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

Daily Lesson (Morning) March 10, 2025.

Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Shamati 12. The Essence of Man’s Work

Reader: Hello, we're reading in the book of Shamati, in Hebrew it's page 525, Shamati 12, “The Essence of Men's Work”. You can find the study materials in Sviva Tova and in the Arvut websites. You can also ask questions live through these websites. 

Reading: (00:23) Shamati 12. The Essence of Man’s Work - Twice

I heard during a meal on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, October 5, 1948

The essence of man’s work should be how to come to feel taste in bestowing contentment to one’s Maker, since all that one does for oneself removes him from the Creator due to the disparity of form. Conversely, if one acts in order to benefit the Creator, even if it is the smallest act, it is still considered a Mitzva [commandment].

Therefore, one’s primary exertion should be to acquire the strength to feel taste in bestowing, which is through lessening the force that feels taste in self-reception. Then one slowly acquires the taste in bestowing.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:13) What is an act for the benefit of the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Every person can divide the possibilities of what he's doing between doing it for himself or doing it for the sake of the Creator. There's nothing else in the world, only men and the Creator. 

Student: Yes, but for oneself, for myself, I understand what it is, I feel what it is. But for the sake of the Creator? 

M. Laitman: You don't know, for the sake of the Creator. You have to do more and more such actions. 

Student: Which actions? 

M. Laitman: It’s ‘as if’ you're doing it for the sake of the Creator. 

Student: How do I know that I'm not getting confused, that it truly is for His sake?

M. Laitman: There are such actions that you cannot do for the sake of anyone else. So, you do it for the sake of the Creator. Let's say, all the actions that we're doing that the Torah obligates us to do. Everything that can be interpreted as having no other reason but that the Creator created the world in this way. And gave us the opportunity to bless Him for doing His will. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:22) How to come to feel taste in bestowal, that's what he writes?

M. Laitman: How to come to this taste? 

Student: What does it mean, to come? 

M. Laitman: To come is to approach it. 

Student: What is this action of approaching, getting closer? 

M. Laitman: When I check all my actions relative to the Creator or commandments, and I try to do them in order to bestow contentment to Him. And slowly, gradually, I begin to feel in them, my part in them. 

Student: Okay, and he ends with “that we do it by lessening”, what does he say it here? “Lessening the force that feels taste in self-reception”. What is that? How do I lessen that force that feels taste in self-reception? 

M. Laitman: If I do anything for the sake of something, someone outside of me, in that action it's hard to say that I'm doing everything of myself, for myself. But there's a sort of a mixture of what I do for my sake and for the sake of someone else. 

Student: So, I should try to do each and everything not for myself, every action? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:26) I'm going back to the beginning of the article. Under the title it says, I heard it during a meal on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, October 5, 1948. It gives us a desire to try to imagine that event, the Rosh Hashanah meal. So, do we know anything about it? Who was present there? Where was that? 

M. Laitman: No. It was so long ago. We're not going to get out of the date any other details or anything.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:25) He says at the end of the excerpt that we should lessen the force or lessen self-reception. What does it mean to lessen self-reception, it's our nature? How do we make this effort together not to perform, to truly perform actions for the benefit of the Creator and not for ourselves? 

M. Laitman: When I see in my actions that I do them in order to succeed with my attitude toward the Creator. Then there's nothing to do, here, but truly to bestow contentment to Him. 

Student: How do we measure the success in that, that we truly succeed in our action to give contentment to the Creator? What is it, how do we measure that it truly is a success? 

M. Laitman: By thinking about it. And then doing it for the sake of the Creator.

Student: The thought, you say? We need to constantly think about it? And how do we pass this thought to each other, openly? 

M. Laitman: We talk about it and each one is trying to do it. 

Student: As we always say, through the examples we give each other? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:17) He writes, here, that we should feel taste. Taste means pleasure? 

M. Laitman: Oh, to taste, that is something special, nevertheless. Either I'm doing something, and through this action I'm not connected to the Creator; or I'm doing an action and through that action, I do connect to Him. So, there is a difference. 

Student: But it's still the taste of pleasure. What is this taste? What does he mean when he says “taste”? 

M. Laitman: It says: “Taste and see the Lord is good”.

Student: Because it is good. It's good for whom? Good for the Creator, or? 

M. Laitman: I guess, good for those who aim themselves at the Creator.

Student: It's the egoistic, it's a taste which is for me. 

M. Laitman: I don't know. 

Student: How do I know that I'm doing it? I mean, if it all is something?

M. Laitman: Let's try to do such an action; with this action, let's try to do it. And if it's in order to give contentment to the Creator, then this action is called the Mitzva [commandment]. It's not simply an action, it's a commandment and we'll see how we feel it. So, every time I do something that can be aimed, directed, at the Creator, then I'm thinking about it. And it's likely that after a few times I begin to feel it, more and more.

