MALCHUT: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Lesson on the topic of “Baal Hasulam Memorial Day”
Morning Lesson October 7, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Excerpts for Baal HaSulam Memorial Day
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, today we have a special day, to note the departure of Baal HaSulam, Rav Yehuda HaLevi Ashlag. This is a very special man, a very special soul that came down to, in order to connect us with the Creator because he himself no longer needed to be in this role but only for us. He opened up the way, the contact for the souls that come down specifically in the last generation, the worst souls, us, with the greatest will to receive that was not able to be corrected thus far. We do need to correct it and how, with the help of what Baal HaSulam left us, with the help of his teaching of his Torah, the Torah of the correction which is the great light, so that each one can draw upon it, to shine upon him. He talked, he told, he taught and he arranged for us all of the steps so that we will be able to approach correctly the correction of our souls so that we will be able to connect them, and in this way we will reach the realization of our role. Well, let’s read what Rabash writes about it and in general we understand from the end what we understand from the entire operation of Baal HaSulam.
Reading excerpt number 1 (03:04) “And here I come to praise my father and teacher..”
2. R. (04:45) This just testifies to the greatness of the soul, to the degree of the Baal HaSulam, how high he was, how great he was in his attainment of Godliness.
3. S. (05:10) What does Baal HaSulam talk about here, what is the correction?
R. We will learn soon what a Sukkah means, the Sukkah is from the word Mechaset, a covering, a thatch, Schach in Hebrew comes from the word Sukkah that everything that has a roof that separates between it and the sun, it is called a Sukkah when there is a cover that covers what we have, beneath the Sukkah covering it from the sun. What does that mean, we will learn that, in a few days we will have the holiday of Sukkot and then we will learn what it is about. The Masach, the screen, the sun is like the Creator that shines the upper light, He shines on us and from this upper light we want to separate ourselves through the restriction, screen and reflected light and then we can see the shade of the Sukkah, the thatch and then we are not harmed by the direct light but only whatever can pass through the thatch.
Baal HaSulam enters the Sukkah to the place where his children and his sons and his students prepared for him the thatch and he checked it. He wanted to see how much this thatch is strong and good because it has to be truly the shade and should be almost 100%, just here a little bit, here and there so the light of the sun can pass through these planks that these boards that cover the Sukkah. He talked about it, of how much it needs to be closed and shut because this is about the Masach, screen that symbolizes for us the force that overcomes the light of the sun, the direct light that comes down to us and it repels it and it only lets it enter just a little bit. Let’s say 1% of everything that comes from the sun so it can pass through this thatch into the Sukkah, so we sit it inside of the Sukkah and we need this screen, this thatch, and we enjoy this light because we are able to receive it in order to bestow, because it is so small that we have no problem to receive it in order to bestow.
S. For us the Baal HaSulam like this Schach, is he adapting this light?
R. All the souls that were before us and we’re serving the Creator in order to bestow meaning there are getting the upper light from an order to bestow, they for all of us altogether for all of us they are for preparation for our screen. They pass to us the upper light from the Creator and when this upper light comes through them to us, then it depends on us only to receive it in order to bestow or God forbid no. They arranged for us a connection with the Creator.
4. S. (10:37) We are talking about the correction of the vessels in the seventh millennium and then we immediately jump to the tenth, there’s no eighth or ninth, why?
R. Because we don’t need to correct the 8th and 9th and 10th millenia, this is called GAR. We only need to correct the VAK from Malchut to Bina but not including Bina, but Bina, Hochma and Keter, we don’t need to correct them in the ordinary manner, we will learn about that. Until we reach that we will know what to do with it.
S. Is it possible in the Sukkot?
R. No, it has nothing to do with the time in Sukkot. Time in spirituality doesn’t determine anything.
5. S. (11:56) Rabash writes that such a soul comes down to the world once every ten generations, why does humanity get so few souls like Baal HaSulam?
R. I don’t think there are any few souls like Baal HaSulam. I don’t think there is another soul besides Baal HaSulam that has reached, for the time being such degrees. I’m not talking about the souls of Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that is something else, we’re not talking about them, but about people who were born and developed in our world from zero like us, and have reached such a spiritual degree like Baal HaSulam. I don’t see any others like that I don’t see them. There were great souls, Ramchal, Rashbi, they were very great souls, but I cannot compare them. Who am I to be able to measure those holy ones, however I don’t know any such soul like Baal HaSulam that attained so deeply the essence of creation.
6. S. (13:41) What is he trying to say that he did not utter a single word of Torah before attaining inside this degree?
R. This is something very subtle we can speak about the souls, the worlds, the Partzufim, the Sefirot. We can open up a book and read what it says there about the Olamot, restrictions of all kinds of operations that we’re done through the screen and reflected light, but we are not in that yet. We don’t know what it is, we just read words and we talk, even though we have no idea about it.
This is why Baal HaSulam never said and never talked about things that he did not attain in their internality. Meaning that he truly reached it in actuality and he saw these operations through the screen and coupling by striking and reflected light, and only after that he spoke or wrote in a way that he passed it on to others. And this truly testifies to his greatness because how does he speak about the world’s, the world of Atzilut, the world of Adam Kadmon. These are things that are very difficult in general to understand, how a person can attain them. And he did attain them and he also spoke about them and he wrote about them, it only testifies to the greatness of his attainment.
7. S. (16:07) What does it mean to correct the waste of Barnyard & Winery?
R. We will learn that soon on Sukkot because the thatch is made of the waste of the barn and winery. The waste of the barn & winery is what remains in the field after you harvest the crops and you take everything that is there in order to make out of it bread and other such things. Then when you take what’s left you put it on the thatch, on the rooftop of the Sukkah and from that you make the thatch, so the waste of the barn & winery means what is left is the waste. What remains after you made out of your work all that you need to do in order to live, on a corporeal manner. This is called the barn and the winery, that the barn means the bread and the winery is the wine, these are the two results from men’s work on the soil that are your primary things, this is what he lives from.
