The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Afternoon) May 12, 2024.
Part 1: Rabash. Record 148. Faith Is Called “Action.”
Reader: (00:03) Hello, we are reading from the book, Writing of Rabash, Article 148, Faith Is Called “Action.” Study material can be found on Sviva Tova and the Arvut system, and you can ask questions live and through the websites.
Reading Record 148: (00:28) Faith Is Called “Action.”
Faith is called “action” and not “intellect.” And faith, when the body disagrees, it must go by force, which is above rhyme and reason, but only an act.
This is similar to feeding a child and the parents make him see that it is to his benefit although the child does not find any flavor in this. Thus, as hard as the parents try to make him understand, the child does not want to listen. At that time, the parents go by force against the child’s will. That is, they deal with the child by way of action and do not wait for the child to say that he understands that it is worthwhile to eat this food.
It is likewise with faith: We should not wait for the body to agree that it is worthwhile to relinquish self-reception. Rather, we must deal with the body with action, meaning with force, although in the mind, the body disagrees with it.
M. Laitman: (02:05) Meaning, in coercion, truly in coercion. Yes, questions? This is all of the article.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:22) Do we come to faith with coercion?
M. Laitman: Faith is an upper light, special, that shines upon us, on those who go through the conditions.
Student: And that comes as coercion to the person?
M. Laitman: Yes, it comes as coercion, like everything else that comes from above.
Student: Is there a way to receive it without coercion?
M. Laitman: No, that is the order. It is a special light that shines upon the person, and the person receives it by the force of faith.
Student: When a person becomes smart and grows up like a child, how does he receive the faith?
M. Laitman: Does he have faith from before, or does he not have it?
Student: He does not have faith. They have been pushed to him, just like a kid who does not want to eat. When he starts to grow up, what happens?
M. Laitman: Then he is trying to accept the force, or to receive the force of faith, and to go with it above his reason.
Question (German): (03:49) It is written that we need to make actions by coercion.
There are many actions, spiritual actions.
M. Laitman: The main thing is the connection. To the extent that we can connect, to that extent, we can feel the force of faith that is within us and that we can use it.
Student: Is prayer also an action?
M. Laitman: Prayer is also an action, even though there are a lot of things in it, and it sometimes confuses the person.
Question (Turkiye 2): (04:48) What is the first action that one can do, or activate this action?
M. Laitman: He needs to go according to what is written according to what he understands and feels to go for it. And to the extent that he is unable to do so, then to try, nevertheless, to gather muster some forces, strength, and go above reason.
Student: Does the Creator give to the person, or does this action belong to the person?
M. Laitman: It all comes from the Creator.
Question (Hadera 1): (06:17) It has been asked before but what gives a person the strength to work in above reason? It is written here that mostly the action in the quality of the body is the action.
M. Laitman: To the extent that we are able to go in faith above reason, which is by coercion, by force. Then we receive from that a connection, some sort of a link with the force of faith.
Question (Women Piter): (07:00) How can the Ten give the strength to act in faith above reason? Is it a personal example, or are there other methods?
M. Laitman: A personal example. That is the only thing that works the best.
Question (Women MAK 24): (07:22) What does it mean that I do not depend on a state and the faith won't make me act?
M. Laitman: You will see that when you don't take an action you will fall, and others will fall too, because of you. Then it will force you to take action on your own and to support others.
Student: When we are in active connection during a workshop, when we meet together in the Ten, what is the active action?
M. Laitman: In supporting the friends.
Student: My desire is that I want to bestow to the friend, this is an active action, is that bestowal?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes.
Student: To continue, I can see that I need to bestow to the friends, I can understand it in the mind. I understand that the desire, that feeling to give them joy so when the desire comes, that's the real action.
M. Laitman: Yes, very true.
Question (Woman MAK 98): (08:56) In that example that we need to prepare the child, we cannot give him food to force him to eat. How can we force our body to work in such a direction of faith above reason?
M. Laitman: You can, you can feed the child by force, or you can amuse him with something and distract him, and you can do the same on your own.
