KETER: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Rabash. What Is, “For You Are the Least of All the Peoples,” in the Work?. 40 (1990)
Morning Lesson October 28, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Rabash. Article 40, 1990. What Is, “For You Are the Least of All the Peoples,” in the Work?
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, so let’s read the article, “What is ‘For you are the least of all the people’ in the work”, it is an important article, it is long, it is four pages so let’s get into it!
Reading Article 40 (01:07) “What Is ‘For You Are the Least of All the Peoples’ in the Work?”
2. S. (19:24) Yes, it is an interesting part here, it says that the person has to be in joy when serving a great king, on the other hand it is written that if the King reveals His greatness then it would be already pleasure within reason. How can we work with this, that I want to serve Him but it is forbidden for me to reveal His greatness?
R. If the Creator would be revealed to him, if the Creator would be revealed to him in a way that he is great and important then of course the person would subjugate himself to the power of the revelation of the Creator. Whereas what we want is in order to bestow, the subjugation has to be by the power of the subjugation of the person and not because the Creator is revealed as great. Hence the more we advance in spirituality it is possible that the Creator will appear to us as less and less important and we need to accept Him as more and more important throughout our own appreciation. In this way we reach in order to bestow because if He is great then of course I am bestowing that nature obligates me. Rather, what does it mean Lishma above reason that I do not receive this impression into my vessels, rather I imagine to myself through my own forces and my own effort my connection to the society. When we build the Creator between us and that is why it says you have made me. That is why only in the group can build the image of the great Creator before whom we subjugate ourselves and bow down and we reach in this way the action of bestowal.
S. How can we build the importance in the group, this greatness of theCreator when as a rule He does not reveal Himself. We talk about it in words, it is not just some mantras to say that He is great, how do you make it emotional?
R. You say it well, beautiful. How can we do it? Because each one passes to the other as if he has this impression from the greatness of the Creator as if. This way a person is impressed by the group and subjugates himself before the Creator and advances until he discovers Him.
We will scrutinize these things further. I don’t have words exactly, we need to imagine the greatness of the Creator despite the fact that it is not felt or seen because if He was felt and seen we would receive it in our vessels and then it would be a failure, in advance. Because it would be in order to receive whereas in order to bestow the Creator is not revealed as great, but I depict Him as great and by that I come to in order to bestow,pure in order to bestow.
S. What does it mean exactly that I am describing to myself, describing The Creator as great to the friends and between us?
R. This action is when we build the Creator inside that group, there is no Creator without a created being. When we connect and arrange between us the image of the Creator, the form of the Creator, the form of bestowing, the connecting form and this way we imagine it before us and we portray it and bow down before it. That He is great and He is doing all of our spiritual lives to the extent that we can portray Him in this way. Then we reveal Him and then He bestows to us and He arranges for us the spiritual reality.
S. It turns out that what is important here is to do this out of the greater distance when we do not feel anything?
R. Yes the more we approach the purpose of creation the purpose of life we move farther away from our ability to detect the Creator to build Him. It will become more and more difficult to approach Him. This is according to the rule, he who is greater than his friend his evil inclination is greater. We will talk about it, there is more to add here.
3. S. (26:08) Can you help us understand when we work in Lo Lishma we are looking for pleasure because we are still working for ourselves, but some joy, some taste, is it not also some pleasure?
R. Of course it is.
4. S. (26:38) It turns out that the person works for the Creator and the Creator conceals His greatness and in such a state there is an opportunity that the person feels no taste in the work, and then he needs to ask the Creator to give him a force to work without taste in Lo Lishma
R. Yes, yes.
S. How can the person work without any taste, without feeling the greatness of the Creator? Where does he get this request to the Creator to continue working in this manner, where does he get such a lack?
R. Lacks come to us from above.
5. S. (27:28) What is it actually you have to do in order to reach Lishma?
R. Meaning that everything we think that can help us to perform actions without the participation of our will to receive so it will not be in order to receive, then we activate those means in our heart and our mind.
S. The only means I have is the friends, the ten, so all these states that I’m receiving is through the friends?
R. If you annul yourself towards the friends you certainly will succeed because there is no other way for you to advance, there is no other way. Everything is concealed the Creator is concealed, other than connection with the friends which you take above reason. There is a point here that we still cannot cross.
