The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.
Daily Lesson (Morning) January 13, 2025.
Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]. #7
Reader: Hello, we are reading from the writings of Baal HaSulam, article “Matan Torah" [The Giving of the Torah]. We continue from item 7. You'll find the study material on kabbalahgroup.info and in the Arvut system. You can also send questions live through those websites.
Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah], Item 7.
Reading: (00:21 But here came the sages of the Zohar and asked, why were we not created in this high stature of adhesion with Him to begin with? What reason did He have to burden us with this labor and burden of creation and the Torah and commandments? And they replied, He who eats that which is not His, is afraid to look at His face. This means that one who eats and enjoys the labor of one's friend is afraid to look at His face because by doing so he becomes increasingly humiliated until he loses his human form. And because that which extends from His wholeness cannot be deficient, He gave us room to earn our exaltedness by ourselves through our work in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments].
These words are most profound and I've already explained them in my book, Panim Masbirot on the Tree of Life, Branch 1. And the book is Teklut Nimit, Inner Observation, Part 1. And here, I will explain them briefly to make them understandable for all.
M. Laitman: There's nothing to add here. We'll read and then see according to the questions, please.
Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah], Item 8.
Reading: (02:41) This matter is like a rich man who took a man from the market and fed him and gave him gold and silver and every desirable thing each day. Each day, he showered him with more gifts than the day before. Finally, the rich man asked, “Tell me, have all your wishes been fulfilled?” And he replied, “Not all of my wishes have been fulfilled, for how good and how pleasant it would be if all those possessions and precious things came to me through my own work, as they have come to you, and I would not be receiving the charity of your hand.” Then the rich man told him, “In this case, there has never been born a person who could fulfill your wishes.”
It is a natural thing, since on one hand he experiences greater and greater pleasure, the more he showers presents upon him. But, on the other hand, it is hard for him to tolerate the shame of the excessive goodness with which the rich showers him. This is because there is a natural law that a receiver feels shame and impatience upon receiving gifts from a Giver out of compassion and pity.
From here, extends a second law that never will anyone be able to satisfy the needs of his friend to the fullest because, ultimately, he will not be able to give him the nature and form of self-possession, as only with it is the desired perfection attained.
But this relates only to the creatures, whereas regarding the Creator, it is completely impossible and unacceptable. This is the reason He has prepared for us the toil and the labor of Torah and Mitzvot, to produce our exaltedness by ourselves, because then the delight and pleasure that comes to us from Him, meaning everything that is included in the Dvekut with Him, will all be our own possession that has come to us through our own efforts. Then, we will feel ourselves as the owners without which there cannot be a sensation of wholeness.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:46) If I receive from someone all those gifts and all the abundance and I feel shame. It doesn't evoke love or desire to be like him but mostly hate and loneliness of myself. So, how from these negative sensations can I reach love?
M. Laitman: You receive from someone, gifts.
Student: Yes.
M. Laitman: And these gifts engender in you a feeling, what feeling?
Student: Shame, loneliness, also hate for what he has.
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, so if you answer him in this way, too, meaning start sending him gifts as well. And other good things that you feel from him, then you will be in equivalence of form with him.
Student: But how out of shame and baseness, this inversion happens that I want to love and give like him?
M. Laitman: Because you begin to feel what is inside his present. If you feel that he has given you from the bottom of his heart. And there is no boundary, actually, to what he wants to send you. Then as a result, you too will have to feel the same relation towards him.
Student: But, as a gift, the light works.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:54) So, the whole purpose, the Creator's goal is for us to feel as if we are the owners.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It brings us to a feeling as if we are doing something in creation?
M. Laitman: Now, no. In giving, in giving, no. In His giving, you feel you are receiving from Him, from the bottom of His heart, from everything He wants to bring you to, to lead, to give you, but it's still a gift.
Student: Okay and this gift?
M. Laitman: The fact that you also want to give back to Him to kind of pay back, it creates in you a desire to bestow upon Him.
Student: But by giving me gifts, I feel shame and I can't receive.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And then it neutralizes in me, He neutralizes the feeling of shame, He gives me a feeling?
M. Laitman: No, He doesn't neutralize, you neutralize.
Student: Why?
M. Laitman: If He gave you and neutralized the feeling, then in His operation there would be no benefit for you.
Student: Right, so then we feel ourselves as owners.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What does that mean?
M. Laitman: That if we receive gifts from the Creator, then we can feel, if it's only the feeling of the gift, then we feel that it came from Him, and He wants to give to us. But if we feel in this His relation, too, that He is giving us from the bottom of His heart and He wants to fill us. Then it turns out that, by this, we feel that we are in some way obligated to Him.
Student: Again, what is the goal, why did He let me feel that I'm giving Him something when He is doing everything?
M. Laitman: He wants me to feel that I'm receiving from Him, right? So, I have no choice, I receive from Him; the whole world, actually, I am receiving. Now, the question is what do I get by giving back to Him? So, if I can give back to Him, then I'm actually, to some extent, canceling His action, His operation. And then it's as if He doesn't send me gifts and I am not indebted to giving Him gifts in return.
Student: Was there a purpose to reach a feeling of “There Is None Else Besides Him”?
M. Laitman: I don't know. It's not written yet.
Student: Where is there room here to attain something by our own action if everything is a gift?
