Morning Lesson November 09, 2023

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.

Part 2:

Baal HaSulam. "Study of the Ten Sefirot" (TES). Vol. 1. Part 1. Inner Observation.

Chapter 4. #20

Reading #20 (00:28) “Because the will to receive is not in our root….”

1. S. (04:57) Why did the sages put all the success in spiritual work on the exertion?

R. Because you need the labor in order to invert the will to receive to work in order to bestow.

S. What is in the exertion?

R. In the exertion, you make efforts and pray mainly to the Creator to give you the upper force the upper light to correct your will to receive in order to bestow.

S. How do I know I am giving the forces correctly?

R. Study the wisdom of Kabbalah, then you will see how to give it.

S. But there's exertion in quantity and quality.

R. Yes, of course.

2. S. (05:56) He’s describing here the shame of receiving for free. How do we correct this? Because it isn’t really a shame that you’re eating something that is not yours?

R. Well, for now, there isn't but later on we begin to feel that we cannot do anything for bestowal and the feeling that we cannot stand ourselves awakens within us and here opens the possibility to correct ourselves.

S. We cannot suffer ourselves, why?

R. Because we are only in the quality of reception and we cannot change, we feel shame towards the friends, towards the Creator, and toward ourselves.

S. That connection between the friends, the connection with the Creator, the feeling of the Creator, that gives us the feeling of that free food?

R. No, not at first. The fact that we absorb the energy of the Creator, His quality, this doesn't worry us.

S. How does the shame come?

R. Not at first, not at first. In the beginning, you feel shame for not changing. You feel that all the friends are changing, and you are not.

S. How to reach that state?

R. What?

S. To reach that state. It seems to me that my friends are changing and I'm not.

R. Because that is really so. I look at others because I'm in the group, after all, and I see that I'm worse than they are. I don't understand what we're learning, I don't understand the questions, I don't understand the text, and I don't understand the answers. I'm not connected to the friends, I can't connect with them, and I feel that others have long connected.

S. There is like a degree here that every time you do not understand how to really approach it, it’s either you didn't make enough effort or you don't feel it?

R. First of all not enough effort, and second, and maybe you are hiding it from yourself so that you will not feel bad.

S. How to discover it in myself and how to start discerning the values of the friends, maybe advertise it between us.

R. Look at how connected they are among themselves, how they help each other, how you are behind them lagging, how they participate in everything, how they understand the texts, how they ask questions, I don't know. Everything, just look at how far ahead of you they are.

S. It’s really the internal question, how to see the benefits of the friends that you don't see enough in the ten. You want to see that they're greater but you're participating more so how to emphasize their values and put them above me?

R. For the time being you think you are better than everyone and afterwards you will see that everything is the opposite.

S. Even the friends that are not present? I will see that spiritual quality that it’s above me?

R. They will connect and show you that they are above you.

3. S. (10:52) It is written here that the difficulty to suffer in order to receive, what is that?

R. It’s the quality of the ego that has no patience he wants to receive here and now and that's it.

S. So somehow it will be corrected in the future?

R. There won’t be such a thing.

4. S. (11:26) Here we understand what our sages explained, how this world was created. Can you explain what this interpretation of the sages is?

R. What answer do they give?

S. (Reader) Here we understand the answer the sages that this world was created...

R. He wants to translate it?

S. He wants to understand what this answer is, one who eats.

R. He's telling you that it means that those who eat the bread of shame, right, he does not feel that he is receiving.

S. The bread of shame is taken from other people in order to receive?

R. Yes. 

Rav reading from mid of #20 again: (13:02) “By this we have succeeded in understanding the answer of our sages.…”

5. S. (15:51) Can we say that shame is the gap between the will to bestow and the will to receive and that is what created the shame?

R. Yes.

6. S. (16:12) How do we keep working in Torah and Mitzvot where the feeling of shame disappears? If I do not feel the shame anymore, I do not feel an impulse to search for adhesion.

