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

Daily Morning Lesson: June 30, 2025

Part 3: Devotion – Selected Excerpts

Reader: We are in the lesson on the topic of “Devotion” or “Soul Devotion.” We will read selected excerpts from the sources. We are in excerpt number one. You can find the study materials in the Sviva Tova in the Arvut system. You can send us questions live through our websites.

Reading: (00:26) 1. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 208, "Labor"

The efforts that one makes are but preparations for achieving devotion. Hence, one should grow accustomed to devotion, since no degree can be achieved without devotion, as this is the only tool that qualifies one to be rewarded with all the degrees.

M. Laitman: Meaning the height of the degree changes, but the attitude is one of devotion, soul devotion. And so we need to be aimed at that only.

Reading: (01:42) 2. RABASH, Article No. 12 (1985),” Jacob Dwelled in the Land Where His Father Had Lived”

Devotion in spirituality is worthless to corporeal people, since for them devotion is a means and not the goal, while in spirituality it is the opposite: devotion is the goal.

M. Laitman: This means that a person is searching, laboring how to find devotion or soul devotion as much as possible. And when he finds it, it means that he was rewarded with a higher degree compared to what he had before.

Question (Kyiv 1): (03:06) When devotion is the goal in the spiritual work, how can I depict to myself this goal each time anew, how to achieve it?

M. Laitman: You only think of the state of soul devotion and you yearn to reach that state of soul devotion, to feel it, to live in it. And then you can feel what the Creator wants from you.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:13) In corporeality, it's clear that a person wants something, he wants something very much. He's willing to put aside all of his other desires and focus only on that, let's call that devotion. But what does it mean that this is the goal?

M. Laitman: This is what he yearns for and to the extent that he approaches it through his efforts, then it means that he enters soul devotion.

Student: Why is it called the goal in its own, soul devotion?

M. Laitman: Because he receives all the parameters, all the information from above; and from himself on top of all these parameters, he has to construct this soul devotion.

Student: So, we're told that devotion is the goal, giving contentment to the Creator is the goal, adhesion is the goal, sorry, or soul devotion. And here we're told that devotion is the goal, it's not a means, it's not clear.

M. Laitman: A man has to yearn for soul devotion, for a state where everything he can imagine to himself, from his desires, thoughts, actions, are all components of his attitude toward the Creator, which is soul devotion.

Student: What is in that state that doesn't exist in any other state in life? What is in this soul devotion?

M. Laitman: In soul devotion, a person has a feeling that he's open before the Creator. There's no higher state, more exalted, better, purer, who is felt entirely in all of his bones, all the parts of his soul.

Student: And by that, he's giving contentment to the Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes, yes, he has a feeling that he comes to that.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (09:00) Soul devotion is something that expands on the way. It tells us, here, that this is the goal. Do I reach soul devotion and then what happens from here onwards? Or is it something that is expanding and has no limitations, no limits?

M. Laitman: Soul devotion is both the goal and the means.

Student: Because we're here, it says we have to exert all the time.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: We have to be preparing all the time. So the question is, we know that on the path as we advance, our will to receive grows, the ego grows. How should we behave correctly and each time increase the devotion opposite our ego? Opposite the state that we receive anew from the Creator, each time?

M. Laitman: It's likely that we have to check each time – how are we relative to the Creator with soul devotion?

Student: So, what is this preparation he talks about in Excerpt 1? He says we need to constantly, to always be in efforts and to make preparations?

M. Laitman: When we want to be in contact, connected to the friends with soul devotion, in them, with them. And then we gradually feel that this attitude, this soul devotion, is what we have, what we feel toward the entire group.

Student: So, first I need to check opposite the friends, then opposite the Creator?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:19) You said that you think only about that state of devotion and you want to live in it. What kind of attitude should we have? Because our attitude can bring us closer to the Creator or make us live in the clouds all the time?

M. Laitman: Let's first come to it and then we'll talk. What you just said is not related exactly to soul devotion.

Question (Unity 2): (12:28) When we come to soul devotion, devotion toward the group, we need strength because it's great work. And if I feel that I lack forces in the group, so I have the greatness of my Rav and I take forces from there. How much is it given to combine that force in the group in order to succeed to annul toward the friends?

M. Laitman: As much as you can, do, that's how you'll take. There's no meaning to the size, itself. Later, we'll start measuring Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida; and from what force we need help from above in order to be beyond the light that appears to below.