Student: The word Mitzva [commandment] is from the word command. It's something that comes to me from somewhere else, and it's against my desire. 

M. Laitman: Could be yes, could be no.

Student: But it's something that doesn't come from within me, it comes from the outside, which means that I need force for that. Where do I take the force to do something that somebody else tells me and I have to do it? 

M. Laitman: I'm guessing that if a person intends to do it for the sake of the Creator, he receives strength from it. 

Student: From the very desire to try to do something which is not from me, from that we get the force?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:11) How does a person perform an action which is not for his own benefit? 

M. Laitman: This is truly a complicated problem, but we have to learn after we speak only of the outcome of our actions, these outcomes then are called Mitzvot [commandments]. And we can relate them somehow to our actions.

Student: So, what does a person do? Because he writes that if one operates for self-benefit, he distances himself, removes himself from the Creator. So, how does he start to operate not for his own benefit? 

M. Laitman: That is a little bit of a problem until a person begins to, nevertheless, aim himself toward bestowing contentment to the Creator. But when he tries, when he does everything, he wants to do it with the intention of giving contentment to the Creator. He begins to feel that he is connected to the Creator, and that he is doing it for His sake. And he is even rewarded with a response from the Creator to man, to him. That is why we need to do it this way. 

Student: How do you do it? How do you do something in order to bestow contentment to the Creator? How do you add that to your actions? 

M. Laitman: Even if you don't know how to do it in practice, but with the blessing, when you force yourself to do it, when you intend to do it, that in this action. You are coming out of yourself and, seemingly, are doing an action that connects you with a friend, let's say, and you continue. 

Student: He writes later on here that “man's primary exertion should be to acquire the force that feels taste in bestowing”. So, this exertion, this effort, how is it manifested? This desire to bestow in order to bestow contentment to the Creator, how is it manifested? 

M. Laitman: By wanting to do an action, which is first of all called a Mitzva [commandment], because you're doing what the Creator commanded you to do, and when you're doing it, you are doing the will of the Creator, and you add to it your own desire. And you hope to feel the result, as it's written, “Make your desire as His desire, so He will make His desire as your desire”. 

Student: How do I know what is the Creator's will so that I can make my will as His will? How can I know what is the Creator's will? 

M. Laitman: The Creator's will is to help you bestow. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:51) How do you perform an action in order to give contentment to the Creator? And you said you do something that connects you with a friend, with the friend.

M. Laitman: Let's say. 

Student: An act to bestow contentment to the Creator, first it needs to be an act which is in order to bestow to the friend? 

M. Laitman: If the two are connected, then certainly, yes.

Student: Is it possible to bestow contentment to the Creator not through the friend, not through the friends? 

M. Laitman: Maybe it's possible, I didn't check. I didn't check all possibilities, all opportunities, but it's possible. 

Student: How do you bestow contentment to the Creator without the friends, without the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Bestowing contentment to the Creator, it's possible if I know His desire, I can awaken an action, where through this action, my tendency is to bring something to the Creator - something great, something pleasant, and so on and so forth. This will be considered as a commandment. 

Student: How does a person not deceive himself? That he's operating in order to give contentment to the Creator when he's not operating through the friends? 

M. Laitman: He can act not through the friends, of course.

Student: Then he's not guarded from mistakes, as he writes elsewhere. If I operate to give contentment to the Creator not through the friends, there is a risk here. Maybe I'm deceiving myself. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, how can you check yourself that you are performing an action which is for the Creator not through the friends? This track, it's not clear. 

M. Laitman: I didn't get it? 

Student: Are there additional ways to bestow contentment to the Creator, which is not through the Ten? 

M. Laitman: No.

Student: There is no such thing, there is no such action? Everything has to be through the Ten? Is this what is called a taste in bestowal? A taste in bestowal means through the Ten to the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Maybe, I don't know. That's how it works out in life, according to how we're organized. But to say that this is the only way, I don't know.

Student: He writes that one's primary exertion should be to acquire the force that feels taste in bestowing upon one's Maker. How do I do that? 

M. Laitman: In whatever I'm able to do, I aim all of my actions to be with the intention of bestowing contentment to the Creator. 

Student: How do I do it with the Ten?

M. Laitman: I assemble them – bring them closer together – and thanks to our common force, we all approach giving Him contentment. 

Student: What will be a Mitzva here? What will be defined as a Mitzva? 

M. Laitman: Whatever you think is more important than other things. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:52) He writes, here, that we have to attain this force of the taste. What is this force we feel with the taste? 

M. Laitman: That in giving contentment to the Creator, I do this action with the force. 

Student: What does it mean “forcefully”? Beyond my own desire, even if I don't feel a taste in it? Is that what it means, “forcefully”? 