The waste from all of this work meaning that you no longer value these things but if you do value them then you can raise them above reason above your head and make out of it a thatch. Then you sit under this thatch and you enjoy, not the light itself but the surrounding light that doesn’t pass through the thatch truly, but rather it shines a little bit and you’re able to receive it in order to bestow. We will learn about it soon, in a few days we are going to have Sukkot and we will learn all these things: how do we build screens and how do we enjoy these screens and advance through them. All of these holidays it’s only in order for us to learn the construction of the vessel, the construction of the screen.
8. S. (19:02) You just said and also in the article you don’t name what you don’t attain, but we speak of many things. How do you know that you attain so that you can name?
R. If you attain then you know, it’s very simple how can it not be this way. You see, you feel, you taste meaning in all your five senses not the corporeal ones but the spiritual ones you attain. Meaning KHBZAM, in those vessels you attain the upper light to a certain degree and to that measure you can work with it, meaning to receive an order to bestow.
S. We all think that we attain because we are all naming things we are all talking about things and when is it really attainment? Because we speak of many things in the group in the ten, so when is it attainment?
R. When you feel these things in a way that for sure you’re not mistaken, that for sure it is in order to bestow. When you perform operations of restriction, a screen and reflected light and in the reflected light you receive the direct light, and as much as you have reflected light so you are able to receive direct light and this is considered that you have contact with the Creator. You enter a shop and you can pay and receive in return for your payment you can get something from the shop, so as much as you pay, so you value what you get and it’s the same thing here. You have to pay through restriction screen and reflected light and then through that degree you receive from the Creator, revelation, so equalize your form with Him. He gives and you give and both of you begin to connect through that, this is called I to my beloved and my beloved to me.
9. S. (21:51) But our emotions or feelings can deceive us, how can we be certain that we’re doing the right thing?
R. Until you reach a state where you receive an order to bestow truly then you know already that it’s the truth or not you know already you feel you are certain of it or not. Because the spiritual reception meaning, receiving an order to bestow, it doesn’t leave a person with any doubts. It’s not like what it is in this world where it could be that somebody will later come on to you and might even persuade you that what you saw or what you felt was incorrect. In spirituality there is no such thing because you are in contact with the Creator Himself, and this is something that we cannot make tangible.
S. Don’t need any external confirmation?
R. I don’t need any external proof if I attain something from spirituality, no.
S. Where is the matter of attaining the Creator through the friends, suddenly it’s all individual?
R. It’s not individual. Did I say it’s individual? If I attain spirituality I said I have no doubt about it, but I didn’t say that it’s not through the friends or not through the friends, why do you change what I said?
S. You said there’s no need for external confirmation?
R. It’s not external it becomes my internal vessel, my connection with the friends becomes as my internal vessel and through that I get the revelation of the Creator, whatever is revealed in me through the friends is called the revelation of the Creator.
S. It was the same with Rabash? What about Rabash?
R. This is how it is for everyone from the beginning of the world to now.
10. S. (24:14) I heard that Baal HaSulam started from zero, can you explain to us this idea of starting from zero in the degrees, and how is that related to Abraham Isaac and Jacob? How did they help Baal HaSulam advance?
R. Each and every soul that comes down to this world as much as it is low or high according to its genes. Let’s say, I’ll use such words that are in our world it’s clear what it is so each and every soul begins from zero. And as much as it needs to reach a higher state, so it begins from a lower state. This is according to the rule that one who is greater than his friend, his inclination, his desire, the broken desire which he begins, his desire is greater.
Meaning, don’t you think that Moses and all of these great holy ones, those great people Rabbi Shimon and all of those, that they were born already with some Holiness within them, no way, they were even worse than ordinary people, this is how it has to be. Because until they correct their desire, until they organize it, and until they begin to receive it in order to bestow, until they elevate themselves it takes a lot of time and in a lot of many kinds of forces. There is a kind of souls that do it quickly, there is a kind of soul that does it slowly, they’re all kinds, in that there are many things. There are those who complete their corrections in the same incarnation in the same life if you can call it that, and there are others who cannot complete it in a single lifetime but rather it takes a few lifetimes, and more and more.
There are those who need to connect with other souls more or less but whichever way it is, all of them and all of us are in the same lane towards the end of correction whichever way it is, this is how we should accept it to begin with. Whatever happens we are all approaching the end of correction and in that there are many things. There are those who come from low souls and then they rise a lot higher and there are some that are someplace in the middle and they move up a little bit, there are all kinds. We will learn about that, this is actually not far away and in about two or three months we will study that. I’m cautious about talking about things that might confuse you but believe me that we are advancing according to plan.
11. S. (28:18) Today we commemorate the departure of Baal HaSulam, what do we need to do in order to be grateful to him and to give him contentment?
R. In truth this is just a popular denotation for common people that when a person passes away we mark the day of the departure. Also when I came to Rabash I nevertheless was already a religious person and I used to keep and observe all kinds of things. And suddenly I saw that all these things for Rabash and all of his students, and I was young and I was looking at them and it seemed to me that they were a little bit disrespectful of all of these things. It’s not the way that is customary among religious people Orthodox people because this is the difference between the body and the soul. Usually Kabbalists don’t pay attention to the bodies but only with respect to the correction of the soul, the desire, is the desire corrected or not, if the desire has completed its work within a person then that’s it.
He is buried, that is true but besides that there is nothing to talk about, we are done, the soul is unrelated to that flesh that now is in the ground. This is how we should relate to it and so we don’t quite relate to the place of the burial as it was let’s say during the times of the Ari and previous times. They would just bury the person someplace and maybe they would put some stones and that’s it. It’s only for us now in our times because we have become so corporeal and we are related to matter, so we put stuff there on it.
I remember a few months after I came I told Rabash maybe I will go and paint Baal HaSulam’s tomb because nevertheless it is still standing there, and I can take a few people to paint it and make some constructions and fix things. It was a wonder for me and he told me to leave it for others, they need to do something let them do that. This really does not really belong to you, and I didn’t understand it back then but over time I realized that indeed there is no interest in that. And all of that is truly something that is very peripheral, secondary.
