Morning Lesson February 17, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #55
1.Rav’s Introduction: Yes, we are still continuing with this introduction, we have much more to learn from it. Let's start together to understand as deeply as we can what Baal HaSulam is trying to convey to us. What we see so far is that it is hard work, very special work of ours at the depth of creation, at the basis of creation, which is the will to receive, and it requires our whole life, all of our attention for it because this is what life was given for. The whole process, the whole system, all the events we go through in life, when we discover the essence of life, we will discover that it is all connected to one source, and it cascades from it. This is why there is not a single moment or event in our lives, small or great, general, or personal, that is not connected to the goal that we have to achieve. From our very beginning, from a black dot in the white light. It's not a university where you study for a certain amount of years, and you graduate, and you can forget what you learned. It is not some job that ends with a certain quantity or a process of a certain amount of hours, it is a process that is never-ending.
The truth is, we have to open up this reality in its true form, which is infinite, that does not begin and does not end with our lives here in our current corporeal life cycle. There will be other spiritual life cycles, reincarnations. There's no escape from it, there's nothing we can do with it except understand that here we are in a process where we can enter everything that is happening to us consciously, with our feelings and understanding. By beginning to stream, to go with this flow in a clearer and clearer way, by acquiring understandings from it and receiving from everything we're going through the tools, the vessels, until we can sail by ourselves along with the upper force. To the extent of our equivalence of form with it. In this way we will go into the stream of life and begin to understand it above our limitations, our boundaries of time, place, and motion. We will have no limitation in our perspective on our lives that we have in this world. We will not limit, we will not restrict our lives, confine our lives to the corporeal framework but rather see our emergence aimed to a broad and eternal world. This is what we need to see, how we try and approach this prescription day by day. So let's continue with the introduction and I want to say that every day I get phone calls, emails, with all kinds of questions. Normally I don't answer, in the same style as they approach me. I also don’t have the possibility or the time for it, but you can also ask during the lesson but maybe towards the end of the lesson, so we don't interrupt the others and we will scrutinize these questions. They're actually good questions. I respect them.
2. S. (06:15) In our state who are the judges, police officers, and guards that can help us?
R. Judges and officers in our situation are those general laws that we learn and gradually accept. Of course they are against our ego, but we do accept them gradually and feel that they are the laws and rules, directions and directives that aim us, that direct us correctly in the flow in the stream of life. These are the judges and the officers and afterwards to the extent that we are in a struggle with our will to receive, to the extent that we want to position it as help made against us, where although it is against us you want to arrange it, set it up as helpful because we can't advance only with the good force you need two forces.
If we were like the Creator, the source of one force, we would be able through this single force to direct everything but because we are created beings, meaning one force operates on us in order to direct us, for or against that force, above the degree of the inanimate, the still, where we do not do anything and just go with the flow, but if we want to be more than that, then even the still level becomes the sacred still. Meaning, we kind of lift ourselves from our initial source, from the ego, and we begin to acquire contradictory forces towards our nature. So that through these two forces for and against, the force of reception and the force of bestowal we will direct ourselves and navigate ourselves correctly towards the goal which we scrutinize more accurately every time and clarify it. This is called streaming, going with the flow of life. This is what will happen, and now let’s get back to the introduction.
Item 55 Continued (09:12) "Thus, we have clarified what we asked in Item one…"
3. R. (10:33) He is telling us that by learning and trying to carry out on ourselves all of those forces, spiritual ones, in which we exist, even though we don't feel them when we try to reach them, we then get help from what is around us. This is called the upper worlds. Then these lights that come to us they build in us qualities, intentions, forces, those means by which we connect to these systems. Where we exist. Then we are rewarded with knowing them, reaching them, and using them correctly. When we are incorporated in all of them actively, practically, this is called reaching the thought of creation. When a person receives all the powers, all the qualities, everything that the Creator has prepared for him and he relates to Him, in this way, we have a complete connection with the Creator in mutual connection. He bestows upon us, we feel it completely and in return, by acquiring these forces we can turn to him in equal participation. I to my beloved and my beloved to me.
