SUNDAY PRAYER: YESOD-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT AND DAWN SUNDAY
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to the Book of Zohar, item 70
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #70
Reading Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #70, “This is what is written in the Tikkunim [corrections] of The Zohar ….”
1. S. (04:38) This is even those of the good ones who have gave their time to the study of the Torah and without the correct intention to give contentment to the Creator good, they did it, what does it mean they didn’t do the right intention?
R. They engaged in the wisdom of Kabbalah, and wanted to correct their intentions to be as if in order to bestow contentment to the Creator but in actuality they didn’t pay attention to whether it is really correct and serious or not, and their intention remained like before, all for their own benefit.
S. So you said that you will stop gradually to explain what is written in the Zohar and we will have to as if without explanation. So what is the meaning? Why did you say that that you will stop explaining what is written in the Zohar? For us to be intentional?
R. So that you yourself will discover what your purpose is in the study.
S. Which means?
R. I mean what I mean.
S. To stop ask questions during the reading?
R. It might be that too.
S. What should the intention be when we read the Zohar? What do we do really like that? What do we think about?
R. We already learned that many times, and the fact that you are now asking me that’s your asking and not others because probably they understand and know for what and why.
S. Certainly they understand.
R. So don’t take up their time for me to work with you on a private way on a personal way.
S. But we need to think when you are reading the Zohar or what?
R. The Zohar needs to bring you the forces for you to rise above your desire to receive with all the purposes all the questions all your deficiencies will be in order to bring contentment through all the people of the world to the Creator.
2. S. (07:28) He writes here about people who are making the Torah dry, the question is can you turn the wisdom of Kabbalah dry?
R. It’s not important which Torah, of course it could be.
S. How not to turn the Kabbalah dry?
R. This is when every part of the Torah that we engage in only in order to know it alone without connecting into the purpose of our development, it is called that is become dry because it does not give forth fruit.
3. S. (08:18) It is written here woe unto them that they because in their actions poverty and fury and damage in the world, how to understand these words and relate to them?
R. Understand it as it’s written, just as it is written. That the fact that people in the world that are meant to engage in connection between them in mutual bestowal that is warm between them are not doing it then the whole world suffers.
4. S. (09:12) In the beginning of the excerpt we talked about giving contentment to the Creator and this week we’ve done many powerful lessons on bringing contentment to the Creator and when I researched it with myself, what is this thing? I discovered that I don’t have any excuses on why I want to bring contentment to the Creator. It’s like a desire that awakens in a person and at least I cannot find an excuse on why I want to bring contentment to the Creator.
R. Clearly that is natural I understand you, I understand that you do not want to bring contentment to something you don’t feel like that why would you because from nature you are constructed in a way that you care only for yourself.
S. So how do I move towards to the next degree on the matter of bring contentment to the Creator? Because I feel that I want to do it but….
R. Why do you want to do it?
S. Exactly and this is the matter because to because I don’t know because….
R. Just like that there’s no problem there can not there can’t be such a question to bring contentment to the Creator. There are only under the conditions that you feel that it’s worthwhile for you then you will address him in order to do something for him accordingly, only to the extent in which you feel that you are dependent on him.
S. The measure of fear that we spoke about in the beginning of the week was very powerful meaning the matter of the creator that is managing this entire business and we want to resemble him, how do we take it another degree inner inside?
R. Through the connection with the friends even though we do not want to connect but in that which we do with forces it enters them from unwillingness to willingly.
S. And sometimes making contentment to the Creator will acquire some flavor?
R. Yes, you will feel the flavor in doing so, yes you will feel flavors and forces and discernments very special ones from the heart.
5. S. (12:01) The importance of Baal HaSulam that he’s giving to the intention to give contentment, is unmeasurable, the question is what is this matter of intention and how does it differ from desires?
R. Desire and intention are two completely different things. I have a desire the desire receive from above or I receive it from someone that’s next to me, but the intention I need to build in me, what for will I use this desire and then it’s correct to use this desire I need to go through this desire and it’s whole scale from not using from hating it from throwing it distancing it from it all the way to hearing being incapable of coming closer to it until being connected with the friends in order to come closer to that desire even though it’s a despicable to me and so on and so forth meaning there’s an entire spectrum of deeds that I need to perform in order to bring myself to the correct desire.
