough. We always feel like there are things missing that we need to do. The question is whether you if you feel that you still need actions do you still turn to the Creator and ask for help?
R. Also in the scrutinies you’re correct, also in the middle when I still don't know what I have to do how to ask, what to want, where will I see,the portion of my next degree my next state, I nevertheless speak about it with others we connect we try from the work between us to imagine a future state of ours and we feel, where is it where can it be the connection between us that’s more established and it’s revealed we simply need to try and locate it together.
S. When we clarify between us what’s still missing it's basically already turning to the Creator?
R. Of course that too. This entire process in everything there has to be a turn to the Creator you have to locate this element and then advance some more but each time we need to detect what we need to receive next from the Creator. We receive the deficiency, the answer, also the new structure, we’ll receive everything in all kinds of forms but because we’re not one person we’re a group together then each one receives a portion and we talk about it and we have to be connected to it and then through this connection specifically we receive. Look, pay attention you might be very successful, very bright but if you're not connected enough between you it won't work because specifically in the connection between you and it's not necessarily in speaking in talking, it can be in the heart but if you're not united enough oh then you will feel how much you yourselves are holding back your advancement.
S. So to clarify together the scrutiny together helps us in understanding that?
R. That too, yes.
11. S. (31:13) The upper force and the deficiency of the lower one, what actually needs to be done?
R. The upper force works according to the deficiency of the lower one and grows it more and more until the lower one truly wants first in full a complete manner and second in the correct manner meaning in the right direction he wants the Creator to build a house. He understands that there’s none else besides Him and only the Creator can make this structure and the person only has to detect and then to ask for the building, where it has to be built, how and what the person expects of the Creator we have to scrutinize all of these elements and if we ask for those things then it means we are building it.
S. I want to continue scrutinizing, is part of discovering the true reality is feeling the Creator is a partner in the ten in each and every moment?
R. Yes.
12. S. (32:47) In regards to this sentence “if the Lord doesn't build a house its builder’s labored in vain’ it seems that it's only after the Creator builds the house like after there’s a result. It seems like something very far and there's a good chance that we are working and working but then it turns out that we worked in vain, so is there a way to clarify during the process of the work whether we're working correctly or not? Like the example of the child you gave, that is kind of weighing it's wiser, it's not just playing with the blocks but he is following the parents and seeing whether they approve and reinforce his direction. Can we get the same reinforcements from the Creator?
R. We are constantly in contact between us and in contact with the Creator and we constantly wish to see how our request and the response from the Creator how they work as a chain, a request, an answer, request an answer, and that's how we build it.
13. S. (34:43) Is the house the equivalence of form?
R. The building are the degrees of equivalence of form between our connection and the Creator. One person cannot have equivalence of form only a deficiency but he has nothing from which to build equivalence of form because a lack of equivalence of form is a lack of connection between one person and another person. So as much as it wants to come closer to and connect with someone then he discovers how much he is connected or not connected and by that he can detect his equivalence of form with a Creator, what does that mean? Equivalence with the Creator means how two parts, two people are connected to some extent, to some extent in coarseness Shoresh, 1, 2 ,3, 4, and so on and so forth, so our nearing to the Creator is measured according to the connections between us and we cannot connect ourselves together unless the Creator will do it. He broke us and he needs to connect us. That's how we will build it and feel in practice.
14. S. (36:29) How will we ask as a ten that the Creator builds this house?
R. How to ask as a ten? We have to be connected between us we have to agree that we turn to the Creator and we demand of Him to connect us and we are ready for it and we are ready to be connected in the hearts, to be as one heart, that’s if the people and now we will feel our general heart and ten times bigger than the individual heart of each and everyone and that's it. What is the heart? The heart will be the desire to bestow because we are already connected so it'll be our desire to bestow and we express it in this way from us outwardly meaning each one towards each other and all of his towards the Creator.
Reading excerpt number 2 (38:03) “ after he has begun the work..” Twice
15. R. (41:00) I don't have much to add here. Simply if we advance in connection between us we wish to build the connection between us and each one wants to help the other to cleave to everyone then we begin to feel just how much we need the help of the Creator, and how if we don't ask then we move away the opposite of connection between us and adhesion with the Creator, then we attain just how much we are incapable of coming closer by ourselves and how much we can barely ask the Creator to correct us, and from our last remaining forces, our meek forces we assemble them and bring them together, concentrate them, turn to the Creator and we ask with our last remaining power to bring us closer and to connect us, and from this we then begin to feel to have a common feeling and the Creator begins to build this new structure out of us.
