Morning Lesson February 8, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #13
1.Rav’s Introduction (00:25): We are continuing our study of the introduction to the Book of Zohar. It is very special, unique, it opens up many things for us, it ties many things together, it gives us an overall perspective about the entire wisdom of Kabbalah, about man, about the world, about the process we need to go through. Indeed it is a very powerful introduction. I would say universal just like the Book of Zohar itself but until we get to it, it will take us some time to prepare ourselves. In the meantime, let us begin Item 13.
Reading Item 13 (1:19)
2. R. (02:25) Meaning there was a question, how could it be that from the Creator who is so above the whole of creation who has no flaw in the will to receive, that He is entirely to bestow, pure and absolute love, how could it be that from Him that He will be the source from which will emerge all kinds of flaws and corrupted broken souls? And we, who are such that you can’t even describe how much we are the opposite of this wholeness, how could it be that the Creator will be the source for all of that?
Reading Continued Item 13 (03:05)
3. R. (03:35) That is in the end this corrupted will to receive it was created in order to go through the entire process, it in itself with awareness understanding and feeling through all the forms that are necessary from one end, the worst one, the opposite to the Creator, to the best end where it is entirely similar to the Creator. So why is that?
Reading Continued 13 (04:07)
4. R. (05:34) So, what we see here in Item 13 is that what appears to us in our will to receive as so terrible and corrupted with all kinds of different forms where it is the opposite of the Creator. All of this we see that in order to correct it. But in truth it wasn't so, it was never created but only in order for us to learn about it, through it, how do we reach becoming like the Creator? It is as we give children things that are corrupted, broken building blocks, a car that is seemingly broken and they have to put it together and all kinds of such things that they have to build in order for them to understand what it means something that is whole? So in order to discover the wholeness first of all towards the created being, the incomplete form has to be revealed and therefore it seemingly exists, just like we do that with children.
Why can't I simply give the child something that is complete, whole, beautiful, good? No. We see also in our life that each and every thing we have to prepare from certain foundations even our dishes we need to prepare them and in our homes each and everything that we use we have to receive from nature to begin with in an incomplete form, even broken, corrupted and to make it ourselves until we can use it properly and this includes our life, the children that we give birth to and educate and ourselves the way we position ourselves in our life and this is how it is with each and everything. This is all because it is impossible for us to attain something that is whole unless we take part in its construction, in establishing it. This is the same in our corporeal life and all the more so in our spiritual life; Therefore, the Creator to begin with even though he does not need it and He created everything in a perfect form, to begin with it existed in a perfect form. However He brings to our feeling to our knowledge or understanding everything in such a broken form. Broken to a certain extent in order for us to learn from it how to assemble something that is whole and indeed then we will be the landlords of the Worlds.
5. Rav reads and explains excerpt (08:59): Item 13, Indeed we still need to understand how the will to receive for oneself, which is so flawed and corrupted, how it could be extended from and be in the thought of creation in Ein Sof that its unity is beyond words and beyond description. The thing is that indeed by the very thought to create the souls, His thought completed everything the creator thought caused everything. Meaning he wanted and he did, for him that is it, because he does not need the vessel for an act like us. Meaning that we think and then we plan what to make it from, which matter and how to build it until we see how we will do it, that state that we want. There is no such thing in the Creator for he does not need a vessel of an act as we do. Instantaneously all the souls and worlds that were destined to be created and merged filled with all the delight and pleasure and the gentleness that he had planned for them. Meaning immediately. It is not a process, rather immediately. That is what he wanted, he thought and that thought in itself completes everything. In the final perfection that the souls were destined to receive at the end of correction. Meaning, after the will to receive and the souls have been fully corrected and have turned into pure bestowal, complete equivalence of form with the emanator. This is how it needs to be. This is because in his eternalness, the Creator, the past present and future serve as one. The future is as the present and there is no such thing as time in him that he needs time in order to reach from one state to a second state but rather in between the states there is zero time, zero action, it is immediate.