S. Through what scrutiny for a person to ask why am I doing this?
R. Yes.
S. But this question can be asked on anything even why do I want to bring contentment to the Creator?
R. Yes.
S. Is essentially making doing contentment to the Creator is the intention, so I can ask why?
R. Correct.
S. Where is the intention and what is the action?
R. I don’t understand you did you scrutinize correctly what you saying?
S. Let’s say I want to connect the connection itself is an action or the intention?
R. The connection itself for the time being is the intention.
S. Why is it not the action?
R. Where is the action you haven’t gotten there yet, you only have an intention to come to action.
S. When a person makes an effort to feel the friends as great and to be included in them to..?
R. Here there are also efforts in intention and also efforts in action.
S. We need to clarify between them?
R. Of course.
S. So our effort towards connection where is the intention and where is the action?
R. The intention is what you intend to happen and with that you have the actions the deeds, it could be without actions you just remain with intentions you kind of float that way, but it could be also that you’re performing actions that are coming from efforts that you are willing to pay for to give up for something and so on in order to come to the implementation.
S. So the action is a certain action that I do inside of my desire and the intention is a sort of thought of why I’m doing this?
R. Yes, these are very important things we’ll have to talk about them a whole lot more before we start differentiating between this and that and manage one another.
S. In the article of Matan Torah he writes that you cannot truly aim with the intention to love the Creator so he give us something practical to love the friends?
R. Because you cannot love someone or something that is not grasped in some way in your senses, you must wrap it with your sensations and begin to relate to him that way.
S. So why here in this such an important article in this such an important fundamental explanation of why there are all these terrible things happening in the world he puts the cause on a certain intention to give contentment to the Creator and not dealing with love of friends not working on love of friends?
R. Because for love of friends certainly a person has no benefit in such a way that’s how a person thinks there’s no inclination towards or attraction towards that whereas to all the rest of the things he can somewhat ascribe himself to.
S. So it’s more real he should have said as if that they worked in the Torah but not in love of friends.
R. So what is Torah?
S. So what is Torah without aiming it towards the Creator towards brining contentment and this is the cause for our suffering?
R. No because the first stage is love thy friend as thyself.
S. So why is this not our sin?
R. Love thy friend as thyself?
S. In the lack of love of others he writes here that they are working in the Torah and they do not want to bring contentment to the Creator. So why does he not write that they work in the Torah and don’t want to work in the love of others?
R. Because love of friends is just a means, but the principle is love thy friend as thyself is only in order to reach to love your Lord your God with all your might and your soul.
S. Still it would have been clear where the mistake is as he writes love your friend yourself is the clarification and that love the Lord your God you can fool yourself?
R. You are right, because love your Lord your God we have great obscurity and talking about that, in love your Lord your God but this is actually the complete love. That is completely love.
S. Now in the matter of intention and action, is it possible to say that love your friend is yourself as an action and love the Creator is an intention or is it not correct?
R. Love your lord your God is the intention and love thy friend is thyself is the action, yes. that is how it’s done on the way on the path. And also when we come to the Creator then there we connect also with the love of others and love of the Creator at once because we are actually connected with the created beings and with the Creator we cannot be connected, we do not disconnect from the love of the created beings and move to the love of the Creator rather we are in love of others and love of the created beings in a complete love where the whole world is the vessel that I am adhered to him and bestow to him and love him endlessly and then from that I come to love of the Creator, which is the root which is the one that begets all of Nature and the created beings.
S. And what is the action what is the intention in this?
R. The action is where we perform actions as much as possible to come closer to one another and support one another, that is the action and the intention that we in all these actions in the center, in the middle between all of them comes what is on the other side that comes towards us which is the Creator and this way we join and come closer are Incorporated together in the center of our connection.
S. And why is this called intention and not an action?
R. Because that’s what we’re working towards, for. It will settle slowly, there’s not enough words here.
6. S. (22:01) To begin with the intention we are building different how to come to the right intention in the heart?
R. We are not responsible for the intention we have in our heart, rather we through our actions cause the forces and discernments that will make them influence our heart and aim it correctly. It’s truly felt in us, or will be felt in us to the extent in which we act upon this and that and that then by that we change our attitude towards this and that and that, that is how it happens.
S. We don’t need to concern about the intention in the heart it’s enough for us in the reason to try to build it?
R. The intention that we want to reach will awaken in our hearts on its own, where we perform actions from that we will come to the correct intention.
7. S. (23:54) The answer you talked about the intention, how will we be able to get the intention for equivalence of form in the ten if we are all different?
