MALCHUT: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Baal HaSulam. The Love of God and the Love of Man
Morning Lesson July 4, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam. The Love of God and the Love of Man (Why Was the Torah Not Given to the Patriarchs?)
Reading: (00:14) The Love of God and the Love of Man (Why Was the Torah Not Given to the Patriarchs?) “By this we have clarified the first three questions …”
R. 1. (02:17) Nevertheless the number that they did have six hundred thousand men that’s also not exactly a quantity of people but the intensity, the love, the desire that awakens in them and they to the Upper light, the Upper force, Upper light to be revealed in them, and this is called the revelation of the Torah, receiving the Torah, whereas all those things that we have to do is to bring this entire group to it’s end of correction, and along the way it’s incorporated with all of humanity and it carries behind it all of humanity to the state of the end of correction, as Baal HaSulam writes that the end of connection is guaranteed to everyone to all of humanity. Only in this way the Torah is revealed with all its might, the Upper light, the Creator is revealed to each and every one and to all of them together. Hence this revelation of the Torah meaning the Upper light, bestowal, the influence of the Creator on creation comes in a gradual manner through a small group and then a bigger group and bigger and bigger still until we reach all of humanity.
2. S. (04:13) It’s not so clear what this principle is that they didn’t receive the Torah, we know the multitude of the many is two or you need a ten, so why do we need 600,000 or whatever they are speaking about?
R. The fact that you already got it and you have a method of how to reveal your will to receive and yearn for the force of bestowal that awakens the Upper source to influence you, to work on you, that’s one thing, but to give a revelation you have to build an infrastructure, the desires to receive that will somehow be prepared to connect and reveal the Upper light that exists between them, to be in the form of mutual bestowal like that Upper light. So for that that’s not enough for two or three to connect in the ten or twenty whether it’s the intensity of 600,000 men which is VAK and in this form when there’s a certain quantity that is suitable for the revelation of the Upper light then it happens.
S. What didn’t the Patriarchs receive, what Torah did they not attain?
R. We don’t know. They can’t tell. Torah, prophets, the rest of the Torah, as Baal Hasulam says that the Book of Zohar was initially about a hundred volumes and how many we have today, we don’t know what was happening.
S. So when we speak about the Torah we’re really speaking about it spreading through humanity
R. Yes, the revelation of humanity, Torah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. It has to be for a common vessel.
Reading again. Why was the Torah not given to the Patriarchs: (06:39) “By this we have clarified the first three questions …”
3. R. (08:44) Here was the answer, because it a small number of people you cannot keep the conditions of love of others, therefore the Upper light, the Torah, cannot expand. Torah, from the word Ohr, light, only the light that includes in it all the discernments before it, after it, everything that comes from the Creator is called Torah.
4. S. () What does he mean to treat the friends with love or to love to friends besides from this internal intention, what could be the external actions that lead us to Torah Lishma?
R. We need to ask the Creator to feel that we are in one body, all of us all of humanity, let alone the ten or the group of Bnei Baruch, and that our destiny, our goal, the reason for our existence in this world is to discover that we all belong to one body and to show it to all of humanity so that ultimately this has to be revealed and this will be the end of correction that we will be aimed at such a state, that’s it.
S. The end of correction is the reception of the body of the entire reality or it’s adhesion with the Creator? What comes first, perception or realization?
R. Repeat please.
S. The question is what comes first Gmar Tikkun, adhesion with a Creator completely or the perception that everyone and everything is one body?
R. We learn about it and each one receives it in small portions especially adjusted to him, for one has to do with a connection with the friends, for another it has to do with certain understanding that he has discovered in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, the Torah, in his everyday life, through the human society, seeing how it connects and organizes in these different struggles. For each one it’s revealed in the form that is suitable for him. All in all each one is approaching a perception that all of reality is a complete system and everything is interconnected, and we are in the center of this reality, and we determine through the connection between us how quickly the world will move towards the general correction.