12. S. (32:25) Other than Baal HaSulam there were other Kabbalists during his time, why did they not come and annul to him like the Kabbalists of Safed before the Ari?
R. First of all we didn’t know what happened in Safad and how much this was with subjugation before the Ari. The one who in particular recognized the Ari is the Ramak, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero and he was a great Kabbalist and very much well known and accepted in Safed and everyone accepted him and he was already old during the times of Ari. Everybody knew him as a person of attainment and he nevertheless, when he was already 70 years old and as much as he was about that, compared to the Ari who was half his age. At the age of 30 or 35 when he heard how the Ari was explaining the wisdom of Kabbalah and how much he attained what he explained, then Ramak truly surrendered before the Ari. Imagine that he is 72 years old relative to someone who is 35 years old, how much this testifies to himself that he understood the Ari and he felt the Ari and he recognized the greatness of the Ari therefore all of Safed recognized the Ari to a certain measure.
This is still a question of how much they were able to recognize the Ari, but they recognized not the Ari himself but the fact that the Ramak appreciated him and valued him. You should know nevertheless there are many opposers, many opponents and those who do not accept and no Kabbalist was accepted in the right way and it is always that way. Because what he is about to give, to reveal is always against logic, against the desire and it is contradictory to simply whatever people think and whatever they accept, what their grandparents and their fathers held on to. Now somebody comes in and contradicts all of that, how can it be that I will agree with that. When a person has what he holds on to, and so it is very difficult. A few generations have to go by until they agree with and accept the views of the Kabbalists just like with Baal HaSulam, who accepted Baal HaSulam who agreed with him in his generation, probably no one. As we read about this journalist who saw him working in his press and his workplace where he prepared the press machine, he saw this old man that all of his hands were already harmed and clutched from working with copper and he was working alone someplace there, in some dark place.This was Baal HaSulam with all of his greatness that he was attaining the spiritual world but in the corporeal world nobody recognized it and he has nothing.
13. S. (36:48) Why such a great soul as Baal HaSulam didn’t receive any respect among the circles in Israel like the Ari and the Rashbi?
R. You think that the Ari and others were honored and respected?
S. They were familiar and popular.
R. Two thousand years later Rashbi ran away to a cave and sat there with his students, it was hundreds of years later that they started to talk about him, and it’s the same with the Ari. Who recognized the Ari at the time he was in Safed besides a few of his students, no one. Tell me who was there who did. The Baal Shem Tov also traveled from village to village to tell people about the work of the Creator that we are now learning. Because at his time there were no other media so he used to speak here and go there, and go there and this is how in this way he disseminated the Wisdom of Kabbalah or more correctly the work of the Lord. He didn’t speak in particular about the upper worlds and the Sefirot, he spoke about it a little bit. But the most important for him was to speak about the work, the spiritual work of man.
14. S. (38:53) From these holy words we can understand the greatness of the soul that my father and he was saying then, because he had told me several times that he had never said words of Torah without first attaining the words of Torah from inside the degree. This feeling that passes through it is the question, what is the interanility of the degree?
R. This means he has vessels meaning screens, with which he can attain the upper light in order to bestow. And the upper light clothes and his desire with the screen in order to bestow, this light is then attained and felt as the internalilty of the degree.
S. And how do we keep this feeling that exists where there is fear in it in a good way?
R. Well first attain it and then we will speak.
S. I’m saying that what is happening is the feeling of this chain that I am in the elevator in the beginning of it, on the very bottom of it in the knowledge and the feeling that indeed this is coming from the very source, how do we keep that, how do we grow that?
R. First you have to attain it and then maintain it. First you have to attain the connection, would that light that shines from above this can be all under the condition that you connect with the friends. You are in contact with them and from the connection with them you begin to turn to the Creator, you pray you ask Him to fill the connection between you with His light in order to bestow.
S. For me and the friends and the Creator and in the middle, I can put you and Rabash and Baal HaSulam because now I see that can help?
R. Yes, Yes.
15. S. (41:26) Why does Rabash speak about the generation of darkness and concealment, is that the state of our generation as the last generation?
R. First of all we are in the last generation, the generation of the Messiah. We are already inside the upper light that is working on us that is raising us more and more higher and higher. This is why we are called the last generation, the Messiah’s generation and let’s hope that it will be realized in our time. We just need to be worthy for as much as possible and adapt to it.
S. Why if Baal HaSulam was on such a degree of attainment he wasn’t successful in disseminating more or he wasn’t acknowledged or recognized?
R. One has nothing to do with the other. The remaining Kabbalists from past generations who wanted to disseminate and couldn’t disseminate at all. Baal HaSulam did quite a bit after all, he wrote a few books and he disseminated and he talked and he left us his son Rabash and we were rewarded. We were rewarded although we cannot appreciate it yet and I know that I can appreciate the fact that I was next to the eldest son of Baal HaSulam. I was next to him, I lived next to him, I used to drive with him and sleep next to him, but it’s all corporeality. In actuality as much as I tried to attain however much I attained and I attained however much I didn’t. Nevertheless, there is connection between our generation and the generation of Baal Hasual. We have to be grateful for it.
S. What does it depend on the ability to disseminate or the method for the method to be accepted?
R. We have to see, according to the text as much as we understand, how important it was for him to disseminate his method the Wisdom of Kabbalah in the way that he spoke about it and told us about it and we need to do it. We simply have to continue even when I know nothing, I understand nothing but if I continue to disseminate his words, I participate with him in his life’s work.
Reading excerpt number 2 (44:48) “Baal HaSulam made it so…”
16. R. (45:29) This we see according to the generations. There are times in which, it’s like the degrees, what is he saying, that up to the Baal Shem Tov people had to really be really great possessing really special souls in order to attain the upper force, through adhesion with the Creator. After the Baal Shem Tov it became seemingly easier meaning the upper lights came closer to the lower souls and there was greater possibility in the lower souls to attain the greatness of these lights the greatness of the Creator. Meaning the more we advance, the easier it is for us to approach these lights, the source of the upper light and to attain them.
