Morning Lesson August 22, 2023

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

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 16, (1987). The Difference between the Work of the General Public and the Work of the Individual

Reading Article. (00:43) “It is written in The Zohar,..”

1. S. (28:56) He writes here “to serve Him with love”, what does it mean “to serve with love”?

R. “To serve with love”, that's considered that you feel what the Creator needs, wants, aims for that's for yourself.

S. How is it possible to develop this feeling, if what exists is that his heart is with his desire? How can you get rid of your own desire?

R. That's considered that you need to make efforts until you reach a different nature.

2. S. (30:03) It's unclear, what's the state that makes a person or a beast, be born?

R. The state is that he makes an effort that he's in the correct framework, he tries, he tries to reach a state that he wants to know what the Creator requires of him.

S. So the environment engenders?

R. In the environment he needs to gather forces to help him understand who he is, who the Creator is, what relationship there is between them, what he needs to do in order to discover his true degree and to reach the degree of the Creator.

S. But the Creator is the One that determines his thoughts, his next state?

R. Yes?

S. So what's the difference between what the Creator determines for him on his next degree, if he is a beast or a man or the environment engenders either a beast or a man out of him in the next state?

R. I don't exactly understand what you're asking because only the Creator, He is the One who decides.

S. So what does the environment do here?

R. The environment gives the person an opportunity, through it, to reach the degree of the Creator.

S. My next state, if I'm a beast or a man, does the Creator determine it?

R. Let's say.

S. So what's the role of the environment in my next state?

R. It will help you reach it.

S. So where is my participation and what can I insist to engender a man and not a beast in the  next moment?

R. When you annul yourself towards the Creator, through participating with them, you reach a demand for the Creator to help you rise to His degree.

S. He also writes “until he's rewarded with circumcising himself”, from what does a person circumcise himself?

R. From the will to receive.

3. S. (33:10) I wanted to ask: At what point do intentions begin, what stage?

R. From the first moment, and the moment a person begins to ask ‘who am I’, ‘what am I’, and ‘what am I for’, ‘what's with me’?

S. Because he writes in the article that “if there's only an action without an intention it's called a beast and what differentiates between them is the intention he puts on the actions”. So how do you begin to develop this ability to put an intention over an act?

R. If I don't clothe an intention on the act, action, then the action comes naturally in order to receive, and if I want to build with this action, special attitude toward the Creator, so I need to work, so that I'll have the right intention for the action for me against what there was before, against my own natural desire.

S. The beast, does it settle for the act, with this it ends its work?

R. Yes.

S. So the transition from being a beast, to begin it, to be a man, on what does it depend, how do you begin to be a man?

R. From wanting to decide for themselves, the adhesion in the ten and adhesion to the Creator.

S. So from wanting to be in adhesion, in the connection with the ten, this thing begins to put intentions on your actions?

R. Well, that's already an intention, that I want to be adhered to the ten.

S. What I'm trying to ask is how to begin to work with this mechanism of intentions in reality, when you do something and you consciously put intentions over them, you don't just act, perform actions?

R. Well, if I, through these actions, want to reach a state that I'm not yet in, then my plan to reach a different state that I'm in is called ‘an intention’.

S. Yes, I understand the definition of intention. What I'm not getting is how do you, how are you meticulous in placing an intention over an action?

R. I think about the importance of the intention, that it needs to give my action, essence, height, intensity, and that is why I begin to be immersed in the intention; that before I have the intention, I don't do any action, that it's clear to me, what I'm doing it for.

S. So how do you begin to work in this way because anything I do without the intention, I understand I'm a beast?

R. Depends on what framework you are speaking of.

S. In the framework of spiritual development?

R. Well, in the group, yes.

S. According to what we read, according to what you said, anything you do, it doesn't have an intention over it, you're a beast. So how do you begin to live with a mechanism of intentions in life, in the life of the group, in the group? How do you always place intentions over the actions in the life of the group?

R. My attitude to the ten needs to be constantly aimed towards the fact that I, in the ten, am trying to raise the friends to the spiritual degree.

4. S. (38:54) How is a man born out of a beast?

R. Man is born from a beast only through the development of the intention in order to give contentment to the Creator, to keep the desire of the Creator.