Reader continues: (12:34) “it is written in the Zohar about the verse…”
4. R. (13:02) In other words we only need to flow more and more and more on the same path and bring ourselves under the influence of the upper force, upper light, so it influences us, changes us, and formats us, and adjusts us to itself. This is called the assistance that we get from above and this assistance gradually builds from our will to receive which is opposite from the Creator, some sort of a form that is similar to the Creator and that form of the will to receive of each and every one, which becomes similar to the Creator through the influence of the upper light, that form will be called a soul and it will already be a will to receive that has taken upon itself the form of bestowal like the Creator, and is therefore called a Holy Soul. Meaning, a desire to receive that acquired the form of bestowal back to the Creator as the Creator bestows upon him.
Rav reads (14:40): Item 55: introduction to the Book of Zohar. Thus, we have clarified what we asked in item one, “Why does man need all the upper worlds, which the Creator created for him? What need has man of them?” Now you will see that one cannot bring contentment to one’s maker if not with the help of all these worlds.
In other words, precisely through these worlds that we have between us and the Creator, through them we can come to a state where we please Him. Meaning, we turn our will to receive from in order to receive, to in order to bestow and in these forms of bestowal we come to the forms of bestowal that the Creator bestows upon us. To the extent that we can absorb from the worlds, this is called concealment, acquire manners of concealment of the Creator to us and turn them from concealment to Revelation, to revealing, to that extent we can relate to the Creator the way he relates to us and then it determines our spiritual level between us and the Creator. There are five worlds. So where is a person?
Rav reads: To the extent that he can turn the Creator’s bestowal upon him into bestowal upon the Creator, which determines his spiritual degree.
This is all done by the assistance of the worlds because the worlds are like filters which weaken, which dim the light of the Creator and bring it to us in a way that we can receive it and use it correctly. To correct our will to receive it so it works in order to bestow. This determines a person's degree, the level we are at.
Rav reads: Now you will see that one cannot bring contentment to one’s maker if not with the help of all these worlds. This is because he attains the lights and degrees of his soul, meaning the extent to which he can perform the restriction and the screen, the reflected light and turn it from reception to bestowal, so to that extent he attains the lights and degrees of his soul, called NRNHY, according to the measure of the purity of his will to receive. And with each degree he attains, the lights of that degree assist him in his purification.
Rav reads: Thus, he rises in degrees until he achieves the amusements of the final aim in the thought of creation.
Meaning, until he comes to the highest degree where, along the way also but there he actually discovers the Creator's actual relation to him this is called amusements, when the Creator fills him with all the light of Ein Sof without any reception.
Rav reads: It is written in The Zohar, Noah, Item 63, about the verse, “He who comes to purify is aided”. It asks, “With what is he aided?” And it replies that he is aided with a holy soul; meaning, he's given a light that fills and corrects a person in the form of full bestowal. for it is impossible to achieve the desired purification, the thought of creation, except through the assistance of all the NRNHY degrees of the soul.
R: (18:47) Our will to receive is divided into five degrees: Root, one, two, three, four. Which we learn from the beginning of creation in the world of Ein Sof, this is how the desire is divided. We have to turn them in order to bestow and then we receive in each desire from the root, one, two, three, four, we receive the light that fills it and gives it the power to bestow. With that power to bestow it obtains the same quality as the Creator's qualities, qualities of bestowal. These qualities are called NRNHY. Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida. This way a person comes to a state where he attains all the light, all of the relation of the creator that emerges from the upper force, from pure bestowal, to us, to the created beings.
5. S. (20:03) Missing translation
R. We attain root, one, two, three, four to the extent that we can cancel our will to receive so it works in order to bestow and use it in order to bestow. From small to great, as usual, the way we always work from something small and weak, unimportant, you know that's next to us that we can do. Up to the greatest vessels, the biggest vessels, this is why we begin from the root coarseness, small will to receive. Until we discover in us greater desires and when we restrict them from in order to receive, and turn them to work in order to bestow, which is done gradually from light to heavy of the will to receive, then it turns out that we restrict all of our desires as much as they are revealed and then gradually, we correct them even to work in order to bestow. So in that desire which we previously received for ourselves, we can now receive only in order to bestow upon others, to invert them. It turns out that by this we begin to resemble the Creator. Then we feel the quality of bestowal, the upper light which is in us. In our relation to others we feel what the Creator feels towards others, and this is why with this act we come to equivalence of form with the Creator.