M. Laitman: If it's above my desire, then it needs further inquiry. Why do I do it? Who is the one who obligates me, so on and so forth.

Student: So, what does it mean for us to attain this force, so I thought, I could say - I attain this force with the taste, in the taste?

M. Laitman: I attain this force and taste if I wanted to come to the Creator, bestow to Him. And now, compared to what I had before, I feel that I have the force. I have the ability, the opportunity to do such an action, where the action will bring me closer to the Creator. So, I report to Him in such a way that my desire connects to His desire.

Student: This force is measured between the existing and the desirable, meaning that we constantly aim higher in the connection between us? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:58) He says, here, at the end of the article, that “we should acquire the strength that feels taste in bestowing. This is what we need to reach, which is through lessening the force that feels taste in self-reception”. We always speak about the first part. We don't talk about the second part, certainly not as a means to reach something, that may be a result?

M. Laitman: We feel.

Student: We feel what?

M. Laitman: We lower our desire for self-reception. 

Student: We never talk about that. We talk about attaining the force to bestow, the greatness of the goal, the greatness of the path, the Ten. We never talk about lessening, lowering, the force that feels taste in self-reception.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What is this action of lessening, diminishing the force that feels taste in self-reception? 

M. Laitman: When we don't want to receive the Creator's attitude to us - when will it come, when will it influence me, when will I feel that He did something to me? I don't want to be connected to that, I want to be connected to what I am able to do for Him. That's it.

Student: This means to make every effort not to search for a gain for yourself in this action?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: There's a small trap, here, because the desire to understand what Kabbalist writes is a strong desire.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: And actually, why do we want to understand what he writes? 

M. Laitman: We need it because without understanding, I can't identify, feel, that the Creator had arranged for me all the conditions that I will participate in them. And I'll feel how He relates to me, and with this reflected wave, turned to Him. 

Student: How do we take this desire to understand that it will truly be for Him and not to settle for understanding, to enjoy the understanding.

M. Laitman: I think that is clear to us from our entire lives. If I wish to detect a wave, a certain wave, let's say a radio or a television, then I must clothe it with my own wave. To clothe on it in a certain way so I could feel the frequencies, the waves, that come to me. And with which force I can open them and understand what they carry for me. 

Student: I think that the analogy is clear, but how do we not remain in the carrier wave but make it only a means so that the desire to understand what he writes will be a means, and not that we will enjoy it?

M. Laitman: I think that by wanting to be in place of the action of the Creator, “the desires of the Creator are in His Torah, and he will ponder it, day and night”. Meaning that I will think how can I do such actions as the Creator's actions toward me. And then, I will learn what He does for the whole world – for their lives, what does He do for my life. And after checking it, he writes about it, reason one, two, and three. It follows that he is not learning the Torah of the Creator but the Torah of the created beings. That is, it can be said about this that even if there weren't this Torah that he is learning, the Torah of the Creator. You would still have to observe it because these elements would force him to observe, or they would punish him. He sees from all the circumstances that the Creator relates to him in such a way that He gives him all the possibilities to act. And then, it turns out that he relates to Him in this way, as it is written: “ From Lo Lishma, you come to Lishma. Therefore, if he is smart and contemplates what he is doing here in our world, then he begins to believe that the capitol has a leader, and then he believes that the Torah that he is learning is the Torah of the Creator. And then, he can observe his desire is in the Torah of the Lord, meaning the Torah of the Creator and not the Torah of the created beings. And at that time, he observes the Torah as a commandment, and not as a Torah. Mitzva [commandment], means faith, and Torah is regarded as a gift, and that's a big difference. Mitzva [commandment], that is faith, is regarded as Tzedaka [charity], and it's written, and he believed in the Lord, and He regarded it for him as righteousness or charity.”

Reader: I want to say that Rav is reading from Rabash, the next article by Rabash, our next article, 913 - “His law, He contemplates”. We haven't read it yet. 

M. Laitman: Still, a person that comes to lessons, he prepares himself. 

Student: So, if I understand correctly, a person begins by wanting to understand, it's a kind of pleasure to understand what?

M. Laitman: In general, he wants to understand what's going on with him. 

Student: And from the study, he reaches the point where he, actually, enjoys the fact that the Creator is enjoying from him?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: But it's impossible to start without wanting to understand. There is an order to these things?

M. Laitman: No, it's through understanding. The wisdom of Kabbalah is through the mind, through the understanding of a person. When he inquires about himself about the world around him, and that's how he advances. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:40) When a person receives something, he should receive it for himself. Otherwise, how will he feel that he received something? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Why does he write that a person should lessen the force that feels taste in self-reception; otherwise, how can he receive something from the Creator if there's no taste in such reception? 

