*This transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves possibility for errors.*

*Morning Lesson October 1, 2020*

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gLlb87QE-Mge2O7RVKoP8afAa5Qx8zE51hZVVAoXsBc/edit?usp=sharing

Morning Lesson Workshop Questions +

English Transcription Archive

*Preparation to The Morning Lesson ~ Workshop Questions:* https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mdVtpdVDf-VibeZkWPAEl6vKb5JEcklXQOank82c8nQ/edit?usp=sharing

*Rabash - 892. An Article for Sukkot*

https://kabbalahmedia.info/en/sources/7oC3wodh?language=en

1. Rav’s Introduction:   The material we’re studying, a few friends of ours prepared for us. If you want or think we should be learning something more, or else, in addition to what we’re learning, both in the morning and evening, then write and tell them.
S. Send to to [email protected]
R. Write and they will get it. Because sometimes I hear ideas, good ideas that our friends have. Our friends from all over the world, maybe we should add this or that. We have a certain plan. Now we want to learn in the articles of Sukkot everything that is said about building the Kli of faith. The Kli of faith above reason. The beginning of the Kli, of the vessel of the soul. How we unite, how we collect it, how we establish this quality, this force. In which we begin to emerge from our ego on one hand and on the other hand, feel the Upper Force. The transition, basically from corporeality to spirituality. So if you think that there is something more, that you found here or there in the writings of Baal HaSulam or Rabash - something that could be suitable, I’ll be happy to see it. In general, let’s all participate. By this we learn more materials. Together we will work on the material. Work together is more important, is what  really gives the result. As long as it's together. What we learn and understand afterwards all depends on how much we are concerned with building the common Kli together. So if you have some ideas please send them there and you can also send them to me. But not instead of sending it there. That way we'll work together. In general let's work a little more together. In our desire and intention and action that we build this Kli, this one soul of Adam HaRishon - it's very important. The labor, the exertion that we do in building is far more important than the result. The result will come from above. The child who begins to build something out of bricks and it doesn't work out and he doesn't succeed and he cries and he can't but he tries again. His effort, this is what gives him the understanding, the feeling and the development. In spirituality it's even more so. Because there he only develops the will to receive that he has - but it becomes more developed. While here we are acquiring something we don't have. So here is the main labor. And what we understand or don't understand doesn't matter because the understanding will come to the extent that we received from above through our labor the reforming light which will build for us several discernments in the desires to bestow. As a result we will begin to acquire the spiritual understanding. This is how it works, so what's important is the effort. How much we understand doesn't matter.

2. S. (05:44) We said that we want to learn on Sukkot everything that was said about building the Kli above reason. Up to now we learned about building the Sukkah and it seems very similar to each other: building the Kli  and being above reason.

R. It’s not similar, it’s actually the same.

S. So we can really take from building a Sukkah and from that learn what it means to work above reason?

R. Yes we will learn all the details about building a Sukkah and from that we will learn what the soul consists of, how it should be made.  In short, 10 Sephirot that are arranged correctly.

S. It's not only about the thatch? It’s the whole Sukkah?

R. It’s the whole Sukkah yes, but there it’s less of a problem. The Sukkah has to have four corners, it's not round or anything like that. It has to have four corners. One corner of one wall can be completely absent because three walls are enough. Because if you have Chochmah, Binah, ZA -  Keter is the giver, the upper one  and Malchut the receiver is the lower one and in the middle you have Chochmah Bina ZA, out of them you can build the Sukkah. This is number one. You need to have three walls. The Sukkah has to be not more than 20 cubits. A cubit is approximately from this point to this point (Rav points from his wrist to his elbow). So the Sukkah has to have a height of not more than 20 cubits. In any case,  Ten Sephirot of Ohr Yashar and Ten Sephirot of Ohr Hozer. Higher than than that is not a kosher Sukkah. And there are other rules. It has to be the waste of Barn and Winery. Not things people use, that were used before. I can't take boards that I used to build something and then I took a part, say a structure and out of that I build a Sukkah. It has to be new, meaning coming from nature. But most important is the Schach, the thatch. The Schach is a cover that is made of boards. Like branches. But not more than the width, the width has to be not more than approximately a fist wide. We will learn it. We will learn what each thing implies. We're going to build our common Kli of the soul and why we measure these qualities in the soul in this way. What it implies, what it gives, why we have to have such limitations, such form. It's interesting. You can get into that if you want but what's really important for us is how we acquire the qualities of the Sukkah. The vessel of bestowal. That's the main thing. We're going to read all kinds of materials written by the Kabbalists, the great teachers. And we will receive from them the force, the special illumination that connects us to the upper Force. So the more that we are dependent on them, included in them, annulled before them - to that extent we receive an illumination from above that corrects our ego and builds in us, in each of us and all of us together -  the form of the Sukkah, the form of a Kli that is entirely a Kli of faith.

