The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning), March 23, 2024.
Part 1: Hoshana Raba – Selected Excerpts from the Sources
Reader: Hello, we are going to read selected excerpts from the sources on the topic of Hoshana Rabbah. The study material appears on our websites, kabbalahgroup.info and also the Arvut system and you can also ask questions through those systems during the live broadcast. Anyone who's in the study hall can ask a question by standing up and holding the mic close to their mouth and speaking loudly and clearly.
Reading: (00:39) Pri Tzadik, “The Festival of Sukkot,” Item 28
This day [seventh of Sukkot] is the completion of the encompassing of the days of the festival when we pleaded and prayed each day “Do Save.” This day is called “Great Salvation” because there comes a great outcry in the heart to be saved by a great salvation since we feel the deficiency of not having been saved yet. King David is the Ushpizin [guest of honor], for he always had a great outcry in his heart because it always seemed to him like he is still standing outside.
M. Laitman: What's to say, it's written precisely. Meaning, in every day of the holiday, we ask, “Do Save”. And now on the last day, we should put together all the cries into one big cry, and to ask, do save. That we asked and asked and the salvation is not there yet.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (03:30) What is the deficiency that David speaks about here, where he always feels that he is outside? What is that deficiency?
M. Laitman: David is king of Israel, the collective, general, Malchut of Israel. Therefore, he's the one who always feels how much salvation is lacking.
Student: But it's a feeling that he's outside of something, outside what? Outside the Creator, outside their kingdom?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, he feels that, still, there's no great final salvation, “Do Save”, for the whole people. And so, as the king of Israel, the Malchut, he feels that more than everyone, and he cries to the Creator.
Student: Is that a deficiency that we also need to take with us all the time?
M. Laitman: We should be incorporated with that.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:59) If he always had this cry in his heart, and that outcry, it appears to him as if he's outside. So why does he cry? What? Because he's not right?
M. Laitman: This, I don't know, I can't say but the fact is that this is what's written.
Student: Is there some component lacking here?
M. Laitman: I'm telling you, I don't know. Item Two.
Reader: Excerpt 2, Baal HaSulam writes:
Reading: (05:37) Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 243, “Examining the Shade on the Night of Hosha’ana Rabbah”
Concerning the shade. On the night of Hosha’ana Rabbah [the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles], it is a custom that each one examines himself to see if he has a shadow, and then he is certain that he will have abundance (Shaar HaKavanot (Gate of Intentions), Sukkot Commentaries, 6-7). The shade implies clothing, the clothing in which the light dresses. There is no light without clothing, since there is no light without a Kli [vessel]. According to the measure of the clothes, the lights increase and multiply. When one loses the clothing, the light that belongs to that clothing is proportionally absent from him.
This is the meaning of truth and faith. Truth is called “light,” and faith is called “Kli.” This is the meaning of “the Creator and His Shechina [Divinity],” and the meaning of “Let us make man in our image,” and “Surely man walks by the image.” Man’s walk depends on the Tzelem [image], meaning on faith. And this is why on Hosha’ana Rabbah, one should see if his faith is complete. But why do we call the worlds above Tzelem? After all, above, there is no weight to faith. However, what appears to us as dryness is a great light above.
M. Laitman: Yes. So, it’s understood?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:49) Why does the light dress in the shade?
M. Laitman: Yes, where we can reach shade, these are the conditions suitable to reveal the upper light.
Student: These conditions are because the will to receive has no contact there, it has no vitality?
M. Laitman: Yes, you can say that.
Student: Yes and sometimes we say that shade is a lack of light.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: That there is no sun, it's as if this inversion. How precisely from that feeling of no light, does the light become revealed in the feeling that there is no light, as if from within the deficiency?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Okay, so with the question comes the answer.
M. Laitman: Okay.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:14) What does it mean that above there is no weight to faith?
M. Laitman: Above meaning in a place where there is no concealment, where it's clear what's going on – the governance of the Creator. And therefore, there's no problem, there's darkness, that darkness comes actually instead of light and it shines where there should have been light. But now, due to the holiday, due to the special day, there's darkness there. And if we pray and ask as we should, then comes the light into the darkness, and then it appears as much more powerful than before.
Student: Faith is a vessel, how is it protected in that light comes, the light seemingly comes and gives a revelation, and then there should be seemingly more faith?
M. Laitman: Faith is the condition by which the light can shine and there's nothing that can potentially erase it or hinder it. Therefore, we say, “Do Save”, meaning that the love and the light comes to vessels that need it and they ask, they demand the light to appear as a result of all these holidays we went through. And this is now their conclusion, where the light appears and then with that great light there is truly the salvation, “Do Save”.
Student: What is the difference between, let's say, a shade of each day in the Sukkot, which we received a different quality, Abraham, etc., and that last shade? What does it have that the previous shades do not have?
M. Laitman: Well, usually, we examine the shade, we have to look at the shade. That indicates how a person achieved salvation – that despite the concealment, he makes efforts and comes to the light.
Student: It becomes clear to a person that he finally has the correct deficiency? What is that shade, that whole accumulation of all these shades?
M. Laitman: The shade, we essentially develop and ask for it throughout the days of the holiday to have shade. And specifically, by the shade, we see that we took the right track. That we have prepared ourselves for the great light that has to appear in the great salvation.
Student: Meaning we asked for faith and not just revelation, right? And then there is an end to this feeling?
M. Laitman: That we receive the great light of the great salvation and it has to take us out to the correction.
Student: The light that we receive, it's light that the vessel gives or it's something beyond the Kli that gives it? Does it give that last faith, the end of the faith? What does it give, the big shade or the salvation?