S. But how does it happen, it's a beast?

R. Nobody has a record from the degree of man, these records begin to awaken; if not there's nothing to do, he hasn't yet reached the beginning of his path.

S. What is that record?

R. That's called, “man or beast will be saved, salvation by the Creator”; that the Creator through the light that reforms awakens a person, shines upon him and a person begins to feel that he starts developing, that he has still a difference between what he thought a month ago or what he thinks now, with respect to himself, with respect to others, with respect to the Creator, to the path, to the study, he begins to understand what he was brought to the society for, what they are actually learning and so on.

5. S. (40:52) What's the right way to sort the intentions? Can I say that I want to reach bestowal upon the Creator? I want the friends to reach the Creator? I can say that I'm doing this for the Creator without any reward. How do you sort it correctly?

R. We learn that, slowly, slowly, we learn, a person himself needs to study.

6. S. (41:28) I understand from the article Rabash says that “desires and thoughts that are warning us, if they are not Lishma, then they are beast. If they are Lishma, then they are man. Maybe I’ll repeat the question differently: How are we rewarded with our desires and thoughts that are warning us will be from those of a man?

R. It really depends on the root of the soul, it depends on the root of the soul. A person was born and he's already led corporeally from the same place where he needs to develop, when he needs to develop spiritually.

S. Can we pray to the Creator that the results of our work will be the results of man?

R. For that, we want to pray and do all kinds of actions, yes, to hope.

S. If we, sometimes, a man is born, sometimes a beast is born, that's how we feel desires and thoughts that are for my own sake, what do you do with thoughts and deeds that are in desires that are from the beast, how do we deal with them?

R. Hold on, we have a person that still has thoughts of a beast.

S. Let's say, there’s a little bit of man in him, there's a little bit of a beast, he has different thoughts from this and from that?

R. If both, then he's given from Above a certain illumination so that he will be able to eventually identify which thoughts relate to the degree Adam, and which to the degree of the animal, the beast.

S. And what does he do with those that are born in him as a beast, with these thoughts and desires, what does he do with them?

R. According to the extent he uses his environment, then he sorts and corrects his attitude to thoughts.

S. What does it mean that he corrects his attitude towards the thoughts?

R. That he understands more and more to the extent that the thoughts that he goes through, that he has, they belong to the degree either of the animal or the speaker.

S. But beyond sorting thoughts and desires, what does he do with those thoughts of a beast?

R. In the thoughts of a beast, he does not want to live, in the thought of Adam, of a speaker, he does want to live, and then he adheres to them and he becomes more distanced from the concealed.

7. S. (44:54) I don't understand what is a man who grows? Adam HaRishon was born circumcised and we say that in his growth, he grew six hundred twenty times. What grows in a person six hundred twenty times? Here he calls it being …. What does it mean?

R. Can you speak in our terms and what we read and not what you remember from all kinds of places? Can you be together with us? Your questions are usually backwards.

S. He says in the article that “a person is supposed to grow from the moment he is born until he ends his life in his adhesion as a man”. My question is: In what does a person grow as man?

R. We're talking here about the growth of a person, right so he needs to grow with his intention in order to bestow.

S. What does it mean “to grow in the intention to bestow which makes him multiply by six hundred twenty times”?

R. I don't know, multiply it by six hundred twenty times.

S. It says, “his growth happens in a place called ‘internality”, what is this place called “internality of a person”?

R. I don't know?

8. S. (46:31) You said, “sort the thoughts and desires, sort them out, those of a beast and those of a man,” and he says here “he begins to feel importance in thoughts and desires of  man, it's in the direction, that he wants to reach, it's worthwhile”. So it's like a baby that's born, it understands that this is the direction but it is still unable to walk, like a newborn baby, it can't walk, it only understands that this is the direction.

R. Go on?

S. So I want to know, he understands that this is a direction to walk towards bestowal but he still can't, what does he do now, what's next?

R. So now he will be given the opportunity to learn what it means ‘in order to bestow.’

S. What is his next step, when he takes his first step?

R. That he'll be given the actions that he can do with the force to bestow and then he will understand what he is lacking.

S. And who holds him from falling like you hold a child and help him walk?

R. Of course, the Creator.

9. S. (48:10) It is written “the Zohar says a person who is born, a force from Above is not appointed over him until he is circumcised”. What is to be circumcised?