Student: How can we correctly join with the friends in the Ten with the deficiency?
M. Laitman: For that, you are constantly in connection. They understand you, they feel you, and therefore they receive an impression from your actions.
Question (Turkiye 7): (10:05) Where we disagree in this study, what is the driving force that will lead us to action, or who will be able to do it?
M. Laitman: Friends, men, and women, they can push us to take action, that's one thing. The second thing is that we nevertheless see and think that we have no other choice. Rather, only in faith above reason, that we make actions out of the faith, out of the force of faith. By that we are successful.
Student: How can we, for sure, know that our friends are doing only good to us? Whatever they do, they are doing only good to us. Sometimes we cannot do that, we cannot distinguish this. How can we, every time something happens, how can we know for sure that that friend is doing good to us?
M. Laitman: This happens slowly through work in the Ten, in the group. We start to feel that we come closer to each other, and we want to bestow together. And we definitely have the feeling that we are becoming as one body.
Question (English 1): (12:48) The idea of faith is palatable to my intellect, insofar as, I want to be in the eternal embrace of love with the friends. There's something deeply repulsive that's stopping me from doing that. I think that's the ego fighting back. How do I overcome this state of absolute resistance, of fighting against wanting to become embraced with the friends in faith?
M. Laitman: The idea of faith is palatable to my intellect insofar as I want to be in an eternal embrace of love with the friends. But there's something deeply repulsive that's stopping me from doing that.
M. Laitman: Only by our efforts. In simple connection. That we study together, we read together, we help each other. And in such a way we connect. Everything comes from actions.
Question (Haifa 1): (14:21) When we feel rejections, and we don't receive, accept the state that the Creator is checking if we are getting stronger with faith. If I walk above reason and willing, although I feel the suffering and I attach it to Him. It's not the friend, it is the Creator who stands behind Him. Can you please help me a little bit with that?
M. Laitman: We have material about this that explains to us that always behind the friend is the Creator. That He and only He spins everything. And therefore, we need to constantly relate everything that happens to us to the Creator alone.
Question (PT 22): (15:26) I heard that faith above reason is winning, that a person wins it. Here it says that it is being forced on him. Can it become a choice? A person's choice?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, when a person chooses to be under the coercion, yes.
Student: Can he just agree to be under the coercion?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women MAK 113): (16:11) Sometimes I feel that all the suffering that the Creator gives to a person, it's not for his own benefit, for the person's benefit. This is my fault that I didn't complete the spiritual work that the Creator gave me. How can I know that my actions are correct if I still feel guilty?
M. Laitman: Only through the friends and through the Creator you can check this, and you need to do it.
Question (Women Turkiye 5): (16:54) Even if a baby doesn't want, parents to feed the baby for growth. As a result, they see the baby's physical development. What is the visible form of forcing in spirituality?
M. Laitman: Coercion in spirituality, looks in action that a person is coerced, our will to receive. That it doesn't want us to do something, but we do it, even though it doesn't want to. And in such a way, more and more, until eventually it gives up and says, I want, and then it joins our actions.
Question (Women MAK 51): (18:03) To force the action above reason, does it come from the intellect? Is that the only thing that can hold you with bestowal? Is that a spiritual degree?
M. Laitman: Repeat again, the question.
Student: To force myself to do an action above reason, it comes from that I understand that that's the only thing that can hold me and to rise me, and if I don't do that, everyone will fall.
M. Laitman: Yes, that also should be.
Student: Is that related to devotion?
M. Laitman: It's not related to devotion, no.
Question (WOMEN MAK 21): (19:01) With what means does the faith above reason talk to us? How can we feel that this is working on us, and help us exit the low states?
M. Laitman: Faith above reason: Meaning that I have reason, and I'm going against this reason, with the force of faith. Which is above my reason, against my reason, and in such a way, we advance.
Student: It turns out that it says that if you go to the group, then that's faith above reason?
