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

Daily Lesson (Morning) January 18, 2025.

Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah], Item 15.

Reader: Hello, today we will be reading from the findings of Baal HaSulam. We will begin with the article Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah, starting with item 15. You can find all of our texts on kabbalahmedia.info as well as through the Avut platform, where you can send us questions live during the lesson.

Matan Torah, item 15

Reading: (00:24) 15) Now we can understand the words of Hillel HaNasi to the proselyte, that the essence of the Torah is “Love your friend as yourself,” and the remaining six hundred and twelve Mitzvot are but an interpretation and preparation for it (see Item 2). And even the Mitzvot between man and the Creator are regarded as a preparation for that Mitzva, which is the final aim emerging from the Torah and Mitzvot, as our sages said, “The Torah and Mitzvot were given only so as to cleanse Israel” (Item 12), which is the cleansing of the body until one acquires a second nature defined as “love for others,” meaning the one Mitzva: “Love your friend as yourself,” which is the final aim of the Torah, after which one immediately obtains Dvekut with Him.

But one must not wonder why it was not defined in the words: “And you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” He did this for the above reason that indeed, with respect to a person who is still within the nature of creation, there is no difference between the love of the Creator and the love of his fellow person, for anything that is from another is unreal to him.

And because that proselyte asked of Hillel HaNasi to explain to him the desired outcome of the Torah, so his goal would be near and he would not have to walk a long way, as he said, “Teach me the whole Torah while I am standing on one leg,” he defined it for him as love of his friend since its aim is nearer and is revealed faster (Item 14), since it is mistake-proof and is demanding.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:38) Love the Lord your God. What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: Probably, the one who writes it means getting closer emotionally and love that is human, and more than that, it is said in all your heart. What does it mean, with all your heart? Meaning that a person has no place left in his emotion that hasn't been filled with the Creator that he does want to aim and transform and sacrifice his heart for Him. 

Item 16

Reading: (05:21) In the above words, we find a way to understand our concept from above (Items 3 and 4) about the contents of that Mitzva, “Love your friend as yourself,” how the Torah compels us to do something that cannot be done.

Indeed, know that for this reason, the Torah was not given to our holy fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—but was held until the exodus from Egypt, when they came out and became a complete nation of six hundred thousand men of twenty years of age or more. For then, each member of the nation was asked if he agreed to that exalted work. And once each and every one in the nation agreed to it with heart and soul, and said “We will do and we will hear,” it became possible to observe the whole of the Torah, and that which was previously impossible became possible.

This is because it is certain that if six hundred thousand men abandon their work for the satisfaction of their own needs and worry about nothing but standing guard so their friends will not lack a thing, and moreover, they will engage in this with great love, with their very heart and soul, in the full meaning of the Mitzva, “Love your friend as yourself,” it is then beyond doubt that no one in the nation will need to worry about his own well-being.

Because of this, one becomes completely free of securing his own survival and can easily observe the Mitzva, “Love your friend as yourself,” obeying all the conditions given in Items 3 and 4. After all, why would he worry about his own survival when six hundred thousand loyal lovers stand by, ready with great care to make sure he lacks nothing of his needs?

Therefore, once all the members of the nation agreed, they were immediately given the Torah, for now they were capable of observing it. But before they grew into a complete nation, and certainly during the time of the fathers, who were unique in the land, they were not truly qualified to observe the Torah in its desirable form, since with a small number of people it is impossible to even begin with engagement in Mitzvot between man and man to the extent of “Love your friend as yourself,” as explained in Items 3 and 4. This is why they were not given the Torah.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:44) It sounds like a kind of switch, a kind of revolution, inversion, where there's no time to it. A person worries about his own needs all his life, only himself, there's nothing else besides that. And suddenly, chunk, he's worrying about everyone else, and everyone else is worried about him? 

M. Laitman: He uses power that transforms him. 

Student: But the question is about the immediacy of that thing. Is it like a magician just going, chunk, or is it a process where he gradually starts caring for others more and more, and so on, and then, is it this way or that way? How does it happen? 