S. How is this expressed through the ten?
R. To bestow upon the friends. Help them as much as possible. With words, or perhaps not with words but with actions. As much as possible.
6. S. (22:55) So the worlds of concealment are different in their qualities? How does it capture a person towards purification?
R. Every moment we are under a different influence from above and therefore we have to adjust ourselves according to what we feel, everything we feel we receive from above and it's certainly from the Creator. This is why we have to organize ourselves and arrange ourselves so that we relate to him through the environment. That's it.
Item 56 (23:45) " You should know that all the NRNHY"
7. R. (24:54) From Israel meaning Yashar Kel, straight to the Creator, one who's directed straight at the Creator. There is no person who goes towards the revelation of the Creator, equivalence of form with the Creator, who will not go through all those four degrees in a manner that…
Reader continues item 56: “that there is not a person from Israel that can excuse himself…”
8. R. (25:55) In other words here he's telling us that we have three components to do along the way. To engage in the intention, in carrying out each of our actions and afterwards the essence of the operation itself, which is the Torah, this is called receiving the state of Neshama. Yes, we receive Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama and then when we advance some more, we are completed in the degree that we Attain.
Item 57: (26:42)
9. R. (28:30) So what is he telling us? He's telling us that we are not really willing to go against our ego and systematically get back and work and carry out all the conditions so that we eventually come to a state whereas it says the sky is open, and we begin to feel our equivalence of form or the mutuality between us and the Creator, some connection between us and the Creator. Then, according to our intentions to bestow, we begin to reveal the Creator's relation to us and in this way, we come to similarity with Him, to the revelation of the Creator to the created being which is the whole purpose of our work because by this we bestow contentment to Him. So here he says that we are in a very dry and dark period. That our generation is completely disconnected from the truth
That humanity has built over the thousands of years of its existence, instead of nearing the Creator, it built all kinds of barriers along the way of religions and faiths and all kinds of philosophies, such that hide from us and conceal man's right development. We are living like animals that somehow organize for ourselves the corporeal life and then we die and so on and so forth from generation to generation. But our opportunity to rise from the corporeal world to the spiritual world, to know the Creator, is hidden from us. This is why it's difficult for all of those people in our generation to even begin to draw near to the Creator, to the revelation of the Creator which should have been the purpose of our lives. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah too and this spiritual work of attaining the Creator, of coming in mutual contact with him, all of that is very far from people.
10. S. (31:42) As a ten can we feel these changes? The change in the shape of our will to receive, when we reach a certain degree, will it be tangible?
R. Of course we can, and we need to do that. We need to come to it and begin to work on it realistically. To the extent that we change our desires and intentions to be more correct we have to feel that by this we are coming closer to the Creator and connecting to him, becoming filled with his qualities, and in this way, we should see the results of our work.
11. S. (32:51) I want to tell you that in the ten I know I do my best to contribute everything that I can but when I hear these texts that we're going through now, I just have fear inside that I'll never be able to do this, it's real fear that I have. You know, all these worlds, all these, it’s, it makes me go.
R. I understand you but it's incorrect because each one will have to. It's not a question of wanting to. In our desire it all depends on our wanting. Our desire is only to accelerate our development. The fact that we will have to reach it and do it, there is no doubt about it because it is not our own choice. Our choice is only to accelerate our development in nearing the Creator. That's the difference between the path of hastening it and in its time. In its time meaning according to its own time but we will all have to reach it, without any doubt, on the one hand. On the other hand, we can accelerate it, we can rush it and bring it closer. This we can do, to the extent that we exert in it. This is the only choice we have. To be on the usual regular path, the way the whole world is going which can be directed only through suffering or we try to develop in us desires, yearnings for the Creator which will advance us more quickly, nicely, and easily.
That's the difference, so those who already get this help from the Creator, this calling from the Creator to bring himself closer to the path, he begins to study, to feel, to hear that there's a possibility to enter spirituality, to come into the eternal process and not live like an animal in this world and that's it. You die and nothing is left and then you start over the next life with the same Reshimo, the same record you received before. That all depends on our choice and our choice is not to receive or not receive this opportunity but how we work, how we realize this opportunity. The fact that a person is born and receives this urge to the process, to understand why I live, what for and what about my life etc. These questions don't depend on a person but afterwards our choice is to what extent we eventually continue until we discover that connection with the friends and turning to the Creator, are those actions that advance us in hastening it. Meaning above time in achieving life’s goal, life's purpose.
