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

Daily Lesson (Morning) August 5, 2024.

Part 2: Lesson on the Topic of  “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction.”

Reader: We are reading selected excerpts from our sources. The topic is, A Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction. We're continuing from item number 20, by Baal HaSulam.

Reading Item 20: (00:19) The will to receive for oneself in us was created only to be eradicated, abolished from the world, and be turned into a desire to bestow. The pains we suffer are but revelations of its nothingness and the harm in it. Woe indeed, when all human beings agree to abolish and eradicate their will to receive for themselves and have no other desire but to bestow upon their friends all worries and jeopardy in the world, would cease to exist.

We would all be assured of a whole and wholesome life, since each of us would have a whole world caring for us, ready to satisfy our needs. Yet, while each of us has only a desire to receive for oneself, this is the source of all the worries, suffering, wars, and slaughter we cannot escape. They weaken our bodies with all sorts of sores and maladies, and you find that all the agonies in our world are but manifestations offered to our eyes to prompt us to revoke the evil Klipa of the body and assume the complete form of the desire to bestow. It is, as we have said, that the path of suffering itself can bring us to the desired form. 

M. Laitman: No questions about this? Yes? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:50) He says that until all people on the earth together decide, or I don't remember the exact words, until they all agree together, unanimously. How? Ten months ago a disaster happened here in Israel, and there was like a period of like a day, or two, or a week or something, that there was like a feeling that all the nations are united in one desire to come out of this pit.

M. Laitman: No, no, no, no. It's not the same state at all. 

Student: So what is this state? So which state is he talking about this unanimously? 

M. Laitman: He speaks of a state where everyone feels that it's impossible to continue under any circumstances, continue our lives within this system as it was.

Student: He says at the end that the suffering is the way to reach it. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So why, let's say, what happened ten months ago, is it? Because it's exactly what happened.

M. Laitman: I don't think that was the state that should have brought about redemption. 

Student: So what suffering is he talking about? 

M. Laitman: The suffering a person feels in his heart whereupon he tries to find what actions he can take to unify the hearts. That's what's written in our source texts.

Student: Where will everybody get such a desire from? 

M. Laitman: Let's see. “The Ruin as an opportunity for Correction.” That's the title.

Student: In order for there to be an opportunity for correction, we need to feel a ruin in each one? 

M. Laitman: That is called ruin, yes. 

Student: So what will bring everybody to a feeling of that ruin, without external pressure, a difficult one like before? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. It doesn't need to come to each and every one in such a way where he sees that his future is broken, shattered, and he has no opportunity to reach anything good. Because first of all, everything he feels, he feels in his vessels of reception. His ego can inflate with respect to anything, so I don't think that's how it should be. There should be some recognition, awareness of where we are, what we're being sustained by, what we connect to, what we're coming closer to, right, connecting to. And out of all those discernments, we will reach more or less a unified perspective in our future. 

Student: What will bring most of the nation to this discernment? Because it's very complex what you just said.

M. Laitman: Trouble. Trouble. Very simply. For a person to be able to stop himself, arrest himself in his regular life and turn back, there needs to be some force affecting him, impacting him, forcing him. 

Student: So why in the beginning you said that what happened ten months ago here wasn't in the right direction? 

M. Laitman: It wasn't sufficient nor in any way aimed at that. It could be a correct state out of all the states we have to go through, but it doesn't orient us towards connection, towards being as one man in one heart, connecting with the Creator.

Student: The problems you're talking about are different types of trouble? 

M. Laitman: Problems which are targeted at connection, and from the connection between us towards a connection with the Creator, and that's it. You don't need so much. These two steps. 

Student: Can you depict such a trouble that will be able to unite the nation like you said? What type of trouble do we need there? 

M. Laitman: There have to be troubles. 

Student: What type?

M. Laitman: I don't know. I can't determine that for you. I don't know nature to its very depths. So as to be able to say that, here at this moment in this specific way, these stubborn people will accept everything as they should and change.

