Morning Lesson August 23, 2021 Transcription
Part 1:
Annulling Before the Upper One - Selected Excerpts From the Sources, #42
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OUoct2ONwuylvdj04jkkAMVV7tmU7ofjFnm2AWgAKVY/edit
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, we need to see the upper one as filling the whole world because he builds the world. He is the place of the world and not that the world is his place. What happens each and every place in each and every form is all done deliberately, since there is none else besides Him. He could have done it differently, but He did it specifically in this way, and so in each and every state we need to see necessity. Whatever was done had to be done this way, and to this extent influences us, and as a result of all of His influence over us, we ultimately need to see a state of despair of our own forces that's one, and helplessness that we ourselves cannot emerge from our situation, and it is revealed gradually how much we hardly even understand what is happening, and how much we discover ourselves that even though we are strong and wise and capable of accumulating within us, everything that humanity has done over thousands of generations and yet, along with that we are very weak with respect to all of those states that nature, you might say that Creator, God in Gematria, numerology, is nature placing before us.
Therefore we need to see a state where we become more and more incorporated in our status opposite these unpleasant states that are even threatening to us. That is, on one hand and on the other hand, that it all comes from the Creator, and in that He nevertheless has a good intention to direct us, to bring us closer to correction; and if we relate in such a mature way to our situation, then out of that it will also become clear to us how in such a true manner, in which we relate to everything that is happening all over the world, that it is coming from the side of the good and doing good. Also, in the group where we all have all kinds of disturbances between us. That too comes from the Creator who is good and doing good, and this is how it is in each and every person who has both of these forms, the good inclination and the evil inclination. This is how we advance towards positioning these two things within us, in such a special manner such that we can exist within us between the bad and the good. Then if we begin to see the bad also as good because it is what is helping us. It is helping us to advance to come closer to the Creator to need His help. etc. then in such a way we can see the world as good in a correct way.
This actually is the right approach to the world and to the revelation of the Creator, that there is only one force, the absolute good that is working on us. If we try in as much as we help one another in our groups to reach such states then according to our equivalents of form, we will also discover this good force, the Creator. This is actually how we should find this certain and fundamental point that there is no bad in the world, only good. There is only one force that is creating all of this confusion within us and around us and He does all of that in order for us to start ascribing everything to Him and ascribing everything to good, and this will happen to the extent that we rise above our nature from bad to the good, as it says, “I have created the evil inclination; I created the spice of Torah”, that is our entire perception, our entire ability our whole method, that it will bring us to the recognition of good in each and every state that is revealed to us initially as bad within us and also around us. This is how we will reach a world that is all good. This is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings and their revelation of the spiritual world to the created beings. This is what it is we have ahead of us. Through such an effort we come closer to the Creator. Which is still our topic so. Let's read what it says.
Excerpt 42 (07:19) Twice
2. S. (11:16) Why is love of friends preparation for attainment of the goal?
R. The goal is to discover the Creator, to come closer according to our senses, according to our qualities to Him from the opposite form in which we exist to begin with, and even that oppositeness we cannot detect, it is not revealed. It is not clear to us. In order for us to have the possibility to get closer to the Creator, that is to change our qualities to His qualities because we are all a will to receive and we need to acquire upon it an intention to bestow. Here we have no possibility to be in contact with the Creator, who is the opposite to us, entirely. There is no contact and no desire and no thought that by which we can be with any kind of connection with Him, even the most remote.
Therefore, we were given a game, and by this game it is not like we become like the Creator. We start to feel Him, no, but we can arrange ourselves between us in the same form of connection, in the same mold, so that out of that, we will become a system that is receiving but also a system that is bestowing to the Creator. Meaning that we will have a reciprocal connection with Him. We build a certain device, a certain instrument, a system called a 10, and through the 10 we connect with him and he connects with us and in this way we attain it. Why?
