Part 2
Morning Lesson December 17, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Reading Shamati 231 (00:04) The Purity of the Vessels of Reception
https://kabbalahmedia.info/sources/EjIpuTVg
1. S. (02:16) It says ‘’to adhere to Him,’’ so should we adhere? By adhering to the Creator?
R. Yes. We should have pleasure from being close to the Creator, and even adhered to the Creator, in the Creator. Our pleasure is specifically there, it doesn't matter what conditions we do it. The worst the conditions are, and through these conditions, we can be more adhered to the Creator because from that we can feel and measure, the point of connection, the force of connection between us and the Creator. That is how it happens.
S. What role do the rest of the pleasures play here?
R. If you feel torments, what kind of pleasure can you feel? Meaning, those torments only give you the opportunity to rise above them. Then, from you by reaching adhesion above the torments, you do not care about the torments, but rather what helps you advance. How can you adhere to the Creator when you feel bad? By increasing the importance of the Creator, and then you are drawn to Him. You have to increase His importance, otherwise the pain or something will become bigger. So, the importance has to be greater than the pain, and then this is how you advance and you rise above all the disturbances. The disturbances don’t disappear, you only elevate yourself on the degrees of ascension, in the ladder you elevate yourself above all the disturbances you feel in your will to receive the will to bestow you want to discover, and what you do discover is bigger, every time from the degree that has been revealed as tournaments, and you are willing to be in them, you do not pay attention to them, you just place a restriction. You don’t annul them, you don’t cancel them, you rise above them with the importance of the Creator upon the suffering, and then you reach adhesion. The suffering becomes the connection between you and the Creator, and you see in them that they brought you to the connection, and now they give you the strength to connect, they suddenly become the real glue, a force that holds you in adhesion with the Creator.
S. In the first part of a lesson you said that it is as if I don't want to snatch the Creator in this ascent, but to enjoy something else, bestowal. How should I understand it because I do enjoy rising above the suffering, the connection?
R. What do you enjoy, that is what you should ask yourself. Either it is from feeling good, or feeling pleasant, or from the ability to give pleasure to my friends that through them, not to be mistaken, I hope that I am giving pleasure to the Creator. The Creator doesn't measure, doesn't do anything, but to the extent that I try to give pleasure to my friends, by that I understand that the Creator also enjoys it. I don't have anything to give to the Creator, but if we speak about the friends, I make some food for them to the extent that each one takes part, or he doesn’t take part, it doesn't matter, but to the extent that we enjoy, and we enjoy being together coming to connection, discovering that we are pleasant, we are feeling pleasant between ourselves. Also, it relates to the connection, the attaining of the goal, and all of these things, to that extent we discover the need for our connection. Otherwise, we will not reach adhesion with the Creator. The ultimate goal is adhesion with the Creator, but it is revealed to the extent of the adhesion with the friends that is the vessel.
2. S. (07:33) According to the article, every corporeal pleasure I have to draw sorrow on it? It is not going toward the Creator?
R. Of course, of course, yes. You phrased it nicely.
S. It is a type of masochism?
R. It is not masochism. You want to turn a small pleasure to a bigger pleasure, a false pleasure, your ego enjoying to a real eternal pleasure. We are dealing with the wisdom of Kabbalah - reception - how to receive the biggest thing, the most relevant, the most worthwhile in the entire reality. Basically, what we are doing is perceiving the Creator in our vessels. First, we change our vessels to become with the same qualities as Him, bestowing, then we discover the Creator in them. That is called the Creator ‘’Come and see.’’ We don’t lose anything here, we're gaining the biggest thing possible in reality. Besides that, when we do gain it, because when we are full, we are becoming the host. We have made the gain, we feel this is ours. This is a very special thing, it is a very different feeling in the vessel from feeling that it is not mine.
3. S. (09:18) When there are disturbances or suffering, I try to adhere to the Creator at that point and overcome, but I do not feel adhesion. I work like an animal, I'm happy that the disturbance disappears, but I can’t feel the Creator as a source.
R. That is correct, and that is because you are not yet in the qualities like the Creator. But at least, be a little bit in the force of bestowal, ask for that. Once you have received this minimal force of bestowal, you will start feeling the spiritual world in it, the spiritual reality, the upper reality, meaning what is felt in the force of bestowal. That is what we need, so ask for it, ask, along with the friend you may pray according to what you are doing to each other, as much as you can, both in corporeality and in a more internal way. It doesn't matter, it is possible to do it with everything.
4. S. (10:46) So, we do not need to direct ourselves to feel where the distance is. However, how much are we able to overcome, then?