M. Laitman: The fact that we can also give back to Him. To that desire – from that desire – the gifts come to us.
Student: And in this exchange of gifts, when He is giving me gifts and I return a gift, in this way we connect?
M. Laitman: In this, we connect, yes, because I give back to Him, precisely to the extent that I feel that I feel that He is giving me.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (13:02) What does it mean to invent our exaltedness by ourselves?
M. Laitman: That we, through our operations in repentance, that we send back to the One who gives to us. By this we raise ourselves to His exaltedness, to the same desire from which He sends us the gift.
Student: So, it has to be His exaltedness, by ourselves, not our own exaltedness.
M. Laitman: No, why? Let's say, if I receive from Him a gift, a big one, and I don't send it back to Him. Then He is in great height above me, but if I send back to Him that same gift – well, not the same one but of equal value – it turns out that then He and I become equal.
Student: It means to invent our own exaltedness by ourselves?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, our exaltedness is when we acquire the same quality as His?
M. Laitman: To the extent that we feel that we are receiving from the Creator and to the extent that we can relate back to Him in the same way, with the same coin as He relates to us, then in this we equalize with Him.
Student: If someone is giving you and later he can stop giving you, you're afraid of him.
M. Laitman: Why?
Student: Because that's how the will to receive works.
M. Laitman: No, no. When the Creator gives, if we really come to feel He's giving, we have no shame in this. On the contrary, it gives us a feeling that He gives without any demand in return.
Student: So, there's no fear that He will stop giving?
M. Laitman: None.
Student: No fear that you will not detect that He's giving?
M. Laitman: This may be. Where it pertains to me, to my feeling, there might be all the changes. But when it comes from the Creator, there is no deficiency in this.
Student: It says there are two laws, here: One is that someone who receives something from the other ceaselessly begins to feel shame.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: And after feeling shame, he wants to give back to him?
M. Laitman: Yes, to cover it.
Student: Because only giving back can cover this shame?
M. Laitman: Yes. There's nothing more, that's the way it is in nature. In all the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, in all the degrees.
Student: I think that's what a friend asked as well. So, it's necessary. Necessary shame will then engender the desire to give back?
M. Laitman: Yes, yes, of course.
Student: So, how come the created being ascribes it to himself? It says from his own exertion he acquires this quality. It's seemingly necessary, where is the created being here?
M. Laitman: He feels that he's receiving and when he receives, he's ashamed, and he must cover the feeling of shame. And then, he tries to organize from himself that same return to the Creator, right? To give back to the Creator; this is, basically, what he does.
Student: I get it, only this point: Why does he relate this action to himself? The light is working on me this way, the light is causing me shame, the light is making me want to give back?
M. Laitman: No, no. He cannot feel more. Because, to begin with, he only has a will to receive, the created being. But when he receives what comes to him from the Creator, he feels in this shame and unpleasantness and he cannot feel more than that, right? Because he wasn't made ready for this by the nature of his creation. And therefore, this is what he feels and nothing remains for him other than to stop. If he stops receiving from the Creator, it is considered that he doesn't appreciate the giving from the Creator. But if he doesn't stop receiving then what's left for him is only, in short, to stop receiving. And if he doesn't stop receiving, then he has to neutralize the feeling of shame. And he can neutralize it only if he stops receiving from the Creator. So, it turns out that he comes to a resolution:I have to give back to Him what I am receiving from Him.
Student: And this decision, he relates it to himself, he says, I made that decision.
M. Laitman: We will talk about this but, first of all, I feel that what I'm receiving from the Creator, I am receiving and I am enjoying. And now I have an answer, my feeling to the Creator, to give Him the same taste of life as He gives to me.
Student: And this action is called exertion?
M. Laitman: It's an effort.
Student: Can I relate this effort to myself or to the Creator who caused this entire chain of events?
M. Laitman: I think for himself, that it's the created being who does it. Because he does it on top of the feeling that the Creator engenders in him. So, when he operates in giving back, it's as if he answers the Creator on the Creator's operation on him or toward him.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:38) What's so special about the action where I make an effort and I wish to fulfill friend’s desire? What's so special about this action?
M. Laitman: That you feel that you received from him and you don't want to belong to the receiver. But you want to be similar to the Creator, too.
Student: He says that through this action of wanting to fill the friend, I acquire the nature, the character, of my own property. I acquire a sort of equivalence of form with the Creator. Specifically, with the equivalence of form I expand more and more my connection with the Creator. How, by discovering the deficiency of the friend and the connection between us more and more, how does that expand the connection with the Creator?
M. Laitman: Because you see that in order to neutralize the feeling of the recipient that you acquire in this way, whether you want to or not, this is what you have. So, you have to give more until you are in equivalence of form with the Creator, with the Giver.
Student: And that somehow neutralizes my shame?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course.
Student: So, shame is part of the correction?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: I'm just hypothesizing, let's say, we wouldn't have shame?
M. Laitman: We wouldn't need to do anything because only shame pushes us to correction.
Student: So, in the lesson prep we had the question: Why do we have to come with a mutual effort every day anew? And I'm asking this question as well: Why this effort, when we come each time to see ourselves, to build a mutual vessel, a bigger vessel? How does this expand our attitude in the connection with the Creator?
