Morning Lesson January 20, 2024
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 10, 1989. What Does It Mean that the Ladder Is Diagonal, in the Work?
Reading Article. (00:41) “The verse says, ‘He had a dream, and behold, a ladder…’”
1. S. (33:53) Very interesting article, these circles, five topics and eventually goes to the center. One thing that was complicated for me was why a person, a man, the father gives the whiteness, the mother gives the redness, and the Creator gives two things, a soul and a spirit. What are the soul and spirit that the Creator gives?
R. Fulfillment.
S. The soul is fulfillment?
R. In what is prepared by right and left.
2. S. (34:53) This middle line that the Creator gives exists in us and we just have to reveal it, it’s something that we build, what is this line?
R. The middle line comes as a result of the two lines which we build.
S. Then such a new thing is revealed in us?
R. Yes.
S. The middle line is revealed in a person or in a group only? Where is that line revealed, what is it?
R. Both in person and in the group as well.
3. S. (35:45) He speaks of the aspect of peace. When a person does not lean toward peace, completion, the Creator needs to complete the state, to make it whole?
R. Let's say so.
S. How is that expressed? I don't know if I manage to complete, compliment, make it whole. I try to do the work on the right between the friends and I don't know if what I've done on the right, I'm sure I've done something for the sake of the friends but not long ago there was an incident, a state where I was certain I did something for the friends in the Ten but it turned out the opposite of what I thought and the result was undesirable, to say the least. It was an explosion, instead of peace as we can see. I want to scrutinize it. How do we reach peace? What’s the middle line, what's the right line?
R. Peace, Shalom is Shalmut, wholeness. It's the result of the correct connection between all those forces that the Creator summons in a person and the Creator expects that from a person. The Creator's name is called Shalom, peace meaning we have to reach a state where between all our forces there is completion. There's no such thing as bad there's no such thing as good, it's all in order to complement each other and show that all the Creator’s forces are peace, meaning it's the completion of everyone.
S. How do I discern that I've reached the correct, the desired result, that this is how it should have been in the Ten?
R. You have to see the forces that exist in you and in your group, well and then in a bigger circle, the whole of Israel, the entire world, that all these forces come to a completion, to a complementarity. The highest name of the Creator is called Shalom, peace.
4. S. (39:31) He writes that the diagonal, if it only works in the right it's not the end because you also need to walk on the left, this is called the diagonal both on the right it’s not wholeness and the left also it’s not wholeness. What I was impressed by is at the end, he says that if there's no conflict there's no need to make peace and we need the conflict, we need the left line and at the end, he says that to climb the ladder and the first step, it's called right. The question is why do we ascend the ladder from the right if the need for conflict is that which brings peace?
R. First of all to rise up the ladder means to summon forces of connection because the ladder displays the connection between left and right, the desires to receive and the desires to bestow; that both will work with the intention in order to bestow, and that's how a person needs to always direct himself.
S. What does the beginning of the degree which is on the right give us, what's the great advantage of the right or benefit of the right?
R. The right is nevertheless the direction that the Creator determined as the beginning of the path and also the end of it actually. Therefore, we always have to discover how we're moving towards the right.
5. S. (42:01) We talk about wholeness, of peace but a little before that we need to have war, dispute, we need to have this war between the good inclination and the bad inclination in the person. We go to fight, and he said you cannot subdue the evil and we only have to ask the Creator to help. How does a person assemble these forces to fight the evil inclination when he knows that in this war whatever exertion he puts in it’s not going to be enough?
R. Man does everything that is up to him, and he truly wages war but not an ordinary war, rather a spiritual war. He is found against forces of separation, and he is in favor of the connection between right and left in order for the right to win and this is essentially the war.
S. When we speak of our work there are depictions where Kabbalists describe the connection we have to reach, when a person dissolves into the society or annuls himself, where everyone becomes one. It sounds exalted and true and when a person looks at himself, he doesn't have the strength to be in these high states that become as one. I mean he can say I and the friends are going to connect but there are things that the will to receive can't understand that he needs to change and there are places when he knows that the truth is steps away and he has no power to get there, something from above has to come and make this change as if for the last step.