M. Laitman: He still didn't take care of what's going on with him by increasing his own force.

Student: How to arrange the vessels of reception so they'll be open for a correct connection with the Creator? 

M. Laitman: As it's written here. He wants to have a line, a connection with the Creator, and then from each passing day, when he overcomes a little bit more and more in each lesson, then he advances.

Student: The force of reception is the force of life. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, it needs to be managed correctly. The Creator is always giving and I have to receive. Otherwise, all of my force of life diminishes. But I need to feel this reception that I received, or not? That's what I'm asking because there's a fine line, here?

M. Laitman: This is the question: Why do you need it? With every action that we examine in our lives, we need to know what is it for? What do I have to do with it? And then, after checking, I can arrange it in the right direction. 

Student: When the Creator gives a person, anything that He gives him, to what limit should one receive it without losing the taste of life? 

M. Laitman: First of all, we need to know why are you doing this? So, I'm going to go and receive something that comes to me from the Creator. So, I'm in some form of contact with the Creator, He's giving and I'm receiving. So, in this transition from the Creator to the created being, there's a change of states from reception which is in a man, to the bestowal, which is in the Creator. 

Student: A person can receive, truly receive what the Creator is giving him. And in parallel also aim himself towards something else?

M. Laitman: Yes. Let's say, receiving such and such in order to bestow. That's what he does. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:54) He writes that through lessening the force that feels taste in self-reception. How do we lessen the taste self-reception, the force that feels taste self-reception? How do you do it? 

M. Laitman: By shortening, restricting, one's will to receive. 

Student: What about corporeal pleasures? Cigarettes, for example, that I smoke. I should also feel the force of gradually lessening the enjoyment?

M. Laitman: It is possible.

Student: In every self-reception you should feel less taste? 

M. Laitman: I don't know if you have every self-reception, but maybe. 

Student: Well, pleasures are always very confusing. I don't want to work on this thing that's not important.

M. Laitman: If you come here and enter into what we're studying here, then you will not be confused. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:11) If I receive it because I have no control over it. I receive some pleasure, like it or not, I have to receive it. What do I do with it? Do I have to regret it? 

M. Laitman: You should regret it, and now, what is most important is that you need to turn to the Creator. That He created the will to receive, He arranges all of the created beings in such a way. So, you should ask of the Creator that He will arrange you in such a way, that what you hear from within is what you hear from your will to receive, from your internality. And then it will be clear to you that you have to correct that. 

Student: I'll ask, for example: One of my kids comes to me, they give me a hug, this is something that brings great pleasure. So, how do I convert that to something else? Do I have to feel sorry for enjoying it? 

M. Laitman: I can't say, but you will manage it. 

Student: You cannot take it like it is. Meaning, I have to do something with it, even with that?

M. Laitman: You have to do it because it's an act on the side of the child. 

Student: No, I mean, when I now receive that pleasure, this pleasure for myself, it's clear. Do I have to now think, what am I going to do with this pleasure? How do I convert it to something else, restrict it, turn it? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Both those things, as well? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:33) He writes, there's a force that feels. There's a force that feels pleasure for myself, and there's a force that feels a taste in bestowal. Seemingly, the force of reception for myself is natural, it's naturally felt in us. The force of bestowal is a force that exists, and we have to connect to it. It exists in us, potentially somehow, or it's on the outside of us?

M. Laitman: Again?

Student: He speaks of forces.

M. Laitman: I hear you, yes?

Student: He says, either way, as I understand, there has to be a force of taste – without it, there's no livelihood. As a friend said, if I don't feel the force of reception for myself, I have no livelihood, liveliness. You can also receive a force of bestowal, if I understand here, because it's a taste, without taste, there's no life. So, these forces are the same forces with a different intention, or different forces? 

M. Laitman: Different forces, of course. 

Student: So, the force of bestowal is outside of me? It doesn't exist in me? It doesn't even have the beginning of it in me?

M. Laitman: The source of bestowal exists outside of us; and I feel that it comes and fills me. Yes. 

Student: Inside this force, I feel. He writes, the force that feels, not me, it's the force that feels the taste of bestowal.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And you told the friend that if we connect, we feel a force. The force of connection. Can you say that it's the beginning of the force of bestowal that a person can attain? And then he can live in it, and then he can lessen the force of reception for self?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And the place where a person feels the force that gives him taste, is it the same place? Is it either this or that, or are there different places? 

M. Laitman: It could be different places. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:03) Following the scrutiny with the friend, in my case, grandkids come to hug you. It's an even greater pleasure than your own child to come to hug you. So, how that moment when the grandkid comes to caress your face, you ascribe it to the Creator, you see the Creator in it. How do you turn that into that? 