12. S. (36:50) What are the secrets of the Torah? It's also not clear what this allegory is and how it's connected to what is written?
R. What about the allegory is not clear?
S. It's not clear how it's connected to the rest of what is written. Who is this sighted person that they follow and who are the blind people and what are they following?
R. Can you say clearly what's not clear to you and not from one place to another. Build a sentence that I can answer clearly
S. It is not clear in relation to the secrets of the Torah, who are the people who are following the sighted person and who is the sighted person?
R. People receive a point in the heart, a feeling that they have a need to attain the essence of life, the purpose of life, the secret of life. Why did they receive this corporeal life? In order to discover in them the essence of life. Where this life is from and where it takes them to. These people that have such a feeling that ties them now to the essence of life, the meaning of life, the flow of reality, they also receive an attraction towards the wisdom of Kabbalah that can explain to them these things and begin to teach them how to take the correct steps towards attaining all of creation and they're place in it and the correction of creation and knowing all of reality. Why it exists, why it lives, why it develops in all its details.
S. Here he writes about the servants of the Creator.
R. Servants of the Creator are those people. There is a general collective, billions of people. A few of them receive a certain awakening to know why they live, what for, toward what end, what's the goal of life? It's not people who are simply looking for forces in nature in order to ease life for them. They want to attain why they live, what can they get out of it? They receive that knowledge, that desire, that attraction. So the Creator attracts them and draws them near just as you feel that you have a desire that cannot be found in others, but it is found in you. They are looking for ways to realize that desire. So how can I come to a state where I scrutinize my desire and I fill my desire?
S. I'm just trying to understand if there's a situation when you begin to study, and then as he writes they kind of drop it and he also wrote before that some people begin to engage in Torah and Mitzvot, Commandments, with the intention and then they switch to the secrets of the Torah. So can it be that people begin to study and then they drop, and they don't advance in the secrets of the Torah?
R. Of course, you see it before you. About that it says, one thousand enter the room and one comes out to teach. I found one out of a thousand. They write about it quite clearly. Not anyone who is turned on and comes to the first lesson will continue until he grows stronger and stronger, he works against his desire because he understands that he wants to attain something in this life that is above this life of beastly existence. He wants to attain more than that and then he continues and when he continues in spite of the difficulties and the fact that he has no benefit to his will to receive, nevertheless it obligates him to go, to pass to the desire to bestow. It is simply that there is no other choice but to rise to another degree. I can't live in my will to receive; I will live in the will to bestow. I have to demand of the Creator, this upper force that guides me in life, to give me the quality of bestowal to some extent. However, whatever he gave me, he should give me now the quality of bestowal and these people are willing to connect and to demand the Creator give them the quality of bestowal.
S. So what are those secrets of the Torah?
R. That's what's revealed later. That's what they're starting to reveal, just like when we learn just various corporeal wisdoms of this world, we acquire some intellect; similarly, during the time when we perform acts of connection between us, we annul our will to receive to some extent because otherwise we will not be able to connect, each one makes greater and greater concessions on his own self, he restricts himself in order to come closer to the other. You must restrict your ego and then by that, they begin to come closer to one another. A certain field is generated between them where they can all be together to some extent, and then in that field where each one annuls himself in order to be connected with the others, this is called the field the Creator has blessed or Shechina. There the Creator is revealed.
13. S. (44:17) The great sorrow that Baal HaSulam describes seems like this is what motivated him to write this introduction.
R. Of course he suffered greatly. Such people, like him, suffer from seeing all of humanity in general, unable to hold on to the Creator's message towards it. Therefore they have to be in the middle to bring humanity closer to the Creator.
S. What is our part in this sorrow? How can we be incorporated in it? What is our role in correcting it?
R. We have to do what is within the power of each one of us and all of us together in order to explain to humanity the goal that's between us and how we can implement it. What else is there to do? Only that. To the extent that you are helping others, you grow because you are performing the correct pure act of bestowal. You cannot do anything to the Creator, nothing. What can you give him? There's nothing to give him, only by bringing the other closer to him.