Reading again
17. S. (47:35) What is this correction exactly that the Kabbalists perform like Baal Shem Tov like Baal HaSulam, so that they can bring people closer to such an extent to bring them closer to adhesion with the Creator, are those the texts that they write or they some inner efforts inner corrections?
R. The Kabbalist is a desire to receive that connects to the Creator to a certain degree of connection, equivalence of form with the Creator, and then he becomes as a conduit, he conducts from the Creator to the lower souls, and those who connect to the Kabbalists can receive something from the Creator through him. That’s how it works from above down.
Reading..
18. R. (50:38) Beautiful excerpt we should add it to our list. That’s how it is, no one was ever accepted in his generation because the generation doesn’t understand him doesn’t feel him, the people of that generation, it’s not their fault if he’s the greatest in the generation how can they be like him or how can they appreciate him, to appreciate him means to attain him to some extent, to understand, to feel him, to be like him, next to him, that’s why this is how things work out, we have to know therefore what we should do and what people are saying let them say it, time will pass, we might be out of this world already it doesn’t matter but what we do we will continue to take all of humanity towards the Creator.
Excerpt number 3 (51:47) “Baal HaSulam promised us..”
19. R. (52:58) That’s how we need to see things we should work, we should do the maximum we can, and raise the generations that preceded us even higher by wanting to push them from below up with our work, that’s how we advance generation by generation until we reach the throne of those holy ones and we are pushing them this column that’s pushing them up.
20. S. (53:40) You said that Kabbalists make such a correction where they become conduits of light. If so, can we say that this whole world exists only thanks to the fact that we have such conduits of light?
R. Yes, that is how it is written that this world is fed by this tiny light that Kabbalists are passing from the Creator to all the created beings. This inner light and surrounding light, there are many such lights that fill the vessels with a certain illumination and they give them strength to exist and to advance.
Reading (54:55) “ At that time Baal HaSulam..”
21. R. (56:16) Let’s say professor was writing this.
Reading “ every time he managed to get..”
22. R. (56:16) You could see it on his hands and in general, well each one with his own fate.
23. S. (56:30) It says here that the Creator loves the truth and this is why the Creator brings near those who are truly low. Is this what relates to our generation that we need to discover how opposite we are to Him and then ask of Him?
R. I don’t know, I’m not so certain that we want to discover the truth as you say our generation is the generation of truth, we have more work to do on it.
Reading excerpt number 4 (57:04) “we have gathered here to lay the foundation..”
24. R. (57:38) This is the reason for our organization our reason for being, existing in the group of Bnei Baruch the successors of Baal HaSulam & Rabash, the as he writes to follow the path in the method of Baal HaSulam, to climb the degrees of man and not remain as beasts. We need to do it. That’s why we gathered here and the secret of our assent is according to the degree of the intensity of our connection.
Reading excerpt number 5 (58:30) “Even though we were rewarded with..”
25. S. (59:45) What’s he saying, that even with all the powers that we attain from Baal HaSulam and during our time also with the Rabash and that it’s working in us and we can use these forces as much as possible as much as possible to walk with him and rise with him nevertheless it’s very difficult for us to climb the degrees on this path in order to reach the goal in order to reach the desired wholeness since the hardening of the heart and the burning of the body, because I have hardened his heart. In us it’s a great thing, in our time we need to use the connection between us in order to find support, aid so we can use our connection in order to catch the mutual support that we should have in order to reach wholeness.
26. S. (01:01:05) Sometimes there is an excerpt that you read and it conveys a certain, you read it in the evening and it conveys a certain depth, and in the morning we begin to read the same excerpt and it disappears already, how come?
R. Every moment you have a desire to receive that awakens otherwise you wouldn’t feel that there’s any difference between two moments that you’re alive, it’s because your will to receive is renewed in each and every moment therefore each and every moment you are seemingly prepared to reveal to understand a different mode in connection in your connection with the friends and your connection with the Creator. That’s why no two moments are alike in our lives are passing with our changing desires and we need to try and be adhered each and every moment and then we’ll understand why the Creator, why has He rolled those forms on us.
27. S. (01:02:51) What did Baal HaSulam study with his students? Because all the books that we study from that we read they didn’t have them back then right?
R. No, they didn’t have it I spoke to Menahem Edelstien he was a student of Baal HaSulam and a student of the Rabash and he was older than Rabash, three years older than Rabash and he would tell me that he used to drive from Tiberias where he lived and went to Baal HaSulam.
Baal HaSulam would give a lesson every Friday, once a week, and he would get there with a truck he would sit on top of all the load of the truck all the boxes and everything and he would get to Jerusalem this way, it was a long way, and he said that he would sometimes get to Baal HaSulam early before the lesson and Baal HaSulam saw him although he gave a lesson from three a.m. but he himself would be up at midnight. Baal HaSulam would give him something to read from what he wrote at that time, from the Zohar, so he would sit and read the Zohar that came out of the writing of Baal HaSulam that night perhaps. That’s how it worked for Baal HaSulam, he would write the Sulam Commentary on the Book of Zohar during those times.
28. S. (01:05:18) Actually first of all we need to understand what is the method of Baal HaSulam? He talks about a method, what’s this method? What’s special about this method, let’s say different from other Kabbalists that lived?
R. It penetrates deeper into creation into the will to receive it has to go through the restriction the screen and reflected light and according to the degree of reflected light that the will to receive develops he begins to resemble the Creator, the upper light, and he begins to feel to receive what exists in the upper light into himself, this is called the revelation of the Creator to the created being. The upper light is clothed in the will to receive that is armed with the intention to bestow.
S. We hear as we learned there were many people who even came and threw stones at his glasses. The question is how come there was such great hatred towards him? It’s not clear I mean he came to help and everybody hated him and there was no unity with him. What is the reason for this hatred that existed towards him for a long time?
R. Because they don’t understand the method, his explanation, since there is still no need for their souls to get to know the truth. They still don’t want to reveal the Creator, they want to just keep what they were taught when they were kids and receive a reward through that.
