Morning Lesson May 24, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
The Approach to Studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah - Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #27
1. Rav’s Introduction: Every day before we listen to what are these excerpts as a preparation for the lesson and it is written and “they will be as new in your eyes” because each day we should feel ourselves that we are entering a new place, a new degree, a new state. It is precisely by forgetting about yesterday and it seems like we didn't do anything yesterday and today we also are beginning from a new and empty place which is not what we are used to in our lives. So by this we are constantly building new degrees, new states in our advancement towards life's purpose so each day there is a commitment towards the friends, towards the Creator, towards ourselves.
Each day there is a new approach, a direction that is seemingly new, as it is written “they will be as new in your eyes” and we need to only understand that that is the way, this is the path of truth. Everyone else if they feel that they are accumulating all kinds of things along the way and they are actually not being renewed every time from zero, this is not the way to grow in spirituality. In spirituality every moment is a new moment that is disconnected from the past moment and is connected only to the future and therefore we should not give up because we come up empty. Wake up without any thoughts and have to search what do I exist for, why do I exist, what am I doing here anyway, because all of those things actually help us and are sent for each one of us so that we will position ourselves more accurately, more correctly towards the purpose of creation, the purpose of life.
Therefore it is written every day it should be as new in your eyes, this should give us joy, we feel where am I going, what is my life, who am I. A person feels like he is losing himself in life, in the force, he is just lost in the woods. This is correct, this is actually the correct approach that we are given from above so that we will over and over again establish ourselves correctly and this is how we continue. Therefore we need to understand this direction from above providence, the guidance that empties us from yesterday and positions us before today's emptiness so that we will not drag from yesterday what we have and we really do we feel like what did we do, we do nothing, what did we learn, nothing is left. What do we have in our minds and our hearts, everything is empty and then we are really starting a new day, in spirituality there is no other way to advance and the same goes for today.
Reading item 27 (05:00) “Hence, the student pledges prior to the study....” twice
2. R. (08:33) First of all we need to understand that there is no other council, no choice that he tells us here, there's the path, this is the way. We have to direct ourselves, strengthen yourself in providence and faith that the Creator takes care of us, strengthen us on the condition that we meet several conditions between us and then it is certain that we will be rewarded if we do what he says. During the study when we engage in connection between us then by this we want to be rewarded by the light that reforms, meaning a special force that then will come to us, that will connect us and there will reveal in us the power of bestowal, power of connection, the opposite of what we are now, it will correct us. If we are directed towards this then his heart can be confident that from not for our own sake, even where we are now, entirely with our thoughts and intentions in order to receive, it will be inverted and it will become in order to bestow.
How does it happen, through the light I don't know how it will happen but it will happen. I need to believe it and be certain that it will happen and even if a person knows, as he writes, that he still has not achieved it he needs to be certain as much as possible we need to strengthen one another. That if we direct ourselves in this way, in the study, in the group, in the connection between us, it will happen and it will not only happen in us but in general in all of humanity but in a different way because we will be connecting them to us. All of us will have to achieve correction and return to the corrected system of Adam HaRIshon.
3. S. (11:11) It says to aim his heart and I heard it is as though the Creator directs the heart of the students. We learned in the past that intention comes from the Creator so in the ten I'm not sure how we can refine this intention?
R. You yourself should do what you need to do and then you will see what is left, the Creator will finish for me, that is correct but I have to begin.
4. S. (11:51) What is the meaning that he will direct his effort to be for the sake of the Torah what does it mean?
R. The whole Torah is in order to correct us, I created evil inclination and I created the Torah as a spice because the light in it reforms, therefore we should while engaging in Torah, It's called engaging in the connection between us, it is also when we are active among us in all kinds of forms of connection and also when we study and everything the people that who already attained write for us, those who attain the force of the bestowal. Meaning that the force of the Creator that was already present in them. So when we engage in this we need to aim that it will influence us as well, otherwise if we don’t aim for this, it's still influences us but very very faintly, very weak, small, to a small extent we need to yearn for what is called the reforming light all the excerpts we read, all the activities we do in the connection they will all influence and connect us and bring us into the right connections for the Creator to be revealed in us.
5. S. (13:35) It says that the righteous shall live by his faith, what kind of faith are we talking about here?
R. Faith is the power of bestowal, the light of Hassadim, the light of mercy for us to come closer to the bestowal between us, bestowal to the Creator, that is the intention.
6. S. (14:10) What is the meaning of the strengthening in the ten with regards to reward and punishment?
R. To be certain and to strengthen all the friends for all our work, for all our labor, there will be a reward and the reward will be the revelation of the Creator between us and by this we will reveal everything, besides this we lack nothing. So let's try in all of our actions to come closer to reveal the Creator between us and this is to the extent that we are building a system that ties us more and more together internally within us, not external and this way we will come to a state where we will prepare for him a vessel to be in us.
Reading item 28 (15:28) “If in the beginning of his study when a person comes to....”
7. S. (16:54) What does it mean that we learn to discern the clothing of the Creator, attain that?
R. We are building the vessel that can reveal the Creator fills the whole reality and besides the Creator, besides the force of bestowal there's nothing in reality. We exist artificially as the force of reception where to the extent that we can prepare ourselves in the form of reception, to the force of bestowal, to resemble decreed to that extent we can reveal him. This is why all of work is to what extent we can make ourselves similar to the Creator, which is called the equivalence of form.