M. Laitman: Yes, a time comes and the actions that a person has put in trying to get closer to his friend. So they appear this way. They appear as loving a friend as thyself. 

Student: And it should happen to everyone together, the entire Ten together, or can a person enter a state of Arvut, and suddenly he sees that everyone is already concerned with him, doesn't need to? 

M. Laitman: What a person feels that is happening with him, and he still can't feel it on everyone because in each and every one, there's a different incident, different time to make the connection happen. 

Student: So he enters a state of Arvut? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And around him, it's enough that the friends are approaching that? 

M. Laitman: Could be. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:51) Something isn't working out for me here. We know that in the past, there were small groups. It used to be, maybe it could have been a single student or a very small group. And there's also how we say that two is enough, two is sufficient. But here they said that after the exodus from Egypt, it has to be 600,000 people. And at the same time, we're not 600,000, but we're a large group, which is pretty good. But there were times when it wasn't exactly that way. There weren't Ten sort of very large groups in order to enter the matter of Arvut in more than two people, let's put it that way. Maybe, there are people who enter into that in a slightly different way according to the old ways. Also, first you need to connect to people more like yourself and then the Creator. Here I also have a question. I personally feel that I connect very well to the friend, then I look to the whole world. And I'm asking myself, what does the Creator want of us? I understand Him, I identify with Him. Sometimes I come to the conclusion that I mustn't intervene in his actions, but only look at them and experience them and examine how you experience them with your friends and also with respect to the Creator in a certain way. That's my direction. That's how I see it. So I feel that there is something a bit confusing here. 

M. Laitman: Probably, from practical labor of getting closer, completing each other, caring for each other, holding on to each other, by that we come to the rule of love thy friend. 

Student: So in a practical sense, you say it's practical, right? But the Creator arranged a different root of the soul for each one. These are things we don't know about, they're above us, of course, but ultimately we need to connect to the Creator. You need to become what the Creator wants, meaning the maximum love your friend as yourself. These two things are not contradictory, if you understand me?

M. Laitman: I'm not sure I understood you, but how we understand the matter of getting closer is that the friend becomes more and more important to the person, so much so that he relates to him as he relates to himself. 

Student: And this has to be the  ultimate because coming closer to the Creator, that means understanding Him, and understanding Him, is the absolute rule, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:04) He writes how until the point he feels that 600,000 people are worried for him, he can only think about himself. So how do you reach that internally? Because I can't wait for such a big amount of people to care for me? 

M. Laitman: I think this is a matter of development of people who exist in special connections between them, they study, they are in various activities from which love can emerge.

Student: And then he writes here that the small quantity, you can't reach it, or does the quantity not matter? Is that the point? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:29) The more we advance towards Arvut, mutual guarantee, do we need to develop a certain approach towards the individual commandments, all those which qualify us to love our friends as ourselves, or is it fine to remain focused on the general commandments and not go into details? 

M. Laitman: That will work itself out, but the main thing is the general attitude. 

Student: The method of Baal Hasulam, one more question, Baal HaSulam says that his method is a general method. When we add to our work all sorts of actions that assist us, but it's not so clear if we expect those to be revealed from within. Or that we need to yearn for the street about eating the Zohar, or seek to awaken it, try using various means to try to increase love your friend as yourself?  

M. Laitman: It's likely that it needs to become revealed throughout our life. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:54) For me personally, I feel that I really lack the feeling of dependency on friends, and also I don't feel that they depend on me. How can we establish that feeling of dependency on one another? I don't feel that anyone depends on me, or that I depend on anyone. 

M. Laitman: That's true, that's how it comes to us from nature. Even if, not dependence, but in general, the stony heart, it doesn't feel. To exist, they have to have each other. Now, love thy friend as thyself means that in order to live or to exist, I need the other, so much that without the other, I have no life. That is probably what we receive on our path of development. That's it. Let's hope to get there. 

