Morning Lesson July 27, 2021, Transcription
Baal HaSulam - Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #68
Item 68 (00:25) “Do not be surprised that one person’s actions bring ….” Twice
1. R. (03:10) He speaks here internally. Man is a small world included of all the nations and the point in the heart, called Straight to the Creator. If we wish to free this point, so that it would not exist amongst all of the egoistic desires, we need to study the Zohar. This is how he asks. This is what is written and how it should be. Maybe also corporeally, as we will see. Like Abraham who disconnected from Babylon, from everyone, which included within it all of the nations that existed in Babylon back then. That group has gone through many changes over the years throughout history to release it from all the Nations. Who knows where the ten tribes are. They disappeared throughout history. For them to return again to that same group, this is what it is about.
However, we don't learn this way. We learn that we have to interpret it differently. That through the revelation of the Zohar, everyone, as Abraham wanted to do in Babylon, everyone will understand and will feel that the connection between everyone is something that you can attain with the help of the upper force. The book of Zohar brings that force down to us. We can be connected between us, among everyone, in the form of the End of the Correction.
2. S. (05:39) I don't understand why we are not reading the Zohar now as we used to read from beginning to end. Should the friends read it during the day?
R. We are working against time. If you want, we can add a lesson once or twice a week for reading the Zohar. I'm not going to object to it. You can do it. You can do it without me. However, you want. But it is a matter of time. Do you have the time for it? If you do, go ahead, set the time, but it is not like one group wants it and the rest don't. Meaning that we have to get to this responsibly.
Item 69 (07:08)” From the above-said we can thoroughly understand that ….”
3. S. (11:09) What is the internality of Torah?
R. The Wisdom of Kabbalah. The point in the heart. The Creator. In short, everything that has to do with ascending spiritually, with adhesions, and the purpose of creation. This is called the Internality of Torah. A person learns in order to rise above his ego. Above his egoistic nature in connection with everyone and in this way to discover the Creator, and to connect to Him. All of those means are called the internality of Torah, the main part of Torah. All of the rest, everything else that is in the Torah, the stories and the Commandments that we can keep physically without intention, is called the externality of the Torah. It doesn't activate any spiritual force. We see that over thousands of generations before us who kept the externality of Torah, it did not do them any good. On the contrary, to some extent, it corrupts.
4. S. (12.51) People who engage in the practical part, do they have a point in the heart?
R. I can't answer that. People who engage in the active or practical part, what is that?
S. He ascribes them to the internality of the Torah, why?
R. Because the action is in order to bestow, people who know how to perform acts in order to bestow not for themselves but for the others, in through the other to the Creator, of course they are on a certain level of attainment, a certain spiritual feeling and they correct themselves and the whole world.
S. He divides the internality of the world to those who are engaging in the practical part and those in the internal part, so I am asking those who are dealing with the practical part, why is he ascribing it to internality. They do not have intentions and love thy friend as yourself. They are doing deeds.
R. Yes true, but nevertheless they do something. that they didn't receive through their point in the heart, an opportunity to approach the Creator, to bestow contentment to Him, they didn’t get that opportunity. Nevertheless, it is important to them.
S. For people doing the externality, is there a corrected form in that? Do they have a special correction?
R. These special corrections are only for those who engage in the intention. In actions we can do anything. Nevertheless, when we engage in it this way, it is called the still level of the Holy. They do something. Yet, these acts do not correct the world. Rather, they only conserve everything a little bit on a standby level if you will.
5. S. (15:26) What is the advantage of the nations over Israel as they don't have values of bestowing, only of reception? How will they accept this value?
R. The nations of the world can not reveal that Israel is a degree that is more spiritual than them.
They can't see it. They can only see it when Israel rises in their spiritual degree. Today, not even today, but actually for thousands of years, Israel is on a very low level compared to where they need to be. The nations of the world do not see anything special in Israel. Even more, among us, whoever in this world is not engaged in the wisdom of Kabbalah, and is with us, who appreciates us, there is no such thing, what is it for and what is he getting out of it? We need to understand that everything depends only on publicizing and dissemination.