R. This last step could be very far and unrealistic, but it doesn't mean that the person doesn't need to make a close step.
S. These steps don't get him to the revelation of the truth, they bring him the recognition of evil, that he’s incapable.
R. On the way, it's on track, just like you see you work with a map, so you know there are more things that you need to get to and to go through and you have to keep going.
S. How do we accelerate times?
R. That's not exactly the right inclination for a person because we learned that there's a partnership here between man's work and the Creator's work. The more a person makes only actions that he must do and all the rest he gives to the Creator, then accordingly he succeeds. We ourselves don't need to reach the purpose of life, the correction of creation, rather we have to acquire on the way all the qualities that will help us be in the place where the Creator wants to see us, that's all.
6. S. (46:55) He says that a person needs to awaken the dispute. If we want peace we have to make room for the dispute and he explains that the two lines are in our nature, one time the right is in control, and one time the left is in control. What's so bad about it, where's the dispute here?
R. Nothing bad but one time this is in control, the other time the other one’s in control and what's the result of both of these controls?
S. That we advance, one time on the right, one on the left, there’s a certain advancement. I present it kind of radically but how does this beget a demand for peace, what is that demand?
R. That a person doesn't want to be under the influence of the right or under the influence of the left but what's important to him is in the middle line, in the middle state, to be close to the Creator. Neither right nor left is close to the Creator, that includes the right because a person uses the force of bestowal but it's still not his, it still doesn't go through the will to receive, through his coarseness. The middle line is that all his desires he mixes it with the right.
S. How can we awaken a desire to have a middle line? The words that you said, sometimes the right is in control, sometimes the left, you seemingly get used to it and that's it.
R. This is not wholeness, when we get used to it, it's nothing. We have to reach a state where they're both included together supporting each other and not contradictory and not that one appears and then the other one appears, rather both appear in their connection, and they complement one another and in the correct connection of both of them comes the right vessel for the Creator. As it is said to the right and to the left then comes the bride, meaning then comes the vessel that can truly be a vessel for the Creator.
S. How do you give birth to, how do you invent or ask for such a desire to have them both together?
R. That comes out from the order of the degrees, where we begin to see that neither the right nor the left are wholeness.
S. Such a state comes from the right and the left?
R. Yes because on the left the right is definitely missing and when the right arrives on its own you are certain you can't advance without the left.
S. Now let's read about it and Rabbash writes about it, and he says we have to awaken the dispute. What do we do with that?
R. That you see that there is in front of you say some soup with no flavor because you didn't put anything that gives flavor into it and that's the difference between animals and humans. Animals don't need condiments and spices and people do. The hint here is that we need to add to the connection between us special flavors that give us the feeling that we are in connection with the Creator.
S. We need to depict for ourselves the good of the peace, the wholeness of right and left in that state?
R. Yes, that there's a connection and mutual support between them and that only when they both connect together in mutual complementarity we can exist. That's what the Creator wants us to do.
7. S. (52:30) On the one hand the left line corrects the intention and aligns it with the Creator. Where is the place for a person to attach and add the will to receive to the intention?
R. The left doesn't lie on the will to receive?
S. It lies on top, yes but it's not the will to receive itself.
R. I don't understand, what's the difference?
S. The lines are both correct in the intention, but a person still has to add in his perception of reality the will to receive, he needs to bring it to the Creator, the lines only correct the intention. There's something a person has to own from within his perception of reality. The Creator wants to fill the will to receive with pleasure and for that to happen a person needs to have such an intention for the Creator so the will to receive will be able to receive pleasure for the sake of the Creator, to bestow to the Creator outside of himself and the right and the left they correct these intentions but when does a person bring the will to receive itself?
R. The will to receive is created by the Creator, the Creator gives the will to receive.
S. Yes but for a person to feel that his desire to receive is his, it belongs to him.
R. If you are in a state where you feel that you can use your will to receive which you of course will receive, it will grow within you by the Creator, if you feel that you will use it even better and more powerfully than you will receive it, it will become revealed.
