Daily Lesson (Morning) July 15, 2024.
Part 2: Rabash Letter No. 78
Reader: (00:00) Hello, we are reading in The Writings of Rabash, Letter 78. You can find the study material in kabbalahgroup.info and you can also send your questions, there. Letter 78.
Reading Letter No. 78 : (00:24)
Rav Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag, Son of Baal HaSulam, 4 Mintz St., Bnei Brak.
With God’s help,
Thus far we did not engage in building buildings and matters that concern wide publicity. This is not our way. Rather, our sole intention is to spread the teaching of fear of heaven and serving the Creator among our willing friends, and especially the wisdom of Kabbalah and the wisdom of the hidden to those who walk humbly and are worthy of it, as I had received it from Baal HaSulam.
In this generation, when the wisdom of the poor is despised, and each city is built firm, while the city of God is lowered to the bottom, this is the time of the footsteps of the Messiah, as it is known to those who know the hidden wisdom.
Therefore, I have agreed this time to the request of our friends who wish to expand our ranks and build a synagogue for Torah and prayer to be named after the great man, Baal HaSulam, a place from which his fountain shall flow outwards, and the wisdom shall sing in the street, and all who wish to take the Lord may come and take with great sanctification and proper preparation.
With this I appeal to all our brothers from the house of Israel that the spirit of the Lord is beating within them, and who regret the exile of the Shechina [Divinity], to assist the builders who are engaging in this great matter. By this we will be rewarded with complete redemption, as it is said in the holy Zohar, “By this the children of Israel will come out of exile.”
Anticipating the general salvation and the raising of the value of Torah,
Your friend in heart and soul
M. Laitman: All in all, this is the short letter that Rabash wrote to those who were ready to connect together into a group in order to support a new matter; of that new synagogue, on what street was it on? It was 78, 81. 71, 81. Okay, questions?
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:46) I think it's also like a vision, Rabash's vision. There will be such a house that will disseminate the vision of Baal HaSulam, and it seems as if we're establishing such a house. And maybe our dissemination right now is only to those who are interested in hearing. The question is it cannot be a society, an exemplary society. To set an example, how do we then bring this vision to those interested in the purest form of Kabbalah, fear of Heaven? This form, the way we study, and not some indirect way.
M. Laitman: Look, I don't know, we can work but from within what we really are, as much as we understand our state and the purpose of the study, and how it should be. That's why, obviously, it's still not whole but we're advancing, and we'll see. Maybe we'll really need to combine a lot of things into this and change a lot of actions, tendencies. We'll see.
Student: For example, now that we finished the writings of the last generation,
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We're also about to finish all the letters Rabash wrote. How do you feel about creating a group of Ten friends, here? Let's say, the friend who investigated The Writings Of The last Generation, and a few other friends who have a strong social view of the society. And generate the writings of the last generation with you, that will be more suitable for our time.
M. Laitman: I don't feel such pressure to do that inside me, that's not letting me rest. I wrote, in the past I wrote books and afterwards that period kind of went away. And today I don't have that, I don't have an inner pressure for that.
Student: Another thing, how do you feel about going back to reading texts with a remedy in them, like the Zohar, as Rabash says?
M. Laitman: We need to renew the study of the Ten Sefirot and the Zohar.
Student: Maybe 15 minutes, at least.
M. Laitman: No, not 15 minutes. The nature of those books, you have to get into them a bit more than 15 minutes. But we'll think, we'll think how to combine it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:17) He writes at the end of the letter, it says, “and in this generation when the wisdom of the poor is despised, and each city is built firm while the city of God is lowered to the bottom, this is the time of the footsteps of the Messiah, as it is known to those who know the hidden wisdom. Therefore, I have agreed this time to the request of our friends who wish to expand our ranks and build a synagogue”. What is the sign for a Kabbalist, that the generation has the face of the dog, and the Kabbalist feels that the city of God is lowered to the bottom. And this is a sign for a Kabbalist to do something new, even externally.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: And now I hear you say that there's no inner pressure to do something specific. But it appears as if from the outside there is pressure. So how should we feel the Kabbalist, the Rav, where should that pressure be aimed at?