Student: So, love your friend as yourself, can we reach these kinds of impressions of that, of that sort, but the feeling of dependency on one another, I feel that if I had even a little of that, it would really help me. And all of us, certainly many, maybe there are some who do feel it. So, how to bring that feeling closer? What exercises could we do, or does that just come as we develop naturally? 

M. Laitman: No, that's studying together, trying to be as close as possible, physically, emotionally, and understand from there.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (22:41) The friend becomes so important to the person that he relates to him as he relates to himself, as you said. So, can a person say the same thing, reach the same thing with respect to the love of the Lord? 

M. Laitman: He doesn't write about it. 

Student: He writes that there's no difference between the love of the Lord, the love of the Place, and the love of the friend. What does it mean that there's no difference? 

M. Laitman: That in the same way that he's getting closer to his friend, he can then get closer to the Creator. 

Student: In the same way, meaning with the same intention? 

M. Laitman: That's in the same intention, yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:46) We're talking about love your friend as yourself. I want to ask, sometimes, even with my children, I feel that my desire in certain situations is more important to me than their desires. So, how can I even reach a state where I'll want for the friend, for the friend's sake, as much as I want for my own? 

M. Laitman: That is the work that we should leave for the upper light, the upper illumination. That will come to us and change us so that being truly connected, devoted, adhered to each other, we'll be able to face whatever states come to us. 

Student: But are there any stops along the way? Or is that the final station, the final destination? Love your friend as yourself. Do we have some anchors on the way so as to see that we're approaching, getting nearer to that? 

M. Laitman: Yes, if it says, love your friend as yourself, it means you can reach closer states, further states and how much are you in them? 

Question (Holland): (26:09) What made the 600,000 men agree to that exalted work? What is this agreement? What made them agree exactly? What is this tipping point? 

M. Laitman: That each of them is in a state where everyone besides him is important as him.

Student: For what do we need to wait? So what are the actions exactly to come to that agreement in our Tens? 

M. Laitman: Say it again. 

Student: What are the actions that we in our Tens need to perform so as to reach that agreement that we're talking about here? 600,000 people agree. The action of getting to that agreement?

M. Laitman: Getting closer is an action that is ahead of us in order for us to realize it fully. And we should realize that on the way to carrying out this action we'll discover ourselves as opposite and how opposite we are from connection, from understanding, from the approach in general towards the heart of the friends, that that is something that is given to the heart and is ready for the people, for men of heart, for those who feel the heart and how much they can control the heart. These are not simple things.

Student: Yes, I understand, Rav. It's a gradual process, I believe? 

M. Laitman: It's a gradual process and it's certainly not immediate, that's clear. And we have to be ready for all that will be acquired. 

Student: And how can we reach this let's say in the Congress, in the coming Congress concerning, let's say, reaching Lishma together. How can that be, let's say, of value, let's say, in the process of reaching this agreement? 

M. Laitman: Yes, you're right. That's the problem and the work and the goal. Which is in front of us. And we have to try to get closer to it and carry it out as much as possible. 

Question (Kyiv 1): (30:36) Loving the Creator the same way as I love the friend. There's me and there's the friend. And likewise, there's me and there's the Creator. Now, love seems to equalize the concept of a Creator and friend. What is that? Is it a third power that's revealed? What is that love? 

M. Laitman: That we want to dress into the friend, to be with him in one heart, then we begin to feel his livelihood, his…and that's how we feel, how we are internally connected to each other. So, this means that we need to be as one man in one heart. Meaning, that at the center of our emotion, that's where we have to be connected together. In a way that we can't detach and move apart. Certainly, we need to study these connections from action. And let's hope we get closer to that. 

Student: Where is that center of our emotions where we connect? 

M. Laitman: It's the central point of our desire. That's where we want connection and a sense of others.

Student: The 600,000, is that a complete vessel? 

