The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) October 16, 2024.
Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot. #69.
Reader: Hello, we're reading in the book of The Writings of Baal HaSulam, it's on page 789 of the Hebrew version. We're going to start from Item 89, from Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot. You can ask questions on Arvut System and Sviva Tova; anyone here in the study hall is requested to stand up, hold the mic close to their mouth and speak loudly and clearly. Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 89.
Reading: (00:40) Item 89 Twice.
We can also understand what we asked concerning being rewarded with love. We asked, “How can we attain even the first degree of love when there is no reward for a Mitzva in this world?” Now it is clear that one does not need to actually receive the reward for the Mitzva in his life, hence their precision, “You will see your world in your life, and your end to the life of the next world,” implying that the reward for a Mitzva is not in this world, but in the next world.
Yet, to know, see, and feel the future reward of the Mitzva in the next world, one must know it in complete certainty and clarity while in this life through his wondrous attainment in the Torah. This is because then one still attains conditional love, which is the first degree of the exit from concealment of the face and the entry to the revelation of the face, which one must have in order to keep Torah and Mitzvot correctly, in a way that “He who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly.”
M. Laitman: If there are any questions, go ahead.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (02:51) It's a very interesting topic because we talked about it many times. What is the difference between complete 100% confidence of the landlord giving the reward, and that in which we receive the reward?
M. Laitman: That's according to the definition of what faith is. If it's complete faith then it's as though it has already been done; and if there's any action besides that, it doesn't add anything.
Student: That's a question because if he has complete faith or not complete faith, he has faith.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Which gives him the confidence that's going to give him the reward. Is that not already reward?
M. Laitman: You want to say this: If he truly believes in the reward then it's as though he's receiving it and the reward fills up the place intended for it. So, there's a matter of faith, here, that on behalf of the receiver, there has to be preparation. And this preparation comes to him through the effort. He has to prepare himself.
Student: He writes that there is no reward in this world.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But if a person is rewarded with faith, the confidence that he will receive the reward, maybe that's even greater than the reward itself.
M. Laitman: Let's see. Still, because we are stalled, we are still not in it, then we always have a doubt if it's yes or no. But once we achieve the reception of the reward then that's it, it's clear to us that this is the case. Again
Reading: Item 89. “...We can also understand what we asked…”
Reader: (08:08) What does it mean that you will see your world in your life, and your end to the life of the next world?
M. Laitman: There is an attempt to explain to us that there are two degrees, two levels, in the attainment of the reward. One, is while you're still living in this world; and the second part is in the next world.
Student: What is seeing your world in your life, and one in the next world?
M. Laitman: It's two degrees of attainment, very simple, that he attains in this world, and the second one, attainment in the upper world, in the next world – two levels.
Student: When is it in the next world?
M. Laitman: When one gets there. There is a first degree called this world and a second degree called the next world.
Student: What do the words, what does it mean, while living in his world?
M. Laitman: While he still lives through his body.
Student: In comparison to what, what is the next stage?
M. Laitman: The next stage, when he's already detached from his body.
Student: What's that stage where he's already not connected to his body? What body is it discussing, and what does it mean?
M. Laitman: We're talking about the corporeal body.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:45) He writes here, the conditional love is the first degree. What is this matter of conditional love?
M. Laitman: What he receives from the Creator, how he feels the Creator's attitude to him.
Student: Why is that degree called conditional love? Why does that bring him out from the concealment of the face to the revelation of the face?
M. Laitman: That's how it works on him.
Student: How does that bring you out from concealment?
M. Laitman: In how you see it.
Student: But it's conditional?
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: There's nothing above reason here, it's conditional?
M. Laitman: But it's a certain illumination that gives you a sense of fulfillment and confidence.
Student: What does this illumination add to the concealment – where that concealment turns into revelation?
M. Laitman: It adds that now he can, by that illumination on him, he now has a different attitude to the Creator, to what he receives in his state.
Student: The difference between concealment and revelation is in relation to the state? What's the difference between concealment and revelation?
M. Laitman: The difference between concealment and revelation is that in concealment one doesn't know but has to be in faith with respect to what he receives and from whom and so forth; it's a whole spectrum of several conditions. And revelation is when it's already revealed to him.
Student: In revelation, you don't need to be in faith?
M. Laitman: Of course you do.
Student: So, what's the difference because in the two of them, you also need to be in faith in concealment. Who are you going to receive from?
M. Laitman: In concealment, you are in faith by necessity; in revelation, you are in the power of faith because it already comes to you.