S. We sometimes say that the left line is seemingly vessels of reception.
R. Yes?
S. It confuses me because it's not a vessel of reception because I feel it still works on the intention, the left line corrects the intention but it’s not vessels of reception. What are vessels of reception that we want to add to those?
R. Vessels of reception are the will to receive that we want to add to our treatment.
S. What does that mean?
R. That I want the will to receive to grow.
S. Why is that related to the left line, the left line...?
R. The will to receive is the right?
S. Both right and left are tied to the intention not to the will to receive itself, they’re tied to the intention.
R. I'm sorry I don't understand this way. There are two forces, will to receive and will to bestow, so the will to receive you can call that left, the will to bestow you can call right. Now what's next, what are you asking?
S. Will to receive left.
R. Of course it is left because it needs correction.
S. Alright but what needs correction, the intention not the desire.
R. Right, you need an intention over the will to receive in order to use it, you need a correction of the intention.
S. When a person corrects the right line to the left, he corrects his intention, the will to receive automatically begins to be revealed? It needs to reveal the will to receive the minute a person corrects the intention, then the will receive is revealed?
R. Then the will to receive is revealed as substance with which a person continues to work and ascend.
S. So we say that left are vessels of reception?
R. Yes. This place is very fundamental.
8. S. (57:40) I didn't understand why the left is called a ladder whose legs are placed on the earth, that it comes down. Why is he coming down to the left?
R. No, of course if you add the will to receive then you go down the ladder and if you add the will to bestow then you climb up the ladder.
S. But why is he calling it angels?
R. Angels are forces that by them the Creator makes actions in the world.
S. I don't understand that he's a messenger of Mitzvah, to not see ourselves as landlords of the world and we're like angels. In what sense, let’s say we're walking on the right line, how to exactly see ourselves that we are like angels?
R. Yes, that we go up or down that ladder of bestowal and reception in order to balance them and achieve maximum adhesion with the Creator which is impossible with only the force of bestowal, but you also need to have a force of reception.
S. When we are on one line it's like only one line exists, and then the other line?
R. One line is the ideal, that in both the left and right lines we’re aimed at the goal.
S. Later he says that if the Rav is like an angel of the Creator, he should be demand Torah to learn from him. How is that incorporated in this work?
R. I don't know, just say it right now.
9. S. (01:00:07) We’re talking about three lines, but everything begins from one line, he writes that in the article. I don't understand, what is one line? Is it when a person is with us in the group, does the actions he has to do, comes to lesson, that's called one line? What's called one line, what's the beginning?
R. From the beginning one line means that I have a will to receive in me and I'm going to receive.
S. Any person on the street has one line?
R. He doesn't know about it but in principle, yes.
S. Okay, so I did come here, and I did start studying then at some stage I'm saying we have to make the first step towards the right line, so in the work of coming and going every day and doing the work, what is considered the ascent, the first step of raising your leg and come climbing up to the right?
R. When you perform a restriction on your will to receive and you wish to use it when it’s restricted only in order to bestow, this means that you are working in two lines already.
S. Before the Tzimtzum [restriction] there is no question of left line, right line?
R. No.
S. So lifting your leg to the right line starts an action you called Tzimtzum. What is Tzimtzum in practice, what needs to be done?
R. That I am not using my will to receive because I still can’t feel that I have the intention to bestow.
S. Okay, that’s very clear, we make a lot of actions, we try but when a person really examines himself you see that ultimately everything is dirty with in order to receive.
R. That's okay, from Lo Lishma to Lishma.
S. What's the restriction, how? I understand that I feel that now. What do we need to do, do I need to do to make this restriction happen?
R. To acquire additional force, power, that you will use the will to receive whom you now identify as the left line, you want to correct it in order to bestow. Go ahead, correct it.
S. How to make this restriction? I discover that it's left line, that I'm in order to receive, how do I now, what does it mean to make the Tzimtzum, restriction?
R. What happens if you perform a restriction? What should it actually do with you?
S. From what I understand from our study, I understand that something new called an intention to bestow needs to develop in me.
R. It’s still not a restriction, don't make any leaps. Restriction is when I don't want to receive, to use my will to receive, this is restriction.