S. Up until this year we used to build a physical Sukkah. Now we don't have a physical Sukkah.

R. Each one can build for himself wherever he is. It's not forbidden. Today we can't be together. Because of the pandemic. Therefore this year we are not building anything together. If you're in Israel you know it is a terrible blow of the coronavirus I think it's the worst in the world. I talked about it 6 months ago that it will be the worst in the world, we will be the most afflicted and that's what happened. Let's hope that it passes on into our understanding and we will feel and understand, the whole people in the whole world will feel why we have been hit by the coronavirus the worst. Because the coronavirus has come in order to connect all of us together in Israel. The physical and the spiritual. We say the spiritual Israel, our world group but the physical Israel too are all to blame for not having reached Arvut yet because the main connection in Arvut is the main things we have to achieve, or at least advance toward it. If we begin to advance toward it we will receive each day like a medicine against the coronavirus and this plight will vanish from us and the whole world. Moreover, if we are worried about that, not so that we push the virus away from ourselves but because we want the whole world to be cured from it. We'll get the medicine and we'll become healthy, if we think of others and of course we will be able to do a huge active connection ourselves and drawing the reforming light on it. In short, from above we are given the possibility to do it. Can we understand it? Will we be able to explain it to others, to somehow realize it? The ball is in our court.

S. So the right relation for engaging to internality is joy. We shouldn't be sorry about not having a physical Sukkah.

R. We can regret the big Sukkah we had taken away from us where we could seat more than a thousand people. It's really a shame. I walked out on the roof and it's right above me where the Sukkah was and I'm really sorry that the place is empty. All I have there is a tiny structure, my own little Sukkah and it's totally not the same feeling that we had before. But I guess I deserve it. It's my fault that I didn't do my part in the world. We will try it together friends. Everything is opening up to us more and more. That's the way it is.

3. S. (14:52) I just heard you saying that the coronavirus came to connect us. In the meantime we see and we talked a lot about it and we see the results and in the meantime it's separating us. So what does it mean that the coronavirus is here to connect us?

R.  We know that any person who comes to study the wisdom of Kabbalah and wants to approach spirituality first begins to discover that he is egoistic. Evil, hates everyone, rejects everyone and doesn't want to connect to anyone. Everything is the opposite of how it should be. It's called the recognition of evil. This is what we feel in the beginning of our path. But it's a very long period. Humanity is going and has been going through this period for several thousand years already. Afterwards we come to a state where we under any circumstances cannot keep this going. That we prefer to die than to live. That we are going to connect no matter what, make every effort and demand connection from the Creator to give it to us together with the friends in the ten. That way we come to a state where we demand connection but in the beginning, we first discover the evil inclination. The Creator created on purpose so that we will turn to him. And that we obtain connection with him otherwise we wouldn't need him. That's the way I have created the evil inclination and the Torah as a spice because the light in it reforms it. Therefore, discovering in the coronavirus for the first time in history we are discovering that we are all in one blow all around the world and that blow is coming because we hate each other. We are far from each other and we are selfish toward each other. We still have to recognize it. But it's a blow that is beginning to emerge, to become revealed and it's an integral general blow and it's a sign that we are already in fact in the generation of the Messiah, the final correction. The final correction means the general correction not just the part of Babylon corrupting something here, corrupting something there, but truly all of humanity. This is why this recognition of evil we should be happy about it. It doesn't mean that we have to agree to it but we have to work accordingly. 