6. S. It is written here that from 13 years on are they talking about?
R. No it doesn’t have anything to do with 13 years, it is just a number.
S. They are talking about degrees of preparation the person has to go through before he enters the authority of the worlds of Kedusha as is written here. It seemingly is the upper degrees before we reach Lishma?
R. This is correct but the number 13 has no connection to this.
7. S. (29:44) The final degree of Lo Lishma, it is written here that a person lusts for the Creator, like when I am in love for something it is great in my eyes. I do not understand this passage to Lishma, does the Creator become small? What is this change here between Lo Lishma and Lishma?
R. In his desires he feels a great attraction to the Creator in his will to receive and then when he goes to Lishma he begins to feel the ability to work with vessels of bestowal not vessels of reception and then he goes to Lishma.
S. And what happens to the greatness of the Creator in this transition?
R. The Creator remains great except why is he drawn to the Creator if first before that it was out of lust and the prospect of the fulfillment he wanted to receive from The Creator. Now it is because the Creator Himself is great.
S. I do not understand the transition?
R. We will continue, hang on, this is the entire point that we have to come to and cross.
8. S. (31:32) Do the Kabbalists pray or ask for the taste of dust?
R. Why? When can a person who wants to taste the taste of dust, I do not know what you are depicting, it says that my soul should be as dust for all. Is this what you are talking about, what state are you referring to with respect to the taste of dust? We will come to it, I can’t imagine tasting dust in order to receive.
9. S. (32:31) You said before that if you annul yourselves before the friends then you will truly succeed to advance, we need to take the connection with the friends above reason. There is a point here as you said that there is a point that we still cannot go through it?
R. I did not understand your question.
S. You said there is a point which we still cannot go through. Regarding what you said that everything is concealed besides the connection that you take with the friends above reason and there is a point here we still cannot work through. What is this point as in the question?
R. We will go through it, we will go back to it, don’t worry.
Reader Continues with: (33:49) “Rather He Asks the Creator…”
10. R. (34:56) These are the questions this entire excerpt,the four questions.
Reading Continues
11. S. (46:59) Man has to look for a way to exert in the Ten to learn for the world that gives the least amount of pleasure?
R. No, No, god forbid incorrect we do not need to run away from the pleasure. We need to receive all the infinite pleasure. Rather we need to check where is the pleasure. If the pleasure is in the recognition of the greatness of the Creator I am going for this. I am yearning for this pleasure and truly for it, running towards it. If the pleasure is in everything else then I do not want to receive the pleasure because then it is a false pleasure. Only the Creator is managing everything and fills everything and reveals everything and in Him I want to reveal and through Him all of reality.
12. S. (48:36) To raise divinity from the dust is the work of the Creator, hence the greatness of this work that the Creator is asking us to do?
R. Shechina in the dust is called the greatness of the Creator. The appearance of the Creator in my eyes is lowly as dust and if I want to get closer to Him, to get closer to the truth I need to portray the Creator as the opposite, as greater than all and everything and thus to raise Shechina from the dust is our work.
I do not know how to do this in the meantime let’s say but I know that only the work of prayer and request from the Creator can change my state, my attitude to the revelation of the Creator. The Creator intentionally lowers himself on branches and stones as it is written and that his Shechina is truly below all below everything and it is done intentionally in order to give us the opportunity to gather and get deeper into it, to connect, and turn to Him and ask and demand of Him that He would raise His Shechina from the dust. We mean that the appearance of the Creator will reach a state that is none greater than him.
S. What is the difference between the greatness in Lishma and the greatness in Lo Lishma?
R. The greatness of the Creator in Lishma is the greatness of the force of bestow, His essence. The greatness of the Creator in Lo Lishma is that I feel that I can feel from Him all my fulfilments and I yearn for those. Not to enlarge the Creator but to fill myself.
13. S. (51:58) You almost answered this but I wanted to ask what is the difference between the greatness of the Creator that the Creator gives for whom we work in Lo Lishma and the greatness of the Creator the friends give us in the Ten to reach Lo Lishma.