M. Laitman: Every Kabbalist, and you don't really see them, especially at our times, it's because he doesn't have a justification to come and cry out and do all kinds of big changes and noise, that's all it is. In our times, I don't think it's a time for like a big blow of dissemination but we're preparing for it. It's a preparation for a blow of dissemination for things that we will need to speak to everyone out in the open.
Student: I also heard that you said earlier I wrote it, we'll come to a more serious state where we'll be able to birth a new form in humanity. So, as I understand now, we are focusing on an inner concentration between us.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: To bring a new form to humanity, which will later be revealed in practice externally or something.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Can we set a new form in humanity, if each of us does work in the Ten. It's to try to give birth to a new view towards each friend?
M. Laitman: Of course, that later on it's towards each friend.
Student: To see the friend as great as they write, and so on.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:45) At the beginning of the letter he writes, “as far as we did not engage in building buildings and matters that concern white publicity”. How can it be, Baal HaSulam has to publicize the wisdom among the general public, and now is the time to publicize it throughout the world. Why didn't they engage in it, why does Rabash writes that it wasn't our way?
M. Laitman: There are different periods, there's a period for the good and supposedly also a period for the bad. And that's why once they're in this direction and that direction it's changeable, that's what I can say. Back then there wasn't a flourishing in the number of people, those who are interested in the wisdom, it was a very dormant time. In such a time it's very hard to awaken the people and to start another wave of dissemination.
Student: And during the time of Baal HaSulam, it felt differently? That there are many people who want to wish, who yearn for the wisdom.
M. Laitman: In Baal HaSulam's time it was a bit different.
Student: Something is happening, I'm detecting, here, that between Baal HaSulam and Rabash. Baal HaSulam was very outgoing, he tried to save things and act and do. Rabash, somehow, withdrew in words and he writes it here, clearly. But, on the other hand, he opens it up by saying that it's time for something new. And that's why he approves the building of a new synagogue and so on. So, at this time, Rabash feels again that there's a new time for opening it up?
M. Laitman: Yes, but for Rabash it was a lot more difficult, he felt himself as very small compared to his father, compared to his father. And that's why it took him a lot of time and inner efforts to start speaking, even amongst the students. And for himself, he didn't publish any book, he didn't print, or he didn't publish anything of Baal HaSulam or his own writings, nothing. That's why, that's what I saw.
Student: I have one more question about the last paragraph.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: He writes, “but as I appeal to all our brothers from the house of Israel that the spirit of the Lord is beating within them and who regret the exile of the Shechina, who assist the builders who are engaging in this great matter. By this we will be rewarded with complete redemption. As it is written in the Holy Zohar”.
M. Laitman: Yes,
Student: All our brothers from the house of Israel, who are they?
M. Laitman: The whole nation.
Student: And we will, by this we will be rewarded with complete redemption?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We, who are we who will be rewarded?
M. Laitman: All of us, the whole nation because if we connect together around the book of Zohar, so there's a big audience for it and a big force that works in it. That, for sure, pushes him, them, to the final correction, to be as one man with one heart.
Student: I'm trying to understand on what depends the attainment of redemption because it seems, he says, that by allowing our brothers and the smaller group to engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah, by that the complete redemption will come. Do we need to focus on building only people who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah and from that the light will come to everyone? Or do we need to engage the masses?
M. Laitman: I hear something a bit differently: That only by the whole nation understanding that they must be in connection around the book of Zohar, the complete redemption will come, and not otherwise.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:46) Are the people open to hearing what we're studying, here?
M. Laitman: No, also, for them to be open for it, we have to prepare them.
Student: Until then, the nation will have to suffer more troubles?
M. Laitman: I don't know, better not through trouble. But the nation needs to feel that it's lacking closeness to the Creator, the stages of correction, yes.
Student: So, how much of it depends on us, for them to approach us, to come closer?
M. Laitman: It depends.
Student: Depends on us, right?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What do we have to do to bring this nation closer, so it would feel this is His redemption?
M. Laitman: First of all, we ourselves have to be connected in such a way that it'll be suitable for the final correction, for the end of correction; well, even before it. And then we'll be able to disseminate it in the nation in demand of them.
Student: I want to share with you: We continue the process every Sunday for the meetings, going through our spiritual process of society. And the work was more around the topic of the Ten. I'm asking you, how much this work of the entire society, on working on our unity, setting the example externally. How much of that depends on our inner work in the Ten?
