The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson (Afternoon) October 16, 2024

Part 1 Rabash. Letter 12-2

Hello, we're studying from the writings of Rabash from letter number Letter 12-2. You can also find the letter on our websites, Sviva Tova in the Arvut system.

Reading Article: (00:29) Letter 12-2

To the friends, may they live long, I have no news, and I hope that the Creator will make my way successful.

I am writing to you a summary of the talk I gave to the students of Rav Desler concerning the Sukkah (a hut on the festival of Sukkot), called “shadow of faith.”

A Sukkah means thatch, which is the waste of barn and winery. A thatch is called “shade,” and shade is called “concealment of the face.” In order not to have the bread of shame, we have room for work, meaning that we can engage in Torah and Mitzvot although we feel no flavor or vitality. Naturally, afterwards we can receive the vitality and not blemish the gift, meaning that the gift will not be blemished due to the shame that is present in the receiver.

And before we can receive the vitality of the Torah, we must receive vitality form corporeal things because without vitality it is impossible to live. This is why the Creator has prepared for us reception of vitality from corporeality. This means that vitality is called “light” and “pleasure,” and pleasure is spirituality. It is a rule that there is no light without a Kli (vessel), meaning there is no such thing as pleasure without clothing. For this reason, the whole difference is not in the pleasure, called “light,” but in the clothing, meaning in the Kli, since there is a clothing of falsehood, and clothing of truth.

This is similar to a five-year-old girl playing with a doll. The girl is playing with the doll as though the doll is a real child with feelings. And although the doll does not respond, she talks to it. At the same time, if there is a six month old baby in the house, and he is crying, and the five year old girl is told, “Go play with the real baby and we will benefit as well because the baby will not cry,” she will refuse completely. That is, she cannot derive pleasure from a clothing of truth, but from a clothing of falsehood. But as for the pleasure, we see that the girl is feeling real pleasure.

But when the girl has grown to be eighteen, she must derive pleasure from a clothing of truth. Likewise, before we grow up, we derive pleasure specifically from Lo Lishma (not for Her sake), regarded as “clothing of falsehood.” This is called “shadow,” “concealment,” and then there is room for work, and we derive vitality from false things. Afterwards, when we are rewarded, we receive the light of faith.

M. Laitman: (05:10) This is the article in essence. It is very short, very to the point. There are many cases in life, all of our life in essence, when we play the false clothing, and we do not reach the true clothing. 

Question (W MAK): (05:45) How do we measure in the Ten whether we are in a mutual connection with the Creator in order to gradually reveal ourselves, in order to give to Him? 

M. Laitman: We have to check where we get pleasure from. If our pleasure comes from false clothing, then we are for now not in the right contact with the light of Torah. If we are in contact with the true clothing, it means we have reached the goal, and we can simply rise higher and higher in the clothing of spirituality. 

Student: What pleasure can we receive from the Creator in an act of connection in the Ten in order to give back to Him the necessary measure? 

M. Laitman: The pleasure because we unite between us, we organize a group where there is a general opinion to reveal the Creator and express our love in relation to Him. 

Student: If not all the friends want to receive true pleasure, how do we sit them at the common table and please the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Let them sit, this will influence them.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (07:55) Can we look at that example with that little child for a bit? He writes that the child is playing with a doll, and from that she receives true pleasure. And we, the adults, look at her and we have the intellect to say that this is false clothing and not a true one until she reaches eighteen years old, but she is only five now. What is the falsehood there, because it is true pleasure? 

M. Laitman: The issue itself, the pleasure, is from a false carrier. Our life is all like that, that we are playing with different clothing. Some of them are closer, some of them are farther away from the true clothing. 

Student: As long as she is just five years old, she doesn't lack anything. She has a doll; she has true pleasure. How do I make it so that at the age of five, I already bring myself to the age of eighteen? 

M. Laitman: You don't have examples before you? 

Student: When I am told that I am living in the clothing of falsehood, what am I being told? 

