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

Daily Morning Lesson: October 9, 2026

Part 2: Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #11

Reader: Hello friends! We're entering now the study of the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. We're going to be reading in the writings of Baal HaSulam, we'll be reading in the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 11, you can find it in the writings of Baal HaSulam or in the study material links. Again, the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, items 11 through 14, we're going to be reading. In a moment we will enter the lesson, and at the end of the lesson, we will ask from you to raise the main things you heard about each of the Items. We, also, have a General Assembly here, we want to hear from friends' impressions and different discernments. So, everyone is invited to write the different discernments one finds in the lesson. Again, there are several items here, 11, 12, 13, and 14. After that, we'll see how Rav emphasizes especially each of these items. Let's gather these impressions, discernments, and then we'll have an opportunity to share them. Let's enter the lesson!

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Reader: Reading from item 11 in the Preface to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah.

M. Laitman: Meaning, from all the worlds, from all the places, wherever it would be possible to imagine. The will to receive remains in its corporeal form only in this world; or you could say the opposite, that this world is called, The will to receive in its form of reception, which is considered corporeal. In all the other places, and a place means the will to receive. Meaning in all the other desires, all the other aspects of the will to receive, it's all in order to bestow and considered spiritual.

Reading: (02:57) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #11

Conversely, anything above this great measure of desire to receive is considered “spirituality.” These are the worlds ABYA, which are above this world, they and the whole reality within them.

Now you can see that the whole issue of ascents and descents described in the upper worlds does not relate to an imaginary place, but only to the four phases in the will to receive. The farther it is from phase four, the higher it is considered to be. And conversely, the closer it is to phase four, the lower it is considered to be.

M. Laitman: Well, he is talking here about such a Kabbalist who gives such definitions, and for him it is so. That the more the quality of bestowal controls, rules, then it's considered higher, better. The more the quality of reception is, then it's lower, inferior. Both corporeal and spiritual, we need to get to know really well that the division is only in that – meaning all that happens is perceived only in a person's desire. Only in our desire we define places, worlds, states, all of reality. There are many divisions in the desire to receive, in our desire to receive, and that's why we have many states. It depends on how a person determines these states, how he reads them, so to speak. If we study the books of Kabbalah, we need to understand and accept upon ourselves the definitions that the Kabbalists have defined. Especially the definition and distinguishing, distinguishing between corporeal and spiritual.

Reading: (05:12) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #12

12) We should understand that the essence of the created being, and of creation as a whole, is only the will to receive. Anything beyond it is not part of creation but extends from His self by way of existence from existence. Thus, why do we discern this will to receive as coarseness and turbidity, and we are commanded to refine it through Torah and Mitzvot, to the point that without it we will not achieve the sublime goal of the thought of creation?

M. Laitman: Meaning, what is bad about the desire to receive that we need to purify it, refine it, correct it, change it, if it extends from the light that created it as the only creation, where all our reality and perception, our life, vitality is in this desire to receive. Besides it, we have nothing, we are not allowed to distance ourselves from the perception of reality. That this is our life, the way we feel ourselves existing, that it's only within the will to receive, that it's only happening in the will to receive. So, what's bad in him that we need to change, in it? Why specifically was this bad, was this evil created and prepared for us in such a way? What do we have by us doing this and what is the labor, the exertion, we need to put forth in order to change this desire to receive? Then who is, we, who are changing it, that there's something changing something.

So already here there's a question that is being asked, that at least the created being is divided into two parts. He doesn't live inside a reality, inside his desire to receive, but rather he also needs to get to know his coarseness, his murkiness, his evil, and to be outside of this in order to decide. If he's deciding outside of this, so decide what's good and bad towards something else; meaning not two, already, but there rather need to be three things here: one who's observing these two things and determines one relative to the other, good and evil; then for him to have the forces and understandings, attainments of how to change and do. Meaning there is a development of this very, very special task or mission that the Creator prepared, and the created being changes.

