HESED: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Baal HaSulam. The Freedom
Morning Lesson June 18, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam The Freedom (The Will to Receive—Existence from Absence)
1. S. (00:25) Can we only connect with friends who want to connect with me? Can I connect with friends that don’t want to connect with me?
R. We need to accept, for connection, all the friends in the ten and we don’t check whether they want to connect or don’t want to connect instead if I want to be in the spiritual vessel I have to work to connect with everyone. How much desire they have more or less. If they already appear in our ten they have some tendency towards connection and the Creator chose them, gave them a desire to be connected with us even in the formal manner and so I accept them as friends in every sense and I try to be connected to them.
2. S. (01:28) I have a different attitude towards each and every friend. How can I turn it into one?
R. Try to see that this is how it appears to me, my egoistic desire, that we are all different, however in truth there isn’t that much difference with respect to the Creator, we are a single will to receive that he wants to feel with his presence.
3. S. (02:14) Why does love of friends speed up recognition of evil?
R. There is no evil except for what is revealed between us. The evil does not exist except in the beginning there was Adam HaRishon, the first desire that the Creator has created then he was shattered so between all those parts, all this antagonism started or contradicting forces, that is the evil. It is difficult for us to overcome forces, the forces of rejection that are in the parts of Adam HaRishon between them and to connect them again to one desire.
4. S. (03:04) The Creator raises us above reason according to our preparation or according to our prayer?
R. The Creator can raise us according to the prayer.
5. S. (03:23) How can we get closer to that exercise like the Rabash who said suffer?
R. Even though it’s not pleasant to me, I am happy that I have resistance to actions of the soul connection between us because that gives me a clear feeling and a precise sensation that I am on the right track. If I am advancing towards the goal clearly I can advance only by overcoming the disturbances.
6. S. (04:08) Yesterday 11 friends in the ten met, we all made great efforts to show up. We made a workshop and asked how to cause the Creator to reveal himself in this meeting between us and I didn’t know what to answer, why he did not appear. What is lacking for the Creator to appear?
R. The Creator can appear on the condition that we all want to connect and in the connection that is really common and not towards anyone but the center between us, the center of the ten, there we want to give to him our heart, our desire, our intensity of connection, the center of our forces of our inclinations and that is how we will discover him.
Reader: (05:28)
7. R. (06:19) Meaning that it is impossible to find connection between spirituality to corporeality, you cannot create an equation that transitions you from corporeal understanding to spiritual understanding. What we are studying in is only in order to awaken our desire and not to confuse ourselves, God forbid, that we can aim, we can aim for spirituality only through our connection where I work against my will to receive and invite upon myself the upper force that will influence and change me from in order to receive to in order to bestow. That is basically what I work on and that is what the whole wisdom of Kabbalah is about, any kind of our connection between corporeality and spirituality doesn’t exist what there is in the corporeal desire and what there is in the spiritual desire meaning in order to bestow that is what we call spiritual, that is the difference and there is never going to be a connection between this and that.
Reader continues: (07:43) “The will to receive existence from absence “
8. R. (08:59) So you see how he speaks in a very straightforward, as if materialistic, scientific.
Reader continues (09:11) “however the will to receive is a…”
9. R. (10:14) So that is all he wants to say. The whole matter of creation is the will to receive existence from absence and what there is in front of us is only the substance.
10. S. (10:33) What is the difference between existence from existence and existence from absence?
R. Existence from existence is the Creator, it is a force that exists above time, space, motion and all the discernments and it doesn’t change and existence from absence is the force of the created being that was that did not exist and then appeared and that is the will to receive. That’s the difference between the will to receive and the will to bestow that will to bestowal is the primordial existing force and the concept of time is irrelevant to it at all. The will to receive however has appeared and we talk about its appearance, it is not a matter of time because time before that did not exist but that will to receive keeps changing and the will to receive discovers that it wants more and more, in this and that. Even in our world we feel changes in the appearance of time and space and development and our whole revolution, it is essentially the evolution of the will to receive that exists within us it appears to us, it seems to us that it’s outside of us there’s still, vegetative, animate and speaking but it all happens within us because there’s nothing outside of the person, outside of the man. What is outside of man is the will to bestow, the Creator, the will to receive is Inside man and that is the created being and to the extent that this will to receive is constantly changing then it appears as if the world outside of it is changing or developing but the truth is that all those things are only part of the will to receive. Because the changes can only happen in the will to receive, the will to bestow being the nature of the Creator, is constant as it says, “I the Lord did not change” YKVK is the relationship to the created being that never changes, good that that does good to the wicked and the righteous at all times. The created beings however receive the relation of the Creator according to their development and their forms of the will to receive that is developing.