Because in our connection in the 10, we establish ourselves in such a way that we can resemble the Creator. At first, we discover that we are not capable of it, entirely incapable of it. There has to be closeness and not a corporeal, earthly one just like in this world we can connect but that's how we start. Therefore, this world was created in such a way that we can be connected in a positive or negative way in all kinds of different states, in different manners. When we build a group then we see how much we are in it. Where is the limit the boundary up to which I can be connected to the friends and where I am not capable of being connected to the friends, and because we together are in the final layer of the correction of the last generation, as we call it, our desires are great, deep and they do not allow us to be close to one another. We see also this is what is happening in humanity. People used to live in a single place, in one apartment, a few families in a single room, parents, children, grandchildren. Nowadays, a person is not satisfied with having one room, he has to have his own flat. He cannot stand having someone next to him. That is, the desires are becoming revealed, the egoistic desires becoming revealed as greater in each and every generation.
For us, when we have gathered in order to build this mold, this pattern, called the group the 10 from which we can connect to the Creator, that mold actually becomes the source of the bad, the evil. We realize that we need to connect in our egoistic desires and upon those egoistic desires we have to connect with the Creator. The egoistic desires that we, each one of us bring to the connection are called Aviut ,coarseness that we nevertheless do want to be connected above these desires in which we reject one another, and we don't want to be friends and close to one another, etc. That desire, by which we nevertheless close ourselves. Each one silences his will to receive, and he nevertheless somehow wants to acquire a desire for connection. The importance of connection. This is called the Masach, the screen that we start to build. We have coarseness and screen and if we try and we will succeed in building a connection between us in such a way that we can connect above our ego which is pushing us and repelling us from one another. By that we truly build the form of the spiritual vessel, and why is this spiritual?
Because it is entirely a collection of egoistic desires. However, where each and every desire is in each and every one wants to restrict this egoistic desire and above this desire which is repelling everyone. He searches for how he can be connected with everyone. This is how we build out of ourselves, a system that resembles the Creator. He is entirely bestowing, and we through our efforts want to reach a form of bestowal where seemingly we are bestowing outside of us. This is how we connect and overcome, in that, as we learn together many discernments. The first spiritual degree that we want to reach is that we want to seemingly annul and cancel our ego, our will to receive. Of course it is impossible to annul it but rather even though it does exist within us, we rise above it. We want to be connected with the force of bestowal. We are incorporated in the force of bestowal that exists above us which is the Creator and this is how we reach the very first contact with the Creator, which is called ‘the entrance to Ibur’, impregnation. This is our work right now. Here we also need to begin to discover that everything, everything we discover in our life, it all comes from the Creator and all of our work is to wisely sort out what is it that we are getting from Him, what is happening in our mind and in our heart, in the relations between us and how can we nevertheless use all of that towards revelation.
There are many discernments but here there has to be a single direction. What we call “love covers all crimes', and the Creator is revealing to us crimes forms that are opposite to connection and we need to discover a seemingly our necessity for action because we want to resemble him. Where do we want that? Because besides the will to receive in each and every one there is also ended. It is becoming revealed more and more each and every moment that each one has inside of. Of them a spark, a little bit of light from that state in which we were all once connected together. This is called a godly part from above, and it exists in each and every one. Then if we will honor this spark, then specifically through the states that we are going through and through this spark, meaning the connection with the Creator we will connect all of these sparks together we can demand and get from the Creator a great force. It will connect us in all of our 10s and in each and every 10 it will bring it into a state where the Creator becomes revealed in it. This is how we advance. The very first point, the first access in our spiritual success is that we become incorporated in the Creator. That we between us connect so much we realize that we have to be in a single Creator, and therefore we also need to be as one. Our connection truly becomes a single big point with many desires, intentions, thoughts, and everything that we have. But all in all, we want to incorporate as if in a single drop, and that it will be entirely a desire to bestow mutually between us and from us to the Creator. This is what we have ahead of us.