M. Laitman: Everything starts from within the Ten.
Student: Yes, but the feeling is that today, more than ever, the Ten, the more we strengthen the connection between us and the Ten, it will strengthen the entire society.
M. Laitman: Correct.
Student: I'm asking, because yesterday we spoke, we had workshops, we consulted with each other. How do we continue to strengthen one another, I want to ask you, what do we need to do? How do we take the morning lesson where we scrutinize things like now, and how do we take that into our gatherings throughout the day and continue to strengthen it? We don't let go of it. We only push forward.
M. Laitman: It depends on the importance, it's not only the amount of knowledge but the importance. The connection between us, that we will discover between us that central point that connects us to the Creator.
Student: I'm asking every day, for the friends to have such a deficiency that we would feel truly, tomorrow is the last day, that it will be to our detriment. That we will feel it inside, that everything we're doing here; that as Rabash is saying here, that this is our redemption. How do we make one another feel in our internality, to stimulate each and every friend here? That this is our salvation, not from one day to the next, but I'm saying, even for the next Congress in two months from now. We'll come alert and ready, and we'll tell ourselves that's it, that's it, we want it, at any cost.
M. Laitman: Prepare everyone for connection, that's what we must, for connection.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (21:44) Following the friend's questions, I want to update that every Sunday, like yesterday, we come together, the whole world Kli, with the goal of growing stronger as a group in preparation for the Congress. We're going to have two months from now, it's something a friend is leading us with, so we will grow stronger as a group before we go out to the collective. So, because we have nothing to go out with, unless we're connected, so the Congress is under the banner of growing stronger for the public, for the collective. So, we're going to start reading the letters of Baal HaSulam, in the first part of the lesson, that will strengthen us as a group. And I want to ask: In your answers to the friends, you said, I don't think our time is the time for dissemination blow, but preparation for dissemination blow, things we'll have to discuss with people openly. Can you say what is our time about? What is the emphasis for us as a society, at this time?
M. Laitman: We constantly need to ask ourselves, as much as we are ready to stand before the nation, not against the nation, in front of the nation. And to be worthy to explain to them, and to draw them into connection in a way, that we'll feel in the center of the connection between us, the place for the Creator.
Student: What makes us worthy of facing the people, the nation?
M. Laitman: That we know, better, what to do, towards which form of connection we have to go to and how to get to it.
Student: As of right now, we're not ready to go out to talk to the nation?
M. Laitman: Still, we need more preparation, yes; even those actions we need to do, we need to speak about them. We need to understand their internality, in which way we need to advertise it to the external people. It's not simple, it's the most difficult thing, and so on.
Student: Dissemination, itself, doesn't that build us? There are people who are pushing to go out, even if we're not in it.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Will that not be what builds us, what develops the correct vessel in us?
M. Laitman: No, dissemination is the most difficult thing. It's to join to us more. More and more groups and whole organizations, I don't know. I don't think that it's so simple to just go out, we need to have something to draw them with. Something to feed them, a way to glue them together, to connect them to us. That along with them we'll be able to connect to the Creator.
Student: Today, we are disseminating, explaining widely, inviting people to study, those who have the impulse to go out. Some friends have that impulse to go out because they see everything is crumbling around us because of the crisis. What do you recommend for anyone who has that impulse to go out now?
M. Laitman: Sometimes, you let people like that go out, and they go out and get burned. Suddenly, they discover that there's nobody that wants to listen to them, there, nobody wants to see them, and so on. And then they stop, and then it's very difficult to awaken them the second time; that's what I can say.
Student: Yes, clear. If today is not the time, not yet the time. Even though we see everything, the crisis all around us, and it's still not our time to come out, what else needs to happen?
M. Laitman: What could bring a deficiency in the nation? Not for a certain group but in a whole nation? What can bring a deficiency? You don't know.
Student: Blows.
M. Laitman: Well, blows, that's not from wisdom. How can we with our advertising awaken them till they feel blows, like you're saying. And right away from the blows, they'll feel that there is a solution?
Student: What power are we lacking? I'm trying to understand this, what is this power that will magnetize the masses to come and join us? And then the wider circle, even, of ours, what is it? What do we need to come to, to adapt to people, to have an equivalence between us, to attract them?
M. Laitman: That in that, all our good future depends on, from here and the next moment. The next step that we can reach it.