Hence, there was never an issue of the corrupted will to receive in its separated state in Ein Sof, to the contrary, that equivalence of form destined to be revealed at the end of correction appeared instantly in his eternalness. Our sages said about this, the Kabbalists, before the world was created there was, He and His name as one. For the separated form in the will to receive had not been revealed in the reality of the souls that emerged in the thought of creation. Rather they were adhered to Him in equivalence of form by way of He and His name are one. Meaning, promptly when he wanted to create the souls in order for them to be an adhesion with Him, He created them immediately in such a way, immediately, and we all together exist in that complete form of the end of correction which is entirely complete, whole, even now, and why do we go through all of these processes?
It is like I said, it is as we give children pieces from a car or made of wood or plastic and the children have to put together those things in order to understand the wholeness, the complete car that they are putting together. Meaning they can reach wholeness only by discovering it from the incomplete and this is how it is with us also. Also with our souls, with our corrections, connections between us, it is only in order for us to learn what wholeness means. What is something that is whole? What is the Creator? That by that, by us assembling ourselves, by connecting between us, we make the Creator. This is why it says you have made me.
6. S. (14:08) Is this state that we just read, past, present, and future, is this a constant preparation on our part? Is that our only choice and how do we prepare it?
R. We have no choice here, this is the reality that we have to go through just like little children, do they have a choice? Do they know where they exist? No. By me bringing to my little child a broken car from these pieces of plastic or wood and he has to put it together and I teach him, and he begins to understand how it has to be arranged, by that, I teach him in which world he exists, which life he should have, how he should turn things, manipulate them. I build in him, inside of the child, all sorts of correct approaches to reality so that later on he will be able to continue and understand all of the rest of the pieces of reality. This is all the matter of teaching, so seemingly the Creator has no choice. On His side He created everything in the final perfection but towards us it is revealed, as it is with us and our children, in a gradual manner, broken, so each time we have to put together more and more the reality until we will reach the end of correction, but it is all only with respect to us. Think about it. It helps greatly to build the right attitude towards the world.
7. S. (16:12) My question is similar to the previous friend, how through equivalence of form can you reach in the ten, a state in which past present and future are zero? That there is no time?
R. If we connect together then according to our degree, as much as we can connect, we reach a state where the past present and future between us reach a point of connection between us and the distance between the past present and future disappears, rather it all exists, or I would even say is immersed in the connection between us. Think about all of these things more, we are entering deeper scrutinies and we must not remain the way we were before. We need to think more and understand better and turn things around as much as we can in our mind and in our heart.
S. How do I need to arrange the thought, the heart? My nature does not manage to depict it, it is beyond my nature, I do not have these things in my nature, how can I do this in the ten?
R. What is not clear to you? I told you we are like children and the Creator is like a father and He gives us all kinds of exercises so that we will know how to put them together correctly. Correctly means that we will put together all the pieces of reality, to the extent that we are capable of it, into a single system. So there are a few rules here, there is none else besides Him, He is the good that does good, all the pieces of reality are interconnected, and they complete each other and more and more such things. If you think all the time about the complete form of the world, which is a complete form, then you will try to fix this more and more in this way, in the direction of unity which is actually the end of our correction, to discover the unity, then you will see that this is how it happens that indeed it is true. This outlook will pull you forward.
8. S. (19:10) You said just now that the creator has no Kli then how can we give, how can we bestow to the Creator if he has no Kli and how can we give him contentment if he cannot feel, let us say, what we are giving him if He has no Kli?
R. He has a vessel, but it is not a deficiency like we have which is truly a deficiency, a lack. But rather his lack is that it will be good for us. It is not considered a true deficiency like in our world this is called a deficiency due to love because he wants to do good. You can say more that the desire to benefit is greater, more complete, so the Creator has great agonies that we are in a state where we cannot receive all the abundance from Him. It is like a baby who is sick, and the mother very much wants to let it eat and give it all the goodness and it is not capable of it, it is sick, so the mother suffers, and how much does she suffer? She suffers even more than he suffers. This is called the sorrow of Divinity, the sorrow of the Shechina.