S. Today is Baal HaSulam’s method accepted or even today it’s not accepted?
R. I don’t belong to the world.
S. In general I’m asking.
R. I don’t know. If you’re asking me I can’t tell you how the world is divided today I don’t know. I stopped with it in the 80s, the beginning of the 80s, and today 40 years later I can’t tell you. I also don’t care about what they think, those who will resist, reject, each one judges according to his own flaws, what can they do if their souls are still not worthy to feel something of spirituality so how can they say this is correct or incorrect? It’s like you take a small child and ask him but we don’t care about it we don’t need to be involved with it.
S. This means that only, let’s put it this way, Bnei Baruch the worldwide Bnei Baruch all of us of course and a few other sections maybe, small sections, I’m asking like that. Why isn’t it a lot easier to disseminate like Baal HaSulam wanted it was so difficult to disseminate it you see we’re working so hard on this and we don’t manage to really disseminate except for Bnei Baruch that manages to do it somewhat.
R. You just heard an excerpt about how Baal HaSulam disseminated.
S. How did he disseminate?
R. He was standing by the press machine and working with the lead in order to arrange the letters for the Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary prepared for print and I will tell you myself, when I got there in 1982 and 1983 after a couple of years with him one of the mothers passed away of one of the friends and they asked Rabash what to do what, to do in memory of this mother, so he said you need to buy 100 sets of the Book of Zohar with Sulam Commentary and disseminate distribute it wherever people can study it for free, so I said I’ll help you.
took five sets of books put it in my car and I used to drive all kinds of places to try to give away these books for free, nobody wanted to take them, they did not want to take them in any synagogue any shiva any seminary no public place wanted to accept these books as if it’s like something infected with a virus truly like that, so we have to understand this is the attitude that people have towards Kabbalah either because they’re afraid, who knows what it is, the wisdom of Kabbalah instills fear in people and there are a few other reasons as well. Baal HaSulam suffered from this very serious boycott, all the Kabbalists were against him, all the Rabbis were against him.
S. I remember he had a friend from the union, the workers’ union, they were very good friends and they did a lot of work together?
R. Brandwein.
S. Brandwein, yes.
R. Brandwein was one of his students.
S. So they decided together, we don’t hear so much about Brandwein anymore but about Baal HaSulam you can still hear about him but really they were collaborating. Are there Kabbalists in Israel, we don’t know about them, who worked with Baal HaSulam?
R. No not as far as I can tell there were a few who today are not remembered, this generation is passed it’s gone.
29. S. (01:12:15) What does it mean that Baal HaSulam operated such that a simple person an ordinary person if he follows his way he can be rewarded with Dvekut with the Creator. What is the operation he performed?
R. He connected, he tied to the Creator to all the souls through him, through Baal HaSulam to all the simple souls so any one of those souls who wishes to reach adhesion to the Creator they have this connection.
S. What if someone wants to reach the Creator what can he do? What did Baal HaSulam…?
R. He should study, to study the writings of Baal HaSulam and from the writings of Baal HaSulam he’s going to reach a connection to the Creator.
S. That’s it? That’s all that’s required, is it enough?
R. Yes, well he needs to learn it to actualize it, to implement it, he has to connect to a group and arrange the group as Baal HaSulam says, know the sources and then the upper light from the source will influence him and sanctify him advance him.
S. How is this different? We say this is what is written in all the books of the Kabbalists.
R. Of course it’s not a new method, it’s just that in its time he formed a tighter bond.
S. He made a tighter connection. I’m trying to understand it because you have the teacher he wrote a book and now I’m standing opposite a book by Baal HaSulam or another book, let’s say Maor VaShemesh, the Light and Sun. What is the difference for me in terms of what Baal HaSulam operated? What did he prepare for us?
R. You have a physics book that was written two hundred years ago and what is written now. You understand there’s a difference between them.
S. If it’s Newton’s mechanics I’m guessing then the same as written about it?
R. No, that’s also not the same. That’s also written in a different way because the users are different also. None of the laws have changed, the laws of nature have not changed but the people who need to learn about those laws have changed they’re in a different generation.
30. S. (01:14:43) Can we see spirituality on a person on a Kabbalist?
R. How can you see? If there was by your side someone like Moses you can’t see.
S. How can we see it? How can we recognize a Kabbalist if you say so?
R. You can’t, if you don’t want to, you want to be able to identify, if you will want he’ll speak in a way that you’ll understand that he has something of upper attainment more than you attain.
S. Yes, but we do want to see the Kabbalist. Baal HaSulam wasn’t discovered, wasn’t recognized, he wasn’t attained so how can we do it? How can others see us also, how do we see the great ones, how will we be acknowledged?
R. If you will be great you will know what to publish and what not, that’s it, and it seems to me that only then you’ll know how to connect to people and to the extent of the connection they’ll attain things you don’t need anything beyond that.
31. S. (01:16:12) How a Kabbalist, how Baal HaSulam came to a state that it took such exalted readings like the Zohar and the writings of the Ari and bring them closer to the generation?
R. He probably felt that he’s capable of being a bridge between what’s written in the Zohar and what he needs to tell his generation.
S. But what did he exactly do with that?
R. He understood these things from the internality of the degree what Rashbi wrote and that’s why he felt that he’s capable or not, to tell about it in a way that his generation can also attain.
S. To do such a job could it be a situation where he’s not in their degree in order to bring what they wanted to bring?
R. I didn’t understand.
S. To succeed to do the work that Baal HaSulam did, did he reach their degree and work from that level?
R. Yes and of course that too, but besides that he was also able to lower it to the degree of our generation and to simplify it in a way that we too can understand it, that’s the whole greatness.
S. I wanted to ask how could it be that between Kabbalists there’s this degrading relationship or even a disregarding attitude towards Baal HaSulam, how did they not see?
R. Where do you see Kabbalists?
S. I don’t see Kabbalists but you mentioned that they truly disregarded him, that they boycotted him?
R. These were not Kabbalists, these were his opposers.
S. Clear, what’s the difference between them?
R. The difference is when they don’t understand him, accept him, oppose him, that’s why they wanted to cancel him.
S. It’s kind of not clear to me how you would want to cancel out a Kabbalist in all that he does?
R. What did they care if it’s a Kabbalist or not, if I don’t agree with this person I want to erase him. I don’t know anything about Kabbalah or anything, I just don’t agree and I don’t want him to exist.