11. S. (13:49) We’ve read that the four factors are the essence of the essence, so is it deeper than those four? It’s not even a part of development?
R. I can’t speak through your words exactly, but we can read again.
S. Can I read?
R. No, no, we’re not into where you are. Why do want to read not where we are? What did we just read, what is the name of that the title of that part? ‘The Will to Receive Existence from Absence’, so why do you want to take me now to four phases and confuse everyone?
S. He added a new concept here.
R. It seems to you because of course it’s all connected, but now you want to confuse everyone? Even your question is unclear to us in the context of where we are right now. If you continue studying this way then you’re going to come to something different from us.
12. S. (15:34) In this excerpt we read, from the last sentence we can come to a conclusion that the essence of the spiritual vessels is the will to receive?
R. Right, that’s correct. The will to receive is the whole vessel of creation, all of the creation is a will to receive. The will to receive makes a correction over itself and becomes a will to receive in order to bestow. That is when we call it spiritual.
13. S. (16:25) The question is what is what is that final state of the will to receive?
R. The final development of the will to receive is to reach a state where it is 100% in order to receive and that makes it ready for correction because it reveals itself, it finds itself working in order to receive, and from that point onward we are talking about it as worthy of corrections and according to the recognition of evil, as much as it’s different from the will to bestow of the upper one, of the Creator, thus we begin to learn its corrections.
14. S. (17:33) How should I want to constantly move towards bestowal?
R. This is a problem. Where do I get the desire and urge to always move towards bestowal, to be more and more bestowing? That is working in the ten. That I look at the friends and I see how each of them is trying. And the fact that whatever state we’re in we have to set an example, each one towards the friends of how to be always in bestowal and a tendency towards connection, and from connection to bestow to the Creator. We always have to establish ourselves in a very simple state. Despite our egoistic state we want to be connected and present this connection towards the Creator so that He can bestow to us into our connection and make us a place where He can be a revealed. Because that is basically His will, to be revealed in the created beings.
15. S. (19:16) In the end of the excerpt he writes that all the vessels and all the bodies and the spiritual world and the corporeal world, meaning that the spiritual and corporeal is one whole world?
R. It is a will to receive, the whole of creation is a will to receive. Let’s say that in this creation there are two parts, two aspects of the will to receive. The will to receive that is in order to receive and will to receive that is in order to bestow. In order to receive is called corporeal, in order to bestow is called spiritual. Above them is the upper force, the Creator and what He influences becomes with an intention to bestow. Know the will receive remains in it but when the Creator influences the will to receive he adds to it an intention to bestow. To the extent there is that intention to bestow the will to receive begins to sense the presence of the Creator and all sorts of manners of bestowal which we call the upper worlds, the spiritual reality which is eternal.
S. Can I say that the corporeal world was created from the Creator so we can get the disturbances and see what we really need to correct and see how a opposite we are?
R. Yes, exactly. The corporeal world was created only for us to learn how to rise from it to spirituality and discern between in order to receive and in order to bestow meaning corporeality and spirituality and accordingly achieve in order to bestow and achieve that by our strength meaning by the correction of the shame. We also have to get an impression from our will to receive on the way here, how much it gives us shame and we want to rise above it. Meaning I don’t want to receive anything, but only to bestow. So there is another degree here which is Bina, where I am willing to do anything just to not to be a receiver. Right now we are as if in a struggle with the Creator because we want to receive, and the Creator doesn’t give us, and we are as if arguing with Him. When can we to receive? What our ascent actually should be about is that I don’t want to receive, as much as he gives to us I don’t want to receive, I only want to be with an intention to bestow. If I have to receive in order to bestow I will receive, but on the condition that my action will be to bestow. Right when I am with the host and I understand that I can bring Him contentment only by receiving from Him, so I take and receive, and I have no choice, that’s how I bestow. But to myself I don’t want it. So in order to bestow to the host I activate my desires, the greatest desires that I have, and I feel the greatest flavors and pleasures from the host because by that I can bestow to the host.
