MONDAY PRAYER: NETZACH-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN

READING: BETWEEN AFTER-MIDNIGHT AND DAWN SUNDAY

Baal HaSulam. The Freedom

Morning Lesson December 24, 2022 Transcription

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio

Part 3:

Baal HaSulam. The Freedom (Freedom from the Angel of Death)

Reading (00:25) “Now, after all that we have learned..”

1. S. (05:35) What does it mean that man’s essence is dressed in the Creator’s pleasure and he becomes free from the angel of death?

R. The essence of man is his desire to enjoy, it is clothed in the Creator already. Meaning, in order for the Creator to correct him and fill him and bring him closer to him. By this the end of man’s correction is concluded.

S. How do we do it? How do we incorporate in the Creator through the ten?

R. Imagine to yourself that the ten is the Creator: very simple.

S. I incorporate with what: with some wholeness of some sort?

R. You incorporate in the ten as some whole and in that whole, it has to give you a feeling and expression of the Creator.

S. How to do it together. How to really not just feel the friends in a separate way in the ten?

R. If we do it together; there has to be together otherwise nothing works. That’s why you need to connect together; together as one whole and try and check how to attain the state between you in the ten. You have such relationships like the relationship between the Creator and the created being.

S. What does it mean?

R. Complete bestowal.

S. Complete bestowal from my ten?

R. Yes, from your ten.

S. No but I mean my bestowal to the ten.

R. It has to be mutual.

S. How is it felt in the ten, when we are in complete mutual bestowal?

R. I cannot explain what this emotion is to you. You have to feel it and then you will feel it.

S. Yeah, I’m trying to work on this but you need, you say, you need to do this together

R. Do your part.

2. S. (09:03) When we nullify, like you said, we need to be small towards the ten and the ego takes it as a not simple experience, so we become small on the ego’s part but from the Creator’s part we have an opportunity to make this very simple work and do it. Is there an inverted connection?

R. There’s such an inverted connection, you just keep doing it.

S. Meaning from the ego’s side it looks like some trial experience but the goal is just to do at least something better even if it’s minimal.

R. Yes.

3. S. (10:10) When I think of the ten I have to think of it as perfect, it doesn’t matter how they each look to me but is that with respect to the one force of oneness in the ten?

R. Yes, yes.

4. S. (10:33) Studying the Torah and studying the Zohar seems like there’s a big difference here but I want to ask is: what does it mean to study the Torah?

R. Studying Torah or studying Zohar, all I know is the same thing. Meaning, studying Zohar is to study the methods of our corrections. To study Torah is to study the methods of connection between us and revealing the light between us but as a principle they’re very close to one another you’ll see.

5. S. (11:33) Everybody is slightly different. How do we manage integration: is it dynamically? How do we resolve despite the differences; how do we reach complete integration?

R. In the connection everyone has to be different and that we want to connect the differences to completion into a whole.

6. S. (12:21) In paragraph 4, he talks about emptying their Kelim and their desire for any self possession. Is he talking about necessity?

R. Well as much as possible, as much as possible.

7. S. (13:12) How could it be that the will to receive will see spiritual possessions and we want to bestow?

R. If he wants in order to bestow so it’s not only the will to receive he already wants to bestow.

S. He basically describes here that they cleaned themselves from the corporeal positions and then they started to want to bestow contentment to his maker but that is already a state of bestowal?

R. In bestowal everything is measured by the intention. If one’s intention is to bestow then he is already a Kelim of bestowal.

8. S. (14:00) When I don’t understand the will of the friend, what do I need to do when this flame always burns in me and it doesn’t go away?

R. You need to always make sure that it doesn’t go away and that by it you can always kindle each and every friend.

9. S. (14:43) Now when we finish The Freedom article: what is freedom?

R. Freedom from the angel of death, from the will to receive in order to receive by transforming it to a will to receive in order to bestow.

S. How does a person appear in this world as a free person?

R. By acquiring from the upper light the intention to bestow over all his desires.

S. I’ll try to ask it differently, from a dissemination perspective. We see the whole world is talking about freedom. They want to be free in their place, everyone wants to do whatever they want, so what is a free person in this world, a correct person not what they’re talking about?

R. A person who is free in this world is he who can do whatever he wants and no one else can come to him and meaning the Creator too, no one can complain to him.

S. But we see from the article that that is not a free person.

R. This is the question; how to become free this way?

S. How?

R. Only on the condition that I transcend my will to receive and there’s no such state of being above my will to receive unless it is by the intention to bestow: over all all my desires to receive I remain in my desires to receive but I acquire the intention of how to work with them in order to bestow.

S. When we try to explain to the public about the freedom and so forth, it’s not that I have a difference between me and the others. I have my place where I can do whatever I want but I have to explain to them that you have to detach yourself and aim yourself towards actions that are upper to you?

R. If you want freedom obviously: to free yourself from yourself because who is in control of you? First it’s your will to receive so you need to uplift above it.

S. The matter of controlling yourself is that what is felt disconnected here in terms of dissemination when we talk to people? They don’t see how much they control themselves so how do we communicate that?