This is the state that we have to discover. As much as it doesn’t seem this way but specifically the connection between us is about to be revealed as the central, fateful, the one that determines everything for the whole world and then we’ll feel the love and the hate and care and everything in humanity towards us. We will be justified in this way because we are guilty, we are responsible, we must correct everything. This is still ahead of us. I’m telling you it’s going to be like a seed that you plant in the ground and it will develop but it will be revealed to gradually, gradually, meaning slowly, meaning gradually meaning soon, really soon.
5. S. (13:56) If Abraham was one of the patriarchs, aif he didn’t have the Torah, so what was the correction of his group that finished the process?
R. The group of Abraham, Abraham is that Babylonian resident that discovered the method of correction that we have to do because he saw all the Babylonians, how they were killing one another and not getting along, and then he discovered the method of correction called the Wisdom of Kabbalah, love your friend as yourself is his principle that we have to reach, and that’s what he studied and that’s what he taught all the Babylonians, until he saw that he could not teach all of them but rather those who would connect around him he took those and left Babylon with them and he traveled with them to the location of where Israel is today and this was his work.
Terach, his father did not belong to it he actually objected to it, he was very big egoist and he couldn’t understand that the ego specifically could be used as a leverage or changing man, for turning man from reception to bestowal. Terach did not understand it and he opposed Abraham, but Abraham understood this principle and he was the first person in this world who moved from reception to bestowal, from in order to receive to in order to bestow, and we are the result of that.
6. S. (16:46) He’s giving two conditions here, one is quantity in numbers, he says quantity and quality and another condition is in age of 20 years and above, now it’s clear that it’s not a corporeal age that we are counting..
R. Right, yes. What is it? We will learn. It has nothing to do with corporeal age, animal age, just like anything in the Wisdom of Kabbalah it speaks of the degrees that we are correcting inside our desires and we come to a degree of the age of thirteen and then twenty and then sixty, that’s it. These are the degree which develop spiritually. It has nothing to do with the biological age.
S. So what’s the degree of the age of twenty?
R. So that’s a complete degree. It’s when a person is able from the height of this degree, he’s able to make all the decisions, he’s got the strength, he’s got the screen, he’s got desires, screens over the desires and he can perform the entire action, the ten Sefirot of direct light and the ten Sefirot of reflected light, they are all in his hands.
S. So it’s a critical condition? Let’s say now we look at the whole world Kli so could it be that there’s a certain quality that the degree of let’s a quantity of people come to it and then we can perform the Arvut?
R. We need to try and approach the Arvut, the mutual guarantee and we need to try and do it now but we are still not capable of carrying out the Arvut practically. We are still lacking vessels. There’s also a matter here of quantity and quality where although in quality we have such connections here and there between us, but in general our quantity is not enough, this force is not enough so we have to continue, we have to try to come closer and the Creator will arrange all those things together, don’t worry we won’t be able to get away from it and it will be very soon.
S. What is practical Arvut?
R. What is practical Arvut? When I truly inside my heart, inside my soul, I feel that I depend entirely on everyone, on you and if we won’t feel that we are on the Titanic and that we’re going to drown in the sea we won’t reach the safe haven. That’s what we need to feel. it’s good if we feel this way.
S. So how do we define this fear that we will drown in the sea?
R. We continue in this life like animals, like beasts, and we will come to a spiritual ascent, to come closer to the Creator together, all of us revealing the eternal reality that’s opening up before us more and more. Whether we stay on the threshold between this world and the Upper world, the spiritual world, and we can drown in this world. We have to try and continue. We are in this transition between the two worlds. I am certain that we will succeed and we’ll be together and we’ll get through this stage. The transition from this world to the spiritual world is very complex but we will go through it after all, all of reality is going in that direction. It’s all pointing in that direction.
7. S. (22:29) I understand that the love of the created beings, the love of others is loving all of humanity so why can we do it in a small amount of people?
R. We need to be organized, arranged according to spirituality, and that’s why he determines it’s not less than 600,000 and other conditions. We’re not going to make these calculations, we simply need to do what comes to us because it comes from the Creator.
8. S. (23:10) What’s the connection between “we will do and we will hear” to the Torah?
R. The Torah is founded on the condition of “we shall do and we shall hear” we have to connect and whatever we reveal in connection it’s called “we shall hear.” Why? Because we reveal the Upper light, the light of Ruach, of the light of Nefesh, the light of Hassadim, we discover it, therefore we shall do the connection in practice and we will reach the degree of Bina which is to hear.