9. S. (20:48) In this text it says that the souls were created, meaning it is not mentioned here Adam HaRishon. Is there a difference between Adam HaRishon not being mentioned here and the creation of the souls?
R. Let us not try to be too precise about all these things in order to not confuse ourselves. The souls and Adam HaRishon are the same thing. The souls are the parts of Adam HaRishon. The general soul, when we put together all of these souls, in the connection, in love between us then we reach the general structure between us such a system that is called Adam HaRishon.
10. S. (21:46) What does it mean to do good deeds and can we now in our current state do good deeds?
R. Try, I have no other way to answer.
11. S. (22:09) What you talk about where the Creator is like a father who is educating us, Baal HaSulam writes that I am, a means for my correction, meaning we are matured to a certain way.
R. Yes indeed, in truth we are not corrupted, and we do not require any corrections. However in order to discover that complete state in which we exist, we have to go through all kinds of revelations in order to explore that state and it is possible to research it only from something and its opposite; Therefore, we discover each time states that are opposite to the wholeness and later, on our own we have to discover the wholeness from them but in truth there is no bad in the world nothing is corrupted in the world but rather it is only revealed with respect to us in order for us to understand and attain the wholeness. It is written about it in many places.
12. S. (23:28) Why do we say that the matter of creation is the will to receive if everything emerges from the thought of the Creator, it is like we are living inside of a thought.
R. We are living inside a thought, inside the thought of creation. You are right; however, the state that we feel is called the will to receive. This is the matter of creation, the desire. The Creator created a desire and this desire that exists in all kinds of different states it takes us from one state of the desire to another state of the desire and this is how we seemingly evolve. We go through development in different desires until we reach the highest desire.
13. S. (24:35) When a child builds a puzzle with many pieces, he has a picture of the whole puzzle on the box, and it helps him look at parts of certain sections of the puzzle. How can we compose a puzzle without that picture?
R. You have the puzzle, you have all the pieces, and they explain to you what the future picture needs to be. You have the group, where you need to put all of these pieces together into a single integral picture. There is no problem, you are in a state that is no lesser than the little child who is given all of the necessary forms in order to reach the wisdom, the intellect, and the correct construction.
14. S. (25:35) A friend says that we are in a thought but what happens here is that the Creator, His thought, we cannot understand it, correct? It is like something completely different?
R. When we do what we need to do then we gradually reach the awareness of the thought of creation through the degrees and those degrees are about acquiring faith above reason. This is how we begin to get to know the Creator's actions in us.
15. S. (26:15) When a child puts together this puzzle, or this car, he is concentrating on the result, on the car he is building. It seems like something that is very precious to him, but as an adult, what is important to him is the changes he goes through, are these enough for us?
R. We should think both about the process and also about the goal. Both this and that and if we do it together then it is truly not difficult but rather we can accelerate our whole development and do it truly quickly, but if each one does what he thinks and does not identify with his friends, then they will not attain it but rather as it says the person will understand at the end of his life that he was mistaken his whole life and nevertheless he was not able to arrange anything. But rather again and again and again we have to understand that our hearts should be as one. That we together understand the single goal, that future form that has to be in one heart and in one desire and yearn for that. There in the connection of our hearts, we will find the Creator.
16. S. (28:05) You just answered the question, but I want to get deeper. He writes that the Creator does not need to be a vessel of action like us, what is that one action that we need to do?
R. Connection. Connection is what we need. Only connection and this is what we have to search for between us, how we reach that.
17. S. (28:52) The ten is asking what are the conditions that a ten needs to create within it in order to grasp that He and His name are one?
R. It is the same thing. Connection. You are seemingly not listening to what I am saying. We need to reach a connection in which the Creator is revealed.
S. What is the approach, the attitude towards things that happen to Kabbalists, and they manage to use all the future as the present? How do they grasp reality?
R. They only look at the point of connection between them. A single point where each one of course yearns for it in his manner, in the forms and thoughts and desires of his own; however, what is it that we want? We want to connect at such a point where, there, we will reach the discovery of the point of connection between us, which is one. There all the different forces disappear, the different actions disappear, and they become a single essence called connection. That is it and no more. Then they discover the Creator.