S. So correcting the shame is in my intention?
R. Of course, everything is in the intention, everything is clarified in the intention that is what is written.
16. S. (24:02) You said the corporeal world was created in order to discern between corporeality and spirituality. It turns out that in corporeality I have to be great, think I’m successful and in spirituality on the contrary I have to feel self-annulment, that I’m small and the friends are great. How to combine the two?
R. There is no problem, look at what King David wrote for instance. How much he was a king on the one hand and yet what does he write to the Creator in Psalms? How lowly I am, I am nothing, I am zero and so on and so forth. That’s what he felt opposite the Creator, as nothing, that there is nothing lower and that’s why it’s called the degree of Malchut. Towards the world he had a very lofty attainment, and look at what he wrote, Psalms and so on. It is the greatest prayer that we have towards the Creator that is in Psalms.
S. It’s not that clear because in corporeality how can I feel great?
R. First become great and then we will talk, don’t worry about that now.
17. S. (25:50) I’m a guest here, my question is – we say that to receive in order to bestow is spirituality and not to receive for myself is that not spirituality? In order to enter spirituality I need to start receiving in order to bestow?
R. You don’t want to receive any pleasure besides the necessities, necessary things that don’t bring you pleasure. You just fill up your beast, your body, so that it lives. So those things you have to receive and that is called neither condemned nor praised.
S. So when I don’t receive in order to receive, that I won’t receive at all, that is already some spiritual degree?
R. I don’t know, I don’t know what you’re doing it for. Maybe you are doing it in order to keep a diet, I think you need one.
S. No, not to receive for myself is the first degree. We stop receiving in order to fill ourselves and now we are already saying in the article that spirituality is when I start receiving in order to bestow to the Creator.
R. Right, that means you’re starting to bestow to the Creator. If you don’t receive anything in order to achieve bestowal you are working to achieve bestowal. You haven’t reached it yet, but truly bestowing to the Creator is that you receive but in order to bestow to Him, like the guest and the host, same example.
18. S. (27:54) The will to receive that is existence from absence, when it becomes in order to bestow does it also becomes existence from existence?
R. The will to receive cannot be existence from existence. It was created by the upper force, by the Creator that is why it is existence from absence, that is it’s starting point.
19. S. (28:40) In the ten it is clear that my deeds and thoughts have to bring contentment to the Creator by how I’m bestowing to the friends but in my daily life how can I do it? How can I implement my intention when I am at work or driving or eating, how can I always connect more and more with the Creator?
R. It is a problem. Therefore I do not recommend you to do this everywhere and in every time but in the limited fashion so it doesn’t confuse you while you’re driving or while you’re working. You maybe have to be responsible for something and that might cause some damage. So how to always be with the group and the Creator together in all the corporeal states that you have to be in? I don’t think it is a problem but before each and every action you have to prepare yourself for that. That I am with the group, the ten and now with the Creator. As I achieve somewhat of that connection I am now moving towards an action. It’s similar to a woman who has a baby at home. She always thinks of him for sure, that’s her baby but she has to work. So even though she’s doing the thousand different things at work her mind and her heart are always with her baby. That is how we need to get used to having our head and our heart always with the group and the Creator. Then we won’t have a problem to direct all of our actions in this world from connection between us, the group towards the Creator on top of our entire life and all our actions here in this world. It is just a matter of exercising that.
Reader (31:49) “Two forces in the will to receive the attracting force and the rejecting force…”
20. R. (34:14) Meaning what I receive and what I can’t receive seemingly stands outside of me, opposite to me and I see the difference between this and that. It happens opposite me, that is clear.
Reader twice (34:35) “Only one law for all the worlds….”
21. S. (39:20) What is it outside of the will to receive? Is that abundance from Him or other will to receive?
R. I don’t understand the question.
S. I’m asking what exists outside the only will to receive. He talks about as one unit, what is outside of that unit?
R. I don’t know what unit, a package, what? Except for the will to receive and the will bestow which is the Creator and the will to receive which is the created being, except for both of them there is nothing in creation.