S. Clear because if we look at Rashbi and the Ari we don’t want to erase them on the contrary we do all kinds of rituals about them?
R. No I don’t think so, I don’t think so, also where do you hear about Rushbi and the Ari only when there’s some celebrations like the Emunah celebration, that has nothing to do with Torah and learners when you’re talking about these opposers, their common people. They come from all over the Israel nation, they had such great people in past generations. It has nothing to do with those who study Torah, it is only relevant to… well, what can you do. Unless we talk about it you will understand it and if you don’t understand it that is also okay.
S. Where did Baal HaSulam take that force to want so badly to pass to the last of the people this wisdom?
R. That’s from the height of his attainment because he was great in his attainment and this is why he couldn’t be afraid or be cautious, he just wrote what he wrote.
32. S. (01:20:58) We also talked before about the generations later, they recognized the greatness of the Kabbalists and today we see that people who don’t have attainment, it’s respectable to study the Ari or at least they recognized him?
R. Because this is called the last generation when everyone can study the Wisdom of Kabbalah. You don’t know what happened thirty or forty years ago here. I remember I told it more than once that I went into a shop to duplicate a key and put the book, A Tree of Life a tree on the counter and I gave him the key. He told me, you take this book and hold this in your hand, otherwise I can’t work. That’s how he told me, the salesman, that’s how it was forty years ago. Today I don’t think anyone even has some impression there.
S. Even when Baal HaSulam talked with the Jerusalem Kabbalists and they told him that nevertheless that what the Ari wrote was right and received from Eliyahu. What happens with a Kabbalist not recognized in that generation and the generations later, he becomes at least recognized for his exaltedness. What happens in people that makes people recognize him later?
R. Because in each and every generation the souls rise to a higher degree.
S. What changes is in the next generation that they see that the Kabbalists from the previous generation were great?
R. Because they rise in their attainment and their understanding, it’s like there’s a difference but it’s like in physics and different sciences. People start understanding more and feeling more and then they can understand what happened in the past and what’s going on with them.
S. What developed in them?
R. Emotion intellect and the ability to attain. The vessels are being revealed, those vessels that were revealed 1000 years ago and the vessels that are being revealed now, there’s a big difference. In the past it was individuals, a few and then there were hundreds and today there are more until we reach such a state where everyone will know the Creator from the biggest to the smallest.
33. S. (01:23:58) Baal HaSulam explains that he talks to the Creator and explains his whole conversation and asks the Creator to lower him a degree in order to understand. And the Creator asks him if he wants to be lowered from his degree so that he’ll be able to understand people and the sages in the land?
R. That’s not an order to attain, it is in order to lower it to the people.
S. When he prayed to the Creator to lower him a degree?
R. What’s your question?
S. Just to add that?
R. Okay, thank you.
34. S. (01:24:58) Is it true that only one soul incarnated from Abraham to Moses?
R. Yes, yes, yes, you can read about that, there is material even in our website.
S. I see Kabbalists, I see you and I think you’re one of the Kabbalists. I know you’re the greatest Kabbilist in the world.
R. The fact that you know that is already good.
35. S. (01:25:44) You say that the greatness of Baal HaSulam was to rise to the upper world and then lower himself so that every person will understand him. How did Baal HaSulam manage so he wouldn’t lose the exaltedness of his attainment?
R. It took him a long time, this took him a long time. I remember that this is what Rabash told me, that when Baal HaSulam came to his teacher to his Rav from Porsov, he suddenly saw this book The Tree of Life by the Ari on the shelf. He took it and started reading and he went and his teacher came in and he said, no no no set it aside, but he already saw many things in this book that he wanted to know and he couldn’t find.
He waited for the end of their conversation and he drove from Porsov to Warsaw very quickly and he bought this book and then he already knew where he should find all the answers to what really stabbed his heart, things he didn’t know and that’s what Rabash told me. One thing he didn’t know was that it would take him 20 or 30 more years to attain these things to understand them and then I grabbed Rabash when he told me about it. 30 years? and then Rabash understood that, and he said something that he wasn’t supposed to say. I was maybe 33 years old, 35 years maybe. 30 years until I’m 65?! Only then will I attain something that is written there? Then he said no no no it’s okay, it’s okay and he didn’t talk about that anymore. He saw that he was dealing with too much with his inertia, so what can I tell you, it can go in different ways.
36. S. (01:29:09) Rav just said that all the Kabbalists were kind of against Baal HaSulam, weren’t they in attainment of the Creator? Didn’t they see?
R. That doesn’t matter they weren’t in his height that’s why they didn’t agree with what he said. There was a small part that did agree but still they weren’t in the height of his degree.
Continues reading excerpt #6: (01:29:54) “ Know my friends that since we were together with Baal HaSulam…” Twice.
37. R. (01:31:47) Humanity cannot move for thousands of years and all of a sudden in a hundred years a few leaps, also Baal HaSulam or Rabash and what’s happening here. How does it happen that at once everything happens?
R. I can’t tell you exactly but it seems to me that it’s a plan. That’s how it is in nature as well that some year, some era, some generations, are preparing the force and it actually happens and that’s something quick.
38. S. (01:32:39) The efforts of the Kabbalists, how is that relative to the advancement of nature? How does that accelerate?
R. It accelerates a lot because nature is usually still and a person is in the speaking level that’s four degrees above nature and that’s what we do, we may hasten the development very much
S. Do the students have a part in that as well?
R. Of course of course a big one.
39. S. (01:33:19) The question and the feeling has to do with the first feeling. I know it’s not precise but the first feeling was the standing of Mount Sinai from the smallest …….. and the second thing the living Creator’s words where Rabash talks about emerging from his father from Baal HaSulam. The burning of the heart is the moment this disappears which is the moment you’re disconnected not connected and then our path is actually to return to connect to this?