Reader: Item 13

Reading: (08:16) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #13

13) The thing is that as corporeal objects are separated from one another by remoteness of location, spiritual matters are separated from each other by the disparity of form between them. This can be found in our world, too. For example, when two people share similar views, they like each other and the remoteness of location does not cause them to draw far from one another.

Conversely, when their views are far, they are hateful of each other and proximity of location will not bring them any closer. Thus, the disparity of form in their views removes them from each other, and the proximity of form in their views brings them closer to each other. If, for example, one’s nature is the complete opposite of the other’s, they are as far from one another as the east from the west.

M. Laitman: What comes out of this is that we're talking about the Creator and the created being, so the created being needs to be opposite the Creator, he must truly be different from Him. If he's different from Him, then is he different according to his opinions, desires, discernments, according to what he loves and hates? Whatever one is, the other isn't, we're not talking about the extent to which this is possible or not possible to create such an opposite thing. But rather we're talking about the created being, so if the Creator is the Good That Does Good in eternity and wholeness, then what state does the created being need to be if he's going to be existing outside of the Creator, as something that's outside of Him?

On behalf of the Creator, is it possible to build such a created being if He is all Good That Does Good? It turns out from this that creation seemingly can't emerge from the Creator because all of the creation is the opposite, the difference from Him. That He can't do this because His principle is the Good Who Does Good, it's the highest principle above everything. So, is He capable of performing some state, creating a state, in which eternality and wholeness doesn't rule?

Reading: (11:10) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #13

Similarly, all matters of nearness and remoteness, coupling and unity that unfold in spirituality are but measures of disparity of form. They depart from one another according to their measure of disparity of form and attach to one another according to their measure of equivalence of form.

Yet, you should understand that although the will to receive is a mandatory law in the created being, as it is the essence of the created being and the proper vessel for reception of the goal of the thought of creation, it nonetheless completely separates it from the Emanator, as there is disparity of form to the point of oppositeness between itself and the Emanator. This is because the Emanator is complete bestowal without a shred of reception, and the created being is complete reception without a shred of bestowal. Thus, there is no greater oppositeness of form than this. It therefore follows that this oppositeness of form necessarily separates it from the Emanator.

M. Laitman: Meaning that matter of creation is the desire to receive, it should be as a reflection, a copy of the light from the desire to bestow, and it exists in this form. It doesn't, yet, say that it's bad or evil, the matter, itself; even though it is in the oppositeness of form, is it called a created being? That is, that exists outside of the Creator, and what is it considered outside of Him? These are all things we will have to determine, decide, because the matter, certainly the desire to receive, in all its qualities, is opposite to the light.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:18) The difference from each other, he defines it as sparks of reception and sparks of bestowal. Why is difference immediately defined as oppositeness?

M. Laitman: If one receives, the other must be a bestower, and vice versa, otherwise, there's no two. But these two, when one receives and one gives, still does not speak of something that separates or distinguishes between them in the recognition of the Creator or the recognition of the created being. Let's say a mother and a baby, she is fully giving and he's fully receiving. That's not considered on the behalf of the mother that he's receiving because for her that's an entire life that she has such a thing that she's giving. For him, it's not considered that he's receiving, because he's built in such a way, that's his matter, and he's just the way the matter determines, that's how he does – he receives. He has no awareness of this but this is how the matter is, that's the same; but no matter the way you put it, when you say the qualities, one and the other, without awareness, without like a personality of the created being, that there's something here, but rather, his matter is opposite to the Creator.

You can say, yes, but in relation to the created being, that matter that the Creator created is opposite. But that does not point to some being despisable or something, you know, bad in it because it's his matter, that's what he is. Certainly, not on behalf of the Creator or the created being, is this matter considered evil or bad. It's distinguished as one that separates, on the contrary, it connects. When a baby can receive, the mother has the ability to give, and there's that connection between them because of that. God forbid, if not, she would have no ability to receive from him, that would be disconnected. And what connection can there be, between one and the other, if one will not receive from the other, how? Each one must receive and each one must give, or one gives and one receives, doesn't matter who. But the connection is built upon something that one has, moving into the other one.