M. Laitman: No, they don't say it. Who is going to say it to you? Did you hear it in childhood? 

Student: Of course not. Now I am talking about that example and drawing it to myself. I am living in a state of enjoying falsehoods. This is how the Kabbalists tell me. How do I start to develop myself so I identify that these clothings are false. 

M. Laitman: You just have to study Kabbalah, and you will understand that you are enjoying false pleasures. There is no other path. 

Student: It is by making intellectual scrutinies? 

M. Laitman: Usually it is emotional and rational.

Student: Let's talk about the emotional ones. Rabash writes that the little child is receiving true pleasure. 

M. Laitman: Yes, because this is a human that is five years old.

Student: Exactly. So, when I am that five-year-old child, how do I make this scrutiny when it is true pleasure? 

M. Laitman: You can't. If you are five years old, you are only able to receive and enjoy pleasure that corresponds to your age.

Student: So, this is how I will die, like a five-year-old? 

M. Laitman: No, develop. You can't say when you are at the age of five years old, why am I not getting pleasure of an eighteen-year-old? 

Student: What feeling can penetrate into me now and bring me that feeling that the place I am in is filled with clothings of falsehood? 

M. Laitman: This can be under the condition that you see other children that are older than you and they enjoy pleasures that are bigger than yours. So, it may as well be that you will be infected by them, and this is what we say, in essence, as in the example. They say to this girl, go play with the real child, but she doesn't want to. But if in some way we tie her to a girl that's ten or fifteen years old, then she'll be able to understand, at least in part, according to her understanding, that that's the way we're built. Each one develops according to his mind, from year to year.

Student: So, I can depict to myself that my friends are already older and that they have this calling of truth already?

M. Laitman: Yes, that's it. That's why it's worth being with people who are older than us and learn from them and live with them to get an impression from them of the clothings that they play.

Question (MAK 39): (14:20) What is the falsehood in our corporeal life? Is it false study, or the goal that a person aspires to, or the goal that, nonetheless, that life was made for? 

M. Laitman: We have to check on ourselves what pleasure we're in, what pleasure is nourishing us, and check this pleasure, whether it's lies or true, correct. This is how we'll develop. 

Question (MAK 39): (15:20) When that little girl has suffered enough, and she has this inversion from enjoying corporeality towards enjoying spirituality? The suffering of our soul is internal, and it is what brings us to have this inversion from enjoying false pleasures to the true ones?

M. Laitman: Yes. This is when a person truly feels that all earthly pleasures that people enjoy don't touch him. He wants something eternal, true.

Question (Almaty 1): (16:26) There is this false clothing, which most of the time I'm in, that shade, and there is also the shade of faith. How do we not err when we're in concealment, whether it's a shade of falsehood or truth? 

M. Laitman: Not to be mistaken, it's only when you're with the friends. Then you may have different choices, and they constantly change place with their meanings, and you begin to understand where you are, where the truth is and where lies are, and this is how you advance. 

Student: Another question. What is the light of faith? 

M. Laitman: It's the light that is concealed in the action that a person performs by force of faith. 

Question (W PT 33): (17:39) Let's say that we're connecting, and we start to feel pleasure from the connection between us, from the scrutinies, from the common discernments, from the attitude towards one another. How do we, from that pleasure, examine if it's a false pleasure or a true one? 

M. Laitman: It's best if you write this question down and clarify it between you, and then we'll talk. 

Question (Hadera 1): (18:21) In the third paragraph it's written, before we can receive the vitality from Torah, we must receive it from corporeal things, because without vitality we cannot live. Does the vitality of the Torah cancel the need for corporeal vitality? 

M. Laitman: In something, yes. 

Student: But there's still a necessary amount of vitality from corporeal things? 

M. Laitman: Yes. All in all, you feel tastes in food and rest. So, there are things that are necessary for life that you can't cancel or refuse. 

Student: Like the saying, no bread - no Torah? 

M. Laitman: Yes, something like this.

Question (W Heb 2): (19:24) If a person feels that it's all false pleasures, and lacking meaning, but he doesn't understand what a true pleasure is. What is that thing, the pleasure from a clothing of truth? 