R. If we are all different it doesn’t matter despite the fact that we’re all different we are different in our desires. But we cannot be different in our intentions, in our intentions we can come to being as one man and one heart. That is the intention. We need to constantly think about the intention. this will be clarified soon more and more. We will work on this all the time.
S. And how do we work on that in the ten?
R. Only through connection there is nothing else here.To the extent to which we connect more and want to go deeper in our purpose to that which we are trying to come to to be as one man with one heart with one intention with one support, where each of us loses his self and we are included together in one common point. That’s the actual implementation.
8. S. (26:15) Is it possible to say that the actions determine the intention? and if so is thanks to our actions that we come to know the creator?
R. By our actions we do come to know the Creator. Yes.
9. S. (27:00) So essentially our desires are different than our intention that we connect in order to reveal the one force that rules over or governs over all of us this is the intention that we connect to and in this we can reply to the ego and doubts arise then I want to connect in order to arrive to the Creator that exist in the center of the ten?
R. Yes.
10. S. (27:37) Where it says that in the generation, the spirit of the Messiah that needs to,where is the spirit of the Messiah?
R. The spirit of the Messiah is that light that draws us from in order to receive and raises us to in order to bestow, all of us together, all the created beings, the entire desire to receive that was created that is called the spirit of the Messiah.
11. S. (28:35) We do a lot of actions, how important is it before every action to stop and to really clarify what is our intention?
R. It is very important because in the implementation of the correct intention or maybe not fully, that’s what our advancement depends upon, specifically that.
S. Many times there is a feeling that I can say about myself that I’m telling myself the story that yes this is the intention but inside it is an egoistic desire to do something. How is it possible to clean the intention to activate these forces? You said that forces build our intention, how do I activate them in a more intensive way?
R. I don’t know, make them activate them more intensively, that’s common work between you. I don’t even know how to answer, it is clear to us. We talked a thousand times about this and then the same questions are repeating themselves.
S. No, the question is is there a way that a person not depict in his imagination or saying some empty words to bestow to bring him contentment and I put a check mark. How to advance to this thing, do I need to imagine it, what else to do?
R. Think and imagine and do and talk between you everything that is possible to do, do.
12. S. (31:21) The desire comes to me, I have to activate the mind why does it come to me then I have to realize it in what way how do I add the ten, to it, do I depict it that it’s next to me, it lives in my heart, where is the ten for me to be able to express the correct intention towards this action, how do I connect it?
R. You need this ten to put into your heart to imagine that it’s all in your heart. That you’re wrapping it with your heart. You are entering the ten into you. and start to think and care for them.
S. It comes that I give a desire from above and my brain then activates into the action and I realize to connect with the ten?
R. Yes.
13. S. (32:50) The intention is the motive of the action. Why am I doing this, the general intention, is it to serve the Creator, so this intention, does it equal the intention to bring contentment to the Creator?
R. First of all, you’re confusing between intention and desire and secondly it is not that way, or I heard it incorrectly. We want to come to a state in which all of the actions, the intentions, the thoughts, the inclinations that we have, are all going to be outside of us aimed outwards towards the friends and by this I want to hug them and to pass to them all that I can receive from the Creator for them. That is actually my goal. To hug them in order to supply them all that I receive from the Creator and more than likely that’s what each and every one of them wants. If we come to such actions, intentions, prayers, discernments, then we begin to feel together with that, a need, desire for this to happen. Then we begin with that desire to feel how we are connected and the Creator is connected with us. that’s it.
14. S. (35:08) It is written that people who cause the spirit of the Messiah not to return, how can such a thing be that the spirit of the Messiah departs and never returns can people even cause such a thing? And how to be protected from such a thing happening in the ten?
R. We need to fear that the desire of ours to unite and reveal the Creator, can escape us, disappear and this is why we need to cherish this desire and always cultivate it, grow it, expand it.
S. And if we don’t do that will the desire disappear?
R. Yes it can disappear of course.
S. Sounds scary.
R. Yes, the Creator gave it to you and you have to expand it and grow it.
15. S. (36:57) If I feel that my thoughts are beginning to change, my scrutiny is changing, the desires inside of me, the attitude towards those forces changes, does that mean I’m incorporated in the ten?
R. Why not?
S. I’m asking whether that is spiritual advancement?
R. You are still in the ten.
S. Meaning I’m influenced by the ten inside my thoughts inside my scrutinies?
R. Yes.
16. S. (37:39) You said love thy friend as thyself is also intention and also action?
R. Love your friend as yourself can be an action and it can be an intention.
S. I’m asking, you said a nice sentence that I like you said just like couples you need to have a little bit of sting in order to come to love. What do you mean what kind of sting are you talking about?
