Morning Lesson December 15, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy
Reading Article: (00:23) “Materialistic Psychology” - Twice.
1. S. (04:36) We're thankful for materialistic psychology, what is materialistic psychology, if you go to Academia, I haven't seen a course in materialistic psychology?
R. Yes, but today's psychology you may call it or refer to it as materialistic psychology.
S. What turns it into materialistic that it is the experiments?
R. Yes, they go hand in hand with medicine with all kinds of experimentation and nature and that's why it's called it's defined as materialistic.
S. And he writes here that everyone admits to the nullity of philosophy for it's not built on concrete foundations. Do Kabbalists build something on concrete foundations, but how does the Kabbalist know its concrete foundations and not imagination like philosophers?
R. Because it all comes out of his experience in life.
S. That's not understood because philosophers will say it's out of his own experience.
R. No, but a philosopher cannot prove that he has it from life, whereas the Kabbalist takes forces that exist in a person, forces of nature, natural forces, a desire to receive, a desire to bestow, and all kinds of forces from man himself. When he discovers what is happening when these two forces are put together. When he puts those two forces together and he develops this materialistic psychology, the difference between that and Kabbalah and philosophy and Kabbalah is that it engages things that it can attain on our level and work with it.
2. S. (07:39) Baal HaSulam says that philosophy was handed a deadly blow and when we look today on the outside we see that most or if you could say all opinions on the outside are complete philosophy. There is no connection to reality where you really see what's happening and when you see what people think, you see this gap and you think that it's almost logical to them to say the opposite of what they see in reality. It doesn't matter what there is in reality, it doesn't matter if I see different things in reality I'm going to stand on this opinion and that's it. It's not just that one person is doing this, the whole system is operating this way. It's always these conceptions, these thoughts people have in their mind, and it doesn't matter what is happening in reality, I’m staying with that thought. Where is this deadly blow to philosophy because all I see is this philosophy on the outside completely.
R. I don't quite understand you.
S. Baal HaSulam, as I understand depicts a process where at a certain stage this materialistic physiology handed a deadly blow to philosophy. I say if I look at the reality that I live in on the outside, I say that other than here and other than the materials that we engage in on the outside it's all philosophy, complete philosophy so where is the deadly blow?
R. More opinions?
3. S. (09:33) It seems I think philosophy has disappeared, but it has been replaced like the outside with all kinds of inventions. People just believe whatever appears and surfaces in them and you can say that during the coronavirus period, all kinds of opinions came about and people just go by what they think and what they read.
R. Yes.
4. S. (10:05) I'll also add that the biggest problem in the young generation is that anyone can upload a clip to tick tock and there could be enough likes there and it doesn't matter whether it's correct or incorrect. It's taken as a fact and that's what we see today with the antisemitism that's also arising.
R. True.
5. S. (10:30) You said earlier that today’s psychology you could say is materialistic psychology. I don’t understand why we are thankful and nothing good comes of it, only depression comes out of it and more difficulties, we don't speak about connection at all?
R. This is all up to you, you need to publicize the matter of connection, the importance of connection, and how only this can bring us victory or at least positive change.
S. Could you say that materialistic psychology if it’s finished its role, if it doesn't reach a connection between people?
R. No, we don't see, we can't see the beginning or the middle or the end of materialistic psychology.
6. S. (11:38) I have a friend in the group, we work on connection, we learn the material lessons and parallel this psychology, there's a psychologist that I go to and a psychiatrist that I go to I take pills. I don't consider stopping psychologists or psychiatrists and the pills. I need those. Kabbalah cannot replace for me the psychology and the psychiatry. I'm very careful with materialistic psychology and I need it. Is that what it's talking about in our article, that Kabbalah can replace psychology and psychiatry?
R. No.
S. What's it speaking about here?
R. Psychiatry cannot be replaced there because it works with chemical substances and they help bring about inner balance to a person, chemical. In those things or simple relaxants and or even more serious medications we live with them, we need them so we need to continue.
S. I don't expect the wisdom of Kabbalah to solve the psychological problems I have; I don't have any such expectation. I know that the importance of Kabbalah is the highest, it's at a higher level and psychology is something that I need for my health in order to participate in all things.
R. That's true that's correct, that's how it was, that's how it is, that's how it was and that's how it will be and will continue until the general atmosphere and humanity will change from the Creator, and then we'll be able to replace all these different means with one spiritual means. The light.
7. S. (14:32) What does Baal HaSulam respect about psychology and what does he disrespect about psychology?
R. Psychology can help us in cases where it doesn't try to jump into spirit, but instead adds kinds of medications, herbs, and things of that nature then we accept it because that is what humanity has attained from nature, but more than that we don't want to take from it.
