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

Daily Morning Lesson: August 17, 2026

Part 2: Baal HaSulam. "Study of the Ten Sefirot" (TES). Vol. 1. Part 1. Inner Light. #100.

Reader: Shalom, dear friends. Hello, dear friends. After this lesson with the Rav, we, in a really perfect way are entering The Study of the Ten Sefirot. We truly received guidance, precise guidance, on why we are approaching The Study of the Ten Sefirot now, how to access it, and how Rabash prepared us, awakened in us all kinds of qualities, deficiencies, desires. And we have to package all of that towards the receiving of the medicine, to receive the reforming light through The Study of the Ten Sefirot. So let's read from the words of the Rav. We have this also on our subtitles here, on the headings, in our transcripts. Let's see. So he says, from the lesson from now:

Reading: (00:56) You're reading about these actions that go through your soul, but you're unconscious; you don't feel that they're going through you. And then, from those actions that you don't feel, but you want to reach their feeling, you yearn for them. And then you get some kind of, some illumination from there. That's considered the surrounding light coming to you. It doesn't come, or go, or go back, or return or ascend or descend. Attraction to that state, to be in this action, gives you an illumination from there. It's like you're perceiving from afar this state. That's considered that the surrounding light is coming to you, and then gradually, this surrounding light sanctifies you, purifies you, brings you a little closer, and like this, a little more, and a little more, and a little more.

Student: So, let's enter to a little more. Before we enter the lesson, let's read item 4 in the words of the ARI. Gilad, will you read?

Student: Yes. The Study of the Ten Sefirot, page 6, we're reading item 4 by the ARI.

Reading: (02:23) The space that remained after the restriction was round.

4. Then there remained a vacant place, air, and an empty space from the very middle point. And that restriction was even around that middle, empty point, in a way that the place of that space was round on all its sides, completely even, and it was not in the shape of a square with a perpendicular angle, for Ein Sof had restricted Himself like a circle, even on all sides.

Student: Now let's enter the lesson that relates to item 100 in "Inner Light" — item 100, relating to "round on all its sides," in the words of the ARI; item 100 from the words of the ARI. Let's get into the lesson. Remember that we are drawing the light that will bring us to the correction. 

Reader: The Study of the Ten Sefirot, volume 1, little item 100, clarifying "round on all its sides, completely even."

Reading: (04:04)

100. Round on all its sides, completely even: It means that there was some image that had to have been made because of the restriction, though the restriction was even (as thoroughly explained above), and not because of any disparity of form. However, after the restriction and departure of the light from that middle point, it became revealed that the upper light is unfit to adhere to it because of the form of Gadlut [greatness/adulthood] of reception in her. Because that was revealed, she fell from the degree she had had in Ein Sof, and is now regarded as Sof, meaning the lowest possible coarseness, for only that middle point remained a vacant space, unfit to clothe the light (see Item 6), Source Text Continues

M. Laitman: (05:13) Meaning, the difference between the previous expansion to the middle point is that it felt a difference in the light that works in it and around it. And this feeling that was born in it, in this point, in the last phase, phase 4, is what brings it now to be the center middle point. And this feeling already belongs to the created being. Now, when he says that necessarily there's been some image that had to have been made because of the restriction, we have to understand that this is the special relationship between the qualities. We depict them in this way. Rather, there are no pictures and illustrations in spirituality, and we can't really illustrate spiritual objects. What we're doing is we illustrate, we draw the forces, the qualities in those spiritual objects. And we can't imagine any image here, certainly. Rather, we simply take from our world such definitions of a circle, and we illustrate it as a circle, but we give it a spiritual definition. We take the definition of a square from our world, we relate it to spirituality, and the definition of the spiritual square. In other words, you shouldn't see in those images any more than the relationship between qualities or the forces alone. That's it. When I say upper and lower, I simply want to say that in spirituality, one is higher than the other. The second one is lower. What is higher and lower? Here, for me, in our world, it's height. In spirituality, higher means greater in the quality of bestowal. Each time I need to see the illustrations, the drawings, and decipher them only according to spiritual definitions: point, line, middle point, circle, area, all those things. When a person looks at the drawings, then there will be a lot of people who will say about us, oh, they constantly make those illustrations, they seemingly materialize the wisdom of Kabbalah. It's simply a lack of understanding that in our drawings, we simply draw, depict the relationship between qualities. If you take my books, you'll see how many illustrations are there. Rabash drew with his own hands, and how many photographs we have from him, from Rabash, and how many illustrations and drawings we have from Baal HaSulam. And also, past Kabbalists, they always illustrated, made illustrations. We see in the Book of Yetzirah, the Book of Formation, we see illustrations. But again, understand that we're not talking about geometric shapes, but the relationships between forces.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:09) You once told us that Rabash opened a book that you showed him there, a picture of a person with Sefirot, and he immediately closed it, and said you didn't want to see it.