M. Laitman: Because we have to connect between us. We have to love one another. We have to feel that we are one vessel, one desire, one pleasure from the Creator, enjoyment from the Creator. That's why out of that feeling we can prepare ourselves to give back to Him His giving instead of our giving.
Student: How from this feeling that we're building each time more and more, how does this build the mutual intention so that all of it will be for the Creator, we'll give Him contentment?
M. Laitman: Because we feel that we are receiving from Him, from one source. And that awakens us also as one, everyone as one. And then, from that feeling we can awaken ourselves to act toward Him as one Kli. It is all kind of hanging and extended from the Creator, who is One, Unique, and Unified.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:10) When does a person feel for the first time that he's receiving from the Creator?
M. Laitman: When the Creator wants.
Student: Then what to do if a person does not feel he's receiving from the Creator?
M. Laitman: When he can't do anything; he can, seemingly, that he feels that he is receiving from the Creator, that he can perform such actions but it's “as if”.
Student: A person works on this path, he feels many disturbances, problems, issues. Where do I feel that the Creator is giving me something?
M. Laitman: You feel everything in your own desire. So, besides Him sending you some gift in practice, right? He, also, lets you know that He is the one who did it and that from His perspective it's called sending a gift.
Student: This action to feel that the Creator is giving me, let's say, this question of shame has come up.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: But if a person does not feel shame, meaning he never felt he received from the Creator, he never received anything? Is that what it means?
M. Laitman: It means he never received it.
Student: So, when for the first time?
M. Laitman: When he feels it.
Student: But when is it?
M. Laitman: When? When he feels that he received something this time from the Creator. This is called being ready for a response.
Student: If he doesn't feel it, what should he do?
M. Laitman: Nothing. What can he do because he doesn't feel that he received anything, so what do you want from him?
Student: When a person sits here doing the work and it doesn't feel like he received. Maybe he received from the friends, maybe he received from the Rav, maybe he receives from all kinds of sources except for the Creator. There's a story, here, the Creator is concealed, I don't know who He is. That's why I keep asking, when does a person begin to feel that he is receiving from the Creator?
M. Laitman: When he feels that he received from the Creator.
Student: When?
M. Laitman: When you receive from Him a kilogram of pleasure.
Student: Can you feel that you receive from the Creator before you come to Lishma?
M. Laitman: That's irrelevant, that's irrelevant. Besides, if you don't know these things, don't get into it, you'd only get confused. It's a good question but it's still kind of out of place.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:39) It's fascinating, this thing. It says, my beloved is like a gazelle, and here He is before us, He's watching over us. The revelation is not going to land on top of me. I have to detect it with a scheme, almost.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, the question is when we come to the connection between us, a certain degree of equivalence of form, we come to those hints?
M. Laitman: It is still very subtle intimations that give you no basis to perform any operation back to the Creator.
Student: But we're not looking for a foundation, for proof, we're looking to work in faith, above reason?
M. Laitman: I don't know what it means to work in faith. Maybe if you explain to me, I will know.
Student: Okay, I'll say this: In the work between us, let's say the whole Ten, the work is not to receive this direct attitude from the Creator. We don't expect that, we expect that we merit a certain feeling of connection between us. And there we can acquire a feeling that something is surrounding it, watching over this from above. That's a feeling, it's a faith that we?
M. Laitman: In other words, if you, through some relation of the Creator towards you, you feel that you are connected together, then in that feeling of togetherness that you will feel, you will also discover His operation?
Student: Yes.
M. Laitman: Why?
Student: Because we'll feel that we gave Him contentment. We rose above ourselves, we connected, we cut a piece of ourselves, each one. And then, something mutual was created, and in that mutual thing, we connected to the Creator.
M. Laitman: I understand that, according to your logic, this is how it should work. But this is not how it happens.
Student: It doesn't happen? So, how does it actually happen?
M. Laitman: It happens when the Creator sends you, from Him, an answer, a direct response, into your heart.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (30:15) Between the gifts, what exists between the gifts? You can't give a gift every millisecond and it's like packets that travel online.
M. Laitman: Yes, you can.
Student: But my heart doesn't have it, it's not in that pace.
M. Laitman: What do you mean, not in the same pace? When you sit here with a computer, your heart is not in the same pace?
Student: When I give a gift to my son, I give him a gift today and I expect that tomorrow morning he'll still love me, maybe he forgets, but maybe not. He gives me something back or I give my beloved something or I do something for my Ten. And you wait, like a week.
M. Laitman: No, no, no, no, you don't wait for a week. You constantly send gift after gift.
Student: And from the side of the receiver, I feel that somewhere, my vessel is filled, and I can't receive that anymore.
M. Laitman: No, no, your vessel grows broader and broader,and you receive in this vessel more and more of what He sends.
Student: And it feels like days are going by between each?
M. Laitman: No, it's a gift, you're still not receiving it, consistently.
Student: Instead of it being discrete - one, then another week, another one, then two weeks, another one. Maybe in the middle there are some blows, I feel like I'm receiving a blow. So it feels sometimes, like it's not simply a gift, it's like a sonnet, it's the full process where also the interval between the notes is part of the gift. It grows the yearning, meaning, when do we grow the yearning to be able to receive and give again? Sometimes, there's this downtime, sometimes.
