Morning Lesson September 3, 2023

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 23, (1987). Peace After a Dispute Is More Important than Having No Disputes At All

Reading Article. (00:40) “Concerning peace, Rabbi Shimon Ben Halafta said,..”

1. S. (01:39:18) There’s in the article the allegory about the bad neighbor and they discover that he is bad only when you stop serving him but where does the person take the courage to test it, to stop asking him, “What do you want?” and serve him every day, suddenly he becomes a hero and he flexes against him and he stops serving him?

R. This is an inner struggle in a person and gradually he sees that he can't bend him. So he goes from negating the power itself to the power of the Creator, so the Creator will not leave me, and that is how he advances where from everything the Creator will appear.

S. So the Creator gives him the power to start the change?

R. Everything. What we read in the wisdom of Kabbalah and in general, the Creator starts and ends the entire creation, all just to build the presence of man, the correct vessels for the revelation of the Creator and for adhesion with Him.

2. S. (01:41:14) He writes that the anger is when a person wants to work for the sake of Heaven, whereas when the person says that he wants to work for the sake of Heaven and that's only lip service, the evil inclination doesn't get angered because why does he care if the person says something and not know what he says? Meaning the person doesn't know what is the meaning for the sake of Heaven. So there should be at least in potential a sense of what it means to bestow, when it says I want to bestow and then jumps and says I don't want. So where does it take? How does it build this picture?

R. Demand and there is the group and in different states he goes through and what Kabbalists write to us, there's no problem here, there's nothing missing.

S. That's clear we have everything but there are states where the person says, “It is important for me to be in the form of bestowal,” and then against that he feels resistance and then we have what to work with. But then there are states where it’s as he writes he tries to bestow but nothing awakens the heart, it doesn't move in this direction?

R. Then there's nothing to say about these states; the person is not ready yet.

S. So the question is: What do we have to do in the group so that this form of bestowal will be built in us, where the person is not in it but he can already see it ahead of him, and he can feel it to some extent?

R. Only when he connects to the friends by all sorts of forms of connection with them he can clarify the state, more advanced, less advanced, in heart and mind. That’s it, everything is present, we just need to work with it.

3. S. (01:43:53) He says that the main correction is attributed to the lower one but it's actually with the agreement with the Creator. I understand everything comes from the Creator; there is no doubt. If you do not agree with it, the created being won't be able to receive correction, to receive the vessel, deficiency. I am asking: Why, nevertheless, he ascribes it to the lower one?

R. Because the lower one seemingly chooses.

S. I see in this article the relationship between the two forces: the positive and the negative, there’s this relationship between them and how the Creator enters in this relationship. So I'm asking: What is the wholeness, the whole? Is this the relationship between fulfillment, deficiency and fulfillment? Is it when I receive fulfillment according to the demand from the Creator? That moment is wholeness, is the vessel of peace, of wholeness?

R. The whole that's connected to the Creator, that's it and not in the middle as you're trying to say.

S. So what is the vessel of peace, Shalom?

R. The vessel of peace is that he wants to be adhered to the Creator.

4. S. (01:45:25) He writes here about the work in the ascent, “From each and every ascent he needs to make a calculation of what he lost during the descent.” And by that he sees that the evil inclination is doing a lot of bad things to him. How do you make this calculation?

R. Try to poke around in yourself and see.

S. So it says if we're not doing it we're not using the ascent correctly and it will bring him down again?

R. Yes.

5. S. (01:46:08) Rabash writes in the beginning of the article that the actions that the person does is the right line and the intention is the left? Can we extract the rule from it based on what we learn about right and left? That along the way the person could check in his intention and if he discovers it's incorrect, without understanding, he goes back to the actions, meaning this test will always be incorrect?

R. No, we need to check and see.

6. S. (01:46:49) Practically, what does it mean to vex the evil inclination, to wage war with it?

R. That a person scrutinizes it precisely, reveals the evil inclination, what it wants, how much it is standing in my way.

S. How do you make this scrutiny?

R. As it is written, “That the person should always anger the good inclination over the evil.”

S. Practically, what am I scrutinizing?

R. By this I scrutinize both these inclinations and how much each one is opposed to the other, that I'm going to scrutinize it.

S. There's the evil inclination that constantly makes me want various satisfactions, that’s one, and then there’s the evil inclination that prevents me from doing good, that's another type. Who am I waging war on more precisely?

