TUESDAY PRAYER: HOD-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT AND DAWN TUESDAY
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to the Book of Zohar
Morning Lesson December 25, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar
1.R. (00:19) What is there to add, we’ve said so much about what is written in the Book of Zohar that to add, there is almost nothing. We will study and we will see how much by Baal HaSulam invested into this introduction and what we can receive from here it; really it’s a great, great thing, this text before us.
Reading #1 (00:45-03:23) “Introduction to The Book of Zohar. 1) In this introduction, I would like to clarify matters that are seemingly simple..
2. R. (01:06) This is why he’s saying as if it’s simple, everyone is asking and everyone is reaching these questions and wants to clarify.
3. R. (03:26) Until here, Baal HaSulam is asking that on these questions he probably he wants to answer and answer fully and completely, which is why there are no questions.
Reading #2 (03:44) “In order to fully clarify all this, we need to make some preliminary inquiries, and not, God forbid, where it is forbidden, in the Creator’s essence..”
4. R. (07:58) It’s difficult to enter, immediately, into the text and begin to understand it and ask. If there are no questions then we still have a lot of time.
Reading #3 (08:24) “Inquiry No. 4: Since the chariot of the Sitra Achra [other side] and the Klipot [shells] is so far..”
“Inquiry No. 5: The matter of the revival of the dead..”
“Inquiry No. 6: Regarding what our Sages said..”
5. S. (12:00) At the beginning of the second phrase, he’s asking “you cannot inquire about His essence”; my question is when we turn to the Creator, what spiritual description should we have and how not to be mistaken in our work in the ten, and instead of turning to his self, his Atzmuto, turning to the Creator?
R. When you start attaining the Creator through His actions then you will know how to turn to Him and to whom to turn.
S. But I need to start somewhere?
R. Ah, you need to start? So start.
S. What should I depict to myself or imagine?
R. You have no imagination, no depiction, so.
S. So what should I do?
R. Don’t start.
S. Rav, help me, please?
R. How can I help you, you need to work on yourself to come closer to the Creator so that you understand how to treat the Creator.
S. How can I imagine Him in the ten?
R. Gather the ten together in your feelings and start through this feeling, to come closer to the Creator.
S. Okay, with God’s help, I feel the ten.
R. It doesn’t matter that you’re trying, a little baby is also trying, but tries hard; in short, continue forward.
6. S. (14:26) Is Nefesh, “the stone carved from the mountain”?
R. Yes.
7. S. (14:52) It says that “the soul is part of the Creator”, as if the Creator gave it to us as a loan. How to relate to a soul that is not mine but rather it is the Creator’s, how to do that inside?
R. When you start receiving the soul, you will start having a feeling and understanding from who you are receiving and what it is.
8. S. (15:40) It says that “the Creator will heal or cure their flaws” so how does the Creator cure their flaws?
R. He will cure through His life.
9. S. (16:22) It seems as if Baal HaSulam is trying to aim us here to a certain way in this article with all these questions and inquiries. What is the question that should be awakening in man’s head to go into this article?
R. That I’m beginning to research what us written here in this introduction to understand what is my real goal, purpose in life.
S. How can I use the ten for that?
R. You can only clarify this through the ten.
S. During the day would I speak with them about this, how do I prepare myself to do this?
R. Yes, of course, you need to read together, speak, remind one another, yes.
S. Today when we work in the tens, we’re very focused in the Zohar, we read their excerpts, we wash ourselves with the Zohar, how can we put this special introduction into this study of the Zohar.
R. Try, try to combine, but there’s no choice, you have to, there is a lot of material and we have to cover it, we have to study and try to weave it into our life, our mind and heart.
S. The thing there’s only twenty-four hours to put this material in and in these twenty-four hours we have a strict three meetings but we can’t decide what’s more important. So we go into what we learned the lesson, how can we decide to do this or that, how can we organize the importance?
R. Slowly it will arrange itself, for now you are in the introduction, you don’t understand how to study, what to study, in what form to study, what you need to attend through this study. All of these will gradually arrange itself, will connect and everything will click into place.
S. When we meet and learn by ourselves, should we focus on the questions we should bring to the lesson, or how the material is affecting us, what should we focus on in the work between us?