R . The friends that give you the drive for Lishma can actually help you more than everyone. Because surely that you don’t place any help on them for success,and that when you hear advice from them you can feel them and thus not be harmed. It is worthwhile to be connected between us and if we all of us together without any pressure from anyone and the others, rather that we truly think and discuss how to reach some decision and turn to the Creator with this decision. Then we will not be mistaken, we will not be mistaken. To begin with, the Creator is already in connection between us.
14. S. (53:22) Is this correct, in Lo Lishma the greatness of the Creator is concealed from us from above and the moment we work in Lishma we conceal the Creator from ourselves through the screen. Who is doing the difference between in the work here?
R. You are speaking correctly. Very good, it is a wonder, you are giving us an example that there is no limit to a person and his life and his age, rather if he wants then he reaches it. Very good.
15. S. (54:37) When we feel the taste of dust should ask for the greatness of the Creator or should we believe in our Sages that the Creator is enjoying this work and ask for additional power to work without revealing his greatness?
R. It depends for what purpose you want the greatness of the Creator for what goal. If I want the greatness of the Creator in order to advance in bestowal then I need the greatness of the Creator. I ask for it, I want to bow before it, so my soul should be dust, as dust for all and then it is good so why shouldn’t I ask.
Rather if I have doubt of how I am receiving the greatness of the Creator then I first need to incorporate into the society that the greatness of the society would be greater than the greatness of the Creator. Then I am working with them together and get closer to the greatness of the Creator and then the greatness of the Creator is accepted within the greatness of the society. That the greatness of the society is like a screen restriction and reflected light, that I want to bestow to the Creator and then the greatness of the Creator is revealed in the corrected vessel.
16. S. (56:15) Here it says that if I feel the greatness of the Creator if it gives me fuel to work for bestowal. This is the reason to engage in Torah and Mitzvot but it is not a good thing because I get pleasure from it. It’s not clear how on the one hand I need to feel the greatness of the Creator in order to work for him and here it says no, we should not feel it. That even when I don’t feel His greatness I need to work for Him?
R. Let me tell you what I would advise. I would advise you all the time to hold onto the greatness of the group and afterwards and only afterwards the greatness of the Creator and then you will not be mistaken and you will not fall into any problems. The greatness of the group must be greater than the greatness of the Creator. That the vessel in which you receive the greatness of the Creator will not be small, but it will be big, bigger than what you want to receive.
Then it will not advance towards shattering. All the time we need to think and worry for the greatness of the group and the greatness of the friends, the greatness of this system of connection of ours, that it would be in front of me and as great as possible. In this I promise myself not to enter sin and shattering, that this is actually my concern and my work. That as much as I am thinking about the greatness of the Creator will be afterwards. After that I am surely in recognition of the greatness of my group because then I have a vessel that is capable of receiving the greatness of the Creator in the correct manner. You understand, here is the concern, that we will not reach shattering or fall into all sorts of problems.
S. If I understand correctly it turns out that before I get to the greatness of the Creator I have to feel the greatness of the friends and as a result I feel the greatness of the Creator ?
R. Correct exactly such. Very good.
17. S. (01:00:10) When a person starts to feel that he doesn’t have any forces and the divinity is in the dust and he wants the greatness of the Creator, he first has to come to the fact that There is None Else Besides Him and He is the Good who does Good. Later we want to have a different kind of greatness not because I now have strength to think of the friends to pray but specifically so I have the greatness of bestowal itself. Not because simply that I have the strength and I pray for the friends?
R. I think that you phrased it well and you said it well, maybe you can articulate with time and we will help you with this, but you yourself have to feel that you are already speaking correctly, you will reach it and this is good. That we do not know how to speak correctly just points to the fact that in the meantime our feelings and sensations, as we say from the language of the branches, from root and branch. We still cannot express our sensations correctly in the manner of the branch. But you will succeed that you will continue and all of us are in the same state.
18. S. (01:02:23) The article is complicated and it leads us through this long process and my way of understanding it is either to annul myself or to justify the will to receive and then I ask where are you and where is the work. Is it through the prayer or to direct and manage the will to receive through the prayer when you’re immersed in it completely?
R. When you now feel yourself in this that you don’t understand anything and you can’t seem to sort out the article or arrange yourself where you are, that’s the prayer, that is the prayer. In this that you’re making efforts in these inner pressures, that you are incapable of understanding and feeling what the narrator was reading. Specifically in this we are in good states, we want to connect in such a manner, to understand, to incorporate what is written in the article and we feel that we are incapable.