M. Laitman: It gives the great shade in which we can reveal the great light of the great salvation.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (15:50) It is written and that is the meaning of truth. Truth is faith, truth is the light and faith is called the Kli or vessel. Why is truth light and faith is the Kli?
M. Laitman: That's how it is because when the light appears, it brings a clear understanding of what's happening in this Kli. So, it's the revelation of the light of Hochma in the light of Hassadim; that's basically the great salvation.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (16:52) From your talk with the friend, it's a certain form of understanding so, I'm checking it. The shade doesn't come from us. It comes from above in order for us to dwell in it. And then, the faith gives that transition and then the light comes in according to the vessel that developed the faith with that shade that comes from above, and then the big light comes?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:38) He writes in Telem, man walks depends on the image, meaning our whole path depends on faith.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How can we check ourselves whether our faith is complete?
M. Laitman: He checks it according to the shade.
Student: The shade is, I know that the extent of Aviut is a coarseness, that that’s a form of measurement. So, according to that I can measure myself.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What does it mean that I check with shade? It's how much I can overcome?
M. Laitman: As much as I can develop my shade, accordingly, that makes me great.
Student: What is wholeness for me?
M. Laitman: Wholeness is that, in this great shade I actually get the great connection and revelation of the Creator.
Student: Or, it's enough that it's more than what I felt previously?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (19:15) You opened and said that each day of the holiday, we request a great salvation, and today and the last day, we need to connect all the requests to one great outcry and request for that great salvation.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How do we connect all of our requests to one great outcry?
M. Laitman: If we went through all the days of the holiday in a way that we discussed, we studied, we wanted to feel what's happening in us. Then clearly at the end of the holiday we will probably be able to connect all the phenomena and that will be the Great Salvation.
Student: The outcry is a natural process that accumulates into a great outcry?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It's not an action on our behalf, an active action on our behalf?
M. Laitman: It's an action on our behalf, where we want all of our requests that we had all the days of the holiday, that they will all come together. And we will feel the Great Deficiency for the Great Salvation.
Student: What is the difference between a request and an outcry?
M. Laitman: Probably, only the intensity.
Student: And Hoshana, the Salvation, is that light that fills the person with the light of Salvation or it's a request for Salvation?
M. Laitman: The Do Save, itself, is the action of man that he demands from the Creator, please save, Do Save.
Student: What does he ask for?
M. Laitman: He asks the Creator to reach conditions for the light to appear through him.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:50) Is it correct to say that in order to reach the Great Salvation, that outcry, the Creator gives the ability to reach it. If the person, throughout all of his days of Sukkot, he exerted and tried to request that Salvation. Meaning that it's a process of construction that ends up?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, without that, he doesn't have the right desire, or the right shade.
Student: Meaning, that outcry of a person comes as a reward for his effort?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How is it possible to understand the matter of shade, where the Creator gives a person shade naturally? What does that shade mean, what does it hide from us?
M. Laitman: It hides from us how close we are to Salvation; and therefore, the Creator's Do Save is our strong and high demand with which we turn to the Creator.
Student: When a person at Sukkot tries to build this shade within himself, it's felt that he tries to adapt the shade as the Creator brings him the shade? It's as if he tries to replace that shade, that he builds it by himself.
M. Laitman: Let’s say.
Student: Is it possible to call that equivalence of form, where the person tries to equalize his form in the matter of shade?
M. Laitman: Yes. A person who builds the shade, he essentially wants to resemble the Creator, who also makes the shade in his work over the created beings.
Student: It's a point we could open and I don't know how it goes through that point, that I am merciful so that he be merciful. That usually becomes depicted, at least how I feel it, where, as his qualities are, so that's how we need to behave toward the world. And here, I learn that it needs to be actually from the shade that I apply to my will to receive.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And the connection between these two approaches, I still do not succeed to feel. Why are they actually not the same?
M. Laitman: Just as the Creator makes the shade and grows us, gradually throughout all the stages, similarly we should accept the shade and try to see it as a means to rise above reason, above the shade and get to the light of faith.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (26:11) I just want to understand the cascading down of this holiday. Each day we sat in the Sukkah, we invited a new Ushpizin, a new guest, we were joyful. And then we came to the end, and then, what? We found that we didn't succeed all week and then there's a great outcry? How does it work?
M. Laitman: It works in a way that we have to reach a great deficiency. That, specifically, when we get to that deficiency that's the beginning of salvation.
Student: Why would a person reach that deficiency after a week of doing that work joyfully, he's sitting in the Sukkah. And then suddenly at the end of the week, what does he reveal? He reveals that he failed or because he succeeded, he wants more? How does it work?
M. Laitman: He discovers that even though he really wanted to reach the great light, he still doesn't become awarded with it. And what he lacks is the light of faith, I would say; meaning, it's like he has to achieve a state where he lives in the light of faith. And this is called the great salvation, the night of the great salvation, that's it.
Student: What was the person happy about all week? You know, you were joyful in your holidays. What was he joyous about?
M. Laitman: He's happy about discovering gradually the Creator's good attitude to him. That the more he rises in the light of faith, the return in reflected light then, accordingly, he sees the extent to which the Creator set up everything for him. And he rises above reason and he comes to Dvekut.
Student: That inversion from happiness each day to the great salvation, there's some kind of inversion that I'm incapable of grasping.
M. Laitman: It depends on what makes him happy because if we're talking about him being happy from achieving the opening of his eyes, that too is a great achievement. However, practically, his joy is from coming to the great salvation, that he came to understanding, recognizing, feeling that the Creator is the only one who can save him and He's willing to save him.