S. This means the coronavirus brings the recognition to humanity?

R. Not yet, it's like a person who comes to study. When I came to Rabash, after a few weeks I suddenly discovered that everything grows dark. I don't understand what is going on and I’m in such states that I don't know what is going on. People looked at me, there were a few old people who studied back with Baal HaSulam, they looked at me and kind of laughed and smiled. I was like 30 and they were 70. So it's not usual that people would smile at you when you're suffering and I was really suffering. I didn't know what was going on, I was confused. Most of you have gone through these things. So I asked them what's going to happen? They said soon it will be good. I didn't understand the bad feeling, why it was coming. I came to discover the upper world and instead I get this. These phenomena, confusions, disorientation, lack of understanding, I thought it was going mad. But that's the way, the recognition of evil always comes first and from it every first degree begins. So if we get up in the morning and feel confused, disconnected. Rabash would get up like that. He couldn't see anything, he couldn't see anything, he couldn't hear anything, nothing. Until he sat, I would place a cup of coffee next to him. He couldn't even see the coffee, so he started from very, very far away. You could see a dead body, a totally dead body. I would sit in front of him and I was reading and I would start talking to him. So gradually he would wake up and wake up until his eyes started opening up and his ears and he started being filled with the upper Spirit. That's the way it always was, every state has to be like that. So in the Arvut between us we have to hold on to the tens so that each person will get support and not let him remain in that state for long because we think we are experienced, we already know what it's like. It doesn't matter, each time we're on a new degree and it's a higher level and therefore what you retain so far becomes erased. The will to receive is revealed more and more and more. It becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and you have to climb on top of it until the end of correction. Clear?

4. S. (21:51) When you described how to build Sukkah, you mentioned about measurements and some branch, woods. What do they represent? 

R. They represent parts of the soul that we have to arrange - all the desires and qualities and the connections between them, the way they should be arranged. These are very interesting things, if you want to get into it but that will come later. We actually learn it by it being revealed to us spiritually. I don't think it's so simple or realistic. But those who want to, can find this book called Masechet Sukkah, it's the Babylonian Talmud. There are all kinds of books, popular books about it. You can go into the internet and look it up. I'm sure there's all kinds of things there although there is no connection there or no connection at all to spirituality. But it's written what you have to do and how. It's all without any connection to the structure of the soul because they don't know the soul. But we will learn whatever we can about that too. We will know about these things so don't worry. In the end you will see how all of nature still, vegetative, animate and speaking - all the galaxies - everything there is: is connected to the one Soul of Adam HaRishon. Enter that structure, everything will be in front of you.

5. S. (24:07) Yesterday you said that the framework, when you make the frame of the Sukkah is from the waste of the winery, the bread and wine, the waste of the bread and wine. Ohr Chochmah is from the wine and Ohr Chassidim from the bread. What do these represent?

R.  They represent the two things, the two basic food components. It was especially so back in the days then, but it's really so. We really need them in order to sustain our bodies, the will to receive and we use specifically not them but the waste of Barn and Winery, meaning opposite things. Things we don't need for our bodies, they are the waste of Barn and Winery. So if we use them in the opposite way to these desires and build out of them something big, something not about our corporeal bodies then we will receive the right envelope for the spiritual life. In a simpler way it is that you take the will to receive and when you build out of your will to receive your life,  you get this world. When you invert the will to receive into bestowal, the opposite of the will to receive. Perform Tzitzum, restriction, Masach and Ohr Hozer on the will to receive, then you get the spiritual life. It as it's written about the spiritual world: I will see an opposite world. You build this opposite world out of your opposite desires, where instead of receiving you give.

6. S. (26:49) You expressed feeling Sukkah not being there and the one that you have there now, you say it's not the same feeling. So what is the feeling that is not the same? What's the difference between the physical Sukkah and the Sukkah we build in our heart?

R.  I see physical signs as a direction towards spirituality. When the upper Force, there’s none else besides it - arranged it in a way that we don't have a Sukkah for all of Bnei Baruch. Like we had every time when we would gather, sit and drink and eat and sing together for a whole week. It was really a great celebration. An opportunity to connect. It's a great act both Baal HaSulam  and Rabash and all the other Kabbalists were very very happy to build a Sukkah and sit in the Sukkah, and it's a shame that now we don't have it. I hope it's only an intermediate state between degrees. Because between the degrees we always lose the previous degree until we get to a higher degree. So let's hope, we will come to the state that we will sit together in the Sukkah where we will admit all the thousands of our friends from all over the world together and this will be our Sukkah of peace. I am certain that this can happen even in my days and we will do it.  This is why I am happy that it all disappeared, and that now we can't build it because it's the right sign for being between the two states. The next state will certainly be better than the previous state. There is a big difference but it's the same kind of as Rabbi Akiva said that he was happy to see the ruined Temple because if that happened there's already an opening for the building of the Third Temple.