Precisely these efforts that babies feel, little kids, when they are looking at us and they want somehow to ascribe themselves to us, to participate in the lives of the adults and they are incapable and we grow from this, what we need and what’s possible to join the adults is in how much we connect between us. All the rest is the Creator in our connection, He will perform it, He will arrange us correctly, He will tell us how to hold our hands with one another and stand in a circle, how we will rotate, how we will sing a song like little kids, that’s going in a circle like this and singing, the Creator will do everything. We just need to reveal the readiness for His care and so our entire appeal is requests, do this do that, we want to express readiness.
19. S. (01:05:43) Before the end of the article they ask and the answer to the person is that his distant and that he can only speak before his enemies?
R. Who are the enemies here? The enemies are egoistic desires and thoughts.
20. S. (01:06:16) Following the answer you gave, to work on the greatness of the society and the greatness of the vessel we are in a transition Lo Lishma, and Lishama, what vessels should we use to acquire the greatness of the Creator is existing. We think every article is just adding another brick, another brick on the way of discovering the Creator but with which vessel should we use? We’re in a period of transition in order to work on the greatness of the society and friends, it’s true from there to get to the love of the Creator?
R. What can I tell you, it’s like work with a baby. You feed it and you feed it and it turns out that it enters from the front and comes out from the back and that’s how it grows. Man and babies everyone grows in one manner, they swallow the food and that’s what makes the change in. The same thing with ,we need to swallow our spiritual food, our spiritual nourishment, whatever we are capable of, it digests in us and it works out.
How, we don’t know, just as we don’t know how we absorb our corporeal food and nourishment it’s the same thing with spiritual nourishment. The main thing is more and more and more to be present in receiving the material, the connection with the friends and that it will be received in the group. And I’ll emphasize this again, the main thing is it to be received in the group, because if not in the group it’s not digested properly. Thus we need before the lesson to be more connected and we need to increase the connection between us before the lesson and to think about absorbing the force from the article and this specifically what should advance us, this should be what advances us.
S. We read an article and you said don’t go over what we studied but there’s a feeling that we are on the path of Torah and this article we read and we feel as if we are a small distance away another tiny kick and we cross to the other side. We were so convinced that we are on the path to the end of correction in an amazing way but how to share this feeling among the ten, we’re so different. Everyone is not in the same place and not in the same state of incorporation, not everyone is in the same state where he can devote himself to the same manner. It’s a privilege we need to ask from above, how to share with them, how to cause this complete connection that will truly be as one man in one heart as if it was a perfect certainty?
R. By you it was sure and confidence but not by others and others might feel differently. You need to ask quietly that it shall occur, but this now, you want your press with your sensation on everyone why they don’t feel and respond, that’s not okay. Each one in the meantime develops in their own manner just like in our corporeal life. Each one they go through school they go through preschool, each one develops in his path and his manner.
S. Sorry I didn’t mean to pressure, I didn’t mean to apply pressure.
R. I don’t have time, you’re just concerned about speaking and I want people to absorb more material.
S. Yes. Excuse me.
21. S. (01:11:13) How can I help the friends from the ten if I have to be between these two degrees, from one side I have to remember them to the point that I won’t fall asleep. I have to remember the Creator and from the other side I have to feel the greatness of the Creator?
R. How do you need to be connected with the ten?
S. How can I help the friends if I know but I have to remember them of the Creator that there is the Creator to reach to the point that he won’t let us sleep. Anyway, from the other side we know that it’s not worth it to feel the greatness of the Creator?
R. That’s not important, worthy or not worthy that’s not important. We need to give an example each one for all the others, to worry for this that the group will be impressed from my impression in such a manner that I don’t press on them but only give an example. An example is that each one will receive from me as much as they want and in the manner that they want. I give them such an example that doesn’t obligate anyone in anything, just only in a certain awakening and that’s what we need to worry and pass on to the friends.
22. S. (01:13:15) When you have a feeling of dust you ask the Creator to give you the strength to work of the feeling, how not to just find some inner completion, some explanation but to actually work in the state because the Creator has to enjoy this work. How to hold on to this inner direction in such a way that He will specifically enjoy this work and that’s why I’m working?