R. From what you see, from what is revealed in you?

S. It is not clear to me?

R. It is not that you're now like searching artificially, rather you need to work in such a manner that you will come outward and you will catch it.

S. What brings him out?

R. A person should always anger, yes, and then he catches it and corrects it

S. We see most of the day goes by and I don’t fight with him, I don’t pay attention to him. What would bring it out?

R. You're not revealing it, you're not angering it.

S. Okay, how do we vex it?

R. Try to do good deeds and see how much he wants to bother you.

S. By asking about good deeds it’s not enough, it doesn't bring it out. What will actually bring it out?

R. Only that you are working against it?

S. Why does it say to do during the ascent because during the ascent you don't feel it, everything is seemingly good, why during the ascent?

R. The vessels are clearer, the tendencies, the inclinations are more clear.

S. During the ascent I don't feel the evil?

R. Depends how you define the ascent.

S. So what is that ascent?

R. That you say that the good inclination needs to rule and the evil inclination needs to be subjugated then inserted inward.

S. During the ascent is that a time where I think I should do good deeds and I should do good deeds?

R. Yes.

S. There is no war there?

R. That depends how you place them one against the other, both in the ascent and the descent. Meaning it depends what inclination is now under control, you can make a war that is this way or that.

7. S. (01:50:33) In the scrutinies a person makes as he writes here, “He sees that he has a true reason for engaging in Torah and Mitzvot.” Later, he writes, “that a person should scrutinize for himself what is the reason for which he is engaging in Torah and Mitzvot.” There is a point he writes in the scrutiny and then comes the third one and decides between them, that he has to bring the Creator to decide between them. How do you learn to bring the Creator into the scrutinies?

R. With respect to Whom are you checking that you are correct or incorrect on the path.

S. But I find a lot of cunning in my tests but it turns out that it's always before the friends, if you make a scrutiny or you test anything, that's the most precise, I think?

R. Yes, right, continue.

S. The more you bring the friends into the scrutinies does that mean that we involve the Creator?

R. Yes because after them is the Creator.

8. S. (01:52:10) Rabash writes that there are two things that negate one another: the will to receive which is the opposite of the will to bestow and then comes the third one and decides. Meaning that the Creator comes and makes peace between them. When exactly the Creator comes and makes peace?

R. When there is room, there is space, when space is prepared for Him. To this that He comes and then divides the matter.

S. How is the place created for Him?

R. That we need Him. As it’s written, until the third one comes and makes a decision between them, it's something that we cannot differentiate between this and that, and there as it is written that we need the third one as well.

S. What gives birth to the need for it?

R. Lack of success, lack of success in our scrutinies that precede it.

S. How do we awaken or vex correctly the good inclination over the evil inclination?

R. It's simply in every case possible, we want to be in the intention to bestow and not in the intention to receive, in every manner possible.

9. S. (01:54:10) In the beginning of the article Rabash explains that the work in action means keeping Torah and Mitzvot in all of its details, meticulously. What does it mean to keep Torah and Mitzvot, meticulously, in all of its details, so this is the action?

R. That in any case, in all cases, I make the effort to be in, to raise myself above the will to receive and show myself that I'm above it and in the intention to bestow.

S. He explains that this is the action that still lacks intention and that's one line, and it comes to the right line when he starts to scrutinize the intention, so the intention comes only after I scrutinize, so, the action that he keeps meticulously, there's no intention there yet, he simply needs to keep it?

R. Let's say so.

S. Rabash explains it more than once in the article and I don't understand what it means. I don't feel like I'm doing something called Torah and Mitzvot meticulously with all its details?

R. Of course not.

S. So in order for me to reach, to have the intention I need some foundation on which you can have the intention and he writes about it, keeping Torah and Mitzvot even with the action requires much strength and the person has to make many corporeal concessions to keep the commandments of the Creator. What are these corporeal concessions, where are all these details that I have to meticulously pay attention to?

R. That I'm not looking about what is good for me or bad for me, pleasant or unpleasant, rather I am looking only at the intention to bestow, when I can fulfill it and when I cannot and in actions that I can fulfill it; that's called that I am in the right line.

10. S. (01:56:45) Our action is to reach work in connection in the ten?

R. Yes.

S. What does it mean in these actions of annulment of raising the importance of the friends and the connection? Where is the intention here? It turns out as if the intention and the action are intertwined in one another?

