MONDAY PRAYER: HESED-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Monday
Lesson on the topic of “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him”
Morning Lesson February 11, 2023 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Growing Stronger in There Is None Else Besides Him – Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #5
Reading Alternative Excerpt. (00:47) “You may ask the purpose of creation..”
1. S. (04:14) He says to relinquish rest in order to save the suffering, so what is true exertion, what is that?
R. Exertion is in faith above reason.
S. So why should I relinquish rest so there won’t be suffering, what does that mean?
R. A rest, that he is, when he’s overcoming in faith above reason.
S. So true exertion is to connect it to what? And just to wake up and come to the morning lesson and hear the morning lesson?
R. The fact that you wake up in the morning and listen to the lesson it says nothing, it’s zero exertion, exertion has to be when you rise into faith above reason.
S. What is that in the lesson, exertion, now in the lesson with you? How do I exert above reason?
R. You want to reach it.
S. But above reason?
R. You wish to reach faith above reason, force of bestowal against the force of reception that you have in you from the get-go.
S. I see, thank you.
2. S. (06:05) If I may ask for your permission without harming the lesson, to speak about our mutual heart?
R. We have a plan, I can’t go according to your desire and tear the plan and start something new.
Reading Excerpt # 5 (06:55) “One who assumes complete burden..”
3. S. (08:35) How can we understand or accept the upper Malchut to see the good guidance of the Creator?
R. All this has to come through the friends. If you wish to connect with them, through them, you wish to connect to the Creator and you ask, you ask for it together with them. And the upper light is revealed, which in principle it mitigates, let’s say, it turns everything to good but only to the extent you connect amongst yourselves.
S. We connect with the friends in our ten, so what does it mean that we reach the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven?
R. You feel that above you there is higher Providence, an upper Providence which exists specifically above all of you and that is why all of you are turning to it, to that Malchut, and you ask of it and to the same extent you feel how it is growing softer.
S. So it’s like in an inversion that I feel the corruption in the world?
R. Yes, imagine to yourself if everyone in the world would lift their eyes upwards, I say a bit coarsely but nevertheless, they would lift their eyes up and would turn to the upper Providence, which isn’t of course anywhere higher or below but everywhere around us. If we would, all of us turn to this upper Providence, how we would immediately change that Providence?
S. It sounds amazing, why can’t a person reach such a simple action?
R. First of all because we are separated and we hate one another, and you can see that from everyday life.
4. S. (11:16) Adhesion is a deficiency to connect to the Creator or is a feeling a fulfillment?
R. Adhesion is both the feeling of deficiency and the feeling of fulfillment because one cannot exist without the other.
S. He writes that we have to pay attention to the cessation of Dvekut: what should I work on a deficiency or..?
R. On a deficiency.
5. S. (11:52) He gives a tip for the narrow place, he speaks about faith and confidence by prayer. Can we reach, what is faith without prayer? Can we attain faith without prayer?
R. No.
S. Can you attain faith without prayer?
R. No, no you need to delve deeper into the thought of faith. Why, what for, for whom, for what reason, and then we gradually begin to come closer to the thought of faith, which is the thought of creation from the side of the Creator and the thought of faith from the side of the created being. But everything the Creator is doing, He is doing for the good.
S. And this separation between that and confidence?
R. Yes.
Reading Excerpt #6, Twice. (13:13) “When fear comes upon a person…”
6. S. (16:25) In this excerpt, what kind of fear is he speaking about, corporeal fear or?
R. The fear to disconnect from the Creator.
S. Can we speak about this fear, opening the heart to the friend, this resistance: how to work with it if there’s nothing to do with it?
R. This is not real fear yet.
7. S. (17:03) We are always in the light. Does the feeling of the light in the discernment of death become as life when we connect in the intention to bestow?
R. I wouldn’t say that, it sounds philosophical. We will scrutinize it further. I cannot answer it directly or concretely; it is too complicated.
8. S. (17:52) He who takes on the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven puts no effort in the work of the Creator. What do you mean by effortless?
R. That he brought himself to a state where even the exertion that he puts in brings him pleasure, it brings him pleasure, because he labors out of love. Let’s say, like a mother who takes care of her baby, she doesn’t see it as work because she takes care of him, she loves him and she invests in him.
9. S. (19:02) Do we need to aspire to love the Creator and feel fear before Him. So why in this excerpt, is a person called a fool if he doesn’t receive those disturbances?
R. By not understanding because we don’t understand the Creator’s attitude towards us, we don’t understand it correctly.
10. S. (19:42) He writes that the reason the fear changes but the form remains. What does it mean that the form remains, the physical fear remains? Because it describes very nicely here.
R. We understand fear very clearly, it’s the most precise, the most distinct feeling in us. It doesn’t matter which fear it will be, it comes to us from the animate world.