R. That’s already a different question. That’s not how we correct ourselves but how we explain the method to an audience so that’s something else. You can not explain it in one conversation, you’ll have to do a few lessons about it.

10. S. (18:05) How is it possible to feel the will to receive as the angel of death?

R. When we look at our world I think it is not a problem to see how our ego is burying us completely. If you don’t see it, explain how you don’t see it?

S. When the desire to receive awakens in oneself in a person it feels like the angel of life has given him passion and fulfillment.

R. But eventually a person dies and half is lost and is never felt.

S. Yes but if the person feels in the moment where he lives?

R. But he doesn’t feel like he lives. He feels like he’s just chasing fake pleasures that might come in the future.

S. And still we see that he’s obligated to chase it?

R. He’s obligated to chase it but still in the middle he starts to discover that this whole chase doesn’t bring any good results.

S. And then he still continues to chase?

R. Because he has no choice, he has no choice. Someone is standing above him with a stick and activating him.

S. That’s where the question comes from. The feeling that compels him, compels him and the mind even if he understands these things that one dies with half of what he wants and so forth, it still doesn’t cause him to feel this as the angel of death?

R. No, a person usually today, after the middle of his life, he already starts feeling that this whole life is just a chase without any clear results, good results because all in all, he will die for sure and his children and this whole world and there is no worthwhile correction for it.

S. True but this is an intellectual explanation that a person can understand. How can a person emotionally determine that his will to receive is the angel of death that puts him to death to the point that he wants to disconnect from it?

R. That is an illumination from above that has to come and explain to you.

S. And how to receive that higher illumination?

R. Higher illumination by demanding to receive an explanation to those questions.

11. S. (21:15) Who is this angel of death that he writes about? What is the angel of death, what’s this concept?

R. I don’t know how to introduce him to you. I think the will to receive that is working in us and wants to implement our whole lives through these commands; that is the angel of death.

S. I am reading here that even when the body is annulled it’s only annulled with respect to self- reception in which the will to receive is dressed and can only exist in it and I always, I was always afraid of death; I’m still afraid of that today.

R. Why?

S. What do you mean, I have a wife, kids?

R. They are not going to die with you, leave them here. Let them go?

S. Do you think dying is good?

R. I don’t see anything bad about it. It is written in a lot of places that a person should bless the day of his death more.

S. How is it that a Kabbalist is not afraid of dying? I remember that you said that Rabash gave you the book of Shamati, went into the hospital and didn’t come out of it and without fear. I am not clear on that.

R. What do you have in death that you don’t know what is going to be?

S. Yes.

R. And every day do you know what it’s going to be?

S. No but any day I could die in a car accident or the kids will kill you but basically there’s a fear of death. Rav, are you afraid of death?

R. No.

S. Why, how do you reach this level of thinking?

R. Because I count on the upper force and He does the right thing.

S. There is no fear of what happens after death?

R. No.

S. I have to correct myself still but he says here about freedom, can I really be released from my ego from my will to receive?

R. Yes.

S. You once told us that the angel of death; that is actually our best friend and without it you won’t advance anywhere.

R. Right.

S. That’s the fear that drives us and that is why I am saying I am afraid of death.

R. I don’t think you have to speak about this like a dog running around his tail because it won’t give you anything. Rise above life and death.

S. Exactly what does it mean to rise above life and death?

R. If you rise to the quality of bestowal in order to bestow you already come out of the control of the angel of death.

S. You have to reach attainment to feel that?

R. Yes.

S. That you understood?

R. But you understand that you have a choice. That’s it.

12. S. (25:00) About what you just discussed with another friend, about emotion, I feel that the whole topic of to try to feel, to try to feel connection, to try to feel the Zohar that it’s really deluding because you find yourself feeling good from some corporeal action or from connection that comes from the same route. That there’s no foundation of bestowal there, the foundation is the desire to feel meaning to continue to use my desire to receive for myself.

The question is how to feel how feeling in spirituality might be different from corporeality? How do we really make it an action of bestowal and not some replacement where we do the same thing, different thing with the same intention?

R. You want to be incorporated from all of reality from all forces. Also for understanding, also for reception, for bestowal, from everything possible; you want to be included in all reality. And you are not rejecting anything and then in such a way, when you look at reality you’ll see that you actually have no action that rejects you or draws you, you just need one thing, to connect with everyone, to connect with everyone. Only connection because the opposite action of the sin of the tree of knowledge of Adam HaRishon which the Creator did to him we have to do an opposite action now; put that against that. The Creator performed the shattering, you are asking for the correction of the shattering that is it and then you have no problem. I just work on correcting what the Creator has prepared for me. Do that, don’t move away from that in any direction and then everything will work out.

S. This feeling that emotion comes before the will to receive, the intention to receive comes before each action so it feels like it stops you. You know in advance that it doesn’t come from a good motive, that nothing is coming from a good motive and then you are like in this loop and you can’t come out and it’s stopping you because you cannot do anything because it comes from the wrong intention.

R. This solution for that is adhesion. Grab the Creator like a child grabs his mother and sits on her, right and that’s how you keep going. No forces in the world can separate you from Him. Do that effort and you will see how it organizes everything. You don’t want anything but to be clothed upon the Creator; adhered to Him like a child to the mother.