S. It’s as if he attributes the state of the generation to something outside of us, to the audience, to the people that did not follow the secrets of the Torah. How do we take the responsibility into our own hands and not?
R. Do what's within your power, whatever is within your power to do you should do. That’s it.
14. S. (46:21) He's talking about those failures. What are the most effective things we can take from every morning lesson and use it against the failures we feel during the day?
R. From each morning lesson specifically, you can take certain Innovations in your work and how you connect between you and to the Creator, to refine, to detect the intentions between you and between you and the Creator, and to arrange them this way. Yes, this is exactly what we need to do.
15. S. (47:10) The intention of the ten is to be in giving and bestowal but we feel like we are blind. How can we touch the quality of bestowal in order to activate the reforming light?
R. You need to connect between you to such an extent that you will begin to work with these forces of connection between you. Just as he is describing to us here, I'm reading item 56: You should know that all the NRNHY, we have spoken of thus far, meaning all the lights that we receive in the connection between us, in the desire to bestow to the Creator, as much as possible, even the smallest, are the five parts by which the whole of reality is divided. Meaning of all of reality, everything the Creator created. It all divides into five parts. We learned about it from the four phases of direct light. There is Shoresh, one, two, three, four and in it all the reality of the worlds, Sefirot, Partzufim, souls, it’s all inside. So here he says: Indeed, all that is in the whole exists even in the smallest item in reality.
Meaning each part of these five parts of reality also divides into five and another five and another five, down to the last detail. For example, even in the still part. He divides all of reality to the still, vegetative, animate and speaking, and godliness. Even in the still part of the spiritual Assiya alone, there are five qualities of NRNHY to attain, which are related to the five general qualities of NRNHY. Meaning just like the entire structure all of creation is divided into five parts also each and every part is divided into five parts further. Thus, it is impossible to attain even the light of still of Assiya, meaning the smallest light possible, the smallest revelation of the Creator, except through the four parts of the work. Which are they? Therefore, there is not a person from Israel who can excuse himself from engaging in all of them according to his stature. 1) One should engage in Torah and Mitzvot with intent, in order to receive the level of Ruach according to his stature. 2) He should engage in the secrets of the Torah according to his stature, in order to receive the level of Neshama according to his stature. 3) And the same applies to the Taamim [flavors] of the Mitzvot, the lights that enter the corrected vessels, for it is impossible to complete even the smallest light in Kedusha without them. Meaning, we should work in the correction of our desires in order to receive and all of our desires, these parts, these fragments of the light, let us become aware of these actions of bestowal which he divides into three parts. Working Torah and Mitzvot he calls it, we will scrutinize what it means, with the intention to bestow, then the secrets of the Torah, in order to receive a greater light. Meaning Nefesh, Ruach we receive with the intention in Torah and Mitzvot, Neshama we receive in the secrets of Torah and Haya and Yechida we receive by trying to engage in Taamim, the flavors of Mitzvot, these are exalted things, we don't understand exactly what it is, but we get it along the way. We are on the path towards it. The difficulty lies in rising to the first degree where you receive a permit to engage in lights and vessels. When you have the first screen, the first intention to bestow, after that if it becomes clear what we are talking about here and how to reform the next actions.
16. S. (53:33) How can the blind people know that they're following the sighted person?
R. As it's written by Kabbalists that's what they wrote in their books and we need to try to keep everything possible according to their books and to study only the true sources, and to try not to deviate from the path and most importantly not to develop all kinds of new ideologies. No philosophies, no new means. We have the reforming light, we are allowed to draw it for that, to use it by connecting and studying the sources. That's really what we have there's no more. Only when people with the desire, according to what the Creator awakens in then, when those people connect together, they wish to annul their ego as much as possible in order to be more connected in one tendency to attain the will to bestow, to attain the Creator. They want to realize that in their desire to receive that's between them, as much as possible they can have the intention to be so to the other there and rise above themselves more and more and by that they awaken the reforming light and it works on them and it brings them to recognize the force of bestowal which is actually the revelation of the Creator to the created beings and more and more later.
17. S. (55:37) Why do we need to attribute importance to the study if we don't know what we're looking for? Will it awaken my latent records?