R. But not always.

S. Nevertheless, what is the work of the intention?

R. To work on the intention is that all my intention is to cause pleasure to the Creator.

S. The addition of the Creator into our actions in the ten, that's the..?

R. Yes, of course because without the foundation of the ten that we enjoy from this, that we are operating in the ten and we have pleasure from it, then we can not prepare a space for the Creator. In the process, the action is much clearer and correct and good from all sorts of intentions that we make beforehand. The main thing is to bring ourselves to action and then afterwards the act will also correct our intentions where we haven’t worked with it so much.

11. S. (01:58:43) He writes, “Therefore when a person begins to think about the intention when he begins to arrange for himself before doing the Mitzvah, what is the reason for which he's going to perform this commandment, then he comes to the true intention.” We connect reason which is a circle and the intention which is a line?

R. Where is a circle and a line?

S. Yes, he speaks about the reason, the cause that when you come to the intention it starts with the cause?

R. I don't understand the question.

S. I will say differently. When I was in a very difficult state, I wrote a sign for myself: it doesn't matter what I do but the reason I am doing it for. Then I started studying here and I saw the matter of the intention, of how you bring all the systems in one direction and I see the connection between the two things, between a cause of something and the intention behind it. Can you open it up?

R. Of course, the main thing in our work is the intention because the actions themselves have nothing in them that really are the solution. We need to show our intentions and the intention is the main thing in men, what is he intending, what does he want to reach, what does he see as the goal, in which he agrees with the Creator or doesn’t agree so much. The main thing is the intention.

S. And if we exit the intention a bit and we can see this by our action that we wanted to go, the main thing then is the cause?

R. To return to the intention is typically when we change our relationships within the group with the friends.

12. S. (02:01:21) It is written, “a person reaches coveting from seeing and seeing, also, in actual sight and imagination.” He says coveting is a sin and the advice is to make repentance. What is repentance that I don't have control over? Not my sight, not my thoughts?

R. Did you try to see that you are not in control?

S. Of course many times and each time I keep getting new thoughts.

R. When the thoughts come, it's something different but when they do come how do you overcome them?

S. Sometimes I try not to think about them, to escape them. Sometimes there are things that I cannot, then I raise a prayer to the Creator. It's like this all day, you constantly are seeing things, you are constantly getting thoughts and he says it's a sin, that if you are seeing things that are not good. How do we reach correction? What is this repentance?

R. When you search for forces, for the friends that will hold you so you will not fall. Try to do it for one day like that.

S. You are saying that if you're constantly getting thoughts and things that you see, that I need to be aimed all the time towards the friends?
R. Yes, yes, they hold you on to them.

S. And if they're not holding on to me, I can’t succeed in this?

R. You demand that they hold you and you’ll see how through that you are capable of holding onto them.

13. S. (02:03:28) It is written that the aid of the Creator is as written in The Zohar about what our sages said, “One who comes to be purified, is aided, and we ask with what? With a holy soul that he should attain this, he has no ability to understand the importance of holiness and that can fall to the Klipot, to the shells and afflicts them." So, what is the aid of the Creator? Does this change the person's qualities?

R. Yes, the help of the Creator takes many forms. The main thing is that the Creator brings the person closer to the goal. It creates opportunities for him so a person begins to understand what is worthwhile for him and what is good for him.

S. So in what form are we asking for aid?

R. No, to ask for help, that’s it. Then wait; the Creator knows best.

14. S. (02:05:10) How can a person recognize the importance of Lo Lishma, not for Her sake? How can he reach this conclusion being that our nature is always working for itself? So what incorporation can help us rise above this nature?

R. When I'm connected to the friends I receive through them their thoughts and their strength and then I can rise above my own thoughts and my own strength and I can begin to come out of that state.

15. S. (02:05:55) It is written in the article that the righteous and the sorrows, that the Creator saves them all.

R. I didn't understand the question.

S. It is written, the afflictions of the righteous separate him from the evil inclination. Can this be possible without suffering?

R. I didn't understand his question.

S. Can we separate from the evil inclination and not suffer? Why do the righteous need suffering?

R. No, no, no, you cannot do it without suffering because that's the matter of the scrutiny. How much I am willing to suffer in order to distance myself, disconnect from the evil inclination. By that we actually weigh, we measure the degree.