3. S. (24:41) What does it mean that the Torah, the Creator and Israel are one?
R. The Torah is the upper light or the force that comes from the Creator to us and performs corrections on our connections. It elevates us through all of the degrees up to the Creator that is Torah. The Creator, Blessed be He is the Creator, He is the highest; from Him comes the force of the Torah to us, and Torah is from the word Ohr, ‘light’. Then it turns out that there is the Creator, from Him emerges the upper light, called Torah, and that upper light is intended to correct us, and in this upper light there is a precise number of parts, number of lights, so that each and every light is intended to correct a particular desire opposite it. Israel are those who are in their desires to receive that are broken in order to receive. However they have in them a spark, a part of the light that was there once, and it departed, and what remained was a record a spark, and they are longing according to this spark, along with the fact that they are that they want the egoistic desires within them. They are also longing for the sparks that they had within them in this way they actually advance so these three things are what we have in nature. Besides that, all of the other desires in which there is no spark, meaning that they are not longing for the Creator, to reach Him through the Torah through the reforming light. So there is nothing to do about them so this is what is going on. I can even depict it to you. Rav starts drawing. We have BoReh, which Bo means ‘come, and Reh’ means see. This is how we need to reach Him and then we have the Torah, and down below we have Israel IS RA El, those three things, and below that we have humanity people. What is special about Israel, that in having them the point in the heart and in humanity, they don't feel the point in the heart, even though they also have it, because all of us are the result of the shattering of the vessels. Even the still, vegetative, and animate have sparks within them, and they will become revealed as it says that the sheep will live with the wolf. But this is later on later on in the lower degrees, when they will start to correct themselves and therefore this is the entire structure. So BoReh, the Creator is the general upper force, the Torah is the connection between the Creator and the creative beings so that from the side of the created beings there is a longing for the Creator, and Israel are those who are longing right now and all the time out of the entire humanity. From these people they are joining Israel more and more souls, that is, desires that wish to reach a connection with the Creator.
4. S. (30:29) You said that previously we were connected among us and now? Are we not connected? How do we know if we are connected at any given moment?
R. We were once in one shared desire. This is called Adam HaRishon prior to the sin, where we existed in a very corporeal form until records, greater and greater records started to appear in us through the upper light that the Creator increases each time he intensifies it. Then all kinds of changes occurred within us through the upper light, so that all of these records within us started to pull us to various forms of realization through the light that shines. Then each one sees himself in the world as related to a different kind of fulfillment, and this is how humanity develops. We can see that this is how it happens over thousands of years and today we are also continuing and we are actualizing the influence of the upper light on us, however, what are we talking about, not about the fact that the light is influencing us, and by that we somehow change and we advance, but rather in the wisdom of Kabbalah we learn how we can awaken the light by ourselves and how we can go towards it. That is what the light could do over, let's say, 100,000 years. We can accelerate it and do it with our efforts over 1000 years instead of 100,000. This is called that Israel hastens the times. That by us having a method and we know what is worthwhile for us to awaken within us even though it doesn't exist within us right now. The desire to bestow we can go towards that as if that exists as if we want it, and by that we hasten the time. Then it turns out that those people who are engaging in the wisdom of Kabbalah in drawing the reforming light they are going forward at the head of the whole of humanity. This is how they are advancing and faster towards the goal.
5. S. (34:06) That the first in our work is when we are incorporated in the Creator as one drop. What does that mean?
R. I cannot incorporate in the Creator and be as one drop. First of all, I need to be as a drop with the friends and then if I want to reach such a connection where we as a drop are all incorporated together and this is, of course, done by the reforming light; however, with the intention that after we become incorporated together, after we connect, we also will connect in the Creator. So this is how we go forward.
S. So we gathered in the 10 each friend is thinking about the rest of us. What is the element, what is the missing element so we become one?
R. Importance of our connection that this is the cure, this is the remedy. The only correction for our state, and for the whole of humanity and also more importantly above it to give contentment to the Creator, so as much as we are capable of, we need to try to do it. Of course, giving contentment to the Creator for us. Right now it is just words, but you need to see this from our life as much as the baby plays and is happy and engaging with himself, we are also happy even though it doesn't even pay attention to us, this is how it is with the Creator he doesn't demand from us right now precise intentions towards him. The fact that we connect between us. This is very important.
S. You just added another element, bestowing to the Creator. Besides connection in the 10, should these elements always be in our work?