M. Laitman: Maybe for you, it'll be faith above reason, but you'll have to uphold it.
Question (Women Lithuanian 5): (19:54) Does a person come to a state where he needs less force to force himself to do this spiritual work?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: This resistance will be always at the same level, but we'll be stronger?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes. We are strengthened and the resistance is strengthened, and this is how we ascend.
Question (Novosibirsk): (20:49) In order to force yourself, or to be forced, I have a feeling that I need something else, more. Do I need to thank, to be grateful for this?
M. Laitman: Yes, you can be thankful for that definitely.
Student: What can I say, for what can I be grateful?
M. Laitman: I don't know, look for it, it's in you.
Question (Women Piter): (21:26) When a person forces the body and receives joy from it so there's an agreement from the body to walk above reason. How can we go above reason even more?
M. Laitman: Yes, such a thing can be. And what should we do in such a case? To try to bypass this condition and to go nevertheless in faith above reason. If not in this time, then the next time. Or maybe, by trying to change a little bit the basis of it.
Question (PT 13): (22:20) Who does the action of coercion, the person himself, or it comes from the outside?
M. Laitman: The action of coercion is done by the Creator.
Student: Do we need to ask from Him to do the coercion?
M. Laitman: He does it upon us, and we need to resist it.
Student: Resist coercion?
M. Laitman: To resist what we are being coerced to do.
Student: In the article, it says that the parents want to give him good food and the child resists. We are resisting, so what has been coerced on us is something that we need to resist?
M. Laitman: We resist, we don't want it according to our nature, we resist. And only by us, connecting to Him, we demand from Him to have strength or force above our nature. This is called faith above reason.
Question (Pitah Tikva Center): (23:38) I don't understand, I can hear some contradiction. On one hand, he is being forced, being coerced, and he needs to accept it until he says, yes, I want it. On the other hand, we need to reject this coercion, resist it?
M. Laitman: What you are saying is a simple state. I see in front of me something that I must overcome, yes? And then I take all sorts of actions in order to overcome it. And in such a way, I go to faith above reason.
Student: In what does the upper one coerce the lower one?
M. Laitman: He gives him limitations that the person must go over.
Student: The person needs to reject the coercion or to accept it from choice?
M. Laitman: These are two actions that are in front of the person. If the person resists the coercion, then he comes out of the connection with the Creator. If he accepts it and wants to perform it, then he does an action, which is faith above reason.
Student: In faith above reason, what is the type of coercion? Does he still feel that he is being coerced?
M. Laitman: He feels that he is being coerced, and he wants to take the action himself.
Student: Can you say at the end of the day that a person needs to choose the coercion, to agree to it?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course. Here there are a few options that I think are confusing us. Soon we will go over it again.
Question (Women Italy): (25:56) Does faith above reason create a will for actions that are always good?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes.
Question (Turkiye 2): (26:35) How does the Creator give a person the opportunity to act?
M. Laitman: What makes a person prepare himself for actions that are on the path of advancement for the person, they are in front of him? Then the Creator presents them to the person and the person acts accordingly and performs these actions.
Question (Women MAK 113): (27:21) You said that if I want to make the action, I will fall from my degree, and then I will draw the rest behind me. How to drop lower to the lower degree and to stay in my degree?
M. Laitman: For that, you need to ascend, and do all the actions in order for the friends to ascend with you. And that you will connect in the common upper degree.
Student: To give an example?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women PT 33): What are the conditions that we need to go through in order to receive the light of faith?
M. Laitman: What are the conditions in order to invite upon us the light of faith? That we will want to climb to a higher degree. And we are asking, we are demanding the light of faith that will come to us to help us, to assist us in ascending.
Question (PT 22): (29:03) We were created as vessels of reception, meaning that even within reason, and even above reason, our goal is to receive. The question is are we settling for a small candle, a small light that is given to us in this world? Or do we want to receive the light in full, from the upper force? Therefore, I think that a person needs to simply do, even in faith above reason, this calculation: What do I want to receive? Is it correct?
M. Laitman: Yes, he needs to receive the strength that helps him to walk in every state above reason.
Student: Meaning, out of everything, he benefits from it.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Turkiye 10): (30:11) Is it the connection with the friends that brings faith? Or is it when there is faith that we begin to have a real connection?
