The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) June 25, 2024.
Part 2: Rabash. Letter No. 48
Reader: Hello, we're reading Letter number 48 by the Rabash. It's on the Arvut system and in the Study Materials.
Reading Letter 48: (00:22)
April 13, 1959, Tel-Aviv
Hello and all the best to my friend,
I read the book you wrote me about and enjoyed it because it is just as you said.
Concerning the approaching Passover, it is written, “The Torah spoke in relation to four sons,” etc., “and the one who does not know how to ask, to him you shall open.” We should interpret the word, “ask,” from the words, “asking about the rains,” which means prayer. That is, one who does not know how to pray, the reason is that he does not have a deficiency, for prayer pertains specifically to a place of deficiency. Then, “to him you shall open,” meaning that a place of deficiency shall open to him, he will have what to pray for, and the Creator will be able to bestow upon him the light of Torah. This is why the Torah spoke specifically in relation to him, for one who has no deficiency, it means that he has no Kli (vessel) in which to receive, so it is impossible to give him.
“The Torah spoke” means that it teaches us how to qualify ourselves to be rewarded with the light of the Creator, which is all that is valuable that was given to us, as it is written, “For it is your wisdom and intelligence before the eyes of the nations … for what great nation has a God near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call upon Him?” This means that the Creator is close to us in that He wishes to bestow upon us all of His goodness. All that is lacking is the call, the deficiency, for only where there is a lack there is room for asking, which is the prayer, namely the Kli for reception of the abundance. This is the meaning of “and the one who does not know how to ask, to him you shall open,” open a place of deficiency.
When he has the lack and he asks and requests the Creator to satisfy it, it is said, “He who has one hundred wants two hundred.” It follows that by satisfying the lack that one has for spirituality, a greater lack appears. That is, afterwards he obtains bigger Kelim (vessels), and through these Kelim he receives bigger lights because he can already call upon the Creator, as our sages said, “Open for me one cleft in repentance, as the tip of a needle, and I will open for you gates for wagons and carts to enter.” That is, a person should keep the “to him you shall open” even if it is only as the tip of a needle.
There are two meanings to it:
It is as small as the tip of a needle. This means that if there is a deficiency to spirituality, even if the deficiency is small, it is already possible to call upon the Creator to help him satisfy the lack. When the Creator satisfies the lack, then “He who has one hundred wants two hundred” anyway, and this is why the light itself creates the Kli, meaning the place of deficiency until the Creator promises him that He—the light itself—will open to him gates through which wagons and carts enter.
Another meaning in the words, “as a tip of a needle,” is that the small lack will sting and pain him like the tip of a needle that pricks with. One who has a lack but does not feel it, this still does not help him. But if his lack pains him then he asks and requests of the Creator to satisfy his lack.
May the Creator satisfy our lack favorably in corporeality and spirituality, and may we have a happy and kosher festival.
From your friend who wishes you and your family the very best,
Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:58) We can see that in a spiritual Partzuf, the expanding of the light turns off the deficiency until it completely disappears in the Tabur. So, why does he write that someone who got one hundred now wants two hundred?
M. Laitman: What is it written about that one who received one hundred wants two hundred?
Student: It doesn't feel that that's the way it is.
M. Laitman: Why? In our life it can be the opposite.
Student: I'm speaking, let's say in a Partzuf, what I was saying in the beginning, the light expands, and it causes a lack of a deficiency until the Tabur completely can't sustain it, there's no deficiency, anymore.
M. Laitman: Correct, and in the end, does it want more or less?
Student: I don't know, the Partzuf refines itself and remains with no forces.
M. Laitman: Yes, and?
Student: I don't know if it wants more, later on.
M. Laitman: What about its deficiency?
Student: Lost, gone.
M. Laitman: Disappears.
Student: Yes, nothing has remained.
M. Laitman: So, what good did that do?
Student: That's what I'm asking, when is this condition that he got a hundred and now wants two hundred, when does that exist?