9. S. (23:48) Is the decision “we will do and we will hear” a decision that I will do it once or that everyday I have to do it again?
R. Every day anew as it is written it should be new and your eyes. Our decisions have to be renewed daily.
10. S. (24:24) So he says here that they have to engage in true love with all their heart and might so what I have to be in attainment to reach this state?
R. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Can you speak clearly into the mic, you’re not in your assembly there somewhere.
S. He says that we have to engage in those in true love with all their soul and all their might, so they have to be attainment in order to be in this movie?
R. In what, in what movie?
S. In this movie he’s saying here.
S. He says you answer the three questions, how can you keep this, it is impossible to observe it for its seemingly impossible, so what were they engaging in, he says it was true love?
R. They engage in connection, they engage in connection, and they understood that with the help of connection they can come out of the evil inclination and they wish to open up the true reality by seeing the whole world you’re the good inclination to the force of the quality of bestowal.
S. So what does that mean that they’ll engage in true love? What does that mean?
R. As much as possible for them to connect in each and every generation the way the coarseness is revealed accordingly they engage in it.
Reading: All of Israel are responsible for one another: (26:55) “In light of the above we can understand a perplexing saying …”
10. R. (27:59) How can it be that one will be responsible, will be held accountable for the crimes and transgressions of another? But that’s what the Torah demands, if there is someone eventually, ideally speaking, if there is someone who performs any transgression, even a thought in his mind, let alone in action, let alone in the form of wild behavior among many people, it does not matter, Israel meaning those who can, those who are destined to be the connection between the Upper light and the lower will to receive, they are responsible, they are held accountable therefore there is no, there’s nothing strange about it, but today Israel is being blamed for all the problems in the world. Why? He writes about it.
If we can’t pass the Upper light from all the way up to all the way down whereby that the Upper light will enter all the desires to receive and correct them, somehow, those people in whom those desires exist will understand that this is not the way to behave, rather they need to behave differently, a little closer to the quality of bestowal, connection, if we fail to do it we will be held accountable for their behavior because we are as a conduit through which the Upper light enters all the lower souls and filled them and accordingly bestows to them and accordingly they behave.
So it’s clear in each and every state in the world any bad state it develops badly regardless of the scale, those people who can be a conduit for the Upper light towards the lower souls they are responsible, they are accountable, and it’s no wonder that instinctively the nations of the world turn to Israel and say they are guilty and they come and they want to destroy Israel.
S. But if Israel gets blows before they understand their role in destiny?
R. Well let them understand, what can you do? How are you going to explain to them again and again that they have to be connected, they have to be as light unto the nations.
S. But there’s no awareness to the duty but you keep getting blows.
R. Right.
S. Why is it in such a way? Why does He come with a stick first and not through the mind?
R. What through the mind? Let’s say I turn to you, turn a thousand times I turn people’s mind, no one is impressed.
S. Why didn’t he give them the ability to be inspire by it?
R. Well for sure their Creator is going to take us to the end of correction and that’s it. What is the argument here? The Creator is guilty.
S. So through blows that’s how we’ll get through our minds?
R. There’s no choice here. If you’re not hearing in one way and then you get these blows. The Creator is doing it himself as a path of Correction. If you see this general picture that you’re going through from generation to generation then eventually you will justify him, you’ll agree with him and you will bless him for all of these blows.
S. What can Israel do still to prevent themselves from the blows if anything?
R. He writes to you at the end of the introduction of the book of Zohar that we have to connect, we have to draw the reforming light through them to the whole world, we have to use them to fill all the souls that exist in the world and this meaning not that they live and die, the souls, the desires to receive, they have to bring about their correction and fulfillment, all of them, like the vessels of Galgalta v Einyim (GE) who are called Israel,and who must fill the AHP, and draw through them the light of correction through the AHP and then the light of fulfillment to the AHP and in this way GE and AHP, all ten Sefirot of humanity will reach correction, the end of correction, there’s nowhere to run to.