M. Laitman: Try to ask this question in life, and then you'll tell us. 

Question (W Heb 2): (20:00) What is the pleasure that a person receives in Lo Lishma, if the person is concealed from Him? So, what pleasure does he have there? 

M. Laitman: Pleasure, lots of pleasure. A whole life is pleasure.

Student: Corporeal ones? 

M. Laitman: Yes, corporeal.

Student: In spirituality, seemingly he has no pleasure, because everything is still concealed from him.

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (W ITA): (20:35) What attitude should we have toward falsehood and truth? And what application should we have on both levels to have true vitality? 

M. Laitman: Get closer to the truth, distance yourself from lies, until we feel that we live in the truth. 

Question (Tbilisi): (21:20) This morning, my world is divided into two. One is that the Creator is the good, benevolent, that is the highest thing, and then there is a huge pleasure from that, that I am on the path to Him. I have a beloved Rav, friends, sources. And the second world, these are the wars, which really didn't go anywhere. What is false here? What is true, and how do I connect these things within me, these two worlds? 

M. Laitman: Continue to study, especially our sources, and split always between a true goal and a false goal. 

Question (Haifa 1): (22:32) Could it be that Kabbalist is hinting to me for me to examine if I'm still playing with a doll, like a child, and it's time to play with that real baby? 

M. Laitman: Maybe.

Student: Could it be that doll is my desire to receive, and the real baby is the desire to work in order to bestow? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (W Turkiye 7): (23:18) What exactly is that clothing of truth, and what changes in us that allows us to receive that pleasure? 

M. Laitman: The clothing of truth is that I receive pleasure from the words of the Torah and I constantly try to be only in them and develop them. 

Question (W French): (24:04) In the first paragraph it is written that in order not to have the bread of shame, we have room for work, meaning that we can engage in spiritual activities, like Torah and Mitzvot, that we feel no flavor of vitality. Naturally, afterwards we can receive the vitality and not blemish the gift, meaning that the gift will not be blemished due to the shame that is present in the receiver. What is that gift here? What is it talking about here? 

M. Laitman: The whole Torah, the light of Torah. This will be the gift. 

Question (PT 22): (24:58) The connection to the child, maybe the child, in practice is the embodiment of our desire which doesn’t accept any compromises, because for a child that doll can fulfill all the desires. There’s no resistance there. Whereas the true baby cries and resists, so the child prefers the doll, she can do whatever she wants with it. 

M. Laitman: Yes, correct.

Question (PT 22): (25:38) Faith is a vessel or a light? 

M. Laitman: Faith is the light. 

Student: And it builds the Kli? 

M. Laitman: No. 

Student: Another question. Is the spiritual pleasure felt constantly? 

M. Laitman: No, not constantly.

Question (W Piter): (26:10) The pleasure from our connection in the Ten is still false. How do we catch ourselves on that feeling and not to enjoy it? 

M. Laitman: Continue, and you'll begin to feel what pleasure is true and what is a lie. This will come soon. 

Question (W Dnepr): (26:42) What desires do we use in order to build the screen in our spiritual Sukkah?

M. Laitman: Any desires we can bring joy to the friends with. 

Question (W Moscow 6): (27:06) How do we reach the true clothing? 

M. Laitman: Go forward, constantly choosing pleasure as high as possible, that we want to direct to the Creator. 

Question (W Kavkaz 1): (27:33) True pleasure is the connection with the Creator, as I understand. And then the person feels like he fills the Creator and the Creator in reverse. But in the meantime, everything else is like the doll. It turns out the only thing I could do is in the mind and the heart to orient myself to search for the Creator all the time. It's like a completely new reality. It's something completely new. Is that correct? 

M. Laitman: This is according to how each one feels it. 

Question (KabU 14): (28:17) We have many opportunities for connection, but we disregard each other and the connection between us because we are lazy or do selfish things. This is a waste, as I understand. So, I have to pay attention to it and want to correct and join together. How can we collect the waste and build the Sukkah above our head using the waste?