R. The Creator enjoys in every state the person goes through and the extent that the person makes the effort to raise himself to a higher degree to a degree that’s closer to the Creator. In each and every state and as much as the states are opposite the will to receive of man and nonetheless that man wants to uplift himself to raise himself to be closer to the Creator and adhere to Him, the Creator enjoys more from this. Imagine to yourselves that we are like babies, I want to adhere to the mother out of this that we don’t want benefits for oneself to feel one in confidence rather to give one contentment to mother. How much it is felt, let’s say that mother would feel this difference, that either the baby wants the mother because he is afraid of something let’s say or because he wants the mother because he wants to give her some warm sensation. How much mother feels and enjoys from our second example, so we need to make an effort to be as much as possible like this and getting nearer to the Creator.
S. But when you truly aim yourself that way and kind of run and come close to bringing that warm feeling, it’s written there that on the second part of the work that he already gives you the greatness of His. Rabash writes how from this state not to enjoy already from that state but nevertheless to bow my head and say that I am dust?
R. When you constantly think how you give pleasure to the Creator, what pleasure and now you want to pass on to Him how much you don’t feel pleasure in you, but rather the pleasure that comes out of you to the Creator.
23. S. (01:16:44) How to see the greatness of the Creator?
R. When we feel the greatness of the Creator we should try to cling to Him as we say with heart and soul with everything we feel we have and want to remain this way constantly with such adhesion and more and more and more. Until I’m entirely reaching adhesion with the Creator just like an embryo within the mother and then as he’s born it clings even more to the mother more and more. That’s not like in this world, even though in our world we feel he comes out of the mother. In spirituality he doesn’t come out of the mother but rather in its essence he’s even more inside in the mother, in the Shechina.
S. There’s a feeling also that in the state of dust you work more in bestowal?
R. That’s something you will scrutinize later.
24. S. (01:18:45) It sounds like divinity in the dust is an important step in the way to Lishma. What is that state that I see Shechina in the dust? It sounds like some state of sadness and complaint?
R. That’s true, that’s true I have nothing to say, this is correct. The Shechina in the dust is a state where a person out of his senses he sees the appearance of the Creator before him.
S. How can you work with it if I’m in a state of critique and sadness and slander?
R. One should try to come out of it, that is correct, it is not a good state. Being in Divinity when Shechina is in the dust we have to increase the greatness of the Creator, the greatness of the Shechina more and more. Remaining in the state is not good.
25. S. (01:2029) How do we make the transition from Lo Lisham to Lishma, what do we need to do there?
R. We have to move from the feeling of this world and the egoistic desires to the desires of bestowal the desires of the Creator altruistic desires. That’s considered to see the world as the opposite, when you’ll see how everything is really different.
S. Okay what do we need to do, how do we get there?
R. Yes this is what we are trying to do, this is what we are trying to do. We have to give an evaluation to Lishma and to Lo Lishma and always to rise to Lishma and to get to a higher degree.
S. Meaning It’s a process where in the end of this effort we will see that we will feel that we got there?
R. Yes, yes.
26. S. (01:22:02) Rabash summons up the article by giving the example of Abraham and David where the Creator gave them greatness and they ask to work in lowness. About Moses and I don’t know if it’s on purpose but Moses and Aaron yearned for the work while they had the state of divinity Shechina in the dust. When you get greatness I can understand how one can yearn to be in the work of Shechina in the dust because he has fear and he agreed to work in the state of lowness. In this state when there is lowness, is it even possible to work and to ask for that state if I’m in that lowness already?
R. Try it and see, certainly then we’ll have a state of prayer when you don’t feel the greatness of the Creator and you’re probably not even connected to your friends. Then you have a place for prayer, the revelations of the deficiency is there.
S. There is room for that prayer but how does he have a right for that yearning for a prayer at this time, yearning for such work while they have such a state?
R. Why not, tell me?
S. There’s nothing Illuminating to a person at that time. How can he yearn for a place where there’s no illumination?
R. No, I’m sure I felt it and I’m sure you did also such states. If I feel that I’m helpless I’m in a state of Shechina in the dust excetera, then along with that and against that, there’s a group and I place myself with respect to this group in a way that I can work with it and by that.