M. Laitman: Faith helps us to connect.
Question (Women PT 33): There's a question here: Everything that comes from above comes in coercion. If it's so, is there something that doesn't come from above?
M. Laitman: No, there's no such thing. Everything comes from above.
Question (Women MAK 25): (31:05) Tell us, please, in what way can we examine with the friends and the Creator, where is the deficiency, where did we not complete the work, and when do we need to push and to put on more effort?
M. Laitman: Check between you, turn to the Creator, and He will help you.
Student: Can it be first a workshop and then a prayer, for example?
M. Laitman: It can be however you want.
Question (Turkiye 8): (31:48) We see that in certain articles we need to see and hear, and not just to believe. Sometimes we read and hear that there is no meantime in the wisdom of Kabbalah, just attainment. Can you please explain the connection between the states?
M. Laitman: We need to work with the force of faith, which is that needs to be above us. And the more we advance, the more and more we will need to rise with faith above reason. When we raise ourselves with faith above reason, we achieve a higher degree. And then we can, with this force, we can receive other degrees, lower ones, and this is all going to enter our intellect, our reason.
Question (Women MAK 97): (33:12) Is it correct to say that light, surrounding light, pressures the vessels and makes it work in reflected light?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women MAK 104): (33:32) We are looking in the Ten, in what way can we strengthen our inclusion with one another? We want to be included in each of the friends. We don't know how to do it correctly.
M. Laitman: To ask only for spirituality.
Question (English 1): (34:08) To be in faith above reason, is the easiest way to pray for the friends to be in faith above reason because sometimes it can be really, really hard and really harsh to be by itself.
M. Laitman: Well, do it this way, just try to connect to the faith above reason.
Question (German): (35:12) Can I go above reason without the recognition of evil?
M. Laitman: You can try, try.
Question (Women Kyiv 7): (35:32) If there is a small connection with the friend, does that mean that we need to do further internal action?
M. Laitman: More internal action, you need to try hard to be more connected between you.
Question (Hadera 1): (35:58) Also, the will to receive and the will to bestow, both of them are the Creator. There are states that we are in the will to receive, and we want to reach in order to bestow. We're working against our nature. On the other hand, when we reach the right line, for example, then we need to awaken the left line, and then we're working against the Creator. We need to be partners with Him to reach the middle line, meaning we can say that even there we work against the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes, but what does the Creator want?
Student: He wants to make us His partners.
M. Laitman: In what?
Student: That we are constantly working in order to attain Him, to be like Him.
M. Laitman: That means that we need to achieve faith above reason.
Student: Correct.
M. Laitman: Well?
Student: I wanted to say that if we are, for example, let's say we made it to the middle line, we need to go above reason and to activate the left line.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: Can we say that that's faith above reason?
M. Laitman: Well, well?
Student: Is it true, meaning, in order to reach the goal, we need to constantly work against our nature?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women Moscow 18): (37:37) Continuing the previous question, the Creator, by filling us, is turning off our deficiencies and making us whole. We are, during the life, understand that it is not for our own sake. Then we disconnect from the Creator in order to come closer to adhesion and to give to others already in this world. Is this correct?
M. Laitman: Try to come near to the Creator in every state, to come closer. Only this will help you.
Question (Women PT 33): (38:29) The question is, the Creator constantly pressures. I mean, that's how it's felt. That everything that happens, everything that even exists, is in order to bring me to the goal.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Then in essence, how do I, what is the measurement for me to choose and say, this is where He determines? I'll ask differently: When I, for example, come to balance with Him like a good little child and does, who does what dad is asking, then we're both better off.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How do I come to recognize that here I need to do this way and not differently?
M. Laitman: Perhaps with the connection with the friends.
Student: Faith above reason is in essence to say that there is None Else Besides Him and He's Good That Does Good.
M. Laitman: Again?
Student: Faith above reason is to say constantly that there is None Else Besides Him and He's the Good That Does Good for everything that happens to me.
