MALCHUT: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Baal HaSulam. The Meaning of Conception and Birth
Morning Lesson July 14, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam. The Meaning of Conception and Birth (The Soul Begets the Body: Conception and Growth)
Reading from the heading (00:25) “The Soul Begets the Body: Conception and Growth” – ‘We find two progression in sown wheat..’ twice
1. R. (02:24) Meaning the first stage is that how much it is received from its progenitor, from its previous form, its father and mother, this previous seed now it basically deletes it, nothing is left besides the Reshimot from its parents, from its mother of the wheat, let’s say if it is wheat. By that we complete the process from above downwards,
Continue reading from same heading (03:06)
2. R. (03:20) Meaning that she then comes to grow from below up words and then it attains its progenitors.
3. S. (03:30) What does it mean the degree of the progenitors?
R. What you receive from them, what does she know, if she knows that what she, is she has to get rid of it and keep only the Reshimot that belongs to her and then she begins to grow with that Reshimot until she comes to perform to play out all of the instructions in the Reshimot. By that she becomes to the level of her progenitors. This is what we are reading about here, let’s continue.
Reading from the heading (04:22) “General and Particular Are the Same” – ‘General in particular are as identical as two drops in the pond..”
4. R. (08:17) What can you do, this is what Baal HaSulam wrote for himself in order to later open up and probably interpret for a broader audience but he did not keep going, either he thought it was not worthwhile or the time was not right or other reasons.
5. S. (08:44) What does it mean that the inner world and external world are like two identical drops of water?
R. This world is also created from the upper world except for in a different nature, in the nature of the will to receive. But with all the same components and details as in the upper world. Therefore, to an extent, from the lower world we can learn above the upper world. This is what we call let’s say the language of the branches. All kinds that we do in this world and relate to them as somewhat spiritual things.
6. S. (09:55) What does it mean in your article it says man was not created from a mother but from the dust of the ground?
R. Dust from the ground means that the ground or soil, means that Malchut connected to Bina. That is why it can be similar to the Creator, as it says, I will be similar to the Creator but Malchut that is not connected to Bina is called dust from which there is no chance to achieve form similar to the Creator, the degree of Adam. The same with us, we need to rise from the degree of dust to the degree of soil, to the degree of Bina. Then to the extent of connection of Bina we begin to make actions of bestow and this is called connected with faith above reason. Bina above reception, above Malchut.
S. Talks about other creations, not just about man, so what are the other created beings in Malchut?
R. I don’t think that it is dinosaurs or other mammoths and so on, rather it is those forms that exist within us. We do not have to correct it because they will become corrected as we ascend from below upwards. There are many forms of the will to receive that we do not detect, do not directly incorporate with, they are not in us in revealed matter but as we correct the relationship between us we also correct them without even clearly noticing them or detecting them or acting on them directly.
S. What is the relation between the created beings in Malchut and created beings in Bina, what is the relation between and also after the correction to the created beings in Malchut convert and transform?
R. Yes, all creations that appear as existing. What are created beings, they are the forms of will to receive that have some connection with the force of bestowal and therefore the appear to us as still, vegetative, animate and speaking, all kinds of previous forms and potential future forms that may appear, all these forms come from the connection between the will to receive and will to bestow except that they do not have spiritual life, only corporeal life. You will discover them too, but we do not need to take care of them. These are the things that it is just like with our body we do not need to meet specific corrections about it. Same with those or other bodies that are included with us but appear as being a sort of a still, vegetative, animate, speaking. They are all included within man’s body but we do not need to correct them or take care of them because by the shattering, by the shattering they detach from us and before they were all included in man and now they are not. So when we discover them in the corporeal sense so in the spiritual sense we also need to take care of our own part and all those other forms of the will to receive will become part of us when they need to because they need to assist us in the general correction.
S. Let’s sy if a broken vessel has revealed inside of man and I know for myself it’s sometimes terrifying, the evil form of the created being could be. How to raise them to faith above reason, we can think of them as ugly, evil, created beings, how can we see the most beautiful as the Creator created them?
R. Don’t go so far, look closely at what you have and what appears in you and from this you will learn, you can take each and every bad thing that you have and transform into good. So try in a simple way towards the friend. You do not need to come out of the circle of the group. If you take care of the circle of the group towards the connection between all the friends from the lowest degree to the highest degree. As part of that you include all of reality, everyone including the mammoths who ever existed before creation and did appear or did not appear in this world or existing on some select planets, somewhere far away. You will discover that everything is existing and included in you. Man includes everything.