S. Right, but we say the will to receive is comprised of many details, many particular individuals so what is outside the individual?
R. I don’t understand outside of. Outside the will to receive there’s nothing in the created being. Everything it has but the will to receive is the bounty that comes from the Creator and fills him in certain degrees. That according to that he exists.
S. I am a will to receive. What is outside of me?
R. You’re the will to receive but in you is also the bounty that fills that will to receive and gives it existence, a feeling that it exists. Feeling that what it has and what it’s lacking, what is filling it in mind and feeling and all kinds of things. It all comes from the fulfillment, from the will to bestow of the Creator.
S. In my corrected form, what do I reject and what do I receive?
R. I don’t know what to tell you. In your corrected form you will be connected with all desires to receive that are alien to all one will to receive with the mutual intention to bestow, and by that all of us together we will be as one man called Adam that resembles the Creator by being with the Creator like the guest with the host in equivalence of form.
22. S. (41:46) According to what you said it is not clear. He says that each one receives from this bounty according to the limit of its will to receive. We learn it needs to be opposite to the will to receive, otherwise where are we done?
R. I don’t understand you.
S. Each of them receives from that bounty according to the limit of its will to receive. This limit defines each individual unit. So we learn it needs to be opposite, not to receive the abundance like that. So?
R. The will to receive is all matter of creation, we’re all in it. You can’t do anything about that. What we can do is from our will to receive we can participate in some work together. What does it mean participate together? Truthfully, I can never be together with anyone because you feel something else than me in everything. When you and I take the same piece of food and put it in our mouths what I feel and you feel we cannot compare it. The will to receive remains personal to each and everyone. But the intention upon that will to receive, to participate with the others, that can connect between us. That is what we are trying to attain. How do we attain it? With the light that reforms. The upper light when it bestows upon us and connects us and then gives us an ability to feel ourselves as one, as one. Actually one? Of course never. But that will to receive that the Creator created in us, broke us, that will to receive did not disappear, it remains in us as coarseness, and with that will to receive that remains in us, even though we want to be connected, if we connect between us upon this coarseness we can reach an intensity of the will to receive 620 times more. Then we can fill that will to receive 620 times more than it was in the beginning of the creation of Adam HaRishon. There let’s say there was the light of Nefesh, and we can fill ourselves with NRNHY and by that we give Creator contentment, to all of this correction that we have performed on ourselves. That is in order to reach a state that we’re filled and He’s enjoying us.
S. I just need to understand. The size of my will to receive, what does it depend on basically?
R. The size of my will to receive depends on as much as I work on myself from the root of my soul, from my state in the Adam HaRishon in that initial vessel.
S. Is it good that I have such a great will to receive?
R. The Creator shattered this vessel and I have a special point in that vessel, and I need to connect to that other vessel through that point, and then I become as the one conducting the correction of creation of Adam HaRishon. You and him and him and him, each one from his point to his will to receive.
S. My will to receive is not diminished? It stays the same and I have to work on it?
R. It increases.
S. I don’t cancel it right?
R. You don’t cancel it you cancel the intention to receive. It wants to manage the whole world and you’re annulling that, and you want to cause connection between everybody. You below everyone are causing that connection. In this way you actually become the one presenting the vessel towards the Creator, the whole vessel.
S. So only then you receive the abundance he writes about here?
R. Not you but the whole vessel receives that abundance.
23. S. (46:58) This feeling that we’re lacking is that because we need to be individuals as written in the article? Do we have to incorporate in this abundance?
R. Yes. It will be true individuality.
24. S. (47:45) It turns out that what separates us in the ten is the created being and what connects us in the ten is the Creator. We have to clarify what separates us and come to what connects us and that will be the feeling of the Creator?
R. Yes.
25. S. (48:17) Can we say that these two forces in the will to receive, the force that rejects and the force that attracts, are they like the inner light and surrounding light?
R. Through them we reach the inner light and the surrounding light.
26. S. (48:49) Where does the feeling of the rejecting force come from? The attracting force is clear but the rejecting force, where does it come from?