R. Yes try to bring questions to the point so that it is clear that these questions you have received from the lesson.
10. S. (19:23) This beginning is very interesting, who is he intended this because he’s starting with universal questions: what’s our essence, what’s our role in the chain of reality, that’s a question for every person. And he takes turn with three questions and the inquiries even more that take a presumption that there’s a Creator, there’s an upper force so it is intended for religious people, and he starts with the revival of the dead so that’s entirely; who is this for?
R. I don’t know, to you I think, I think to you and you try to demand the understanding, the feeling, the connection with what is. This is the Book of Zohar obligates him to write the introduction in such a way.
11. S. (20:33) He says that “we should inquire the Creator through Your actions we shall know You”. If I understand correctly that place of research is the ten so can you give us an example for the first question, what is our essence, how can we research it in the ten?
R. I don’t know, it’s you who need to gather around this and ask yourself, connect around it and ask, how do we come to research what our essence is.
S. Do you recommend we should have a workshop about these questions?
R. I don’t know, I don’t want to tell you, but maybe, yes.
12. S. (21:21) You told a previous student we should insert this material into our life, how should we do that?
R. Talk about that too, you need to build everything within the ten, you have tens, so please, gather together, talk and try to solve the problems. Don’t turn to me that now we’re going to ask or write to Rav, or ask him in the lesson, no. You want to receive answers, now, that you are asking the Creator out of your connection, and as much as you stand on this, you see that you understand more and benefit more.
13. S. (22:57) It says in the text “the Zohar said that before the body rots entirely, the soul cannot ascend to its place, to the Garden of Eden while there are still remnants of it”. Could you explain this sentence please?
R. Heaven is the degree of the desire to receive that works in order to bestow entirely, entirely. Until the desire to receive doesn’t correct itself in such a way, it can’t raise to the degree that is called “Heaven”, that’s it.
14. S. (23:51) You constantly mention and remind that it’s important to pray during the day with this holy text and to wash yourselves; on the other hand, you say that also the scrutiny in the ten between us is very important and we are limited in our time, in the middle of the day in our meetings. Can you give us a practical advice: if we have a half an hour of meeting, how much time should we read the text and how much time should we have a scrutiny between us?
R. I don’t know but I want you to be stressed, as much as you will be under pressure you will have more progress and results, and that’s it, yes.
15. S. (25:01) A question about inquiry number two: how in the world of BYA when there’s created existence from absence’ a way to tell about the true nature which is the opposite of the nature of creation that has been form?
R. Repeat please?
S. How in the world of BYA that’s created existence from absence the technique, a way appears to tell us about the true nature which is the opposite of the nature of the way creation has been formed.
R. Everything exists in the form of “a matter and its opposite” which is why we are able to attain one side and then the other side, and from the other side attain the first side. This is how we attain which is why there’s no problem when we reveal something opposite from creation and specifically through that we reach the correct form of creation.
16. S. (26:35) How can we cope with the frustration we have in our work because the Creator puts the fact before our eye that the world is not corrected?
R. The world is not corrected and we exist in an uncorrected world and we are uncorrected and not that the world is uncorrected. Rather we through our qualities, our uncorrected qualities see the world as uncorrected, why do you ask about this? We need to correct our picture and then we will see the corrected world, the world is from that meaning of Ha’Alamah, concealment, so as much as we are uncorrected, we are concealing the true world and depict before us an uncorrected, broken world.
S. That’s exactly the point, on my own I can do nothing I can only work with the entire humanity along with my ten, and that’s what brings my frustration, I can’t bring out the message, that’s my frustration.
R. Ask your friend, sit together, talk, reach a certain clear question that then you need to find an answer, to think about it, talk about it and I am certain that you will find the correct answer to the question.
16. S. (29:04) How big, how tough, should your desire with the power of freedom with free love?
R. The desire has to be as big, as great as possible, but connected correctly to the upper force and then he will receive an answer to anything he will ask.
17. S. (30:19) To continue the question about how to bring out the message to the world, now in the lessons we are building our connection with the upper one, with the Creator. How can we come out with confidence in our dissemination if we are still like babies, we are still learning the method?
R. The main thing is for us to have a good attitude, a good relationship to whoever we’re turning to, to whomever we are addressing, and to be able to explain the good future of the world.
18. S. (30:56) In question number three he writes, Baal HaSulam, “when we look at ourselves we feel that we are corrupt and we are low to an extent that we are the most despicable”. I’m sorry but for me, I’m very proud of myself, I feel good, I don’t look at myself and I see this state, I’m far from that state that Baal HaSulam describes here?