Student: Is the person supposed to reach his end of correction when he's living in this world, in the corporeal body?
M. Laitman: Probably.
Student: So, what does it mean, your end to the life of the next world? What is this concept that's not connected to one's corporeal body?
M. Laitman: I can't explain that, it's not sufficiently clear to me.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:35) “He who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly.” That's a wondrous thing that happens in the Torah.
M. Laitman: Say it again
Student: Is that an attainment that takes place, a wondrous attainment that takes place in the Torah? This testimony that he will not return to folly? “He who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly.” Is that a wonder that takes place in the Torah?
M. Laitman: It doesn't happen in the Torah, it happens in the person.
Student: How does that happen in the Torah? Is that a testimony that he will not return to folly?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What needs to take place in the person so that that will not happen?
M. Laitman: A person needs to achieve a certain spiritual state, where he feels that the Creator's relation to him is such that the Creator testifies for him. As if promises him that he won't return to folly, that he won't fall back to the previous degree.
Student: That spiritual state are vessels with lights?
M. Laitman: Well, yes, of course, any state is like that.
Student: Is that the first revelation, He who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly, is that already a revelation?
M. Laitman: It's a revelation already.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:21) Conditional love: What does love depend on, and what is it conditional?
M. Laitman: What he receives from the Creator.
Student: If he doesn't have that, does he depart from that love?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How does it work if he will not return to folly, meaning he acquires that degree if he reaches that He who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly. But conditional love?
M. Laitman: So, it depends on the Creator shining on him with some constant light.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:18) He writes here that a person who reaches attainment of the Torah is rewarded with seeing, knowing, and feeling the future reward of the Mitzvah in the next world. And he says that he will know, that meaning he'll feel in every direction possible in this world in the will to receive. That when you acquire attainment of the Torah, then you'll know your future, you'll see your future. And afterwards he says that you will know your world and your life, etc. What degree of attainment does one need to reach, what is attainment in the Torah? What level of understanding of this means called the Torah in this world lets a person see his future?
M. Laitman: One gets to there and that's it; one reaches a state where he has attainment.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (18:27) Does the corporeal body limit spiritual attainment?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: Can you attain all the spiritual degrees while we are living in the corporeal body, this corporeal body of ours?
M. Laitman: I think so.
Student: What reward does one attain in this world?
M. Laitman: What shines on him.
Student: Why is there a division between the reward in this world and the reward in the next world – what is this division?
M. Laitman: Because it's two kinds of light that influence the person.
Student: What light influences the person in this world and what light influences the person in the next world?
M. Laitman: We'll see, I think he's going to deal with that.
Student: This world and the next world are both connected to the corporeal body?
M. Laitman: No. Not this or that.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:45) He writes about the importance of keeping Torah and Mitzvot in his life, what does he mean?
M. Laitman: That all of one's intentions and actions have to be in order to bestow.
Student: Fear and love, are they both in Lishma, or is it fear is in Lo Lishma and love is already Lishma?
M. Laitman: Both this and that are in Lishma.
Student: And before that, Lo Lishma?
M. Laitman: In Lo Lishma, one has some feeling that he belongs to this development, but you can't say that these Mitzvot are already there, fear and love.
Student: That's what he writes about the 613 Mitzvot, but how is that form of love…what is the form of work before these two stages of love and then the entry into Lishma, and before that if there's an entrance to Lishma? So, what is before that or what's at the boundary? Where from that boundary he starts working above reason, maybe?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reading: (21:25) Item 90
And by laboring to observe Torah and Mitzvot in the form of conditional love, which comes to him from knowing the future reward in the next world, as in “all that is about to be collected is deemed collected,” one attains the second degree of revelation of the face—His guidance over the world from His eternity and truthfulness, meaning that He is good and does good to the good and to the bad.
In that state, one attains unconditional love and the sins become for him as merits. From then on, he is called “complete righteous,” since he can keep the Torah and Mitzvot with love and fear. He is called “complete” because he has all 613 Mitzvot in completeness.
M. Laitman: Questions.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:01) What do we call Torah in the work with the friends? What reveals to us in the work with the friends that we call Torah?
M. Laitman: We usually refer to all the conditions, laws, influences, over us that we have to carry out in order to attain the Creator, who is hidden in the Torah. Meaning, after we carry out the Torah, we reveal the Creator.
Student: What does it mean to observe the Torah between the friends?
M. Laitman: Typically, “love thy friend as thyself”.
Student: How is it correct to advance spiritually, whether it's in dissemination? A person wants to advance spiritually and he has this means called the Ten. How is it correct to use that means in order to progress on the path?