7. S. (30:04) Do the three sides of the Sukkah have any resemblance or correlation to the letter Bet?

R.  I don't want to talk about it. There are many kinds of intimations about that. If you want to go read all the books about it if you want. Get confused but don't confuse us with what you find there. Because there are tons of details. In the end you’ll discover physical signs of the structure of the spiritual Soul.

8. S. (31:18) You mentioned six months ago; you told us about the situation the state Israel will go into, and you also said that in order to come out of this state Israel has to think about the world. That it will be cured. What is this pure desire when we think about the world being cured?

R.  Even if we don't have a clean pure desire we have to understand that it depends on us. We have to accept it this way and everything that happens in the world happens because of us. Because of our fault. Because we are a collection of the nations of the world, those nations who received - those people from the nations of the world who were the first to receive a drive from the Creator so that through them a light will shine onto the rest of humanity. We are like, we are the pioneers that should do it, the group of pioneers that should do it. It's the same as how we emerged, came out of Babylon. Whether we want to or not we're doing the same thing, so we have to try to be like that and those who connect to us after Babylon by all means because in the end we all have to come to it. 

S. We see that both for the personal person and also the way we see it in the state of Israel. When a person or a state is concerned about itself, how can we?

R. It will not be able to get out of these troubles. This is what we have to explain and advertise. It won't be able to get out of these troubles and there will be worse troubles, really. It will be a whole lot of trouble within Israel on the borders and everywhere. We will come to a state where the whole world gathers around us and wants to swallow us. It is written about it. This is what's written about the end of days. And of course we will respond to it with the upper Force. But at what difficulty and what drama and efforts, spiritual efforts will be able to attain there in the end. Operate. It's a big problem; for now, while we are not really making our vocation known and why the people of Israel is suffering.  I wouldn't press on dissemination half a year ago because it still wasn't clear that we are in big trouble with the pandemic. I just said that it would happen in six months but now that we can see that we are in the worst state in the world so now we can make this information known: why we're in the lowest state and why it will be better. You can make every effort and put all the intellect and understanding and brains that you have in the state of Israel and you won't get a good result. Only by causing some connection, Arvut anything toward it. Only in this way will you begin to find success in your existence and strength in your existence in order to advertise even more, and correct even more. People succeed only in that direction. We shouldn't dream about being able to go back to the previous state. There is no going back. I think the world is beginning to understand that there's no going back, only forward to the next state. And the next state is either through terrible wars, even a third war world war, but still toward connection. This is what we have to explain and it's a law of Nature and there's nothing you can do here.

S. What is that for a person to understand that the law is instead engaging in your own problems, if you want to save your own problems, make an effort to solve others’ problems?

R. Yes otherwise you're not solving your personal problems. Because it all becomes a sphere, an integral system and you can't say: no I’m just working on my own problem, leave me alone, I don’t care. I'm going to someplace in the world and want to disconnect from everyone. You won't be able to disconnect because the general upper force is operating on all of humanity already. It is covering up from the above. Understand? So if not through the coronavirus it will be something else. I heard that in China there was this new Bubonic plague that they discovered, so they want to close up the whole county. It will be the common body of humanity that is finding in all kinds of places such terrible phenomena that we will not know how to keep it alive. It's a body that is rotting, decaying, disintegrating. Body meaning all of humanity. Only we can bring reforming light and heal humanity. If we don't do it - then it will all fall on us and it will come back on us in the opposite way.

9. S. (38:11) We are preparing for Sukkot together. We do lack the physical Sukkah. What does it mean to sit under the Sukkah and a virtual way and what should we prepare in our virtual state.

R.  I don't think that it's a problem to sit in a Sukkah. We build this temporary structure out of boards and branches and wood. We sit on benches there. Chairs and tables and eat together. We can do that without a Sukkah. As long as we understand the kind of connection we have to have among us - where we constantly want to see ourselves in a temporary structure that is advancing more and more until we come to a complete structure called a Sukkah of peace. Where we have a common Kli in which all the people of the world enter and are in it together and can be together. This is basically what the Sukkah symbolizes. We shouldn't get too deep into the corporeal depiction. We should get more into the spiritual depiction.