M. Laitman: That's what he writes, yes. 

Student: And Ten Sefirot, also a complete vessel, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, what's the point of that? What's the connection between them? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. This is something you will probably understand on the way. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:17) If each one develops at his own pace, until the quality of love of others emerges in him, why does he write here that until every single person in the nation agrees with heart and soul and so on, what is that dependency? 

M. Laitman: The connection between the whole of the nation and each and every one passes through their central desire for everyone, where they feel their reality. That's what I can say. We'll do it and then feel us getting closer and our dependence and our mutual guarantee and so forth. And that's how we'll discover ourselves, belonging not to 600,000, but to a single heart. 

Student: Why is it not, we shall do and we will feel? Do it and feel. Each one has his own path of development, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, what is that common path that we have? Each person has his own path of development. Why does he need to depend on others if he has his own stages that he needs to go through, personally? 

M. Laitman: We have to try and get closer to each other with what we currently understand. And to the extent that we get closer, that we're inclined to it, we'll then receive more questions. And this way we'll feel this state of getting closer, more and more. 

Student: No, not yet. What kind of dependency exists between us? 

M. Laitman: The dependence between us, it's an interdependence. That I'm attached to the friends, just as he's attached to me. And we've reached a place from which we can develop in Arvut, in connection between one to the other. 

Student: And what is the connection between the interdependence between us and the personal advancement of each individual friend here? 

M. Laitman: The personal development that each and every friend has is certainly equal to each and everyone's personal development. We should all learn from our sources what kind of movements exist in that. 

Student: What should we pay special attention to with respect to the dependence between us? 

M. Laitman: Getting closer, getting closer mutually, which has to appear between us. 

Student: And when each one takes another step forward, another inner motion, how does that influence the collective? 

M. Laitman: Because we are all connected and we wish to come to the single feeling of the heart as one man and one heart. Then, accordingly, we have to do such actions. 

Student: So, in summary, what is the connection between the personal path of development of each friend and our path as a group? 

M. Laitman: Our path of development as a group determines the behaviors of each and every one.

Question (Women Heb 2): (38:57) The act of coming closer together in the Ten, how is that expressed? 

M. Laitman: The action of expression? 

Student: The act of coming closer together.

M. Laitman: Coming closer. That the members of the group feel themselves at the heart, at the center of their emotion. They feel close, connected, dependent in performing a single action. 

Question (Merkaz 1): (39:35)  Friend from Merkaz, what flavor does the love of friends have one step before the love of the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Before the love of the Creator, a person feels that he has importance and connection with the others, and he will probably get closer to it even more at some point. That's what he feels. 

Question (Women Petah Tikva 25): (40:28) What is the special power that is expressed or manifested through the agreement of 600,000 people, which makes observing the Torah possible? 

M. Laitman: Because it's a complete vessel that includes within it all the desire, all the desire that exists in all created beings. And that's how we connect to the single key the Creator created.

Question (Women Petah Tikva 6): (41:13) How to control the heart? 

M. Laitman: We're unable to control, but only to ask the Creator that He will control. 

Student: A follow-up question. What does each group in Bnei Baruch lack towards the Congress so that we come to feel how we're all here together in one heart? 

M. Laitman: That's what's missing. The feeling that we exist in a single heart. That's it. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:55) I heard you tell the friend now that our path of development as a group determines the behaviors of each and every one, every individual. Can you explain that? 

M. Laitman: If we have to get closer to being as one man in one heart, then that comes to each and every one as a task that is necessary for inner change. 

Student: Meaning that each one of us, the way he conducts himself in the group, that he needs to support that development of us becoming one man in one heart?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:03) He writes that there's no difference at all between the love of the Creator and the love of one's friend, because anything outside of himself is regarded as non-existent. What does it mean that anything outside of oneself is as though it doesn't exist? 

M. Laitman: It doesn't enter his vessels, his desires, so he doesn't feel that it exists. 

Student: And what is that existence or reality? When does a person touch upon that thing called reality? 

