Morning Lesson January 25, 2024
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Rabash.
What Does “The King Stands On His Field When the Crop Is Right” Mean in the Work?10
Part 1:
R. 1. (38:42) What’s the impression? Well, what are you looking at me for? I was impressed that we had a good reader. Why are you silent? Who remembers some form of maybe rules that we can take from the article, guidelines?
2. S. (39:40) First rule is when he starts the work, he starts plowing. What I feel from that, that we need to raise spiritually above corporeality.
R. Yes, does anyone want to add?
3. S. (39:57) The second rule is to believe the world is heading the world in goodness and benevolence and maybe another rule, that if the body comes and prays there’s no need to answer because there's no point to this argument.
R. Anything else to add?
3. S. (40:22) The right line is called Hesed or wholeness so each time I have to add from the left line to not remain in the same state?
R. Okay, yes.
4. S. (40:43) Seems to me like the whole article is that we need to understand that we are powerless against our will to receive and also in the face of morals and understanding that only through the Creator we can receive the power for it.
R. Correct, yes more?
5. S. (41:26) Just to reinforce what the friend just said, other than that internal cry to the Creator to come and correct a state. The stage we’re in, ascents and descents, in the ascents is there any contact with the upper force or it’s only in the end the third line arranges it, and all the time ascent, descent, third line, ascent, descent, third line? Only in the end..
R. No, no, also along the way.
6. S. (42:07) I awaken the dawn. What does it mean that a person awakens the darkness and prays for it?
R. He prays for this darkness to pass.
S. What a person can do before the darkness that comes?
R. He has work otherwise he won't have the desire to reach the light. He won't have the strength to go through the period of darkness which precedes the light.
S. During the work we always remind ourselves somehow the darkness will come. I need to work correctly in order to overcome it?
R. Yes. If I exert and want to make a step forward I need to be ready for the darkness that precedes the light.
S. How can I assume the amount of darkness that will come, or I just simply work all the way?
R. No, a person can't in such a stage measure or weigh where he is now.
S. He also says don't wait for the darkness but continue to extend the left.
R. Of course.
S. What does it mean that a person feels the wholeness he’s on the right line, another reminds him not to simply get stuck there but to do what?
R. Rather he needs to be ready for every stage he has on the way as long as he’s ready.
S. Here it sounds like he continues that he goes and criticizes at that point but so how much criticism is he doing because from experience we see that if we criticize we get into a bad feeling, we disconnect, it’s like a measured amount that we can do? They even say only a half hour a day…
R. Those are matters we need to scrutinize but we need to not fear the darkness rather know that it was given in order to beget the light.
S. I’m asking if beyond knowing one should extend the darkness and it's written ‘awaken the dawn’?
R. Awakening the dawn means he wants the dawn to be revealed to the same extent in which the state of the light that will follow will be revealed.
7. S. (45:07) A central point here that I felt that only the Creator can help us come out of the authority of vessels of reception, and a person is undergoing many trials, and he tries and seemingly doesn't let the Creator come in and act. Is the war not actually to try?
R. To ask, to pray, to like to draw the Creator meaning?
S. Yes, how to make room for the Creator and not to occupy? There’s the “I” and all these experiments and trials. What is the advice to make room for the Creator to work?
R. That is still a lack of faith. That’s still a lack of faith but it's gradually through such steps, back and forth, back and forth, he nevertheless receives feeling.
S. The feeling that the Creator is the one who acts in reality?
R. Yes, that he has to draw the Creator.
S. What you just described is a result, an outcome of certain actions?
R. Yes.
S. You said exiting, entering, entrance and suddenly a person understands it’s the Creator who works in reality?
R. Yes.
S. Meaning there's nothing straight forward that a person can do now to bring the Creator to reality?
R. It's impossible. What does a person put it in? A person just prays, he changes his prayer to a clearer prayer, more focused prayer and then the Creator is revealed.
8. S. (47:36) What's the difference between being grateful and justifying the Creator for any state that's revealed versus justifying and thanking Him for the awakening of the left line that he sees that he's weak in sanctity?
R. This depends on the force there is in a person to the extent to which he can connect to the friends and build his foundation as broad as possible.
S. It advances a person when he's more on the left line and not to simply justify everything else in life, specifically the inability to advance in holiness?
R. It comes out on the left line more.
S. He says that a person sees there's no end to the ascents and descents and then he has a true cry. What is this state that there is no end to the ascents and descents?