13. S. (29:05) In the connection between us in workshops in the ten we feel a very unique feeling. This warmth and love happens a lot between us, sometimes in random tens. The first question: is this the beginning of connection and secondly: it’s a good and fulfilling feeling. How do you advance from that?

R. I don’t know what to say. It is a very personal feeling. I cannot advise, just keep searching if you can’t search on your own, take all your friends and you won’t make a mistake. Just tell yourself what state you’re in and you can come out of it and that’s it. Even that tendency to connect to them even if they don’t give you any advice; that will already help you.

14. S. (30:23) Is it correct to say that 100% dependence on each other can give us a sense of freedom?

R. Yes.

S. Is that the state of Arvut?

R. Yes.

15.S. (30:47) Are men’s desires pre-built in him and life was given to realize them? If that’s the case, where is his freedom?

R. The freedom is not you choosing desires. No, that’s not your freedom. The freedom is that you choose to use the desires correctly in order to be above the angel of death.

16. S. (31:24) This is our problem that we invest too much in corporeality and not enough in carrying out the right Torah and Mitzvot as we learn in Kabbalah?

R. Yes, yes.

17. S. (31:40) Does spiritual freedom only begin with Lishma?

R. Spiritual freedom is Lishma, correct.

18. S. (31:52) Let’s say a person managed to be completely emptied from his desires for himself. How will the Creator enjoy them?

R. The Creator enjoys us being adhered to Him and Dvekut is equivalence of form.

19. S. (32:15) How do we reach a stage where we count on the Creator one-hundred percent and devote ourselves?

R. You cannot, you reach through the light that reforms.

20. S. (32:30) There’s a feeling that there’s some limit between a state where a person gives up all his possessions and this state where he is emptied from all his possessions. What’s the difference?

R. I don’t know how to explain that. It’s a matter of inner feeling.

21. S. (33:03) How can I teach myself not to judge?

R. That’s only by thinking that the purpose of my life is attained only in connection with all the people.

22. S. (33:27) It feels like you recently started this move and everyone feels it. What is this new stage that we started?

R. This new stage is studying the internality of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The Book of Zohar that we need to see how much we need to connect and in the connection to attain the purpose of creation, the purpose of life, discernments above time and place and specifically by that we are realizing our; life implementing them and I’m sure you are already doing it. And now I see before me only women.

23. S. (34:48) How to grab hold of the Creator when a person doesn’t feel Him at all.

R. Again?

S. How is it possible to grab a hold of the Creator from a state where the person doesn’t feel Him around?

R. That a person doesn’t feel Him? We need to make efforts to imagine the quality of the Creator, the connection between us as it is within, “you have made Me” and then stabilizing ourselves towards that image that we are establishing between us and to accept it as our Creator. Then to see, as much as we are ourselves, more and more from day to day, we know how to stabilize the Creator more; to establish Him more and in this way we advance.

24. S. (36:10) In order to achieve Dvekut with the Creator does our desire have to grow and reach the desire to bestow to the Creator?

R. Yes, of course.

25. S. (36:40) We put a lot of effort and exertion into trying to feel the Zohar. If we think of such an example, that there is a door and a person is trying to open it but it doesn’t open up because he doesn’t pull hard enough.

There’s another example that you tried to open the door but the door is not there, it is a wall. There is effort here and there is effort there. How can a person determine that he still hasn’t put in enough effort to open the door or that he’s not even in the right place if there’s no door there?

R. We don’t have to pay attention to those efforts. It depends to the extent that he is connected to the friends. To invest the forces in a different direction in order to attain the next degree. That’s what is important.

26. S. (38:00) From the connection we discover the greatness of the Creator. From there we already build the Kli.

R. Yes, it is okay, it is okay. Especially in Russia, it is all normal.

27. S. (38:29) Can we bring freedom into the ten, the group to the whole vessel?

R. Yes, yes if we advance in that line, so we will finish it all.

S. Free oneself, free the group, free the whole world with the force of freedom?

R. Yes, correct. Every person that corrects himself, he corrects the whole world.

28. S. (40:30) When we connect in the ten to the Zohar does our individual perception of reality disappear? Or is the feedback loop within the group the reality of our own?

R. Of course, of course. We start perceiving concepts in the new Kelim that we are taking along the way.

29. S. (41:20) If before I don’t see that there’s anything bad you said that a person needs to bless for the day of death more. The question is: if someone wants to kill me, why do I need to protect myself?

R. That is something else. That comes against connection between people so you have to resist an action that he wants to separate between people. That’s why I stand against him and I do not let him do that action of killing the connection between people. But in a different case maybe not.

30. S. (42:25) We are towards the end of Hanukkah holiday. Did we realize the opportunity that comes with a holiday?

R. The holiday itself comes to remind us of the symbolism in it. Also, that we connect because all in all a holiday is connection. By this we advance towards a general connection. That’s why we on each and every holiday, we are there and we bless it but except for that we don’t have any special attitude towards these holidays. Only as a means to connect more, another step towards the correction of the world. Be healthy until this afternoon. I’m waiting for you; all the best.