So it turns out that the desire to receive and the desire to bestow are two qualities that sustain one another. They create the existence for each other, you can't have one without the other, there's no Creator without the created beings, as well. When do we say that He's called, the Creator? Where in the upper light, a certain desire is made – existence from absence – and due to this desire to receive that was made in this the light begins to emerge from His essence and begins to expand in that desire.

Reading: (16:53) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #14

14) To save the created beings from this titanic separation, the first restriction took place, separating phase four from the rest of the Partzufim [plural of Partzuf] of Kedusha [holiness] so that that great measure of reception remained an empty space devoid of any light, since all the Partzufim of Kedusha emerged with a screen erected in their vessel of Malchut.

M. Laitman: Meaning that part, or that discernment, where the created being feels itself as the receiver from the Giver, and that that distance separates between them and that it truly distances him from the Giver, from the Creator. That is where he restricts himself, and that is where he operates, in all the rest of his parts, where he doesn't discover that he's the receiver, but rather that that's his matter, which exists this way. He doesn't have, first of all, the possibility of doing something with this matter, and he has no drive for it or commitment, it's not considered that he is separated. Hence, in the development of the desire to receive, root, phase 1, 2, and 3; we don't say, because it's still the light with the desire to receive. But phase 1, 2, and 3, what we considered in the three preceding phases to phase 4, that's where the desire to receive is not revealed, this oppositeness. As the receiver, which draws and it receives on its own, beyond that which is built on behalf of the light, it doesn't yet have an addition on its behalf that it extends. Hence, it's not considered that it's separated from the light.

That is like still, vegetative and animal of this world, who are under the absolute control of the light, under the control and the rule of the law of nature – Elokim, Creator in Gematria, is Teva, is nature – and it's under its complete absolute rule, control, and therefore there's no good or evil there. But only the existence and observance of the laws of nature, there's no shame nor correction there. Whereas a person who has his own desire, in addition to the desire he received from above, and this addition brings a sensation of freedom, free choice. That I exist, I operate, I do, I can do this way or that way. In creation, there is none like still, vegetative, animal, there's such a thought. They don't have such a thought – here I can do and here I can do like that. Whereas there the creature is adhered to the moment it lives in, and that's it. For a person, no?

And since one feels that he exists in this personal, private life, Who am I and what am I, and with these questions that develop within a person. Then those, within which those questions develop more, where from within phase four, phases one, two and three and then phase four and four, begin. That's where a person starts to ask and he starts to feel himself opposite to the Creator, this oppositeness from the Creator is the point in the heart, the posterior of Nefesh of Kedusha, as we call it. From within it, a person can begin to act, and all the things that precede that, even if they're in phase four, but they're phase one, two and three of phase four, still don't yet give the person the strength, the force and understanding and the correct direction of what to do with himself. Although one does not – one feels himself as being in contradiction with nature, with this human society, he reveals the evil. But still this revelation of evil is not sufficient, not in feeling, not in understanding, in order to correct it somewhat. Only phase four, that is in phase four, where he begins to distinguish this. And here, when he comes to this discernment, then he already has these three components called Israel, the light and the Creator, or I and my nature, and the Creator who created the nature. Where the, I, determines already and can define what will make this, I, with nature in order to adhere, come close, be similar to the Creator. Before that, this third point is not there, this, I, called the point in the heart.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:00) We say that the first three phases are governed by nature, and the choice of phase four is also to go under nature's rule. So what's the difference, here?

M. Laitman: No, phase four does not want to enter under the control of nature. By the created being wanting to adhere to the Creator, this adhesion does not nullify or cancel the created being. The created being is not going to nullify before the Creator so that He will control him and for it to seemingly happen that way. He's not going to disappear from this entire picture of reality; on the contrary, he defines his form that needs to be similar to the Creator. Because by that he does not breach the law of harmony and for the general order, by this he sees that from all of the qualities, this is the most exalted of states. He sees himself – we're talking about the created being – so he sees himself in this neutral point where he becomes the creator of qualities of bestowal from the matter that is under his authority.