Student: Thank you. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:47) Good morning, Rav. I wanted to ask you, what's written here is a way to transition from the will to receive to the will to bestow. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, the question is, even though the will to receive is going through so much suffering and knows that there's nothing here that can give him pleasure in the end, it's all for him eventually. He only goes through suffering. So, why is the will to receive still not willing to annul and decide that that's it? That it's not enough and there's something more I need to do here in order to bestow. 

M. Laitman: We see that that's how it works in practice. The will to receive doesn't think that it has... Look, if we felt death coming right at us, death on such a scale where there's no world, no this world, no next world, just the end. It could be that thanks to that, we would have come to a solution, that we have to rise above this life as much as possible and by every means possible. And from that feeling of grief, we would discover the means to that end, namely the force of bestowal, and we would accept it from a state of absolute desperation, maybe. But for the time being we don't see ourselves growing closer to that, right? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:57) I'm trying to understand how suffering will help a person want to desert his will to receive and say, enough, this isn't working. 

M. Laitman: No, it's not just that form. When you come close to the will to receive and you want to use it, then you begin to feel such suffering that you can't even touch it.

Student: Those sufferings also don't make him want to bestow, like he says here. 

M. Laitman: Yes. Still, this is just refraining from using the will to receive. 

Student: So why does he write that the suffering comes to push us to annul the Klipa of the body and assume the complete form of the desire to bestow? How does that jump happen? 

M. Laitman: For lack of choice, lack of choice. And what we're doing here, we don't want humanity to reach that state where there's no choice, being forced, the state that could be revealed, the war of Gog and Magog, and such things. We want it to happen through understanding, feeling, connection, attainment. 

Student: But a person doesn't have that option in front of his eyes, to bestow.

M. Laitman: There will be such states where he sees that through the will to bestow, he can jump above his ego and not have to use it.

Student: A person has to know about it before? 

M. Laitman: That's why we try, we make an effort, yes. 

Student: Without knowing it'll just jump in him, or does he have to hear about it before? 

M. Laitman: No, no, no. Even without knowing in advance, without being taught, he will be able to discover it. Each one of us who had a little bad life, a bit of pressure, ultimately we all got to the point where we're here, right? 

Student: So, the fact that each one of us suddenly got that feeling, let's say when I came there was a group here already. So, this group that was here, it was working on me so that feeling will awaken in me, even before there was contact?

M. Laitman: We have no business with the concealed. 

Student: I'm trying to understand how we work on the whole world now. 

M. Laitman: Yes, in that way, yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:12) He writes, come and see when all the people of the world agree unanimously to eradicate the will to receive of themselves, and then he explains that each one would be sure for a full and healthy life, and each one would have a big world to fill his needs. Suddenly I thought that if you look at it in the way of the will to receive, it sounds beautiful, a big world, everybody's going to fill my needs, but if we look at it in the eyes of bestow... 

M. Laitman: Same thing, same thing, what's the problem? 

Student: But it's supposedly the opposite. No, it's not a problem that he has an opportunity for a big world that he can be concerned about. So it's like this observation, it's like we're searching for the right glasses. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:20) I wanted to ask, from the moment a person feels bad what will make him grab that idea of the wisdom of Kabbalah? 

M. Laitman: That depends on the root of the soul. 

Student: So, if it depends on the root of the soul, what are we doing? 

M. Laitman: But after we got the right directions, and we came here, and we're included together to some extent, at some level, then we have to continue. 

Student: Whoever is here, it's clear that they're continuing because they want to reach a correction. But whoever didn't come to the path yet and is now feeling bad, by coming to the path if it depends on the root of the soul, so what are we doing? It seems it's not in our hands if a person comes here or not. 

M. Laitman: Nonetheless, we have to take care and disseminate so that each and every one has the opportunity to know about the way of correction. 

Student: Do we have a way to influence someone's root of the soul? Can we grab a man's root of his soul? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: How? 