M. Laitman: Yes, but it's not just to say, on the contrary, there needs to be security and confidence.
Student: Now there are things that I can say that I can resist. For example, I can come with resistance. For example, if the Creator gives me an illness and I resist it. I go to the doctor, and I know He's Good That Does Good. I nevertheless go and change this illness and want to be healthy. What does that mean? That's an example for many, many states that a person receives in life. Can you explain that?
M. Laitman: I cannot explain, and I won't even try to explain. It is written that things come. There is a permission from the Creator that we can heal things that come.
Student: That's just an example, I understand that. There are many cases where I receive something from the Creator, He’s the Good that does good, and I try to change it anyway.
M. Laitman: You are lying to yourself, and I don't want to answer. You are lying.
Student: What am I lying to myself about?
M. Laitman: I cannot do the calculation with you to scrutinize it with you now.
Question (Women Turkiye 5): (41:39) Even if my body does not want to, I act with faith. This creates two separate forces inside me that are fighting each other. How can I bring these two forces into wholeness?
M. Laitman: Again, please.
Student: When the body resists or doesn't want and I try to work in faith. It creates within me a conflict between two forces. How can I bring these two separated forces, these opposite forces, to wholeness?
M. Laitman: To work in faith, to work only with the force of faith.
Question (Women Hebrew 2): (42:30) In regards to faith above reason, is it something that happens on a daily basis in our work? Or is it specifically in all sorts of incidents and events that the Creator gives us?
M. Laitman: It is especially between a person to the Creator, and between a person to his friend. Here we can, in those two actions, use faith above reason.
Student: Meaning it is in specific events that we realize the Creator gives us in life?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (PT 22): (43:22) We know that a person is advancing, ascending from right to left all along his path. My question is if a person, after he is in the right line, and he is descending to the left in order to look for breakage. What brings him back to the right line? Is it the finding of the breakage, or the actual search?
M. Laitman: It is the actual search.
Question (Women Karmiel): (44:01) Those foreign thoughts that come to a person, and we raise it to the Creator to make them holy and not to draw into them. This correction of the evil inclination to the good inclination?
M. Laitman: We need to deal with those thoughts.
Student: What do we do with them?
M. Laitman: We deal with them, and we don't take it into calculations.
Question (Women Moscow 5): (44:43) We need to try in every state to be aimed towards, bestowed upon the Creator. It is very complicated to hold on to the correct intention, when all the external world is, for me, connected with outside people and connection with them. I thank the friends very much but how can I be in faith above reason in the corporeal world? Do I even need to be in that?
M. Laitman: No, no need to be, just cut yourself from the corporeal world. And every time you have a chance, deal with the spirituality and then go back to corporeality.
Question (Women PT 33): (45:32) How to advance to deeper connection degrees in the Ten to come to the feeling, the actual feeling that we are in one body?
M. Laitman: Only by what you're saying. More and more to try to have scrutinized, the correct scrutinies.
Question (Hadera 1): (46:03) Is it correct to say that the work above reason belongs to the work of not for her sake? When we come to for her sake, there is no need in faith above reason?
M. Laitman: No, faith above reason always remains this way. We need to advance by it.
Student: When we work above reason, then the differences disappear. What do you work in above reason?
M. Laitman: Then we will see. First, we need to achieve it and then we will see.
Question (Women Moscow 4): (46:43) Where is the faith in the Ten? In what is it?
M. Laitman: The faith in your heart when you try to connect them.
Student: Beforehand you said from what I heard, that after that there are lower degrees. In these lower degrees, how to find this point of faith in order to continue onwards?
M. Laitman: Each time when you have an opportunity, you need to choose the point of faith above reason, and from there onwards, you need to skip.
Question (Women MAK 113): (47:51) Sometimes I elevate my actions. How not to elevate my actions but to increase the actions of the friends? Because when I increase my own, then it interrupts my work. How to believe that, the friends are doing everything they can?
M. Laitman: If you act correctly then you aim the friends to work in the correct way.
Question (PT 6): (48:30) Can you maybe explain the last sentence in the article?