M. Laitman: That depends on the intensity of the yearning and on how much you yearn to come to feel the Giver.
Student: I have to be constantly excited and very emotional, every second has to be like a peak of life?
M. Laitman: Every second, yes. This is the way of life.
Student: I feel like I can't.
M. Laitman: You're suffocating, choking?
Student: Yes, suffocating and shame, and I complain, and I don't know. I don't feel like every moment in life is the peak of life.
M. Laitman: Advertise it like it's your prayer. Turn it into a prayer.
Student: To ask the friends?
M. Laitman: Don't ask from the friends, ask from yourself and from the Creator. That you, together with the Creator, want to send this gift to, let's say, your friend.
Student: And if I feel that he is shocked that I gave him a gift and then I give him another gift, I feel that there's no room.
M. Laitman: No, he doesn't have it, so what are you going to do?
Student: I'm going to look for another friend, maybe?
M. Laitman: Turn to the Creator, He's sending the gift together with you. To begin with, you sent the gift through Him, to the friend. Take Him and go together with Him to the recipient of the gift.
Student: Is it possible to have it all the time, all the time?
M. Laitman: All the time, yes!
Student: And with the same intensity?
M. Laitman: More and more and more, increasing more and more, until you feel, oh, now it's beginning to enter him. And I will probably begin to receive from Him the right response.
Student: What happens if I'm not, if I'm in a different state?
M. Laitman: It's not up to you.
Student: But I have to accept this state, this state of a slumber, as if I?
M. Laitman: As if there are all kinds of states.
Student: Is there something I should disagree with?
M. Laitman: Don't agree to be disconnected; other than that, no.
Student: As long as I'm with the Ten, with the group, I should find the correct attitude toward the situation.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (35:44) There are many moments, I think not only with me but with many friends, where we are in great gratitude for what we're receiving. It might not get to the level of shame but I'm in great gratitude to the point that I want to give back, every day, as much as possible.
M. Laitman: Yes, we've been talking about it for many days now, I think more than two months now, more or less. And, maybe, it is indeed time for us to feel from Him what He sends to us. And feel from ourselves a deficiency in that we have to send to Him.
Student: Right, it's true. Not only in this period, but for years that we have this feeling also for the society.
M. Laitman: But a deficiency for a clear mutual connection is a deficiency that now, especially now, should be revealed in us.
Student: Now, when he wants to return, he understands that he cannot return directly to the society, the friends through which you can send gifts back?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And you find certain states where there is a flaw in what you do, whether it's something you're doing for yourself, or you're trying to bestow, and there are places where you say, it would be better if others would do it. Meaning, I feel I complain to the Creator with the situation to return Him a gift versus being grateful for the opportunity to give Him a gift back.
M. Laitman: So?
Student: How do you work out with these situations?
M. Laitman: Keep going, in any situation that's working out or not working out for you, you have to continue with it. Until it is clear to you in what connection you are with the Creator, with the sender of the gift.
Student: Here, at the end of the allegory, it says, I want to be like you, rich like you. Meaning, it's not enough that I receive everything from you.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: But I want to become rich like you, it means to be qualified like you?
M. Laitman: I don't understand these things. To whom are you talking about being rich like you?
Student: Like the Creator, He bestows 100%.
M. Laitman: You want to be a giver like the Creator?
Student: Yes, without limits.
M. Laitman: Speak clearly.
Student: Yes, bestowing like the Creator, 100% with joy before the society.
M. Laitman: So?
Student: We have to ask this from Him?
M. Laitman: Ask.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (39:15) What gift does the Creator give us?
M. Laitman: We are expecting from Him only to reach Lishma [for Her sake].
Student: What is this gift?
M. Laitman: Maybe I still don't know because I never felt that it was in me.
Reader: I'm expecting something I don't even know. I'm expecting to get a gift, I don't even know what it is?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: So, what is it?
M. Laitman: Lishma [for Her sake], is a gift that comes to me from the Creator. And I can bestow upon a friend or upon the Creator without anything in return from them.
Student: And what can I give Him in return, to the Creator?
M. Laitman: Anything.
Student: What can I give Him in return? He's giving me Lishma, then what? What can I gift Him back?
M. Laitman: If you already received from Him the gift of Lishma, that's enough. But if you haven't received such a gift and you're still with Him in these things on a daily basis, in this kind of relationship. Then you want to pick up the pace, increase the connection with the Creator.
Student: Receiving the gift of Lishma, is that my way of giving?
M. Laitman: What do you mean, “Lishma”, I don't understand what you're saying? Do I feel that I received Lishma already?
Student: No.
M. Laitman: So, why are you using such words?
Student: I want to understand where are the friends in the connection with the Creator? I feel like the Creator is giving gifts and I need to develop a certain reaction. Where are the friends? I have a connection with Him.
M. Laitman: With a friend?
Student: With the Creator.
M. Laitman: With the Creator, so?
Student: So, where's the friend in all of this?
M. Laitman: I don't know, I don't know what to answer you. There must be an answer but right now I don't know how to twist it? What we need is, basically, we need to draw, or to bring the Creator closer to us. Or the other way around, to push ourselves to Him.
Student: How?
M. Laitman: By prayer, through prayer.
Student: It brings it back to the fact that I have to draw the Creator to us, or I am in prayer towards Him, it's me and Him.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: Where are the friends, here?