S. Freud for instance and onward, how does Baal HaSulam relate to for example Freud? Again Freud for example and all the psychologists that have developed since then, how does Baal HaSulam relate to them, is that materialistic psychology or is that connected to spirit as you said, that comes to confuse humanity?
R. I think that Baal HaSulam treats all those things on the level of medications that help balance a person but the philosophical side, he doesn't accept that.
S. The study of the wisdom of Kabbalah does it correct a person’s psychological problems?
R. Yes, but it is not coming as a medicine or as a remedy. Meaning if a person is healthy it advances him toward the purpose of creation, but if a person who is unwell mentally we should not do it we should not replace it. We should not actually engage in all of those things including the wisdom of Kabbalah.
8. S. (16:54) It seems as if humanity develops with all kinds of methods as Baal HaSulam depicts, and in the end, there needs to be a certain spiritual layer above it all, meaning that humanity needs to progress in the end to spirituality?
R. It must advance and reach the level of the Creator.
S. What does that mean?
R. It would feel and know and be able to carry out actions in order to bestow and then it will bring about a general balance complete balance of reality.
S. What is the role of the wise students within that process, and how do they need to act? Baal HaSulam writes for a long time and he says that it is all heading to spirituality, so at the moment it is as if sitting patiently doing their work in a certain way, the Kabbalist until humanity reaches a certain level. What do I need to do at that level at that point?
R. Which point?
S. When humanity will be ready to take that layer of spirituality?
R. When we connect there between us we are ready to receive the purpose of creation inside the vessel we have built. That is what we need to do, in effect, we need to connect our vessels and combine our vessels, in a common vessel to receive all of the light of the purpose of creation so it would fill us and raise us to the degree of the Creator. I am certain we are on the right path to that, although we sometimes feel like we fall and do not know how to even ascribe ourselves to some world or some method. All of it is because the upper light is working on us this way, so as it says, anything but leave, this is the most important, anything but leave. Remember we learned about it and we read about it. These things are very important, let the upper lights work on us.
9. S. (20:48) What in that humanity went to materialistic psychology, what brought it closer to the wisdom of Kabbalah?
R. We understand more about our nature, about humans and the structure of humans, this perception, it helps us investigate reality and see our place in it.
S. Whoever engages in philosophy, does he have no greater question about the meaning of life and the purpose of life than someone who doesn't engage in philosophy?
R. No.
S. That is unclear, why does materialistic psychology have a certain engagement?
R. Because psychology is connected to man's perceptions. Psychology is more practical and more experimental whereas philosophy can be completely disconnected from reality.
S. Then the question is what other transition needs to take place in order for humanity to go from psychology to the need for the wisdom of Kabbalah, what develops in a person so that he needs the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to answer his questions?
R. There are two things here. First, we can't do anything using psychology, and the second thing is that we have no choice. We are stuck in a state where no matter what we take we will not be able to advance in understanding the purpose and understanding life and this state is extremely humiliating to us. It puts us down.
S. Is it in the point where a person starts looking at that in which he does not succeed, not that he doesn't succeed but that he has failed individually and that is what opens him up to the society and there is no chance that something good could happen. Is that the transition to the wisdom of Kabbalah?
R. Yes, meaning we will reach a state where either we are going to go back to small villages, or we are going up to the heavens.
S. How can we in the message as it currently appears this message of connection is for the individual? Either he hears or he doesn't hear, and he can easily resist that. How could we make it something of the group of the nation where a person understands that he cannot escape from that, that there is some sort of law that is acting on the society in which he lives, how could we discuss it in such a way, could that even help?
R. I don't quite understand what you are saying, I only understand one thing, we are managed from above and we need to advance on the path of materialistic psychology.
S. Do we need to show a person the progress in materialistic psychology until he reaches the need for the wisdom of Kabbalah?
R. Sure because it will pass, it will transition more gently, and smoothly into the wisdom of Kabbalah.
10. S. (25:49) I once did two courses in social psychology and I was even impressed by the fact that lots of Kabbalah’s basics existed in that and the question is, how much can it join in the message in dissemination or should we detach them?
R. No we need neither this nor that, either connection or disconnection just leave it alone. We need only one thing for the connection between us to build inside of us, specifically the connection between us we build the true reality.
S. Because you replied to a friend here that through psychology people will connect to Kabbalah, so how can people through materialistic psychology come to connect with the wisdom of Kabbalah?
R. We will talk about it still, we will talk about it.
11. S. (27:07) The will to receive and the will to bestow are they equal to the same extent to a person's nature to human nature?