R. That's exactly that. By continuing to learn, to study although I don't understand like a little child that you show something to him and he repeats it but nevertheless if I have such a possibility and I'm doing it, it's a sign that I'm being escorted from above and I continue to do it until I begin to understand more and more how much this method is a special method. It doesn't teach me just how to be in these external actions like religions, faiths, all kinds of habits, everything you got in different audiences. Rather here it's talking about the correction of human nature, to bring it above its egoistic nature. Where the nature of still vegetative and animate in our world is egoistic, how to enjoy more in each and every moment, and I wish to come to a state, I mean I don't want to, but I would like to come to understand how it is possible to be above this world, above this nature. Meaning in an opposite desire instead of constantly to receive and receive and receive for himself from everyone, somehow perform an opposite action to bestow. There's someone who bestows to us, let us try to be like Him.
You can play that you are like the Creator towards the others. Let's do it. What will it give us? This is extremely important when I want to understand someone, I need to perform actions like him. Then I'll understand him. So let's do it. So what's stopping us? If we can organize in a group and each one can bestow to the group and the group can help each and every friend perform acts of bestowal because we all want to taste the meaning of being like the Creator, like to bestower, so let's do it. Let's rise above our egos and start to work. Literally against our ago. It doesn't work right away because we will perform a bunch of actions that are seemingly above the ego, but it will be inside the ego. But gradually through that we will understand that we are unable to rise above our ego in truth, certainly we can't and then what shall we do? Then we will pray, we will ask and demand of the Creator to finally give us a desire to raise above our ego. This is called faith above reason, and we shall accept it. So we have all the possibilities for it, all the preparation for it, let's do it.
18. S. (59:21) Why is Maimonides so despaired that there's only one person that can see and if that person is missing everyone will fall?
R. It's nature. A great Kabbalist attains how big the will to receive is and how difficult it is to regular people to continue with this portion of light that awakens them. That's why he says that one thousand enter the room and one exit towards teaching. So each time we fall we continue on, and we keep going, and only the heroes whose measure of patience, patience, that is the main thing, they attain the goal.
19. S. (01:00:20) It is written in fifty-seven that the servants of the Creator removed themselves from this wisdom, so it is no wonder that the whole generation is failing because of them. Who are those servants of the Creator who have removed themselves from this Wisdom and because of them the whole generation is failing?
R. There were such people in history that could perform great corrections, but they couldn’t do it. We will learn about those things. We cannot understand them right now, why it happens in each generation and for what.
20. S. (01:01:00) Item 55 talks about assistance and the NRNHY degrees of the soul. What are the conditions to receive the assistant from the Creator?
R. The conditions to receive help is to be connected and all of us together, we turn to the Creator and ask. He gives us the initial awakening but all the other forms of connection with Him for receiving His help we need to arrange on our own.
Item 58: (01:02:10)
21. R. (01:03:30) Here he explains why he even started to write in the first place, because he saw that everything that was written before him, although it was written by great people, typically people of attainment, nevertheless, they wrote it in such a way that the reader, if he wants to come to understanding the essence of life, he will fail with the text. It wouldn't be clear enough how to approach it, in what way, because there is a great gap between the spiritual world, the spiritual essence, the spiritual force, the force of bestowal, and the corporeal force that is completely opposite. So, to connect these two parts in creation is impossible, there is no such thing in reality.
There is a transition between spirituality and corporeality, so nevertheless, how to help a person construct this transition, and from the Creator’s side it’s not a problem because He dwells with them in their impurity, there's no problem with Him. The upper light is in absolute rest, he builds everything, he cannot even feel that there is a desire to receive in order to receive. He's doing it on purpose, so they will understand Him, feel Him, so the created beings will be opposite from Him in order to get to know Him, to understand Him, to understand a thing from its opposite. If there was no inversion, there would not be a created being. That is why He did what He did, but how can the created beings reach something that is opposite to them? You see the whole world does not kwon, cannot understand, doesn't feel, it cannot attain the Creator in its opposite vessels, His bestowal. So what do you do? That is what pushed Him, Baal HaSulam to write everything he wrote.
Reader Continues (01:06:02): “I have named that commentary The Sulam (Ladder)...”