R. Because everything is required precisely from its opposite, from its opposite. Which is why if two people argue between them, It means it’s a sign that they have a foundation to increase the love.
S. It’s wonderful what you’re saying but when you come to such a sting it immediately comes to a world war, so how am I supposed to…?
R. The sting, I didn’t mean World War II, a little sting and after that immediately increase the love and then another sting and another love and another sting and this is how, in such actions.
S. Actually what brings contentment to the Creator is this sting itself, the sting between us?
R. Revelation of the deficiency and the fulfillment.
S. And that brings content?
R. Yes, otherwise you don’t feel the fulfillment you have to reveal the deficiency.
S. What is advancement in the work called? What is advancement in this work that we’re talking about?
R. Advancement is called that a person is walking on both feet, that on one he feels the deficiency reveals the deficiency and on the other reveals the completion, the fulfillment that comes and covers the deficiency. Love covers all crimes.
17. S. (39:55) In the matter of the adhesion of friends. In the ten we work all week long, we have this closeness, distancing like you’re talking about now, and we have something nice on Thursday a meal, a physical meeting and specifically there comes to a state where we feel love, closeness, adhesion how can such a meeting when there’s adhesion between the friends do we come out in the end with the feeling of bringing contentment?
R. That you feel that you connect during the meal, how out of that to feel that you want to bring contentment to each other? Try to feel that you are giving each to the others, something. Everyone say L’Chaim, drink wine, bring to such a meal something each of you for the others, it can be something small, it can be one candy and more and more maybe for each to bring excerpt from Tehillim, that he likes from Psalms and wants everyone to enjoy it. Bring gifts to one another and then it will be really real presence one to the other, it will be a sign of love.
S. All of that is done exactly one to one as what you said. How is all of that good feeling that joy, that love between us from that we feel contentment to the Creator? How does the ten present all of that to the Creator? I want to correct but on the other hand when we are in the ten when we’re working, at the meal, we say the words to bring the contentment to the Creator, it’s only for the purpose of creation. How to exit this meeting and knowing that we have truly brought contentment to the Creator that we have fulfilled the Commandment?
R. It is because you still don’t know how much you have fulfilled the Creator. How much you fulfill the Creator what to do? I don’t know, sing something quietly without music, only with words. There’s nothing more than that, everything else is in the heart. Externally we can’t express many actions, all of this is inside.
S. During the preparation time all the groups in the world are working within themselves and many feelings are awakening and there’s a very big emotion of yearning desire, enthusiasm towards the convention and on the other hand there’s a certain fear distancing and he wants to run away?
R. Very good, very good who feels both that and this, it’s a sign that is vessel is already advancing to build him correctly that there’s both left and right.
S. How does he tip his scale and not run away?
R. First of all we need to as much as possible rationally divide his time to family work, study friends and so on. And to determine for each and everything that he does that he is viewing or what he does will bring him to correction, that it brings him to correction. I don’t know what to say, this is already your experience over the years that has to show you what to do next.
S. Does a person need to share these sensations with the ten or does he just work with himself in his feeling of the distancing of closeness to come or not to come?
R. I didn’t understand, of course a person chooses to come, not to come, close or far he does that, you can’t obligate him. You can awaken him for some time but then he will anyway do according to the desire of the heart.
S. Does he need to bring the desire of the heart to the ten so the ten will decide here?
R. No, the ten cannot tip the scale or determine for a person, a person has to do it for himself. Nobody in the world can decide for me. I can learn from them, I can be included from them but in the end it is me it is my own private work for which I exist as a private person.
18. S. (46:59) We constantly talk about becoming one man and one heart, one heart is kind of understood as a common desire aimed towards the Creator but what is one man?
R. One man with one heart is what we have and feed the entire body our common, and through this common body we want to come to have one heart, one desire. To be like the bug that has many feet and for all of us to only work together.
19. S. (48:18) How do you see the new world, what will it be founded on, how will we collaborate in the new world?
R. I don’t see it very soon. There will be many many problems that accompany the birth of the new world, but when it manifests when it arrives, it will be different it will be in the consciousness of people who understand only anything but war, anything but hatred between us. You have to fight the battle between us so that nobody gets hatred towards the other, rather the opposite only mutual respect, love and closeness and I hope that we achieve that. At the very least now all the events in the world, they are aligned to bring to light what is good and what is bad.
