Part 2
Morning Lesson December 19, 2021 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 181. Honor twice (00:04)
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1. R. In other words, it is impossible for a person to feel honored, feel respect on the right path and if he does it comes to him as a punishment from above.
Reader continues (02:06)
2. R. (02:55) These are very important things to each and everyone of us. On our path we really do come to states where there is a desire people want to respect us and exalt us and we have to see it as an obstacle, an obstacle that we might fall into this respect and it's very difficult to come out of it. I was present at such a state, when I was studying with Rabash there was a person who received respect and couldn't handle it and couldn't stand against it; and, you could feel on this person how he separated himself from the rest of society, from Rabash, himself, his teacher. And he felt that he existed in and of himself, he felt that he was not given due respect. It was amazing to look at that person and how he just went into demand for respect. We have to be very careful from this. You will see how you are respected when you say pretty words, when you make speeches before the listeners, before an audience here it is a very big problem, not to fall into it on this matter. I know it well and every time I consulted with Rabash about how I should do this or that. But respect, honor, a person doesn't need anything else besides this if the environment appreciates him and exalts him, and he accepts it to his own name and not to the name of dissemination or to the name of the Creator, he's done, he is just done.
3. S. (05:50) How does the Creator guard the righteous from honor? What does it mean that he lowers them, humiliates them?
R. The Creator has to bring us to corrections. You can perform directions corrections only in those discernments where a person feels the revelation of the bad, the recognition of evil. So there is no choice but the Creator reveals more and more of the evil it's called “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah the spice”, and that's how it works every step of the way that we go through. And mainly it is revealed in honor and lowliness, as we learned before about the lowliness in the previous article. And so we're learning now concerning respect or honor. We have to try to constantly bring ourselves into lowliness before the ten, in practice. By this we will keep ourselves advancing on a straight line toward the Creator.
4. S. (07:17) We have two questions that came: on one hand, we say that “envy, lust, and honor take a person out of this world to the spiritual world”, but here it says that honor is punishment. How does this connect?
R. Why not? Why shouldn't they? “Man’s pride brings him down”, on the one hand; on the other hand, it’s impossible to advance if you're not proud, if you don't appreciate your efforts and your participation you have to advance in both. How can you climb up the ladder if you don't want to climb? What is a climb, and ascent? Using greater forces to understand more, to feel more, but you just need to constantly balance it with participation in the society, in the Creator.
S. It's written that to the extent that the degradations are equal to the honor so that's will awaken the disgrace. I don't understand what it means? What scales do you weigh it on?
R. Toward the ten, Mister, only toward the ten. In it you can check everything and not you toward the Creator when the Creator is concealed, or you toward yourself, or you towards your friend but you toward the group. There, you can balance the bad in the good by annulling before them.
5. S. (13:40) Sometimes a person gets an opportunity to become famous and get honor, and he thinks he should take it for dissemination that if he agrees with this decision it will help dissemination. How to discern between an opportunity to disseminate or an obstacle?
R. He should tell the group about it and the group has to decide, and he should act accordingly, this is the safest, that's the safest. But the group, too, should see it as an opportunity to disseminate and to strengthen a person; and, by this a group commits to strengthen the person who disseminates and that person who shares it with the group will do it in a safer and more correct way.
6. S. (14:39) Is praising a friend too much in the ten, can it harm his advancement?
R. Of course, we have to be careful not to praise friends because it could spoil them. It should be to everyone together so we should divide it among everyone, because in the end, no one is working for his own benefit but by this we are advancing everyone. Whether we want to or not, our whole success promotes the entire world.
7. S. (15:26) How can you learn to be proud in the work of the Creator and not to take it upon yourself?
R. I take pride in doing as much as I can to disseminate in the name of the Creator in the world and that I have many students, and that they too are advancing and are disseminating the name of the Creator in the world and in this way they are advancing humanity towards correction. I do take pride in this but what can I tell you if I try to convey it, to give it to others, it comes back to me in such a way that at the same time I feel myself as lower. The more I advance, on the other hand, it's like a seesaw. I feel myself as lower and then in the ascents and descents and with these kind of measurements, that's how we advance. And so those who advance within the society, our society in this whole big group have no chance, no fear of falling into his own ego and not being able to come out of it. It is only for individuals who later discover all of a sudden they don't want to be, don't want to yield, to surrender before the Creator. So they don't want to submit before the society, as well. But by this, they leave the paths of spirituality and they become animals, as it is written, “they were all as beasts”. So that person who was on the way to spirituality to some extent and has emerged, came out of it into the corporeal life again. Poor him, he doesn't know what to do to himself because he's still in doubt if he is correct or not, so he has got a problem so because of it he wants to degrade us. These people find that they want to degrade us, to harm us, to hurt us. And it's not because they want to do harm but by trying to degrade us it makes them feel that they're actually right in what they did. So that makes them descend more and more until well, what can you do, you have to pray for them as well, there are all kinds. So we shouldn't be alarmed by descents, by those who leave us, we need only to try to be in increased connection, that’s it, and then you will see how we advanced soon.