Student: On each day when we invited another Ushpizin, which is another force, this guest, so what did we reveal in each one of those days. Where, at the end, it gathers into this Hoshana Raba, this great salvation?
M. Laitman: Just in every day, in the conditions that become revealed, it's still seven days of the holiday, we discover a greater and greater, deeper tendency towards salvation.
M. Laitman: I'll try to ask it like this: It's as if at each step of the way, my intellect seeks success, some kind of success on the path.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It seems that precisely in the spiritual path at every step, the success here is to gather more deficiency, to add more deficiency. Is that correct to see it that way?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How does a person have the strength to add, let's say this week, to add more and more deficiency?
M. Laitman: It becomes revealed to him every time, every day, a greater and greater light – light of salvation – and then he is more and more drawn to it, to salvation, actually.
Student: Seems that each day the person needs to add from himself some greater shade, meaning some greater thatch, meaning more resistance to that light? Again, I'm trying to organize it.
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, to accept it in the right way.
Student: Could you say that each day, really this week in the group, it was very much felt that each day we added another force of connection between us. In the meals between us, and each day there was a topic, and yesterday also new students came. And I felt at least that we started with this dispersion and then we ended in this great connection together. Could you say that this gathering of these forces of connection, in the end, that that is what brings us to this great salvation?
M. Laitman: Yes, that we gather and we better discover our shade, better discover the goal, and we work on it, yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (34:26) I still didn't understand. On one hand, the shade hides from us how close we are to salvation, therefore and on the other hand, we need to accept upon ourselves this shade. I didn't understand.
M. Laitman: To take upon ourselves this shade and actually to build, as it says, “in His shade, I coveted and sat, and His fruit was sweet to my palate”. Meaning, that we ultimately love the shade. Because it's impossible to discover anything without concealment; concealment becomes a component.
Student: When we build a shade, do we reveal or conceal the salvation?
M. Laitman: We discover the conditions for salvation.
Student: That the salvation is in the shade.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And we want shade, not light.
M. Laitman: No, but without light there will also be no shade; however, the result of wanting to get closer to the light is to have the shade.
Student: The shade that we do, that we build the concealment on our behalf, we receive the, we accept the shade upon ourselves, is that faith?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: When the Creator adds shade to us and conceals Himself, what is that heaviness? What is that state?
M. Laitman: When the Creator brings us the shade, that is as an example of what we ourselves should achieve.
Student: What here is the light of faith?
M. Laitman: The light of faith.
Student: Where does the light of faith become revealed?
M. Laitman: Inside the person.
Student: Through the shade?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: I'm simply trying to organize these concepts between light and shade: There's light that becomes revealed and shade. How does the light of faith become revealed?
M. Laitman: The light of faith is revealed in a Kli that a person prepares, where he doesn't want to receive direct light. Rather, he wants to be, specifically in the shade.
Student: You said that we need to receive this example from the Creator on how to make a shade by ourselves, that He gives us an example to make a shade.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: How do we receive this example? What should we learn? What should we look at?
M. Laitman: We have to get to such a connection with the Creator that He shines to us and we don't want to receive this light, directly. Rather, we reject it and we wish to resemble the action of the light towards the Creator. Then, our relation to the Creator, the correct attitude to the Creator, is also called light. And that's how we begin to feel how the light becomes that which concludes our entire work, our whole work.
Student: What example does the Creator give us?
M. Laitman: The Creator gives us an example of how we can bestow to Him with the same, say, form that he bestows to us.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:00) We started in the first excerpt where he discussed King David, that he was a king, that David was a king because he had this care for the collective, the public. And he only had this war when he was asking for the whole of the collective. And we also spoke about Tzel, the shade, in the second excerpt, which is called, the vessel. And we learned from that that the shade and the act of King David comes from that in which he added shade to himself, and then through that he was able to request for the collective. Maybe I'm not explaining it properly but what I feel is that this whole Hoshana Rabbah, this great salvation, focuses in on the prayer of the many. It comes to this action that we need to make, that's the whole summary of this whole holiday.
M. Laitman: Yes, this is called that King David appears in each and every generation, yes.
Student: If we try to understand this Hoshana Rabbah, the great salvation and that we need to apply a shade to it. Is that we apply a shade on myself, on self-reception, and I want to be in a request outside of myself for the sake of the collective? Meaning to resemble that same act of King David because it's the guest of David to this day.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikvah Center): (41:57) Thanks to the last scrutiny we did, in that we increase our demand for salvation in this holiday so the Creator comes and helps us do that. So why does He do that and with what more precise discernment should we come? And what action on our behalf can we do after each action that He does?
M. Laitman: We have to learn from His action over us, what we have to do towards Him and that's it.
Student: How does the light complete our work?
M. Laitman: The light that completes our work is that it reveals and concludes the vessel, which discovers the conclusion of its work in His light.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:34) Maybe to summarize the questions from the friend. It's correct to say that all the shade is specifically where we want to reach equivalence of form and adhesion, and not fulfillment. That's the whole request for salvation; so, we won't be like just Klipot wanting fulfillment but asking for correction.
M. Laitman: That's for sure!
Student: If I also wanted to ask, we're talking about King David, King. Why is there such a term, the falling Sukkah of David?
M. Laitman: Malchut of David, or the Kingdom of David, needs to become revealed in a clearer, strong and pleasant way. It illuminates to the entire world and that is what we look forward to, that is all.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:05) Once we take upon ourselves shade for eternity, that means we're already in the final correction, in the process?
M. Laitman: Yes, we're in a process.
Student: But this is where this final correction begins, on this day of due save, according to the law of root and branch?
