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

Daily Morning Lesson July 15, 2025.

Part 2: Recorded lesson - October 19, 2021. Excerpts from the Sources: "Shamati" Articles

Reader: We will now continue and learn from a recorded Lesson with Rav from October 19th, 2021 from the writings of Baal HaSulam, an article from “Shamati”, 26, “One's Future Depends and is Tied to Gratitude for the Past.”

Reader: Hello, we are in the lesson on the topic of “Shamati”, articles from Baal HaSulam. We're on item 26 in the “Shamati” articles, “One's Future Depends and is Tied to Gratitude for the Past.” You can send questions on the lesson and pertinent will be aired on the lesson.  “One's Future Depends and is Tied to Gratitude for the Past”, item 26.

M. Laitman:  “One’s future depends and is tied to gratitude for the past”, this means that we can't make even a step forward correctly if we are not correctly tied to our past. And how do I need to research the past, understand the past, connect to the past in some way?  And actually, I thought before that I'm disconnecting from the past and going forward, so this is what helps me and this is what helps me advance. But here it seems to be the opposite, so Baal HaSulam says through Rabash to me that my future depends on is tied to my past. Well, tied to it, I guess, there's no choice, but depends on it - that seems to be saying that it's up to the person, to the extent that I relate my future to my past. So, what is it that I need to do with the past? How to connect with it? What kind of connection do I hold with it in order to connect to the right future? So, we'll have to see, but when you just look at this sentence as many statements of Kabbalist’s, it's doesn't look so simple anymore. We have to put our mind our heart into it, our emotion, understanding, experience. What exactly it depends on, our future? How does it depend on the past? The fact that there is a connection, that's natural, that can be because it's a single system that's operating. But if we're talking about what depends on a person then how does a person ties the past to the future? So, perhaps there's no connection and we need to make the connection through ourselves, we'll see.

Reader: Shamati article number 26 when one’s future depends on the gratitude for the past. 

Reading: (03:48) Baal HaSulam, Shamati #26. One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past

It is written, “The Lord is high and the low will see,” that only the low can see the exaltedness. The letters Yakar [precious] are the letters of Yakir [will know]. This means that one knows the exaltedness of a thing to the extent that it is precious to one.

One is impressed according to the importance of the thing. The impression brings one to a sensation in the heart, and according to the measure of one’s recognition of the importance, to that extent, joy is born in him.

Thus, if one knows his lowliness, that he is not more privileged than his contemporaries, meaning he sees that there are many people in the world who were not given the strength to do the holy work even in the simplest way, even without the intention and in Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], even in Lo Lishma of Lo Lishma, and even in preparation for the preparation of the clothing of Kedusha [holiness], while he was imparted the desire and thought to at least occasionally do holy work, even in the simplest possible way, if one can appreciate the importance of this, according to the importance one attributes to the holy work, to that extent he should give praise and thanks for it.

This is so because it is true that we cannot appreciate the importance of being able to sometimes observe the Mitzvot [commandments] of the Creator, even without any intention. In that state, one comes to feel elation and joy in the heart.

The praise and the gratitude one gives for it expand the feelings, and one is elated by every single point in the holy work, he knows Whose servant he is, and thus soars ever higher. This is the meaning of what is written, “I thank You for the grace that You have made with me,” meaning for the past, and by this one can confidently say, and he does say, “and that You are destined to do with me.”

M. Laitman: Meaning, a person feels how much he is lowly, and ordinary, and has nothing special about him, so actually to the extent that he can see himself as not exceptional, not the smartest or more most successful. When does it happen? As much as he advances in coming out of his ego and he already wants to come out and be above it and he sees that he can't, he's entirely in his thoughts and desires, immersed in his ego and just can't come out of it, even not a little bit. From here, he begins to recognize how low he is and with that, correspondingly, he can depict to himself what is the lowliness of the ego. As a result, he receives the ability to get to know the Creator somewhat. It is true that the Creator is high, but the low we'll see. The lowliness is not our lowness, it is the lowness of the will to receive that now governs in us, we have to make the distinction here. So, if we make ourselves neutral in that I don't belong to in order to receive or in order to bestow, I want to feel myself as it says, “between heaven and earth.” Then to the extent that I feel the lowliness in the will to receive, I have the ability to recognize the greatness of the will to bestow. That is why it says, “the Lord is high and the low will see,” that the lowlier I am, the more I can see the greatness of the Creator. There are many exercises for this that the Creator does to us and that we do to ourselves in order to lead ourselves to a point where only out of lowness, if I can discover the Creator, then there are many opportunities for that, to see what the lowness is about. I have to feel myself as hanging between heaven and earth, between the will to receive and the will to bestow. Each time, specifically from the will to receive that I am immersed in, I want to try and appreciate within me the will to bestow, love, bestowal, and thus rise and summon the forces from above that will pull me out of this desire to receive that I am in. To the extent of the lowness that I find in myself, as much as I am immersed in the will to receive, I also get to know the greatness of the Creator, how high is the will to bestow. So, from the distance between the two, I rise from the deep pit to the high mountain. 