S. In connection there is no past present and future?
R. No. it all reaches a single essence.
18. S. (30:38) Does connection turn the will to receive into bestowal?
R. Later on, yes. Yes, the moment that we connect then certainly we connect by receiving from above the reforming light and then each one, by bestowing to his friend, reaches a feeling of the Creator. This is how we attain Him, yes.
19. S. (31:26) It sounds like science fiction; it is very interesting. In his internality his past, present and future is like a present for him, and it is really like a science fiction movie, what is this life of internality?
R. I do not know, can you ask with a single sentence? Clearly? not stopping a sentence in the middle and jumping to another sentence? What is it that you want to ask? Build a sentence properly please with a beginning, a middle and an end.
S. Past, present and future is called the life of internality.
R. The past, present and future, they do not exist, however everything is enclosed in a single point. It is us who exist below time. Rambam even writes about it, that our whole reality exists below time.
S. What is time in this whole topic?
R. It is what we have in our head. This essence of time, this feeling that there is, there was and there will be.
20. S. (32:54) Is the point of connection that you mentioned, is that the thought of creation we attain?
R. Yes.
S. This whole process obligates us to be as a projector upon which the Creator is streaming all the conditions that we are going through all these details this whole connection is non-stop?
R. Non-stop, certainly. There is no stop on the side of the Creator. Try to put together questions in a clear way and it is not that I have to jump from the beginning of the sentence to the middle and the end and back to the middle. Build it in a consistent way so that it will be clear to everyone what it is that you are asking, and it will be clear to me as well.
21. S. (34:02) What is unity in this whole perception?
R. That everything emerges from the Creator, and we exist in Him and as much as we connect between us, we become incorporated in Him and that attainment, that everything is incorporated in a single essence, which is called unity.
22. S. (34:37) What does it mean that His name is one, how do we attain that state, if you can expand?
R. His name is one is, if we reach a state where we connect all of our desires, all of our thoughts, all of our passions, all of our dispositions into a single unity. To attain a single unity, then there, we discover our source, who is the Creator, and the attainment of the unity is actually attaining the purpose of life, the purpose of creation, the purpose of evolution.
23. S. (35:14) Is the second state an intermediary on its own, can it not exist in Ein Sof?
R. I did not understand that.
S. Is the second state the intermediate state, can it not be in Ein Sof?
R. No state can exist in Ein Sof except for the Sof, the end, except for the unity. From there everything comes, and everything returns to there.
24. S. (35:55) The third state, the future state, does it potentially exist?
R. It exists not only in potential, but it is also the only state that exists. The Creator did not create anything besides that third state, the ideal final state of unity and connection but we need to discover it through our own efforts just like the child who is putting together the car from the pieces in order to understand how it is built, and more than that, in order to understand who is the one who prepared this toy, this game for him. By that he understands how He is good, that does good, and he loves him. In us, in human beings the feeling of love develops in a similar way.
25. S. (36:58) In the excerpt itself in Item 13 it says ‘it is destined to be revealed at the end of correction, immediately it appears in His eternalness. Where are we on this axis?
R. We are in the axis of time where each of us develops but if not on the axis of time that is imaginary to us, it is all in the ideal final state of the connection that the Creator created and there is no state outside of that one. We are all in the end of Correction in our final and only state that exists but towards us in order to develop us. There is what we call concealment which conceals from us this ideal state that we are in, and it is all that we will want to attain, understand. Just like you are playing with little children. You give them something, you hide, you give something again and you hide something from them and that is how we develop them, that is how the Creator develops us. In concealment and revelation.
26. S. (38:15) How can we help each other to come closer to the end of correction?
R. By us wanting together to put together this model, this system, called the end of correction. The perfect state of connection between us. Our desires are parts of that big machine, and we need to put together, combine our desires such that they will all work in harmony between them together. Completing one another and one will help his friend. This is how all together, from all of us, we will discover the Creator. That is why it is written you have made me.