M. Laitman: That comes later, drop it. You're also not thinking about them so much. If it sickens you, the fact that you have no connection with them, no, no.
Student: So it's enough for me to just focus on the Creator because that's the reality, that's what's important?
M. Laitman: It's enough for you to concentrate on the Creator and demand from Him connection. A tight connection that will not be canceled and that's it.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (43:24) For the longest time, we learned to finish every action with, in order to give Him contentment. It's a thought process where we always end with Him.
M. Laitman: Excellent.
Student: And recently, in the past two months or so, while we've been studying it. There's a feeling that maybe we should start with it.
M. Laitman: It's certain that what we want to do through the Torah is to connect to the Creator and tell Him that we want to bring Him contentment.
Student: Then to do the action? It doesn't matter what we're doing?
M. Laitman: Yes, then, the whole operation happens with a blessing beforehand and in the doing.
Student: Is this starting with a blessing, as you said? Is that bringing us closer to feel a certain attitude from the Creator?
M. Laitman: And if not, then you wouldn't do it?
Student: Of course, I would. In truth, it's something that awakens from the work, it's not like I sat down and I thought, oh, I should do this.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: It's from this process we're going through. I'm asking, maybe, what is the next step? So, a person starts with a blessing, he performs the action and he concludes with giving Him, to give Him contentment because that's part of it. But I don't feel the connection with the Creator, truly?
M. Laitman: Let him continue.
Student: What's the next step? What a person is to do, not the Creator, He should give me or not. But what should a person do? What's missing in my work?
M. Laitman: A person should continue in giving to the Creator as much as possible on his part.
Student: Aside from this loop where a person makes a blessing, does an action, then another blessing, ends with giving Him contentment, is there something else that a person can do that will make his work more precise, more correct?
M. Laitman: Yes. Of course, he continues with this.
Student: A person should yearn for a connection with the Creator or it shouldn’t even interest him? Meaning, a person should come, I need to do the work and I don't care.
M. Laitman: It's a reason and result from everything that a person does.
Student: So, a person needs to want it. I'm not coming and saying, ah, you'll do whatever you want to the Creator. But I'll do my work and that's it?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Zichron, Moscow 8): (47:00) We learned that we were born to receive pleasure. Why is it so difficult to receive a free gift? Why is the personal exertion so important?
M. Laitman: We were born in order to connect with the Creator;, and through that connection, to receive pleasure from Him. And fill ourselves with this whole pleasure that we are receiving. And by this, in our full vessels to come the vessels that are filled with the pleasure we received, by this, to come to equivalence of form with the Creator. That's it.
Student: Why is it so difficult to receive these free gifts? If we are the will to receive, why is it so difficult to receive these free gifts?
M. Laitman: Why is it difficult for us to receive? Because it comes to us into our vessels of bestowal. And then there is a contradiction between what the vessel receives and what it feels. This is why we prefer not to receive.
Student: Why do we try to attain it with our own strength, our own efforts?
M. Laitman: We want to attain with our own strength our connection with the Creator so that through this connection between us and the Creator, we want by this to determine our place: What I am giving to the Creator, what I am receiving from Him. In other words, the mutual connection; this is what I want.
Question (Brazil 5): (49:58) Is the feeling of deep shame toward the Creator a gift by itself?
M. Laitman: The feeling of shame also comes from being not in equivalence of form with the Creator, and it turns out this is still midway.
Student: Can I also give it as a gift?
M. Laitman: Yes. You can call all the blows gifts, yes.
Question (World Kli): (50:42) How and what to give back to the Creator, to feel the equivalence?
M. Laitman: How to give back to the Creator? It is, first of all, to do His will. His will is for us to be connected together as one vessel that He put together and gave to us. We have to reveal, to discover that vessel. Meaning our connection in one desire and that desire we need to reveal. And then, by this, we thank Him.
Question (Woman PT 23): (51:36) Is the dissemination of the name of the Creator, also, a way of giving back for His gifts?
M. Laitman: Yes, it could be.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (51:54) Before we come to this issue of shame – true shame – screen, reflected light, and so on and so forth. There was a state, I remember, from four phases of direct light, when Bina was born.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: She could feel the quality of the light, of bestowal.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: So, maybe it's like this: The Creator is working with us also, right now, so that we're starting to feel this taste the way Bina could feel the quality of the light from the light?
M. Laitman: Could be. Could be.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (52:58) In many articles, Rabash writes that a person needs to understand that only the Creator can help him, and then he turns to Him.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: What is that point? I hear all the questions, here, what is the point where a person understands that only the Creator can help him? What is this point, maybe following up on friend’s question, that point where he truly turns to the Creator not simply in acting.
M. Laitman: You can say about anything, that it's a game, and about anything that it's very serious, and there's no difference between them, you accept it in some vessel. This is why I think we need to take it seriously and respond to it seriously. And then, we will gradually approach the Creator truthfully, seriously, genuinely. And from within that point – from within that connection – to what is called “One, Unique and Unified”, and we will truly be able to come to internal connection.
Student: That genuine point is elusive because we do it, we do it. It's keeps evading you, that's the point you get despaired and then you turn to the Creator? He wants to give us pleasure.
M. Laitman: No, we don't need to check this point according to our own other vessels, additional ones. It's enough for us that we want to be connected to the Creator in a way that we don't move from that point of connection.