S. When do we reach that point of determination that you start doing? Right now we’re running from blows.
R. When we try to publicize this knowledge all over the world and those who come to learn we will learn with them and through them we will bring the Upper Force down to anyone who may want to.
S. It depends on the dissemination?
R. Yes.
S. But the public isn’t listening.
R. I don’t know if the public knows or doesn’t know, I know what I have to do. What the Creator gives the public one kind of desire, another kind of desire and revealing various conditions, I’m not responsible for it, I can pray for it but not more than that it doesn’t absolve me, it doesn’t relieve me from my work.
11. S. (34:25) The love of the created beings, that’s the only way to develop the vessel of bestowal?
R. Yes, only through love, there’s no other force that works in reality in order to correct it, connect it, and fill it with Upper light. Only love, in its low stages of this force we don’t call it love, we call it connection, adhesion, all kinds but ultimately it’s all the force of love.
S. And when we speak of coming out of the ego that means building the Kli?
R. To come out of the ego means that I’m coming out from in order to receive these desires and I correct some of them in order to bestow and by that I reveal my connection with those foreign desires and I’m about to fulfill them and this is called in order to bestow. I correct the others and I fill the others through me and they approach the Creator and they are connected to him.
S. Could I say that it’s like a stop on the way when I stop wanting something for myself?
R. This is called restriction.
S. You said that only love so why is the first commandment not love but fear?
R. You can’t understand love if you won’t have fear. Read again these words and you will see that the important thing is love but this is already correction, fulfillment, the end of the path and we have to come to it because we are the will to receive, we first have to correct the will to receive so it will be able to be filled with love for the other and we do it through the commandant of fear, spiritual fear, where I’m afraid about whether or not I’ll be able to reach connection and love. This is called spiritual fear.
S. How can we increase that fear?
R. It’s clear that each time you will reveal more and more egotistical will to receive so gradually you’ll correct it more and more. Just keep going, keep going, keep going, you have a big heart, you’re with us, quite a few years and you’re on the right path. We will keep going together.
12. S. (38:06) When we are speaking about responsibility does that mean that when you become responsible you get more blows if you don’t keep your responsibility?
R. Of course, you’re rising up the degrees, you’re responsible for someone then you rise up the degree to be responsible for him and then you receive for him and yourself and your blows are greater. This is called the sorrow of raising children.
S. Could you say when a person becomes responsible at what moment, what is that transition?
R. When he enters Arvut then in the Arvut he becomes responsible for each and every friend.
Reading: (39:25) “Now we can understand the words in …”
13. R. (41:06) Meaning this is already a reverse influence here, not those that are drawn to the Creator are called Yashar Kel, Israel that they influence all of humanity but humanity is influencing them and in return and is corrupting them.
Continues reading: (41:30) “Now we can clarify the words of Rabbi …”
14. R. (42:38) Meaning of whole world, everyone, all the nations, all the nations of the world, doesn’t matter who are you, what are you, as he writes elsewhere, black, white, red, yellow, everyone in humanity, the human species must reach connection between them and connection to the Creator.
Continues reading: (43:06) “The text also supports him as it promises us that….”
15. R. (43:45) Meaning the way we exist in the world, this one world where everything is interconnected and interdependent, we need to explain to everyone in the world that our correction is the connection between everyone, mutually, and one cannot jump on another, rather should come in connection, an embrace, we’re all in one boat as we have no other choice. Only in this way can we reach a safe haven, a good state, otherwise we make eachother drown in the depths of the sea and no one will succeed in this way.
Reader continues: (44:40) “Thus each and every Mitzva that an individual.…”
16. R. (45:18) Meaning don’t think that what happened yesterday, you put in the effort, you connected, you studied you passed it on to other people, don’t think it ll disappears. Rather a penny and another penny accumulates to a great amount, Rabash likes to say that, and this is our work another day and another day, another effort, another effort in studies, in connection, and in publicizing the wisdom.
Continues reading: (45:53) “It is said that one sinner destroys much good …”
17. R. (46:20) Meaning do not despair but continue, keep going because a penny and a penny adds up to a great sum, that’s a matter of accumulation, it seems like everything disappears, it does not disappear, in spirituality nothing disappears. All the efforts, all of our efforts connect to one effort and all of our connections enter into one connection, they build the final state, it doesn’t simply rise from seemingly nothing, it comes up from many many actions we take daily.