Question (Lithuania 1): (14:17) We've spoken here about devotion, but there's this feeling that it's more of an acquisition, or adhesion. You don't feel that a person can cede something or lack something.

M. Laitman: A person has to give up everything, everything he can give up, except for the connection with the Creator. That, in general, is what defines soul devotion.

Student: I don't really understand what it means to concede everything. I want to understand the Creator and feel His love.

M. Laitman: It doesn't mean that you concede your love for the Creator, it testifies that besides that nothing else is important to you.

Question (Holland): (15:25) This morning we started to read from Shamati that Creator hates the bodies. We speak a lot of when we come to the degree when we truly feel that the work for the Creator in and of itself is the reward. Could we say that this feeling of the work being a reward in and of itself, is this the measurement of devotion?

M. Laitman: The matter of soul devotion, and whether it is or isn't, is determined by a person according to what he yearns for, what state he yearns to be in adhesion with the Creator with. And when he comes to it, he just wants to examine himself, whether he is truly in soul devotion to the upper force. That's what determines it.

Student: When you say it like this, does it actually make it then an integral part of the vessel, this yearning, this scrutiny?

M. Laitman: The yearning is part of the vessel, yes, of the Kli. Because our entire desire for the Creator that we constantly grow and think of, so our entire desire truly demands of us, this devotion.

Student: And is this devotion – I don't know if this is an appropriate question, so forgive me if it's not – but is this devotion, is it like scrutinized in the Rosh or felt in the Guf?

M. Laitman: It's both in the Rosh and in the Guf. First comes the intention: A person wants to have it that way; and then, he performs an action or several actions in order to get to there in practice.

Question (Turkiye 1): (18:58) How does a person come to the Ten each day with a new kind of devotion?

M. Laitman: He thinks about it before the lesson, he depicts to himself what it truly is to be relating to the Creator this way, with soul devotion. And this is what opens up new vessels in him, new feeling, and this is how he advances.

Question (Turkiye 7): (20:00) There is, here, in Excerpt Number One and Two, two things that the friend wants to scrutinize: In the first excerpt, it is written that the person exerts and has a preparation to reach devotion. So a person needs to get used to devotion all the time, because he cannot achieve any degree only with devotion, because that's the only tool that qualifies one to be rewarded with all the degrees. And in the second excerpt, it's speaking about that in which devotion is a means and not a goal. So the friend asks, is there not a deviation between these two things, or a contradiction between these two things? Is devotion the means or the goal? – is it a necessary means or is it already the goal?

M. Laitman: I would say, if we put forth exertion, as much labor as possible, for soul devotion that we want to be rewarded with. That is nevertheless, the goal of reaching soul devotion is altogether – that's just what he's writing. That soul devotion with the corporeal, it's a mean, and in spirituality it's the goal. Meaning, I don't want to be rewarded with anything but with devotion, because if I will be in such a state towards the Creator, I won't want anything else. This should fill me completely in my entire vessel, that's it.

Question (W Turkiye 7): (23:06) What is the biggest difficulty or obstacle that a person faces in order to reach soul devotion?

M. Laitman: The greatest difficulty is not forgetting that that's what we need to go to and that's all that we're missing. Meaning, all the deficiencies that are revealed in us, we need to decide that they're all entering soul devotion. And besides soul devotion, there's nothing because through that, we reach complete adhesion with the Creator.

Question (Haifa 1): (24:24) Soul devotion is that my inner preparation, preparedness, in order to shift my intention to receive and to be the intention to bestow, is that correct?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (PT 19): (24:50) Yes, soul devotion, what is soul devotion? What do I need to do? Do I need to concede my life and just focus on the wisdom of Kabbalah and nothing exists? What is this soul devotion?

M. Laitman: If you ask yourself all the time, then you'll come to the solution very quickly.

Student: What is it, what do I need to concede?

M. Laitman: Then you'll discover.

Student: What it means to concede, all the pleasures in my life? Is that what soul devotion is?

M. Laitman: I'm not answering you.

Student: Why?

M. Laitman: Because that's something that you have to reach – you have to search for it and reach it.

Question (MAK 11): (25:48) There is a feeling that soul devotion is a high degree, and you even said that we need to be awarded with that, to be worthy of that, to be in this contact with the Creator. And in the meantime, we don't have that contact with Him. So, how should we act? Should we act out of reason, with the intellect, or to act to that state, what should we do?