S. In the study when we are learning the right now, what we are learning, what does it mean that we are studying different forms of clothing of the Creator?
R. If we try to reach the form of bestowal between us, actually between all the created beings, by this we make room for the Creator to be revealed in us according to the law of equivalence of form, we want to reach the same form as his, the form of bestowal between us and in this form of the bestowal the Creator, according to the law of equivalence of form can clothe and be revealed, and this is all of our work.
8. S. (19:01) Complete faith, what is it and how do we feel it?
R. Faith is the quality of equivalence, equivalence of a person with the Creator is called his measure of faith. Faith is the force of bestowal so the extent a person acquires this power of bestowal, rises above his personal ego, by this he equalizes himself with the Creator, by this he advances, brings himself closer to the Creator. By this he becomes the owner of faith he has and to that extent he feels that the Creator fills all of reality, he emerges from concealment to revelation this is called the power of faith, the power of bestowal, similarity with the upper Force.
9. S. (20:24) We learned that the intention is the most important thing. Do you have practical advice for us to use in our tens meeting, how to train this intention? For example, should we use five minutes before the meeting to think what we are doing? Because I think this is the most difficult thing in our practical Kabbalah work, how can we use and how we can train this intention? Do you have any advice or that Rabash gave you to use in our daily meetings?
R. You need to search in all the excerpts and find the answers and every time they might be different answers, more advanced actually, answers for what you were asking. I cannot answer all the questions they are all found, I am certain that they are found in the writings of the Kabbalists but also not in the writings of the Kabbalah has but how much you through the writings connect with the upper force and through that comes to you some illumination and it gives you the answer. It is not like it is found in the book, the book only awakens you to direct yourself the upper light and from if you get the answer, this is how it works.
10. S. (22:39) I have a question about the complete faith in our work, well in the article says in the beginning of the study he comes to study and he has no desire to achieve complete faith, there seems to be no desire to achieve any form of faith, because when you start to study you do not have a direction, you do not have intention. Complete faith is the Ein Sof and various degrees, are the degrees of faith?
R. So the question is above faith. Faith is the power of bestowal and to that extent a person grows closer to the Creator and to the extent that he grows closer to the Creator, he begins to feel the Creator. This is called already the power of Hochma so it turns out that you have two degrees here, two revelations you have the revealing of the light of Bina, the light of Hassadim, by which you equalize yourself with the Creator in bestowal and afterwards in bestowal you already attain you his bestowal towards you.
This is already the light of Hochma there are two things here, in the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is the light of Hochma and there's the right of Hassadim, first we attain the light of Hassadim, to bestow in order to bestow, this is called emerging from yourself to words others to bestow in order to bestow. In this too there are degrees and all those degrees are above our ego, root 1 2 3 4, when we rise above our ego and do not want to work with it in the way that we receive in it and then we already work according to what we attain equivalence with the Creator.
Then we begin to receive it from him in order to bestow, this is already work with the light of Hochma, of wisdom, it will gradually become revealed, gradually ,you may not still feel it quite but this is how we will attain. Our first concern is how we come to bestowal because by this we rise above our reception, our will to receive and at least we can be incorporated in the Creator as a desire to bestow and by this we are like an embryo in the mother's womb. We are not interfering but exist in it, but we ourselves have nothing yet other than neutralize ourselves before the Upper one and this is really the first phase of our correction. There are many things in this.
S. So when it talks about complete faith, because it talks about complete faith in the article….
R. Yes, complete faith is already that I come to such a state in the light of Hassadim there appears Hochma and then it is the final correction.
S. Is it similar to when when the son finally looks up to his father and understands that his father is is providing everything and then finally understands that he wants to be like his father in other words we finally grow into this place that we grow in to be to be like the Creator and bestow like him.
R. Yes yes yes, this is along the way.
11. S. (28:06) Everyday is a new beginning in the work we have to prepare ourselves before the study of the Torah. What should we do at the end of our study of today, is there a way to conclude today?
R. Afterwards we go back and go over everything that we had any meetings between us and in those meetings that everyone has time, goes over the material and this is how we prepare ourselves to the next day as much as possible to connect between us, with the group, with the material, with the learning material and in the end with the giver of the material, the Creator and by this we come to the conclusion of the day, the end of the day.
12. S. (29:19) In item 27 he starts that the student pledges prior to the study, what is this pledge that before I connect to the friends I do all the efforts, sounds very lofty and hard to relate to myself, to pledge like you said in the beginning when I went wake up in the morning I do not know what I am, I do not know what I want for myself, so what is this pledge?
R. You pledge, you commit that this is why you come to study, you want to study in order to get faith otherwise why are you coming, what do you want to receive from the start, you want to receive from the learning the power of faith which is the first degree of your equivalence with the Creator.
S. So can I say that the pledges of force of the bestowal of some sorts because I'm committing myself towards the friends?
R. The power of faith is the power of bestowal, yes.
Reading item 29 (30:35) “the first Hassidim with spend 1 hour....”
13. R. (31:14) This is how we need to prepare ourselves, meaning with the Creator.
Reading item 29 continues: (31:24)