M. Laitman: As we learn through various ways and methods of dissemination.

Student: That's clear that eventually it's through dissemination. And also, if a person feels bad it's not sure you're going to be able to grab him. It's not sure you're going to reach his heart even if he really feels bad.

M. Laitman: Yes and no. 

Student: So?

M. Laitman: We need to awaken it. We need to awaken it and the Creator will finish the work for me, as we say. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:42) To continue the friend, whoever has a root of the soul, he'll come here anyway. Whether we disseminate or we don't disseminate, there's a root of the soul, there's a plan, and he'll come. So, what are we doing here in the middle? 

M. Laitman: We're accelerating people's development. 

Student: Why? If there's a root of the soul and there's a process that eventually will come here, we just need to open the door. What are we adding here for the Creator? 

M. Laitman: We're adding a program for spiritual development, a society which supports that process, and the opportunity to learn and study every day, to participate with various actions we take.

Student: Or supplying an environment for a point in the heart that has a root of the soul, an environment to develop?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: So, until they come here, the points in the heart, how do we help them develop? 

M. Laitman: Through books, various means, television, internet. 

Student: And if we wouldn't scatter books and internet according to the root of the soul, it should have come here anyway. I don't know, somehow to reach it, it'll come.

M. Laitman: Yes and no. 

Student: Why not? 

M. Laitman: Because it depends on a person's actions. You can see how much Baal HaSulam toiled.

Student: I'm trying to understand. If there's an inner spiritual impulse for a person, so he'll push himself. Somehow he'll come here. I don't know how, but he'll come here. That's what I understand. But on our side, what should we do that really helps him? So, we published a book. It's just an expression here. He read it and came, but I understood that he would come here also without the book. 

M. Laitman: Well, who knows when and how? 

Student: Whoever doesn't have the root of the soul.

M. Laitman: The person who doesn't have that root of the soul, his work is not for now. It'll come after a general awakening in the world. 

Student: And we can affect him. Can we speed up his development?

M. Laitman: We act, we operate, everything is open. The door is open, we have the books and everything, but you understand, it's not simple. 

Student: Thank you.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:49) You said that there's directed suffering and not directed suffering, we'll say. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: If I understand correctly, it's not on behalf of the Creator but on behalf of whoever feels the suffering, right? So we who study this see that the suffering is revelations that come to push us ahead. That's for us. So, like the event in Israel, the 7th of October, they can't get the right discernment on whether it's directed or not directed suffering. 

M. Laitman: That was directed suffering against the people. 

Student: What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: To rattle us.

Student: How can the people use suffering correctly? 

M. Laitman: The people can't. They can only lament, and shout, and cry. 

Student: So, what does it mean to shake them up? What is this shaking up for? 

M. Laitman: So, the people advance through that, regardless. They advance.

Student: Is there freedom of choice to the people? 

M. Laitman: No. 

Student: So, what does it mean that they're advancing if they don't have freedom of choice? 

M. Laitman: They're advancing even without freedom of choice. That's how it works. We're all of us, inert.

Reading Item 21: (22:40) One does not live for oneself, but for the whole chain. Thus, each and every part of the chain does not receive the light of life into itself. That only distributes the light of life to the whole chain.

M. Laitman: Yes, clear. Questions? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:20) A question from the friend, he is translating now. Yesterday, we gave a talk to Israelis in the United States that are in big concern and fear of the antisemitism happening there. He and Eran Kurtz and Maya Grinberg gave a lecture. So on one hand, part of the audience felt it on their flesh, and they wanted to sign up to our courses and started to study. On the other hand, there are people who see this as really naive in our solution. So what other suffering do people have to go through to start listening to come close to this wisdom? 

M. Laitman: Look, those living in the United States, I don't know. They have two options. Either to integrate into the people around them, and so that they're not a separate thing so as to avoid the physical blows that are on the way. Or I don't know. I don't know what to say. I think that they're looking at what's happening here, and they don't see anything good happening here in terms of security and, well, in every respect. So, I don't know what to tell you.