R. We ourselves are incapable of overcoming anything, nothing. We are like a baby. When he is born everything is done for him, he is being bathed, fed, put to sleep, change his clothes, each and everything we do it for him, compared to a grown-up that has to do all of these, but to attain them and also to serve himself on his own. The moment he grows up, to the extent that he grows up this baby, to that extent we let him, we teach him, and give him, we pass on to him these, taking care of himself, he should acquire life and take care of himself. That is how we do it, that is how the Creator is doing with us. So, let's try in the connection between us to build such a vessel, and we will be able to bestow. A first degree is to be able to bestow out of our connection to Him, that is called that we are already born in spirituality.
S. Every time that we work, we always feel the distance towards the friends, towards the path, and we need to do an overcoming that is always harder. Many friends from the ten we lose them during the way sometimes. Is this these feelings that we will always bring with us, or one day we will overcome and we feel only love?
R. That is in the end of corrections. But before the end of corrections, we have what we do call the war of Armageddon when the greatest hatred, and the greatest disturbance appear. That is how we advance.
S. So, I need to expect within me that I will explode, that I will really want to kill someone?
R. No, you do not need to expect that or to kill anyone. All you need to know is that by connection you received strength from the Creator through the group. This is how you advance. There is nothing to be afraid of, or to explode, or anything. Do everything in a measured manner.
5. S. (14:28) In the article Baal HaSulam writes that he draws on the pleasure the clothing of regret, that he has become separated from the Creator. Is it a practical advice that Baal HaSulam writes that we should do, that we have to draw a clothing of sorrow on every pleasure?
R. Over every corporeal pleasure you should extend a connection to the group until the Creator. Otherwise, this pleasure is a real pleasure of separation, and then you need instead of the pleasure you have, which you cannot bring the connection to it, so be sorry that you are in the separation, distance. You need, from coming closer you should feel pleasure, and from the pleasure you should that you are coming closer, from one to another.
S. For example, now we will have a Hummus meal.
R. We will talk in the meal about that. You already want to wake us to things that are above our string. I should read this article. You see, I am working.
Rav read & comments: (16:00) Article 231 - The Purity of the Vessels of Reception
‘’We should be cautious with anything that the body enjoys. One should regret this, since through reception, he becomes removed from the Creator since the Creator is the Giver, and if he will now be a receiver, he thus comes into oppositeness of form [Between the Creator and the person.]. In spirituality, disparity of form is remoteness, and then he does not have Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator. [This is what happens to us.]
‘’This is the meaning of “and to adhere to Him.” Through the sorrow that one feels upon reception of pleasure, the sorrow revokes the pleasure. It is like a person who suffers from scabbiness in his head. He must scratch his head and it gives him pleasure. However, at the same time he knows that this will only worsen his scabbiness, and his plight will spread and he will not be able to heal. Thus, during the pleasure he has no real delight although he cannot stop receiving the pleasure of scratching.
‘’He should also see that when he feels pleasure from something, he should extend sorrow over the pleasure, since thus he becomes so remote from the Creator… [Meaning, this pleasure does it bring him closer or farther from the Creator, this is what he should see. If it pushes him away from the Creator, he should draw over this pleasure sorrow to the point where he feels] that he will feel that the pleasure is not worthwhile compared to the loss that this pleasure will subsequently bring him. [In other words, it is not worth it. It is not worth scratching my head, it is not worth doing something. I have to do things from which the friends enjoy and the Creator enjoys. By this I am certain to do something that is 100% correct. We have no other scrutiny. Check, but only to the extent that the friends enjoy, I can be relaxed. But they may not understand and enjoy things that even if we do some nonsense and the friends enjoy, I become incorporated in them, I immerse myself in them, I attach myself to them. Then it turns out, that even if, let’s say they are making a mistake, nevertheless, I dwell among my own people, I am there and I annul before the group. In this annulment I clean myself up from all the problems, from all the results.] [What does is he saying?] …he will feel that the pleasure is not worthwhile compared to the loss that this pleasure will subsequently bring him. This is the work in the heart.’’ [That is called the work in the heart, and this is what we should do.]
6. S. (20:05) Isn't there danger that adhesion will be in order to receive?
R. Even if it is in order to receive then we come to the other side, as a city that is veered off cannot be destroyed because the adhesion among people brings them unity and connection, maybe it's incorrect but in this connection, there is the upper force. This is why the Creator doesn't destroy a city that has veered off, a city of wicked people who built it, but He keeps their walls and maintains the connection among them and they are dedicated to each other. They are like a gang, a big strong gang and they're willing to kill anybody who comes over to them, still you have to say that among them is the power of unity, the upper force, and it is a problem to deal with them as we have seen in history people who fight, how they usually succeed is only through the power of connection through their spirit because then the Creator is with them, the Creator loves the wicked when they are connected and just like the righteous when they take pride in it, against each other.