27. S. (39:12) Does connection mean that I can feel the emotions of my friends? Their desires and thoughts?
R. Yes.
28. Rav Reads and explains Item 14. (39:41) As you necessarily find that on the whole there are three states to the soul. The first state is the presence of the souls, in Ein Sof, in the thought of creation where they already have the future form of the end of correction. Meaning to start with, the future state exists and is there because relative to the Creator it has to be that way. The second state is the existence of the souls in the manner of the six thousand years in which they were divided by the above two systems into body and soul and they were given the souls were given this work in Torah and Mitzvot in order to correct themselves and to compose this plastic car and put it together, the model, and invert their will to receive and bring it to a desire to bestow contentment upon their maker, to the Creator and not for themselves whatsoever. This is the work that takes place over the six thousand years which is where we need to come from the shattered state to a state in which we connect between us, and by this we bring contentment to the Creator. During this time, no correction will come to the bodies, meaning to the will to receive itself, it is called body.
Only to the souls, to the desire to bestow, to the souls only. Meaning that they must eliminate from within them any form of self-reception which is considered the matter of the body and to remain with but the desire to bestow which is the form of the desire in the souls and even the Souls of the righteous, will not be able to rejoice in the Garden of Eden after their demise, but only after their bodies have completely rotted in the dust. Meaning there is a period of time here, called the second state, in which all of the souls have to go through it. That is called six thousand years because there are six thousand degrees here that we go through, and we acquire the desire to bestow through it. By putting together the desire to bestow upon the desire to receive then the desire to receive is considered being dead and it rots all the way to the dust where it is truly becoming zero. Not able to tempt the person to anything. This is how the end of the will to receive is. In the third state is the end of correction of the souls after the revival of the dead; meaning, that that desire to receive is resurrected.
At that time, the complete correction will come to the bodies too, meaning to the desires as well, which these desires died, and rotted from in order to receive, from the intention of in order to receive because then they will make the reception for themselves, which is the form of the body, to take on the form of pure bestowal. The intention in order to bestow and they become worthy of receiving for themselves all the delight and pleasure and pleasantness in the thought of creation. With all that, they will attain strong Dvekut by the force of their equivalence of form with their maker. Meaning it is not just that they rid themselves of the will to receive and come to a desire to bestow but rather, by this they also reach adhesion with the Creator because they did not receive all this from their will only but from their desire to bring contentment upon their maker since the Creator has pleasure that they receive from Him. For the purposes of brevity from now on I will use the names of these three states, namely the first state, second state and third state and you will remember all that is explained here in every state.
Reading Item 14 again (45:17)
29. S. (48:35) Why in the second state it is written about the six thousand years? Is that our years, our time?
R. No this is not talking about six thousand years of this world of the Earth spinning. That has no influence, does not bother, or help or define anything. How many revolutions that we go around the Sun, or the moon around us or Earth around itself, no. That is completely not it. Year is called a change, a recurrence, where we go through all kinds of states and each time we correct new desires on a higher level, higher degree, bigger desires, and therefore it is called that we are ascending on these degrees and are in these changes. It has nothing to do with this world whatsoever. About this world we will talk later but now we are not going to get confused. There is no connection between what we are going through and this world. Where they say six thousand years, the meaning is the 6 degrees because we have to rise from Malchut to Bina. In the middle we have Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod. Six degrees that we have to rise from Malchut to Bina and therefore it is called six thousand years. That is it. Also it is explained, completely takes away any relationship to this world, to what you see and feel here. In this world we have no connection to the corrections that are spiritual in nature.
30. S. (50:40) It also refers here to the fact that one who receives with the intention to bestow belongs to the third state?
R. We are not reaching the third state for the time being. The third state is very special, this is after we complete all of the states that are in the six thousand years as we call them, then we rise to a degree of perfection which is called the 7th Millenia. There, it is different behavior, it is like the world anew, a new awareness, a new world and there is no connection to what we will receive in the 7th Millennia and the six thousand years. Moreover, relative to the state we are in right now we need to enter into the state of correction called the six thousand years and this is all clarified in the degrees of connection between us. Connection between us in the ten, this is all it depends upon.