R. Where did you find in you something good?
S. I don’t know, I feel good with myself.
R. You feel good but where did you find good?
S. I don’t know.
R. If you don’t know, so don’t answer.
S. This description is far from me, I learned Kabbalah, okay, but do these words, I should be ashamed.
R. Okay, I apologize, I thought that you are in some deeper, deeper scrutiny but what can we do, there’s still time.
19. S. (32:18) I would like to relate to inquiry six here where he says that what our Sages said that “man is the center of the world and all the upper worlds and this world and everything was built and created for him”. Now, when he’s talking about the inquiry, we are in the Introduction of the Book of Zohar so what is he telling me, that all the answers are in the Book of Zohar, all these inquiries?
R. He wanted to explain it to you earlier, now as you are studying this introduction.
S. Yes but the more we learn the Zohar and I see it science this morning we are learning it all day long.
R. So as usual you have complaints.
S. No, not complaints, not complaints, the question is how do I get these answers when he’s inquiries, let’s say, in time?
R. We will study, write before you the questions, and in six months read them before us and let’s see if you have received any answers or not.
S. What should we come to when we read the Zohar, that’s a more precise question: what should we come to when we read the Zohar, what should I attain?
R. You have to attain an answer to all these researches.
S. And then what, you get wholeness, I become whole?
R. I don’t know but I’m telling you that on this you have to receive answers.
S. And do you receive answers?
R. He promises you.
S. Shouldn’t we get the answers in the ten not alone?
R. Of course, there are a few conditions under which you receive answers.
20. S. (34:24) You answered a friend and you asked him “what do you see inside yourself high or exalted or different from others”? And when I heard this I just start to think: can we say that what is unique to me is my perception of light, it is my vessels which no one has, and it’s the same perception of the Creator, can we say it this way?
R. Of course you are special and each of us is special and every single person is special and unique otherwise they would not be separate, different than others, this is not what it talking about. It is talking about us reaching a special vessel, a special Kli in which we discover, reveal the Creator in a special way and when we connect between us then these forms that we have grasped in our special Kli, special vessel, it turns these forms into a special, unique form that There’s None Else Besides Him.
S. inaudible
R. Yes this is ahead of us.
21. S. (36:27) When I turn to the Creator in order not to relate to Him like “a figure”, will it be correct to turn to like a force of love, is the force of love the action of the Creator or is it the Creator?
R. Yes it is the action of the Creator.
22. S. (37:14) Is “a stone carved from the mountain is separated from it by an axe made for that purpose”, can you explain “the axe for it is made especially for that”?
R. The disparity of form between the stone and the mountain is express in “the axe”, and then the stone is broken out of the mountain, and as if there is no difference between the stone and the mountain but the disparity of form that is discovered between those two, distances them from the mountain and in this way he separated.
23. S. (38:20) You said previously that the ten should be under pressure so we will yield good results, how can a ten go into a healthy pressure?
R. That we have to connect between us to such a degree that through the mutual pressure each you will be impressed by the friends and we will receive, reveal, discover a need in the Creator until we obligate them to answer.
S. How come we generate such a pressure?
R. That I don’t know, talk amongst you in your ten and see that maybe it is possible.
24. S. (39:22) How to perform successful inquiry that has nothing to do with the ego?
R. We cannot, we can’t but when we ask, when we ask in our effort to distance from the ego then the Creator helps us.
25. S. (39:52) When we focus on connection to draw the light that reforms then comes a feeling of losing ourselves, what’s the right approach: to hold or to simply release?
R. Losing one’s self is not such a bad thing, that I lose myself, the little egoist, why not?
26. S. (40:26) I’m a Hebrew teacher and I haven’t been working for a long time but ultimately the Creator gave me this blow. So for the last year I’ve been teaching Hebrew, most of my students are Jewish people from the outside, and they’re asking me about the letters, maybe I should tell them something from the article?
R. No, it would not help them, it will only confuse them.
S. So how to answer their questions?
R. You don’t answer, if they want Hebrew, let them come to Israel.
S. This is what they’re doing, that’s why they’re learning with me.
R. For this they don’t need to study, let them come and that’s it. Good luck to you.
27. S. (41:30) We get ready-made workshops and I see that you have importance to scrutinize the questions in the ten, wouldn’t it be better if we create the questions for our workshops?
R. Please, of course it is good.
S. Okay, so it’s better than getting ready-made workshops?
R. If you can do it and these will be your questions from the heart, then go ahead, please.