R. It's not talking about the degree of man born in this world as the degree of man until he's been circumcised. Meaning until he rises above the desire of ‘to receive in order to receive.’

S. Right, in our world the circumcision is done on a baby, it has no choice, here it says “he elevates himself”, how does he know how to do this?

R. I don't know, it's something different from what we see in this world.

S. But in spirituality, it's something that a person does himself, right?

R. Yes, of course.

10. S. (49:05) What does it mean ‘to teach a person to study The Wisdom of Kabbalah in Lo Lishma’, is there such teaching?

R. Yes, in Lo Lishma for the time being you learn all kinds of laws, the Torah, what are the demands, just like Baal Hasulam writes about this world.

S. In other words, the wisdom of Kabbalah can turn to any person?

R. It can be conducted to every man, every person, and every person can receive from it according to the development of their soul.

S. Okay, so basically, the emphasis of teaching, everyone is only on the reward, right, when teaching everyone is only the reward. How do we do it in practice when a person comes to study?

R. When a person just comes to study, just like you have in front of you a flock, let's a thousand heads and you teach them, and slowly, slowly, by teaching them they grow here and there; and then according to that extent they grow and understand more and more.

S. How does the teacher know how not to fail or not to push away, because like you said, it’s a flock and each one has his own desire to achieve Lishma and another person has no mature inclination towards it. So, how does the teacher direct them because he has a herd before him?

R. He divides to the herd what the herd needs to receive, that's it, and all the rest comes from above.

11. S. (51:05) Rabash writes here, until his teacher, teaching him a different portion of the Mishna, what does it mean ‘if teacher will teach him a different portion’?

R. To go according to what he receives from his Rav, from his teacher. That’s it.

12. S. (51:38) Rabash presents a very orderly presentation in a person's development. He says when a person is born, meaning thoughts and desires come into his mind and heart, and we need to be a man. And before that, he says until they gain knowledge and acquire much wisdom, he begins with women, children, etc until they gain knowledge and have much wisdom and then at some point suddenly man is born; when thoughts and desires come into his mind and heart of man. What is our part in this work? What does it mean to acquire much wisdom? What do we need to do in this?

R. We need to do everything Kabbalists write to us, we need to start from the very first day; where we entered such a society and we need to act according to the conditions that have been placed in front of us If we want to advance in society, that's all. It's clear to us that if we come to study then we want to reach the revelation of the Creator, adhesion in the Creator, each one according to how he can interpret it to start with. That's our beginning.

S. Where's the connection between us and this work?

R. After a while where we learn we’ll begin to hear and to learn, even to learn how to keep and to act on some kind of coming closer to one another; which is coming closer corporeally and also coming closer spiritually. Like any group that studies together they start feeling each other more, sensing each other, knowing why they are learning for. But like other forms of study, this study explains to us that we need, over the study, over even years of study we need to come closer to one another. We need to connect with one another to such an extent that it's a heart to heart connection, in the hearts. And by that we need to try and reach the state of being ‘as one man with one heart’.

S. What is the efforts to connect between us and open our hearts, how does it invite the birth of a man?

R. That's through the light that reforms, that is the whole difference in this study; in our study we attract the upper light and it influences us, and it brings from us, it reveals in each and every one of us spiritual qualities that were dormant within us before and now they are starting to be awakened. And, each one begins to develop them, how do we know this? According to the darkness that we start seeing along the way.

S. Darkness and the ability to connect between us?

R. No, the darkness begins when I suddenly feel like I don't know what I'm living for, what I'm doing, what I have in life? From here on begins the scrutiny within a person.

S. So it's already ‘the birth of man’?

R. No, this is not yet ‘birth’, it's far from ‘the birth’; it's only a person being shown where he is. It's the first acquaintance with spirituality, with the upper light.

S. Can we say that from there he needs to continue and work on connection?

R. Out of this he needs to work on connection, correct.

S. the question is how does working on connection, how does this give ‘birth’ to a man?

R. Because through connection, he draws more and more reforming light and that upper light opens him and reveals to him the upper system.

S. And at the end of the article, he writes, while he's starts going on the path of bestowal then he always sees the opposite path, that he sees according to all the efforts that he gives, he's not advancing, he's always going back this is already after he was born?