Question (Moscow 7): (12:13) In this article, Baal HaSulam says we are not capable of appreciating the importance, that we can sometimes observe Mitzvot [commandments] of the Creator without any intention?

M. Laitman: I want to add. “Without intention”, that doesn't mean without any intention at all. It means without any right intention, even in a state of Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], a state that is not truly in order to bestow. If we still try to achieve connection, to make certain actions between us, that too is considered Mitzva. Even though a Mitzva, in truth, is an action in order to bestow. Even if we have not detached from in order to receive yet the ego is still alive within us, but we try like children playing a game, we learn from it how to rise to in order to bestow.

Student: The question is really around that. How do you learn to appreciate the Creator that chose you out of billions of people, between the environment of those who yearn for the Creator?

M. Laitman: This is by the friends around you talking about it and you add to them, and you all see how selected you are from all of humanity. Thus, we should also look at all the friends this way, that each one was picked out of millions, picked out of hundreds of millions of people who weren't given this opportunity. Each of us is like a representative of those hundreds of millions of people, and that is how we should relate to each friend. The people who emerge from the general body of humanity that still exists only in the will to receive without any contact whatsoever with the inclination to bestow, we have to appreciate these friends and relate to them this way. That I am part of them as well, and we should feel concern, a responsibility for the whole of humanity, on the one hand. On the other hand, to connect between us as much as possible so that we are always connected to the Creator in an increasingly stronger connection and thus, we can then turn to the people of the world as well and they will feel that there is some force within us. They can’t sense the reality of the Creator Himself, that is a different level, they are AHP. But we, as being GE, we are also comprised of the vessels that can connect with the Creator and those that connect to AHP, to the nations of the world, to all of humanity. So that puts us in the passageway between the Creator and the created beings. We should think about it, this should make us responsible, obligate us to do our role. Even though we too come from the same levels of all of humanity, of the world, we also have to reach states where we are connected to the Creator and become that conduit. Baal HaSulam writes about it in the articles “The Arvut”, “The Freedom”, he writes about it a lot and we should be visiting these articles.

Question (Salt Lake City): (17:05) How can we appreciate the greatness of something that we cannot see or hear and cannot grasp in our senses?

M. Laitman: We can perceive in our senses, and see it, and incorporate with the higher levels with the presence of the Creator, on the condition that I trust that the Creator resides in the friends. To the extent that I annul myself towards the friends, and I want to connect with them, and even though I feel myself being in some locked state, being under such a thick skin that prevents me from feeling them. But, specifically through this skin, when I want to penetrate through it and sense them, that is the effort that we need to make in the Ten. According to how we get closer through that, we also pray to the Creator and He helps us and advances us towards each other. So that in order to be always balanced in our work, the more He brings us closer on the right line, He also raises more disturbances between us from the left side. That is how we walk forward - left and right, left and right. The right comes from our inclination towards the friends and the Creator. The left comes as a revelation from above. The Creator each time reveals to us another layer, and another layer of the ego that separates us, and comes between us. And again, we go against it not to cancel it, but go above it, to work with it correctly. That’s how we walk forward, on two legs. That’s how we advance.

Question (PT 25): (19:57) How can you do the Mitzvot (commandments) before you're in spirituality? How is that possible?

M. Laitman: As much as possible, as if you do it.

Question (PT 18): (20:14) In the second  paragraph something's not so clear to me; on one hand he says “Therefore if he knows his lowliness, that he doesn’t stand out like the rest of people, his contemporaries, he lacks nothing.” So he is special to the Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes, but based on what? What makes him this way?

Student: That's what I don't exactly understand. How such a thing can happen, one thing and it's opposite?

M. Laitman: No, no. It is not one thing and its opposite that is happening. That he is basically unworthy, he is not the son of a king, he is not rich, he is not smart, he’s got nothing that he could say that he has over the others. Why did the Creator choose him, he does not know that. The Creator’s choice is only according to the point in the heart that exists in the person, a preparation that comes from the system of Adam HaRishon making that person in need of advancing, and others will advance after him. All of that is rooted in the system, and for that he needs to be responsible for being given this opportunity, this possibility. He represents perhaps hundreds and hundreds of millions of people in this world that he is going to have to pass on to them, they are tied to him. The more he advances, they will receive contact to the Creator through him. We, as we advance towards the Creator, will begin to discover the Kabbalists who already made their path forward. They’re making the connection between us and the Creator.

Reader: Dear friends, we are going to continue to learn from “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”, lesson recorded from July 2, 2006. It's on page 176 in the Hebrew version of the writings of Baal HaSulam, and we're going to be reading from item 53.