16. S. (42:56) He said at the end that it's not a matter of understanding, it's a matter of feeling. So how to really develop this kind of sensitivity so that I understand that if I'm not asking Him to build it I'm taking the long path. How do you increase this feeling?
R. All of spirituality is a matter of feeling and our brain was given to us only to perceive what we're feeling.
S. My question is about the specific feeling, how do we increase this feeling that if I don't turn to the Creator I am taking the longer path. How do we turn that into an instinct so that we don't always get confused and go through a detour?
R. Do you understand what he's asking?
S. How to make it so that we don't take the long path each time?
R. We will always each time feel that we are taking the long path and it will push us each time more and more to seek the short path seemingly, more aimed at straight to the Creator, the long path actually aims us at the Creator and we constantly wish to straighten it. The difference is, is our heart, is our heart straight through the friends to the Creator or not, that’s the difference between the long path in the short path. Imagine how much we make all this chit chat in our brain and in our heart in order to not connect to the friends directly, openly, and with the Creator as well, and this is the meaning that we’re not taking the straight path.
S. About the child example, if the child will not try himself can he make a request before he tried? Can he or the friend, it doesn’t matter, can I before I try on my own and fail can I ask?
R. Before you fail what will you ask for if you don't have a deficiency?
S. Let's say I want to make an action with the right intention and I don't know how to do it, so first of all I have to do it all on myself and then ask or can I ask immediately and say I don't know?
R. No, also not the fact that you don't know you have to get to know that you don't know, so you’ll continue, you’ll have the experience and have the deficiency and then we’ll talk again.
17. S. (46:15) We learned that the stony heart hinders the feeling of the friend, getting closer to the friend, so I know if I want to make sure the friend, the ten, comes closer to this feeling that we’re discussing, how can we do it with the stony heart?
R. Don't worry, inside the stony heart there is a hole and through this whole you can connect with everyone. The stony heart opens the path to the Creator for you because if not for the stony heart you would be like all other people and you wouldn't imagine that there is a disturbance and now, you will see that it’s in your heart and your heart is blocked and you can’t move this stone from the mouth of the well, well it will come.
18. S. (47:34) The excerpt is about the relationship between man and the Creator, you describe some work through the friends. How do I always remember to convert this work to make it through the friends and not directly towards the Creator?
R. You can never do it directly before the Creator a person cannot be directly in front of the Creator because he has nothing on which to ask, his connection with the Creator is on how much he arranges his connections with the friends either negatively or positively but his connection with the friends, this has to be as a condition for turning to the Creator otherwise the Creator doesn't identify, doesn't sense you.
He identifies a structure broken or corrected that structure is the connection between us between the hearts. So the one who asks is like a faint voice in the desert that the Creator does not hear, He is waiting for you to look inside this field, the field that the Creator has blessed and then there you will find the friends and you'll want to connect with them and you will understand that only in this way you're coming to this connection to the Creator and then you will have the beginning of your spiritual work. Just as it was with Joseph, that same well-known story, I seek my brothers.
19. S. (49:46) If the Lord doesn't build a house it sounds like a conclusion a person comes to after he has despaired of his own strength. The question is how to bring the Creator into it in previous ages when a person still thinks he has strength?
R. From the get-go they tell him if the Creator doesn't build a house then you are lost and you have no soul, meaning no vessel by which you'll begin to feel your entrance to the upper world, connection to the Creator, where you’ll feel your system of connection with the Creator called the upper world, so it's only if you wish to have such a house such a connection and you’ll understand that this connection was built by the Creator but the Creator is making the connection according to your request.
S. How to bring the Creator and make Him involved to begin with, not after he tries and understands and he can't?
R. It's impossible to do, it’s impossible, it has to be simply in this way. A person tries as much as he can like a child on the level that he knows of and he does all these important things for his development and we see how much we, how many things we build let's say, research groups, many factories, we will see what else we can do for children. Go into a toy store and see for kids who are a year old, a year-and-a-half, two years, every six months at least you have for every six months you have games that are designed only for this time in order to develop the child, and we purchase them we wish to bring it to our children so that they will develop and grow or they would remain undeveloped.
S. But for a child that's a game and he enjoys it?
R. It's a game for us as well, it's a general game of the Creator with the whale, we simply don't identify as such just like a child does not detect it as a game because this is his life it's not a game and the same is for us.