M. Laitman: We study that from the articles of Rabash usually but, essentially, this is what all of our material talks about.
Student: A person wants to do an action where he knows that that action will progress him on the path, I'm emphasizing dissemination here. A person knows and learns that he has this means called the Ten. How does he use that means in order to implement this action?
M. Laitman: We read about this in many places – it's getting closer to the friends in the Ten and being with them as one man in one heart, doing all kinds of actions with them, meetings, studies, and so forth.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (25:53) It's written, good and bad to the good and to the bad. So, good to the good, there is no such thing because the final result relates to them?
M. Laitman: That's what's written.
Student: So, maybe we don't know what the good and the bad are that are written here?
M. Laitman: Perhaps.
Student: So, what are those good and the bad?
M. Laitman: I don't know, maybe, I'm asking just as you are.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:25) Conditional love is the first degree after concealment of the face – that confused me?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Because I understood that conditional love is still seemingly egoistic love, that it's not clean. So, how is that related to being above the concealment where conditional love is above the concealment?
M. Laitman: Conditional love, meaning that to the extent that he receives and what he receives from the Creator, his love changes.
Student: What’s the meaning of that when he engages in Torah and Mitzvot in the form of conditional love, then he comes to the future reward and the next world? Can you explain that again?
M. Laitman: What are you reading?
Student: The beginning of Item 90, and he also spoke about that in Item 89. What is that degree?
M. Laitman: His reward destined for the next world.
Student: Yes, that he knows it.
M. Laitman: Yes, he doesn't attain it yet, but it already shines to him.
Student: Yes, so the introduction this time is very confusing to me.
M. Laitman: No, no, no, it'll settle down.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:03) What's the connection between understanding the importance and eternity, and truthfulness of the Creator, and that it brings us to love?
M. Laitman: Say the question again?
Student: What's the connection between understanding the greatness, eternity, and truthfulness of the Creator, and that this corrects the love?
M. Laitman: Because one thing depends on the other.
Student: When a person wishes to correct his intention, what does he need to emphasize in his request?
M. Laitman: He has to pay attention to how much he feels, understands, and is devoted to the Creator's changing actions.
Student: In order to correct my intention, I need to be impressed by everything that the Creator created?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And then the intention comes by itself. It becomes corrected by itself.
M. Laitman: Yes, the intention is the result of that.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (29:38) It's written here that a complete righteous is one who already attained all the 613 Mitzvot, where he has all the 613 Mitzvot?
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: So, what is one who has repented, is that one who is greater than that? Because it's written that people who have repented?
M. Laitman: Yes, I understand. Probably one who has repentance, meaning that he's always in that transition. Where he's always looking for and correcting, still correcting his qualities. So, every time he receives some impression, some inspiration from what he attains, that corrects him and advances him. And then we say that this impression, this action, makes the greatest corrections in the person.
Student: One who comes to a degree of complete righteousness, he wasn't one who repented?
M. Laitman: Of course, he was, but still when he becomes incorporated with that, that to him is, it's a sign that there's nothing higher than that.
Student: It's not higher than what?
M. Laitman: From now discovering that what he's now going through.
Student: Meaning that one who repented or righteous?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Turkiye 7): (31:48) When do we experience the next world?
M. Laitman: I don't know what to tell you, we perhaps many times went through such states called the next world. The next world means a state where a person feels that he's coming to a new degree.
Student: Can you explain how the sins become merits in the work of conditional love?
M. Laitman: I can't explain. He had transgressions, he made repentance on them, kept those transgressions under his reign. And then they transition to become as Mitzvot, meaning, he now corrected them. So, he receives through these transgressions, now, new revelations from the Creator. And that means that his transgressions became as merits.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (33:21) How can I correct my intention so that I truly be forgiving and not for my self-benefit?
M. Laitman: That is if you are together with the friends and you wish to become incorporated with them and they with you. So, you're all building a state that essentially includes all of the other states and that's how you advance.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:00) When Baal HaSulam writes, “seeing, knowing and feeling the future reward of the Mitzvah in the next world”, is that a sign that one is already in faith above reason?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:30) I wanted to ask about desires that come to a person. When the desire comes to a strong person, and that desire, from the experience from the past, it directs in a bad direction, but the desire is strong. So, we learn this thing about putting brakes on the desire. Question is how can we carry out a correction where a person gets a desire that doesn't serve the person well? So that that desire won't come to him, that it will come in a corrected way. What process do we need to go through?