R. Endless until a person doesn't cry out anymore, until he becomes so sensitive to his state that he cries out to the Creator, meaning it needs to be clear to him where he is, where the Creator is, what attitude there is from him to the Creator and what exactly does he wants from Him, meaning that the Creator is actually the one who decides the whole future state and then he cries out.
S. When do you see it? It looks endless.
R. It all depends on a person's efforts.
9. S. (49:42) I see that the simple rule of the Creator there being in control, I don’t remember about it. I cannot remember to invite the Creator all the time. How to apply a rule that seems so simple that the Creator does everything, moves everything?
R. It’s not simple. We can remember this but actually after we perform a certain action, a certain state and not before. We need to advance the Creator to precede all that we can see, grasp, think, as He is in the beginning of all the actions that take place on us.
S. When you see that He precedes all the actions, how to get used to such a state to where you see the Creator before everything, to invite Him to act and to correct?
R. In which the Creator is going, and you are following Him.
S. How to acquire such a perspective in life, such a view?
R. That depends on the feeling we have in the society in which truly the whole society feels that it is following the Creator, so it'll be easier for each and every one to join us. Yes, this is a necessary matter there’s nothing to add here. There are several such rules that are necessary in which if we don't observe them we won't advance. The first rule is that the Creator is first. How could it be any other way?
10. S. (52:33) I noticed that the entire article speaks of inner work, right line, left line in the work, and suddenly in the end it makes a sharp turn and starts to speak of the will to receive of his friend. He ends the article by saying that it's forbidden to rebuke one's friend. What is the summary of the whole article?
R. It's not a summary but if you want to grow in the right way you need to observe how you are connected to your friends. On the one hand you grow within them, yes, inside their society, your society, and that’s on one hand, on the other hand you make sure that everyone has a place, a way, a room.
S. Can you rebuke your own will to receive?
R. For himself you can do whatever you want according to what the Kabbalists recommend to you, how to talk and how much to talk.
11. S. (54:10) I would like to ask about the point when he speaks of how a person should rejoice when the Creator does something, so he rejoices even if everyone around it is not merited by them, it and speaks of the highest sense of pride, but here it’s talking about wholeness.
R. I did not hear it correctly, can you repeat?
S. He’s asking about a state where they say a person should feel proud, proud that he’s merited to be a student of the Creator and the other is not. On the one hand it's a state of high pride but from the article it says it’s a state of wholeness. He’s trying to reconcile the contradiction.
R. Okay, I don't have.
12. S. (57:00) He asks about what's written in the article that a person has to make himself lowly to humiliate himself and say how the Creator gave me a thought and an action to do something in spirituality, I'm happy, I'm giving thanks to the Creator since he sees the other people were not given the opportunity to serve Him so he's happy about it and it's considered wholeness.
R. What wholeness can it be if he's happy in the face of others?
S. That's what he's asking about.
R. Okay next. So It's obviously not wholeness if a person is rejoicing from being more than others.
13. S. (57:56) He repeats several times in the article that a person cannot attain faith if the Creator doesn’t give it to him, he says it's a divine gift.
R. Yes, well of course, it all depends on the Creator.
S. Constantly he repeats the fact that the body will never agree to it?
R. Yes.
S. How can a person receive faith if it's not in his hands to get it or the Creator?
R. The hands of a person? Where have you seen that there's something in man's hands? As much as we advance we see how much of a zero we are.
S. Exactly from that place I'm trying to do something in man's own hands to attain spirituality. It turns out that the body will never agree, the desire will never agree to it and if it happens it's the Creator because the Creator agrees to it, so what is a person to do?
R. A person demands, asks for the Creator to arrange for him the conditions so he will be able to, well eventually it's just prayer.
S. The action of a person is the prayer?
R. Yes, request, prayer, there's nothing else to do.
S. Where does he get a desire for it?
R. From appreciating whether his friends together are also appreciating the quality of bestowal together.
S. This entire process that we go through as he tells us about, the lines, the disturbance, it's all happening to you.
R. Yes.
S. Then what's left for a person in order to be in prayer of where he wants to go?
R. When he goes through all these states he reaches the state where he realizes all he can do is cry out to the Creator. If the Creator doesn't build a home His servants labored for nothing.
14. S. (01:00:19) What is, it turns out, there's a state where he asks to bestow as a result of his work?
R. Yes because he discovers that this is the only thing he's missing.
S. But what is to ask for the desire to bestow? He went through a process, he was in many requests before that, on the right, on the left.
R. Now he has a complete request that includes all the states he's been through and that's what he's demanding, only the desire to bestow.
S. What's the desire to bestow?
R. What is the desire to bestow? It's called complete faith, complete bestowal, complete adhesion with Creator.
S. When I want to perform an action in the Ten or for a friend what's the difference whether I do it with a desire to bestow or without the desire to bestow?