S. I hear now maybe from the answer maybe that’s also when we identify that when we are in such a state of divinity in the dust then we can already relate to that state from that understanding. When I don’t grasp that I’m in such a state, that I’m in a state of to Shechina in the dust where I’m working for the Creator in such a state that there are no powers to work in such a state?
R. Our whole work is when we’re disconnected from the group and will always be connected to the group until myself, one is connected to himself then you’ll always have this kind of wait. When you’re either on this side or the other side and then by that you can very quickly come out of every state to rise. Once the group is more, once you’re feeling is more. Then down up, up down and you’re like on the ladder starting to climb. The main thing is not to forget that the group can always balance you.
S. It sounds like only the group can operate on a person in such a state?
R. What else do we have?
S. A person cannot operate in the state only if the group helps there?
R. We need the force to go against this. That’s why Torah is called what’s revealed in the group. The ten is the connection, the right connection of the group, there’s nothing here that you can invent besides that.
27. S. (01:26:15) In the ten there’s friends that are happy to be in the lesson and there are some that seem like they’re suffering being in the lesson. The question is, how those who feel Divinity in the dust can raise prayer for everyone for the whole ten?
R. They can of course, they must do it because maybe the others are in complete disconnection. It’s a must for each and every person that it recognizes his situation to pray for the whole group.
28. S. (01:27:08) When we taste dust in the work the Creator is pleased, so how can we as a ten feel that we are pleasing the Creator with this action?
R. To feel, that’s something you can do in the group. If you feel through the group that you can give contentment to the Creator then from that you’ll already continue advancing and you’ll feel the Creator in the group and you’ll feel that you give Him contentment.
29. S. (01:28:05) What place is there to depict the greatness of the Creator outside of the group?
R. No, outside of the group there is no depicting the greatness of the Creator. It’s false.
30. S. (01:28:29) According to what you explained the upper force needs to be revealed between us In the ten?
R. Well that’s what we’ve been learning all the time, now you’re asking.
S. No, I need to understand something here .
R. Ok.
S. And then through the friends between us through them we discover his presence in all of reality and His greatness and all that through the ten this happens?
R. Yes.
S. And this happens through the prayers?
R. Yes.
S. Are we capable of doing this together in the ten?
R. Only.
S. Is it worthwhile to get together and to find a topic and do this together these things?
R. Yes. Did I say anything new, did he ask anything?
31. S. (01:29:25) Rav you explained earlier how a baby eats and digests his food, that we need to digest the spiritual food only through the group. It’s not clear to me what it means to digest through the group?
R. In the group.
S. What does that mean?
R. That I don’t think how I understand or how I feel but rather how it should be accepted in the connection between us.
32. S. (01:30:08) You said that the greatness of the friends needs to be greater than the greatness of the Creator?
R. That’s how it’s written.
S. The greatness of the friends is clear, what is the greatness of the Creator altogether and how to work with that in the ten?
R. What’s the greatness of the friends is clear but the greatness of the Creator is not clear.
S. Yes it’s not clear how to work with the greatness of the Creator in the ten?
R. As much as you can depict the greatness of the group that’s the greatness of the Creator has to be more than that.
S. Even if I don’t feel the greatness of the friends?
R. No, if you don’t feel the greatness of the friends you can’t talk about the greatness of the Creator.
S. I ask the Creator?
R. You can ask but until you have the greatness of the friends the greatness of the group you cannot depict the greatness of the Creator. It will be false
S. Why is the greatness of the friends and why does it need to be greater than that of the Creator?
R. That you won’t engage in order to receive.
33. S. (01:31:37) About the power of the prayer you told him a few moments ago that if bestowal and lowliness there’s room for prayer. The question that’s exactly the point, how can we come to prayer to a desire to yearn for something that’s in lowness?
R. The thing is that you measure lowness by your vessels and as much as that is the main thing for you. For instance if you talk and God forbid about a baby, if something happens to him no matter what, he’s yours and you care for him even if you are in lowness and that is your whole desire and here it’s the same.
S. It’s not clear if the Creator and if bestowal is not important to me at all, how can I ask for something that’s not important to me, with all my heart with all of my power, the matter of this intensity that’s the point. Do we have to ask for something when you don’t want it at that given moment?