M. Laitman: You must aim yourself to something called, soul devotion, by yearning for contact with the Creator. You constantly open your inner vessel more and more, you want the Creator to fill it. And you will yearn for Him, come close to Him, specifically with the opening of the soul devotion. We're on the border so I hope that very quickly it will be clarified.

Question (W Spain 1): (27:17) You specified that each degree changes, the approach to soul devotion. So, how does this persistence remain with the intention at different degrees?

M. Laitman: That is like the rest of the spiritual states, we can't talk about it before we feel how it operates, when there's no soul devotion.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (28:58) You said to a friend that a person chooses whether his action is in soul devotion or not. What scrutiny does a person undergo in his internality in terms of whether he truly is in soul devotion? Because we see that despite the person doing any action, he still does so in his will to receive. There is still no correction of the will to bestow. So what scrutiny is there?

M. Laitman: The scrutiny begins with the first excerpt that we're studying:

Rav reads The efforts that one makes are but preparations for achieving devotion. Hence, one should grow accustomed to devotion, since no degree can be achieved without devotion, as this is the only tool that qualifies one to be rewarded with all the degrees.

That's it. If a person delivers himself to such an approach, then he gradually gets there. We will learn many more excerpts in which we either need to reach soul devotion. Or in a state that we come to it, we need to identify what degree we're in towards the Creator and between us as well, and what happens with our work, a person towards his friend, so that is something we'll talk about.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:30) I heard earlier that the person needs to be open in relation to the Creator. What does it mean to be open in relation to the Creator?

M. Laitman: Open before the Creator means that a person cannot hide or open part of his intentions, desires, relations, or all that he has. He's willing to open and present before the Creator. Or the Creator that would want Himself to, for the Creator to want Himself to manage the path a person goes on. Let's continue, we didn't read yet, we don't have a lot of material that we can settle upon.

Reader: We're in Excerpt Number Three.

M. Laitman reading: In love of the Creator, we say that a person should work only for the Creator, meaning without any reward. This means that he is ready for complete devotion without any reward, without any return being borne out of his devotion. Rather, this is the core, his purpose, that he wants to annul his self before the Creator, meaning to cancel his will to receive, which is the existence of the creature, and this is what He wants to annul before the Creator. It follows that this is his goal.

Meaning his goal is to give his soul to the Creator. What is there to add here?

Question (H 10): (35:06) When a person succeeds to find his soul, according to what does he progress onward?

M. Laitman: According to the results he has from this action. It could be that something he starts to discover, or new relations with the Creator. That he needs to build the same relation upon, just like before, under the conditions he had before. But now the conditions are new, and also towards the new conditions he needs to build a relation, an attitude of devotion. You will see how, to what extent soul devotion appears always with Baal HaSulam, Rabash.

Reader: Excerpt Number 3.

Reading: (36:42) RABASH, Article No. 12 (1985), "Jacob Dwelled in the Land Where His Father Had Lived"

With love of the Creator, we say that a person should work only for the Creator, meaning without any reward. This means that he is ready for complete devotion without any reward, without any return being born out of his devotion. Rather, this is the core—his purpose, that he wants to annul his self before the Creator, meaning (cancel) his will to receive, which is the existence of the creature. This is what he wants to annul before the Creator. It follows that this is his goal, meaning his goal is to give his soul to the Creator.

Question (Hungarian-Polish): (37:57) How to present everything to the Creator?

M. Laitman: That's from that feeling when a person fully yearns for the Creator, and doesn't want anything besides devotion and adhesion to Him. He doesn't want to replace that goal for any other goal, that's how he feels. So, with such an approach that he's in, that's called that a person is in devotion to the Creator.

Question (Latin 4): (39:21) What does it mean to work only for the Creator alone? And what are the limitations or the boundaries of such work?

M. Laitman: But to the Creator, is considered that from all of my actions I want my goal to be only to be good in the eyes of the Creator, that's it. Otherwise, I don't agree, I don't want some action to emerge from me that doesn't appear to the Creator as an act of bestowal to Him.

Question (Turkiye 1): (40:30) What prayer do I need to build in order to shift from in order to receive to in order to bestow?

M. Laitman: Prayer needs to be exactly that you want to bestow to the Creator; for Him to feel from you your attitude towards Him in such a way.

Student: And what prayer does a person need to build in order to reach devotion of the soul?