Student: Many times I hear, I hear the friends and I also work in this way that everything is done through the Ten.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: We had a recorded lesson yesterday. The friend asked, he said, I see individuals working in the Ten. And we do all these actions and meals, and gatherings to come to lesson. And even if for a moment it's connected, it keeps breaking apart.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: So, how do we come to a place where we can hold it in permanence, that connection. With which, as you said now, we'll come to the point that you just described?
M. Laitman: When you come to it, you'll come to it, I cannot say when. But if you expect some point of connection with the Creator, then you have a deficiency. And it's certain that it, too, will come into an operation.
Student: So, we got to beat on the same point until we reach a deficiency where the common mutual cry will come.
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (57:01) The Creator gives, I receive shame, I return it to Him. All in all, I can't return to Him more than He's giving to me. How do I, how can I sort out what I'm returning to Him? Let's put it this way: How much, in what form? How do I do this sorting?
M. Laitman: From what you have with the friends.
Student: Good. Now, question: Can I return to the Creator more than what I received from Him? Maybe for that we have the form of Ten, it's like resonance - we have frequency level one, on top of that. We have another degree of frequency, level one. And then one plus one has to be two but actually, you're receiving three because of resonance. Maybe, the method of the Ten is built, exactly, where I wish to return to the Creator more than what I received from Him. Is there such a thing?
M. Laitman: No.
Student: So, I'm going around the same form, the same quantity; whatever He's giving me,. I'm only within this pot?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And not more than that?
M. Laitman: Not more than that.
Question (Kyiv 1): (59:13) When you feel in your vessels that you are receiving a gift from the Creator to yourself. What to do in order to turn it into bestowal to Him, into Lishma?
M. Laitman: First of all, to the extent that you receive a response, on the same wave you need to try to connect to the Creator. And then when you feel that you have a connection with the Creator, back to Him, right? Then you want to touch the Creator with your real desire, real deficiency. And here, you need to hold on to the connection that was between you and the Creator, you want to give back.You want to return that connection to the Creator in a way that you put on it, you clothe it, with your own prayer. And then you expect the Creator to give you back this connection and you send it to the Creator. In this way, you are constantly in an exchange with Him - I to the Creator and the Creator to me; in this way, you advance toward Him.
Question (Turkiye 2): (01:01:33) How can the created beings become capable of giving to the Creator?
M. Laitman: You try to constantly understand what the Creator wants from you, in what way, in what connection He wants you to be together. And turn to Him from that connection together, and until you receive from Him the connection with the Creator, you will receive an answer from Him. Until you see that in some relation, on some wavelength, you awaken in the Creator a response. And this is truly your connection with the Creator; that would be beautiful! I'm expecting you to attain it.
Question (Holland): (01:03:00) What you said, is this exchange with the Creator when you're returning the gift to the Creator. What actually is meant by the own effort, the own toil, the own labor, etc.? What is own effort in this process?
M. Laitman: A person wants to be in connection with the Creator through his personal connection. Where, he sends to the Creator what he needs to say, to receive, and on the same line of connection, he wants to receive from the Creator, did the Creator receive it? Is He happy with him? What exactly does He want from him? So, we would know exactly that we arranged our connection with the Creator, and this is how it continues.
Student: Why is it so important that it has to be your own efforts?
M. Laitman: Because this is the connection you have with the Creator, this is what will remain for you. Now, you're only beginning to build a connection so, you need to, by yourself, draw a line to the Creator, and from the Creator to draw a line of connection to yourself. And then it is certain that you have a connection.
Student: So, you actually can say that the essence of Kabbalah is toiling.
M. Laitman: Yes, yes.
Student: Actually, that is the gift - the toiling, Lishma.
M. Laitman: No, no, no, that's not the goal. Gift, yes, this connection that he feels that he has with the Creator, the mutual connection. This is already a connection to Lishma.
Question (ITALY 4): (01:06:03) On the one hand, I feel shame for receiving from the Creator. On the other hand, I try to invest in giving to the friends. I feel a great deal of inner pride. How do I neutralize or how do I overcome and advance correctly for giving contentment to the Creator?
M. Laitman: The more you are connected with the friends, as friends, the more you'll see that this relation, this pride and all kinds of emotions of yours. Impressions from your connections with the friends and with the Creator, they will disappear. And all that will remain is, I am giving, I am bestowing, I am giving my vessel, I give back to Him only. And, there won't be room here for all kinds of feelings, of inconsequential feelings, that there is some pride involved here or something else.
Question (Woman Turkiye): (01:07:53) How can I be similar to the Creator when the feelings of the Creator is as a Giver, and I, my feeling, is that I want the Giver to continue to give me, and then I feel shame. So, how can I become similar to Him if I constantly feel opposite? He is the Giver, I am the receiver, what is the process whereby I become similar to Him?
M. Laitman: You need to try to connect in the same relation to the Creator as the Creator relates to you. In the same thread of connection, the same form of connection, the same manner of connection. And then you feel that the Creator through the connection with you only wants to bring you into the right contact with Him. And then, you understand that the goal is to be in equivalence of form with the Creator. That's it, it will be soon, it will happen soon!