R. Of course, the will to receive more.
S. But in a person the potential exists for the will to bestow, right?
R. Only on the condition that it is in order to receive.
S. In any case, when Baal HaSulam speaks about these psychological changes does that discuss the balance between them?
R. There is no balance between them, where are you taking this from?
S. What is the small psychological change that Baal HaSulam writes in another place that we need to do?
R. Let's see, find the place.
12. S. (28:09) Philosophers don't have the proof, the philosopher comes, gives a theory and some take it some don't and then psychology comes in and brings it into proof, and then everything has an experiment and has to be shown that it works that is inserted into this modern thought, this need for proof. Now that need for proof for the practical side of it, will simply reveal the boundaries of psychology because there are many things that don't work out for them and as much as they cannot prove, so at a certain moment according to its laws just like a scientist, according to his laws he cannot answer all the questions and then they will take something else. My impression is that this stage has already come, but the will to receive a stronger meaning people if there isn't some kind of a shot that comes to a person so a person doesn't make any step forward and then he'll just say it's all nonsense psychology psychiatry philosophy, just give me to eat and drink and that is it. Meaning I don't see the natural process of development here as if it is something in a person's awareness that they will come to a certain agreement, a certain conclusion.
R. No they will not come to that conclusion. The main thing for us is for them to pass the time nice and easy and whatever will be will be. No one thinks of the time to come.
13. S. (30:13) Does materialistic psychology not what we learn at universities but real psychological thought, could that be some kind of thing that mediates between that person who is not in the wisdom of Kabbalah and a person who is in Kabbalah? Is there a certain common ground there?
R. Look, these things are so wide and expansive, and everyone is wandering there, so it is hard to give precise definitions. For every science, for each branch I don't know, I think that we are approaching a state of chaos and everything and that might be good and right. Humanity will understand us reaching the end of its abilities and powers and it is not reaching the correct nature, the correct research and investigation and that is how it will come about.
S. When we build connections with others who have no points in the heart or for example our children. Do we have control over the development of the point in the heart or is our development only in order to bring them to a place where they as if become materialistic and realistic and beyond that it does not depend on us?
R. Yes, I would say that, yes. We need to understand that we should also be a little bit above it and higher than that, we need to try to bring them at least into the doorway of a virtual world if you could say that. Just like they understand naturally that there are still, vegetative, animate, speaking and the forces between them, we also need to teach them a little bit that there are such types of nature that we cannot realize fulfill or not with our senses and we need to engage with that as well.
14. S. (34:01) In all the articles of Baal HaSulam and Rabash there is a purpose, a hint whether concealed or revealed. I can't understand the purpose of the goal in this article, what is he trying to tell us? He didn't just write something informative that there is psychology and philosophy, what is the hint, what is he trying to hint to? He speaks from this space of attainment. He sees there that this thing exists and it can either help or hinder us. What is he trying to say? What kind of weapon is he trying to provide us with this article with a strong instrument, with all the things that Kabbalists write may help us bring the world to the wisdom of Kabbalah.
R. He wants to say that we need to reveal more forces where without them reality will not be understood.
S. Which means that each one of those things psychology, philosophy, and clinical psychology doesn't matter, it is part of the puzzle and it turns out if one part of the puzzle, and if one piece leaves the whole puzzle breaks down. So we shouldn't simply relate to it that it could help us if we accept it or we make a partnership for the advancement of the wisdom of Kabbalah. In my mind, we have no right to say that something is completely not good, completely not suitable for us. We have to work with whatever is in our possession, whatever the Kabbalists give us this hint. There's this vessel, this weapon and turn them for the sake of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we can't just say that it doesn't exist.
R. Yes, that is what I reply to you, yes.
Reading. (36:51) “I Am Solomon, The above matter is much like a fable…”
15. R. (38:14) Yes, so why does he behave in such a way? Three preventions. What did not give him the opportunity to prove himself? Let's move on.
Reading. (38:33) “Three Preventions, There are three reasons…”
16. S. (47:50) When Asmodeus (king of demons, evil) revealed philosophy and all the other methods it’s clear that there is no other method so you can explain what is happening in reality, that everything is deteriorating. The wisdom of Kabbalah remained a shining diamond of Truth and there is no fake jewelry anyone can buy and still, I do not see any demand for it.
R. There is no demand as well. Look, who can come close to the wisdom of Kabbalah, one who truly was born with a desire that is strong which is directed at the revelation of the Creator. Where he doesn't depict to himself that he can live without discovering the true reality, and everything else they agreed to live as now as if they were in the womb and they never left the womb. To shut the eyes, to get warmer, and comfortable, feel good, and let it be that way, that’s life, as if inside a dream. What is bad about that, tell me.