S. I'm saying this for a child, it's a game for us as parents, we understand it develops him but for us it's kind of opposite in the spiritual path its work and where is the…?
R. Like for a child who is building something for him it's work, he's sweating, he wants to succeed, he cries and he turns to you it's the same.
S. Where is the pleasure in this work?
R. Where's the pleasure? By attaining the greatness of who we are playing with, for whom, and what should be the result? We are building our soul with it. All the work begins from making these bricks, these blocks then from them we use them in a structure and that’s how we do it. Our spiritual work is also built in this way and only in this way. We arrange the connections between us, we connect into ten Sefirot, we build additional ten Serfirot and additional until from this entire work we get a big tower.
20. S. (54:18) When a person reaches despair, is he asking only for strength to continue the work, he doesn't want anything else besides continuing his spiritual work and then he receives much more from the Creator it turns out, not just the strength but that transition to the vessels of bestowal.
R. What's the question? The Creator knows what to give to a person, the person asks for what the Creator awakens in him.
S. The question is about whether a person should or shouldn't ask to be in bestowal itself meaning to own this act of bestowal or he just wants to stay in the spiritual work that this is the minimal level.
R. It'll all work itself out, you’re thinking correctly you just have to keep going.
21. S. (55:37) It seems like our ego keeps growing and growing and growing and each time we hit a brick wall and then we hit really despair so how do we get out of that loop? It seems like it's a never-ending loop so what do we do in that situation?
R. In this state we pray to the Creator to blow up that wall that concrete wall.
22. S. (56:25) Why does the body need to resist when we are doing the work of the Creator and adhesion with the Creator and intention and the desire?
R. That’s how it is deliberately back because there would be no resistance, we would not need to return to the Creator and we wouldn’t reach adhesion with the Creator.
23. S. (56:57) This house that the Creator builds, is it safe? It appears to me that it has no foundation within reason, where do I place my feet with confidence?
R. In the ten, your whole foundation is the ten, the foundations of the building are in the ten, you understand that it's how it works, so so when you drill a hole into the ground and then that hole you build the poles and on these poles you build the building, everything is inside your egoistic desire, you build holes in it and there you lay the foundations otherwise it won’t hold.
S. But also in the ten right now in a random ten I feel that I am floating, I don't feel things so powerfully, everything becomes more rickety.
R. Of course that's how you have what to care for, what to pray for, what to strengthen, how to strengthen the foundations of course. You have to go deeper into the ground and expand there the the foundation that you are establishing at the bottom at the base for your pole, so then you have a base, you cement it and from that basis you erect a pillar of cement and then you build say, twenty or thirty, whatever you need according to how many foundations you need for this building and then you start building the walls on top of it and the floors and so forth, that's our work. That's how it is in both corporeality and in spirituality, it's the same principle in all of the worlds.
24. S (59:53) It says here: “the body begins to resist this work. However, there is great benefit in this resistance of the body, since by this a person develops a great deficiency, meaning he suffers from being far from Devekut with the Creator.” If the body resists then it convinces me that there's no need for the Creator, for the friends, that I have no power. Where does this sorrow develop? How do I go from a state of resistance to a state of sorrow?
R. The body deliberately resists so that you will go against it. It wants you to fight it because by that you grow up as a human and it helps you as a beast, in that matter. There is no other choice, there's no other choice, no other work. But by the resistance of the body we see that we increasingly need the connection between us and we turn to the Creator for help. Do that more and more and soon you will begin to feel that this style specifically is the right style. You will start seeing proof there both corporal and spiritual.
S. I have to resist these resistances? I don’t know. How do I stop this process, how do I control it?
R. You try to be above it, try to do your work. Do not go head on into attacking them rather try to be above them. In that I don’t mind what happens there, this is what I do. Because going against the will to receive directly is usually unsuccessful. We have to not go and attack it but rather attack the principle of it. We will see, we will see a bit later
25. S. (01:02:29) In the excerpt it says that a person feels torments by moving away from adhesion with the Creator but in all honesty I do not feel that distance from the Creator, that I am distanced from Him. There are various resistances, various objection but I cannot build the correct reaction so how to feel the true distance from the Creator all the way down to a state of despair
R. The distance between you and the Creator is exactly the distance between you and the friends and therefore there is nothing to do here but to try and get closer to them.
S. But the distance, I do not feel the despair. Look, the friends are near me, we were just at the congress. Everything seems fine but this feeling of distance is not felt.