M. Laitman: He wants to say that the pleasure that comes doesn't come in order to erase the deficiency, to satisfy it, to fill it. It comes to awaken, to stimulate, to arouse the deficiency. When you have a little bit of desire, a small desire for something, let's say sweet, and you're given a tiny drop just to feel in your mouth that it's sweet, so you want more, why? And then they tell you, wait, you received it, why more? No, I want more because the pleasure itself comes and expands the deficiency for the pleasure. So, here, you can say the same.
Student: How to make it like that? That the pleasure will broaden the deficiency?
M. Laitman: It's not going to work like that because our will to receive isn't intended to constantly increase your deficiency, understand? Here, how should I put it, the method works in the opposite way. We have to increase a desire for something that doesn't belong to the pleasure because the pleasure that comes erases the vessel.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:06) He gives an explanation of the tip of the needle, and they write us an opening as the tip of the needle and it will open the whole world. But here he gives another explanation about the needle that there has to be a deficiency that it'll prick him, like a needle, that he'll feel uncomfortable. So, can you explain what is the expectation of us, and what he writes here about this prick that we will feel such a deficiency?
M. Laitman: It's a very small deficiency but very meaningful. In short, you can't run away from it, it's a deficiency that's always nagging at you. And then you have to, nevertheless, find a way to get rid of it. What possibilities do we have in corporeality to get rid of it?
Student: From a small deficiency?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: If it's receiving a direct fulfillment, supposedly, and then you get rid of it. But it's not what he means here.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He means that you turn to Him, and He will fill that deficiency.
M. Laitman: Well, another solution?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:01) I think this is what's the difference between the wisdom of Kabbalah and the rest of the world. That we need to learn how to increase the importance of this deficiency. That it'll feel pleasant, that it'll be desired, that we'll want it. Because according to nature, if something's lacking, a person doesn't want it. He wants a fulfillment, he doesn't want a deficiency. And that's the question: What does it mean to Him you can open? He also writes that he who has no lack, he doesn't understand what he's lacking, then you can open. Then it’s like, increase his deficiency, give him a deficiency.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So that's what our life should be like, that we're constantly searching for this deficiency. That it'll be something good, desired, pleasant to us, that we'll be lacking spirituality. Also, the lesson, you said you're not giving answers as you used to. I think today that you're giving much more than you used to because you're constantly giving us more and more of a deficiency. You don't have to come out of a lesson filled; you keep giving us back the questions. You raise us precisely to where we need to get to. So, how to really make this thing so desired that we want this deficiency, all the time?
M. Laitman: It's good to have a deficiency next to the filling and then the deficiency and the filling complement each other, and then you really get a complete meal. Whereas, if the deficiency is still not complete, then we need to increase the deficiency. Maybe change it a little bit. So how do we do this, that's a question.
Student: You are saying a deficiency is close to the filling but it's not close. The deficiency is the fulfillment?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Just before you have it, you don't want it. After you have it, it becomes the fulfillment. You said that Rabash asked where that pharmacy is that you can have a deficiency. How do you live this, that you constantly want this deficiency, before it comes because when it comes, it's not wise already.
M. Laitman: It's from enjoying the sensation of the lack, of the deficiency, and toward whom it is directed. Rabash writes about it, and in general, we understand. For example, look at old people, sick people. You can give them anything they ever wanted, they can't even taste it. They push it away, they can't, why? There's no appetite. But you wanted it so much your whole life and now look what we did for you. I can't, I can't, it's standing in his throat and he can't swallow it. And that's the way it is with our deficiency, we need to rise above the deficiency that we enjoy, to whom we please, to whom we give pleasure. And then we'll be able to reveal the deficiency, receive it, and satisfy it so that the deficiency will be the coin that is passed back from the merchant and back.
Student: And that's the prick that we're constantly searching? Who we're bringing joy to and that will give us the right deficiency?