M. Laitman: That he has the ability to feel it, to bring it closer and unite with it.

Student: With what? 

M. Laitman: With a certain phenomenon. 

Student: Is it something that we discover between us, or is it something individual, personal? 

M. Laitman: It's what we discover between us. 

Student: You also said that we'll reach a place from which we will continue developing in connection.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What is that place from which we begin to develop?

M. Laitman: That is, the feeling of connection between us, that we begin to reveal this feeling, this place, more and more. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:08) He says here that there is a certain important condition in order to sustain that agreement between us, this Arvut. It's to remove the fear of not being able to support oneself. If I don't get rid of the fear that I won't be able to sustain myself, I cannot maintain the Arvut. So how do we remove that fear? How can each one help the other get rid of that fear that he might not be able to take care of his own personal needs? 

M. Laitman: By the light that reforms. Only by that. 

Student: And this can be done through prayer, allowing that light to work?

M. Laitman: That's also in prayer, of course. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:13) I wanted to ask, how do we create a certain space of area of  how do we create a space where we have reciprocity? 

M. Laitman: From being together in all kinds of actions? We exist in a reciprocal way, serving each other, determining different activities. That's how we get there. 

Student: Because I heard you say that we need to reach a state where there's a center of emotion, a certain feeling between us and that we need to receive vitality from there, from that center? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So what does it mean that there's this center between us? 

M. Laitman: The center of emotion means the center of the group that we anticipate to discover. And this is what we expect to reveal and become incorporated in and thus advance. 

Student: Is the center of the group a thing that exists or is it something we manufacture? 

M. Laitman: It exists and we are not revealing it.

Student: And the ability to feel, to discover the center of the group, what does it depend on? 

M. Laitman: To the extent that we appreciate it, respect it. 

Student: What exactly do we need to appreciate and respect so as to be able to discover the center of the group? 

M. Laitman: We need connection, necessity for connection, support for connection. That's what we need.

Student: The mutuality or reciprocity between us, how do we turn it into something that we can feel in our flesh with the actions that one takes? How can you feel that mutuality in everything you do? How can we begin to live through that feeling?

M. Laitman: When we connect, then we discover how much each and every one depends on the other. How each one is as if created by the friends. And so, as we develop, it will become more and more felt for us, that the future, our revelation, with respect to the Creator, depends only on the intensity of connection between us.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:51) What does it mean here, where he says that they left Egypt and became a nation? 

M. Laitman: That while under the rule of egoistic desires, it's impossible to connect to some single desire, single nation, and therefore only when they come out of Egypt, they're able to do it. Coming out of Egypt is not about some exodus by foot, or distance, rather it's coming out of a control.

Student: And after coming out from under that rule, they became a nation, and then it became possible to start thinking about the condition of love your friend as yourself. So the question is, the goal, which I'm not sure how to define, let's call it Israel, does it need to be clear before accepting this rule, this condition of love your friends as yourself? 

M. Laitman: Yes, of course. The goal, “love thy friends as thyself”, has to be apparent to each and everyone's eyes. And the more connected we are around this goal, the more connected we are around this goal, and the more we work on the connection, the mutual guarantee, and other actions, then we get closer to the goal, and it starts spreading within us. 

Student: The question is, if the goal that the people of Israel have, should it exist there before the condition of “love your friends yourself”? Or does the goal and the nation, do they all emanate from the rule of “love your friends yourself? 

M. Laitman: First, the goal, and then from the goal itself, we get all sorts of actions, that we can do somewhat, and then we get closer to feeling the Creator. 

Student: One last question if I may, we engaged a lot with dissemination this week, we talked about it in the meeting we had on Sunday, I feel that when we talk about it when we engage with that it brings us closer to the goal, and it supports our ability to meet those conditions he writes about here. The question is, how to maintain the balance between these things? How to have one assist us in maintaining the other? Maybe the question is, what comes before what? 