M. Laitman: According to what we study, a commandment of building the Sukkah, according to that, that we raise the refuse of barn and winery above our head. This is how we treat this refuse. 

Question (W Spain): (29:38) If vitality is called light and pleasure and pleasure is spirituality, what will be these clothings we are supposed to feel all the time in Lo Lishma? 

M. Laitman: The clothings that match the pleasures we receive, the true pleasure, the true clothing, false clothing, false pleasures. 

Question (Moscow 1): (30:49) There is this thing here, the Creator gives us false clothings, so we choose the true one, but we cannot refuse a part of these false clothings. These are beastly ones, shelter, sex, family, food and so on. These are the ones we cannot refuse?

M. Laitman: We don't need to refuse them. We simply need to rise above them a bit and that's it.

Student: I understand that there is nothing about them. We just have to rise above them, but what should we do with other desires that also come from the Creator that are connected to the society, money, glory and things like that. 

M. Laitman: They were also given for us to sort them out, and instead of them, to prefer spiritual pleasures. 

Student: But in them there might be some measure we shouldn’t refuse. We have to work to make money.

M. Laitman: This is why I say we need to sort them out and take from them what is necessary. 

Question (W Ukraine 2): (32:23) What's the correct foundation we should have to build a spiritual Kli?

M. Laitman: The connection between us needs to be such that we cannot even express in our world. 

Question (W MAK 25): (32:56) The moment when we realize we are getting pleasure in the false clothing, is this the moment when we are at the verge of the new degree? 

M. Laitman: I don't think I need to answer this. You yourself will see it and discover it when the time comes.

Student: If there is such an impression that we were enjoying something false and we are revealing something that is true, can we come back to the false clothing? Is this allowed in the Creator's plan? 

M. Laitman: That's never allowed. That's not in the Creator's plan. 

Question (Kyiv): (33:50) You said the connection between us is impossible to imagine in our world. How can we imagine this connection in the Ten that we should strive for? 

M. Laitman: The connection is a purely internal one between all the parts and the group. 

Student: What is this inner connection? 

M. Laitman: The connection of the hearts.

Student: I have friends with me in the lesson. What does it mean that I'm connected with their hearts? 

M. Laitman: And they with yours? You all as if depict one heart which you all use together. 

Student: Is this a feeling between our hearts? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How do we choose this feeling, whether we have this pulsating heart between us or not? 

M. Laitman: Ask the Creator for everyone to feel all together that common heart. 

Question (W MAK): (35:29) You said we should study the sources and clarify between the false goal and the good goal. How do we make sure our minds don't lead us astray, because I depend on the group, and I try not to bring in some false goals? How as we grow? 

M. Laitman: To the extent of our growth, you will grow. Continue, don't worry. 

Question (W MAK): (36:09): How do we check the essence of our unity in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: It's very simple. Gather together and depict to yourself that you are in one heart, and only out of it, do you want to speak to the Creator and to everyone in the world. 

Student: How can we be ready to receive what the Creator wants to give? 

M. Laitman: That depends on to what extent the Ten is ready for that.

Student: With regards to the Creator, we'll be in truth even if it's a lie. It's the truth we have to accept and work according to that. What should be the true truth between us and the Creator? 

M. Laitman: It will be the truth between you and the Creator.

Question (Petah Tikva 35): (37:32) The Creator is good that does good. He always gives us pleasure. We have to, as I understand, take this pleasure as corporeal or as spiritual. And if I say that this depends on my Kli, I have to turn it into a true spiritual tool. The true Kli is the Kli of love towards the friends? 

M. Laitman: First of all. Yes. 

Student: He unites me with the friends in the Ten. He gives me desires for myself and with relation to the friends. The friends awaken some desires, deficiencies, and I want them to not be for myself. Where is this transition where I have to ask to always ask for strength? Am I in similarity of form when I'm a transitionary Kli, whether I discover the true Kl between myself and the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Not necessarily.

Student: How do we do this? 