R. Yes, they still need to be in some way or other in us because we are living at a time that is very, very close to spirituality. All of it, all of it. Look at the despair in the world. Look at the helplessness: misunderstanding, disorientation, people don't know what will happen tomorrow. They take all kinds of things and they want to develop and do and build but in truth inside of them they are insecure, totally. They are asking what am I doing this for? Does anyone need it? Will anyone need it? Will it give something tomorrow? This is what humanity is beginning to discover. How everything is built will not be needed tomorrow. We will not need it tomorrow and what is going to happen? So this gives us even more warped states that I purposely shut my eyes with regard to tomorrow and keep working where I am, working today because I have no choice. I have no choice because if I start thinking in such a way that what I did today, I will not need it tomorrow, then why get up? Why exist? So there's this protective force operating in humanity's, defensive force that helps us wake up and get up every morning and go through the day. But in truth we do not know what's going to happen, we don't know. Everything that was important to us before, everything that was an instrument for developing society, meaning to develop industry, oil, gas, all kinds of sources of energy, soon you will see that there will be abundance of it, and no one will need it. If the world continues to work, it will continue on much more subtle and higher energies. There won't be any need for all of our jobs for everything we do look, what's happening with people each day. They open all kinds of offices and companies and businesses. But what is the purpose? They will discover it is all empty.
6. S. (40:15) What is a corrupted broken vessel?
R. The broken vessel is when we discover through our development as we are results of the breaking, we discover in history before us, so a broken vessel means that the will to receive which is the substance of creation, yearns to satisfy itself. Although it is impossible, and the more you fill it, everything leaves it because it is broken. But still we keep wanting to fill it and fill it because we have nothing else to do. It is like in this legend, in this story that there is this protagonist, he kept wanting to fill up the bucket and the bucket would spill, but he couldn't help it. He had this desire to fill up the bucket. That is us people. We keep wanting to fill ourselves and satisfy ourselves, although we see it is pointless. Nevertheless, we want to satisfy ourselves.
7. S. (42:04) Does it mean that when we reach a certain state in the 10, it is the attainment of one of the Creator’s names?
R. We can’t attain the upper light, it is abstract, because we are created beings. Therefore we obtain it through all kinds of forms or shapes, by which He is revealed. For example, in order to obtain or attain energy or something, you need an instrument. That instrument will reveal this energy to us which in itself is abstract, but it can be revealed in some form, in some way through heat or cold, kilograms per meter, etc., in a way we can gauge, that we can measure and feel. Forms of life that we cannot perceive and measure and feel, we do not perceive them. They are like this dark matter, this dark force, dark energy. It is imperceptible to our senses. We exist only in a place, if you can put it this way, we feel this place in something that fills up this place and nothing beyond it. It is just as if you have these animals that are on the surface, but they don't feel the height dimension, only the surface dimensions and so are we. To some extent we feel the area where we live, which consists in us, from three axis, 3 dimensions and perhaps other things. We tried to get to know it better but from day to day we are discovering that we don't understand where we exist. This is our work, the wisdom of Kabbalah comes which is therefore called the wisdom of reception and tells us I can help you know the real you, not the way you know yourselves and where you exist, how you exist, everything that has to do with existence. Then it tells us by what, by wanting to expand our senses because we are limited like that ant that lives, that perceives only the surface, without knowing there is the height dimension. Then comes the wisdom of Kabbalah and begins to awaken in us all kinds of new discernments that we don't have inherently. But if we try to develop these new discernments, we will know the real world. The real place where we exist and in it in this new place we have more ways of development. They are called worlds, so we will be able to develop ourselves more and more and more until we come to something called Infinity, it is all according to a person's desire to develop and follow the method.
8. S. (46:37) What does it mean that the whole Torah is the name of the Creator?
R. We receive everything that we feel from living, from existing, from being aware that we exist. Like a newborn baby who is not aware that it exists and was born. Someone's taking care of it, it is growing. It all happens automatically, meaning on account of the upper one. Gradually it becomes independent, disconnects from the upper one, and begins to add more and more of itself to its own development. So are we in the spiritual world. We should add to our own development. When does this begin? When we enter the Ibur, the impregnation. This is why we have to begin to realize what Kabbalists advise. They are grownups who have already grown up, and they tell us how we can develop more quickly.