R. You have to keep working, you have to keep working. It is not a matter of protocol or some dry kind of dry connection. It has to be that the Creator appears in the connection between the hearts. If your heart will touch and connect with the friend's heart then in the gap between you in the connection between you, in the seam between you where you rub each other this is where the Creator begins to be revealed.
S. It’s just that quite often despair appears from not having?
R. I understand you, I understand, keep going, keep going with a deficiency that has no deficiency.
26. S. (01:04:58) How can I understand if I'm helping my friends build our unity and what kind of help will turn together to the Creator in a common request?
R. Only through example, only through example, that I want to give to the friends, by that I can help them. Well, prayer of course comes before the example. Examples of something is already external.
27. S. (01:05:39) How can I go back to the fact that everything depends on me? What is the first step?
R. First step is that I need to submit myself to the friends like Rabash writes in the social articles. When I connect to them in such a way then I truly attain spirituality, only through our connection.
28. S. (01:06:16) How do we develop the sensitivity and the awareness that without turning to the Creator you will not succeed.
R. It says what the mind does not do, time will. When a person is already in the process for years and sees that he's not successful, he should ask himself: why am I not successful? He can get mad at the teacher, other friends, the Creator, everyone but the question is still why am I not successful? The answer is that he did not build the place for the revelation of the Creator and the place for the revelation of the Creator is the deficiency, the deficiency for connection because the Creator appears in our connection. Did he build a deficiency for connection or not, and if not clarify how to build and that is exactly what we're talking about right now.
29. S. (01:07:18) What does it mean to build the building of holiness?
R. To build the building of Holiness is to connect with the friends in such a way that the relationship between us is just like the bestowal needs to be between the Sefirot in the Partzuf and then the building that we build will be called the building of the soul or the vessel of the soul or just the vessel, the vessel and the Kli and then according to the intensity of connection between us the upper light will dress into that Kli, NRNHY, at different intensities and then we will attain the Creator who is just really the result of the NRNHY that appears
30 S. (01:08:15)) If we see that the congress has weakened the ten, that was weak even before the congress, how to relate to it, what to do?
R. It seems to us like that. It is a sign that the Creator showed us where we have more to correct and that is why this is the good, great result from the congress and we all together need to connect so that this weakness becomes connection.
31. S. (01:08:59) You just said that we need to reach a state where our relationships in the ten will be like the relationship between the Sefirot. What kind of relationships exist between the Sefirot, how can we compare?
R. That each one according to his qualities gives energy, strength to connection between us. That each one, as much as he can, as much as he understands that we lack the general connection. That is why we awaken each other and connect to each other until we all, even though we are different, we are connected together and the upper light, the Creator dwells in us.
S. It is not exactly clear because from what we are learning about the system we see that there is some connection of cause and consequence in the connection with the Creator and here we are trying to?
R. From connecting between us we come to connect with the Creator, otherwise we have no contact with the Creator, no contact. Before we connect in the group, to a single connection somehow more or less aim that connection towards the Creator before that we are not connected with Him. Of course he governs us and manages us but not that we have a mutual connection with Him, me for my beloved and my beloved from me, is about inside the ten.
Reading excerpt 3 (01:11:17) “When a person is in an ascent he thinks that he no longer needs the Creator's help..” Twice
32. S. (01:14:58) I've learned seven, eight, nine years till now, a new friend comes and I pray, Creator help me be lower than him, is this correct?
R. Yes but then the new one will not hear it because he will not understand.
33. S (01:16:11) What does it mean that if we understand that we are in this work above reason, how does he hear this?
R. It means that we will not fall too much, that we will not have the possibility to rise from there, it already protects us from being a little between heaven and earth, so from there we will be able to rise up.
S. Is this state the most desirable for us?
R. Yes.
34. S. (01:17:07) The passages seem to be clear but he writes here that he is in need of the Creator. Then he says that the Creator built the house. How can we clarify this, what does he mean?
R. He understands more that if the Creator does not build the house then he cannot do anything, he will remain the way he is now helpless and without any deficiency. Just kind of not to here and not to there, the worst possible state.
35. S. (01:17:58) It seems that this is like a complex state here. On one hand in order to advance we have to kind of lose what we had before and then I need to know that this is something that I'm doing, that it is some kind of a place that I cannot lose but it is not clear what I need to do. But when it says that we will not lose it and this is the right path, therefore I need the Creator to distance me to reject me? The question is how do I strengthen and how can I fill this security that I'm on the right path, that I found the right path and nothing will push me away from it and at the same time ask the Creator to repel me, reject me?