M. Laitman: Typically, either a person receives the desire or he doesn't receive the desire except the desire that appears in his heart. And he has to do this as a quick, sorting, process, right at the entrance. And then, if he decides that he needs to work with this desire, then he needs to accept it as a desire that becomes included in him, that works in him.
Student: From experience, working with it in the form that it becomes revealed, as much as I try to work with it, I fail each time anew. On the other hand, the desire is very strong and there's always this dilemma where I don't know what direction to take. Because if I put brakes on it, then it overcomes, so is the question to really submit, to really going to war with it to the very end?
M. Laitman: As much as it's written – as much as what I understand is written – these actions are actions that are not going to give you any success.
Student: What actions, battling it?
M. Laitman: You can't just overcome the desire just like that, and then what? What do you ride on it, over it? So, what we need is only to try and unite our desires and aim them at the Creator. And ask the Creator to help us, to help us sort them out and correct our attitude to them.
Student: If in a certain stage, until we correct that attitude, we need to deal with the desire until that change takes place of the attitude.
M. Laitman: But it's in your hands, so stop, check, scrutinize, and then do it!
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:03) In relation to sins that become transgressions and then afterwards merits. So, let's take a sin, what is a sin?
M. Laitman: A sin or a transgression, it's anything that I wish to enjoy directly.
Student: What does it mean that it inverts into a mistake in that first revelation?
M. Laitman: If I work with it in such a way that I don't want to be a slave to it, then it becomes a mistake.
Student: Then what does it mean that it inverts into a merit?
M. Laitman: That it inverts to merit means that it is if I correct it, somewhat. That by it I ascend and the same force that in the beginning, seemingly, wanted to make me fall now raises me upwards.
Student: The transition from sin to mistake is that you would have wanted to not be an egoist?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: You still didn't have that strength in practice?
M. Laitman: In the beginning, no.
Student: When you receive that strength in practice, does that mean that you inverted that mistake to the merit?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What does it mean that you attain the Providence of the Creator in the world through eternity and truthfulness?
M. Laitman: I can only fantasize, truly, it's infinite, it's endless. How can you, how can one even think that we achieve that?
Student: Why is the revelation of the face in the first degree and also then in the second degree is what gives the person the strength to move from sin to mistake and from mistake to merit? Why is the revelation of the face of the Creator what gives the person the force to deal with his ego?
M. Laitman: Because that's the nature of things, that to the extent that I raise myself and see the actions of the Creator as Good That Does Good. So, from that I climb to higher degrees of bestowal.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (41:42) Just to continue the scrutiny from earlier, this example of cigarettes, there's people who smoke three packs a day. There's a desire that is unhealthy for one's health, for the environment, and a person wants to stop, and he sees that he cannot. It's hard for him, it's too strong, that desire. It's not really the cigarettes, he really wants something to calm him down and he gets addicted to this use of the will to receive in this unclean way, and it's very complicated. And if he takes, even if he doesn't 100% clean himself from that, he takes a cigarette here and there, it's something that doesn't really become cleaned. So, what is your advice, here?
M. Laitman: I don't know, what do they recommend to us? They recommend us to instead of doing this, you do something else. And then gradually you distance yourself from the pleasure from cigarettes to the pleasure in which you, I don't know, what should I say? Sport, let's say. Yes, sport.
Student: So, in these situations, a person needs to go through this difficult state of disconnecting from one desire and entering the second desire. He needs to go through that period?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:29) I heard you say earlier that a person who wishes to correct their intention needs to emphasize that in which he understands, sees, and he is devoted to these changing discernments. What kind of attitude does a person need to develop toward these changing discernments?
M. Laitman: The person needs to be ready for changes where he will reveal in the actions of the Creator, how the Creator becomes revealed before him. How He bestows to him, how He changes the environment around the person, etc. In all the actions of the Creator toward the person, he needs to reveal that He is Good that Does Good, at the end of it all.
Student: Does the attitude need to be different from state to state on the person's behalf? Does it need to change from state to state? It needs to be uniform from one state.
M. Laitman: I don't know what it means, uniform, in any case, there are different actions, different states. And the person themselves receives them, differently.
Student: The acts of the Creator really change? What changes here?
M. Laitman: The acts of the Creator is us.
Student: What does that mean?
M. Laitman: We people, do we change?
Student: Yes.
M. Laitman: Those are the actions of the Creator.
Student: And in every action and every change that we go through, the main thing is to seek that He is Good That Does Good in the action.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And how does that change the intention? How does that become expressed in the correction of my attitude here when I'm seeking Him?