M. Laitman: Yes, that's the main thing.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:13) In the movie theater they use it; the whole film is built on a deficiency, like a romantic movie that in the end the couple kiss or fall in love, but the whole movie is their longing to be together. Once they kiss, the movie's over, it's not interesting anymore. There's a lot of examples. So, we can really take that example on the yearning, the longing, increasing that deficiency, how in the Ten we want to be connected but we know we're not, and we do need the Creator and it's as if this tip of a needle keeps pricking. If we hold the friends in our thoughts all the time but even though we're not connected yet, we're constantly longing for that. So, that deficiency becomes something tasty, and good, and joyful. You can also see it in music compositions, let's say classical music from hundreds of years ago; It could be 15 minutes long and only in the end of the 15 minutes there's that chord, that there's the catharsis, the ending chord, and before, it's a path that a person has to go through but when we listen to it, we enjoy it. It takes us up and down and it gives us excitement. That's how we should be in the Ten. So, I wanted to emphasize that tip of the needle, that it'll constantly give us that prick to think of the connection, of the final good state but when it comes, it'll come, but we are relating to the path.
M. Laitman: Nice.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:26) Yesterday we met and read this part. I saw that we don't really have a true deficiency because when we prayed, each one, what we needed to do, how we needed to do all kinds of calculations, but there was no prayer, there's no demand, there's no plea. So, I understand that we don't have a deficiency and that's the difficulty. Like Rabash says, where is that pharmacy you can buy a deficiency? And we want to build a spiritual society. Once there's a deficiency, the Creator can feel it. Give me a vessel, I'll fill it. I'll ask a question you'll answer, if I don't have a question, you won't answer. So, the problem is how to create that deficiency. We want to enter a new state, a new society, a spiritual society. So how do we build a new deficiency for that new state?
M. Laitman: By helping one another.
Student: How do we help each other now? Now each one that they’ll try to search for this deficiency.
M. Laitman: We talk among ourselves, and put together, combine the small deficiencies together and check if these deficiencies, if the deficiency that we put together along the way can it already be in the size and power that makes it a vessel for a new state?
Student: Someone who's hearing me now maybe has a similar deficiency to mine. How can he connect his deficiency to my deficiency that there'll be a common Kli?
M. Laitman: By you beginning to work together.
Student: Okay, I hope it happens.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:58) If a person is in a state like that elder that you give him everything and he doesn't want anything. So, what is he lacking?
M. Laitman: Deficiency.
Student: And where can he get it?
M. Laitman: I don't know.
Student: So, he just goes and weans out, where can he take a deficiency if he has all the pleasures in the world?
M. Laitman: He doesn't have any pleasure because he can't enjoy; you can bring him plates with..
Student: Like that allegory.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: That he's blind and he's deaf.
M. Laitman: There's nothing you can do. You need a deficiency.
Student: Where can a person get the deficiency?
M. Laitman: Only from the society. From the society. Examples from the society.
Student: How to ascend from the state that he wants nothing for himself until he asks, who am I giving joy to? That he just changes everything.
M. Laitman: He needs to receive that example from the outside. From outside of himself. That he sees that there are things that he fills and things that he gets pleasure from others filling them.
Student: Deficiency can only come from the friends, from society?
M. Laitman: No, from anything that can impress him.
Student: So, from sources, can I get a deficiency?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, what does it mean, everything, I can get an impression? Also something outside of Rav, books and friends?
M. Laitman: According to your personal situation.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:27) There's a nice excerpt in Baal HaSulam’s letter. He writes that, you can testify that in a person's heart, he'll find closeness to the Creator and that can disappear, God forbid. That's why the Creator keeps giving him illuminations. That if a person hears his voice as the Lord is your shadow, he does not fall from the overcomings. Because he sees and hears that the holy Shechina also suffers from the increasing longing. And it just goes and gets stronger. One time after another in stronger longing until he completes the point in his heart with a strong connection that will never die. So, he says that this addition that he sees and hears that also the divinity, the Shechina is suffering to the same extent because of the increasing longing which gets stronger. How do you add a deficiency from the divinity suffering the same way he is? It's so exalted.