R. I think you have much more you need to read. You should read more and then you’ll be able to understand and connect what you read with what really happens.
S. So can you explain to me what’s the hardening of the heart?
R. I can’t explain to you because you are missing much of the fundamentals and you’re counting on other sources you got and you think that’s the truth and that’s why all your results …
S. So to throw out that garbage.
R. Me?
S. No I should throw out that waste?
R. Okay and then you can come.
40. S. (01:34:40) There’s in this excerpt several definitions I would like to understand. He writes here that we need to hear Him and keep His covenant. What does that mean? What do we need to do?
R. Keep His covenant is clear. We need to keep in the connection between us and with the Creator in such a way that we yearn to come as one man in one heart within which the Creator lies within this common heart of ours, and that’s basically that sign of the covenant that’s th covenant itself that the Creator is revealed within it. Everything is in one place in the connection of our hearts.
41. S. (01:35:37) With your permission Rav, the Ari, Baal HaSulam that established the topic of study is excellent. My question is different. We must connect, nullify, work in a certain method that they paved for us. How did they advance and reveal everything as a direct care from the Creator without the ten, without annulment, without doing the work that we’re doing?
R. Newer generations of Kabbalists grew according to the laws of nature by themselves and it wasn’t something that was required for them to connect to tens, to reach some spiritual degrees et cetera, that’s why there’s no problem for them to exist this way. As for us, especially us in the last generation. Why did Rabash start writing these articles about the ten, a zero, and one, and all these things? Because we are the ones that need to care about the realization, the true realization, when corporeality and spirituality will connect as one. We will have tens in this world as well just like the ten Sefirot in the spiritual world and we’ll clothe, every group will clothe on the ten original Sephirot and this way we’ll feel the Illumination in the these ten desires when they connect, that it will happen this way, that’s it. We need to reach the state of Adam Harishon connected with one desire, all of us as one man in one heart.
42. S. (01:38:04) …… We hear the evil inclination that ……… and that was his completion and his ability to nullify but the rest of the Kabbalists I have no knowledge we don’t really know from what we’ve learned.
R. So what’s the question?
S. In order to advance 620 times to rise above the ego we need a certain annulment in order to rise above, no?
R. In every generation this should happen. What was told to Abraham, isn’t that relevant to all the other Generations?
S. Yes but he managed to pass this to all the generations, the ego afterall grows from one generation to the next.
R. Each and every generation accordingly there is no generation like the generation of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac. Everyone should follow.
43. S. (01:39:25) Does the student himself need to be in attainment to understand the greatness of the teacher?
R. Of course otherwise how will he understand? He needs to be in a degree maybe lower than the teacher but to be in connection with the teacher so that he will be able to at least elevate him from time to time to his degree.
44. S. (01:40:01) How many people have reached attainment in the method of Baal HaSulam? I’m new in the study and also a simple person. How do I know that all of this is possible?
R. Everyone comes like you, new people, simple, and all the rest depends on them. I don’t see as of today another method that may lead a person to attainment, all the rest depends on you. If you feel in your heart that this draws you it’s yours, if you don’t feel in your heart attachment to that so search, go and search.
45. S. (01:40:58) Can the world Kli with its connection connect and clothe on the soul of Baal HaSulam?
R. Yes, of course yes and we want for it to happen and we will clothe on him.
46. S. (01:41:18) If the Kabbalists perceived their generation with their ideas should we not turn to our generation but maybe to the next generations?
R. We should address our generation and then the next generations in order to connect everyone and to elevate everyone to a higher degree. We just need to understand that all of us, all of us in our generation we need to connect and to enter our upper, and this is how it is from one degree to another until we reach Adam HaRishon.
47. S. (01:42:09) What is special in the day that we mark the passing of Baal HaSulam? What should we as students add to the study in addition to the study of the greatness of this Kabbalist?
R. We need to try to connect and to reach a state that we are all as one man in one heart because we are the last generation already, maybe in our generation will be able to attain the entrance to the soul of Adam HaRishon then all of us will connect together men, women, everyone to the one source.
48. S. (01:43:00) When you gave the definition for a Kabbalist earlier you said that the students that connect to the teacher feel to a certain extent the measure that the Rav has attained. Does that mean that a person or the ten itself does not attain the Creator itself but only through the teacher?
R. A person cannot do that on his own he has to be connected to a ten otherwise he has no vessel he has no Kli you need at least two at least one more that he connects with but it’s much harder when the quantity is smaller. We need to be as ten Sefirot in order to attain the upper light but because we are in the meantime in Katnut it’s enough for us to be two or three.
49. S. (01:44:08) The fact that we all have a big desire to come close to the Creator does that mean that we also have the ability to do so?
R. Ability, you can be certain that we have that and only everything depends on the straightness of the heart the heart should be straight, meaning that we really want to come close to each other we really want to be as one man in one heart we really want to connect. It’s is not that we have all kinds of vicious thoughts about the other connections in other plans.
50. S. (01:44:55) I feel like we can attain from the Kabbalist, from you, much spirituality and we only attain a small part of it. How to augment what you’re trying to give to us?
R. What the brain doesn’t do time will. That’s what I can say, it will come it will come. The main thing is that we’re drawn from one day to another, drawn to it and we do want to exist this way.
51. S. (01:45:42) How does a soul like Raabash and Baal HaSulam bind the generation or the generations that follow to spirituality?
R. Because they are already in spirituality and that’s why all these souls that want to connect between themselves and to them to that high soul they’re connecting. That’s something that the upper one does already.
52. S. (01:46:10) What is a low soul and what is a high soul?
R. It’s according to the desire that exists in the soul even before it started to correct this desire in order to bestow..
53. S. (01:46:30) Baal HaSulam wrote melodies that are breathtaking. What happens with them that they move us this way each time anew?
R. I don’t know what to tell you. I think it was simply out of the heart. First of all he was born in Poland that was part of Eastern Europe he belonged to. His tunes they remind of the tunes of that area and also I heard from a few musicians that these tunes of his are like Italian classical music. I don’t know, but in short we need as much as we can to be impressed of that, to advance this way.