R. Very nice, you have a very good feeling and correct one. It is not final but it is already before receiving faith above reason, yes. If the Creator does not build a house really, meaning that degree in order to bestow, we are not capable of rising to it alone, and this is what needs to happen here. The foundation for our work needs to be above reason and certainly for that we need the Creator's help. Therefore a person who understands this, feels this, discovers this necessity, the help of the Creator in order to rise to a degree that is higher than his nature above reason, then he says, if the Creator does not build the house, unless He builds, I’m not capable.
36. S. (01:20:52) What is the difference between demanding for each friend separately and the demand for the whole group? Sometimes I feel closer to one friend than the others and my demand is directed towards Him. But the group of ten is a different mechanism. It seems like a very thin line, how do they get it?
R. Try, try to ask for this and for that, try to ask to be adhered to both the friend and to the group, and then you can scrutinize this thing more.
37. S. (01:21:57) As much as I understand, this ascent is how much I feel the group, feel the Creator. I feel that only by their help and I am with them, how can I feel in this state, I can say that I do not need the group and I don't need the Creator. I don't get it, how does this work out?
R. I did not understand the question, please repeat.
S. In the passage it says that my ascent depends on the ascent of the group so that I am rising and I need to feel the Creator and I need to feel the group and accordingly I feel that by their help I am able to rise, so how can I say that state, that I do not need them?
R. You are talking in an opposite way, you need to connect to the group and then through that you need to feel the ascent. And your ascent will be specifically because you will be more connected to the group and even more thinking about them. What for you is an ascent? An ascent for you is the extent to which you are connected to the Ten and with them you go even more towards mutual bestowal to the Creator. Because the Creator is bestowal, the Creator is love. As much as you enter the Ten with bestowal and love it is called that you are rising towards the Creator.
S. I'm sorry, I am asking exactly that. How in that state from the passages we read where a person can say no, I don’t need the Creator, I’m smarter than Him. Or maybe I don’t get it, maybe I didn't understand it correctly?
R. No, is there such a thing?
S. He’s asking about passage #3, from the force that repels the person, and when a person is in an ascent then he feels that doesn’t need the help of the Creator. He says he has this foundation of sensation, so how can he, in that ascent not need help of the Creator?
R. One day we will read the whole article and then we will understand, for the time being, maybe you are asking correctly but it is not talking about that, there is no answer to that.
38. S. (01:25:26) About the first Passage here, the labor is in vain and futile, this plea, so let’s say if a person understands that everything that he does is useless and helpless,so how can I take advantage of these lessons from our teacher and in the Ten.?
R. Just try to connect with everyone and then we will see how this exertion itself builds the common Kli.
39. S. (01:26:07) The nullification is the foundation where the pillars are built for the house?
R. Yes, only through annulment we connect and that becomes the pillars or the foundations of the house, yes.
40. S. (01:26:26) Does building the house mean building this field that the Creator has blessed?
R. I would say it differently. Every pillar upon which we build the building is the connection between us and this is how we need to connect in all kinds of manners in the connections between us. One according to the qualities of this friend, one according to the qualities of that friend and the next. That is how we build the building and that is how we have the Ten major Sefirot. Then we begin to build the levels, the floors themselves, these points that come before or between these pillars, that is already the connection between us at the same height, where each adds to the other by nullifying himself just so we will be connected. There are many things here that as a result are also in our corporeal world and this is how we connect. But the main thing is that the whole connection is through forms of annulment between us. Forms of annulment between us.
41. S. (01:27:56) Is the request important just as faith, so does this faith not put my request in doubt from the Creator?
R. Yes, the request too expresses my subjugation towards the Creator.
42. S. (01:28:22) Let's say that the Creator can only build the house, so why do I need to come to this despair?
R. Without despair we will have no force in our request, it will kind of be without a need. It is like I'm doing this out of my will to receive, if my will to receive will not be empty and despaired my request will not be valid.
43. S. (01:28:57) How can we then turn to the Creator to connect us and not fall from the lack of being able to build this house by ourselves?