31. S. (52:10) The third state, it adds something, it changes something in the first state?
R. The third state I cannot explain, there are states that we do as those who kind of compose, or make up the system, and then there is the system as a whole where we put together all the parts and now, we can work on it. That is the third state. After the revival of the dead, after you have corrected all the desires from in order to receive to in order to bestow, they are connected in the correct way and then you turn on the car and drive.
32. S. (53:04) My question is about the verse where it says ‘during the time of that state no correction will come to the bodies, only to the souls’, what is this distinction he is making between the body and the soul?
R. To bestow in order to bestow is called the souls and the bodies are already to receive in order to bestow. That we do not have yet in this correction. We are not yet capable of working with the will to receive itself, for it to be in order to bestow, rather only to bestow in order to bestow. He explains this for us also in the introduction to the study of the ten Sefirot that our path is divided into a state that we are to start with, and then we come to the degree of Bina to bestow in order to bestow. It is called an incomplete Righteous, or a medium. Then starts the correction to receive in order to bestow, which is already from Bina to Keter which is called a complete righteous. We will learn that and go through it and get there, God willing, do not worry. It will all be. Let us just do what belongs to what we are studying right now.
33. S. (54:37) Can we say that in the second state we only build the Rosh of the Partzuf?
R. I do not want to talk in such a way.
34. S. (55:01) In the third state in the vessels of reception, where is the screen received there? The screen over the complete correction?
R. I do not want to talk about such things. Do you see how I am answering you? I only want to talk about what we are learning. That is it, and do not start now with your philosophies, how it is involved and connected to the whole system. I do not want other people to get confused. It is enough for me that you are confused. Ask according to what we are reading here. Ask about this. It is not that I do not want you to learn, I just do not want you to be confused.
S. It is a simple question.
R. I do not want to hear. I do not want to hear. You will come to a state where I will not let you ask at all.
35. S. (56:10) When we ask about the corrections related to connection, does it mean to give contentment to the Creator and to be in unity with the Creator?
R. Yes. Of course all of our corrections are in that.
36. S. (56:37) Reaching a state where we see the complete picture, I simply have to be adhered to the friends all the time?
R. Where do you compose this whole picture?
S. Only through the friends.
R. So why are you asking?
37. S. (57:02) What is the difference between day and year in a spiritual state?
R. We will learn that it is still very far from us. It is clear that there are differences between the states. In the changing of states.
38. S. (57:26) Can you explain the following quote ‘and even the souls of the Righteous will not be able to delight in the garden of Eden after their demise but only after the body completely rots in the dust.
R. Because until all the souls are incorporated in Malchut of Ein Sof in a corrected manner, then even those souls that already corrected themselves individually will not be able to delight in the state that is called the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is Bina that rises to Keter which is called so. Garden is Bina and Eden is Hochma and all together the two of them rise to the Keter.
39. S. (58:15) How does the Creator show that he is satisfied, pleased with the work in the ten?
R. When the Creator is satisfied in the work in the ten is when he announces to a person, in the feeling of a person, that a person is advancing correctly. I am announcing to you that the Creator is satisfied with you but there is more to add, there is more to add. Mostly in the connection between us. All of the corrections are there, and that is the most difficult of all, and what confuses us most.
40. S. (59:05) Does the second state begin at the point of the shattering?
R. From the revelation of the will to receive in the creature, the second state begins.
41. S. (59:28) You said that there is no relation to spiritual corrections and what we go through in this world, so, why was this world created, why is it needed?
R. The world was created so that we will exist in something through which we would be able to enter spirituality. In this reality nevertheless the creature exists in such a way that he is not in spirituality, so he has a certain reality.
42. S. (01:00:07) What is the individual end of correction of the ten and of the world?
R. The end of correction? He writes that in at the end of correction, the third state, is where all the souls after the revival of the dead; meaning, when they feel themselves as dead and correct themselves come to a state of the complete correction in which they are all incorporated together in one system, in one complete incorporation, in completion to one another and then the Creator can cloth in them like light in a Kli. A whole one inside a whole one, that is called one receives one.