54. S. (01:47:43) What is the opportunity that we have in this holiday of Sukkot?
R. Yes, now we are coming to the holiday of Sukkot, it’s a week and what we need is to connect as much as we can between ourselves as much as possible. It is a holiday that symbolizes the connection of ours and our ability to be under the influence of the surrounding light which connects us and makes of us one desire, of all of us, then we reach the last day of Sukkot, after Sukkot, which is called Simchat Torah and then the upper light called Torah clothes in us.
55. S. (01:48:43) How is the Sukkah of peace built between us?
R. It is by each of one of us wanting to cover the friend, a covering, to help him be under his own screen, then as we are on a boat, when each one cares about the others, then we can be certain that we will not drown but rather we will reach the shore.
56. S. (01:49:22) The Ari prohibited while he was departing he prohibited his students from engaging in the study, Rabash warns in one of his articles to keep distances from the Baal HaSulam articles that were under his screen at this time, and then when he departed he said keep a huge distance from them, Rabash also when he departed he passed to you also all those who were distanced from under his screen. We are also here now in the lesson, you made the depiction of this boat, each comes with his oar, he is rowing in his direction and questions and if not for your guidance and answers we would not. The question is, what will give us the right direction when we do not have a Kabbalist that will guide us?
R. You don’t have someone to guide you?
S. No I don’t want to say that when you pass
R. You can speak freely, forget about this nonsense. Now and when I depart, you have one certain direction which is the connection between you, until you reach such a connection that the Creator is revealed in this connection, there’s nothing else to do, only that, that’s it, be as one man in one heart, that is what you need. So what’s not clear about that?
S. To me it’s understood, how to internalize that, we’re still asking questions, I’m sitting here and being stabbed in my butt and each time I’m jumping, and really every answer of yours is connection, to nullify.
R. There’s nothing else to do, that is the whole Torah.
S. Right, so why are we so thick-necked, why don’t we get that, that’s what I don’t understand.
R. Stiff-necked, so why am I to blame, there’s a verse, go to the craftsman who made me.
57. S. (01:52:15) What is the difference in the correction that a Kabbalist does like Baal HaSulam in our generation and the correction that we need to do, systemically, what is the difference between what he does and what we need to do?
R. Each one makes his own correction, what Baal HaSulam does is a general correction for the whole world with respect to the final correction, what we need to do is one step forward, to try to correct ourselves, in our corrections to the extent that we can, in our place and then each one in his own place and also all the Kabbalists of the rest of the generation, Rambam, Rashbi, each and every one who acted in their own generation keeps on working in the direction of the correction on the Kli of Adam HaRishon, the broken vessel.
S. Are there souls that are more central and those that are less?
R. Yes of course.
S. And they’re nourished from the central ones?
R. I can’t explain this because it is hard to see these things, this order, but everyone depends on each other.
S. Great Kabbalists like let’s say Ramhal and all kinds that had students and had groups but that branch ended, do they also have a certain role in the general correction?
R. Of course no one passes away and no one is born, each and every soul exists, it’s eternal, it only is connected for the time being more and more to the system of the correction and the system of correction exists, it is only that we need to bring ourselves to it, to identify ourselves with it.
S. We are also supplied from all of those branches or only from Baal HaSulam?
R. From everyone, from everyone, we are in the system of all the Kabbalists, starting with Adam HaRishon until the last Adam.
58. S. (01:55:11) Is there something additional we can do besides learning the writings of the method of Baal HaSulam and trying to realize it, for example, to ask of him, to be thankful to him, is there some internal work here or just to study and try to realize?
R. Where do you see something that’s more than that?
S. I remember them once you said, maybe it was in the Yahrzeit of Rabash, that there’s a connection and you can ask of this Kabbalist.
R. Those are prayers, of course you can ask.
S. You mean we can ask from the upper one?
R. Yes you can ask for Rabash and Baal HaSulam, just like in our world we ask from the great ones, from those that have the ability to influence our fate, that is how we can ask from the higher souls.
59. S. (01:56:30) In the time of Baal HaSulam so he was not appreciated, today we to do not appreciate the connection between ourselves, how can we reach attainment and understanding the connection between us is such a precious thing that we need to keep?
R. You need to talk more and more about this so that the connection between us you will receive the upper light and it will connect you and truly connect and fill you with all the knowledge of the upper system.
S. How can we love the crisis between us?
R. You don’t need to love, you have to get rid of it, you need to correct it.
S. And if a crisis is come so is that the beginning of the correction?
R. I do not want to go into that it is not correct, we need to see try to see everything from us as corrected.
60. S. (01:57:48) The Articles the writings of Baal HaSulam, Rabash and yours, all this effort is the result is BB, what is the result of Bnei Baruch?
R. The last generation that will complete the correction.
61. S. (01:58:18) When Baal HaSulam passed away Rabash recommended that he should cut off himself from his students, when you pass away we are on the same threat or does it matter?
R. First of all we need to yearn for connection between us so the connection between us will truly be us 10 Sefirot, connected in one Partzuf and then from that when we are already connected, from that connection we will understand the correct answer to all the details of reality that are between us, who to connect, how to connect, but first of all our tens need to be connected in between and there should not be any foreign faction that can break our tens.
62. S. (01:59:35) Did you talk about with the Rabash about….
R. No, I know about it but I don’t tell you about it and Rabash did not want me to tell you about it.
63. S. (02:00:07) If we take a piece of glass and we write on that 0 1 is 10, annulling so that the one is like 10 and a 0 but who did the Kabbalists annul before?
R. Each and every Kabalists annuls himself towards the connection with the others, to others, the ten we nullify because of the ten is the force of the Creator exists.
64. S. (02:00:57) Rabash wrote that if you deviate even by 1 mm in the beginning you will be certain that you will not reach the goal. How can we examine ourselves that we are in the right direction and that we are not dealing with imaginary things and turning into an ordinary society?
R. We need to care only for the connection and through the connection will correct everything. It is very simple, despite all the forces of rejection and disturbances, we need to constantly correct ourselves towards increasing connection, that is the whole secret of our correction.