M. Laitman: If we would execute all the actions that are written for each day, so we would reach, seemingly, the end of our correction.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:56) From this whole deep scrutiny, it's the ability to cry out to the Creator with a whole heart?
M. Laitman: Seemingly.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (46:22) How does a great cry not blemish the honor of the King?
M. Laitman: Why does it need to harm?
Student: Because every day we'll try to find the right subjugation, the right annulment, looking for the direction from the Creator. Then, bit by bit we feel that there is a vessel created according to the desire of the Creator and that's the boundary we're working in. And a cry, or an outcry sounds like you go beyond what you should be doing. What is a great cry?
M. Laitman: That it will be to save me.
Student: But every day He saves you and gives you.
M. Laitman: But at the end of it all we come to the great salvation.
Student: What is the prayer of the great salvation that is according to the Creator's will? It seems like it breaks through all the barriers, all that we tried to do before. It's like it's beyond everything, such a cry.
M. Laitman: The great outcry at Hoshana Rabbah, the Great Salvation, brings a person to the profundity of the request. Where he feels that he is incapable of that, he is unprepared for it and from that he explodes in an even greater outcry and he reaches the great salvation – please, Creator, save me. That is what is possible to say.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (48:36) What is it about the force of King David that he leads Israel, why is he the king who leads?
M. Laitman: Because he's against Malchut, the general Malchut of Israel, the general kingdom or Malchut of Israel, that's what King David is a king of.
Student: But why is that the force that should lead? We also talked about Moses?
M. Laitman: No, all those: Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and many other people, all these other characters. They all did their part but David is considered the representative and the symbol of all of them.
Student: Seems like it says that King David says, I'm all prayer; meaning he's always in lack, he's always in as if he has nothing.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: What is this quality? The quality is the deficiency or what is the quality of King David?
M. Laitman: Only the prayer, only the prayer. He doesn't find himself but only in the Creator, that is all. That's how it was throughout his life, in everything he has. Yes, truly, he's a very, he's a character that awakens a lot of emotions.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (50:58) I wanted to ask about the prayer. It appears that there is such a vast system of spirituality. Yet all of the ability to activate it is through prayer, why does it work this way? That prayer is the mechanism to activate all of this?
M. Laitman: We have no other connection to the Upper One. What connection could there be, through what could we bestow to Him?
Student: Why do we engage in so many details? There is so much discernment. We're talking about connection, about reason, everything. But ultimately, you need to get to a prayer and that's basically the most complex thing to achieve. So why is it so, why is that the system? Is there anything you can do to succeed in prayer, to enter this mechanism of prayer?
M. Laitman: All in all, that is what we always learn – that is the root for our failure. That we do not know where exactly in what way should we turn to the Creator.
Student: That's exactly what I'm asking. How do we begin to know how to turn? How do you start using this mechanism of prayer?
M. Laitman: Only gradually, as we learn, as we do more and more requests to the Creator, more and more and more. Until we learn, through those actions, what we should do more of and more and more of, accordingly, in each and every step of the way. We learn something else in what to add until we reach that in which we absorb Him, receive Him.
Student: Can you define what is the role of prayer in the system, in reality, what is the role of it?
M. Laitman: Prayer is connection. All in all, prayer is connection. Therefore, without prayer, it is impossible to attain anything. And everything you go to attain, you need to express in prayer.
Student: If there is no prayer, what is man in that system of reality?
M. Laitman: So, then we have, then the person has opportunities to build the prayer. That is seemingly a complete request of Malchut to Ein Sof.
Student: I'll ask it like this: When you examine yourself and see that you didn't succeed in prayer today or prayers didn't emerge from you. What are you supposed to do with that?
M. Laitman: To be sorry about it and to pray that the Creator will position you like they place a child, a small child, how they organize him. And they give him, maybe, a book, and they prod him forward a little bit.
Student: How to make it so that in the next moment you will be able to pray? Or that's already the Creator will decide?
M. Laitman: Only through such actions and prayers where, as much as you are capable, you turn to the Creator; you scrutinize and ask for Him to help you.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (56:09) Last year we also had the Great Salvation.
M. Laitman: It seems so.
Student: The result we got in Simchat Torah holiday was one of the greatest disasters, tragedies this nation went through. How do we do such work in this Great Salvation so that tomorrow we won't experience a greater calamity?
M. Laitman: We learn that the connection between us as one man with one heart – the extent to which we, on our behalf, can carry out that connection – is what can hold us and can strengthen us, to position us correctly in the correct direction, that's all.
Student: But last year, too, we thought we were in the right direction, and we connected, and we tried.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What needs to be done otherwise this year? Or it doesn't depend on us at all. Maybe it doesn't depend on what we do at all, I don't know. But I always hear from you that it does make a difference. So, if it depends on that, I'm saying, okay, let's do it, let's do the work, because I'm looking at what may come tomorrow, or say what happened a year ago. It's not by chance, this whole unfolding, I'm not looking at it as random. And so, I'm trying to learn what to do now: What do we need to do today so that tomorrow a calamity won't happen? That's it, in such a simple, direct way.
M. Laitman: To move forward to the end of correction, that, for sure, is correct.
Student: We try to do this every day, what does it mean to advance to the final correction? It's like telling a child, grow. Okay, it grows, naturally, but?
M. Laitman: I have no other way of explaining. There were generations, generations upon generations, who asked and requested. And what do you want us to reveal? It didn’t come upon them to reach the full correction.
Student: I understand that, and I also say, I feel that all the generations before, and last year, was like a preparation. Preparation for tomorrow. And hence I try to understand, what else can we do, should we do?