43. S. (01:00:58) You said that what seems to us as our corrupted will to receive, the opposite of the Creator, we see it, in order to correct it. So the question is where do I see my corrupted will to receive? Is it reflected through others that I see them as egoists or do I see it on myself?
R. I see it on myself because I do not see anything, I do not see anything in others, nothing. I only see myself. I do not reveal, discover anyone. I only discover myself. Therefore this is the way it works.
44. S. (01:02:00) Does she see it on herself, that she is cruder, more of an egoist?
R. A person sees himself; he does not see the others. He sees himself and how he accepts or receives the others. How he is in his will to receive and therefore how, in his will to receive he loves or hates others. That is what she sees. We have to come to a state in which we love everyone. Meaning we rise above our will to receive, that is it.
45. Rav reading and explaining items #15 (01:02:40): When we examine the above 3 states you will find that one completely necessitates the other in a way that if one were to be canceled the others would be canceled too, meaning these three states. For example, if the third state which is the inversion of the form of reception to the form of bestowal had not materialized, it is certain that the first state in Ein Sof would never have been able to emerge since the wholeness would not be able to be materialized because the future state, that was supposed to be in the third state, was already there just like the present and all the wholeness that was depicted there in that state, is just like a reflection from the future into the present. But if the future could be canceled there would be no present reality. Thus the third state necessitates the existence of the first state. It is all the more so when something is canceled in the second state, where there is all the work that is destined to be completed in the third state. Meaning, the work in corruption and corrections and the extensions of the degrees of the souls and how will the third state come to be, how will it be? Hence the second state necessitated the third state.
Meaning the third state obligates the first state the second state obligates the third state and so it is with the existence of the first state in Ein Sof where the wholeness of the third state already exists. After all it necessitates that it will be adapted, meaning that the second and third states will be revealed in the complete wholeness that is there. No less and no more in any way. Thus the first state itself necessitates the expansion of two corresponding systems in the second state, to allow the existence of a body in the will to receive which is corrupted by the systems of Tumaa, of impurity, and then we can correct it. Had there not been a system of worlds of impurity, of Tumaa we would not have the will to receive, and we would not be able to correct it and achieve the third state, for one cannot correct that which is not in him. Thus we need not ask how the system of impurity, of Tumaa, came to be from the first state, for it is the first state that necessitates its existence in the form of the second state.
Meaning, what is he trying to say? That these three states, first, second and third meaning the beginning, the corruption, the complete corruption if we could say about the second state and the correction at the end in the third state, all those states must be towards the person, towards the creature where the Creator had to build these three states in order to bring the created beings to his completion, the complete state, and moreover when he looks at the complete state, in which everyone came to see the Creature, it is clear that ahead of it is the second state and the first state. Therefore these three states are a must to emerge and exist and connect in complete certainty in its final complete way. You could say that in its final complete state, there, these three states continue to exist, there is no void in spirituality. They continue to exist, why? Because there cannot be a creature without the corruption and a gradual correction with ascents and descents and all kinds of things but eventually it comes to corrections which all are incorporated in one another and sustain one another.
Reading Item #15 again (01:08:06)
46. S. (01:11:55) I am trying to understand how we should relate to the second state and this example came up, if I am invited to a meal, I think about all the good things I am about to receive, all the dishes. I do not think about my hunger, but it is clear to me that if I am hungry, I will accept the meal better, but I am only thinking about the fulfillments that I need to receive, so how should I arrange the right relation to that second state?
R. Without the second state, there would be no third state and the Creator saw the third state as the goal and therefore he created the first state, necessarily, the will to receive which developed into two systems Tumaa and Kedusha. When we correct it, this will to receive, gradually during six degrees, 6,000 years, and come to an understanding, a recognition of what the state of bestowal is towards the Creator, to get to know this desire to bestow and exist in it. How will it exist? Because all the previous states are in the third state, in the end of correction. Nothing disappears, nothing was created for no reason, every thought, every dedication, every smallest correction was there because this whole general system cannot exist without it. That is the perfection of the situation where eventually it is revealed how every single part is necessary; therefore, there is no bad and good, rather everything is necessary for the revelation of the unification.