S. When we are in the virtual mode, we do not feel the same as here, here there's nowhere to run to, you see each other you're attached, you are adhered like when you are in the hall, how to have the same conditions of connection?
R. Let's rise to the spiritual degree, there you have no monitors you have internal monitors, you have internal screens but there you have no problems. In spirituality each one feels the other a little bit as much as possible and then we will feel each one where he is, that is it.
S. What conditions should we have to get to this feeling virtually?
R. It is very simple, give the friends a place in the heart. I cannot do the work for them but allow and give each one and all together a place in my heart, that is what I need to do.
S. What exercises should we do every day in virtual space?
R. Yes, think about how you are giving them a place in your heart, that you want them all to fill your heart and there will be nothing else besides this and in the place that they will build in there the Creator will settle the common force of bestowal, that is the Creator.
7. S. (23:17) In about a half an hour we're going to a hummus meal and as far as I remember it’s the tastiest hummus meal, the flavors are out-of-this-world you can say, how can we realize what we read now about the corporeal pleasure, when the hummus goes into our stomachs and all the rich flavors that we are going to feel, how are we going to realize it and maybe regret or turn it?
R. Don't regret it God forbid I want to enjoy it and every bite I want to feel an immense pleasure, a Heavenly pleasure, I do not want to cancel these pleasures because I'm sitting with my friends and I enjoy it. You can take a plate of hummus at as well, it is the cheapest food you can make but that is not what you enjoy, you enjoy the process when you sit together with a friend drinking something, you perhaps say grace on the bread that you want these things that you want to eat them together with you friends. That is the meaning of the meal, what is the meal, it corresponds to reception of the upper light just as you want to receive the upper light so it will fill your soul on the exterior level you want to come to a filling where that meal with the friends that you are doing together as ten, will be as a spiritual meal. What is missing here? You have pleasures, you have friends, so can we unite? We can. Can we eat together and enjoy, yes, so what is missing is to add our own intention that at the same time we also want to receive the spiritual pleasures so that the Creator will fill us.
S. Along with the corporeal pleasure to ask for the spiritual connection.
R. Of course otherwise would I come to the meal? I can take this food anywhere that I can get it.
S. Here it is the best.
R. It is the tastiest here not because of the food itself, it’s because the people prepared it and prepared with their goodwill, they're not doing it for money. The people who were sitting together that they understand that they are sitting with special preparation for a special meal which corresponds to the reception of the upper light in our common vessel. That’s why it fills us and it has this higher flavor to it, the heavenly flavor or the Garden of Eden is Malchut who rises to Bina, so when everything happens on the level of bestowal on the level of Bina, of the of course you have different flavors.
8. S. (27:19) Throughout this whole time we had the feeling of equality of the whole world Kli.
R. But soon you are coming down and you will be sitting with me.
S. So what to do with this feeling as if there is a feeling of not being equal, it is true that the connection between us is above the bodies and above the places but still I'm going to sit there and my friends in the world Kli will sit at home it is feeling a bit of still nothing I do not have to define it.
R. Correct. We should not regret, I mean we should regret but we should also regret it in a truthful way, regret that we are still not worthy of sitting together with the whole world in a meal at the end of correction. Because they're receiving the best and complete filling, where the Creator fills and connects us and we are filled and co complete in adhesion with him. This is really a meal, a meal symbolizes a person's vessel in order to bestow when he's connected to others and then he can receive the filling. Let us hope that we will come to it and you are to come to it. We need to awaken ourselves a little bit more so today we will do this exercise, friends decided this is how we should do this meeting, so we will do it. Who knows what will happen tomorrow with the virus, with other things, in the meantime let's try to perform a correction during this meal.
9. S. (29:42) Am I receiving pleasures from the Creator only in order to go back to the intention in order to bestow?
R. Our whole work is only to acquire the intention to bestow, we have nothing else but this. We only expect and anticipate this anticipation to have this intention to bestow, I do not lack anything in my reality, you can bring me whatever you want I do not really need to want anything or receive anything except for one thing, the intention to bestow meaning to receive power from above that will give me the intention to bestow upon others and through them to the Creator, this is what we need and according to this we will be filled the complete feeling of the Creator with what is called the upper light, men, women and everyone, and the whole world will be together with us
10. S. (31:06) What is the difference between corporeal pleasures & spiritual pleasure?
R. With a corporeal pleasure we aim for the corporeal object of our pleasure, either me or someone else who is eventually me. With a spiritual pleasure we aim for the Creator through the friends to get to Him and to bestow upon Him that is the difference. The difference is not so much in the pleasure, in that there are differences in degrees but to whom I am bestowing, is it to myself or in all the ways and in all the forms from my pleasure to come to the Creator?