R. Specifically when you feel there’s something you don’t want, you may care about developing a desire for it and increasing it in your eyes, otherwise how?
S. At first the prayer it’s not a real prayer, it’s just like plans?
R. Incorrect. I may pray for something I don’t have but that’s the most important thing for me, it’s important for me I can depict or imagine how important it is to attain it.
S. You said we are in lowness?
R. I don’t understand what you mean by all these words.
S. Lowness is a state where it isn’t really important to me, the group isn’t really important to me, the Creator isn’t important to me, and I need now to ask?
R. No you can’t ask for anything, if all these things are unimportant for you then there is nothing for you to do, just to annul yourself and wait for it to pass.
34. S. (01:34:09) Today we learned that with our advancement the Creator conceals more and more His greatness and invites us to attain it on our own, so he also hides more and more the greatness of the friends?
R. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.
S. Because it seemingly seems the same thing. In order to attain the Creator it is more and more difficult to attain the greatness of the friends and He invites us to work in this more and more. Is this right?
R. Maybe, maybe I’m telling you it’s not correct for all cases but sometimes it is.
S. How to obtain the fuel because it’s possible only through the Friends?
R. Only through the friends, you’re right. There’s no question here only through the friends.
S. I know, and it seems to become more and more difficult and He is inviting us to work more and more but we feel it less?
R. No, if you’re really accustomed to get fuel in the connection with the friends you see how much it’s a bottomless pit.
35. S. (01:35:39) Between what Pharaoh says who is the Lord that I should listen to him and the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt in the ten, is this actually what we’re supposed to do is to intensify the importance of the goal and the Creator. And because we are young we have to go to the importance of the ten and to put prayer and joy instead of that. Can you detail how we can put joy into the ten?
R. Because you have a solution in a state according to your intellect, according to your logic there cannot be a solution, but you have a solution. The Creator prepared it for you and that’s why you are happy.
36. S. (01:36:30) How do I know if I’m giving contentment to the Creator if I do feel his greatness or I don’t feel His greatness?
R. There’s faith in the Sages here that we should work this way and believe that we’re giving Him contentment. That the Creator enjoys our plea to Him and that we’re asking that we’re connecting that’s true. The main thing is that nonetheless, we’re reaching a state that we will feel what contentment we are passing on to Him and that will be already felt with us as a reception of the direct light, an upper light into our vessel. That’s something we will feel already NRNHY where in all these lights can start entering into the connection between us and then we feel what pleasure the Creator has. Certainly we need to work on it and to do all our restrictions, a screen, reflected light so that it will all be for the sake of His pleasure but that’s how it’s going to happen.
S. How can I protect myself and my friends, of course we’re not receiving pleasure for ourselves but make sure that our vessels to receive won’t touch any pleasure for ourselves?
R. Guard each other.
37. S. (01:38:32) The taste of dust for us to advance from that state to the revelation of the greatness of the Creator is the quality of subjugation helpful here, is subduing similar to annulment before the Friends?
R. Yes, yes, yes that’s correct.
38. S. (01:39:14) Do we need to attain Lishma in order to start climbing on the rungs of the ladder of the 125°?
R. Yes.
39. S.(01:39:02) Can we deduct from the article that a person must reach fear and complete subjugation before the group and the Creator and that self annulment is not enough. What’s the difference between self-annulment and subjugation?
R. Self annulment is like restriction and subjugation is already in practice. What am I doing later to adapt myself to the Creator.
40. S. (01:40:09) What is the purpose of the scrutiny of the articles in the excerpts that we learn if we’re supposed to justify the Creator and to say that all the thoughts come from Him?
R. In order to justify the Creator and reach Him in every state we have to go through the states until the final correction. Why? Because in justifying the Creator we attain adhesion with Him and this is the purpose of creation.
41. S. (01:40:47) It is written in the article that a person doesn’t want any feeling of the greatness of the Creator because that feeling gives him a feeling to study Torah and Mitzvot and compels him to engage in Torah and Mitzvot but it turns out that it is Lo Lishma how with the help and the friends can we get the importance of the Creator in the right way?