S. Okay, is restriction like you said which is not to use my will to receive, does it say that I don't make actions? What does it mean?
R. That you're performing your restriction, it does a great work.
S. Tomorrow morning I want to make a restriction, I wake up in the morning and then I don't come to the lesson, I don't want to make actions. Is that restriction or not?
R. I don't understand what you're talking about.
S. I'm just trying to translate the action of Tzimtzum to something that I can move towards.
R. Let's say that you don't want to receive anything unless it's in order to bestow.
S. Similar to the action you once told us about in the meal, you try to eat and feel something like that?
R. Yes.
10. S. (01:04:45) I don’t understand the ladder, it ultimately reaches the top, to heaven and I want to reach the heavens, but it seems like the Creator doesn't want that, He wants me to stand on the middle of the ladder. Where is my place?
R. Your place is where you want to be.
S. I want to reach heaven, but He puts me down, so I go up and down, up and down so probably there’s a different place He wants to put me.
R. I don't know, what are you asking me about the Creator? Ask about your work.
S. To reach heaven, it's probably not my work?
R. I don't understand.
S. What is my work with the ladder?
R. You must adhere to the Ten and the Creator as much as possible within the Ten.
S. One end of it is the Creator, the other end is the Ten?
R. No it's not two ends, you wish to reveal the Creator in the Ten.
S. Where is the ladder here?
R. Then you will see if it's there, the ladder is the difference between states.
11. S. (01:06:08) I want to continue, you said you start your action with restriction, you feel something, and you reject it, that now the restriction meaning the beginning is that you feel like you're receiving something. If you don't receive anything there's nothing to talk about so the question is receiving what? What should I feel that I receive?
R. Pleasure.
S. Pleasure of what, pleasure from what?
R. It doesn't matter.
S. Any kind of pleasure?
R. Yes.
S. A cup of coffee, it doesn't matter?
R. It doesn't matter, you can receive pleasure from a cup of coffee, the highest pleasure there is.
S. Okay, so there’s no difference here, no separation between corporality, spirituality?
R. The pleasure is spiritual, every pleasure is spiritual.
S. Any pleasure is spiritual?
R. Yes.
S. I received a cup of coffee, I think about the Creator. Will the Creator enjoy me drinking it or not? What can I do so that I drink it in order for the Creator to enjoy? That’s the action.
R. Yes, this action here is called a blessing.
S. Thank you. We talked about the left and right, that a person should always aspire to be on the right twenty-three and a half hours of the day, to be in gratitude and praise. It doesn't matter what my state is, what happens around me, I have to thank the Creator, praise the Creator for what I have, I have half an hour once in a while.
R. No, not once in a while, this is serious half an hour.
S. Okay so now I criticize what, my corporality, my work in the Ten, where I am in relation to spirituality or in general?
R. No, relative to the Ten typically.
S. Okay, so twenty-three and a half hours I'm in praise and gratitude and half an hour I examine where I am, where is the Ten. I have all kinds of thoughts that maybe the situation is good or bad, I'm either here or there. Where's the middle line in all of that between these two points, where's the middle line?
R. There is no middle line yet.
S. The middle line is only spirituality, now we’re between this and that?
R. Let's say that, between this and that, yes.
12. S. (01:09:03) I understood we need to wage war between the good inclination and the bad inclination so that we have a necessity for help from above. How do we get to this war?
R. Try to search who are you waging war on, what would you like to happen to your enemy, where are you taking the powers to do it, is your war in order to have a victory over your enemy or to approach, come closer to something else? You have to scrutinize these things; these are all scrutinized in the war.
S. It is not my war, it is our war?
R. What is our war, the war of the Creator and Amalek?
S. In the Ten, that as much as I want to realize it, I feel that I can't do it on my own.
R. Okay, even better, that now you have proof that you must be in the Ten. What's the problem there?
S. It needs to be felt in the Ten?
R. What?
S. War?
R. Yes, in each one of the Ten.
13. S. (01:11:07) I want to continue on this line of half an hour for the left and most on the right. Our main work is the inner scrutiny besides the Ten. On the left there are places where you feel you want to go to the right, towards heaven, to go up, so how do you do this scrutiny 24 hours a day while staying 23 and a half hours on the right?