20. S. (50:01) I want to ask a question about the convention, about ten years ago there was a convention in Vilnius and I didn’t travel to it, and I used to travel to all the conventions but I didn’t come to this specific convention. A girl asked about a convention and she asked about those that are here and those that are there, and then I heard from you that whoever didn’t come is not a complete enough egoist, whoever came is a proper egoist. Later I heard about that convention that it was powerful, special, and really your words penetrated deep into my heart that I’m not egoistic enough. Now I want to ask about the convention that we are standing before, my feeling is something very important, what does it mean that we are enough of an egoist in order to participate together with everyone truly in this center without missing so that it won’t bother us for another ten years when I am not for being in it?
R. I think that if you will be, if you will follow the Congress regardless of where, then you will be plugged into it and will be together in one Kli, in one scrutiny in a single exercise and this way together we will rise. Of course each will understand that according to his preparation but ahead of us is at least a month just under a month, and we can prepare in such a way that you can all practically be on the same level and that means a lot. It’s better to be on a lower degree but together then on a higher degree but each at a different one. I hope that we will integrate in such a way that we will be together on a certain but not higher level but at least we will understand one another and try to rise together. This is what is important for the congress, meaning the most important for this Congress is to be together. Not physically but psychologically, spiritually.
21. S. (53:15) In relation to action and deed, if a person corrects his intention and is closer to love of others does it lead him to do in the right actions which were preparing us close, meaning if I want to eat Kosher food or does that have nothing to do with it all together?
R. At the end of a person who wants to fulfill the Commandments, he will strive to fulfill them as much as possible as they are stated. We can’t scrutinize why are some laws there, but they all stem from only one source as a transition from lack of love to another to love to the other, only in this way from minus to plus. A person on this path has to solve all of these issues within himself but it’s not necessary for us right now and that shouldn’t fill anyone’s mind.
22. S. (54:53) Why is it better to be in a lower degree together than a higher degree alone?
R. Because in a degree that you are together with the ten then you are in a spiritual vessel, and then you begin in a degree that you are alone without the spiritual connection. That doesn’t promise you or guarantee that you can stay there, rather every single moment you can be dropped. We have to attain the final correction at least in a ten until all the tens can connect to it. For now there’s a few tens on that degree, there is the ten of Rabbi Shimon and a few others, so we as well want to arrive there. We don’t mean one person but at least a ten.
23. S. (56:54) He’s asking about what you said in the convention it’s important to unite and to be connected at least with the intention, so what is it to be aimed directly from the psychologically on purpose?
R. In the intention it is like a mother with a child, even if she is disconnected from him, in a different place but she always feels the deficiency for him and he is always on her heart, and in this way she constantly is yearning for a meeting. This is how we need to depict ourselves.
24. S. (57:55) Is our intention to connect, correct Malchut or the Malchut of Malchut?
R. Of course it is.
25. S. (58:28) About the convention there will be many gatherings around the world and if we can be in our ten in the same place. Let’s say I live in San Francisco. Is it best for me to be in my ten in San Francisco together in the convention, or to do a regional convention and invite more people from other tens?
R. I would invite more tens. In the Congress the more we are the better, and it’s not a problem that maybe we will expand and the meals and speak more than is planned during the lessons or in general maybe have different topics. This is on the way and we will do it, no problem, but the most important thing is to connect as much as possible to our connections more and more and more and external people.
26. S. (59:37) How important is it to register for the convention, what’s the difference from me registering and not registering?
R. I don’t know, you have to ask the managers of the Congress. In my eyes it is important not from the perspective of registration but from the perspective of connection that already right now, the instant that I hear that I can register for the Congress I register to the connection with others, and that for me is already very important because I am already in the congress. I already exist in that force that arranges us and connects us, it is very important. This is why anyone who wants to enter this Kli and receive from it the surrounding light, that can influence and bestow, he has to register as soon as possible.
27. S. (01:00:49) I heard that you said that all the actions come from the Creator, and I also heard that you said that the Creator gives us the desire and it is our responsibility to intensify the desire. Say if he is responsible for everything and He does all the actions, how do we need to be responsible to intensify or increase the desire?
R. Only through inclusion in one another. No one has a desire that changes and grows, it grows only on the account that we connect, that we include one another, only through that the desire changes and grows until it becomes in quantity and quality in its inclusion with foreign objects suitable to the revelation of the Creator.