M. Laitman: Because through that I seek forces, where through those forces, I sweeten each and every state. I correct every state and I pass all the actions of the Creator to a good side.
Student: What preparation can I do toward the next state, not in the state that becomes revealed?
M. Laitman: Toward the next state I need to try and correct myself so that I am ready to receive the revelation of the Creator in every possible way, and I need to interpret that that He is Good That Does Good.
Student: What would hold me in that intention, really?
M. Laitman: The environment, the environment.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:44) These degrees of conditional love and unconditional love where he already says that He is Good That Does Good to the good and the bad. Meaning one justifies the Creator toward everyone in all the times. Does that mean that a person simply acquires vessels of the whole world and then he identifies himself completely exiting that self that he identified with previously? And then he justifies him?
M. Laitman: It's as if that way.
Student: The vessels change, here.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Reader: (47:28) What does it mean that I need to correct myself so that I am ready to receive the revelation of the Creator in every possible way – that He is Good That Does Good.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: There are things that if I think about them happening, I would be in a huge problem. So, how do I prepare myself toward those?
M. Laitman: With God's help, everything depends on faith. In any case whatever will be, you need to leave, here, more room for that in which the Creator can come and add, and correct. Without that, we are incapable of holding, between the degrees, from one degree to the next, from state to state. There is always some small part which we do not correct but that's how it remains. That gives us a place for faith.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (49:09) Can a person justify the Creator inside his ego, or never?
M. Laitman: Inside his ego, for a very small moment.
Student: Then, in order to justify the Creator, it happens in a new vessel – faith, bestowal, bestowal?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But we say the will to receive always remains so how does it work? The desire remains, I can't justify. I have another vessel where I can justify, it's um, what is that state?
M. Laitman: I couldn't hear.
Student: There's a will to receive, which we say always remains, that is creation. In the will to receive, I cannot justify the Creator. I can justify in a new vessel that I build but the desire remains so it's two states at the same time? That in one vessel I can't and in the new vessel I can justify?
M. Laitman: These desires connect and lead to the next stage.
Student: Is there such a state where a person can justify anything that happens to him?
M. Laitman: That's already the stage of a complete righteous.
Student: Hence I'm asking, what happens to his will to receive, it completely disappears?
M. Laitman: No, without the will to receive there is no created being.
Student: Right, so if you cannot justify the Creator in the will to receive?
M. Laitman: It's possible to justify but one lacks correction.
Student: When there is a correction over the will to receive, it doesn't disappear, it's just corrected?
M. Laitman: It works in order to bestow.
Student: And just a simple faith can also help with that? Like, there are people who have a strong faith even below reason. Can he also justify the Creator?
M. Laitman: He can justify, yes, he can.
Student: But it doesn't belong to actual correction?
M. Laitman: Right.
Reader: (51:45) I heard before, I receive the strength to mitigate each and every state. What does it mean to mitigate, to get the strength to mitigate?
M. Laitman: I didn't say that but what can be said about that? That in every state we have forces which we can work with in the direction of receiving and in the direction of giving. So, if I can work in my state in the direction of giving, that is considered as me doing good.
Student: This is what we call, mitigation?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Some things happen in reality and I'm afraid to look at them because I feel them as so bad. So, I close my eyes to not see them, as if they don't exist, because I don't have the strength to deal with them. What does it mean that I'll get the strength to mitigate them or sweeten them?
M. Laitman: To justify them, at the end of it all, they all come from the Creator. And He is Good That Does Good. And we flow with all these actions to the end of Correction, where everything connects there. So, we need to justify every action and all the actions together.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (53:51) So, man becomes better or, what becomes better, basically? When it says that He does good to the bad and to the good?
M. Laitman: One who benefits others becomes better because he is close to the Creator.
Student: Because it feels like he receives more to justify, so that he receives more strength to justify, so he doesn't feel better, maybe even worse. Then he receives the strength to justify, strength to not justify. So, it's like He, the Creator becomes better, not Him, not Himself. Can you look at it this way?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And what about his observation on the friends in the Ten, for instance?
M. Laitman: He justifies them more than he did previously.
Student: Even though he sees all kinds of things.
M. Laitman: He sees until the end of the path.
Student: Basically, I can't seem to understand what becomes better in this whole path?
M. Laitman: He sees friends as higher and more righteous.
Student: And that means, what that he becomes righteous, or that he becomes better?
M. Laitman: That he becomes righteous, that he justifies the Creator because you can only justify the Creator on condition according to the percentage that you justify the friends.
Okay, maybe we should move to the next part.
Reader: Let's play a song first!,
Song: (56:05)