M. Laitman: We have to try and carry out the Arvut between us. That to the extent of this interconnection between everyone we can advance in a spiritual ascent. And to the extent that we advance, we'll understand the essence of our development. That's all.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (55:56) An example. I can try to love the friends in the Ten, to draw the reforming light, and even to touch this, to even succeed in feeling love, to being in love with the friends. I just can't understand, this comes from me towards them, right? I don't understand in what way I depend on them, so as to be able to love them. I want to feel my dependence on them, in terms of being able to love them. Can we connect our love and interdependence together somehow? What is the connection between them, maybe? 

M. Laitman: This needs to become clearer through action, from actions. To the extent that you will try to do actions that tie the friends together, to a single block, single thing, you'll feel what changes it makes in you. 

Student: What kinds of actions, if you can be more specific? 

M. Laitman: Of connection, of course. And the more internal, the better. 

Student: And that feeling of dependence will come to us through the force of connection, will feel dependent on each other? I wanted to ask about that one drilling a hole in the boat. So one person tells him, you're drilling a hole, he feels that he's doing something wrong, and the one drilling doesn't feel it, he doesn't feel that he's drilling a hole. What's special about the one who feels that his friend is drilling a hole, and about the one who doesn't feel that he's drilling a hole? Spiritually speaking, what's different between them? 

M. Laitman: One feels the essence of the action and one doesn't. 

Student: But what's at the core of the matter? Why does he drill a hole? What does he feel? What is he doing? 

M. Laitman: What is he doing? He participates, or at the very least, indifferent to the fact that everyone is drawn to drill holes in the body of the boat. 

Student: So what should we do to be like that one who feels that the other is drilling a hole? What do we need? What do we need to do in order to feel? Well, I feel that I'm always drilling a hole.

M. Laitman: Well, and what do you do? 

Student: I don't know. I feel it's an inherent thing with me. I don't feel that they depend on me, either. No feeling of dependency. 

M. Laitman: Yes. But ask. Ask to have it. 

Student: To ask the light to give us the feeling of interdependence? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And if we do that together, it will penetrate into us? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Everything depends on revelation of the Creator.

Question (Moscow): (01:00:28) Well, you said that we must recognize the importance of our interdependence. So, I have a question. We talked about how there's a heart of stone that only light from the Creator can fix. When a certain friend prays for another friend, transmitting the light of the Creator, does the light of love break through my heart? Break through my egoistic layer? Or does it break through the friend's egoistic layer? How does it work? 

M. Laitman: It doesn't matter to us. What's important is to feel that our hearts are connecting.

Question (Turkiye 8): (01:01:30) We know that the Creator wants to make us happy. And when we see the glory of the Creator, the fact that we are connected to the Creator, we suffer. We feel suffering by not giving Him contentment. Does that make the Creator happy? When a person wants to give contentment to the Creator and feels suffering that he can't do that, does that make the Creator happy? 

M. Laitman: Yes. Yes, if I understand what he's asking.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:02:36) All these wonderful things relating to love your friends as yourself, dependency, dependence on friends, do we need to attain that in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: He writes here that with a small number of people, you can't even begin engaging in the commandments between man and man. So how do we bridge that gap? What does it mean, a small number of people? 

M. Laitman: A small number. 

Student: Here he says 600,000. 

M. Laitman: He's talking about a complete society. That's all of humanity. And small portions are what you have in all of humanity. Smaller groups, smaller nations.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:03:59) Now, being Israel isn't just an inclination, right? It's also a role, a duty? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So it's not enough for me to observe. I also need to be active. So if I just come here and sit and listen, that's how I pass my time without doing anything, that's not good enough. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, as Israel, I have a duty. Am I actually the one who needs to refine the created beings through my actions? Am I the goldsmith, so to speak? Or is it the Creator? Is it the Creator, though? That's the question. 

M. Laitman: Yes, no, of course it's the Creator.

Student: So, what is my duty? 