18. S. (47:07) Like you said we need patience to go step by step but still when we see the state in the world shouldn’t the article awaken a necessity, urgentness in our connection or that it will be more necessary?
R. I didn’t get it.
S. On the one hand you’re saying it step-by-step and we know how patience and persistence that bit by bit we build a big sum of connection, on the other hand when we look at the state of the world there’s a need for our connection, we are responsible for what’s happening, so shouldn’t we feel a responsibility and more of an impulse to connect?
S. We’re saying day to day we are adding, bit by bit through the studying and articles and we have to reach more connection. Shouldn’t it lead us to more connection and results in the world?
R. Everything we do, even in a small group or in all of Bnei Baruch, in the studies, in everything, it all adds up and influences the world. We need to see ourselves as a conduit through which the Upper light influences the world and although we do not feel those things this is how it’s happening and this will be revealed. It will become apparent and we have to move closer to that in practice, so we will do it in practice, that’s why he says the nation of Israel was been installed as a conduit, and the more we are directed at the Creator we we are called Yashar Kel and on the other end of that conduit we have to be connected in the connection between us to all of humanity and see that by that humanity undergoes corrections, positive corrections and not through wars and problems. I truly hope that all these wars will cease in the world and people will feel that there is a good force operating in the world and not the force of the bad force.
S. Rav I want to get the question right, I was corrected. On the one hand the word was accumulating, it’s slow, bit by bit, on the other hand there’s a great necessity to what we’re seeing in the world so according to the state of the world shouldn’t we feel more of a necessity, urgentness?
R. Of course, it’s correct. We need to accelerate ourselves as much as possible in the actions between us and in dissemination and push the world forward. Baal HaSulam says that even if we fail to do it on time we awaken the next world wars, third and fourth of course. We need to feel that it is pricking us from behind so we’ll run forward in our work towards connection and dissemination in the world.
19. S. (51:21) It’s about the example with the boat or the bean. It could be that compared to the friends I’m not investing that same bean or maybe I’m taking it away, it seems like two different things. Can I determine that if I don’t put the bean on the scale it’s a sin?
R. Of course, it all depends on you, you decide on everything.
20. S. (52:08) You will know that the Torah was not given to the patriarchs only to their children’s children, the whole nation that were 600,000 people, 20 years and above. What does it mean a whole nation?
R. A whole nation means a group, a group that includes in it all ten Sefirot in such a way that they can connect to all of reality.
21. S. (52:49) We want to realize our purpose is Israel so what is our implementation as a spiritual Israel, Bnei Baruch?
R. Well, as much as I know Women Hebrew, they are in it, making corrections, advancing, making corrections between everyone, connection with me, what else can they do? Be an example to everyone, be an example.
22. S. (53:22) Only people with points in the heart, does it sound reasonable to them that humanity is one body?
R. I don’t know how to explain it perhaps, but relative to Creation the structure of Adam HaRishon, the structure of the last generation, of course we’re all as one system in all of creation there is no more than ten Sefirot.
23. S. (54:05) I heard yesterday in the reporters meeting that you said that we need younger people, why younger people? What’s special for the younger people than the way we are studying today?
R. I don’t recall what I said that about.
S. I can tell you word for word. You said we should try pulling more people in and we need more people that will help us in effect …
R. What about younger people?
S. You were saying a new audience, not necessarily young at age.
R. Right, new blood, correct, not necessarily young at age. I yearn to disseminate the Wisdom of Kabbalah to everyone, among all of humanity, in all languages, as much as possible. I worked on it myself in the first years that I came to Rabash. I wrote in 1983, 1984, I wrote my first books even before that. I think that everyone must to some extent participate in dissemination today it’s possible through all kinds of systems that we have virtual, try to do it.