R. What action can you do to anyone without the desire to bestow?
S. It appears as if when we do something there's this addition called the desire to bestow, what's the desire to bestow?
R. It's an addition. I don't know what it is, there's no such thing. It's possible that I'm doing a certain action and I wish to receive for, in exchange, advancement in the will to bestow.
15. S. (01:02:04) Can we understand sometimes we learn that there are two desires? Sometimes we learn about intentions, meaning that there's no control over the desire, so what's the difference between a desire and an intention?
R. There is a difference. I want and I intend, those are two separate actions. I want, meaning I understand, and I want, and I have a hold over it and I work there. This is the desire, the desire to receive, it has a place, a vessel, a power. What else?
S. Intention.
R. Intention is that I have a desire perhaps, a certain desire, a desire tied to an intention is only in the still life. He wants something, that's what he means, that's what he intends, he has no difference yet between the desire and the intention, but later when he grows up there's a desire and there's an intention, just as we see in children that grow up and mature this way and then they become more sly and more cunning, they have several desires, several intentions and so on and so forth.
16. S. (01:04:13) In the whole article actually Rabash explains that the person has no ability to deal with the will to receive and that there's no point in arguing with the will to receive because it will always, the evil inclination will always beat it. On the other hand there's this advice that he gives, if I understood correctly, which is to awaken the dawn, so what is to awaken the dawn in our state?
R. They advance like a ship, like boats with sails, not directly, and that's what we can do.
S. What in our state is going indirectly? What is to go indirectly?
R. To have meals, gatherings, trips, do all kinds of things that can attract a person, pleasant things, pleasant for the will to receive, but in between he absorbs the intentions, the desires, the thoughts of the friends and he advances. He gives them more importance and is incorporated in them, that's how we work.
17. S. (01:06:17) To continue this a little. I have a certain life, a life here and a life outside. Would it be correct to try to arrange my life in such a cunning way that I will have more than what the society offers, what our writings offer, in my daytime and my family and to try to...
R. That's your choice. We learn and you arrange everything accordingly, the order in your brain the order in your life.
S. For spiritual advancement is there any importance if I add, let's say once a day, to read something at home, some excerpt in such a way that the children will hear me, all kinds of little things like that?
R. Of course certainly, it's customary to do so. You nevertheless need to think how to bring your kids and the people in your household closer to what's important to you.
S. There's no problem if I kind of lower even a little for my corporeality?
R. No, I can't give you such answers. More or less like this, more or less like that., no, you have to learn.
18. S. (01:07:51) It speaks in the article about two matters that negate one another, deny one another. What's the measure that they need to clash one another? Because it could be that a person is too connected and everything dissolves because he's not persistent or his opinion is very stern, and the left line is stern, maybe too burning.
R. We see this from the beginning of the Gemara. Two are holding the prayer shawl, one says this is all mine and the other says this is all mine, the evil inclination, and they have a disagreement.
S. With all their authority, all their might they both have to kind of work?
R. If it's strongly on both sides it's good even if it's the evil inclination who's taking over. The good inclination is very weak typically.
19. S. (01:09:02) In the article it is written not to kind of give moral guidance to a friend. How to push a friend from the Ten to come to a convention without giving him all kinds of morals.
R. I don't know. Guys, what are you asking me about what you said to your friend? You should be an expert in it, thus in everything we learn and everything we do, it's not your first time, it's not your first year here, what are we doing? We explain, this congress it's an order to draw people in and attract them. What do you want me to tell you?
S. Because the friend is not really a friend that is new and it’s a friend for many years and I’m simply afraid that there will be a resistance on his behalf and it will become an anti-situation?
R. Consult with the friends. Consult with a few friends but the way you're asking right now I don't think you can convince anyone.
S. That's why I'm asking because I'm afraid to harm?
R. So don't do, to do nothing, sit and don't do is better.
20. S. (01:10:37) Friends asking whether faith above reason is the final result of spiritual understanding or is it a temporary state?
R. Faith above reason is the final result.
21. S. (01:10:56) What does it mean that without bestowal there cannot be complete faith?
R. Of course there cannot be. Complete faith is a very high degree, we must be above it.
22. S. (01:11:45) The text says a person needs to be in complete faith in order to attain vessels of bestowal as a condition. What is complete faith?
R. I don't know what is complete faith. Truly I still don't know what is complete faith, but I guess it's the highest degree in the power of faith, that the one that opens before a person, the entire ladder, all things, all degrees of all states.