S. So I need to learn how to use them to bestow?
R. You don’t need to learn how to use them, by you using your will to receive you come to see how all of those all of those still, vegetative, animate, and other people, all of them are copies of your will to receive and in correcting yourself, you are correcting the world.
S. From this we can only talk about the corrected forms of Malchut, about forms of Bina, how can I say, they are copies of me somehow I cannot say this I think.
R. There is no such thing, there are no created things on the levels of Bina, they are all in the level of Malchut and of course inside of them there are all forces coming from the other aspects that are above them.
S. But the forces are not the created being but part of the Creator?
R. No, that is already philosophy, but I didn’t want to get into it. That is incorrect.
7. S. (18:48) He says the soul begets the body so what is a soul, what does it mean?
R. A higher level than the level of the body. It is a force from which the body is designed. Also the body is one force, it just appears to us in our senses as if it is material.
S. The Nefesh builds the soul?
R. No, Neshama is higher than Nefesh.
S. Does the Nefesh build the Neshama, is that the base?
R. Are you talking about the light which is Nefesh?
S. Yes, what he writes here.
R. We have NRNHY, is that what you are talking about, these are five lights, five influences we discover in the will to receive.
S. Is the Nefesh the base to the building of the degrees as the root?
R. Yes.
8. S. (20:15) Baal HaSulam is describing a principle in order to build the next degree you need to destroy their current one, can you explain that concept?
R. Not to destroy but you need to stand on that, you need to stand on the degree that you are attained before and now you are going to go above it with higher greater principles. This is how you try to rise, in your vision, in your perception
S. What is this rotting as he gave in the example?
R. It has to be it has to rot within you so that you can assemble and achieve the higher degree this is always happening in our attainment.
S. Why. that is the question?
R. Because how can you attain anything new if you don’t move away from the previous state.
S. I don’t know, in our world we build degrees, another step and another next step.
R. Yes because you already understand the previous degrees is not sufficient for you.
S. What is this process of rotting, let’s say in the ten, in the correct connection with the friends. I don’t want to stay in this corporeal example.
R. It is not our corporeal analogy, it is what you attained before and you thought that you had some great attainment and success and that you are succeeding connection and now it is insufficient. It is not enough. Now you’re expecting that and criticizing that and looking forward and this happens to us in everything that we advance in, that what we achieved before, we now begin to disregard, dismantle it, burn it, whatever you call it and that is how we advance to the next state.
S. So if anything we want to rise to the next degree, what do we do with the current degree, what do we do to start explaining it, dissecting it, how do you put it together?
R. If you have completely attained the previous state it leads you to the next state and then you begin to appreciate the previous state less, to value it less and value the next state more and that is how you move from state to state and that is natural and understandable from our world as well.
9. S. (23:15) If the ten performs actions of correction with efforts but without the intention is that advancement?
R. It is somewhat of a progress, yes.
Reading from heading (23:54) “3. What is a soul?”
10. S. (26:55) He writes in the last line that a person starts knowing himself only when he is a complete human being therefore he is devoid of the ability to self scrutinize.
R. It means that if he does not perceive a complete form within himself he also cannot research a part of it in the correct way.
S. What is a complete form?
R. Complete meaning how the whole thing needs to function in the final correction.
11. S. (27:16) How to compare this to the embryo that can see the world from one end to the other?
R. There he received it not because he is receiving but because he is nullified, that is how he discovers it and in such a way that it is not considered attaining it.
S. So why are all these forms given to him from beginning to end if you cannot attain them?
R. He cannot attain so it is not called attainment.
Reading (27:56) “No Person Knows Himself” Twice
12. S. (31:42) What does it mean that Kabbalists attain something whole when we say that there is also the evil that is being revealed?
R. With regards to all the qualities, good and bad that they reveal, they attain in a relationship towards that, they attain their soul, meaning certainly they cannot attain themselves in the complete and final correction, only to what extent is given to them but in another place we agreed that there were some who also attained the full complete correction. Like Solomon and others, we can read that.
13. S. (32:36) So until we do not discover the whole, it turns out that everything is concealed from us. We don’t see our evil and also if we see something outside that is good so that seems bad to us or the opposite?
R. You do not know what is closed or not closed, why do you have questions on that? We have not yet achieved this kind of spiritual recognition and here it is talking about higher things, so do not worry, everything will open up. We are still not in the spiritual world, so in a way we can discuss what is closed from us or not and let us enter there first and then.