16. S. (02:07:10) When there are problems in this life that means that I'm turning vessels of reception into vessels of bestowal?

R. Yes.

S. When I feel that everything is calm in my life, that I'm in a state of descent and I need to ask from the Creator to lift me from this state, that everything is calm?

R. Yes.

17. S. (02:07:56) What does ‘covet’ mean, it says “the eye sees and the person covets”, just like a previous student mentioned but what does covet mean?

R. ‘Covet’, he truly wants, he wants it very much, the person wants something very much.

18. S. (02:08:35) Over the course of reading of the article it said that “we need to think and check or be lost over the course of the descent”, I wanted to know is this check it be personally and internally in the person that descended, that fell, or do we need to share it in the ten and work together with the ten?

R. I recommend to work in a mutual way in the ten, later you will have personal states but for the time being we can work on all of the incidents commonly because everyone is going through the same states.

S. I do want to scrutinize is that I can embarrass the person internally, so how can we work in it, that it would be, let's say, the cause that brings the spirit down in the ten?

R. We don't typically feel shame in the ten, what should we be ashamed of, that the Creator made us this way and that we reach an understanding of the state. So we are quite open in the ten and besides that what else do we have to hide, even?

19. S. (02:10:32) Why does it say, “It won’t give you anything being that under the light’s influence on man and his reality changes and he sees his world’s corrected”, isn't that a reward?

R. Of course that's great payment to a person but the question is how much a person is asking for correction and the Creator will surely give correction. There's no doubt that we should ask and the Creator should give, that's customary and that’s organized like that in all creation; the question is how are we asking and what are we asking for? And the Creator answers, so only divide and organize it in the correct way and we will succeed.

20. S. (02:11:49) It is written that “the vessel can hold the blessing, on this vessel is only the peace”, what is this, what is this vessel on the working in ten that is called ‘peace’?

R. When the evil inclination and the good inclination actually support one another and they understand that one cannot make it without the other, as the Creator said, “I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah as a spice”, meaning two opposite things and He did it correctly so that from these two we are able to determine our path, our development and also our goal.

S. We are looking for the balance between the good and the evil inclination all the time, how do we rise to a point where we can tie it altogether?

R. This is what we have on the path, when we get from here to the end of correction, we constantly move closer and we meet and we connect the evil inclination with the good inclination in the places where we are capable of doing it, we then feel how much to understand we connect in us.

21. S. (02:13:33) It is written “but whoever wants to work as an individual and be rewarded with the personal ‘the Lord your God’, must work on the intention”, what does the personal ‘the Lord your God’ mean and what does it mean to be rewarded with it?

R. Again, the last sentence?

S. What does it mean to receive a reward for the work that the person does?

R. The reward, payment, I don't understand?

S. “You can be rewarded with the personal, ‘the Lord your God’”, what is a personal ‘the Lord your God’ mean that we can be rewarded with?

S. He's reading an excerpt from the article and he’s asking about the payment, the reward that a person does for the work of the individual that he does. So is it his private work and not his general work with everyone?

R. Of course a person receives a reward for how much he's trying, by himself, to connect to the group and to incorporate in it, that's his work, that is his payment, his reward.

S. From the excerpt it says, “those who want to work in the manner of the individual meaning they want to be privileged with the Lord your God, in a personal matter they need to work with intention”.

R. Yes?

S. So he’s asking, can you explain these words, that they want to be rewarded with the personal, the Lord your God?

R. Meaning exactly according to my intention to be above my will to receive and connect with the friends, by that I come to a state of ‘the Lord your God’, and it becomes for me truly the Lord your God, individually. What more do you want to receive, I don’t know.

22. S. (02:16:50) In the emphasis here that he wants me to scrutinize an individual, personal matter.

R. It means individually, the individual efforts that I make above the disturbances the Creator awakens in me.

S. And what’s my reward?

R. You’re rewarded with connecting with the society and revealing the Creator there, also individually to some extent.

23. S. (02:17:33) It’s truly a wonderful article, our hearts are grateful to Rabash and everyone who translated it and delivered it to us. The question is: The light, when it comes to us through the connection in a state of ascent, does it ever waste or “corrupt the wine”, what should be noted here? “Is the light corrupting the wine?” There was a metaphor there, she’s asking if the light corrupts the wine when it comes from the connection?