M. Laitman: How can you feel that deficiency and also take it into account?
Student: But he writes that this is what we need.
M. Laitman: Yes. We hear it, but we only hear it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:32) In the convention we had before the Corona, there was a consensus in society. That's what I heard and felt, that the reward is more deficiency. It was like a slogan I heard from friends and I really felt it strongly in that convention. So, is that a solution to the conflict on where to get more of a deficiency, that we really make actions of unity and enter prayer together so the deficiency comes when there's truth there?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Because I hear a lot of friends asking where to get a deficiency from, so you don't really have to search for it, it comes on its own once we exert in connection and prayer.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:33) He's hinting about the four sons, and then there's the wise, the wicked, and the naive. He doesn't open it to them but specifically the one who doesn't know how to ask, then you can open it for him. And we learned once that it's phase four, which is poor. So, how do you reach that sensation that a person reaches feeling that he's poor and has no reason? How's that transition? How do you get there? That the deficiency can get implemented?
M. Laitman: I don't know. I don't know. Try to reach it.
Student: We have to scrutinize it between us in the work?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:40) I love this article. And in one of the previous ones he speaks about honor, that even if a person has no honor, when he starts getting it, he starts falling. Here he's speaking about the same action, only opposite. Yesterday a friend read the prayer of his group at three o'clock, and from the prayer there was a plea for this communism to happen, and I felt that, wow, great, there's people that I can adhere to, because I don't even know what communism is. Only to be exposed, that's the way, but the right, without that it’s the wrong. Now these things that give you this prick, you have to search for them, if not in yourself, so in others. In helping others you will be pricked by them. You said something I didn't understand in the beginning and now I do. You said, bring all the people into your heart, the whole Ten, and then you can check. And I said, how can it be that I bring them into my heart before I check? Now I understand, what will pinch, will pinch, what will grow, will grow, so this article really encompasses many things together.
M. Laitman: Okay good. Good that you think that way.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (32:20) Rabash writes that…
M. Laitman: How long have you been here that you're still speaking Russian?
Student: I’m learning, it's just that I can't speak. When a person satisfies a deficiency is given a bigger deficiency. What we see is that people who come to us in the beginning, they have a big deficiency, and then it disappears, and they leave. Why isn't a deficiency, a more deficiency given to them?
M. Laitman: I don't know but I guess they're not directed towards developing the true deficiency, you see developing a true deficiency, that's something they're not concerned with.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:21) The friend’s question is very correct. How do we acquire the right deficiency, not that I just demand a deficiency from my gut, how do we acquire the right deficiency from the Ten?
M. Laitman: Through exertion.
Student: In what?
M. Laitman: Exerting with the friends that you want to attain a true deficiency. Every time more and more.
Question (Women PT 11): (34:00) What is the action we should do to open up a deficiency from a state of not knowing what to ask?
M. Laitman: Not knowing what to ask is an important degree; but it's not a great one. Imagine for yourselves that there specifically is a deficiency that wants to ask, it's exploding, but making himself as if he's mute. Then, it will be called a true deficiency. It will be beneath the screen, with a restriction, with a screen, with a reflected light.
Question (Women Rehovot 1): (35:13) When does a person come to the real deficiency? What should be added in the work to come to the real deficiency?
M. Laitman: It's written in all kinds of forms, until he doesn't let me sleep, and so on, meaning, a true deficiency. Imagine to yourself that a person is tired, falls off his feet, already after a week or two of difficult, hard work and can't even fall asleep and calm himself, and that deficiency that won't let him sleep still doesn't let him disconnect. That is a true deficiency.
Question (Latin 1): (36:28) Is there a connection between a corporeal deficiency and a spiritual deficiency?
M. Laitman: Connection between a corporeal deficiency and a spiritual deficiency? I think that a corporeal deficiency is incorporated in a spiritual deficiency, and all of its work is how to emphasize the spiritual deficiency and to build it in a way that it will cover man. That man can hide in it.
Reader: The next part of the lesson is on “Chapters of the Fathers.”