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

Daily Lesson (Morning) October 20, 2024.

Part 3: Selected Topic – The Seven Ushpizin

Reader: (00:04) So now we will read selected excerpts on the topic of the seven Ushpizin, guests. Selected excerpts from the sources. We are in excerpt Number One by Rabash. 

Reading: (00:17) 1. Rabash. Assorted Notes. Article 624. Ushpizin 

Baal HaSulam interpreted the matter of Ushpizin [Sukkot guests], that it is a matter that is introduced in The Zohar, a way by which to pass, for the light of Hochma cannot shine in it consistently.

This is the meaning of “luck,” that “Sons, life, and nourishment depend on luck,” as written in The Study of the Ten Sefirot (Part 13). This comes from the words, “Water will pour out from his buckets.” Pouring means that it is only dripping, meaning it illuminates intermittently, whereas a stream means illuminating ceaselessly.

For this reason, the guests love that he will have a spacious place. But when they come and the place is narrow, they cannot enter. This means that the light of Hochma cannot shine unless by clothing of Hassadim, and Hassadim is called “wide,” as explained in The Study of the Ten Sefirot. The light of Hochma is called Ushpizin; therefore, if he has no Hassadim, it cannot clothe.

M. Laitman: Questions?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:20) What is luck?

M. Laitman: Luck is a sign for success, if you're asking that way. That's the way is customary. 

Student: Here in the excerpt, what kind of an explanation is it about luck? 

M. Laitman: It's a permission to illuminate below, that's it.

Reader: Excerpt Number Two from Zohar for All. 

Reading: (02:23) Zohar for All. VaYechi [Jacob Lived], Four Species, #227

All of those four species are the guests. They are the seven Sefirot HGT NHYM that the holy people invited on this day, as we pray during the days of Sukkot prior to the meal and say, “Come, you high guests.” They must be found because he invited them and one prays the prayer to the King in them. And he attains them through the four species, which imply to these Sefirot. 

M. Laitman: Yes, any questions? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:34) What does it mean to invite guests? What do we lack in that we invite on Sukkot?

M. Laitman: To invite guests, as he wants more guests to come, with which he can disclose more, reveal more joy and respect the Creator.

Student: What are guests in our work?

M. Laitman: What a person invites, all kinds of forces by which he opens himself more and more and connects himself to the Creator.

Student: Can we say that guests are forces we invite in order to connect between us more? 

M. Laitman: That's different, it's different; here, he needs to equip himself first with the qualities with which he comes to some contact with the Creator.

Student: What does it mean that we need light of Hassadim so that the guests will come, which is light of Hochma? 

M. Laitman: Yes, that's as usual, there's nothing special, here.

Student: What's the preparation from the perspective of the lower one to invite these guests? 

M. Laitman: To be in vessels of Hassadim. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:31) What determines the width of the vessel that's needed? 

M. Laitman: This depends on the desire there is in the vessel. 

Student: We can work on it, endlessly without guests coming over?

M. Laitman: I don't know.

Student: Should it be in congruence with what kind of lights you want to have? What kind of lights? 

M. Laitman: Probably, yes. 

Student: Any light of Hochma that we want to close, we have to have light of Hassadim there? 

M. Laitman: Probably yes. 

Student: How do we identify? It's as if the light of Hochma determines in advance what will be. 

M. Laitman: So, we need to work according to that? 

Student: How do we do this in the connection, what does it mean about connection that the level of light of Hassadim that we make here suits the light of Hochma? 

M. Laitman: The question is correct but, simply, from the deed itself, thus we measure.

Student: The work on light of Hassadim, on this form of Hassadim between us, is it within reason? Can we measure it or is there a measure of above reason, here? 

M. Laitman: I think above reason, as we need to be connected in order to receive the upper guest. 

Student: And that's above reason? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: What does it mean to work on the connection above reason? 

M. Laitman: That I try to prepare myself for the reception of the upper force in me, in my vessels; therefore, I assemble them, connect them, from what I received from the Creator. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:51) Ushpizin, are they qualities? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Qualities of what? 

M. Laitman: Qualities of the vessels that connect in order to be suitable for the revelation of the Creator.

Student: Are there several groups, or several forms of revealing the Creator, and each of them is a quality or an attribute? How does it work, what's the difference between Hesed, Gevura? What exactly are these attributes? 

M. Laitman: They are the qualities that the upper light builds inside the general will to receive. 

Student: And is it something permanent?

M. Laitman: No, it changes. It changes but it's something we need to learn.

Student: What does it mean to invite an attribute – what is this act of inviting? 

M. Laitman: To be ready for the reception of new qualities is called, to go towards the guest. 

Student: And it's a guest because it's something that comes and goes, it's not permanent, it's like the permanent residence and temporary residence. So, I have many attributes that I'd like to have, and I don't. So, what does a person do, does he aim, does he ask, does he pray? What exactly?

M. Laitman: A person should basically simply relinquish his own desire in order to be in a desire that is willing to accept, to assume, or to reveal the Creator, the greatness of the Creator. 

Student: But a person doesn't have the ability to aim towards quality one or quality two, or quality three, or does he? Can he ask for a specific quality – he turns to the Creator, and the Creator will complete?

M. Laitman: The Creator changes him from quality to quality but a person must be willing and wanting. 

Student: Meaning that also in the concession of a person, or the annulment of a person, there's something that characterizes those qualities?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Reader: Excerpt Number Three

Reading: (11:54) 3. Zohar for All. Introduction of The Book of Zohar. Torah and Prayer, #184

Abraham is the root of Hesed in the souls of Israel, since he is the one who corrected the holy Divinity into a receptacle for the light of Hesed. She received the Hassadim for all the souls of Israel in their fullest. Had it remained so, all of Israel would have been adhered to the Creator permanently, and the holy Divinity would be the house of Malchut, filled with every delight and pleasure, and not a single person would wish to part from her for even a minute.