M. Laitman: I understand that all the weakness in our request for connection is that we do not want that connection enough. That there is here many more stages that we will need to go through.
Student: What can we do today to say, move one step forward? So, let's say, we came to the lesson and now we try to connect, we try to hear from you what to do. In the afternoon we have a meal together, then another connection activity. So, what are we going to do to continue spinning this wheel, but for the better, so that we won't go through whatever, something really horrible tomorrow? Or maybe it needs to happen, I don't know.
M. Laitman: To continue, to continue working, to scrutinize in an increasingly precise way of how we can change our prayer so that it becomes more beneficial. And to progress; accordingly, it seems to me that we are really at the opening. But there were those who thought that way before me.
Student: Why is the will to receive so dumb, that only from repeated blows it can finally grasp what to do – why are we so dumb, I'll ask it like that. How could it be that we can't grasp what's the right next step to do after everything we've been through? And I'm talking about the last year, everything we went through, and some people went through that stage for 30 years.
M. Laitman: We are in a process which passes over our will to receive, and we cannot organize it according to however we like. But we need to disclose it in a way that we can do something with it, that's all. Where will my help come, meaning, what force really acts on the will to receive and makes of it what's needed? That is a problem, it’s a problem. We are getting closer to it, we are getting closer.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:07) The Creator gives the salvation out of mercy.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: How can we feel His mercy?
M. Laitman: If we had a vessel of mercy, so we would feel His mercy.
Student: We really have to feel a sorrow in the heart of every friend that he wants and he doesn't succeed, and that's what we ask for mercy for?
M. Laitman: That, too.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:05:59) Can we say that in Sukkot, a person is shown some principle of spiritual work? Of stop looking at what you understand – what enters your vessel and your will to receive – just start working above that?
M. Laitman: Well, that's true.
Student: It's basically an impossible principle because in one's nature one always wants to feel, to know. And here there is some exposure of a spiritual method that this whole matter of knowing and feeling ends, and you need to work in a different way of shade.
M. Laitman: Yes, shade includes all the elements of that state of Sukkot and they all discuss that in which a person needs to work above reason.
Student: Which is in principle impossible for the person, and that's why we ultimately come to a cry.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Now, where does the Ten enter this picture? It feels very personal – me opposite some system, opposite the world. What's the connection in the Ten?
M. Laitman: If a person does not connect with the friends and does not organize a Ten to be directed correctly at your state, and to the end of correction; so, then it does not work.
Student: What is a Ten that is aimed correctly at working with this spiritual principle of Sukkot, what is a Ten that works in the shade?
M. Laitman: A Ten that works in the shade is a Ten that reveals in the connections among itself. That reveals in the connection among its members, connections, goals, such connections and goals, where beforehand you could not even imagine, they could not even imagine that to themselves.
Student: It's not clear. If you can, what goals are we talking about?
M. Laitman: What does the Ten want to work for; What does it want to attain; How should it prepare itself? What should it do with the friends, with the Creator, with the end of correction? All of these things, the Ten, at every step of the way at every moment of spiritual work it needs to see how and through what does it change.
Student: What is this shade, what is a Ten that works in the shade? Yesterday we were in the meal., we connected and talked about the importance and greatness of the goal. We tried to go deeper and deeper into what our goal is. How do you then connect that to what I started the question with? This principle that we stop working on what we receive and we begin to work above reason. How does that happen in the Ten?
M. Laitman: It happens in that each, everyone wishes to reach the goal and everyone wants to rise above their ego, their personal individual ego of each one and the collective ego of everyone together; and here they have work.
Student: And that's what the Creator sends us, now, and even though you started earlier in the explanation. You said the action of the Creator's shade is that He hides how close we are to salvation and correction.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We have to do it in the Ten also to some extent?
M. Laitman: To conceal, no.
Student: How do we achieve the equivalence of form with the Creator on our part, on our hand, our part of the shade?
M. Laitman: On our part of the shade, we connect between us and from that connection, we want to come closer to Him. To the Creator. And here is the question of how we come closer, what do we do? What does it mean that each shall help his friend? On that we completely have not even started doing anything.
Student: If during Sukkot, or in general, there's this feeling like you once described, that the more a doctor becomes an expert, the more he discovers that he doesn't understand anything. And if you ask someone who just started studying, he feels like he knows everything. That's what it feels like, the years go by, we study and study but it just seems like we less and less understand what is connection, what is faith. We less feel, at least. Is this part of the process of Sukkot, that the Creator pushes us away from trying to understand?
M. Laitman: The Creator doesn't distance us but He brings us to a precision where as much as we study, understand and gain more knowledge. Through that you start seeing that there is more Daat here, that where one thing influences another and things influence one another. And what can you do, you do not know what to do. At the end of it all, that brings you to a true prayer, that you want only salvation.
Student: What always doesn't sit with that is that I don't understand anything and I say, okay, now I pray to the Creator, relieve me from trying to understand. I want to cling to you, I don't want to receive. But our whole study is reading from sources written by people who understood it all. And they basically keep writing to us about various discernments, explain to us the different terms. When we read the prayers of the Kabbalists, it's just pure light, so how do you reconcile this? As far as we understand, the Kabbalist is one who gave up trying to understand but we each time read from the Kabbalists and they write with so much wisdom and understanding. And how to not be envious of them, how to not say, I want to understand what Baal HaSulam wrote. Like Baal HaSulam, what we read yesterday, he talks about, quote, breaking down all the elements. And it's like Chinese for us, we don't understand it at all but I want to be like him. I want to understand.
