HOD: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Lesson on the topic of “The Approach to Studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
Morning Lesson May 23, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
The Approach to Studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah – Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #25
1. Rav’s Introduction: The preparation for the study is truly the most important thing. The more we advance, we feel ourselves before the study as more empty. We are entirely far away from the study, from the purpose of the study, from a lack for that. I remember that I saw Rabash the way he got up from bed, he would wake up until he prepared himself. He would prepare himself for the study, a few minutes went by and you could see on the person that he was truly recovering from nothing, from absence to existence. This is how it is, the more a person advances, the more he feels himself that indeed when he begins the work, he is very far away from it and as he comes closer to it then he truly enters life, he establishes himself from within how to see himself, how to see the friends, how to see the world.
He regains consciousness as we call it. Therefore the preparation for the study, it has to give us also discernments of where are we, and the more we advance and get closer to the goal, the gap between where we are before the study and then in the preparation for the study and in the study itself, that gets to be greater and greater. As we see from the masters of the Zohar that the students of Rabbi Shimon were ready to kill each other so much so that they were in their will to receive end later on bit by bit, by awakening and awakening themselves and the friends, and by that they reached a state where finally they were able to relate correctly to themselves, to the study, and to the Creator. This is why we should not despair from the fact that each and every day I get up, or before the study when I begin to think about the study and its purpose, that I am truly in the opposite form and far away from spirituality. This is actually a sign that I am advancing.
Preparation for the study item 25 (03:40) “from what are Torah …” Twice
2. R. (05:06) This is clear to us that only according to the measure of the intention, the intensity of the intention we reach the desirable result that we all start as it says he can every day they shall be as new in your eyes. I start, we start from a beastly state in years each and every one. Through an inner effort and intellectual effort we have to bring ourselves to a state where we do, we have to even though we don’t want to but we have to be above ourselves, we build up on ourselves a new man, a new person.It’s just like we give birth from ourselves, to a new person. We have to forcefully aim ourselves to the goal and to the Creator and to the group and how do we emerge from the spirituality that we are in right now and elevate ourselves to do a new goal, to a new desire, to a new intentio, and we need to forcefully start to live in that.
Not to wait, not to expect that we will reach these new intentions and desires without any effort. That cannot be, but to the contrary. The more we advance we will have worse preparations meaning just like the students of Rabbi Shimon and they would get up and they would hate each other they were ready to kill each other and it’s all in order for them to overcome and to aim forcefully under their own control, they will pray to the Creator together with him each one aims himself to connection in the center of the ten so that they’re ultimately to connect and give room to the Creator to be revealed. It has to be truly through intensive work of the entire group.
S. How to practically prepare the intention because maybe we went through a half hour reading and singing and talking and I didn’t awaken my intention.
R. Because you were not thinking about it you have to monitor yourself and check what state you’re in. What state you are in . You have to reach these thoughts also cannot usually come to you in a way that the Creator is giving you these gifts. You don’t wait for these gifts from him. This is what is known as one who hates gifts will live. You want to achieve them through your effort and you obligate yourself and the Creator so that all in all your goals will awaken more and you will be more and more ain’t forcefully with an effort above your desire and this is how you will wake up.
S. There is a sign that I’m ready for this study?
R. The sign that you’re ready for the study is that your heart, following many efforts, they say that Kabbalists, great Kabbalists, would be sitting up to two hours in order to prepare themselves for the study. To enter the feeling of the upper world in connection with the Creator and to start scrutinizing the relations between them and the Creator. So that will be clear to them where they are.
S. Another issue some days I wake up like a beast other times I wake up more lucid. How to work as a beast? Let’s say that’s clear but when you wake up all clear and lucid what is the work there?
R. When you wake up in a way that is clear and lucid with an inner awakening it is considered that the Creator is giving you an opportunity today especially to bestow to the friends. To awaken them and embrace them and to warm them up. On other days it is that you make an effort, actually it’s the work of subjugation before the friends. That maybe during these times they’re able to awaken you. They are able to pull you This is what we mean by each one should help his friends sometimes I help them sometimes they help me
3. S. (10:46) You said that you have to monitor what state you’re in and my question is, only thing I can tell you about the state I’m in is whether it’s for bestowial or will to receive and even that is not always correct so how am I in monitoring?
R. As much as you connect to the group and you’re able to awaken them, that is a more correct state. You have no possibility to measure your own state. You don’t have the vessels, you don’t have the weight, a ruler, something you don’t have that but only that thing with the Creator gave you, the society. Therefore if you advance towards investing more in the connection with the friends so that you disappear between them truly you connect with them and to that extent you for sure are coming closer to the goal to the truth.
4.S. (12:13) Those two hours of the great Kabbalists before the study before the prayer, what were those two hours basically?
R. What we’re studying now, that they were scrutinizing how much from the disconnection in which each one of them was, they begin to gradually wake up, recover as much as they’re able to aim themselves with their emotion and mind in all kinds of different discernments.
S. What was the criteria for them being ready?
R. Adhesion the beginning of the adhesion. That they begin to see that from here onward as much as they can already begin the path. What is the purpose of the study? Doesn’t matter what we study, the study should be as a means to reach a connection between them and from them to the Creator and from the Creator who is already revealed between them from Him they study the wisdom of Kabbalah, the Torah of Kabbalah. Before that it’s just a method for how to receive from the Creator, the receiving of the reforming light and the light that fills the soul. This is what we need to look forward to that it will happen
Reading # 29 (14:14) Pri Tzadik, VaYeshev, Item 3 “The first Hassadim..”
5. R. (14:42) That is the most important thing is the intention of the study because if you enter the study without the intention then it’s not the study, it doesn’t direct you. You do not learn how to come closer, how to take another step towards that he’s in with the Creator which is the true goal.
6. S. (15:02) It turns out that the adhesion is the point from which we have to begin the lesson?
R. Well not that we’re in that already but we’re aiming towards that for sure. Then the study begins. The study is actually how we take steps towards advancement coming closer between us and the Creator but the direction that we are on that we are aiming to is already the preparation for the study. The study itself is a few steps that we can take in our connection with the Creator.
7. S. (15:54) When a reader asked the question you answered him that one should obligate oneself and the Creator how do you obligate the Creator?
R. If you ask for a connection with the friends that this is the result that should be from the shattering of the vessel that the Creator did that you asked for him for correction in return over the corruption that he seemingly did. Then this is the true prayer, the true appeal to the Creator. This is what he listens to all of the other things that are not related to that or do not reach words directly, there is no answer for that from the Creator.
S. So all of the imaginary problems of this world have nothing to do with all of these states? Only what’s in the ten?
R. Yes.
Item 26: (17:18) RABASH, Article No. 12 (1988), “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator? Twice
8. R. (20:20) Don’t forget that the success of the study truly begins on the preparation of the study as much as we aim ourselves correctly to the goal, as much as we know what the goal is. as much as the goal is in focus and it is conspicuous and it shines through us as much as we all the time want to attain it and then the study gives us nearing to that goal. The study in itself is already an action but the intention that is the preparation for the study that is the most important.