R. You can even feel it from shame. If you’re before the host and even though you want to receive something you reject it because the shame will not let you receive. But the rejecting force we only receive it according to the appearance of the Creator in us.
27. S. (49:31) Can we measure a strong desire for spirituality without a corporeal expression of it?
R. I do not understand how you are depicting it.
S. There are friends that I feel have a strong desire for spirituality, but it is not expressed externally. They don’t speak loud or active and others are active, but the smallest disturbance throws them out.
R. For now it’s all part of the corporeal will to receive, it is still not the spiritual will to receive.
S. So we can’t see a spiritual desire to receive?
R. No. You also can’t discern if it’s this way or that way. If you have spiritual vessels and you connect to a friend so you will be able to feel his desires to receive and to bestow. Yes, only under that condition.
Reading (51:08) “Thus I have evidently…”
28. R. (55:31) Okay he’s summarizes all these tendencies of people to speak in metaphysical way in egoistic way and so on and he just wants to finish with them and that’s why he is like summarizing all these things from now on he’s starting to say that there is a will to receive which is existence from absence that it wasn’t there before and it is managed by the will to bestow existence from existence and what should we do with it?
29. S. (56:19) In order to importance of the goal, how do we take control of the will to receive if each level is different?
R. That is our whole work how will we control our will to receive that to that extent we need to draw the Creator in that the Creator will control it I cannot control it the Creator created the will to receive and the Creator has a force to control that will to receive that is why I am turning to the Creator and I for myself can do anything so I tried to do such states that the Creator will have an opportunity to conquer the will to receive to correct it and to establish correctly it all happens that I actually don’t do anything but I ask of the Creator to manage the will to receive he created that I can’t work with it I can do anything in all of creation I only have that plea to the Creator that I am asking like a child constantly asking the mother and pulling on her that she will do something for him and then he can turn to her because she gave birth to him and she must because it is her baby and if in that way we reach the Creator and demand of him so he controls our will to receive it is called that they the Creator will have work and the Creator controls that will to receive and corrects it that is it. That is called the work of the Creator and not the work of the group and not our work our work is just to ask so it is important for us here not to make a mistake of where we are and what we need to do in this entire system of creation just to demand of the Creator to correct our will to receive but we need to bring him that will to receive that here look here is the will to receive we try to connect we cannot each one of us in a personal way all of us together in a ten we are trying and we can’t you must help us you have to do this. Then he is happy the Creator because it is a force of bestowal we bring him the work that he will correct it that he will control this force of bestowal upon what we’re giving him that is why our work is called the work of the Creator because we’re discovering what His work is and what He needs to do and where He needs to do it.
30. S. (59:50) It says here unequivocally that there is the will to receive but the will to receive was created by the Creator way before material has appeared in what stage in the spiritual world the material appears?
R. There’s no such thing and stop with your science there’s no such thing that first the will to receive then it cascades and reaches you’re speaking about time there is no time.
S. I’m not talking about time, I am talking about the process that we learned that is cause and effect?
R. So take the ‘Preface’ we learned, and you’ll see how it cascades the will to receive until it comes from the world of Ein Sof through the world Atzilut Beria Assiya until the end of Assiya, until this world.
S. That is exactly what I’m asking. I cannot perceive where or how at what stage of the cascade?
R. Because you want to connect your clock there the chronology and a ruler to all of these descents and all of these states there’s no such thing. There is no such a thing when do we even discover that it is happening when we from below start ascending upward and before that it never existed it doesn’t exist there is no descending of the worlds like we say there is no Creator without a created being.
31. S. (1:02:06) If we are all different how do we connect in a single desire?
R. In our mutual desire towards the Creator that’s called, and He will find joy our heart in him all our hearts will connect.
32. S. (1:02:25) If my freedom of choice is only the environment, is it correct to say in the ten by working with for friends that’s my freedom of choice?
R. Yes, even not in the friends is your choice but each time to choose a stronger connection between the friends that is your work.
33. S. (1:02:52) You said we always need to think about their group like a mother thinks about her child but if I am a mother of children and I always think about the children how do I combine that with the group?
R. So you have one more child.
34. S. (1:03:15) You said we need to do exercises what are these exercises in practice is it good to imagine that we do an action of bestowal in the ten?