M. Laitman: Before I went to Berg, to offer, to give lectures there — I think in the 80s, 1980, 1979, Berg left Israel and traveled to the States, to the U.S. — and I told Rabash, maybe I can get in there and teach lessons. I didn't think to bring them to Rabash. I thought they're young men who want to study, and I'll teach them there, in that place. It makes no difference to us. And although it was a Kabbalah institute, which was the other way around, right, that people would look down at it, but Rabash allowed it. I asked him, and he said, no. I showed him things. He said, just what is this place? So I went there. I brought all kinds of brochures, and I opened it up, and in that first brochure he opened, he saw the body, you know, inside the circle, and on the body he had like…Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet… So immediately, he shut it down. You shouldn't look at it. And I was naively, I was impressed. What's forbidden? First of all, it's from the Middle Ages, right? The Vitruvian Man in the circle. That's Leonardo da Vinci, right? But then they added the Sefirot on top of it. Oh, big deal. Okay, they put it. But certainly, you shouldn't look at it because that makes you acquire this method that can attach the soul to the body, let's say. Because people think that the soul is somewhere in our body. Later, because of that, they go and they check the shadow. Is my soul okay according to the shadow of the moon, right? You're laughing, but it's not a joke. We get all kinds of things from that. And Hassidism, you know, I lower my hands below the Tabur, below the belly button, it's already impurity. I raise them up, it's sanctity. I tighten my robe, this is a — I'm severing the upper part from — which is holier, from the impure, and so on and so forth. There are signs for sanctity. And you know that these are signs, symbols, that you behave in this world, in our world, in this way, in order to hint at your tendency for spirituality. That's something else. That's what the founding fathers of Hassidism intended when they established their Hassidic courts on these new customs that were not prevalent in Israel before: to wear all kinds of clothes, right? To do all kinds of actions, to hint for a person at those spiritual actions. But later, they made those actions holy, not because they point at spirituality to which you need to yearn and reach. The actions themselves became sacred, you understand? That was the reason. That's why the Hassidic movement went bankrupt spiritually. Now, Rabash saw this illustration, he said, oh, certainly, he said, oh, this he shouldn't see, shouldn't look at it. But it doesn't matter. He said, Berg attached the Hassidic customs to Kabbalah, so what? If you have an opportunity, you should go. 

M. Laitman: (13:24) So I went, and I taught them for six months, I think. I taught them "Preface," Pticha. They only wanted to learn the "Preface." But together with the "Preface," I gave them all kinds of other discernments. And the thing that really broke them was the Letter 64, "Israel, the Light, and the Creator Are One," walking on the path of truth. Actually, it's letter 17, by Baal HaSulam, walking on the path of truth, as we call it. I showed them that if you deviate a little right or a little left, you lose your entire life. That really crushed them; it put a lot of fear in them. And they came up and came to study with us, because they saw that without the right direction from a wise person, from a sage like Rabash, there's no hope, there's no chance of reaching the goal, and that's it. So they came to us, 40 people, I think, about 40. And it took a long time for the Kabbalah Institute to recuperate from that. I didn't have any intention to destroy it, God forbid, but if they came, and they want to advance towards sanctity, you shouldn't do any other calculations. There's nothing more important than saving one's soul; that comes before everything. So of course, we accepted them. Those are the pictures. But we're talking about our own pictures, where in our illustrations, we specify certain actions or spiritual discernments in the spiritual world. We don't connect the spiritual world with the corporeal world, with our physical bodies; rather with desires. When I say material desires, corporeal desires, spiritual desires, those are desires, not the flesh, God forbid. 

Reader: We're continuing.

Reading: (15:38) And the three former phases in virtue and refinement were still fit to clothe the light, even after the restriction.

And yet, we have explained above (previous item) that she did not become a Sof for the above reason. This is the meaning of the precision of the ARI when he says, “the place of that space was round on all its sides, completely even.” He wishes to say that it is not an actual Sof, but is like the Sof in a circular picture, whose Sof is in the middle.

You can compare these four phases to four circles one within the other, like onionskins. The central circle is phase four, surrounded by phase three, surrounded by phase two, surrounded by phase one. In this way, no up or down, right or left are discerned among them.