Question (Almaty): (01:09:35) Following the friend from Italy, I wanted to delve more into the question: Of what I received from the Creator that doesn't engender a feeling of shame in me. Rather, the opposite, the feeling of a demand, that He would give me more. Then I find all kinds of excuses, oh, He created me this way, and so on. But the question is how to come out of this feeling of demand?
M. Laitman: It will all come gradually, it needs to be balanced in the relationships between you. You don't need to overdo correcting the inner meaning of the connections, it will happen by itself.
Question (Woman MAK): (01:10:49) What should a person feel, how should he feel when he receives a gift that he merited from the Creator, that he worked for?
M. Laitman: If a person receives from the Creator what he deserves, according to the line of relationship that he built with the Creator. So in that line of connection, he begins to feel the direction of how he should operate, correctly. So that the connection between them will enhance and become broader, and in this way, he enters a state, a general state of mutual participation in the Creator's operation on him.
Student: This connection is mutual love?
M. Laitman: Yes. It's still not mutual love but it's already the beginning of an internal connection.
Question (Bulgaria 1): (01:12:17) Once I was told, “buy and don't sell”. On the other hand, I should disseminate, I should bestow, I should give. How to tie these two actions? I don't understand it.
M. Laitman: It is said that you should always be mindful of your connection with the Creator. But not replace the connection but only expand it so you have an opportunity to do it.
Question (Turkiye): (01:13:16) I have two questions, if I may. First question: From the beginning of my study in this spiritual world, I always see you as the teacher of my guide Teacher. Mutlu Meydan on the other hand, we know and see that there are some instructors who teach us and lead us in new lessons. What do you say about this situation?
M. Laitman: I don't see any contradiction between what they teach and what I teach. The difference is only where we are. I am a little more advanced in the internality of things and they are more in a more general way. But nothing besides that, you can receive from them and from me. And you will see in the end that it all connects into one scrutiny of the connection between the Creator and the created beings.
Student: Second question, please. Second question.
M. Laitman: Yes, yes.
Student: We need to hear this from you, Rav, please. With your permission and with your wanting my guide teacher, Mutlu Meydan, became completely responsible and guide for our Turkish groups who speak Turkish. Can you say this again?
M. Laitman: Of course, I know what they're giving, although I don't know what lesson they're in today or tomorrow. But actually the whole process that they're passing to you is the correct process, and I'm certain that you will reach the same goal.
Student: The friend was asking that, in your opinion, is it right that Mutlu is leading the Turkish-speaking groups on behalf of Bnei Baruch?
M. Laitman: Yes. I simply don't know where else he could take it from, to learn Torah. He learned from us and also he is with us today.
Question (CzechSlovak 4): (01:16:31) Is it possible to reach the feeling of wholeness only in a vessel of bestowal?
M. Laitman: Yes. The feeling with the Creator, the identification with the Creator, you can be only in a vessel of bestowal. Just as the Creator is 100% in bestowal and you, in some form, the way you perceive it, that's how you get there.
Question (Belarus): (01:17:21) You explained two kinds of approaches to the Creator: To pull Him towards me or to push me towards Him. What's the difference and do you have a choice between those actions?
M. Laitman: You're operating in order to come closer to the Creator. How to come closer to Him in practice that He chooses and enables you to come closer.
Student: I have to search?
M. Laitman: You don't have to search for anything, simply be with us in all our spiritual exercises. And that will, nevertheless, lead you to a connection with Him.
Question (Woman MAK 43): (01:18:46) Can a person, while being in contact with the Creator, can he feel the fulfillment and the deficiency?
M. Laitman: He can.
Student: If a person is in such a state, can he feel revelation of the corrected vessel only? Or can he feel that inversion too?
M. Laitman: He also can.
Question (Woman Unity): (01:19:37) There's like a hierarchy of the desires, when I give back to the Creator, I also have to understand which desire I can give back from?
M. Laitman: You will be shown either through a connection from the right side or from the left side; you will be able to come closer to the Creator.
Student: The hierarchy of the desires is from the left?
M. Laitman: When that will be shown to you, you will see it.
Question (Woman Moscow 6): (01:20:44) How to prepare myself to receive a gift from the Creator for Lishma?
M. Laitman: Again?
Student: How to prepare myself to accept a gift from the Creator, in reaching Lishma?
M. Laitman: Simply long for it yourself, to the act of Lishma. To long to enter such a state of connection with the Creator that will be called “Lishma”.
Question (Nikolaev-Sochi): (01:21:29) In our world, there are examples where parents give the children everything and then the children hate the parents. Or some rich relative that helps everybody and everybody hates him. God forbid, can a person, instead of being in love to the Creator, reach hatred towards Him?
M. Laitman: With the Creator, such a thing cannot be.
Student: And if a person will think that the Creator isn't giving to him, correctly, and there are states that you have to run away from?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course.
Question (Turkiye 8): (01:22:27) How can a person feel that he's getting a gift from the Creator?
M. Laitman: Exactly in his deficiency, he suddenly feels that he's receiving there a filling. And that filling comes to him from above, from the Creator.
Question (Moscow 1): (01:23:00) The shame of the one receiving the gift, should he keep going with the feeling of shame and he'll feel it as a deficiency?
M. Laitman: It works as a deficiency.
Question (MAK 3): (01:23:22) Can we annul or cancel the shame on the gifts we're giving, and that will be gratitude to Him?