S. What does it mean that the whole of the Torah is the names of the Creator?
R. We want to achieve our complete development meaning on all the desires that are initially corrupted, all our desires work in order to receive, so we, through the upper force which is called ‘reforming light’, we will switch the intention of our desire from in order to receive to in order to bestow, by this we will correct all of our desires. This is called 613 desires, we will correct them to work in order to bestow. By this we gradually reveal the power of bestowal from us. We make it, it is called ‘by your actions we know You’ because by this I discover the general force of bestowal that exists in reality. In this way we come to know the common force, the giving force, called the Creator, until we correct ourselves in all of our 613 desires to their fullest power, and this is called fully revealing the Creator.
This is really our work. Our goal is that we approach and make ourselves more similar to Him according to the law of equivalence of form. This is called being incorporated in Him. This is how we advance, this is our work. Whose work is it? Each one who has within him Reshimot, records from the breaking of the vessels which the Creator created initially. In that vessel there are degrees of desires: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. The still, vegetative, and animate cannot correct themselves; only the speaking level can correct itself.
When we correct the speaking level, when we correct the intentions from reception to bestowal and unite, then all the lower degrees, the still, vegetative, and animate also unite and become corrected as a result of the correction on the speaking level. Each degree also divides into four internal levels of still, vegetative, animate and speaking. The human level, the speaking level, also divides into still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. There are two types of people in it who are drawn to correction to the Creator who belonged to the speaking. There is the animate in the speaking, the vegetative in the speaking, and the still in the speaking. But all of them will have to nevertheless come to the same work. But how? Through the uppermost level in them, the speaking. The speaking are the ones who have a specific yearning to reveal adhesion with the Creator.
S. What does it mean to be ‘the Creator’s guest’?
R. The Creator’s guest is a different level. We will learn it. It is not that simple. It will confuse us. No, it's a good question but it will confuse us. There are degrees of connection which are like a foreigner, a stranger, connecting a friend, a lover, a loved one, a servant. Just like in this world, we have all kinds of degrees of adhesion and of closeness with one another. It is between us and the Creator but interpreting them is not simple. We need to have some source, some feeling, some sense of it, so we can distinguish something between them. How exactly is the connection? For example a son and a father, or a neighbor between two neighbors, etc. In spirituality, just as in this world, there are all kinds of connections between us. Actually in spirituality there are degrees between each of the and that is why they manifest in our material world.
9. S. (54:16) What does it mean that a person cancels the view of the landlord? How can we distinguish between them and the view of the Torah?
R. I don’t think this is a big problem. ‘The Torah’ means that we have to yearn to achieve bestowal, love, because the whole Torah is ‘love your neighbor as yourself’. This is the great rule of the Torah. An ordinary person thinks only about himself and from degrees where he wants to harm others to degrees where he is indifferent from others. This is his will to receive. He thinks only of himself. Check yourself to see how much you have of the regular person and the degree of a person who yearns for the Creator. So the view of Torah is opposite from the view of the landlords. The view of the Torah is bestowal and love, and the view of landlords is where one is his own landlord, his own master. He is responsible for himself, in charge of himself. He feels that he exists and only he is vigilant, and is taking care of himself and not others. This is the normal egoistic person in this world.
10. S. (56:24) What does it mean that I or the friends should also be merciful?
R. It means that in everything that happens to me in this world, to people and to the animate and the vegetative, and still, to the entire universe, I try to see the operation of the Creator and to bring all of those parts of creation to the good state. Kabbalists wrote about it. I certainly can't discover it with my vision, but Kabbalists did write about it. So while I am reading it, I am trying to be incorporated in it and to see the Creator’s operations and how much He wants to promote the whole world in a purposeful manner.
Baal HaSulam writes that our development isn't just evolution, it is a gradual evolution just like in our development where we grow up from year to year. Are we growing wiser each year? Do we attain more? Are we more capable of connecting among ourselves and the Creator and make our years of life as degrees of ascending? Is it happening or not? Now we are going into a stage in humanity where nature’s forces require that each day, each moment, will be new in our eyes. As we attain new things by expanding our tools of perception, our vessels of bestowal, and that is how we advance.
11. S. (59:02) We see that over the years some people from humanity join us but we also see that some of our friends drop out. What does that mean that the point in the heart turns off?