R. After he is born.

S. So, what's the difference between this darkness that you describe and starting the process and the darkness of being born discovering that he’s going backwards?

R. He begins to understand through the study that it’s not as he thinks that he’s going backwards, but he's actually moving forward.

S. And he says that what he feels continues until he has the ability to circumcise himself?

R. Yes.

S. Which means?

R. until he comes to such a connection with the upper light, that it is called, ‘a correction’, ‘circumcision’.

S. And here he's really a person?

R. Well, yes.

13. S. (58:38) How is the fear of the state of the Creator being governor of everything, how does that work?

R. This is already afterwards.

S. I'll sharpen the question: If the Creator is controlling everything then we're just canceled?

R. Well?

S. So if we're completely annulled, so how from that state does the fear come?

R. We have not reached it yet.

14. S. (59:39) Also, in the matter of fear, he says that, if you don't do the work from the correct fear, which is the fear of the Creator, then you're going in an incorrect path, you will remain constantly as a beast. Then he says towards the end that being a beast is being in a state of Lo Lishma”. So how does that fall into place because we know that's from Lo Lisham, from not for the Creator’s sake, we reach the Creator's sake?

R. There's Lo Lishma from which we don't reach Lishma.

S. That's the question, how do we identify that you're in the correct Lishma, that you're advancing in the path and you're not in some kind of other place, that you're just happy that  you study The Wisdom of Kabbalah in Bnei Baruch, i'm on the path…?

R. Perhaps, perhaps.

S. So how do you scrutinize that you're on the correct path?

R. According to your relation to the stepping stones.

S. One of them is to be in the correct form that I attain from the society the importance of fear for the greatness of the Creator?

R. It is not as in the beginning as we said, but it develops afterwards.

15. S. (01:01:18) How can a person circumcise himself?

R. How is it possible for a person to develop what?

S. How can a person circumcise himself? It is against all the body. To let the group do it on me that's okay but how can I do it upon myself?

R. You ask the Creator.

S. If the knife is in my hand, what is it, that’s the light that reforms?

R. Yes.

S. And all I need is to understand that and let Him do what He needs to do?

R. Yes.

16. S. (01:02:35) He writes that he has thoughts and desires that relate him to the beast and he's a beast, and he also writes that when a person is born the force from these thoughts and desires come to him he needs to be a person, a speaker, so he puts the desires of the mind and heart together and i feel that the more we advance there is a gap between what is in the mind and the desire. and here it is felt that it is great work, there are many places in the article there isn't a separation between mind and heart why is it like that?

R. A person has to scrutinize it. A person has to scrutinize it and in the end he needs to connect between them.

S. We spoke before about the gap that is between the intention and the action, and the scrutiny was from the side of when a person can do actions but he doesn't reach the correct intention, there is a gap. I would like to ask if there are many states where a person feels that he has the intention, he has the passion, he has the desire, which is quite directed and he isn't executing it, he isn't reaching the point that he can do the action. Few days ago someone gave a great example of an artist who wants to create a sculpture and it doesn't come out as he plans, you also feel it when you ask a question you have yearning, a desire, a certain deficiency and when you ask the question it's only 10% of what you wanted to express. So my question is how can we bring, how do we learn to bring the desire, the yearning that it will come out in action?

R. It is done to us on purpose from above, so we will learn how to do it through the connection between us.

S. I know there are friends who have a desire of a thousand kg and they're not even able to ask a question of one gram. Through the connection will they succeed in extracting it?

R. For sure. For sure. and connection begins on the corporeal level and later you can elevate it to the spiritual levels.

17. S. (01:05:55) I would like to scrutinize the matter of intention throughout the day: throughout the day, if I let you say that the thought has to be how to advance the ten, so the heart is working on how to advance the ten, think what will i tell them, how do i help them? And there the intention lies, and now in parallel to that there are actions that I do and these actions I do with my hands and feet, my intention is still with the ten. Is it considered that I do these actions with the correct intention?

R. if you act with the right intention then you annul before the ten, and this is called being ‘circumcised’.

S. So the actions that we do throughout the day, many of them are actions that are necessary so if I do them and focus my intention on the ten, on connection and in parallel I do these actions, automatically the intention is clothe on these actions?