M. Laitman: Keep wanting to be like him, keep wanting to be like him.
Student: At the same time, try to give up understanding?
M. Laitman: That's on the other side.
Student: Holding these opposites at the same time, I don't want to understand anything and I want to be like the Kabbalists who understood it all?
M. Laitman: Right.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:15:20) You said that we should always want to resemble him and try to scrutinize it. He says here at the end that what we think of as dry is a great light above. This dryness is that we always want to resemble Him? What is that state of dryness that he talks about in the end, here?
M. Laitman: That is when we have a lot of questions but there are no fillings, that's it.
Student: This is also what you said before is the conditions for the prayer?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: These are the conditions?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:16:15) You said we should refine the prayer. What is a more focused or accurate prayer? What is the scrutiny that makes the prayer more refined, more complete?
M. Laitman: That, in it you are raising your pleas to what you have discovered that you must receive.
Student: Now, it's not the same, a prayer that is like some sort of an eruption, rather than a prayer that needs to be more precise, is it not the same?
M. Laitman: That too.
Student: There has to be an order, a mechanism of sorts that needs to be built somehow? We need to really enter that scrutiny of the prayer?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: You said that we barely started working on one shall help his friend.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Could you give us some advice how to enter that better? How to really give that to each other, pass it on to each other? And just support and want the success of the friends in a powerful way? I don't know how to approach that.
M. Laitman: I don't understand your question.
Student: How can we work as a group in an intense way on one shall help his friend?
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: I don't know how to approach that.
M. Laitman: You have to connect between you, feel each one who's standing next to him. Come closer between you, scrutinize between you what your one purpose is, your one means, who you are towards that goal. How the Creator seems to you as Him turning to everyone. And in this way, more and more connect yourself to be as one man with one heart and advance in this way.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:19:18) The development of the shatters, it's gradual?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And each time we work with like one portion of this shadow, and we discover A certain force against it. And then there's the opening of an even greater shadow, is that how it is?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What does it mean that, how do we collect or gather all the, you said in the beginning of the lesson that we have to gather all that has happened so far in Sukkot and gather it into one cry, one prayer.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What are we gathering because there's also the forces that we receive throughout the Sukkot. There's the force, so that's gathering also, that's also accumulating.
M. Laitman: We gather everything together.
Student: We gather it together, and this great outcry and eventually this, save me, this, is this the outcry of all of us?
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: How do we reach this, how do we come to this?
M. Laitman: When everybody understands that the main thing is to be together in that one cry, save us. So, when we start seeing this as a purpose, that's what we start getting closer to.
Student: Each of us is in a different kind of degree of shadow, a different form of outcry.
M. Laitman: So I said, by the efforts, through the efforts we are coming closer to one another, to that one cry.
Student: We should aim the heart and the thought towards that common outcry?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Each from his place, each from his desire?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And that's the outcry of Hoshana Rabbah, save us greatly – this common place? Or do we have to come to such a great shadow on all of us that will compel us? That doesn't matter, it's the same thing.
M. Laitman: We need to be in one desire, towards one purpose and in one cry.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:22:16) Not too long ago I heard you saying that there are many depths in the depths of the heart. How to reach one depth, all of us, how to reach that place of the one, of the oneness?
M. Laitman: We need to see what states we're going through. In the beginning of the work, it seems very simple. Everyone, as much as he annuls himself, if he's big or if he's small, so it's not too bad. When we annul, there's like some kind of, like one layer. But when we start performing actions that are more complex, so it's not simple, anymore. We already understand that we can't really equalize between us so easily, we can’t connect between us in a way, in a correct way, then it's a problem already.
Student: That's exactly what I'm talking about. We're hearing here for an hour and a half today, and every day, and for a long period of time. That there's this great desire for friends, they really yearn to come to this place of connection, of this correct connection, to adapt ourselves to this. There is advancement, you can feel that we're advancing but the fact that we're, like, on the preface. You feel like we're hearing from you each time, like maybe the entrance feels different each time. But through this request, we're talking about it all the time, but something needs to happen there, something has to. That's the thing, how to reach that one place for everyone. It feels like there's all these, like, these waves where each of us is in a little differently.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Is that how it needs to be, does it need to remain that way? And to pray from that place? And we nevertheless have to reach that one place.
M. Laitman: And each and every one, each one's fundamental qualities are different. And probably when, in the correction, we don't have to be all equal but in what should we be worthy to be as one, and for the correction? By all of us yearning to one goal, each one in his own style, in his own intensity but the purpose, the goal has to be one, that's it. Then, it's not important for us what will happen but, only according to that, we will calculate as much as we want to fight with one enemy and attain success, that's it.
Student: Earlier you said, I shall look up to the mountains. Do we need to be in one place to raise our eyes to the mountains?
M. Laitman: No, no, now we can't, on the initial state, we don't demand to be as one; in the final state – there, yes.
Student: Still in that final state, there's still this looking our eyes up?
M. Laitman: Not in the final state, in the final state, where we reach the truth.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:27:43) This enemy, at least towards me, I feel like it's the thoughts about myself, that's the enemy. Even the Ten, I feel like it brings to a certain place, to some border, to that wall that you talked about. And suddenly, I'm reminded as I'm talking about the book, the Kabbalist from Simeon, who says that to go through that wall, no one thinks about himself, each thinks of the friend. How do we each go out of that inner cry because I also heard you once saying that you hear that we're crying, but each crying alone and not together. How do we cry out together or ask for some, I don't know, some chain? I want to go out of the thoughts about myself.