M. Laitman: To labor in all the conditions that come to you, that you're trying to be the connector. 

Student: And if let's say, it's difficult for me, the Creator makes it hard for me, and I fail in participating. 

M. Laitman: Not good.

Student: Here he wrote that at that point in time, everyone left every other engagement and engaged only in that. So, what does it mean for me to let go of everything else and engage only in this? 

M. Laitman: Around the spiritual advancement, a person should find the necessary actions that he has to do in order to come to be the connector of everyone as one man in one heart. And that's what he doesn't give up on. That would mean that he's just leaving the Torah. 

Student: So, again, the Creator arranged such a job for me where I work 12 hours a day. I come home, I don't even have time to be with the family. I have maybe four hours to sleep a night. How am I Israel in this way, this form? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. Pray.

Student: So, my question now, as one who receives that inclination to become Israel and understands that it's a duty, do I need to arrange my life accordingly, according to this duty? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: Meaning, I need to do everything possible so as to have a kind of job that allows me the time to engage in the Torah and become Israel? No? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:07:30) I would like to touch upon what you told the friend, that we need to have an inner feeling of interdependence. When we have external actions to take, it's clear. We all come together, we help each other, we do something. But what will obligate us in a more inner way? Is there anything that will compel us to have this kind of connection internally? 

M. Laitman: That without it you're not reaching the goal, your life's goal. 

Student: It's clear that if we discover the Creator between us, then there will be this inner commitment. But before discovering that, what makes each person committed to that connection? 

M. Laitman: The Creator, who awakens each and every one. That without it, one feels that he's empty. 

Student: And can we give that to each other through... Well, through what? Through what can we give each other that importance? 

M. Laitman: When each one sets an example for the other.

Question (Turkiye): (01:08:56) Because of visa issues, there's a real danger that 26 friends who got tickets to the Congress won't be able to arrive. So, what kind of work do we need to do in order to change, to alter that situation? 

M. Laitman: To pray. To pray to ask the Creator to solve this problem for us.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:09:30) So, a group is a collection of people with different views. They come together, but each one has... Never mind, I can't speak. 

M. Laitman: Okay, yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:09:55) A general question. By the force of sharing between us, we can feel the force of connection between us? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: By mutuality, we can feel the intention towards him to maintain it, to intensify it. What is the difference between the force of connection between us and our intention? Our attitude towards each other and our attitude towards Him? 

M. Laitman: That the force of connection is already there, and the intention is aimed at the future, when we'll get there.

Student: And the force of connection has to precede the intention? 

M. Laitman: The force of connection has to be... It has to become revealed in execution, that the intention connects us all. 

Student: So, the intention comes first? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:11:19) This question regarding our interdependence, which the friends asked, and also, it's been here for two, three days, up in the air. All the Kabbalists from Hillel Hanasi and all the great sages of the wisdom of Kabbalah, Baal HaSulam and yourself as well, out of all the Torah, they mostly focus on the love of friends from which you reach love of the Lord. Everything deals with that. We're not talking about what kind of blood is allowed to be thrown on the altar, or other of the 612 commandments. Now, with respect to this commandment, a person can't do it alone. He needs an environment and also the light. He needs the Creator to join in with that commandment, otherwise the person cannot observe it, as he writes here. So, it seems, like all the other things, it seems like you can, well, observe them. Not to steal, of course, you need to make an effort, but in order to come closer to carrying out this action, a person receives examples, explanations. What I'm trying to get at is, what do I not see, for example with working with the friends, or with how you relate to the students, what am I missing here that I need to notice in order to understand this commandment? Why can't a person see that the friends love him, for example? Why can't a person see that the teacher loves him, that the upper one loves him? Why is it he sees many other things? He can arrive, he cannot arrive, he can do something or not do it, but this feeling, what is that barrier preventing a person from seeing this example, which actually exists in reality? 