So the most important feeling of a person or any living creature for that matter, is fear, because it opposes the feeling of life exactly. Fear is just not fear of losing your life, losing yourself, your existence, and here we need to find the root of life; the Creator. When we connect to Him, we disconnect from the feeling of fear of losing your life because we exchange the source of life. With whom, we exchange it with the spiritual source of life; therefore the fear disappears.
S. But the fear from losing the spiritual life appears?
R. Yes, the connection with the Creator.
11. S. (21:21) Does it mean that the fear that is sent to us, its purpose is to increase the true fear of the Creator in us?
R. Repeat please.
S. The fear that we are sent, what we call external fear, its purpose is to increase the true fear inside us?
R. In essence, yes. Of course everything in us is to bring us to a complete understanding of the connection and adhesion with the Creator and all these negative and positive feelings are for that.
12. S. (22:17) Here it writes, he must contemplate and study the end to which he has been sent this fear. What does end mean?
R. How come there’s a feeling of fear in him right now. That is what he should scrutinize: for what? What exactly should he be afraid of? Which other kind of fear he should have in place of the fear he is feeling now, those are all the things he has to scrutinize.
13. S. (23:08) We have always studied the fear of hell but now the fear of Heaven is a constant that we do not study. How should we work with this fear?
R. This will come to us later. This fear: can I, will I be able to bestow to the Creator, am I bestowing correctly, am I bestowing enough? This is a different fear.
14. S. (24:05) The fact that my friends are beside me, it guards me from this fear. I don’t feel it, so how can I help them feel how great they are?
R. We should talk in the group about how without the support of the friends I can’t attain the Creator, I cannot come closer to Him, I can’t bring Him any good attitude, the correct attitude. That’s what we need to try and do.
15. S. (25:30) The work between us in the ten, what is that external fear and how do we change it with a spiritual fear?
R. In our work the external fear is any kind of fear no matter which, for any reason that comes to us from this world. That’s called external fear: from the police, from thieves, from I don’t know what, fear. But the fear of Heavens, is that you understand that ‘There’s None Else Besides Him,’ and everything depends only on the Creator and you connect everything that’s happening to you to Him. And then you reach a state that all in all, what concerns you, is how, that upon all your feelings, to give contentment to the Creator. That you are not concerned of yourself but only how you project an attitude of love back to Him.
S. And we can work with anything that happens in life, everything?
R. Everything without any exceptions; that’s our goal, that’s our purpose.
16. S. (27:10) Tell us please: how to balance fear of losing connection with the Creator and also be subjugated before the Creator, accepting everything He is giving us?
R. You don’t need to be subjugated, you don’t need to be in some agreement, even though it’s written somewhere. You have to reach a state that you feel it, feel it. And then you really become subjugated and you bow down because that’s how you feel.
S. And about this permanent adhesion without cessation? How can that be, adhesion without cessation? Every time I ask this way, if you will indulge me, these exalted thoughts that I wish to be in prayer about the Creator and to constantly turn to Him and be included in the friends. It requires energy to start. When we talk about permanent adhesion, what is that? Is that the Kabbalist who is constantly aware, in a conscious state, understanding what he is doing, so many powers in order to do this work consciously all the time?
R. The Kabbalist is in a state where he’s constantly increasing his connection with the Creator. And that state is where he sees life, that’s a constant state he doesn’t run away from it, or jump away, or disconnect from that state to anywhere but on the contrary, he constantly needs to work on expanding the state, constantly expanding it, that is the feeling of spiritual life. And if the previous minute or the next minute or identical; that’s death.
S. Meaning throughout the day I deal with everyday mundane things and I have to constantly try, even then I have to try to include a thought about the Creator, and wherever I see that the connection is breaking I have to turn to ask Him to correct it?
R. Yes, because there’s no vacant place in the world; either you are in egoism or altruism. That’s why if you fall from the feeling of the Creator, from that direction towards the Creator, it means you fall into the ego.
17. S. (30:33) The external fear pushes a person towards ‘There’s None Else Besides Him,’ and it calms the fear down. What to do then?
R. What to do? We need to exchange from the external fear to the internal fear.
S. That’s not felt at the same level?
R. No, it’s not felt on the same level, that’s something else. But you must develop in you a fear of disconnecting from the Creator. A fear of not being concerned about Him anymore and then you will see as much as it, pretty quickly, you get into it.
18. S. (31:47) Is it worthwhile to awaken in the ten the fear, that time is passing and if we won’t wake up we will leave the world without attaining anything real?
R. Of course it’s worthwhile, of course. Anything that with it for sure we raise ourselves to a higher degree of connection between us and with the Creator; so we must do it right away.
19. S. (32:39) The fear that the Creator takes us away from the path, is it a correct fear? Is it correct to fear that the Creator will disconnect us from the path, from the study?
R. Of course it is a good fear. We can be tossed in all directions and we have to be afraid of it.
S. If we do not have any fear? What does this mean?
R. If we don’t have fear it means we don’t have fear. We don’t know what it is, we cannot value it, we don’t demand of it to happen, for it to be.