M. Laitman: Only the Creator knows how to do that – all the doing comes from above.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:29:17) Why does the Hoshana Raba, this great outcry, have to come with this scream or this outcry, and not with gratitude or praise?
M. Laitman: Again.
Student: What is this Hoshana Raba? Right now, it needs to come from this outcry and not in gratitude, right now? Because after all that we've been through, there should be thanks. We should be, we went through, we saw during the Sukkot, we even saw miracles revealed, whether it's in the Ten or on the outside. So, why don't we reach gratitude?
M. Laitman: We reach gratitude because in Hoshana Rabbah, the Day of the Great Cry we receive all the parts of the whole vessel and upon them we give gratitude.
Student: So, we need to be in gratitude, not in an outcry?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:30:40) Why to feel the mercy of the Creator we need to prepare a vessel of mercy? Doesn't there need to be a deficiency for mercy?
M. Laitman: Where will you feel that the Creator is bestowing mercy?
Student: What's the vessel of mercy?
M. Laitman: The will to receive that once, while receiving the filling in Him, he wants and according to that to bestow.
Student: Does it only act upon the mercy or is this way of rules also work on everything?
M. Laitman: On mercy.
Student: Can you say precisely what this is, in practice how do we do this?
M. Laitman: No, try this way, that way a few times, and afterwards, maybe you'll understand what you want to ask.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:31:58) I want to attain all that the Kabbalists have attained. I want to understand how to aim myself to ask to attain and not understand?
M. Laitman: It's a problem.
Student: What's so problematic with it?
M. Laitman: That a person wants to understand, meaning to grasp in his mind what's happening here. But to attain completely isn't in the mind. It's hard to say what it is.
Student: What do I need to do or ask or from whom to ask in order to attain and not understand?
M. Laitman: You need to turn to the Creator and ask from Him.
Student: One will help his friend in the connection between us, in mutual help to attain something from the Creator. You said that a few minutes ago. What do I need to attain?
M. Laitman: Whatever you want.
Student: I want to attain the Creator.
M. Laitman: Well, let's say, yes, so you want to attain the Creator, you're asking from the Creator, you turn to Him that that He will give it to you.
Student: The concept of one will help his friend?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, yes.
Student: What do I ask? Just simply ask for that?
M. Laitman: No, you don't ask for that. What do you want to ask for?
Student: I want to understand what is one will help his friend.
M. Laitman: Man help his friend is that one can help the other to attain what? That what? Say what is that thing that you want.
Student: Again, I want to attain the Creator.
M. Laitman: So that's what you should say, you're turning to your friends with your deficiency to attain the Creator. Yes, so?
Student: That's it?
M. Laitman: What else?
Student: Sounds very simple.
M. Laitman: Well, start from this?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:35:16) Upon what do I build my prayer?
M. Laitman: You build a prayer from your desire that wants to attain the Creator in your world, from your life, the Creator?
Student: What is that desire? In what field does it exist, I have all kinds of desires. Upon every desire that appears in me, I can start building the prayer? Or do I need to kind of filter it somehow?
M. Laitman: You want to attain the Creator and all kinds of discernments, actions of His, and that's what you ask of Him, to be revealed to you, that's it?
Question (PT 14): (01:36:50) Can the outcry of one person, like the outcry of the Kabbalists and all those who came before, can that impact the whole collective?
M. Laitman: We, all of us, each and every one, whoever changes his desire to which any direction possible. By that he is shaking up the general vessel and each one, according to his sensitivity, can feel it.
Question (Women Heb 1): (01:37:41) How can a person identify the action of the light upon him in order to learn how to work with it?
M. Laitman: Again, it depends on the vessel, on his own vessel, which is in connection with the other vessels in the Ten. And in that way, he advances, that's it?
Question (Women Australia): (01:38:17) Is there a way to reach Hoshana Rabbah, not through a Ten?
M. Laitman: No, you can't reach Hoshana Rabbah without a Ten.
Student: What happens with all of the Nation of Israel people praying in the synagogues?
M. Laitman: They correct themselves, kind of like that, with the general big collective.
Student: They can't reach that prayer without a Ten?
M. Laitman: I don't know, I'll tell you, it's not that I don't know but I cannot know what will happen at any next moment with those people that are outside of the Kabbalistic framework.
Question (PT 35): (01:39:21) What's the difference between the cry in Hoshana Rabbah to the cry of the exodus of Egypt?
M. Laitman: The outcry of Hoshana Rabbah and the outcry of the Exodus from Egypt, the difference in them is great. The outcry of Hoshana Rabbah is, “please, Creator, save me, please, Creator, may we succeed”; this comes to a very, to an outcry that is very, very real and true and demanding. And also, the second one, it's almost the same thing, it depends on which vessels a person enters into each and every outcry he has. Because we are still, we still don't understand what we're activating with each and every appeal and outcry. That's why it seems to us that they're either that they're not different or that they are very different.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:41:49) This last period we're talking about the breakthrough into spirituality. I wanted to ask if that outcry, that common outcry, that is the breakthrough into spirituality?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What is it exactly breaking through in a person?
M. Laitman: It changes for him with force the address towards his inner state, inner stature.
Student: This inner stature, the inner connection in the Ten is felt, it's focusing more and more. And in all of our work, in all our actions that we're committed to do, so what is it in the Ten being persistent in the internality throughout the day from the morning lesson until the next day's lesson, in our common work.
M. Laitman: A person prepares his thoughts, desires, yearnings that he has, and receives upon them each time some impression, and connects them in correct ways, new ones, new ways. And advances that way, that is all he has.
Student: We're talking, we hear one man with one heart. I'm one man, I have one heart, or we're speaking about gathering the deficiencies. But what is that state that the whole Kli is like one man with one heart?