M. Laitman: Only through the prayer. 

Student: It's when I ask not for myself but for the friends, and then I feel more and more that the friends are an inseparable part of me? They're more important than me?

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And then in this point I receive the truth. 

M. Laitman: No, no.

Student: So, where do I receive this point where I reveal the truth between my corporeal desires for myself and the spiritual, that I want to give them pleasure through me? 

M. Laitman: You cannot reveal the truth there. 

Student: Where is this point where I have to reveal the truth? 

M. Laitman: Gradually you'll reveal it.

Student: And what about the connection between us and the Creator? 

M. Laitman: In the connection between you and the Creator, there also exists that desire which is oriented towards the foreign ones, towards the friends. And behind it, the one to the Creator, which is why it's written from the love of the Creator beings to the love of the Creator. 

Student: So, the moment when I ask for the friends, I have to direct this to please the Creator, and then I give to the Creator through the friends.

M. Laitman: I understood it a little bit differently. It's not so bad. 

I tried to condense this exchange a little bit. Maybe someone else can do better.

Question (W MAK 19): (40:39) The pleasure that a person gets is as the person grows, so he stops receiving pleasure from some things. And if he begins to feel something as false, then he stops enjoying? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (W MAK 19): (41:06) In the spiritual, there is also a transitionary age when there is a habit that we have a habit to act like a child, but we have to act as adults.

M. Laitman: It's not related to the spiritual world, but there is such a thing. 

Student: Is there suffering in this? 

M. Laitman: There is no suffering, there is a recognition. 

Question (W MAK 104): (41:47) Coming to adulthood on Sukkot, why does it say age eighteen? Does it mean a Sefira of reflected and direct? 

M. Laitman: I don't know. Where is it written like this for you?

Student: At the end it says when a girl is eighteen years old, she becomes an adult. Does this mean this attainment?

M. Laitman: No, in Kabbalah, it's only at the age of thirteen. 

Student: And the refuse of wine and barn and winery, is this the experience in our work? 

M. Laitman: Yes, let’s say. I can't tell you because you take everything literally. 

Question (Turkiye 2): (43:06) How can I discern between truth and lies to be sure I'm in the middle line? 

M. Laitman: The middle line is not exactly right in the middle between truth and falsehood, but rather we receive the middle line from above, and then with the middle line we'll be able to make such connections that they bring us to the Creator.

Question (PT 6): (44:06) Should we ask the Creator for blow after blow or raise our hands and subjugate ourselves and agree with the Creator? 

M. Laitman: This way and that way.

Student: And does he send suffering so we pray all day? 

M. Laitman: We need to understand that we receive from the Creator only the revelation of love. 

Question (W Turkiye 7): (44:55) How do we learn from example? It's hard to do it in the Ten to make it happen. I feel that we move from the right direction. How do we build the right foundation? 

M. Laitman: Just to be connected above all the distinctions and disturbances. This needs to be the foundational point upon which we build the foundation of the ladder.

Question (W PT 33): (45:49) I heard when you told the story about Rabash,  when you were in some place having a meal and he said that the cook enjoys the pleasure of everyone eating and not the money. I tried to explain that we have to do the same things, and we have to enjoy that others are enjoying, not ourselves, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. 

Student: And what do we have to do, that we're receiving a reward as a necessity. How do we reach a state where we won't need this reward but only the pleasure of others? 

M. Laitman: We need to do exercises and ultimately, due to our prayer, the Creator will give us such strength. 

Student: That we're getting pleasure from giving others pleasure. 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (W Turkiye 10): (47:12) I heard you say that we grow and develop according to the age of our mind. Five years old is not the same as eighteen. What is age in spirituality? Are we all in the same age in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: No, we're not all the same age. In our Tens we have friends from all sorts of different ages and from all sorts of different levels of development but that's not important. We must bring ourselves to a true, direct connection with each other.

Question (W Brasil): (48:29) Do we have to check our intention of the people that take part in our events? 