M. Laitman: It is likewise with faith?
Student: Yes, please, if you can read and explain, what does it mean?
M. Laitman Reading: “It is likewise with faith. We should not wait for the body to agree that it is worthwhile to relinquish self-perception. Rather, we must deal with the body with action, meaning with force, although in the mind, the body disagrees with it.”
Student: What does it mean?
M. Laitman: It means that we need to try to work above self-reception. And to work with all our forces, our might, in a way that we want forcefully to achieve our faith, to see what the faith is showing us.
Student: There is an internal division between two layers? There is the first layer that disagrees? This layer that continues to be in self-reception, and above it I need to go above reason?
M. Laitman: Yes. Faith.
Student: What is the actions of faith?
M. Laitman: The actions of faith are that you work above the lower action, that you are giving up on the self-reception, and you don't wait for the body until it will agree or not agree. On the contrary, you are going, you walk through this fence, you go through this fence. And you walk with the body in order to make an action. You just make the action. Why? That's what I do, with the force of the arm, so to say. Although the mind does not agree with it, I don't listen to the body, I don't agree with it, I'm doing the action, I'm making the action.
Question (Women English 1): (51:18) I want to ask a question about confidence and faith. When we walk above our impure thoughts, actions, and feelings, we could get to a point where it becomes a habit. Where does confidence come in this?
M. Laitman: The feeling of confidence, we can receive only from that we want to be connected to faith above reason. And the force of faith will spread in our vessels.
Student: How can we pass on that confidence to our friends?
M. Laitman: This is if you connect if you connect your friends together in an action where you hug them tightly. And you want to bestow to them from your force of faith.
Question (Women PT 5): (53:07) I heard you answer the previous friend that we can break through, even though our body does not want. We can break through and force it to do actions. However, if it's something serious then the body is like a mule, it doesn't want to move, and it's stubborn. What helps to break through? To ask from the Creator, to ask from the Ten, together with all the Ten to ask from the Creator? Or what helps in order to break through the resistance of the body not to agree?
M. Laitman: The way you talk, this is correct, to connect together, to turn to the Creator, and to try to receive from Him the strength for everyone to break through.
Student: The work above reason, is it personal to each one what overcoming is? Or the main thing is to work together?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
Question (Women Ukraine 2): (54:27) What foreign thoughts are we talking about when we say that everything comes from the Creator?
M. Laitman: All our thoughts but our movement to the mutual goal, they are all identical.
Question (PT Women Moscow 6): (55:04) We are today, as a world Kli. We have expanded by 33 Tens of the MAK group. I pass on the trepidation and gratitude of our friends, as a person who escorted them, together. In 15 minutes, whether you'll be able to participate.
M. Laitman: Thank you very much, we will try hard together.
Question (Women MAK 104): (56:17) In order to advance and to go forward, we need to pick the goal and to think that we already attained it. If we will think that we are already connected in one desire, will it help us connect in one desire?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How is it best to do it, how to aim ourselves? How does each one?
M. Laitman: How each one needs to do? You need to connect and to talk about it, and then come up with the right decision. The main thing is not to break the connection. To connect and to rise, to connect and to rise.
Question (Asia): (57:15) Can we say that if my body does not resist, then I'm not afraid of prison?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, it can't be that the body won't resist, yes.
Question (Women PT 33): (57:49) In regards to coercion, the question is only by the clothing of the love of the upper, can we educate by coercion?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Also, are the parents of a child? Does everything come in coercion?
M. Laitman: Well, it's exactly like that with the Creator.
Student: The friend feels that the Creator coerces only him. He's asking, why does the Creator coerce only him and not others?
M. Laitman: This is how he feels, that's how he feels, but it's not true.
Question (Women Turkiye 5): (58:51) Does every above reason progress creates faith in us?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What is the cause-and-effect relation between going above reason and faith?
M. Laitman: We will talk about that in the next lesson. All the best and goodbye.
Reader: (01:00:31) Announcements. We will finish with a song.
Song: (01:00:33)