M. Laitman: How do you transform it? You think about it, where does it come from? It comes from the grandchild and you have a connection with Him. This is why you receive what comes from Him in such a way. 

Student: On the one hand, you have this sweet little grandchild and it gives you infinite pleasure at that moment. On the other hand, there's something beyond it that forces you to scrutinize the force that receives and the force that bestows. It's like I'm supposed to bestow to the Creator through the grandchild? How should it work? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: There is the true life in those connections. The same with the friends.

M. Laitman: That's right. 

Student: So, at that moment, I have to think, it's the Creator hugging me. And I'm returning the same hug to Him. 

M. Laitman: Yes, that connection.

Question (Almaty): (46:59) If I understood it correctly, my actions aimed at giving contentment to the Creator, are they called a Mitzvah? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: It turns out that the May Congress, if I prepare myself for this, if I'm in charge of things, do I also keep the Creator's commandments in this? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Kyiv 1): (47:33) A pleasure comes to a person. He said we should restrict the reception for self and move this pleasure or return it to the Creator. How do I stop the pleasure and turn it into a pleasure for the Creator? 

M. Laitman: We learned that over many months, if not many years. The light comes from the Creator, it goes through filters: Restriction, screen and reflected light. And eventually, it is felt inside of the vessel. Afterwards, to the extent that the vessel has equalized its form with the light, the vessel begins to feel what then does it mean to be similar to the light? And here, a mutual dependency between them emerges, between the giver and the receiver. And also the opposite dependency. Because in this whole wisdom, we are scrutinizing only the intentions: How the will to receive positions itself in the role of bestowing. And that is all.

Question (Latin 4): (50:57) How can we decrease the taste in corporeal desires and hold on to the taste of keeping a Mitzvah, a commandment? 

M. Laitman: Again? 

Student: How can we lower or decrease the taste in corporeal desires and hold on to the taste of observing a commandment? 

Student: He said in the article that a person has to lessen reception for himself. So, he's asking, how can we lessen the reception for himself and hold on to the desires called, Mitzvah [commandment]? 

M. Laitman: Restrict the force of reception, and by that, or along with that maybe, as a result of that, increase the force of bestowal. Well, actually, one comes out of the other. And there's nothing so difficult about it or something we can't imagine. We are operating through the force of desire. And where we want something, if we are the masters of the work, there we take the desire and we operate with it, like with a shovel or no matter what it is, or like with every tool; this is what we need to do. And so, it doesn't seem like one who is working in such a way should have a hard time.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (53:23) Can there be a state where I lessen the taste of reception and I'm still not filled with a taste of bestowal? 

M. Laitman: This is a different question, already, and I think that they are related to each other. And it is impossible to continue with actions of reception without diminishing the acts of bestowal. 

Student: What's important? To work in parallel you both lessen and increase the taste of bestowal? 

M. Laitman: It depends on what you are doing.

Student: What's more important? To engage in lessening the force of reception or increase the force of bestowal?

M. Laitman: What is most important is the force of reception that should be in the created being. 

Student: The receiving force in the created being? What does it mean that it's the most important? 

M. Laitman: Because according to this force of reception, one can receive from the Creator, from the Giver. 

Student: I constantly have this anticipation of receiving, that the Creator will relate to me, will respond to me, will give me. And you said that you have to disconnect from that – minimize the need for this attitude from the Creator. But how do you do it, it's built into me without it, I don't feel myself.

M. Laitman: That is true, but it is possible that you arrange yourself in such a way that receiving is, or what you are about to receive for you, it's the end of the way. And then, only by you going to bestow, you revive that way. 

Student: What to do with the need for feedback that exists in me, some reaction from the Creator, a response?

M. Laitman: The response from the Creator should also be that way, also, yes, certainly. 

Student: I need to feel the Creator's attitude towards me? 

M. Laitman: You need to feel the Creator's attitude towards you and your attitude towards the Creator, and how they change. How they change according to the manner of your relation to the pleasure. 

Student: When will it come? How will I feel when He did something to me, when He bestowed? You said that I have to not be connected to it. 

M. Laitman: You are already in this action.

Student: What is the danger in such a state? 

M. Laitman: The danger could be only one thing: that you are thinking about how you will receive and that's it. And what will you get out of it? 

Student: So, what's the correct way not to fall into it? Into this pleasure from this attitude from the Creator. 

M. Laitman: Because you make a restriction, beforehand, you want to work only in order to equalize yourself with the Giver. 

Student: And what fills you there? What fills a person in that state? What gives him fulfillment? 

M. Laitman: It's filled with all the light that comes from the Creator. 

Student: So, the Creator's attitude towards him also fills him? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And he's allowed to enjoy that? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (58:28) How to correctly decipher the Creator's responses to me, His answers? 