R. Because you are already in it. If you do not feel the drive to search for adhesion then you are already in adhesion, instead, you will feel pleasure from adhesion with the Creator, the existence of the adhesion.

7. S. (16:59) A friend from the ten is telling us that he is ashamed, that he feels that he's stealing, that he is participating in the ten and receiving all this knowledge. How can we help him?

R. He's not stealing anything from the ten, on the contrary. Anyone who participates more, the more he knows, the more he does, the more he adds to the ten to each and every one.

8. S. (17:38) It is written that “Disparity of form and the souls, in the will to enjoy in the souls”, so what is the matter of the soul descending into the body, and that needs to be correct; why isn’t the correction in the souls, themselves?

R. In the souls themselves there cannot be a correction, because the soul is connected to the will to receive, there is a correction in them.

S. Before there's no disparity form?

R. Before that no, who would feel?

9. S. (18:17) Why did the Creator do it that only in this world bestowal can be built?

R. Because in this world we have the will to receive, the will to bestow that can appear and show us where we are.

10. S. (19:17) Can we think that shame is the spice for the world to receive?

R. Yes, yes, without shame we will not feel the special relation to the will to receive, we would not want to get rid of it, to get rid of it, to distance ourselves from it.

11. S. (19:46) We’ll learn that there is the will to bestow which is the Creator, bestowal, and the will to receive, we the created being, so what is the source of shame, it was not in the source?

R. In the source, it wasn’t because who would be shamed? Only the will to receive that came through a state where it already begins to discern that it is opposite from the Creator and that is why it receives and is ashamed of that.

S. This is only whoever is in a spiritual process in a created being. Because on the outside, there are people who say, “Give me gifts, and I’m happy,” but they don't know what shame is.

R. Correct, correct, and also not in the beginners, but gradually the person begins to receive after some time, I would even say after some years, he begins to receive this feeling that he is ashamed of his own qualities and wants to run away from them.

S. Can we see it as development in the created being on the way to correction?

R. Yes.

12. S. (21:08) This created being that feels the difficulty, and impatience, is that a force that wants to separate from the Creator? How can this created being that’s in Ein Sof know about Torah and Mitzvot through means of the corporeal world, how is it nourished from this connection?

R. I think there's some special confusion here, the created being is in this world, and he wants to obtain some connection with the Creator, and then it begins to receive some relation from the Creator to him. From this, he begins his path of correction to rise from this world towards the Creator, toward the world of Ein Sof, or Infinity. 

13. S. (22:29) How do we develop shame towards the friends?

R. Between you, between you. You have to talk more, to perform more activities and then you will start feeling each other and what is happening between you.

14. S. (22:58) The soul, before it’s clothed in the body, does it want to bestow or receive?

R. Before its clothes in the body it does not want anything because of its desire to bestow upon the Creator, it feels in it that it dresses in a body and, specifically through its clothing in a body, it can bestow upon the Creator.

15. S. (23:28) The feeling of shame, the feeling of the giver brings shame but if a person chooses that he wants to ascend, is there a choice that I want to rise to the giver or not?

R. It is according to your feelings. If you are coming closer to Him or moving away from Him according to the similarity of form between Him and you, okay?

Reading Item 21: (24:20) “The wicked lose twofold, and the righteous….”

16. S. (27:14) This is not clear, it is clear that the righteous get twofold by reaching the true pleasure not for themselves, but how do they get there without working, without exertion, without efforts, and bestowal? There’s an effort here, in our meetings, in the lessons, and then it changes, it does not bring suffering anymore but only pleasure?

R. Of course, of course, it is like yearning for someone that you love.

S. If so, in what way would there be overcoming or is this the final state already?

R. It is an overcoming in and of itself; it means that you overcome the distance between you, and it all goes into the pleasure.

S. I will see my friends that I'm yearning for, or the Creator I'm yearning for to help give me fulfillment?

R. Both.

17. S. (28:52) He writes that he is suffering from two kinds: from the motion and a deficiency. Can you help me understand what these two sides are, the sorrow from motion and from…?