22. S. (01:07:16) Why was it so important for Him for the whole world to get to know the wisdom of Kabbalah?
R. The desire of the Creator in creating the souls, in creating the world, in creating this world, is that the created beings would get to know Him. So in order for them to be created beings and come to know the upper force they need to be equipped with two things: first to be completely opposite to the Creator and also to have the strength, the power, to get to know the Creator. These two forces need to be within the created being. In actuality opposite forces, to feel themselves disconnected with the Creator in order to begin from zero and also be connected with the Creator when they want to. In their free choice. This would be the way for them to advance, to get to know Him, to be like Him. So there's a need here for constructing a complete system between the Creator and the created being.
How can we understand what the Creator did? Well it is written, we feel it on ourselves, the Creator created the will to receive, the will to receive is opposite the Creator who is the desire to bestow or the will to receive would not be called the Created being, he has to be opposite from the Creator, and all the qualities the Creator has that he wants to present towards the creature, they have to exist in an opposite way in the created being. Meaning, as many desires to bestow exist in the Creator similarly the created being has to reveal the qualities of bestowal in all of their different manners and modes, so they have to be opposite on the one hand. On the other hand, how can a creature who is opposite to the Creator feel the Creator and moreover connect to it, receive help from Him, annul before Him?
Meaning to build this entire system of connection between him and the Creator. That's why the entire process the created being has to incorporate in, this entire process, is the process of the descent of the forces, the worlds, Sefirot, Partzufim from the Creator to the creature, to have that connection but this connection is concealed, and the creature has to reveal it more and more and more to the extent that he is like the Creator, like Him. This way they can approach one another until the created being attains the Creator. If you ask more I can put in more detail, there is a lot to talk about here.
23. S. (01:11:24) In the text Baal HaSulam talks about a person, or a desire to receive, that through the worlds a person purifies his will to receive, feels his ascent in the degrees; on the other hand we learn that in a person there is a huge amount of different desires to receive and that in each of them you have to do some work. How do you relate correctly to the description of Baal HaSulam, do I come to complete similarity to the Creator in one of my desires, or what?
R. You have only one problem: that you think you can perform any corrections with your intellect. The corrections happen not with your mind but with the upper light when you annul yourself to the upper light. Where each time you are like a baby in his mother’s arms and his mother is doing everything that she understands she has to do with this baby. This is all our work, to annul ourselves towards the group, towards the Creator, so he would make us into everything that he needs from us. Whatever the upper one wants, however he understands that it has to be. It is not that I annul myself one way or another and accordingly the Creator will do something; Rather, I annul myself completely, as much as possible, and then through the reforming light, corrections take place in me.
S. Let's say I am in a ten now. I am standing before each friend, and I try to build some connection between us. I get some concrete resistance, objection to it, what does it mean that I annul myself?
R. If you annul yourself how can it be that you want to build a certain connection between you? If you annul yourself you have to try and show the friends how you are annulling yourself and then how, by that you are giving the Creator the opportunity to form the connection between you. That he will make the connection and not do it according to your intellect. You are going back again to the system of correction that you constructed for yourself, no, the correction takes place from above, and on us, we only have to annul ourselves.
S. If I may continue, I'm trying to understand how I do it practically.
R. Practically, practically annul yourself and remove the logic from your head. Our intellect was given to us for one reason, so we can annul it.
24. S. (01:14:52) Good morning and thank you for the lesson. From this sorrow of Baal HaSulam I’m thinking about a discussion we had in the ten and we try to create a connection between us and in the times, we decide on we try to do as much as possible. I wrote here in the book when we were reading this item, ten years ago, this one sentence: everything depends on our dissemination, we try to connect, we try to pray to the Creator. What advice about dissemination would you give us as a ten so we will really advance? Because we have been rewarded with the writings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash and you, we have been given this sighted person
R. Can I answer? We need to continue to learn and disseminate as we discussed. I have nothing to add, nothing. You are asking a question for which the answer is simple. Do as much as you can, we are constantly talking about it.
25. S. (01:16:15) On the path of correction there are a lot of obstacles and we read in the last paragraph that Baal HaSulam has a fear that we won’t go to idol worshiping, what is that in relation to the writings, places into which we shouldn’t get?
R. They don’t want to advance to the Creator through them. They don’t want to truly be incorporated in forces of bestowal, but they just want to know what is written. They even want to know it by heart, which is considered a great achievement for them.