R. We need to nevertheless try to build it on our own so that we will have a foundation upon which to turn to the Creator and to demand from Him, to ask from Him, what exactly to ask from Him. We must try in building the connection between us which is called the building of the temple or the building of the Soul. And if we try to build the vessel of the Soul in the connection between us to the extent in which we try and see that we are not capable, we start each time anew and from another rejection and another disappointment and then we understand what we're missing is the force of the Creator to protect us, to sustain the building where we Join one to the other but for the Creator to hold that. And join more to that and the Creator will hold that, we need Him as the force that holds what we are trying to attempt to come closer to one another.
Therefore we need Him as the foundation of our work, that organizes our work, that sustains the work, that keeps what we have attained, that corrects us where we were not correct and so on. We need them every step along the way, and the Creator and we give forth the deficiency, the Creator corrects it and joins it one to the other and we ask Him to sustain it that way. Meaning I am not capable of doing anything without His help and for it to remain in the correct way without his work.
44. S. (01:31:10) How can we not give up and despair without completing the work?
R. By this we reach adhesion to the Creator. As this whole building, why did the Creator shatter the soul, so that by us erecting the soul we will attain adhesion to Him, Devkut. This is the goal, the goal is not to build the building the vessel of the soul, but rather, and not even to fill it with all the fillings but rather we need, not even to attain the NRNHY, we need to attain the source of the NRNHY, that is the purpose of our work. Therefore do not be confused between building a house which is a process, but what we attain by building this house. We attain Devkut, adhesion to the upper force, to our source, our true source, the upper source.
45. S. (01:32:25) In the state of despair you are in the feeling that you are by yourself and even the prayer doesn’t help and the Creator doesn’t even hear, how do we overcome that?
R. That we need to go through a long period of time until we despair, we receive more degrees of coarseness, bitterness, where we have no choice but from this state we must turn to the Creator for help. If we do not despair from our own forces, if we do not want to build this house from ourselves just like a child wants to and then he cries that he can’t then we will not draw the Creator to help us and we will not learn from Him how He does and we will not be able to use correctly the structure that He did. That is all a process, that is all the process
46. S. (01:33:56) There is a feeling that the result of the congress was just complete hatred against anything that rejects the connection between us. What needs to be this prayer that the Creator will clean me and separate me from this nature that I have?
R. We do not need to reject the evil, no. We do not need to ask the evil to depart, to get rid of it because without the bad we will never reach the goal. We need, upon the bad, to bring the force of good so we will be incorporated, inclusive of the force of bad and the force of good together and bad together and then from these two we will rise to their summation, to the third line, to the Creator Himself from which emerge the light and creates the darkness. That is how we need this light and darkness to come to their source.
47. S. (01:35:16) So what is the right prayer, how do we scrutinize that?
R. The correct prayer is that we want to come to the connection between us and from the connection between us to connect to the Creator and reach a state in which we are connected together and with the Creator within us.
48. S. (01:35:40) This frustration is always built off of something that was accumulated, does this also build, leads to the right prayer?
R. In everything that we invest forces we receive either disappointment or the opposite, the feeling of triumph and both this and that we need.
49. S. (01:36:06) Do all of the degrees of the building of the heart need to come from the complete desire, a whole desire? How do we attain that?
R. We attain a perfect desire from coming to despair from our forces and then ask from the Creator to control us, to rule us and by that we hold on to it in a whole matter, we come to perfection.
50. S. (01:36:39) What is the significance of “if I'm not for me then who is?”
R. “If it's not for me then who?” meaning that if I don't do it, nothing happens. The Creator operates on everything, He builds, breaks, corrects, erects, does everything. He does it all but it is all done preceding my request and I need to depict myself as the small one sitting on the hands of the big one and pulling on Him saying “I want this, I want that” and I'm pulling the big one to go in every direction and that is how I need to imagine myself that if it's not myself then who? That I need to want in everything but the Creator hears what I choose only according to the correct desires in me; meaning, to the extent to which I aim myself into in order to bestow more to more connection etc
51. S. (01:37:57) You said that in the ten, the whole foundation is the ten, what are these holes that we can fill this foundation?
R. Deficiencies, deficiencies, we need to see the deficiencies in us and to understand that specifically in these deficiencies we are building the foundations, the pillars upon which we establish the structure of our faith, the structure of our soul.
52. S. (01:38:37) General question from Hebrew. This is a room that constantly has friends from different tens coming in who never have enough so they are constantly coming into this general room. Their question is: Does this inner work during the lesson, is it only towards the friends in the room or from the permanent ten that we have?
R. However they feel it in their heart.
https://kabbalahmedia.info/en/lessons/cu/IphwdrkK