23. S. (01:12:40) Just to understand a little more, what is the point in which we will be able to create some bestowal? Is there a specific point?
R. The point from which we can establish an action of bestowal is a point where I rise above my will to receive, I cleave unto the will to bestow which is arranged in the upper light and continue this way.
24. S. (01:13:37) In the text it talks about man's work from the right to the left and from the right to the left. He says, when he gets to the left he cancels the right, and this is like a man who takes good seeds and sows them in the field. I don't understand the comparison?
R. We will talk about it, the sowing and the lines it's the same thing. We need to work both on the right line and the left line, and then in the middle line, until the grain rises from the fields.
25. S. (01:14:37) I want to ask about the grain, it said that the King stands next to the grain on the field when the crop is in a pile. What does it mean to gather our crop into a pile so the King can stand in the field?
R. We have to collect the crops, tie them in heaps and piles and then we will be able to work with these piles.
S. What does it mean that we're making bundles from the crop?
R. We tie them and bundle them up the separated ones into piles.
S. It's we in the Ten that gathers them?
R. Yes.
S. How now before the convention when we gather there's going to be a lot of crops around the world?
R. This is what we're doing.
S. The Creator will be revealed in that field?
R. The Creator will bind us all together. He will do the final work He will finish for us. We just have to be ready to assemble together but in principle the one who collects or assembles everyone is Him.
S. What does it mean that he gathers us? We’re gathering physically in the Ten.
R. Our thoughts, our desires, our goals, that we want to connect together and become all this becomes one whole, and then from all the many many Tens in the world we have one Ten.
S. We need to feel that we became one Ten?
R. I think that we should yes.
26. S. (01:17:04) It's written in the article that when a person feels bad, so to the same extent he works against the providence of the Creator and the Creator is concealed from him. Can we say that the purpose of creation or the wisdom of Kabbalah is that a person will always feel his greatness?
R. He can feel good only if he is in revelation of the Creator. That is clear.
27. S. (01:17:40) In the article it's written that a person completes his measure of exertion and finished everything he had to be, had to do, by force, by strengthening in the faith of the Creator. The friend is asking, what does it mean by the force of his own choice in strengthening, what is that in our work?
R. It is that he did everything as far as he knows, as far as he can, as much as he can go above the forces of his mind, he did everything there's nothing more for him to do, he has that feeling and also seemingly the society agrees with it and then he can be certain that he did his part in advancing towards the purpose of creation.
28. S. (01:18:59) In the article he writes about renewing of the Moon, meaning that he always needs to renew the white in him, meaning the right line. So how do we always renew the right line?
R. By constantly thinking to begin the actions that we need are actions by the state of the Creator where He is The Good Who Does Good in every state. We place Him in the beginning of the state that he sent it, He is aiming for us, and thinking about us and He has already arranged for us the good end, the good conclusion.
29. S. (01:20:09) I heard that in the descent a person's faith disappears because he can't constantly believe in the Creator. Meaning, on our path will always have a state of disconnection that will appear every so often or is it not necessary?
R. There will be such states so what, and we will be more and more experienced in rising above all those states and uniting among us and with the Creator.
S. The quality of mercy and grace, is it right and middle?
R. No, it's better not to get into it, it can confuse you.
30. S. (01:21:17) The Creator is still not revealed so all prayers in a person's arguments is with his will to receive?
R. How did he say it?
S. If the Creator is not revealed, is all the prayer in a person's demands just an argument with his will to receive?
R. Yes, that is true he said it well.
31. S. (01:22:00) It is written that faith above reason is a gift from the Creator. What should we do to receive such a gift?
R. What we want to achieve. To come together with us to do what we are doing.
32. S. (01:22:27) You asked about impressions of what we heard from the article. Twice in the article it was written about giving gratitude to the Creator and also to depict himself as if he were already rewarded with the will to bestow. In the left line that we have to criticize our actions, so the question is, in the middle or towards the middle it was speaking about being in faith above reason constantly so that's only through repentance from fear. Then towards the end he says that revelation of the face is what he calls testimony that he will testify that he will not return to folly. Here already to testify there's already like a stamp there but what is repentance from fear?
R. It is nearing the Creator out of fear from Him.
S. What's the point before that, testifying that next to a person receiving the will to bestow by working in two lines after all the evil was revealed to such extent that a person makes a decision that only the Creator can help. This revelation of all the evil to its fullest, what is that?
R. It's very difficult to attain but it's necessary in order to completely devote yourself to the Creator, there's no other way there's no other outlet, it is truly a salvation on the part of the Creator.