11. S. (32:05) When we surrender to the pleasure we choose it instead of the Creator, what happens at that moment, is the Creator disappointed with us?
R. I cannot answer this because they will not understand my answer. It is not like the Creator is disappointed or not disappointed. When I come to this transgression do I do it without the Creator knowing about it, does He get the result of what I decided or am I deciding according to what He decided in advance? It is a question that we still need to rise above time, place, and motion in order to begin to understand how it really happens, that is above the boundaries of this world.
12. S. (33:00) It says in the article to “extend sorrow over the pleasure,” what is this sorrow and how do you extend it over the pleasure?
R. Even when he receives and enjoys, he extends over it sorrow because his pleasure is not in adhesion and here there is a question; can I enjoy even though this pleasure is in order to receive where I thank the Creator and enjoy life, or do I abstain and not enjoy and that is better in the eyes of the Creator? In this way a hermit should bring a sacrifice, an offering, because when you stop enjoying something in this life you reject the possibilities that the Creator gave you to do things. We must enjoy this world in a way that brings us closer to the Creator, not pushes us away, but brings us closer. That is why people who are vegans think only about their food, and other people think only about their health, etc., they're all kinds, this too must not be exaggerated. The purpose of life should be before us, and each should determine what we do and we should not exaggerate in any one direction.
13. S. (34:48) A question about the women’s gathering on Saturday, a Yeshivat Haverot, a gathering of friends, what should we focus on in this meeting.
R. So they want to connect themselves for the Congress?
S. Yes, they are gathering on Saturday, tomorrow as a preparation for the Congress in January they are asking what they should focus on in this Gathering of friends.
R. I always have a question, do they want to come together and then they think what they should do during the time they have the gathering? Maybe they have many things they need to discuss and then they decide that they have to get together. I do not know, but still what to focus on, the main question is when we will come to a connection between us, what should we do before this, what do we receive from achieving the connection 125 degrees of NRNHY in all of the degrees until the end of correction.
How do we go from one state to another by increasing the power connection between us. This is what they should scrutinize, they should read some excerpts about it or something or talk about it, that we have no choice although each woman is a separate piece from everyone and that is how the Creator created the woman. Men are seemingly the power of bestowal so they can play with everyone, they can run around. A woman first of all guards her own boundaries, it comes from nature, there is nothing good or bad or good about it, it is nature and that is why we need to see to what extent we can rise above it or we can’t and to the extent that we can, if a woman does it is a huge correction, much greater correction than what the men do, much greater. Therefore we should connect the women and help them if they need to help them organize such meetings and in this way they should advance. It can be a huge force if we really wanted to be built. I'm very much in favor of women connecting, uniting and by these making efforts to connect as much as they can, even a little bit but all in all, it is a huge force. Because what a woman does towards connection even the slightest, her first movement to approach another woman is already a correction because it is already above nature. That is how much women are totally immersed in the will to receive, men are a little bit confused because they come through the vessels of bestowal that broke and entered vessels of reception, so it is easier for men to connect. They can sit together and drink a little bit, hug each other and sing and they call it nice and pleasant. With women no, it is not like that, women enjoy being distant from others and they appreciate her, it doesn't matter in what, in other words it is a completely different disposition inherently. It is not good or bad, God forbid, it is natural, this position so we have to see in every activity in which the women want to connect between them, we have to see what great thing it is for our correction, just how great it is.
14. S. (40:15) How do you see humanity coming out of this?
R. First of all we have to say thank you very much for the pandemic, it is shaking up all of humanity and it's not done yet and I hope that thanks to it, we will come to a more advanced form of connection. In all our lessons, what can you do? In all of our lessons we have to first of all come to, we first of all have to go over the articles of Shamati, along with it we are going over the articles of Baal HaSulam. We have a list here over which we have not gone over, first of all we have to finish Shamati and finish the articles of Baal HaSulam just go over them as much as we can and at the same time to finally finish the Preface to the wisdom of Kabbalah. Mainly we need to maintain this thing through our connection if we are studying the Preface, just like that I don't think that it will do anything, because we don't feel the changes are. So studying it theoretically I do not feel much of a need for it, although there are people that do not have the inclination to work in the heart, the tendency to work so they're more drawn towards studying physically rather than what it's called to studying and technically. I was like that also to some extent, I drew many diagrams you remember. But today we have no choice, the state of the world determines that we have to go more and more into emotional work and work more with our feelings in our vessels and our vessels are our desire, the feeling. So we will advance, we will make progress.