6. S. (17:14) You said we don't have time. Let's say we don't attain spirituality. God forbid, that the world will be destroyed, temperature and things?
R. You are saying nonsense. As if everything is not coming out of one source. No, no. The approach is completely twisted and distorted. Everything comes from the Creator. The Creator looks after everything. Don't worry, everything that exists will exist.
7. S. (17:58) Is the work of Bnei Baruch during the morning lesson enough to keep the world to the scale of merit?
R. I hear you are connecting two more times a day, that is why it is enough. If you want another time or two times a week to be connected with another ten - I don’t know, think.
8. S. (18:44) It seems here that as if there is None Else Besides Him did everything. The deterioration of the generation, He did it, in order to reveal a greater desire. We hear in the excerpt a certain sorrow that it happened this way.
R. You think about it very good and you will see how to sort things out. This goes here and that to there.
9. S. (19:34) He says that an individual person can bring the world up or down through his actions because it is so low. What is this law that it all depends on the individual?
R. That the individual and the collective are equal. Equal doesn't mean that they are of equal weight but that the individual has the same force as each and everyone who are connected. He is in the individual and He will do it also. You can ask how will that be? That is how it is in spirituality. I can't explain as it is not just a calculation of 5000 points in the heart against one point. We can understand that if one does not participate, then their connection is not a connection anymore. That also isn't completely correct. We have to reach spirituality and then we will understand the spiritual laws. They are not exactly like the corporeal ones.
S. He says that all of the destruction, the descent of Israel is because they left the internality of the Torah. We used to be attainable, all of us.
R. We all were once in attainment. We fell, once with Adam HaRishon, and afterward a few more times. Even in the reception of Torah, we received it and we lost it and we lost that in the destruction of the first and second temples. For 2,000 years we have existed without the Torah. It has departed.
10. S. (21:39) You spoke about dissemination a few times as one of the most important things. I belong to two departments of dissemination. One is disseminating Bnei Baruch and one does not speak of Bnei Baruch. What is the essence, the importance between them?
R. I don't know. That is not the topic right now. You always bring questions that don't belong to the topic of the lessons. I apologize. Also don’t turn to me about This. I don’t understand all of that.
Item 70 (22:45) “This is what is written in the Tikkunim [corrections] of The Zohar ….”
11. R. (26:19) This is very deep. The 30th correction is well known. It is famous. The Zohar supposedly slices it here and says that humanity is divided into two kinds. One kind that do not care about anything. They live their beastly lives according to the tendencies of the body. They are always searching for a convenient place and they are all as beasts. The other kind are completely different. They have different discernments - what to live for. They only live-in order to come closer to the Creator as much as they can. It is still the purpose of their life. All of humanity is divided into two.
12. S. (27:28) How can it be that a person who is in the spiritual degree and saw the entire system fell into the corporeal desires? How can one overcome the other?
R. Right, you are asking because we didn't learn about the shattering. The thing is that just as you can see, even on yourself, how many times throughout the day you enter scrutiny, all kinds of thoughts and desires. You can justify actions in order to receive and not agree with in order to bestow. You see how difficult it is and how much it is against your nature. The problem is that in the Wisdom of Kabbalah we are engaging in the highest form possible in reality. Here you encounter two forces. In our world, people feel that there's only one force that activates and manages them. The force to enjoy everything I look at. I always examine what and how I can enjoy it. I always choose according to the way I value it. I choose what I can enjoy, as much as I can enjoy, with what confidence I can enjoy. And so on.