M. Laitman: From everything that we talked about now, there is some kind of a... 

Student: There is... If I turn to Him and I don't feel an answer, that's also something that He wanted to give me. Sometimes, it comes through the Ten, sometimes it's something that appears in the heart, sometimes it's something in the world outside. And many times after turning to the Creator, you go, “what did He want me to experience here? What should I take from here?”. Sometimes, it's just a big question mark. I'm trying to understand if there's a way to decipher His answers.

M. Laitman: Yes. Yes, what's the problem? All in all, you need to receive from Him an elaboration, details, of what is He demanding you to perform a restriction over? What is He demanding from you the way you should invest, how do you turn your reception to be in order to bestow. All of these things. All in all, it's two or three things. That's it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:00:45) He writes here, “if he does one action for the benefit of the Creator, if it's, even if it's the smallest action, it's called a Mitzva, a commandment”. And I heard you say that the desire is a vessel, a vessel of work. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: If I now approach a certain action, how can I tell that it has the right intention? 

M. Laitman: The intention we have is either to receive or to bestow, that's it. So you have to check, what are you going towards in connecting with the Creator? To bestow to Him or to receive from Him? 

Student: Let's say, I come to a certain action, let's say, I gather with a Ten. I have to imagine that I'm placing my desire there. And what will be of this desire? I don't know how to describe it. How can I plan my intention before going for an action because it seems like something outside of my control., it's the opposite?

M. Laitman: You now want to enter contact with the Creator, right? 

Student: Yes.

M. Laitman: So, you feel that you received from the Creator some opportunity to be connected to Him. And then, you must come out of yourself, meaning to want to be in a state which is above your ordinary self – and to be a little bit more similar to the Giver, to the one who is bestowing to you. If you act like Him, and He's also doing the same towards you, for you, then you already have some similarity between you, or how can I say it? 

Student: Equivalence.

M. Laitman: Yes, equivalence. And then according to this equivalence, you already begin to arrange your Partzuf and His Partzuf until it becomes as one. 

Student: And there it's okay to feel the taste, right? After I do this action, I feel pleasure, taste, and it’s okay?

M. Laitman: Here, we need to understand why is it that sometimes, actually, feeling the action is good, and in other states feeling of this act of reception is bad? So, these are simple things. Simply, if I receive, then I need to perform actions by which I rise above this act of reception and I bring myself to an act of bestowal. That's it. 

Student: Before I go to perform any action, do I truly have the ability to picture this desire to imagine what you just described and to say that this is indeed the action that I'm going to be doing, that that's what's going to happen?

M. Laitman: Yes, tell yourself, I want to be in such an action. And then you will feel how much this force takes you, holds you. Or maybe, it's the other way around - it arranges you and gives you the possibility to bestow. 

Question (Rehovot 1): (01:07:19) Why does the Creator need us to give Him contentment, equivalence of form? 

M. Laitman: Equivalence of form. The fact that we are the opposite of the Creator, that is lack of equivalence of form. If we change our intention in order to receive to in order to bestow, then we will be in equivalence of form with the Creator. That is all it is. 

Question (Turkiye 9): (01:07:54) Are there any pleasures in this world that I can receive for myself? 

M. Laitman: This is according to what a person feels. If he feels that he can receive, let him receive. 

Student: How do you decide? What do I need to check? 

M. Laitman: If in that you're not stealing from someone when you are going to receive now. 

Question (Petah Tikva 31): (01:08:45) Man is a will to receive.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: You can't survive without receiving. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, what does it mean to decrease, to lessen the force that feels taste self-reception? 

M. Laitman: To diminish it, truly. What I received before, now I want to receive less. 

Student: But you can't without self-reception? 

M. Laitman: Without receiving, I'm not saying not to receive, but to receive less, and then less, and then less, until one brings himself closer to bestowal.

Student: In bestowal, you don't receive? 

M. Laitman: In bestowal we don't receive, but we receive already in the degree of, in order to bestow, receiving in order to bestow. These are already degrees that are beyond this world. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:10:02) There are all kinds of methods around the world whose work is only to diminish man's desire until the person becomes more and more spiritual. 

M. Laitman: No, that's not spiritual. To want less is not spiritual; it's to be less of Adam.

Student: What does it mean that he says here, to lessen, lessening the force that feels taste self-reception?

M. Laitman: Feeling taste in reception. In that, he wants to diminish it, to lessen it.

Student: There must be a discernment that I'm not grasping, here: It's my desire that I, practically, I see that it just grows, keeps growing. I want more and more and more.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: There's a force that he writes about, that is lessening. Can you make that discernment, I can't seem to grasp it, what is it? Because we're not talking about self-mortification or asceticism but I see something that I have to diminish. What do I have to diminish, here? 