It's not the matter, the desire to receive, it does not speak to him like to himself. Well, now something is happening in my body, is that me? It's a body that's operating, and whatever it's doing, and I'm looking at it like at a machine that is performing something. I give this machine certain influences in order to sort it out, to arrange it, fix it. This is how the created being looks at the desire to receive. The desire to receive was created by the Creator, I look at the desire to receive on my behalf, how He created it on His behalf. That is the matter that was given to me and with this matter, I can do what I'm selecting, what I'm choosing. I don't identify with this matter, on the contrary, I see myself as independent outside the desire to receive. With this desire to receive, I kind of sculpt him. I'm making a form out of him that was chosen, and before I choose, in a free choice. It's true that I receive forces, it's true that I ask, help me, but it's like a little child who is pulling his mother to the place that he wants. It's correct that there's a matter of no forces, no discernments but until the created being develops and sees that that's what he wants, it won't happen.

And the matter of the desire to receive, certainly the created being does not see it as his own matter, that's the matter of creation. And the meeting with the Creator is not in that matter whatsoever but rather in my knowledge and my desire of knowing what to do with this matter, by that I resemble Him. There's I want, I decide, I think, I feel, and besides that, my expression in matter. So, according to the, I, who wants, feels, in that I'm close or far with the Creator. The way He relates to the matter of creation, that's how I relate to the matter of creation. It's something that is outside of us, both for Him and for me. When we work with restriction, screen and reflected light, the matter of creation is just that something upon which we build the building. The vessel is called screen and reflected light. The filling is called screen and reflected light. It turns out that the desire to receive is only something so that there'll be something where there's a possibility to build upon, that's why everything begins from the restriction and upwards.

Reader: We're continuing in item 14.

Reading: (28:23) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #14

since all the Partzufim of Kedusha emerged with a screen erected in their vessel of Malchut so they would not receive light in this phase four. Then, when the upper light was extended and expanded to the emanated being, this screen rejected it. This is regarded as a striking between the upper light and the screen, which raises reflected light from below upward, clothing the ten Sefirot of the upper light.

M. Laitman: Meaning the created being has the possibility of making actions upon the desire to receive but that's like a machine that you're driving with to wherever you want. You give it fuel and you drive, you travel. Where are you going to, that's determined by the screen and the reflected light. That's considered that you're turning it in the direction that you need. So, all the work is above the desire to receive, not in him, meaning in his use of something that you decide. That's why before the created being receives the force to work with the desire to receive in such a way above it, not to be immersed in it. It's also not called the created being, it's in the desire to receive, it's not yet distinguished from it. It's then not yet considered Adam because it has nothing to resemble the Creator with because it's in the desire to receive. This desire to receive is also not opposite the Creator, it's not good or bad, it's simply created and that's it.

Meaning we don't, yet, take into consideration with a person that we know as a person, we don't yet consider him as existent, as a personality, as something from which there's something to ask of and to wait for something from him. Before he reaches the degree of development of what we call phase four of four. This is still the desire to receive just like you don't relate to a drop of semen as a human or as some personality that's in it. We'll enter it into the correct place of development, will a person develop, if not, not. But rather to some boundary, let's say, after 40 days of the creation of the fetus, then we call it an offspring or something that's going to come out. After that there's something. You'll see when you start saying about it that it exists, that it feels as something that responds. It has a certain nerve center where it feels pain or it begins to understand or that he has a personality from himself. When will we decide where begins the, I, or does it have to do with the matter only, that drop of semen, all the information is in it as well. But we speak of it as being distinguished or differentiated from the source, no? So, in spirituality, we talk of 40 days of the creation of the embryo, what is this 40? Mem, the quality of Bina; when Malchut reaches the quality of Bina and begins from that to develop the quality of Bina within Malchut. Or, here there's already a personality, why? A resemblance to the Creator from within the desire to receive, Bina inside of Malchut.

