SUNDAY PRAYER: MALCHUT-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN

READING: between after midnight and sunrise of SUNDAY.

Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Morning Lesson April 21, 2023

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

Part 2:

Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. #22

Reading item #22.

1. S. (05:42) He says that after the first restriction that was incorporated in the five phases of the screen, the five phases in the [..] What does it mean that they return to being in the vessel?

R. It means that the degrees of coarseness that previously worked as the place of reception, now with the connection of the screen, they work as a source of bestowal.

S. What is the essence of that act because everything that is written. I have a question about that, what really now and all kinds of examples, do we need to clothe that in our work in the ten or is there no connection?

R. First of all, decide what you’re asking.

S. I’m asking, when it says that everything turns into five vessels, how did they return to being five vessels, where does that come from, and can we use that as examples in the ten, do we need to implement that in the ten, I’m trying to simplify the question.

R. Maybe you ask more clearly and shortly.

S. It’s a bit hard, firstly what are the vessels he is talking about?

R. Kelim, vessels, are the desires to receive that want to bestow in return to the Creator, this desire is called the vessel of bestowal, Kli.

S. How does that work, he says there is a coupling when striking, is there a connection with that? 

R. Yes.

S. What is it: coupling when striking in the ten, how does that action come into practice?

R. The coupling in striking means that we connect but through striking of two opposite things, where naturally, they are opposites, and in order to enter into bestowal, they have to enter a Zivug, coupling, a connection.

S. Can you say it even simpler, let’s say we’re sitting in the ten, how can I reach that coupling when striking that it’s discussing, what do we do, what do we say, what is that coupling when striking, it seems like a really high concept, there’s got to be something practical here, what can we do?

R. When we are in the ten, I feel how much I feel in opposition to each and every friend. I’m opposed, I don’t feel like connecting with him, or feeling him or taking him into consideration. If I nevertheless, understand that there’s no other choice but I have to connect with him, and specifically in the connection with him, above my will to receive that I wish to reject him, if I annul my will to receive and I wish to be connected with him because in this way, I can bestow contentment to the Creator, then already, I am in collision with my egoistic will to receive. I must connect with the friend even though I don’t feel like it, because even according to my nature, how I was created, I’m not attracted to it, so I have to overcome my will to receive and approach the friend.

S. That’s what I wanted to ask. Do we always manage to do a coupling and striking, what does it depend on?

R. We don’t always succeed in making this coupling and striking, because we are a will to receive and the coupling is of the will to bestow, hence, we don’t really possess this tendency naturally.

S. What can help me reach that point? I understand that it’s very important, but to reach a coupling when striking, how not to escape that situation, but continue sitting there and not escape that situation?

R. This is a different kind of work, first of all, have belief in the sages. I believe those people called Kabbalists used to work for generations, and they left me a method, how to get from my will to receive to a different will to receive that works differently, in accordance with the Creator, and a desire to bestow and to the extent to the Creator’s desire and my desire to receive in order to bestow will become equal, I will be able to feel the Creator, and to perform mutual acts, reciprocal acts.

S. Meaning it’s an incomplete condition, meaning if I fail to make a coupling when striking, is there a reflected light or no reflected light, meaning is there a necessary condition to raise the reflected light to a coupling when striking?

R. The minute I do anything against my will to receive, to the extent that I do anything against my ego, I can already feel myself opposite to the upper light.

S. And then he writes that they return to being five vessels, so after the coupling when striking they return to being five vessels, that’s what we talked about?

R. I get this opportunity to work with my five egoistic vessels in order to bestow.

2. S. (13:12) The decision for the first restriction causes the light to depart from the vessel in stages, firstly from phase four, until it completely empties, there is a moment before we build new vessels as a result of the reflected light where the vessel is as if empty, it has no reflected light had no new vessels and no change in the Kli.

R. You can say that.

S. Is there something similar to what we said in the previous part that we need to relinquish our control completely and leave the keys with the Creator, with the quality of love and bestowal to control you completely, there’s a time where you feel that you’re not in that more than the other and that you’re afraid to pass it, as if you’re going into darkness, into nothing?

R. No, it’s not scary because you adhered with the Creator and because you’ve given up your reception in order to receive.

S. You don’t know how it seems?

R. It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.

S. How can you concede on something with a complete heart if you know you’re not going to get something in response to it?

R. Your calculation is not in order to receive but rather not to be opposite the host, landlord, removed from Him, separated from him. Therefore, it’s not important what you will get and feel in the next moment.

S. When the vessel decides to make a first restriction out of shame that he cannot hold onto the fulfillment without responding, at the same time, he feels that he is not planning the next stage that he will receive?

R. Don’t plan anything.

S. Meaning it happens out of no choice?

R. It’s not out of no choice, it’s out of a clear decision.

S. That decision to concede on the fulfillment, a complete level.

R. Not merely the fulfillment, his life, everything possible except not to receive from the Upper One.

S. What happens on the other side of the scales?

R. There is no other calculation, there is only one, that I annul my will to receive, that I don’t work with because I wish it to be similar to the Upper One at least by not receiving, and what will happen next is not important to me.