M. Laitman: To limit. To limit. 

Student: What do I limit? 

M. Laitman: What you intend that you're doing it in order to receive, so now you make a restriction and you imagine to yourself: what does it mean under the new conditions not to receive? 

Student: What's the difference between restriction, like a restriction as we learned, and being an ascetic, a monk, one who doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't do all kinds of things. What's the difference? 

M. Laitman: Try, try, I don't know. The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn't teach one to be that way.

Student: Exactly, that's what's confusing, here. I think the confusion of the last hour stems from that. We're not able to grasp what it means to lessen the force in order to receive, and not turn into an ascetic, a monk of sorts, that's what I'm not able to grasp. Because it's clear that you don't need to become an ascetic. I'm asking, what should I do? How do I lessen the force of reception in reception? 

M. Laitman: Well, it's difficult. 

Student: For many years now, I've heard from you that we need to work with our desires, but only raise the importance of bestowal.

M. Laitman: Yes?

Student: And in such a way, the more we give importance to bestowal, the matter of reception is there, maybe it's growing, but it's not the main thing. The main thing is to bestow. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And today, throughout this whole time that we're speaking, I've never heard you say, let's increase the importance of bestowal. Today, you're speaking about the importance of lessening self-reception, as Baal HaSulam writes. Can you put this in some order? Raising the importance of bestowal versus lessening the importance of reception. 

M. Laitman: It's clear to everyone that the will to receive is the opposite of the purpose of life, the purpose of creation. If we will engage less in the will to receive, then certainly, we will get closer to the desire to bestow.

Student: In truth, it isn't so clear because we learn the opposite. That the will to receive needs to grow, it’s the intention that needs to invert. 

M. Laitman: What does that mean that the intention is inverted? 

Student: That instead of wanting to fill myself, I work on trying to delight the Host, if we use the host and guest allegory. I am really hungry and I want to eat, but I am engaged in making good for Him, not for myself. So, the desire to receive there just grows and grows, all the time. But I am trying to constantly emerge from this intention of filling myself, and to engage with something that is outside of me.

M. Laitman: In short, when you have a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, you can use both of them. However, under the condition that they don't bind you to in order to receive. This is a line that is completely disqualified, and then what remains for you is that either you scrutinize: What you have in receiving in order to bestow, or what you have in receiving in order to receive; or bestowing in order to bestow, or bestowing in order to receive. In short, you have four possibilities, so it is clear that receiving in order to bestow is correct, bestowing in order to bestow is neutral. And then what remains is only bestowing in order to receive, and receiving in order to receive. And so, this is what you end up with. There are no other possibilities. Of these four possibilities, you only have one, so that you don't receive. 

Student: When we do the work between us, or meet between us, we try to remind ourselves before we enter the action, why we're doing this action. Because we saw that if we don't mention it, we forget, and we don't engage in it whatsoever. So, each time I remind myself or others about this, I just discover how much my desire to bestow and my ability to bestow is tiny and miniscule and probably doesn't even exist. 

M. Laitman: I understand you.

Student: What do we do with that feeling of lowliness? The more we talk about it, we discover even more how you are?

M. Laitman: You need to write down before you those four states: one, two, three, four, and to see where you exist. That's it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:18:48) Restriction, screen, and reflected light. Everything that's given by the Creator, also the restriction? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, actually a person can't restrict himself, his desire to receive. He can make efforts in that direction, but at the end of the day, he has to just ask. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:19:20) When we perform acts of bestowal between us, at the end of the act of bestowal, do we need to check what we received?

M. Laitman: I guess so. If it's an action of bestowal and practice that I want to bestow, so here, I need to see that box that I am giving to a certain address, and what I'm obligated to give. And that will be giving.

Student: The action of bestowal, itself, actually prepares this package that I want to send to the Creator? Before the action, do I know what that desire is? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And the bestowal, itself, does it need to be felt as if he were to receive the action of bestowal, itself? 

M. Laitman: No. 

Student: Which precisely desire to receive do we need to grow inside of us in order to work with them correctly in bestowal? 

M. Laitman: The desire to receive, In what I need to be concerned in which state or in which relation to reception they are in me, those desires. Either they constantly want to be filled and get pleasures by that, or they want to not to be filled and also get pleasure from that. Or they are filled and get pleasure by that, or they don't get filled. And also from that you get pleasure.

Student: So, also the action of not being filled is felt as pleasure? Also the action that he does a restriction and doesn't receive? How in that action does he aim himself to enjoy, in that action of not receiving? 

M. Laitman: I don't know, it's a matter of a feeling. You're asking in a way I can't answer it, you have to feel it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:22:30) What's the connection between the distance between us and the intention? That a person can put on an act of bestowal or of reception? 