M. Laitman: A man sees what he wishes to see. This is called, he sees what he's close to, and nothing else. And not otherwise. Therefore, that's also how we should look at our development. In the meantime, when the evil inclination rules me, controls me, then what's related to receiving is close to me. And what's related to bestowing is farther from me. 

Student: I'll ask something personal, and we'll see how it relates to the situation. Let's say that during my lifetime, my relationship with my father was very, well, concrete, let's say, practical, and he had to die before I started thinking about him a lot, and I understood many things that I didn't before, how much love existed there, and how much efforts he made, how many efforts. But there was a lot of, a lot of things happened for the coin to drop, so I can understand what kind of emotion existed there. And now I want to, I have this feeling that I don't want to miss out on the situation we have here, on the state we have here. I want this to be felt right now, and not in a hundred years we'll come to feel what we had in the past. So what can we do to bring the connection between us closer right now and not wait for many processes to go by until that penny drops? So, what can we do to focus on this? Because it seems that we confuse ourselves with many other things. 

M. Laitman: Yes, we need to try and reveal all the friends as one force that is in the group. I don't know what again to talk about, the commandment of love, or rejection, and I think that we're full of this.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:16:49) A person is in all kinds of circles of dependency in his life. He is dependent on his family, on his Ten, on his group, on all of Bnei Baruch, on all of humanity, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: To which circle of dependency does Baal HaSulam aim here? What is the minimal, necessary circle you have to maintain so that the love of mutual responsibility will exist so we feel the love at the center of the feeling? 

M. Laitman: That a group of people that wants to come closer to the Creator must take upon themselves laws, that according to them, this group will get a form, the suitable form for spiritual development. And we need to give gratitude for that. 

Student: I'll continue the friends' question. He said that because he writes in a small number of people, it's impossible to even begin to do this. On the other hand, we hear that everything begins and ends in one's personal Ten, which is a small number of people. So how do you reconcile the two? What does he mean? What circle of dependency should we focus on when we implement mutual responsibility between us? Is my own Ten enough, or do I need to take the whole world Kli to account? 

M. Laitman: That's enough. 

Student: Enough? 

M. Laitman: Your private Ten is sufficient for a person to start scrutinizing inside it all of his relationships with the Creator.

Student: Congress in a month, all the friends from the World Kli will come here, and at the Congress we always say that we are as one Ten, we have to think of everyone together. So, is there an interest in expanding the prayer and trying to feel the dependency on all the friends and the whole Kli, or do we still focus only on the personal Ten? I'm speaking mainly internally. What's the focus for the Congress? 

M. Laitman: Until the Congress, our focus of our vision should be in the center of our vision. That we, they're discovering that center of our observation, the world of Ein Sof, of infinity, the world of Ein Sof. When we reach the state where we can see that place, so we reveal in it that there's nothing to reveal, that it's simply as if it doesn't exist. And when we keep going in it, and still we don't let go of it, so in that place, that's where we meet between us and the Creator. Okay.

Student: By the way, there's a feeling that your answers lately are so deep that I can't absorb them during the lesson. I need to listen again afterwards. It's something else. In terms of maybe your teaching, I don't know how to say it. Is this correct? Or maybe it's just my own feeling? Or are you taking us to a different place in terms of your teaching? 

M. Laitman: A bit higher up.

Student: I heard you once, well, not once. You said several times in the past still in the old center, I look at you, I see all the efforts you made. If you, if we want in this generation or in this time that you're dependent on the whole world, and with respect to the efforts you are making personally, you'd already achieve attainment. Because we are dependent on the whole world, kind of tied to them with chains, we can't jump from the level where they have to develop too. So, it's as if humanity is holding us back. Is this still valid? 

M. Laitman: Yes and no. Yes and no. But it won't bother us. We need to advance the way we are, and the rest we will scrutinize and disappear. 

Reader: We can finish the article with item 17 or move to selected excerpts from the preparation for the Congress connecting to Lishma.

M. Laitman: Selected excerpts 

Reader: And we'll sing a song first.

Song: (01:24:12)