However, Abraham’s entire correction consisted of making a complete receptacle for the light of Hassadim, without any possibility of a flaw. In other words, he elevated the holy Divinity into bestowal and contentment upon our Maker, and to not receive anything for our own delight, for this is the quality and the receptacle of the light of Hesed. It is written about it, “Anyone who says, ‘What is mine is yours and what is yours is yours—a Hassid [from the word Hesed],’ for he does not demand anything for his own pleasure.

M. Laitman: Yes, that's the quality of Abraham. Questions?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:57) Can we somehow balance the quality of Hesed in the Ten? After all, each has different degrees of Hesed, or even all the Sefirot. Can we do something common, and if someone is missing Hesed, can you complete it somehow from the connection? 

M. Laitman: If you connect, if you want to bring yourselves to a common vessel, then of course!

Student: It will be a common Hesed? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: How does this move from one to the other?

M. Laitman: Then you will see to what extent it's possible. 

Student: When we work on the incorporation, how does a person come out of his qualities? How does a person receive these advantages that friends have because really, friends have many things that a person doesn't have.

M. Laitman: So, you need to be incorporated with all the friends for this. And then, on one quality you want to adhere to, you have to bow to it. 

Student: In the opposite way, and one will help his friend, how can we give from ourselves to others? 

M. Laitman: You can give only what you can, only where you can relinquish yourself, there are other concessions you need to make, here. And then you connect. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:34) He says that the measure of Hesed is mine is yours, and yours is yours. They say that when it comes to necessities, there is no too much or not enough. So, in that case, what does he have to share with others and what is necessary?

M. Laitman: It's a calculation of how much I need to relinquish and connect with others and direct ourselves toward it. I can't explain about that, there are several other steps ahead that we need to go through.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:31) Each has an individual soul and there's something common to all the souls of Israel, like he calls, Hesed. And how can that fact help us in the work to take advantage of it for the work? Or how does this advance us, this common root of ours? 

M. Laitman: He gives us a deficiency to be connected to Him, to that root or in that root. 

Student: Is that the quality of the root of Hesed? 

M. Laitman: No, any root.

Student: Can you give an example and explain how that root works? 

M. Laitman: No, search.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:26) Why do we invite the Ushpizin, these guests, these qualities, specifically to the temporary dwelling? What's there that enables us to bring the guests in?

M. Laitman: It's a state when a person grows, and therefore he can change. And it's possible to influence him and change him; this is why specifically on the holiday of Sukkot this is what we learn. 

Student: How can a Ten examine itself, that it doesn't continue to sit in a permanent dwelling but we truly went out to that place? 

M. Laitman: That you can hold each other, and together with all of you, you want to discover the higher qualities.

Student: Can we say that, basically, we're always trying to do this? So what's special in the matter of the temporary dwelling in the Ten that maybe you can feel or understand?

M. Laitman: Temporary dwelling or residence in the Ten is when I don't feel myself. That I am, that I am present in my vessels, that I am in my vessels, that's it, and it's good if we feel this way. None of us has his own vessels, the permanent ones, the unchanging that are built like that. It's good because then each one is willing to accept changes, okay? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:57) Something is unclear to me, I want to continue the friend. The matter of Sukkot, he writes that it's joy and the matter of Gevurot that delight Isaac, left lane. How, actually, in such a state of scrutiny, critique, Gevurot, how do we bring in the Ushpizin, which are the right side – which is like Abraham and Moses – is there even room for that? He's not in the left, he's in scrutiny. What does it mean that he now brings the faith of Abraham, the quality of Hesed in? 

M. Laitman: You're already asking ahead many degrees ahead, I can't explain it, still. 

Student: Okay, thank you.

M. Laitman: But keep the question.

 What's next?

Reader: We can do excerpt Number Four. 

M. Laitman: Let's do excerpt four. 

Reader: It's still under the heading of the Ushpizin, Abraham the Hesed. Item Number Four from Baal HaSulam, Shamati.

Reading: (22:08) 4. Baal HaSulam. Shamati 179. Three Lines – twice

Abraham is called “the patriarch of faith,” meaning Hassadim. Then he will know that anyone who wants to come near Him must first assume the discernment of “right,” meaning faith.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:08) What is the discernment of faith? 

M. Laitman: Faith, quality, this quality. Filling with light of Hassadim.

Student: We need to ask for it? 

M. Laitman: Now you're asking something else: Should we be asking, can we receive for our request, what is the light of faith that comes to us? We still need to learn.

Student: In the Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot, he says that whoever obligates himself to strengthen in faith before the study. Is there a connection between that faith that we come to the lesson with, to the lesson every day and this quality that he's describing here of Abraham and the discernment of faith? 

M. Laitman: Not really. 

Student: It's not the same faith? 

M. Laitman: There is faith that we receive from the Creator, from above; and there is faith that we can receive from the environment, from friends. 

Student: The faith we need to ask for in the lesson, what is it? 

M. Laitman: Usually, it is light of Hassadim in which we can receive all the other influences from the Creator.

Student: How to depict that desirable state that we're asking for? 

M. Laitman: We need to pray and ask of the Creator to constantly advance us toward more bestowal. 

Student: More bestowal?

M. Laitman: Yes, forces of bestowal that we will reveal by ourselves, or in ourselves.

Reader: We are going to move to our social time now, after our transition.