14. S. (33:37) In the ten, in the relationship between the friends, what is that mirror that doesn’t shine?
R. The mirror that doesn’t shine means that it does not shine. That we cannot capture it in our senses.
15. S. (34:14) The self-recognition, can a person learn from his mistakes and connect it to the connection?
R. Self recognition or our self-awareness, a person can discover compared to what appears to him in the levels that he attains in the spiritual world and there he also enters conception and suckling and so forth. Yes, yes of course, that is how it happens.
16. S. (35:09) About the recognition of that evil because in somewhat right to talk about it, what disturbs our connection, should we learn about it, study it or should we just leave it alone?
R. It does not depend on us, we have to advance based on the same guidelines that Baal HaSulam teaches us and we advance and we gradually from closer to Lishma, and closer to vessels of bestowal and soon we hope to reach a state of conception and that is how we advance. In these states of Ibur, Yenicka, Mochin, when we advance we will feel how we are rising through the worlds ABYA and that is how we will advance. In this process of development we will also clarify the Sefirot, Partzufim, worlds, all of the conditions, all of the actions that we read about in TES, they will become clear to us and not theoretical. Since, now we can study them but not know what they are about. When we begin to actually realize them then we will begin to study them in practice, in terms of where we actually are, most important for us is to move to the stage where we enter the spiritual sensation and then we will begin to learn what we are feeling.
17. S. (37:26) Should we take our situations internally or externally we have both mutual… which will speed us up?
R. We should advance through the connection between us and that will lead us to all of the correct dates. I do not have what to answer here. I just recommend not to get confused, what you are getting now from some articles, that is incomplete from some excerpt of Baal HaSulam and you want to now change your directions of development so to speak and go according to that, that is not going to work. Our progress, based on all of the articles of the Baal HaSulam and Rabash, is that we need connection as the main thing and from connection we will come to the revelation of godliness.
18. S. (38:44) So all of the revelation that we can feel is directly connected to annulling our ego. So what role do we need to leave our ego in our life, for the us, for the society? How to use it if we even need to?
R. We do not leave the ego, we cannot erase the ego, the ego remains and it works and we work with it, above it or with it, together with it, in bestowing in order to bestow and receiving in order to bestow. In each and every place we are tied to our egoistic nature. It does not run away, it does not disappear but the way, the forms that we work with it, are such that we transcend it and these are the states that we are talking about, these are the states that we call spiritual states. Also spirituality cannot be measured or felt if we detach from the will to receive rather with respect to that same will to receive, how much we rise, how much we transform, opposite that we can define the spirituality that we have attained.
19. S. (40:28) Baal HaSulam writes about the rule that whatever has pleasure, a person should look at it as bad, so please say what about the pleasure we feel from connection, from the attempt, is that considered as well?
R. It depends what you mean. There is no prohibition to enjoy, the purpose of creation is to enjoy in 100%, the question is who are you enjoying for. For the sake of who? For your egoistic body or for the friends and humanity or for all of reality altogether or for the Creator? But to enjoy, we must and we cannot run away from it, that is the purpose, the reason and the purpose of creation.
S. So Baal HaSulam refers to pleasure that is only connected to myself here?
R. Correct.
20. S. (42:00) If Adam HaRishon, like he writes, is not born from a woman, why do we have the different work?
R. Adam HaRishon was not born from a woman, meaning that the Creator created it existence from absence.
S. So why is our work not like the work of Adam HaRishon?
R. Our work is exactly like Adam, what he shattered into a million parts and I have to take these parts and gather them and connect them.
S. To assemble him but we are not similar to Adam HaRishon, I mean if he is not born of a woman.
R. What does this have to do with a woman, why did you grab onto that. Being born from a woman is on the animal degree.
S. Like he explains here about all the conception and birth, that it is the work from below upward?
R. Yes.
S. So he explains the order of conception and birth, someone is born from a woman and he writes that Adam HaRishon was not born from a woman.
R. Also from a woman that is called the degree of Bina, what do you mean by women? Do you mean animal?
S. No.
R. So woman is the degree of Bina, Ima, mother. We are not talking about beasts, we are talking about Adam, born from a woman So he explains the order of conception and birth someone is born from a woman about Adam HaRishon born of a woman Abba ve Ima, Hochma and Bina that they give birth to Zeir Anpin and so on.
S. So Adam HaRishon came from the degree of Bina?
R. Yes, from the degree of bestowal, of course.