HESED: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Baal HaSulam. The Meaning of Conception and Birth
Morning Lesson July 18, 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 (Still, Vegetative, Animate – Speaking)
Reading Excerpt #7: (01:06) “Movement is a Sign of Life (still vegetative animate – speaking) With regard to spiritual life people are divided into …” Twice
R. 1. (06:02) Meaning that they cannot do the spiritual work because they lack inner preparation for spirituality.
Continues reading: (06:13) “The speaking is regarded as life …”
2. R. (06:58) Meaning that even in the speaking that has a desire to receive, that is as if ready to develop but still there needs to be made several actions on it to awaken it, for it to continue developing or to live.
Continues reading: (07:18) “And after the first contraction it must…”
3. S. (10:16) What creation is he speaking about because it sounds like birth, who is he talking about?
R. He’s talking about how do we develop internally until we are ready to develop on the level of the soul, that there is development on the degrees of this still, vegetative and animate, spiritual. But they still that they are still not spiritual, they don’t reach the spiritual degree yet and there are those that are in them already there is to drive for spiritual development, that then they rise to the degree of Adam, becoming similar to the Creator and the beginning of man there is that in them awakens a desire to be like the Creator and that desire that awakens in them that means that they are already willing, that they are ready to be Adam.
4. S. (11:38) Can you explain what is this contraction he is talking about and what is the role of those who aren’t born?
R. Expansion and contraction is according to the desire to receive and the desire to bestow this is what we need to understand about how it works. That we do the Tzimtzum, restriction, Masach screen, Ohr Hozer Reflected light, and we act out of the contracted desire but from that comes the desire to bestow and then we work with it.
S. The suffering from the contraction, what’s the difference?
R. The importance of the goal, I’m willing to restrict myself, I’m willing to stop receiving and willing to start thinking about others and accordingly, I am willing to develop.
S. So the first expansion isn’t with awareness?
R. Sure, it’s due to this suffering, corporeal suffering brings a person to the question, what am I suffering for, who is giving me the suffering, what do I do? And that’s how we advance from degree to degree, from corporeal to spiritual life and that’s why we are also in this world and we suffer each according to the root of his soul, suffers too in a kind of different style here in our world.
5. S. (13:49) The cold air that comes from our prayers, the way we work in the ten that it brings us to the restriction or the desire to develop?
R. All the reasons that come to us and push us towards restriction, that’s called cold air.
6. S. (14:22) He writes here that the first movement is called soul of contraction and expansion, what does that mean?
R. In our desire to receive if we come to that then we get a vessel called soul, if we don’t come to that then we are still on the animate level.
S. What do we reach?
R. Yes, that’s the call the formation of the new Kli, that desire to receive that contract from in order to receive and can develop into in order to bestow, somewhat by that builds the Kli, the intention is to restrict in the intention to receive and expand in the intention to bestow that fills the Kli.
7. S. (15:28) Says that there is a law that cannot be breached and without that law there won’t be contraction and expansion and the Kli cannot grow, what is that law?
R. It’s the same law according to which everything is done by the upper light and the upper light works according to our Hissaron, requests, deficiency.
S. So it depends on us, the contraction and expansion, he doesn’t help, that’s what it means?
R. There are laws to activate the laws that is something you need to do by yourself.
S. So why is it something that is such a strong precise law, there are no round corners why?
R. Because that’s how it is that’s nature, this is nature, in our world too, in our world too.
S. So where is the law of Mercy if everything is so?
R. Hassadim is not like what you think, is it at its Mercy or something, no, Hassadim is bestowal and part of the lower one the measure to which he wants to bestow to the upper. Hassadim is the clothing for the light of Hochma, and do you think that in .Hassadim there’s no laws, everything is you can do whatever you want, that the upper is like a merciful mother that will do everything that I wish, no.
S. So the light of Hassadim comes from above or do we need to create it ?
R. The light of Hassadim, Mercy comes from above just like the light of Hochma, wisdom but by the awakening of the lower.