S. I'm asking because we are teaching a global course. I'm translating it, I'm impressed they are the best instructors, with simultaneous translation to dozens of languages and there are 500 new students there. It’s not clear here, what is next?
R. What's next? Humanity as if doesn’t need any more than that, I don't know. Baal HaSulam, as Rabash always said, had even less students.
S. Yes but what do we need to understand from that? The fact that we need to continue, I heard you in the talk, you have a Ten, and as to what you need to do it’s clear that is what we need to do, but what is beyond that?
R. Everything else depends on the upper force. Everything else depends on the upper force, but look at what it brings us, such corporeal actions in order to organize ourselves in Israel, and in general it is quite complicated. We need to see great corrections also in that.
S. Anyone here in Israel today I'm sure feels a great deal of pain but what to do with this pain, how to translate it into action?
R. It advances us. There are those that advance us in understanding and feeling and there are those that advance us without understanding, without feeling just like that, they advance us.
17. S. (52:02) Why doesn't the wisdom of Kabbalah declare that it rids the person of the suffering of the will to receive?
R. It frees a person from suffering, it gives a person advice, it doesn't free a person from suffering, it gives a person advice on how to progress. And the person chooses each time in such advice more and more and then that is what progresses him.
S. Yes, but it claims, it doesn't claim, it brings a person to adhesion in the Creator all kinds of exalted things, that to present this package how to present it to the public?
R. How can you? That is what he said in the beginning, I am Solomon. Can you present that before people who will accept it, who will understand it? Only those people who are already in connection with them and studied something from him, they revealed him and agreed with him.
S. Yes, but you cannot come to the people who are suffering and say to them I am Solomon, I am Solomon, who can rid you of your problems?
R. They will not understand.
S. Why, all the people of Israel?
R. They won't believe, they won’t believe.
S. I feel that to tell people to go for adhesion with the upper force they don’t want to do it, but if you tell them to come, I'll take you to solve your problems, all your torments of the will to receive and you can explain what is the will to receive?
R. Show me how you solve a problem.
S. Through connection?
R. Through connection.
S. Yes through this power of connection.
R. They come to connection, and you make a group that studies the sources and they start engaging in that, let's say for 10-20 years.
S. Doesn't have to be 10-20 years, I think pretty quickly people would feel a relief in their lives from the torments of the will to receive, the will to receive doesn’t let the people live.
R. They will have it easier because they connect, that's something else.
S. Also the incorporation, I wanted to ask about it. Is the incorporation between those who can devote themselves to the wisdom and those who can only receive benefit for themselves, will it not help and raise everyone to the next degree?
R. I don't know.
S. There's a problem in presenting the wisdom, how to present it, present it more as something that will solve your problems?
R. Baal HaSulam writes about that, so what?
S. I feel like it is missing this part of the presentation.
R. Physically.
S. No, how to present the wisdom of Kabbalah to the public, how to publicize it, market it?
R. So, add.
S. I just got up and said what I think.
R. We need to continue writing and adding to Baal HaSulam and to Rabash as much as we are capable of doing so. It could be that the small ones like ourselves, that we will find a solution so that we will be able to touch the hearts of the generation.
18. S. (56:19) We learned that shyness is a good quality and I guess there are many shy people in this generation who suffer great torments because of their shyness, and maybe if we publicize that shyness is in the wisdom of Kabbalah it's a very good quality, that it will draw a lot of people to the path. Do you think it's a good possibility?
R. I don't know, I don't know. Find sources that at least somewhat hint about that and then we will continue.
Reader: (57:41) Recommended reading, Peace In the World- Baal HaSulam
He Writes: “The whole difficulty lies in changing our nature…”
19. S. (59:10) We mostly disseminate lately the idea that connection brings a solution and salvation and there are quotes that back it up and we do a lot of work online. The problem is the result that we see is that many people come instead of coming to us, they go to regular religion. The question is do we treat it as an intermediate stage after which they come to us or what would be the next state?
R. We are not against the usual opinion meaning the regular Judaism, but certainly we need to increasingly explain to them that what we learn and why we are the foundation, the center of wisdom, that is all. We will try.
S. There is no change we have to make from the point of view of the message that it will be more aimed at Kabbalah and less at the regular belief that people have?
R. Write that to our managers who are responsible for dissemination, and we will decide on that together.
20. S. (1:00:46) I'm quite close to the founders of this faculty of social psychology of a specific University and they want to send their regards to you, and I want to give an example. On the academics that founded the faculty spoke directly to our students, that psychology has nothing more to offer people and everything is found in the Torah. This is a direct quote from the management of the faculty.
R. Thank you for your comment, we wish for that in which the mind of everyone will be eliminated.