Student: Can we say that until the group here won't reach a minimal spiritual attainment, it will not attract the masses to us, inside?
M. Laitman: Yes and no, yes and no. We have to start with that.
Student: When we speak of the people, the nation, to go out to them, even when the deficiency is felt in them. What are we talking about here? Of people who will join us in the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So, what?
M. Laitman: They will be connected to an idea, to a deficiency to reveal the Creator. To a deficiency to discover the purpose of creation, and all these things, they need to still know what generation they live in. And what perception of reality they're in, all of this is something they need to know, hence don't reveal it to everyone.
Student: What does it mean, connected to an idea, to the efficiency for revealing the Creator, the purpose of creation? What does that mean?
M. Laitman: Just the way you hear it.
Student: No, on the other hand you say but not to the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah.
M. Laitman: Well, study, but in a way that it will be ready to draw the masses and connect between them and raise them towards the Creator, yes.
Student: I'm trying to understand, they lack something, they have problems in security, problems in marriage, in kids, education, that's what's happening to them in earnest.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: On the other hand, they're not interested in studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. What's happening here is not interesting to them.
M. Laitman: They don't see it as a remedy.
Student: I'm trying to understand that middle line: What is that circle in the middle here? Who doesn't study the wisdom of Kabbalah, also not interested in it; on the other hand, wants to be connected to the idea. What are you providing it?
M. Laitman: That's the cause, that they don't understand that that's where their salvation is, that's it. Each one of you remember, as much as you were drawn to the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the moment in the beginning of the path. Everybody depicted that that's what's going to open his eyes in all of reality, so where is that? We are despaired; it became difficult, it's far, it's close, and so on. We need to awaken that stimulation in everyone. Not of ourselves, but in the people on the outside, meaning in the whole nation of Israel.
Student: And where are you taking them once you awaken them?
M. Laitman: To revealing a deficiency that will draw them inward into the connection between them.
Student: I understand this path from the moment the point of the heart awakens to the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, that's a clear path.
M. Laitman: That doesn't bring me anything, we see a person can study and can know the whole wisdom by heart. And it doesn't draw him, it doesn't draw him to the purpose of creation, to the purpose of life, to anything.
Student: So, what will draw him in on this new thing?
M. Laitman: To know the connection between what he's studying and what he needs to attain in his life.
Student: Can you come to be connected to the idea, the purpose of creation, not through the wisdom of Kabbalah, not through the writings. Not in the familiar way of today, the conditions the Kabbalists have left for us.
M. Laitman: That's possible.
Student: How?
M. Laitman: Not to immerse oneself in the study, itself; it's not the wise one who knows all of TES, but that understands the implementation of TES. It's what directs them to the right place and the right direction in the spiritual world.
Student: I'm not talking about people who study TES or who know it. I'm talking about people who will never hear about TES
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: Relative to them, how can they realize it, how can they reveal the Creator without studying the sources? What are their means?
M. Laitman: Their means are still to know about themselves, about their soul. About the connection between them, about the Creator, what they discover in the connection. And to what form they have to bring themselves in order to reach the correction.
Student: It is the wisdom of Kabbalah but in simple words.
M. Laitman: You could say that.
Student: And can you do it without the study but, rather, through actions to reveal the Creator?
M. Laitman: Of course, yes.
Student: How?
M. Laitman: Actions and connection, and then it's revealed to them.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (36:41) It's completely clear that the friend is asking, we're doing this is our day-to-day, and we shouldn't stop doing it. But it seems to me that there's something that we may not be able to say or to ask, but it's not the wise who learns. But there is a certain connection to the Creator that something, the Creator is giving you a qualitative level. I don't know if I can ask, or say it, but if the Lord won't build a house, his builders worked in vain. That's something qualitative that we have to relate to because it's not the ego, it's not within my own strength to do it. There's something here, with all due respect, it's not something we do.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: So maybe to elaborate on that a little bit, to understand the connection there because, you as I understand you are leading us, you see the connections, we need to be in constant action doing until it's given. Maybe we need to say something about that, elaborate on the connection. What is within our power to do, what is not within our power to do?