47. S. (01:14:11) Can we say that our correction is to bring our perception to the degree of the Creator?
R. Yes.
48. S. (01:14:28) It says in the third state is the end of correction of the souls after the resurrection. What does it mean, correction also for the body?
R. The bodies are called the will to receive, the actual will to receive. You cannot receive them in order to bestow, in Bina. But the desire itself that you can get in order to bestow in all of its depth, this, we do not understand how incorporation takes place, but we will talk about it eventually. The revival of the bodies, leave that for later.
49. S. (01:15:14) Is our physical body, do we relate to it?
R. No we are not relating to this physical body whatsoever. We, about the physical body, we will talk about it eventually. When we have a little bit more of a grip on the spiritual we will understand.
50. S. (01:15:59) Can we say that the three states are like Ibur, Yenika and Mochin?
R. No, it is much broader than that.
51. S. (01:16:15) As a logical picture Baal HaSulam’s explanation seems clear but how can you grasp it emotionally, in the lack?
R. What you are saying is incorrect. You are asking, how it is possible to understand this emotionally? You hear what you are saying? To understand emotionally, develop the emotion, and then you will understand the feeling, you will understand what the feeling is. That is the problem, if your heart will open to the friends then you will be able to talk about how it feels, then you will be able to classify these emotions, and filter them and arrange them and then it will be clear what you need to do. You will be able to add intellect to the emotion.
52. S. (01:17:16) The nature of our work in the ten, towards the goal, it is maybe easy for us to understand the direction here of the third state but where can we insert in the work of the ten the first state?
R. We cannot. We should not insert in the work in the ten, anything besides what Rabash writes about the ten. Do not get confused, it is not the first, second or third states. It is not the beginning of corrections, it is and, or somewhere in between. It is an incorrect approach. Thanks for asking and if anyone else thought that that is how it is, then now they will understand that it is incorrect. In the tens, between us, we want only to reach connection above the forces of rejection and in that connection, in our connection, we are expecting to reveal the Creator.
53. S. (01:18:28) I understood that the third state is the most important in this work. Is the world created more and more or is only the first one created?
R. There's a desire that is created and it is not second or third, but it is the same desire that goes through these three states.
54. S. (1:18:57) Is the beginning of the second and third states different for each person?
R. Each and every person has their own particular end of correction and then everyone has a general correction.
55. S. (01:19:15) What does it mean to feel dead?
R. To feel dead means that I do not feel my will to receive criticizing others or wanting anything else other than to connect with others. That is called that my will to receive is dead, but I am alive in my will to bestow.
56. S. (01:19:46) What does it mean that there are three states for the souls? Are the souls existing in a few dimensions at once?
R. It is a question but, in the meantime, I have to say that each and every soul has these three states. There are three states in general 2,000 + 2,000 + 2000 years. There is this process in particular, in relation to each and every one in particular, and this is something that we will talk about later.
57. S. (01:20:28) What separates each and every state?
R. It is the essence of the will to receive which is under the influence of the reforming light. To the measure to which the light works on the will to receive, it determines the state in which the will to receive is, and by that actually determines the entire state of the soul throughout all of the degrees of its development.
58. S. (01:21:02) Is the second state to bestow on the intention to bestow and the third is to receive on the intention to bestow?
R. Suppose that is how it is. Suppose that is how it is. In the second stage we do attain the degree of Bina, but the third state is a bit more complicated. Baal HaSulam does not want to explain everything here. He just wants to give us a general large picture in general. Where are we? What do we need to go into, and what do we need to come to?
59. S. (01:21:47) In the matter of the desires in general. Is there a state that the desires pass through the third state, and some remain in the second state and others are still in the first all at the same time?
R. Of course, each and every soul, this is how it exists and its work.