R. When I annul myself before all the friends and this way I advance more and more and then I learn what to do.
42. S. (01:41:38) Every ascent begins with greater concealment of the Creator, where does the confidence that the ten will be able to rise and depict to itself the greatness of the Creator and a new degree come from?
R. Only from us being connected, in our connection the upper light appears, if there’s no connection between us the upper light won’t appear, that’s all.
43. S. (01:42:20) How is diminishing ourselves before the Creator expressed?
R. Expression is in, I cannot find the words right now. The expression is I guess, it is annulment to the friends. It brings us the feeling of how we come to annulment to the whole group and out of that through the annulment towards the Creator.
44. S. (01:43:09) What are the 613 councils, Pekudim in order to attain bestowal and do they come in some sort of order like the article that brings a person from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow?
R. We have a general desire to receive, it is divided into 288 and 320 and this is how we advance to 248 Mitzvot to bestow and 365 Mitzvot to receive. All in all it is 613 actions that we perform in order to bestow. We do not need to learn these things, it is like we do not need to learn from what parts of our body is made and how food is digested in us. There is no need for that. All we need to know is generally how we are advancing towards connection connection connection and ever-growing.
45. S. (01:44:38) Each of us has a responsibility to bring and leave the group to the Creator. Each one pushes on her example of the greatness of the Creator. One in prayer, one in lessons and another from dissemination. How do we collect all those deficiencies and implement them correctly and not erase them?
R. That is not our work, we only need to always ask to be in the collection in a group together and then this way we’ll roll on and we will advance. All these details of our connection, we do not need to know that. Just like we do not need to know how we are connected, the way our bodies are composed, the skeleton and the muscles and all those things, there is no need for that. Later whoever wants can learn it.
46. S. (01:4546) What makes us worthy of feeling the greatness of the Creator non-stop?
R. The connection between us. One cannot do it, two can barely do it, three four or five is better. if it is close to ten then we can already feel all our states in the clear manner.
47. S. (01:46:18) I do not feel that I need to pray, I feel that the Creator hears and operates according to my inner desires, is that correct?
R. Yes, if you have such a connection and feeling then keep on going.
48. S. (01:46:39) You emphasized the importance of obtaining the connection between us in preparation for the lesson. Is it also in our daily conversations worthwhile to invest time in talking before we go to read the article or is it best during the reading to work on the internal connection between us?
R. It is best to do it before you read the article but if not that, at least at the beginning of the reading of the article.
49. S. (01:47:14) Is contentment to the creation and contentment to the Creator the same thing?
R. We can say that ultimately it is, because the Creator includes everything.
50. S. (01:47:31) What does it mean that the Creator enjoys?
R . He enjoys it just like parents enjoy their little children when they grow nicely and correctly.
51. S. (01:47:57) When the reading began It was written desire to bestow, so I put a big thick question mark. We don’t have a desire to bestow. There is also that allegory from Baal HaSulam where the rich one would give his friend everything and all that he has. Then he asked him are you satisfied? And he said no, I’m not satisfied. I want to be like you because I can’t give you that. I want to ask, how everything we do we do from feeling how to invert nature, how to take this nature and penetrate it into all that we do. You explained so good that everything is in the friends but still I want to enjoy it, I’m still doing it from enjoying?
R. What is your question then?
S. How to place our nature correctly. He is saying to put before him the greatness of the King, we have to place the desires to bestow because that is the most egoistic thing that there is. Desire to bestow and the created being is the most egoistic thing there is. Also Baal HaSulam writes it is the harshest of harsh. He wants to give to you to enjoy and you don’t want to enjoy, you want to bestow to be like Him. How to cleanse ourselves from that. Do you understand the point?
R. I understand what you want to say. It’s hard to express it but we will advance towards that and we will see the precision and feeling of these words.
S. To be pure, clean, from the quality to receive is impossible in me.
R. It is good that you feel that, very nice.
52. S. (01:51:01) We are talking about the greatness of the Creator that is real through the greatness of the friends and there’s something that always perplexes me. How can quantity become quality? Today there’s many friends in the hall and we see friends on the screens. There’s something festive today and there’s something that changes the quality of the work and the quality of the lesson, something is changed here. How does quantity become quality in the work?
R. That is something that maybe someday we will feel more.