R. No, only adds.

24. S. (02:18:33) Rabash writes that the true reason that brings a person to perform Torah and Mitzvot is in this that through the Torah and Mitzvot he can purify himself, to exit his ego, meaning get out of self-love and then he will acquire vessels of bestowal, and this the Creator expects, meaning that only in vessels of bestowal the person can receive pleasure from bestowal.

R. I can’t hear you?

S. What is the true reason that causes a person to perform Torah and Mitzvot, the yearning to be purified or the yearning to receive the pleasure from sanctity?

R. No, the yearning to receive pleasure means that he's in a shell, the Klipot, it is only the yearning to give pleasure to the Creator, that is what causes a person to continue to work. There's a point, there's a breaking point here where a part of us can already feel it. We must think of the Creator here, there is an inversion in the intention that I'm doing all of this for the sake of the Creator.

S. So I’ll add to the question: How and why is the pleasure of the Creator turning to be more important to me than my own pleasure?

R. That happens gradually under the influence of the light, suddenly it becomes more important for me to awaken pleasure in the Creator than in myself.

25. S. (02:21:06) It’s clear that we need to think this way, that some light, desires are somehow possible but when more is added you usually lose. When you understand that you have already lost, can you do something at that moment or what work do you need to do when you understand that you miss, you lost?

R. Nothing just to keep going and wait for the next awakening.

26. S. (02:21:47) “Love covers all crimes” is that right, the right line?

R. Yes.

S. I am entirely evil, is it enough in order to reach peace to try all the time to cover it with love?

R. Of course, all the time we cover in love.

27. S. (02:22:16) Is the essence of our corrections the recognition of evil and the intent in our prayer, so it’s really the intent of the prayer that matters?

R. Yes, exactly.

28. S. (02:22:41) He says here that Baal HaSulam said that “the main sin of workers that want to go on the path of truth is specifically in the ascent, that this is the time when a person can make calculation in his work with the Creator”.

R. Yes?

S. He continues to say that “at the time of the ascent if he doesn't guarantee that his work is in the right order, he is thrown out and he falls into the lowest world since he did not conduct himself during the ascent of the way he should have and didn’t pay attention to it”. So the question is: What are we supposed to be taking care with to make it the right calculation?

R. To be careful not to disconnect from the friends because you are certain that you are doing something right. ‘It is better to fail together like to be a righteous than to be right by yourself’.

29. S. (02:24:00) What does it mean to give pleasure to the Creator, how do we check that?

R. To give pleasure to the Creator means to be together, all the friends as one, whole, to connect all the desires into one and to serve them to the Creator to fill them; the Creator desires to fill us but for that we need to serve Him, our vessel.

S. Can we do this in each moment of our lives?

R. Yes!

30. S. (02:24:52) The article says, “many are the afflictions of the righteous for the Lord will deliver him from them all”. Does this mean that when we connect with an intention to create the Kli over all the afflictions, that's when the Lord delivers us from all?

R. Yes.

S. Okay, thank you.

R. By that we will close the lesson. I recommend, if you can, to read again what we went through in the first part of the lesson. It’s a long article but it arranges everything, Rabash doesn’t cut any corners there, he opens everything as much as possible.

31.S. (02:26:06) Rabash begins the article with this sentence, he says, “peace to the far and to the near.”

R. Yes, “peace to the far and near”.

S. Then he explains about the purpose of creation is to bring abundance to the created beings and there is the correction of creation then we have the entire article discussing that. And at the end he says that the vessel that holds the blessings is Whom he feels, on one hand, that he's far, that his will to receive, his own intention to receive, he is making him far and he wants to be close, to be near. So both have to be held somehow and the abundance needs to be spoiled.

R. Yes?

S. So this Adam, this man who on one hand feels his evil inclination that is something bad that makes him far and he very much wants to be closer to the Creator.

R. Yes?

S. How do we build such a state in the ten every moment?

R. You have to try and be in a place where everyone keeps this equilibrium.

S. Right, because you said “it's better that we all fail together than on our own, try to succeed on our own”. Okay, so we're trying in the ten both to keep the yearning to be close to the Creator and suffering from the separation?

R. As much as we can advance towards the Creator together, we advance, if we see that we cannot move forward together, then we do not; the main thing is together and then to move forward. If you keep this rule we will surely succeed!

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