M. Laitman: That's something that we should scrutinize more.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (38:05) Following these questions, I think there's a considered number of people who watch our content and they speak about connection. Being the salvation, they identify with this idea; I'm not going to take it into an active place, I'm not going to take a course, I'm certainly not learning the wisdom of Kabbalah because I speak to them. W what would we want to do for those people? There isn't a deficiency except for just identifying with what we're talking about here. What else needs to happen there, if anything else should happen
M. Laitman: A deficiency, a deficiency needs to appear in them.
Student: What's the work on our behalf for that? They see a clip of ours, they're excited, they show that they're identifying with that; so, what beyond that?
M. Laitman: Beyond that, we want them to come, to be interested a bit more in the method of Kabbalah. How much it's working to correct a person so he can become worthy of revealing the upper force?
Student: We see that there's a broad circle that's connected but not taking the next step towards what you just said.
M. Laitman: It's a sign we're not taking these two steps to reveal to them a deficiency, and how do you get from the deficiency to the realization?
Student: So, we can say that it's a failure in my inner work, of our inner work, that we're not awakening such a deficiency on the outside? Because we did the action, we posted whatever needed to be posted for the desire to wake up. The fact that it didn't wake up and become a great yearning, so it's something in me?
M. Laitman: Yes, we must see what else we can add.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (40:40) In general, we can maybe emphasize two approaches in dissemination. One, that we recognize the deficiency, let's say, for peace, for security, and we say, okay, we have a solution for that. Which is connection, which is the wisdom of Kabbalah, and let's say we convince them; and they try it, and if we succeed, there's no need for the wisdom of Kabbalah. If they don't succeed, there's also no need for Kabbalah. And the second way to disseminate is, let's say, you have a deficiency for security. But the truth is that this deficiency is sitting on a much greater deficiency of revealing the Creator. And then we supposedly emphasize the true deficiency, which is revelation of the Creator. What's the right way, what's the better way?
M. Laitman: To show them that what they think they're lacking isn't true, but the true deficiency is to reveal the Creator.
Student: Maybe that's the point we have to knock on, and it'll be more successful. It's a little bit more difficult, but?
M. Laitman: Possibly, it's possible, you need to sit together and think.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (42:33) In the past, we went out in the streets. What you remember was called the “cottage cheese demonstrations”. That is nothing compared to what we went through, as a nation now, what we're going through now. I think the necessity to go out into the public, meaning we don't have to wait for another thing, because reality can change any moment. We saw how history could have changed in a few millimeters. And I think that as a society, we can go out into the street as a mass. We went out, we stood on bridges, for a much less cause we went out. If now, we bring this deficiency to the people that needs connection and needs leadership to show an example. The pressure has to come from the public, it can come from the politicians that want private success. So, I think we have an opportunity to go out into the street and give the necessity. And we have the way to say it, I think; if we do something like that, there are hundreds of people displaced from their homes, that are in hotels. We did it in the past, and people want to hear it, they want hope. And we have an opportunity, we have a lot of lectures that can go to hotels to the people that are displaced and give them that hope to show them.
M. Laitman: Regarding ideas, what to do in dissemination, that's not for now.
Student: You don't think this is our time?
M. Laitman: I'm not thinking in that direction at all, let's decide and then throw into our basket, all kinds of ideas about dissemination to people in hotels, and yes and no, and so on and so forth. And then we'll decide.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (45:30) I'm going back to the letter. It's a very exceptional letter than all the others by the Rabash. Because it's the first time he turns outward, usually answers questions of his friends that are more internal. And it seems that this letter, too, he really went out of his skin to write it. It's something very exceptional for him, he had to overcome. He connected with people to build a synagogue in the name of his father. And he's only turning to those who the Creator's Spirit is in them that they can come and help.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And I think he's hinting to us the way we have to work to turn to those who the Creator's Spirit is in them in such a way. And disseminate, that, to them from the internality like he did it. I guess you knew him very well, it was something very internal, so through the letters you feel it. How do we concentrate in internality and from there go into those? Because all of Israel will never listen to us and it's still for unique people that it's working. How do we concentrate on that?
M. Laitman: Yes, I agree. What are we going to do?
Reader: (46:06) So we have the next part.
M. Laitman: Which is?
Reader: Selected excerpts from the sources about the Ten as environment for spiritual advancement.
M. Laitman: We have a few excerpts there?
Reader: We just started, this is new.
M. Laitman: Okay, go ahead.
Reader: So, next part of the lesson.