S. But what is written are stories, allegories, not to mention the Torah that looks like a history document, so how do you change the attitude towards it?
R. We need to as much as possible, we need to try and change the attitudes between us so it will be in the connection between us in mutual bestowal between us and towards the Creator and in general as much as we are in this mutual bestowal, we have to raise this to the Creator, the result of bestowal in the general group and accordingly we will be rewarded with receiving from the Creator his bestowal on us, His influence on us.
S. That is the difference between the internal work we are doing and the idol worshiping?
R. Yes. We don’t need to learn by heart what is written in all of those sources. We need to try and realize them between us. That is a huge difference, you are studying dryly. How many angels are in the sky, in the heavens and what are their names as it is written and actually realizing the Torah in the connection between the friends, and between them to the Creator.
26. S. (01:18:37) What is the ladder mentioned here? Is each step on the ladder in order to see the secrets of light in the attic?
R. Of course, certainly. The ladder from us to the Creator is all those parts of our coarseness, Shoresh, Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet that we have to overcome with the intention to bestow. Then accordingly with the same coarseness on those desires we will receive the light Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida and all those desires that we have to invert from in order to receive to in order to bestow, they will be called the parts of our soul. The matter of the soul is the will to receive with the intention to bestow and the light of the soul is the NRNHY that will fill those desires according to the equivalence between the light and the vessel. That is what we have been learning. The structure is a simple one. We just have to be very stubborn in order to realize it.
27. S. (01:20:18) Can you tell me the word annulment? I do not understand it.
R. Other than the intention in order to receive you don’t need to annul anything, only the intention to receive. Restrict it and in its place to invert it and install an intention in order to bestow. That's it.
28. S. (01:21:02) What is considered true advancement in spirituality. From where we are right now?
R. From our current state the true advancement is considered coming closer between us to such an extent that we can begin to feel one another and in the connection between us to feel the quality of mutual bestowal that can be born between us and in it we will begin to discover the upper force. We will build the conditions for the revelation of the upper force which is entirely to bestow.
S. We need every moment to start from zero and the friends are like new? Does that help?
R. Yes, yes, every day like that.
29. S. (01:22:08) To the extent that we advance to the upper world, will that advancement be expressed in our external life, our corporeal life, the way we behave?
R. Yes and no. We will feel changes in our entire life although it could be that really there won't be a feeling like something is changing but we, related to it, we will feel it as if it is changing.
30. S. (01:22:48) About item 55 He says ascends in the degrees until he is rewarded to reach the pleasures of the thought of creation. What are those pleasures of the thought of creation?
R. That the revelation of the Creator in the created being begets such feeling that the Creator is delighting in him. That he is rejoicing with him, caressing him, caring for him, just like a baby could feel the relationship of his mother towards him.
31. S. (01:23:40) What is the sin of idol worshiping and how do we prevent that in the ten?
R. We don't need to be cautious of sins, we need to do good deeds of connection and the sins be or not, it's not important. The main thing for us is connection, connection, connection because in it we will reveal the Creator.
32. S. (01:24:11) Baal HaSulam writes in the last paragraph that it’s good for every person. Why is the introduction good for every person?
R. Because eventually everyone needs to attend creation.
33. S. (01:24:33) What is the difference between the state of the world today compared to the times of Baal HaSulam. Are they closer or further away from taking upon themselves the wisdom?
R. Of course, today the world is much more ready to accept and receive the wisdom of Kabbalah. We can see this too. Technically, also it is more connected and ready for it. More than it was one hundred years ago.
34. S. (01:25:09) In 57 what does it mean to extend the light from Ein Sof and how not to be those who cause the generation to fail?
R. We just have to work in connection, then everything will be ok. Only in connection. We are already in the last generation and that is why except for connection we don’t need anything between us.
35. S. (01:25:44) What preparation and sensitivity do we need to study the Zohar and be warmed with its light?
R. All these questions are not to the point because if you are connecting, whether it is men or women connecting, in that connection you will attain everything. If there's no inclination towards connection, then it is a waste of time. Nothing will come out of it. We need to see before us just one thing, one little step, one towards connection, towards the center of the group. If we try to do that during the day that is what will give us the feeling of advancement.