This is all in order to enjoy. For me these vessels are enough, for my mind and my feelings, I want to know more about this world in order to succeed more in it. This is how humanity is developing. Then comes a time where humanity feels that this is not enough. That I am still in trouble and with problems, obstacles, and what is going on, what am I lacking. Humanity is searching and searching for all kinds of methods and inventing. All kinds of materials, instruments and wisdoms. Inventing all kinds of things in order to sweeten their life. In some way they still see themselves advancing and that it doesn't really help. On the contrary, we start discovering that all of technology, science and everything only makes it worse. There are even such movements that say, no we are not going to go in this way, we don't need this advancement, we don't need tall buildings or flights. Why not just live well and simply. We see that we supposedly reached a state where this advancement that we wanted, desired and respected so much, this advancement suddenly is becoming more and more dangerous. Look what we have gotten to. All kinds of harmful things are coming out of nature. We have atom bombs. Atom bombs prepared for everyone. Poisons in our food. Everything. Meaning, we are starting to see that in all of our actions we have something dangerous. Like there is an inner enemy there.
When we ask what to do, we start discovering our true enemy. That what disturbs us from advancing is our ego, our evil inclination, the general one of all of humanity. Now we have a problem. It won't help that I correct myself, you and maybe him. No. We are all so connected to one another that we must have a general correction. Here the Wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed and explains to us that what we are lacking is only to change our nature. That I can’t change the will to receive. The Creator created it and that is how it will keep going and it will be. But I can change the way that I use it. From in order to receive to in order to bestow. This is what we are talking about and this is actually the entire wisdom of Kabbalah. That I can’t do anything with the actions but the intention of the actions I can change. That it won't be for my own benefit but for the benefit of the other and I am in them. That is all. Such an attitude towards others is what we call love. Just like a mother treats her children. She wants them all to feel good. That is her heart and her attitude. That is called love. We need to learn how to attain such a thing. Eventually the world reaches such states that they start discovering that if we will not reach a nice, good connection between us, because the word ‘love’ itself is a bad word already. It is a dirty word.
If we reach a stage where we will still want for the benefit of everybody, we will all feel good. We will eventually discover it. Here we see how nature helps us. Also, what helps us from human society. From the processes that humanity is going through, we start discovering that ‘democracy’ is a lie. How much the forms that we are connected through is all false and a lie. It does not bring anything good. Meaning, we will start seeing how to form such relationships from which everybody will have a normal good life and that is what we advance towards. The Wisdom of Kabbalah says that if you want good, only in the good connection between you. Leave your desire to receive and don't start playing with it. It won't bring you anything. You only need to make connections between people. Show everybody how a good connection is between everybody and saves everybody. That is what the Zohar says in this famous correction. It is called the 30th correction. Everywhere you will start seeing the Zohar. Everybody is always speaking about the 30th Correction. There is a part called Corrections of the Zohar and it is the 30th one. It is about rising and waking up to discover the Creator, His relation towards the world. You can do it if you all connect together and, in this way, relate to Him. Then you come and bring the Creator's relation towards us a vessel. The connection between you can be revealed there. This vessel is called Shechina (Divinity) and the Creator dwelling there is called Shochen (the Dweller). That is all we need to do.
13. S. (37:36) If you can please give us a definition of what is a Mitzvah according to Kabbalah? What does it mean to perform a Mitzvah?
R. Mitzvah, commandment, comes from the word command. A person in this world is commanded by the upper force to reach such and such actions. By performing these commandments, a person brings himself to equivalents and identification with the Creator - “Me for my beloved and my beloved for me”.
S. What does it mean to perform a Mitzvah?
R. Performing a Mitzvah is bestowing to the Creator and then He can bestow to them. When a person works on the intention to bestow, by this he is preparing himself for a commandment a Mitzvah. That means to receive from the Creator in order to bestow. By performing such a Mitzvah is preparation for bestowing in order to bestow the degree of Bina. Then there is the degree of Keter which is receiving in order to bestow.
S. He speaks only of intentions or something beyond?
R. We are only speaking in the intentions because the intention is controlling the desire. If my intention is in order to receive, my desire will work in a certain way. If my intention is in order to bestow then the desire will work in a different way, according to the intention.
S. If a person wants to add corporeal physical actions to that intention, how does he decide what to do or what not to do?