R. The sorrow of movement is the fact that they’re in constant movement and cannot attain anything, this is really what it is about.

S. Why does he write that it has to be an indirect pleasure from his essence, that is about the movement?

R. Because the Creator is in complete rest, and we feel a constant need for movement.

18. S. (29:53) Are the righteous born in this way or is it built throughout their lives?

R. They build themselves, the righteous, through their intentions.

S. Do we need to set ourselves a goal to see the friends as righteous in the ten?

R. Yes, of course, of course, this is my goal, because then through that ten I will feel myself adhering to the Creator. 

19. S. (31:02) It is written, “It is known that proliferation of movement afflicts a person,” what does it mean a direct extension from Him?

R. The Creator is in complete rest, stillness, He doesn't have a deficiency for anything, that is why He is in complete stillness and wholeness.

S. “The breaking is twofold because they are holding the world from two ends,” what does that mean?

R. They are not getting a filling in their vessels, and they are also not coming close to the Creator.

20. S. (32:10) According to the text, what are “wicked” and what are “righteous” in the work?

R. Wicked is one who's willing to stay in his will to receive. Righteous that want to reach in order to bestow, in order that by that they can justify the Creator that created the world in such a way.

21. S. (32:46) It says here that the righteous actually inherit twofold, so he says it feels so good so isn't that egoistic?

R. No, it is not egoistic because they are correcting their vessels with the intention to bestow, and in those vessels, they can receive all of the upper light in order to bestow, that is why they do not fall into in order to receive.

22. S. (33:47) This matter of profusion of activity or complete rest, where is the game here? If I take Rav as a model and there are as many actions as possible to work towards spirituality, so complete rest, is it an inspiration we should Inspire for?

R. Complete rest means that I have a direction that does not change, that is called rest.

S. In other words, actions within that state are regarded as rest?

R. Yes.

23. S. (34:34) The line of restriction passes between the sorrow of movement and the sorrow of deficiency in a point of balance. 

R. The balance point?

S. Yes because of the sorrow of movement, that I have to move because it’s my nature, and the deficiency that I have in me?

R. I don’t know, it could be that you’re saying something but I did not read about it in such a way, anywhere.

24. S. (35:15) I wanted to say that there is a great awakening here from the friends in the Latin Kli, today, yesterday, men, women, what is causing it. There's no war there, everything is relaxed, I envy them, maybe we can learn from this and use it.

R. Listen to what they are saying and learn.

25. S. (35:40) Continuing on what you said to the friend that complete rest is when I have a direction and it doesn’t change, so if we persist in actions of bestowal and love of friends, by this would become similar to the Creator, in His complete rest, if I understand correctly?

R. Yes.

26. S. (36:16) He said that the Creator is complete rest, so tell me please, how is it possible to combine the two: that the Creator is complete rest, absolute silence? How to reconcile between this and the act of bestowal, even an act of reception in order to bestow?

R. If the direction of His action does not change and it is always for us in order to fill us, so we call His action as constant and in complete rest, clear?

27. S. (37:18) What does it mean that “The wicked are broken twice as much and the righteous inherit twice as much”?

R. That the righteous get twofold from the corrections, and the wicked will not get anything except for a shattered vessel, the shattering.

28. S. (38:03) Is the first shame that is toward our qualities, compared to the friends, is it shame from receiving or does the shame from receiving develop afterward?

R. When we start feeling shame, from the beginning, but it depends on what the shame is from, not knowing, not understanding, not being successful in the eyes of the friends, I'm in the state of not a good state, I'm falling, and so on. Until we start connecting to the Creator and according to that we can mark our states and determine them and then all the states by not being successful, I don’t want, I can’t, and so on, I measure everything toward the Creator.

S. Shame that I’m inferior to the friends, is this shame from receiving?

R. No, you can ask any student in the first grade, she can be in shame that she is less than her friends.

S. What does it mean that they are broken and that their breaking is two-fold? If someone can help us? Yes, “Their breaking is two-fold”, what does that mean?

R. It means that they receive a double emptiness.