24. S. (55:43) We heard you say that the men depend on the women so in what is that dependency expressed?
R. According to nature. A woman gives birth to both boys and girls. A woman is an educator for both boys and girls. A child that grows up he knows that a mother is his mother, she’s the closest to him and there’s nothing you can do about it, he feels greater dependency on the mother than on the father. The father is somewhere behind the mother, he brings in the paycheck, he supports but the mother is the one who is closest at heart to the child. That’s why I think that the influence of women on the world is tremendous, it’s extremely special, and we must bring mothers, our women the women to Bnei Baruch, to dissemination they have to learn how to do it but the truth is not, it’s incorrect that dissemination come through the men, it depends on which topics, depends on the style, but a woman can influence men.
I’m not talking about women, can influence men more than men influence men, and we need to see these things all so differently. In short we have to think about it but I don’t think that a woman can’t influence the world. Thanks to righteous women the people of Israel came out of Egypt. What does it mean? How did these women pull these men from idol worshiping, from the low degrees, out of Egypt? How? It’s only through giving examples, demanding, asking of them. A woman knows how to get everything right from men on the condition that she’s connected with other women and the Creator. This is the force that can shake all of reality and because women don’t have the correct goal and don’t have the correct influence on themselves, they cannot influence the men.
Why was the Torah given to Israel. Reading: (59:22) “Now we can answer the question why the Torah was given to the Israeli Nation …”
25. R. (01:01:54) Which is actually the end of corrections, so we have to see here where is our place in it, what is our role in it, and we have to try and do it. The world is becoming more round, more connected and closer to these corrections. Let’s hope that we will be merited with those corrections in the coming days, it has to happen much quicker than it seems to us.
26. S. (01:02:42) The whole lesson you’re touching it and not touching it, you saying we’re getting closer to it and the world is getting closer to it, what are we getting close to?
R. We’re approaching the revelation that the connection between us is the future of the world and if we don’t support it we only give troubles to ourselves, we bring troubles onto ourselves.
27. S. (01:03:10) What does it mean to take the world backwards?
R. The world is moving to world connection, connection to go back to that form that existed before the shattering of Adam HaRishon. That’s why if we don’t support that, we seemingly don’t participate in it, so those forces of nature that are already in the end are pushing us, are pressing on us negatively. So you see that instead of connecting or say, between Russia and Ukraine and a few other nations, now it’s all of Europe and America, instead of this going towards connection it went towards war.
S. This form being revealed of the war, it means the world is going backwards?
R. Of course it’s going backwards. Each and every war is taking the world backwards, it shows us that we’re not doing the connection in the right place?
S. It’s not an advancement that they’re showing us our next stage of separation that we have to advance in?
R. Yes, it’s revealed in this way but why do we have to learn from the blows? Why can’t we precede the blow with the remedy?
S. And then what will be revealed there?
R. Connection between us, between all of us, relative to the center of that war, the explosions, the eruption of hate, why can’t there be revealed connection and love? That’s what has to be and eventually we have to understand that we are guilty of that and no other nation, not Russians or Ukranians or Arabs or Turks or anyone but rather it is us but we are and they will blame us because they feel that we hold the key to the peace of the world.
S. How to bring this feeling of guilt?
R. To publicize so everyone will know, there is no secret here. Together with publicizing it what should we do?
S. Us, in Bnei Baruch, how can we feel on our flesh that we are guilty?
R. Publish it also among Bnei Baruch in all sorts of forms and to all the Jews in Israel, don’t wait for the blows, it’s not good in the eyes of the people and in the eyes of the Creator. It’s not pleasant to hear but what can we hear.
S. Also to publish to others that they are guilty?
R. Yes, of course. How not to reveal the remedy, there is not another remedy, there is no choice you have to explain that as well. I remember and it happened to me more than once in my life I was lying down, barely breathing and to get out of the bed to the hospital to take a few steps, I wasn’t able because my lungs were full of blood and it was after the accident I had and two doctors came and said we want to take you and operate on your lungs and I said I am ready for anything because this is worse than death. Each breath was a great torment. They took me, I told you a few times how I ran to this operation because they did not have time to get me into the operation schedule. Eventually it was done and I realized I could breathe.
S. In that state it is certain he will run, how to listen before he gets to the accident?
R. That is the problem, we cannot listen to what is happening to us, there could be much troubles ahead, more than we have today. As they tell us about the wars of the Messiah, God Forbid.