M. Laitman: What prayer? That's what is being spoken of, that a person wants all his desires, intentions, his actions and thoughts, all his directions to be all aimed towards the Creator.

Question (PT 31): (41:44) In this state of soul devotion, there's this corporeal fear that you're going to lose something. How do you deal with that fear?

M. Laitman: Only through adhesion with the Creator. Just like a small child, if he's afraid of something, what does he do? He runs to his mother.

Student: How can we be careful, though, that the soul diversion doesn't serve the will to receive?

M. Laitman: That's a good question, and we still can't be under such an examination.

Student: I saw in the past, many situations where seemingly the soul diversion of the friend, which ended up harming them with all kinds of health problems and such things. How can we be careful that we work in soul diversion?

M. Laitman: We will learn about that, too, but it can't be that the true soul devotion would lead a person to actions that would be harmful to him. No, that can't be.

Question (Beer Sheva): (43:36) The process that a person goes through, that the created being goes through. It starts from Ibur [conception], what is the difference between Ibur [conception] and soul diversion?

M. Laitman: It's truly that way on the degree of adhesion, on the level of adhesion of a person in the Creator.

Question (Woman PT 23): (44:20) What soul devotion does there need to be between friends? How should it be expressed?

M. Laitman: Between friends there needs to be such devotion that they understand that it is from this that they get the same attitude they have towards the Creator, like there is between them and the friends. Therefore, they don't think about anything besides their relations of devotion towards one another.

Reader: Excerpt Number 4.

Reading: (45:29) 4. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 219, "Devotion"

The servitude that should primarily be in devotion is on the discernment of fear. At that time, the whole body disagrees with one’s work, since it does not feel any taste in the servitude. And with each thing that he does, the body calculates that this servitude is not in completeness. Thus, what will you get out of working?

Then, because there is no validity or taste in this servitude, overcoming is only through devotion. This means that the servitude feels bitter, and each act causes him horrendous suffering, since the body is not accustomed to work in vain: either the work should benefit oneself, or others.

Reader: Excerpt Number 5.

Reading: (47:14) 5. RABASH, Article No. 12 (1985), "Jacob Dwelled in the Land Where His Father Had Lived"

Concerning devotion, I heard from Baal HaSulam that one should depict devotion as we find with Rabbi Akiva (Berachot 61b): He said to his disciples, “My whole life I have regretted the verse, ‘With all your soul, even if He takes your soul.’ I said, ‘When will I be able to keep it?’ And now that this has come to me, will I not keep it?”

Certainly with such a desire to bestow, when a person says that he wants to receive delight and pleasure because this is the purpose of creation, he certainly means (only) to receive in order to bestow upon the Creator.

Question (Kyiv 3): (48:36) Soul devotion, is that similar to bestowing in order to bestow?

M. Laitman: No.

Student: What is the difference?

M. Laitman: We'll learn it, about those actions. The thing is, that soul devotion, bestow, all that comes to a person from above. And then he – how to say – feels the connection with the Creator, in according with the state of his devotion. That's a serious relation to the Creator, to himself, the connection between them. I think we'll touch this now, and each time we touch it somewhat in every excerpt that we read. There's something from this state as well.

Question (Almaty): (50:40) How can I check myself, as to how much, how strongly, I am in soul devotion?

M. Laitman: In relation to the friends, and then to the Creator, that's how it's done. The words explain these states very little, but to check oneself in relation to the friend, to the Creator. What I said, in essence, are such sublime states, that we cannot control in any way. We can, again, move it, drive it through the Creator – I want to do this, so I ask the Creator, from the Creator to do it, and He does it – but we ourselves can't do it in any way.

Student: Does each one have his own way of effort towards soul devotion?

M. Laitman: Each one has his own.

Question (Azerbaijan): (52:31) If we reach a state, as is written in Excerpt Number Four, that we don't feel flavor, even though yesterday we felt that we are in this work. Then is there benefit in awakening fear in myself?

M. Laitman: Is there a reason to evoke fear in me? No, you can try, but you'll see how incapable you are of holding on to it. You're not capable of holding on because true fear comes from above. Fear comes from above.

Student: Can you say that if you fall into such a state, that state starts coming to you, and even a few times during the day. How can we not simply go with the flow and struggle correctly?

M. Laitman: Pray. I can't tell you for the time being anything else.

Student: What sources can we read in these times? Something that can be the most beneficial?