10. S. (40:10) Is there a constant form, a fixed form of the Sukkah? The beginning of the correction of desire?

R. The fact that we are all in one place meaning and one desire under one Schacht, thatch, one Masach, screen. Above the Masach the sun shines and we cover ourselves from the sun because we want to be, we want to relate to it in order to bestow Tzimtzum, Masach, Ohr Chozer is what the roof represents. Schacht. Thatch. We shouldn't go too deep into all kinds of details of this structure. We have to see it in general but not more than that. We have many chapters that all stem from the details of the Soul, how it's built and every detail with its own character according to its own character connects to the other qualities and how the result, this soul is built out of it, the spiritual structure. So we have to understand how our desires and intentions have to be connected in such a way that we get a whole structure for all of us together.

11. S. (42:45)  For quite a while, from the beginning of the pandemic you're telling us where humanity is rolling to and what states it has to go through. On the other hand you say that we're the only ones that can bring the reforming light. I'm looking at my day, in the things I do and what I have done and every day goes by and I don't know: did I invest in bringing the light that reforms or didn't I? What should change in our work, our daily work?

R. I don't know, you have a ten, you have to talk to them and ask them, how you, among them and all of you together, what you guys do about it. It is not something that I should clarify for you. You have to clarify it for yourself and then you'll know what to do.

12. S. (43:39) We're saying that by building this roof we raise our aspirations for love. At the same time we talk about the necessity for the world that is suffering. Do we also raise this care above us to the group or will it be under the roof?

R. Well I don't know how to distinguish between the two. What we need to do in our correction is to care for everything. We are nonetheless in the last generation and that's why we should bring to the whole world the method of correction - to help the whole world to integrate along with us with the same actions. That's why even though we are thinking about how to build together our Kli, what we should think about is how the entire humanity also enters into our Klim meaning our Sukkah.

13. S. (44:56)  Why was it important for Rabash to build a physical Sukkah?

R. Yes, I remember that I brought people and suddenly 40 more people were added to the group and we couldn't go into the small Sukkah that he had - so we built a new bigger one and we built it in a special way. When you build a Sukkah you should build it from materials that are not materials you usually build things from. Meaning you're not allowed to use nails or all kinds of things in order to connect these things. Only in forms that come from nature, natural things. So we built this Sukkah for him and it was a nice big one where we sat together. I don't think it's a problem, I am certain that we can go through this year towards the next one and we'll already see how we're going in together into a spiritual structure as a result of the physical structure. It will come, it will happen.

14. S. (46:57) Have we heard that it's less important to understand then to feel or to make an effort. What does it mean to make an effort in spirituality?

R. Making an effort in spirituality means that I want to connect to others and I feel how much there is not much desire for it. But it's written that I have to be close to them so I make efforts to be close to them. Above my desire which is actually to remove and push them away.  That's considered an effort. That's it, that's the way it is with respect to all of humanity. I don't care about humanity and how much they suffer and how far they are. I don't feel like thinking about them at all but I will make the effort and I take into account their states and their suffering and I do want to activate myself to be in a state where I want to bring them to a good life. That's called to overcome against the desire, against my desire and out of these overcomings we draw the light that reforms and bit by bit we change.

15. S. (49:08) You described your pain when you went up on the roof and saw the little Sukkah that you built. The friends and the world Kli feel this pain. What is the addition we have to do in the Sukkah and the work in the tens that will cover that state of not sitting together in a Sukkah as one ten.

R. We're going to have to depict or imagine to ourselves how we are in thousands of different desires, different intentions, but together all of under one idea, one direction aimed at one goal. One Creator, wanting that this upper force will instill his divinity upon us and then we will feel that we are all under this one force, that it is covering us and that is basically that’s the Schacht, the thatch. When the Creator covers us from above with the light of Chassidim and then we can all connect this way and feel that we are together. Basically we will later feel that we are inside the Creator. That he is basically the world. It's our Sukkah, it's our place and that's the Creator and that's why it gives birth to us, grows us,  connects us and everything is in him. We are in him. These things we want to discover.

*Reader reads Rabash Letter #12* (51:24 - 58:30)

16. R. This letter is a conspicuous example of how much our friends are responsible for the study materials chosen wrongly. We don’t really understand what he’s writing about. Why is writing and what language he’s writing in. So we have to help them. We ourselves have to pick material that's related to Sukkot and please send it to the email that we gave you and send it to me personally. Then we can choose out of what you advise us to learn and  is the closest material or the most suitable material that relates to the article. If we take this letter we can't attain much out of it. It only confuses us, the language confuses us and the style is not clear. It was written deliberately this way. So let's move on from this to the second half of the lesson which is selected excerpts of Sukkot. 

https://kabbalahmedia.info/lessons/cu/2FHFz3Lp?language=en&mediaType=video