R. The intention never clothe automatically: it is for you to do it by force.

S. So, in parallel every action that I do I need to think, how this action brings me closer to connection in the ten? and somehow relate it and even if I'm not able to relate it because it is a necessary action, I do the scrutiny and I say I have no choice and I do it. But if there is a thought about the action why am I doing that, that already creates the intention?

R. Yes.

18. S. (01:08:02) It says that fear is the quality of man, and that is all of man. We know that a man means, similar to The Creator, that he’s a partner with Him and loves the Creator. I wanted to ask why it is specifically that fear is all man, and how is this equality that at least we want to become equal to the Creator and love him. Why do we need fear here and how to we combine all of this together?

R. Fear is an inner anxiety in a person, that he is, well he is worried that he cannot do what he decided to do.

S. I just want to understand, is it in some initial state as some kind means to achieve a more advanced state that he eventually adheres to the Creator with?

R. Yes.

19. S. (01:09:30) I don't fully understand how a person can come out of spirituality if everything depends on the root of his soul?

R. The root of his soul is only the beginning; and then comes the labor, and if a person labor correctly then he reaches the goal.

20. S. (01:10:06) Are the scrutinies in the time of building the screens forming to correct the right intention?

R. Of course they are.

21. S. (01:10:33) The article says to be a man we have to grow and develop internally and then he talks about different lights that we need to activate Nefesh, Ruach, Chaya, Neshama. How would we know we're going to activate? How would we know we're going to activate all these lights?

R. We have to add more forces of our own and then see how much we are advancing. Everything is open before us.

22. S. (01:11:26) We spoke about women and children. What are women and children and how can they reach wisdom?

R.  They are grown up people who are in the group but according to their development. They're called men or women or children, this is what they're called. It is degrees of development.

23. S. (01:12:12) How can a person escape the will to receive and feel that he's attracting the light of Nefesh, what exactly needs to happen here?

R. It is not for now. I don't know how to answer this in brief.

24. S. (01:12:39) How can we regulate our intention to the last mind and heart and become a human?

R. We need to connect them as much as possible so that these will help those, that they will support each another.

25. S. (01:13:14) It is written about impurity that those nations of Akum are not impure in the tent. What does it mean to die in the tent and what does it mean that he says that the Akum, are not impure in the tent?

R. It means that the light that was in the vessel was inverted Into darkness, this is why it’s impurity.

26. S. (01:14:56) What is mind in a person, is it the light that enters?

R. The mind in the person is a special force that belongs to the light, yes.

27. S. (01:14:21) How to turn to the Creator not out of fear but out of love?

R. That is according to the feeling in your heart. Also the fear we feel in the heart and also the love we feel in the heart.

S. Can fear be different?

R. Of course, yes. There are many types of anxiety or fear, spiritual fear.

28. S. (01:15:12) How can we come out of the degree of animal/animate and reach the degree of speaking?

R. First of all you have to come to the ten, then you have to start trying to be connected in the ten and then through the ten raise questions, and actions, and then understand what the ten is. From that we will reach the feeling of spirituality.

29. S. (01:16:14) It’s easy to understand that when I feel the darkness it really know me, it paralyzes me, how to use the darkness even when it paralyzes me?

R. Take the friends in your hand and do it. Not alone.

30. S. (01:16:53) It says here that we have learned this article on September 19 2016. I'm trying to connect the states and I didn't feel that I'm a man, I didn't feel I'm a beast, I enjoyed studying and now it took me some time to feel that according to my intentions are mostly beast most of the time. The question is how do I help my dear friends from the world Kli to connect these times, hasten them, shorten them, so they would advance as the last generation?

R. Study with that intention and then you will see as much as it brings you closer to the Creator, to the purpose of creation, to the group, to the friends, that it will all gather in one place.

31. S. (01:17:49) Sorry if I ask incorrectly, how can you help a friend if each one of the friends has its own root of the soul?

R. We don't help each one's root of the soul, we help that final purpose that is common for everybody, that is why there we can actually be connected together.

32. S. (01:18:25) It is written he who has spiritual fear before the Creator is called a man and he who doesn't have fear belongs to the quality of beast. Who are idol worshipers according to this definition?

R. The idol worshipers are those who bow down to anything that isn't the Creator.

S. Does it have to do with the spiritual fear?

R. No.