R. Yes all the time, always exercises of connecting the ten and turning to the Creator.
35. S. (01:03:39) If some of the friends in the ten participate in the lessons more than others can they pass it on to other friends in some I’m meeting between them?
R. Yes, try.
36. S. (01:03:54) How to come to the feeling that my reception is bestowal to the Creator?
R. If it is receiving in order to bestow and receiving correctly, in that reception that you received from the Creator you feel him and by that give him contentment. You know that you have the right state.
37. S. (01:04:27) If the Creator is existence from existence and he does not change and necessarily the will to receive comes from here and where is the independence of the Creator being me?
R. Independence of the create event is that he is against the will to receive he resurrects a system of his soul towards the Creator he wants to resemble the Creator that is called you have made me feather created beings build a system of the soul that is exactly like the Creator that to begin with he bestows to them.
38. S. (1:05:06) Is the intention to bestow the screen?
R. The intention to bestow is the screen and reflected light.
39. S. (1:05:17) Baal HaSulam writes that in the will to receive there is a rejecting force and an attracting force. How could there be forces inside the will to receive, we learned that it is only the Creator who is operating?
R. But the Creator created the will to receive, and his character is that He pulls everything that’s good for Him and rejecting everything that’s bad for Him.
40. S. (1:05:45) In the future will we have to discover how our point in the heart is connected to each and every person in the world?
R. Of course we’ll reveal it because we’re all connecting in the system of Adam HaRishon and there we’re all incorporated together and then we will have a clear feeling and a clear understanding how we are all connected to such an extent that the Creator can be revealed in us 620 times more than what was revealed in Adam HaRishon.
41. S. (01:06:30) What kind of practical action will help me to reach a request for the Creator every day?
R. Every day to turn to the Creator I can only do that on the condition that I want to connect with the friends and in order to be certain that I am performing this action, we have to turn to the Creator that he will connect between us.
42. S. (01:06:57) How to elevate the friend without harming him?
R. Example, give him an example of connection or to pray for him.
43. S. (01:07:10) What is the essence of the abundance that we receive if we look from below upwards and above downwards.
R. The essence of this abundance is the love between all created beings and the Creator.
44. S. (01:07:30) How do I respond to slander that I hear between me and a friend or other friends?
R. Give them an opposite example.
Rav Summary: It is a special thing that is happening now we will discover later on what is happening but for now let’s connect in the end of the lesson and come out of the lesson take a break until the lesson that is 8 hours from now and we will separate. Until the Creator is revealed between us, and we will feel him in practice.
45. S. (01:09:09) Look last time I also didn’t understand, we also didn’t understand it he writes that if we corrupt the individual inclination we are we’re cutting him off of creation so what does it mean there is something was really bad and evil person we can’t touch him that is what he’s saying?
R. Of course you have to know how to come up to him and how to correct him otherwise what is the benefit in this?
S. All of history is filled with that.
R. We don’t want to go into all your history!
S. What does he mean Baal HaSulam?
R. We are speaking of spiritual work in the ten.
S. So I can’t touch him? I can’t hurt him.
R. So let’s say a person that ruins those states before us. We don’t touch him until we have an ability to come and correct.
46. S. (01:10:19) There is a contradiction here that I can’t clarify, if we restrict our will to receive with the intention that the Creator benefits the created being, what’s the result of that is it even possible?
R. I don’t understand. I don’t understand what he’s saying.
S. We learn that we need to do the restriction on the will to receive but with the intention that the Creator pleases the created beings to keep this intention so there is an opposition first we do a restriction on the animal level but with the intention that the Creator pleases his creation…
R. That’s incorrect. It’s the wrong calculation I need to calculate on the entire will to receive also on phase 4 on everything and say that in my will to receive the way it is I don’t want to use it. Then in what I can use I will use it in order to bestow and I check myself I weigh myself and then I activate myself. It cannot be that I’m part of the will to receive that I leave it without correction and correct only phases 1, 2, 3, and I leave phase 4 out. Specifically phase 4, especially has to receive a correction. Okay, we will speak about that later next time and understand that you don’t ask after you end the lesson because you ruin the impression for everyone. It’s not the right way.