M. Laitman: I think the distance is infinite. 

Student: Yes, the infinite distance. How do we identify the ability to put the intention in accordance with the distance between friends, in the hearts?

M. Laitman: You can't connect hearts if they aren't willing to do it. If each one of the hearts goes through a correction, so in that way they try to be between them in equivalence of form. But if they don't have that equal point, it could be that they can understand one another if they belong to the same group. Meaning either they're in order to receive or in order to bestow – and in which way to receive, and in which way to bestow. That's it.

Student: There's a great gap that we feel, that we didn't feel this oppositeness. From the last Convention, between the friends in the group, in the Ten. And we're talking about to receive, to bestow, my question is it's clear that the further we are from each other, we just receive. We don't have the ability to build this inclination towards bestowal. But you also have no possibility of making an effort towards connection because you're in some, it's like your hands are up, and you don't know what to do. You don't have the force of bestowal, you don't have that connection, so how do you drive this drive towards connection to receive the force of bestowal in order to come close to love and friends? 

M. Laitman: Very nice. I have nothing to answer, only to keep going from the same state. And from the same state to that same door, or hole, an opening, whatever you want to call it. 

Student: Another point, when we read, when we wash ourselves with the sources, you can feel the force. That there are many questions, there's a lot of labor. I still can't grasp the dose of how much I can wash myself with the source, and that tendency to annul yourself when there're questions. If you could guide us on that point, what is more beneficial to us? 

M. Laitman: Beneficial for us to perform spiritual actions in all our forces, as much as possible. Let's say, we all have, let's say, 5 grams, 10 grams of force of bestowal. But we all concentrate to bestow with it. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:28:49) It's felt like there's friends who are asking and I immediately receive a desire to bestow that's more powerful. Just like the example we received from the friend, I truly felt a desire to bestow, I envied his desire to bestow. There's friends that ask and I immediately – I'm sorry for saying it but – I feel as if they're kind of real. I'm not in bestowal, I don't want this. What's the correct attitude? Do we as a society need to awaken bestowal, importance of bestowal, and in the questioning of questions to be less real? To be more like Rabash tells us, to be showing how much we want to bestow. Is there room to tell a friend something about it or to tell the society about this? Because you can really feel that there are friends, that when they ask, it truly uplifts the whole society and we want to break through with them. And I really identify with this, and of course, we all want to realize this life.

M. Laitman: Yes, so what to do? 

Student: Meaning, the example, sometimes, is not enough to ask a question with an awakening, with a desire to bestow, there are friends that it also repulses them. So, how do we as a society do it ourselves? This education where we want to be like Rabash, like Baal HaSulam. There were also a lot of questions about how to diminish the force of reception, but we once had a saying that ‘a big fish swallows a small fish’. If we have a desire to bestow powerfully, then every opportunity the Creator gives us, even if it's the tiniest or if it's great, we will want to implement it. We want to bestow to friends, and by that, I don't really have a question, I'm sorry. But there's a feeling that we are really responsible for one another in the lesson. There's that feeling.

M. Laitman: That's for sure. That is for sure a general responsibility, inclusive is what you have.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:31:36) What does it mean to be similar to the light, to resemble the light. 

M. Laitman: I said that? 

Student: Yes. 

M. Laitman: I don't remember, I said that. The qualities of the light are actions of bestowal, actions of bestowal. In each and every action, wherever we have an opportunity, even in somewhat to bestow, the light works to there. That's it.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:32:42) I want to scrutinize the relationship between Arvut. You talked about everyone being responsible for one another, and it's also written. But between the Arvut in the Ten and the Arvut in the group, or in the world Kli. To what extent is it enough for me to create, is it enough for me in the Ten, around the Ten, to advance to spirituality? Or do I need to make sure that also all the broader environment will be that way in Arvut as well because I'm dependent on it as well? And also to what extent am I dependent on them? How critical is it? 

M. Laitman: As much as your group works and the friends, the groups of Bnei Baruch, and bestows to them. In this way, you need to be concerned of your bestowal through your Ten, to the general group of Bnei Baruch. And to constantly think of that, be concerned of that.

Student: The condition of Arvut, according to what Baal HaSulam writes in The Arvut, is very harsh. There he writes about all of Israel, that even if one doesn't observe something, that's it, all the rest can't even think about bestowal. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: The question is how critical is it? Because, maybe, I can make sure that maybe my Ten will be enough, I can't concern myself with the whole world Kli. How relevant is that to us, or did he say something there, or rather that it's something that we don't understand. Otherwise, you can never reach that state because there's always going to be one who doesn't observe something. How can you get there?

M. Laitman: Well, let your friends answer. That'll be your homework. 

Song: (01:35:32)