R. This is done through incorporation, inclusion of the left in the right, where every 23 and a half hours on the right you add to it the left and you try in this way to reach a state where, how should I put it, for the left to also work as the right. You justify the Creator in everything that’s happening to you, and you want to see the Creator, you want to reveal the Creator as residing at the top of the right line.
S. To do that you have to hold onto your Ten twenty-three and a half hours a day.
R. Hold it, it depends on you.
S. It depends on the person.
R. You don't have to do anything to them, subjugate them, you don’t even have to talk to them.
S. On the other hand he writes here that the main work, the labor, is to reach a state where you recognize There's None Else Besides Him, that only He can save you. That’s the true work in the twenty-three and a half hours?
R. You are coming closer to that.
14. S. (01:13:57) Is the ladder given by the Creator or do we build it?
R. The latter exists.
S. We have to discover it in the Ten?
R. Yes.
S. When it appears can it be that it appears forcefully, and you see you're not in it and you want to get closer to it? How does it happen, how do you build it?
R. By coming closer to the entire Ten, with the correct forces I am able to see a process and a transition from one state to the next as the ladder.
S. In other words if a person learns for many years and he’s got a clear picture from what he learned what should he do, if he still doesn't have the ladder or he has it already, but he doesn't work with it?
R. No but he has to be connected with the friends and he has to have the friends be connected and felt in him and that’s how he adds them together.
S. In the connection with the friends he builds the top of the ladder, he wants to rise to the top of the ladder at the center of the Ten and every time see if we can add something more to it and that is called ascending and descending?
R. Yes.
15. S. (01:16:00) What is the force that guards the ladder diagonally and how do we feel this force?
R. Again?
S. What is the force that keeps this ladder diagonal and how do we feel this force?
R. The force that holds the ladder diagonally is that I want to reach the combination between the left and right and that mix, that combination or incorporation will bring me to adhesion with the Creator.
16. S. (01:17:00) Continuing with the diagonal of the ladder, if you go right you go up, if you go left, you go down, it means it's ascending and descending all the time. What makes or causes the upwards direction, that we make the step upwards, we go up and we go down again.
R. Only ascend, that means that we appreciate or value the connection between us more and more. We value each and every friend, also in the positive actions, also in actions that don't seem to us that positive, that all this is incorporated together and helps us ascend.
S. When we make this higher step, what makes us hold this higher step?
R. Repeat again.
S. What is the holding of the higher step? When we make this higher step how do we hold this higher step?
R. I did not understand.
S. If we move upwards, we go right, we make that movement, how do we hold this, that we keep this step and we don't fall back?
R. Without going down, without descending, of course. We try to constantly hold onto the right even though the ladder itself is a balance, a certain balance between left and right but actually to hold on, it’s on the right.
17. S. (01:19:45) You said that the power of the Creator is peace, there is a left line that the Creator created for the purpose of development. Why defeat what the Creator created?
R. We don't defeat.
S. Can we say that instead of defeating we have to correct?
R. We change the way we use it, but we don't destroy anything, we have to put the right relation between right and left.
S. Maybe we should come to some sort of feeling, maybe we should have the left and right agree somehow?
R. They will have to summarize between them and that will give birth to the middle line. It doesn't exist on its own, it appears as a result of the connection between left and right.
18. S. (01:21:06) We talked about restriction, working in two lines and we begin work with two lines, right and left only after the correction?
R. Yes.
S. What does it mean that I'm telling myself, I'm restricting myself now if I want to begin to work on the right line?
R. That you stop doing things in your will to receive and develop the desires and intentions to bestow.
S. When I stop doing something with the will to receive, how do I later bring it back, the left line? It’s still under the restriction when I begin to bring it back?
R. Yes, gradually the light will bring you closer and give you more forces to work with the desires of the left, and in this way, you’ll be able to control the left.
S. What does it mean that on the one hand, the will to receive is under the restriction and on the other hand, I can use it somehow?
R. It depends for what, it’s not how you use the desire but for what intention.
S. How can we depict such an intention when there is a will to receive and the intention for what we use it is stronger than the desire?