M. Laitman: Yes, of course. Of course, it's possible and be thankful as much as possible.
Question (Woman Tbilisi): (01:23:52) During the lesson, there's a feeling of a great light, of abundance we're receiving from the Creator. There's just a feeling of agreeing to it and great gratitude. Is this bestowal, is this close to the state of Lishma?
M. Laitman: No, it's not a feeling of bestowal, it's a feeling of reception. You're, nevertheless, receiving all your vessels, which the Creator blessed prior to that.
Student: In which way can you develop vessels of bestowal? How to aim myself, even a bit, towards bestowal?
M. Laitman: By love; through love and common work in Arvut.
Question (Woman Heb 1): (01:25:03) I heard you saying that a person has to pull a line of connection from the Creator to himself until he feels that connection. If a person doesn't know how to pull that, make that line, how can he pull from the Creator a line to himself?
M. Laitman: That's him wanting to connect with the friends in one connection.
Student: That opens that pipeline between the Creator to answer the person?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (Woman PT 38): (01:25:47) My friend is asking: Equivalence of form with the Creator, he gets that relation from the Creator. So, why is it called that it's on behalf of man? What is on behalf of man?
M. Laitman: On behalf of a person, it's an agreement to use that same string of connection.
Question (Asia): (01:26:31) Is this string of connection the concern that the friends will come closer to the Creator?
M. Laitman: Yes, it's a concern of mine nearing the Creator, of all my friends to the Creator, and that we will be connected between us.
Student: But a person can't be connected to the Creator on his own, he doesn't have a vessel.
M. Laitman: Alone he has no Kli but he can raise MAN.
Student: But the MAN is connected to the concern to the friends, not only himself.
M. Laitman: Also for himself; he wants to be more of a bestower.
Student: More connected?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Question (ITA 3): (01:27:34) What is the entrance to spirituality and feeling bestowal?
M. Laitman: Again?
Student: What is the entrance to spirituality and feeling of bestowal?
M. Laitman: That I want to bestow to my friends in all those things that they are about to bestow to one another with.
Student: My ego is disturbing me from bestowing to the friends. How can I explain to the ego and overcome it, overcome the obstacles?
M. Laitman: Again?
Student: The friend is saying, how can I explain to the ego how to overcome some obstacle? He's saying that the ego is limiting him, blocking him from bestowing to the friends. How to speak to the ego in order to overcome that obstacle?
M. Laitman: You need to speak to the ego simply, if the ego won't open itself to connecting, to a connection between a person and the Creator, a person will be lost. He must reveal the connection and shake it up until it will be truly, there will be no string without giving that connection from a person to the Creator and from the Creator to the person.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:30:24) A person that receives from the rich person, so in the beginning he can work with what he got from him. Because only later he reaches that state that he can't stand it.
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: What's the difference between those two forms of work? That he succeeded?
M. Laitman: That by the rich one giving them, he turns off his vessels of bestowal. And before that when he gave, he just gave him the possibility to grow and be more broad, greater.
Student: Yes. So, at the beginning of the reception, he can work?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And there's like a limit. So what, it's like working with gifts as disturbances to begin with?
M. Laitman: No, they're not gifts as disturbances, they're simply working with the gifts. And later, when he doesn't want to receive in the way that he received before in the beginning, then we see that the gifts that he receives, he receives them not for the sake of broadening or growing his vessels but rather to be sufficed with what he has. Those vessels he receives in illumination, that illumination at the end of the day, limits him from continuing to work.
Student: And this final form that he receives and has shame from receiving?
M. Laitman: Yes?
Student: So, this is where the true work starts?
M. Laitman: It's not the real work, here it's really the end of his spiritual development. And in this, he stops, from his whole not good way.
Student: So, that's the end?
M. Laitman: That's the end of his spiritual development because he did not receive correctly the appeal of the Creator to him. Yes, instead of expanding his vessels by the upper light, he restricted them.
Student: But then the work starts.
M. Laitman: No. Where do you have work if he restricted his vessels?
Student: We say that only after the restriction?
M. Laitman: No, not restriction, where a person restricts his vessels of reception or of his bestowal.
Question (Petah Tikva Center): (01:33:54) A person feels shame but he's able to give gratitude, to be in gratitude to the Creator. So, you can swap that feeling of shame with something more exalted?
M. Laitman: You can't do it. If you also have shame and also, what else?
Student: Gratitude.
M. Laitman: Gratitude, well, how could it be shame and gratitude?
Student: No, it doesn't go together but I wanted to ask about the stages. How to go from shame back to the desire to be in adhesion.
M. Laitman: No. In adhesion, he needs to check himself now, all along the way that he's been through and to point by himself at every fall he's been through. And to perform repentance upon it, and then collect all the answers, all the repentances, to one Kli.
Student: So, before he reaches the feeling of gratitude, he has to ask for forgiveness for all the places that needed correction?
M. Laitman: He has to ask for forgiveness, for repentance, at the beginning of his act of bestowal to the Creator. So that upon all the things he's done before with his vessels of bestowal, he is asking for an answer, now.
Student: Only after he asks for forgiveness, he'll reach a feeling of shame?
M. Laitman: Yes.
Student: And then from there, how to advance?
M. Laitman: He already needs to correct this, that's it, it needs to be corrected. There is no more than that.