For example, phase one is above all of them in its one half, and below all of them in its other half, and so it is in all the phases. Thus, there is no up or down here, and likewise right or left. One has no merit whatsoever more than the other, and they are all completely even. 

M. Laitman: (17:26) Because there's one special quality about a circle; that all the points in the circle are the same points, they have the same value. There's no difference between a point that's above, or below, right, left, it doesn't matter where you are in the circle. What's important is in which circle you are relative to the center — more external, more internal, closer or more distant, relative to the center — but in the circle itself, there's no difference; it's not important. Everyone is equal: all the points that make up a circle, there's no difference between them. You can say, well, if there's no difference between them, why are they many? We don't accept any other form of change or difference in the circle, except that everyone is equal in the measure of their distance or proximity to the center. In other words, there's no difference between being above, so to speak, or off to the side, or below if I'm on the same circle. I can freely find myself at any point on that circle. That's the quality of the circle.

Reading: (18:51)

It has already been explained (above item) that the reason for the restriction was not disparity of form. This is the meaning of the precision of the ARI, “round on all its sides, completely even.” End

M. Laitman: Clear? No questions from the internet? No, okay. Item 5.

Reader: Item 5, the words of the ARI.

Reading: (19:24) Because the light of Ein Sof was even, the restriction was also even. This is the meaning of the circle.

5. The reason was that since the light of Ein Sof was completely even, it had to restrict itself evenly on all sides, and not restrict itself on one side more than on the others. It is known in the wisdom of geometry that there is none so even an image as the image of the circle. However, this is not the case with the image of a square, with bulging perpendicular angle, the image of the triangle, and likewise all the other images.

M. Laitman: (20:18) Because there, each and every point is already in a different position relative to the point next to it — other than the circle. The circle, the sphere: anyone who is on the surface of that sphere, or on the perimeter of that circle, they are all equal. And there is no other form so whole or perfect as the circle, or in 3D is the sphere, like a ball. Whereas a square or a triangle — and that's why we use those shapes in the wisdom of Kabbalah, to denote the differences between the states. So, we have a point, a line. Don't look at it as up or down, just a line. A point, a line, a circle, a square a triangle, and the Partzuf itself, that we draw it not as a square but as a rectangle or a tube. Those are the shapes we have in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Hochma, Bina, ZA, Malchut, and the second restriction in the middle, like the Parsa, or it's this drawing here. The circle is clear to us, but all the points on the perimeter are equal. Here we have up and down, right and left, where up and down is in the light of Hochma, and right and left is in the light of Hassadim, and the second restriction shortens this circuit. And here the Partzuf — we draw it in this way, or the relationship between Hassadim and Hochma. You have ten Sefirot here, and height and width, but these are the drawings; there aren't many more than that in the wisdom of Kabbalah. So, a person should read the definitions of these shapes clearly, meticulously, to understand that a circle is even and equal, and it's different from another circle only relative to the — only with respect to the distance to the center. So if I have the smallest circle, and I can, but I cannot compare it to all the other circles, I'm in Ein Sof. Why? Because all the points that I feel next to me, they're all equal. So then I feel wholeness. Then you need to have a line in the circle in order to show me that there's something else in addition to my state. That many things, but yes.

Question (Israel): (24:07) What's the difference between the work in lines and the work in circle?

M. Laitman: We work only in lines. We don't belong to the circles. Circles are lights that come to us from above. Circles are the upper governance and providence that works on us in general. There's a general providence and then a personal providence. The personal providence comes to me in a line, and I feel a personal relationship to the upper one, and accordingly I awaken to a negative or positive force, it doesn't matter. That's private providence. That, you know, each and everyone receives a direct ray of light. That ray of light might awaken darkness and not light, but it doesn't matter. It's still personal, private. And general providence applies to all the souls together. It comes to them, awakens all of them collectively to the end of correction; like a general feeling of pressure that works on all the records in Adam HaRishon to extract more of them, more of them, more of them, line after line of records that will awaken and emerge from concealment to revelation. It's like Baal HaSulam says, that the incarnations are like a line of people who are standing, you know, doing the, going through the incarnation, then they get up again and go through the incarnation again. That's a general providence in circles. Why circles? Everyone advances equally. Each one is moving to another set of records, and all of us, like in a line, moving through record by record. The circular light, the general light, works on everyone equally. In addition to that, you have personal providence, or private providence, that works on this one, and that one, and this one with respect to special souls, and the line works on their points.