R. You scrutinize it with yourself, I don't know.
S. Is it some sort of a feeling in the intention that has to be stronger than the will to receive?
R. Yes.
19. S. (01:23:27) If I understand correctly, within the Ten we correct our will to receive through work in two lines. The question is, how do we add the will to receive, meaning the left line so as to rise to the next level, what is this work?
R. That’s already in receiving in order to bestow. We need to correct the way we use it, that I use the will to receive in order to bestow.
S. Adding the left line in the work, how do I not spoil the relation toward the Ten?
R. Do you understand what he’s asking? Repeat again.
S. I heard that we have to add the left line in the work, it can be internal or common to the whole Ten. The question is how do I not spoil the relationship between the friends when I add the left line in the work?
R. You don't spoil when you add the left, you don't spoil anything in the work because you're adding it, in a certain extent that you limit it and you add it to in order to bestow.
20. S. (01:25:49) If I understand correctly the Creator gives me both the right line and the left line and I have to build the middle line, that's my work. He writes here that I discover the evil in me, and I create the dispute by wanting to walk on the right line and in this way the evil that is concealed becomes revealed. When I want to be drawn to the right, the evil in me becomes revealed and here comes the dispute and the war basically, and then there’s this song we always sing, when there's war, I trust in this, so I need some sort of confidence that I can walk on the right line. How do I acquire this confidence?
R. Through the Ten.
S. When the friends raise together the common request?
R. Yes, the connection with the Creator and getting confidence through the connection in the Ten.
21. S. (01:27:06) What does it mean to see the image or the form of the angel of the Creator?
R. To see, I don't know, I didn't see angels. That means that a person can depict for himself the quality of bestowal but not that it’s the actual form of an angel but the form of its action.
22. S. (01:27:58) How can we come to a necessity for a common vessel in the Ten?
R. Without a common vessel we just exist without getting anything and not even coming closer to getting anything. It all depends on our common vessel; we need to see it as the summary of our work.
23. S. (01:28:52) When we come to the middle line, is this a permanent state on that degree or is it a high frequency intermittence?
R. The middle line is usually the end of a certain degree that you’ve reached, it's the end of a degree.
S. That's clear but does a person constantly jump between the right line and the left line in a high frequency or is it a permanent state on that degree?
R. It’s constant.
24. S. (01:29:33) I’d like to make a precision, we said that we work in the right line and the left line awakens by itself. Does it mean that the left is a reaction for our work on the right or do we have to understand it in a different way?
R. You don't have to build anything new; we have to connect between us and connect in a way that this connection will ascend and strengthen.
25. S. (01:30:14) We’d like to rise on this ladder like angels to be with all of you in the Congress. The question is, it is written that he is given a soul and a spirit. What’s the difference between a soul and a spirit?
R. The difference between a soul and a spirit? It's the difference between two degrees. Either I understand like students in fifth grade or second grade.
26. S. (01:31:29) Regarding the scrutinies with the desires that appear, should we scrutinize how to use the qualities we have so as to direct these qualities well? How do we do it?
R. I don't understand the question, you just have to listen to the lessons more.
27. S. (01:32:13) The question is this, we don't cancel our efforts and take responsibility for what we do with the Creator and yet there’s a question: there are all kinds of states, does the Creator add to us without our labor if we cannot make another effort, does the Creator still lead us to the end of correction?
R. Yes.
28. S. (01:33:04) It is written in the article that if a person works for the sake of the Creator the body always resists. What is the main resistance when we work on the right line?
R. The main resistance is our pride, a person's personal opinion.
29. S. (01:33:39) As far as I understand the first step we need to take is the restriction so as to see the ladder and begin the work. What's the difference between restriction and annulment and is this also given from the Creator, we have to ask for it?
R. Annulling the ego is just annulment when a person goes from one state to a different state it's as if he annuls his ego and it also happens when a person needs to gradually diminish his ego. It depends on his connection with the group and the Creator, so he gradually researches his abilities to do actions and his relation to the Creator.
S. What exactly is the restriction?
R. Restriction is when I stop using my desire the way I’ve used in the past.