M. Laitman: (32:42) Before that, it's matter, just the desire to receive, just the desire to receive, there's no consideration with it, no calculation towards it, it operates as it should. You can talk about this pen in a way that it feels this and that. But the sides, no, that only with children, there's children's stories. We can say such a thing that we start to talk, a book is talking, the table talks, the pen talks. But we understand that there needs to be a certain development of matter from which, from there onwards, it's a personality. Because children don't know that there is such a personality. To be, I, disconnected from the matter, one who thinks, decides, I, and this decision. That's why when we relate to children, we relate in a similar way to animals: the pen talks, the dog is like this, according to their degree, where there's no personality yet.

This is all according to the development of phase four in phase four, meaning called the distinguished or differentiated. It's not existence towards the created being, that feeling, that development, it's not yet created being. You have seven billion people in the world, and maybe there's a few thousands – no more than that, of created beings – the others are like the matter of the earth, matter of the ground. You cannot consider them on their own because they don't have that discernment. They didn't go out to the phase four of phase four, they don't make such calculations, their calculations are within the matter. What the desire to receive decides, according to development, according to what happens in it. According to that, they make the calculations of how to exploit their desires in a way that is the best possible way, optimally. So all these considerations, all their developments are only within the desire to receive and how to fill it, how to serve it, in a manner that it demands. On their behalf, there is nothing but these calculations, these actions, and it's not them. This is the matter that demands from them to activate themselves this way, and they're not distinguished from the matter that they emerge from and look at it ,as towards a means in order to build upon it something special called the image of the Creator. That's why they're not called the created beings, this is not to say something bad about them, but it's simply still the early stage of their development, like with children.

M. Laitman: (36:20) Also, from this you'll understand that there's no reward nor punishment – not for this world, not for the next. Now they're only the stages of development of the desire to receive. One kills the other, and one that, and one is so good, and the other one is so bad, what the matter does is what's done. Each person who feels what's right in his eyes does so. Meaning the Torah begins to speak to one who has this third point – Israel, outside of humanity and the Creator. This point, this initial point of the, I, is already in a state that enables a person to be independent and develop it to the extent and height of all the discernments and qualities that are in the Creator. Just like you were given this seed and now you need to determine all the details upon all the information of how a perfect person will come out of it. You don't know what to do, only that this is the matter from which it can develop. That's what we learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah: how to define all the stages of development, of that development that will be called, Adam. We need to learn this from the state that we don't know it and to study it from all the possibilities of what's the correct thing to do. Before you decide and say, This is how I want it to be done, it is not done. The moment you came to the correct determination, you see, yes, it's already open, it exists, that's called life eaten, something that is already known, it already exists, you just didn't know it exists. That's how these degrees are opening up for you, but to reach the fact that I think it needs to be this way. To develop that way, that's on a person, meaning he invents these stages of his development and all of this is outside the matter that the Creator created.

Reading: (39:42) Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #14

That part of the light that was rejected and pushed back is called reflected light. As it dresses the upper light, it becomes a vessel for reception of the upper light instead of phase four, since afterward the vessel of Malchut expanded by the measure of reflected light—the rejected light—which rose and dressed the upper light from below upward, and expanded from above downward, too. Thus, the lights were clothed in the vessels within that reflected light.

M. Laitman: That's something we'll have to scrutinize in another time, here he really enters into one item, many new discernments, definitions, which are already corrections. We'll move them to the next lesson.

Reader: Yes, so in gratitude to the Creator who let us hear Rav! Now in order to bring the light that reforms upon ourselves, we'll repeat the words, the things we heard from Rav. So we'll start from a first round between us in a workshop. What did we hear from Rav? Let's collect the impressions, whatever we managed to gather. Each one will give a bit and we'll put together some picture. Let's also try to be excited and inspired, we are building the image of the Creator! Five minutes, let's collect impressions from the lesson. What did we get from Rav's lesson?