8. S. (19:38) How can we relate correctly to an enemy who insults the friends?
R. We still don't know what happens to us along the way but the Creator comes in order to show us how much He broke the vessel of Adam HaRishon, and how broken we are and contradictory, He plays such tricks on us it's just terrible, we start hating the friend. The disciples of Rabbi Shimon who wrote the book of Zohar together with him, they attained the spiritual discernment and they wrote them afterwards in the book they wanted to kill one another, they had such states. I don't think that in the ten we want to kill one another but if we come to it at the same time, we will come to discernments that are greatness when the will to receive is revealed accordingly, it will elevate us to a very high level, to the point where a person wants to kill the Creator, the friends, he doesn't agree with anything. There will be states you just wait and it's all because we have to advance on both legs left and right.
9. S. (21:52) Could there be honor in order to bestow and how to prevent honor in dissemination? What do you do when dissemination is successful?
R. Sometimes we have no choice and we have to accept the respect, but at the same time we have to perform some sort of action, operation of lowliness. It is called in the wisdom of Kabbalah, it's called “making an offering”, Korban. Korban, offering comes from a word Hitkarvout ‘drawing closer’, to the ten and to the Creator. There’s a lot of work here, we will learn it. Once you start getting honor, respect from the outside world that you are great, special, that you are guides, we will work on it; in the meantime, I think that the Creator will watch over us and will guard us and we won't feel it.
ten. S. (23:14) So it turns out that we must work towards None Else Besides Him when we get honor that everything happens by Him?
R. Yes, correct.
12. S. (23:36) We learned that praising a friend can be dangerous for his advancement. How do we show the friend's greatness without harming his advancement?
R. It's a problem, you have to learn in the group, consult in the group how to do it specifically each time towards the friends and with respect to the circumstances.
13. S. (24:08) He writes in the end of the article that the extent of lowliness will be equal to the honor?
R. The advantage of the light within the darkness. The Creator adds will to receive and we have to feel in the will to receive that is now clothed in us and we can feel it at any given moment, so when the will to receive dresses in us, we have to feel in it the lowliness. And because we come to feel the lowliness, out of this or as a result, we also come to feel the greatness of the Creator and what He's doing with us, how He brings us to wholeness. The important thing is to, first of all, connect it with the only Operator, the Creator, that upper force, He is one.
14. S. (25:21) What does the Creator want to show us when we see honor in someone else?
R. To see how there is, it’s called scissors or bifurcation: between what is important to us and what is important for the Creator. And how we can come to a state where our importance and what’s important to the Creator become as one, and it is by us becoming closer in the ten and by that closer to the Creator. And then you see the difference between us and how as we get closer, we will see that by this the Creator too grows closer until He dresses in us. And when the Creator dresses in us everything becomes clear and we have no more problems at all.
15. S. (26:36) If I honestly see the friends I really see him as an example, of someone a giant, so I'm pushing him here, to get honor?
R. There are things you have to check on your own, I cannot go according to your feelings we're not going to go into psychology. Try to read the article again and understand, check with yourself how much you can understand and that way we will advance. And along the way in the work, we will know more scrutinies but getting into all of this now, it's impossible.
16. S. (27:34) I teach and give lectures in the campus for many years. How to protect myself from the honor and appreciation that students show me?
R. It's a problem that those who lecture before a group, the group begins to relate to him as great and he feels how they relate to him, what should we do? I will tell you, we should try you cannot not receive their appreciation, the respect, it influences you. But I will tell you, when I come back after lessons with you, for example, of the talks that I do each day with the writers or other people, so when I come back to myself I read the words of Rabash and Baal HaSulam and that brings me back to the correct state. I don't understand and I don't know and the Creator gave me a desire and He renews my desire to continue each day but more than that, I have nothing more than a desire to continue which Creator renews in me each day. It's called “the work of creation”, I have nothing more than that and this is why once I am incorporated in material, in Shamati or other articles, then I see how far, how very far I am from those states that my teachers experienced; and therefore I have no basis, no foundation for pride, no reason for pride, on the contrary I feel myself as lower and lower.
17. S. (30:05) If we get honor in the ten, how can we get out of it?
R. It's only through opening up more and more articles, letters, become incorporated in it, I connect to my teachers, and this way I guard myself, there is no other way. If I remain alone, I'm either disconnected or take pride. Of course it happens to everyone so learning the sources is mandatory for everyone. This is why we decided that during the day we go over the first lesson at least what we read from Shamati at least twice daily and that’s a must because without it we lose our connection.
18. S. (31:17) Are envy, honor and lust attributes of the Creator?
R. No, the Creator has one quality, To Do Good, that's it. And from His nature to bring good so towards the created beings, you see a good and a bad nature: a nature that is against the Creator and a nature that resembles the Creator. That those created beings will be able to discern between what's pro and con, for and against, and then they want to come closer to the Creator from their own choice and then it turns out that the Creator gives us everything except for us from ourselves that we need to add a desire to advance towards the freedom of choice and towards adhesion, that's upon us.
19. S. (32:34) If a ten constantly engages in the love of friends, does it keep a person from his own pride, and he always feels embedded in the friends more and more?
R. Yes, if a person advances correctly he feels that she owes the group everything. That the group actually gives him all the present and future