M. Laitman: What we're studying, that is first and foremost. That erases the sense of fear.

Question (W Latin 15): (54:34) How can we shift from work that is coercive to work that is completely in devotion to the Creator?

M. Laitman: That is only through prayer, where you want to be adhered to the Creator with all your heart and soul.

Student: How can a person overcome this fear from devoting oneself to the Creator?

M. Laitman: It seems to me like the best is the adhesion between us. In the soul devotion between us, and from us all to the Creator, we succeed to reach a complete Kli.

Question (W French 1): (56:25) What is the difference between soul devotion and annulment between the friends?

M. Laitman: Annulment before the friends is annulment towards them; and soul devotion is towards the Creator because soul is a degree of connection.

Student: We have three days to get to a physical meeting with the Ten. Do you have advice what we can do in order to strengthen this soul devotion between us?

M. Laitman: Only those actions that we learn from these articles of Rabash. He was great in this and to learn from him is – how to say – that's enough for all the degrees for us, all the degrees.

Question (W Rehovot 1): (58:17) Why does the Creator demand soul devotion from a person? Why is exertion not enough?

M. Laitman: Because the exertion itself doesn't say a thing, and soul devotion is the goal for which a person can feel that he's in it or not. Has he risen from the previous degree or not? And that's why soul devotion is our station along the way.

Student: Does that stage of soul devotion come from the person or the Creator?

M. Laitman: It comes from a person towards the Creator.

Student: And my review in terms of whether I've progressed more today than yesterday, it's in the Ten? How do I know that I've progressed today more than yesterday in my devotion to the Creator? What are the signs in that in a person?

M. Laitman: The signs are where a person sees how much he annuls himself towards the Creator.

Question (W MAK): (59:48) What is the connection between soul devotion and the covenant that we make with the Creator? What does it mean to make a covenant with the Creator that is built from soul devotion?

M. Laitman: Devotion is necessary for us in every condition of connection between a person towards the Creator, or a condition between a friend and a friend. So, I think that you'll understand it quickly, yourselves.

What I would like to do more now is that the three remaining excerpts, you will go through them yourselves and we will talk about them tomorrow. And that will be our lesson, that's first. Secondly, it would be good if you write down before you your questions towards me, questions that come up. And then we will be able to advance forward.

Question (W Moscow 6): (01:01:36) What can hold us in constant soul devotion?

M. Laitman: What can hold us in constant soul devotion? Specifically, that freedom that we can feel without connection to the Creator, that imaginary freedom. Because our major problem is that in our subconscious, long to go to a connection with the Creator is even higher than this connection in order to not be obligated. But that's something we will talk about tomorrow.

Reader: As you recommended to us now, Rav, we will read the last three excerpts on our topic of devotion and afterward we will make a workshop in the Tens on these excerpts. So we will read Excerpt Number Six.

Reading: (01:02:55) 6. RABASH, Letter No. 65

A person must decide that he wants the Creator to give him a desire to completely annul before Him, meaning not leave any desire under his own authority, but that all the desires in him will be only to give glory to the Creator.

Once he decides on complete annulment, he asks the Creator to help him execute it. This means that although in the mind and the desire he sees that the body disagrees with him annulling all his desires before the Creator instead of for his own sake, he should pray to the Creator to help him want to annul before Him with all the desires, leaving no desire for himself. This is called a “complete prayer,” meaning that he wishes that the Creator will give him a complete desire without any compromises to himself, and he asks of the Creator to help him always be with his righteousness.

Reading: (01:04:42) 7. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 187, "Choosing Labor"

Although one can work devotedly, he is unable to determine if this devoted work is appropriate or not, that this hard work would be against his teacher’s view, and the view of the Creator.

To determine, one chooses that which adds labor. This means that one should act according to one’s teacher. Only labor is for man to do, and nothing else. Hence, there is no place for doubt in one’s actions and thoughts and words. Instead, he should always increase labor.

Reading: (01:05:50) 8. Likutey Tefillot [Assorted Prayers], Part 1, Prayer No. 16

Grant me with Your mercies, to pray with devotion and sincerity, that I may be awarded annulling all my being and my corporeality and will not pray for my own benefit at all, but rather be rewarded with complete annulment during the prayer as though I do not exist in the world at all, and my whole intention in the prayer will be truly only for Your sake, to raise the Shechina [Divinity] from exile, to reveal Your Godliness in the world.

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