R. You always have these scrutinies along the way. It is written that ‘1000 enter a room and one comes out to teach’. That is how it works in every single degree. It is the nature of the degrees. Just as in our world you have billions of people who learn to read and write, maybe learn some multiplication, and settle for this. Some of them want to use their intellect and study something more complicated. Some want to express themselves in different professions. So they begin to search what they're intended for. Let's say, for example, that I wasn't intended to be a painter, and someone else is not intended to be a musician, etc. There are degrees all of us are in, where all of us have this general knowledge, in it there is some sort of a sorting from grades 5-6. There are those who, according to their nature, begin to see themselves as directed to all kinds of situations, and sort themselves even more as part of school or university or even science. They rather have a disposition to look for the root of all of nature, in all of the sciences. It doesn't become distinct or clarified immediately in a person that they yearn for more and more
Therefore 1000 walk into a room, meaning they want to reach the Creator. ‘One comes out to teach’ meaning to the light, to reveal the Creator. Nowadays, it is open to everyone and this is why we will see, let's hope we will see, in our time how millions want to achieve their spiritual fulfillment. What extent will they succeed? Here there is sorting. Some will reach the zenith, the top, contact with the Creator. Some will write books about it and teach others; they will be leaders of the right connection among everyone, etc. There are all kinds. We only need to yearn for the goal and then each one must yearn to realize himself.
I don't need to come instead of Moses and all those giants. I have to realize myself. I have my own Reshimot, my own records, my own place in Adam HaRishon in that system. I have to come to that place. No one can come and be in my shoes in my place. If I don't get there, the entire system is incomplete. So that's my work. Of course each one has his own place. Those who are today living in some jungle, they too have their place and at some point they will get there and will be incorporated in the system. Without them the system will be incomplete. Each one is as important as everyone in this closed, circular, complete system. We still don't understand this law.
We think the upper one is more important than the lower ones. No, he is more connected to the lower ones. What is important is supporting everyone, pushing everyone. This is what is important and this is what determines the greatness of a person. He, himself, according to his own level can be small, but in his spiritual work he can be great doing this work. This is Moses' greatness. We think that he was a scientist and knowledgeable. No. It was his lowliness and annulment before the Creator’s commandment to assemble people, to bring them out of their internal desert, and to reveal to them the power that will promote them. He didn't enter the land of Israel, these revelations called ‘the land of Israel’ himself, rather his work was entirely inner work. Connecting everyone. It is not considered that he didn't reveal, but he revealed it specifically through this work of connecting and leading everyone. He wasn't wise himself. He was not a scientist. He was an organizer, one who was concerned. Especially In our time, in the last generation, the one who is concerned with assembling the vessels and in bringing them to correction is the one who does the right work, the great work, and in the end he is the one who will be rewarded with everyone's reward.
12. S. (01:06:06) We are all unique and each has a place in the general correction. What is our part in the general correction? Is it the desire we have? How can we depict it?
R. We need to be the organizers of humanity as much as possible, organizing them towards the right form of connection. This is what is needed today. Whatever happens with humanity will happen so that we, specifically on top of it, will be able to bring about connection. Greater and greater shattering will be revealed in humanity, greater remoteness, greater conflicts, you name it. We will discover how all of us are broken. And specifically the breaking is preventing humanity from reaching the good life. We will have to explain that connection is the solution that this is the remedy and this is what we need.
Everyone might agree with you. Yes, of course everyone wants to connect, everyone wants to be together and no one can say that he doesn't want to be connected positively with everyone. But how do you do it? On one hand we have this whole disposition towards connection and it seems beautiful. On the other hand, it seems totally unrealistic. Here's where we need to gradually explain that through our organization we can extract from nature a hidden force which will connect us and elevate us to its degree. This is called rising above our egoistic reality into an altruistic reality, into a social and emotional state that is completely different and new than everything that we feel now as negative forces that impel us to rise above. It is in our interest to listen and do it because then we will not suffer as much.
13. S. (01:09:27) How today in the 10 throughout the day can we incorporate in the Creator what should we think about, what should we ask for, how do we do it?
R. Well, I have nothing to add I think you understand all the sources, you read them. You need to decide among yourselves.