Morning Lesson December 27, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 3:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot. Item 17.
Reading Item17. (00:21) “Now we can understand the serpent’s…”
1. S. (09:56) Kabbalists instruct us to see these things as forces in the upper system and actually here he turns it into very story-like and makes you imagine all kinds of serpent, woman, and this and that, instead of making it forces it's like he’s turning this into a drama of sorts.
R. How do you want him to write this to you?
S. I don't know, I'm trying to understand because Baal HaSulam doesn't just write anything and he's speaking about interactions and feelings, I want to see how to absorb it correctly. We thought about looking at these things in a technical way and demanding the light that reforms, but this feels like a novel. How do I work with this text?
R. Yes.
2. S. (10:55) What's the difference? He spends a long time about the woman and her interaction with the serpent. What's the difference between the eating of the woman and the eating of man?
R. It depends on what you're talking about, about the actual eating.
S. The serpent here is interacting with the woman, the will to receive, but ultimately, she eats and she also gives to her husband, so what's the difference between these actions, it's like not a single Kli here.
R. Yes, there is an incorporation here and mutual bestowal here, more.
3. S. (11:45) Can you explain what we read here, just to go through the text and explain? What is the woman, the serpent, the husband, the tree, the fruit, so that this novel like the friend said will take some inner meaning?
R. What we read we read. We will learn and gradually come closer to the truth.
4. S. (12:24) I just have a concern from the beginning of the lesson. There is a purpose of creation that we want to bring contentment to the Creator, and I'm really concerned about whether we are using these lessons to the maximum to make a correction. I can't seem to come to the lesson without all of the families of the soldiers who died and the people who are hostages and I'm trying to use our lessons to raise the concern for correction. Part of it is to work correctly with the text to know that we are truly drawing light and changing reality and bringing benefit.
R. Yes, that's also our goal, our purpose.
5. S. (13:18) What is incorrect here, that the serpent said because I'm thinking it's right, maybe it's my problem?
R. Yes, that's what we need to scrutinize, how correct was the serpent, how correct was the woman, and what did she do relative to what he said that needs to be done?
6. S. (13:50) All of the work of the intentions here is done by the woman. We typically learn that the man is the part of the intentions, that is the overcoming, and the intention, and rising above reason and bestowal, and so forth, and here the woman is sanctified. How can the woman be sanctified if not through the man?
R. That's a question. It's a correct question.
7. S. (14:27) We are the results of the shattering of the sin that he describes here. What should we take from, in terms of our experience, to correct the shattering or rise to the purpose of creation? It seems like what's happened, happened, but is there some lesson to learn for us from below? What was done there that we perhaps shouldn't do or better arrange, correct?
R. Arrange it correctly and correct it. That's what they did, they did, and this caused the whole of creation the descent. We need in our work to create a gradual ascent to the whole of creation.
S. For the whole lesson we got to the point that there is labor, and we need to ask the Creator to do it.
R. It could be that that's the correction, yes. We need to scrutinize what the correction is.
8. S. (15:49) What was the woman's mistake when she saw that lust to her eyes that before she touched the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge she saw it's better than all of the other fruit.
R. Yes.
S. What was this mistake? How did she miss before eating, before receiving in order to bestow?
R. Let's read, let’s read, it’s still ahead of us.
S. But he writes that this lust, that she saw it as good to her eyes, that was her miss?
R. It could be that she believed her vision more than she believed the Creator and the taste, and that’s it.
9. S. (16:44) I just wanted to add that what I get from the article is that the Creator here is changing the system from bitter and sweet to something corporeal to the mind of the Creator, and I truly don't understand what the woman’s sin was, she only allowed him to develop further so what was her sin?
R. That's something we have to understand whether there was a sin in such a state although here we call it the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, but in truth, whether without this action we would be able to scrutinize the connection between the evil and the good side and that's what we will see. This is still ahead of us.
10. S. (17:47) The serpent is an animal that lives on the level of the land, and it cannot rise above the land.
R. I don't know.
S. Does it symbolize the thing that is absolutely always resisting the Creator?
R. Yes.
S. So it exists in a person, it's in every person, something opposite that’s resistant and doesn't compromise.
R. Yes.
S. Meaning you can only fight it, and there's also the woman and the man, so it's like three.
R. Three partners.
S. Partners, yes, so what's the woman within the person? If the serpent is the anti-Creator, the resistance to the Creator, what is the woman?
R. The woman is the desire to receive that can connect with the serpent and the man is a desire to bestow, very weak, hence here in the story, the woman is the hero and the serpent.
S. So there's this and she has the freedom to choose this or that and he does what he’s told.
R. We will see, yes.
11. S. (19:07) What's the difference between the trees of the garden and the tree of knowledge?
R. The trees of the garden, all the other trees in the garden, they're nice, they’re good to eat and pleasant, but the tree of knowledge is a tree that is in the middle of the garden, as something central, and it's always addressed, it's always measured against it, where we are. Let’s say that we will scrutinize but it’s actually like that.
12. S. (20:00) When I read it years ago, I said wait a minute what did she do? She said can't touch, and the Creator said you can't eat so did she put an imaginary boundary to herself or what?
R. Yes, that's how we usually ask about it.
S. I have to put the boundaries in the right places because if I cross them I cross the true boundary and here from the process today I see that the environment, the society, that it didn't actually put an imaginary boundary but rather a process in our Ten and in this Kli is that do not touch in order to not make things, the system, cannot deal with. So all of the Tree of Knowledge it’s written that the Creator knew they would eat from the Tree of Knowledge, meaning it was part of the process so it changes my whole perspective on the society and the corrections we have to make. That's how I see the article.
R. Nice, we will think about that.
13. S. (21:48) What does it mean to touch the tree?
R. To touch the tree is considered like the taste but to a lesser degree.
14. S. (22:05) What does it mean to eat in the side of Kedusha?
R. In order to bestow.
15. S. (22:17) Can we say they took the knowledge from the fruit to outside the garden?
R. Probably, yes.
16. S. (22:34) Is the power of the serpent the power of Nekudot of SAG that we learned that awakens and causes the shattering?
R. That's something we have to examine.
17. S. (23:08) All of a sudden, I feel like TES is the apple, and I am like a woman who wants my friends to eat it, but how do I do it with the right intention so there is no more shattering?
R. How now after the sin to continue to eat without shattering taking place? I don't know, first, we need to try to see what we’ve caused, what shattering we've caused, and later how to correct what we caused and how to continue in order for it not to happen again.
S. So I have to stop feeding the friends, I have to stop feeding the friends from the apple?
R. Probably, yes.
S. So where do I put my prayer then?
R. I don't know, that's something that needs to be scrutinized. How from this moment onwards we both correct what we've caused and also continue in the correct way.
S. I'm sitting here every day and when I'm not falling asleep, I'm asking for the light that reforms, not that I'll get what's happening in the book but that all the friends in the group will receive light that reforms.
R. Well?
S. Does that advance them towards the reason of holiness?
R. Yes.
S. So maybe I'm not asking for the right thing if I want them to have the reason of holiness?
R. You're asking correctly but probably there's something else to add.
S. What to add that the Creator will enjoy?
R. Yes.
S. So, what to add?
R. Together.
18. S. (26:30) I'm asking about us, to understand what from the parable that it's insufficient that you want to be in an intention to bestow because there's still a possibility for failure so what else is needed besides the intention or to want to be in the intention to bestow?
R. First of all, we need to discover something. The will to receive that is in the nature of man and how one approaches the connection with the Creator, which is revealed in such a way, and how from this moment onwards we perform actions towards correction. So, this is what we're going to learn; it's not the end of the introduction.