R. What matters is not whether it is corporeal or spiritual actions. It is where your intention is. If you expand your intention, which happens by the light that reforms that shines upon you, you sanctify yourself more and more by your intentions becoming more towards bestowal.
S. Often there is a lack of clarity on commandments and what does it mean on our path to keep a commandment?
R. This is what the Zohar is explaining. Look at what the Zohar is saying. Try to understand what it is saying directly without looking at anything around you. For thousands of years, we have been in a lie. That is the first thing. The second thing is that, without doubt, the whole world is coming closer to it. All the nations of the world will perform this commandment “love thy friend as yourself" and through that they will be in adhesion with the Creator.
S. How will the nations come to it?
R. They will get to it by us publicizing it and from a big crisis in the world. As it is written in the Prophets. People will be asking what to do in order to rid themselves of all the troubles. Then they will accept what we are saying. That they have no choice, they have to come closer to the Creator and you can only do this by love. The Creator's name is love. The more we come closer between us and love each other, meaning that we feel that we are all depending on it, as one man in one heart, in one system. According to that we will be able to win.
14. S. (42:23) In other writings of Baal HaSulam we read that when a person annuls towards the collective like a candle toward the flame, today we read that even one man can bestow positively or negatively relative to the collective, how do we connect these two?
R. No problem at all depends on you, you do what is upon you to do, and you will see. The whole world is changing according to your perception. This is called "he who flaws does it in his own flaws" That depends on reception of reality that we will still learn about. We don't want to get confused. We will go through this state and reach the perception of reality and we will see how according to the changes in us that form in order to receive to in order to bestow and according to two degrees of in order to bestow, we will see how reality is changing. Reality will change as if I take new glasses each time.
15. S. (43:57) About the topic each one judges according to his own flaws; in the text it looks like it criticizes humanity that they are not right and they are guilty and how does it?
R. It is written in the Zohar this is not Baal HaSulam
S. How does it work that one judges his own flaws and who does good and who to blame.
R. What are you asking?
S. It is as if he is criticizing and blaming the world?
R. He's not blaming anybody, he is saying what is going on. Read it a few times and maybe I will be able to talk to you. He is not blaming anybody, Baal HaSulam always says that he gives you facts from what is going on and he is not blaming anybody and even if it seems like he is blaming it is in order to explain to you what forces are working.
16. S. (45:17) I wanted to ask about waking up for the sake of the Shechina, here with the connection of the people in Israel. Is there something so holy around which one sect is not allowed to connect with others?
R. I don't know what you're speaking about. I'm not going to scrutinize the state of Israel. I'm not an interpreter, the state is not good. We see what is happening in the whole world and Israel and I am just afraid that this will be revealed even more and more that evil will come out more and then it can be really bad that we will see things much worse. It still all comes from the Creator in order to bring us back to the correct and good state by pressure. We are starting to feel this pressure, the Creator will not leave us alone, I said these years ago and also in the beginning of the pandemic I said how it will come in waves, why in waves? Because man needs to learn that he has nowhere to go back to so he agrees that he will do it then the pressure goes away and he comes back. When the pressure goes away he has to sustain himself as if the pressure didn't go away but that he appreciates the changes that he went to that is his worth being in that way let's say I was in a state in society that you could steal and kill and the police come and put pressure on everybody with laws, difficult to have laws and then it becomes quiet and the police leave now the question is are we going back to the horrible state that used to be with the police or are we going to sustain it as if the police are there. So, for a few times when we go and come back and go and come back, we start learning that it is not because of the police that it is worth it for us to be in this way see, this is why the Creator is doing everything in waves and we will feel it as good.
S. Here in Israel people who carry such a heavy charge against each other can really connect, are they capable of this?
R. The upper light organizes everything and specifically where there is hatred and rejection that is very strong and essential, there you will see you as much as people we'll discover the connection and necessity to connect and connect even more. That love will cover all crimes specifically where there are big crimes there will be an explosion of love.