Student: These blows you see in the United States, specifically you see it on the Jews there? 

M. Laitman: Most especially, yes.

Student: You believe that they can separate themselves completely, and in a way, or no, blend in completely, that they won't be different? 

M. Laitman: People who read the situation correctly understand that there is no such opportunity to integrate. You can go live amongst polar bears, right? That won't save you. 

Student: When do you see that also the Jews in the United States, also the ones living here reach some kind of common pain, that all the Jews in the world will feel a common problem? 

M. Laitman: If God forbid, each reaches similar states to World War II, then maybe everyone will start crying, shouting. All the Jews will begin shouting. Maybe then it'll help. 

Student: Back then they didn't hear. They didn't hear Baal HaSulam. 

M. Laitman: Back then they didn't listen because they didn't have anything in their hands, any solution what to do with themselves, where to go, and so on. 

Student: And today? 

M. Laitman: And today it could be different. But through such blows that will awaken us to scrutinize things. 

Student: You said a Jew in the United States has two opportunities. Either he blends in with the people around him, that he won't be separated. And what's the other option you didn't say? 

M. Laitman: The second option is to be a strong Jew, not to surrender to anything other than the demand. And what comes to him is what should come to him. 

Student: And such an attitude, being a strong Jew, won't bring even more hate towards him? 

M. Laitman: No. We have to understand that we have a place on this earth. That there is such a nation, such a country, a place for this. That's what we have to show the whole world. And then we will discover the upper force. Yes. 

Student: What's to be a strong Jew? 

M. Laitman: To be a strong Jew means that he has in his hands, at his foundation, the fact that he's here from the beginning of creation and must remain here until the end of creation. And all these waves that come across the earth won't change him in any way. That's it. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:26) Can we go back to the excerpt? 

M. Laitman: Go on. 

Student: It's short, I'll read it. One does not live for oneself, but for the whole chain. Thus, each and every part of the chain does not receive the light of life into itself, but only distributes the light of life to the whole chain. It seems like the most difficult condition in the will to receive.

M. Laitman: But it's a fact according to what we learn. This is the law of nature. It doesn't depend on us.

Student: Yes, but to listen to the sentence that one does not live for oneself, it's as if it seems like the most difficult thing for the will to receive to do. 

M. Laitman: All right, but it is a well-known fact already, and you can feel it. And whether we want to or not, here and there we come closer to it, and closer, such that all the threads of connection between us emerge from this tangled confusion and demand order. 

Student: On the other hand, he says that not to completely annul yourself but more to blend in, to be part of this chain, that it's not really to annul yourself or to take yourself out of the equation. 

M. Laitman: No. You have to be there with the whole world. You have to act to benefit reality, to benefit humanity. 

Student: And how do I do it in the Ten? The annulment is the first step. That's a restriction. 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: That's what opens all the opportunities.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, this is the most difficult step, how to take that state of annulment, of restriction. 

M. Laitman: We need to learn, study again and again, how to do that in our smaller groups. Try to do that here. And later, we will be ready, perhaps, to convey that to the whole of reality, the whole of humanity, all of it. 

Reading Item 22: (32:30) One who truly wants to serve the Creator must include himself with all creations, connect himself with all the souls, include himself with them, and they with him. That is, you should leave for yourself only what is needed for connecting the Shechina, so to speak. This requires closeness and many people, for the more people serve the Creator, the more the light of the Shechina appears to them. For this reason, one must include himself with all the people and with all creations, and raise everything to their root, to the correction of the Shechina. 

M. Laitman: Yes. What? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:37) What's the difference between a person needing to include himself with all created beings and also needing to connect himself to all the souls? What's the difference? 

M. Laitman: Connection with all the souls, that's a partial, individual correction. I would say a discrete correction. That's with all the created beings. What else is there? 

Student: And with all created beings.

M. Laitman: Yes, and with all the souls, that's the matter of the one general soul. All right. What else do we have? 

Reader: (34:55) Announcements.