M. Laitman: I have no idea but we need to long for it. By that, we connect, are incorporated in one another. By this, we build our connection, don't let ourselves enter into alien thoughts and desires; and it's, that's what will happen.
Student: I feel that in the work, only the work above reason saves the person. How does that happen, that only if I rise above my reason, it can save me?
M. Laitman: Because then you depict yourself as being already in a spiritual degree and that is what saves you.
Student: What happens if all of us, the whole Kli, rise above reason?
M. Laitman: That is a dream but the Creator can do it!
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:46:31) It's not an intellectual feeling, it's from my feeling. We were talking about the Exodus cry and the Hoshana Rabbah cry. So, it feels like one is escaping, and the other is entering towards. And the process in the middle, it's like the desert – the temporary housing. That you left your permanent place you lived in one and you moved into a temporary place. That you return to a different permanent house at the end. So, what is this process for, what should we ask or aspire for? Because we see this opportunity, but without the help, without help it won't happen. Even the prayer has to be correct and not personal, what are we entering?
M. Laitman: You're not entering yet. Let's say we're entering into one heart.
Student: Entering one heart, thank you.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:47:53) What's the difference when the created being agrees with the concealment the Creator is doing, or asking himself for this concealment to be?
M. Laitman: It's a great difference, as he agrees to the shadow that comes from above, he cancels, he nullifies himself before the Creator. And if he doesn't agree then the Creator needs to move him through several revolutions, several circles, until the created being gets confused, erases what he had previously, and agrees.
Student: Isn't it just an illusion that someone can agree with something before he himself has performed it?
M. Laitman: It depends on how he works in the group because it could be that friends influence him in such a way – out of envy and others – so it's hard to say what influences him to receive his new reason.
Student: We see in life that a person really can't understand something until he went through stages that he did it with his own desire, that thing. So, also when we say, yes, we agree with the Creator, we don't really agree. How can we agree if we didn't ask for it to happen? So, that's what I’m asking, how can there be an agreement or some wholeness until the Creator himself is asking for the action to happen?
M. Laitman: But the Creator gives the desire, as well, and if he gives a created being a desire and then he feels That this desire that he received as his own is being realized now, then moreover He acts from that from that desire.
Student: That's the central part to understand and agree that it all came from Him and also the desire. But until that final stage is that really agreeing, can we call it agreeing, no. So together we just need to want?
M. Laitman: For the Creator to clothe in us and execute it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:51:11) What is the ability to hold the prayer depend on?
M. Laitman: On the environment.
Student: But in the end, it's a person working and he has to deal with something. So how can the environment help with that effort and prayer?
M. Laitman: It gives an example.
Student: It's something internal to hold on to a prayer, to hold a deficiency that you have on one hand, you have a desire to fill it. On the other hand, you're holding yourself not to fill it, so how can the environment help you in this inner effort?
M. Laitman: Again?
Student: To be in prayer means to hold that state that you have a very big deficiency, that not to fill it. You pray, you turn to Him, it's a very big effort, so in that effort how does the environment help? A person is in a very great inner effort, how is the environment's help expressed?
M. Laitman: So, help comes through external influence upon a person from the beside of the environment, or maybe I don't understand that?
Student: A person is in an effort, a continuing effort like we were talking about in Sukkot. So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that the environment is who gives you the ability to hold that state and not to break in the prayer and to keep being in it?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: That's a result of the environment, so in the environment is that external help that I'm sitting here. There's also something internal but something external, too, that it gives you forces to hold that state. So, there's also an additional force that every friend that overcomes in our vessel, now when we're learning a lot of students. Every little overcoming adds forces to the general vessel and that general vessel gives back forces to all the individuals to all the friends, that's how the system works? So, every friend who studies, even with a small overcoming, he's giving force for everybody that through everybody comes back to him?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Women PT 23): (01:54:41) We used to say that the prayer has to come out of the heart and not to read it from a book. And today, you said that we can, we feel that the prayer from the prayer book awakens the heart very strong, so can you help us decide whether to open the prayer book a few times a day? Or better if the prayer comes out of the heart?
M. Laitman: I didn't understand.
Student: The question is should we open the prayer book, artificially, a few times a day, whatever we decide in advance. Can it awaken your heart to pray or is it better that it just comes out of your heart from the inner work between us?
M. Laitman: When I open the prayer book, the Siddur, several times a day and I start to read some excerpt there, I read some part of it. So, what are you asking?
Student: I'm asking if it's a good idea to awaken the heart in such a way or should it not be something technical?
M. Laitman: That's not technical, there are no technical things in the prayer book. All the verses there, all the things there are all true, deep emotion and exalted emotion.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:56:52) I heard that you said today that we don't want to connect enough, that that's a problem, that we can't ask in the right way.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: When you said that, it was clear to me that I really don't want to connect enough. How can I take this revelation and use it to help the Ten?
M. Laitman: I discover now that I don't want to be connected to the Ten. I'm willing to incorporate in them and to let them have a little help from me. I'm also, I'll also want to receive from them some form of help but to be incorporated as one man in one heart is, it doesn't seem realistic to me. And then, the Creator makes the calculation if someone is there or not.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:58:23) You said earlier that we need to live in the light of faith.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What does it mean to live in the light of faith?
M. Laitman: To live in the light of faith is where I, even when I'm disconnected from the Creator and I don't have any attitude towards Him, no way to relate to Him and I don't even feel like I'm receiving anything from Him.
Reader: We'll go to the next part and continue reading between us. Song please.
Song: (02:00:29)