M. Laitman: No. Together we need to reach such intentions that are all similar to each other. 

Question (W Moscow 6): (49:00) If we try to reach a request about a common heart, even if we don't receive a response from the Creator, do we have to ask and strengthen in faith? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: And these stages when we strengthen in faith, do we have to make sure it corresponds to the request we raise? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes.

Question (W Rehovot 1): (49:48) How do we distance ourselves from lies and get closer to the truth? How can you make sure you're getting closer to the truth if you're constantly being lied to by your ego? 

M. Laitman: We need to try to be in our connection and to examine the essence of our connection, that will be connected in a true connection. 

Student: And when the ego constantly tells you that lies are true, how do we not give this place; how do we come out of this? 

M. Laitman: Try to erase it. Ask the Creator to help you.

Student: Another question. Today is the holiday of Sukkot and we'll come to Petah Tikva. We'll build a Sukkah there. What is the spiritual meaning to eat and drink in the Sukkah that we're doing together? 

M. Laitman: There's a ton of materials about that really a lot, that we of course prefer to eat and drink and pray within the Sukkah. 

Question (W MAK 56): (51:35) In the article, when the girl plays with the doll, she's expressing concern for this doll, and a real child also needs this concern. Why, according to this article, does she refuse to express care for this real child, but she gets pleasure from the same expression of concern for the doll? 

M. Laitman: Because for her a live child is not a live child, whereas for her a plastic doll is a live child. 

Student: Can it be because she does what she wants to do, because she feels like it's necessary? 

M. Laitman: Of course, she does what she thinks.

Question (W French): (53:03) Yesterday we read Etz Chaim [The Tree of Life], and a friend was crying. Does this happen because of unity between us? 

M. Laitman: It's a certain excitement that's happening in the meantime. Sometimes it happens to everyone. It's good.

Student: When we feel this comes from the depth of an open heart, that's why we have to do this in this state. 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, of course. Good luck.

Student: And we have to seek such states, general feelings, emotional… 

M. Laitman: We in the group need always to try to be together in the connection of feelings.

Question (W Kavkaz 1): (54:36) It says being with adults. Is this the Rav and the sources? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (W MAK 97): (54:56) During Sukkot we enjoy the shade of the Creator. The shade gives us concealment of the Creator. What is the pleasure from the concealment of the Creator? 

M. Laitman: Because specifically in that concealment we can come closer to him. 

Student: Can we say that the pleasure is in faith above reason? 

M. Laitman: Yes, in different words, yes. 

Question (Tbilisi): (55:34) Coming from the importance of the Creator and that He is good that does good and the need to give to Him, I'm constantly in gratitude to him because it doesn't matter what he is giving because He is good that does good, and am I giving Him pleasure by this? 

M. Laitman: Yes, yes. 

Question (W Spain): (56:10) Today the holiday of Sukkot is beginning that's called the shade of faith. How do we connect to the shade of faith and come to practical actions building the Sukkah? 

M. Laitman: Nothing, just to learn what belongs to these days, to this holiday, by that we draw the light of Sukkot from the heavens into our soul. 

Question (W MAK 36): (57:04) What's the difference between connecting our feelings and connecting our hearts in the Ten? Is it the same?

M. Laitman: No difference. It's the same. 

Question (W Italy): (57:21) I'm afraid of wasting the gift when I experience false pleasure, so I seek effort. Is this correct or is it a false remedy? 

M. Laitman: No, both the exertion and the fulfillment. It's impossible to receive the light without the vessel and the vessel without the light. 

Question (W MAK 25): (58:10) Today we are speaking about the feeling of pleasure when the refuse of the vineyard is used for the good. Is this correction of Lishma? 

M. Laitman: Not exactly. There is, of course, a certain part in it, but this isn't our work to gather around the whole world these branches and all sorts of waste. No. 

Student: So, that we take what we have and use that for the good. Is this our work? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (W Kavkaz 1): (59:23) Can we say that false pleasure is returned from pleasures, and true pleasure is returned from love? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And advancement in true pleasures, the way we become adults, is this clarification in the prayer? 

M. Laitman: Yes. That's it.