8. S. (17:28) About the first expansion could it be felt as theft?
R. No.
9. S. (17:45) I’d like to understand a bit more the whole essence of our expansion, dissemination, it’s because the first contraction brings birth? So the question is it turns out that they’re still our systems that bring the opposite state, they bring us to when man comes from the first contraction to to death and birth, is that also correction?
R. Who built which system what are you talking about? You mean, Kabblists who did it? No, that’s nonsense, I didn’t think I’d hear it, hear that from you, what do you think it depends on humans, Kabbalists invented religions, Kabbalists as if they developed methods? They just discovered what’s in nature, how are you even speaking, where did you fall from? Kabbalistic something they’re discovering what they found in nature and they’re telling you about it in order to ease your way into nature, no more than that. God in Gematria means nature, I see what, how many years and that’s how you’re speaking…
S. Maybe I didn’t exactly express myself correctly. What I don’t understand is in our system there’s the still, vegetative and animate so what is there, this process of which a person is born dead?
R. So if you don’t know just leave it on the side for now, maybe he was born dead, so what? Nature has all kinds of things, we see it in a corporeal way and they’re also such things in spirituality, obviously he’s only talking about spirituality and no word here does he mean anything corporeal, he’s not talking about our world in any way, in any word here.
10. S. (20:55) Would it be correct to say that our efforts with the ten we are trying to be born in spirituality, for a child to be born, a baby to be born in spirituality, in our ten, can we say that there’s like this big circle and what you need to do it and in the smaller circle there are many small attempt and when we don’t succeed then the embryo dies, meaning that it accumulates in a mess like we said before that the desires come to the Klipot?
R. No, we don’t have a state where we can be born dead. We’ll see how in spiritual history how it happened and why it happened and what the reasons were and why does that benefit us because nothing takes place if it’s not beneficial even a state of death is written down.
11. S. (22:10) Eventually those that were born dead do they….?
R. We’re not speaking about humans here.
S. Do they come alive again, in terms of our inner desires?
R. Stop thinking about it. This that was born dead was it’s a state and it must take place before Gmar Tikkun in the opposite way, it has to be an example, no more than that. It’s like the will to receive is in a state of the will to receive in order to receive, did it fix itself and reach the will to receive an order to bestow, also, and also remains in the will to receive in order to receive and still remains in that. After Gmar Tikkun, the end of correction, so we’ll learn what happens next but these opposite things must take place because one sustains the other. We need to keep learning, it will all work out and you’ll understand it according to your inner correction.
S. You’re saying that those that were born dead, what’s the difference? The state is a collection of desires or what?
R. Yes yes, also this, also that I can’t explain now because you, still I see are still not able to grasp this yet, what’s the difference between desires and states.
S. I understand that it’s a foolish question so pardon me. You’re saying that we’re not ready yet, what do we need in order to be able to grasp this?
R. We didn’t go through enough states, you don’t have experience, you don’t have records, impressions, states that you’ve gone through and then from that you’d be able to feel what we’re talking about. That is the whole difficulty, look at the people who come and study today as much as they don’t understand and confused and so on, so as to only on a higher degree. Also what he writes here, it’s so brief that it’s materials that we’re going through lately. It’s just things he wrote for himself so we’re just learning it.
12. S. (25:53) It’s really interesting to learn something similar in the Zohar, something about Habbakuk. Can we somehow scrutinize these things?
R. We can’t scrutinize it because you’re not on those degrees. What are you talking about? Do you have any idea what the mother who hugs the son is, what are we talking about? It’s all speaking about spiritual states only.
13. S. (26:44) Here he talks about the spiritual states of the soul, so do I need to contract and annul in the ten and later the one who expands is it me or the ten?
R. The ten, the vessel that contracted, that same vessel can expand.
14. S. (27:19) Is spiritual birth in the point where the Creator is revealed and in that point the created being hides himself too?
R. Of course, first the created being conceals himself then the Creator is revealed.
Continues Reading: (27:50) “The contraction should be by the power of the creature itself. We discern two kinds of contraction …” Twice.
15. R. (31:22) That’s what we caused, by pressing it has to respond back.
Continues Reading (31:30) “Hence when some element….”
16. R. (32:52) Meaning when do we get the light of life, when we have the contraction of ourselves, something very special.