S. It’s not a calculation that you make about the upper state and the evil that I receive, the shame I receive, I prefer it to that?

R. You can say that.

S. I’m saying it’s a calculation that I make.

R. After the first restriction it’s what you do, the Kli.

S. After the first restriction he decides?

R. Yes.

S. It’s as if it’s a state where he decides to relinquish himself.

R. Yes.

S. He decides and it’s his decision?

R. Yes.

S. Again there’s this calculation of one side and another, as if there’s a completely disconnected calculation?

R. I don’t know what you’re talking about, the vessel decides that it wants to get rid of reception, no matter what, and everything, what will be afterwards, is of no interest, I do not wish to remain in order to receive, in the current state.

S. When does the new vessel reveal which is the reflected light of the Kli?

R. Only after it decide to remove himself from vessels of reception, it understands that he is now in an empty state, and this state can remain forever, for eternity, but he prefers that state to reception, and only after he made this calculation and he agreed to it in practice, the light departs and a new stage arrives.

S. In “Shamati” there is an article where they say they judge a person where he is, he needs to decide on a situation completely and even if he knows he falls, at some point it doesn’t matter, he has to decide as if it’s complete, that it’s all adhesion with the Creator from herein.

R. No, don’t confuse us with your feelings, the vessel feels that it prefers to be empty, forever, for eternity, anything but to be the receiver.

3. S. (19:06) In the state where he is ready to concede everything, not receive everything, to be empty until the very end, what’s his fuel?

R. It’s not that it feels good or comfortable, or convenient to be empty, it’s like we say sometimes, “oh, I’m better off dead then alive, that’s it, I’m dead, I’ll be dead.” How do we imagine death, that we won’t feel anything, we leave whatever bad, negative feeling we have now, and later there will be no feeling. This is preferable to what we feel now, that’s the calculation that we make because we don’t understand what happens next. So it’s not the same here, rather it wants to get rid of his will to receive, but he has no other choice but to stop using it, and that’s what he’s doing. And what happens next, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. I’m not making any calculations, I’m making only one calculation, I do not wish to receive.

S. What gives it the fuel to make this calculation of not receiving anything now?

R. The fact that he was full with the upper light before that.

S. Okay, but in our reality, that’s in the reality of above and below, but in our reality, what gives us the ability to get rid of any idea of reward and just be empty?

R. We will talk about it, a person who is in order to receive, is working with different vessels, it’s got envy, lust, honor, there are other components there.

4. S. (21:32) Why does it speak about five phases of the screen, what happens with Tifferet?

R. Tifferet is a general name of the third phase.

S. Why is it not the ten Sefirot of the screen if there are ten Sefirot?

R. Because we typically do not break down ZA or Tifferet into five additional phases, it’s enough for us to say Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, Malchut.

S. Sometimes we detail it?

R. Sometimes we do but that’s only to highlight a particular change in them.

S. They’re always together, these six Sefirot?

R. Yes.

5. S. (22:34) Is it correct when we say that we look at the vessel as myself and the light is the ten, that I make the first restriction in relation to the ten?

R. No, we didn’t discuss it and you shouldn’t speak for the time being like that.

S. A friend asked you and you said that the ten is the Kli in relation to the Creator?

R. The ten is the vessel before the Creator, why is it tough to describe it?

S. It’s very hard to feel what’s the ten in relation to the Creator, it’s easier for me to feel something in relation to the ten.

R. The Creator is a source of light, source of pleasure, source of life, that’s the Creator.

Reading item #23 (23:51)

6. R. (24:56) There is seemingly a paradox here. One does not equate with the other. Why would a lack of the vessel of Malchut when the screen is level four, it lacks the light of Keter, the light of Keter does not clothe in the vessel of Malchut and when the vessel of Tifferet is absent, there is a light of Hochma, it seems as though it should have been the opposite, that when there is a vessel of Malchut, phase four, is absent from the screen, only the light of Malchut would be missing in the level and will have only four vessels, it will lack two lights, meaning why is there opposite or inverse relationships between lights and vessels, that’s the question.

Reading item #24 (26:27)

7. S. (30:47) It’s written that the light of Yechida enters Keter but before that it enters Malchut?

R. Where each light enters, it’s according to the states that we see, the smallest light and there is initially the light of Nefesh, into the highest vessel, called the Kli of Keter, so first the light of Nefesh in the vessel of Keter, and then it comes down from the vessel of Keter into the vessel of Hochma, that light of Nefesh, and the next light after Nefesh enters the Keter, which is Ruach, and so on and so forth, meaning the vessels are revealed from above down, from Keter to Malchut, and according to the vessels which become active, the lights of NRNHY enter the vessel and we see that. We have a vessel that grows, Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, Malchut, and in it, the lights NRNHY, so every new light that comes enters through the vessel of Keter.

S. [No translation.]

R. Don’t confuse how we do it, you ask according to what’s written, it’s totally different. Our work and the entrance of the light into the vessels, he’s giving you a system Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut and how the light enters from above and appears in Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut, those lights come from the smallest light Nefesh, then Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida.

8. S. (33:52) We learned that the vessel is a deficiency, it’s a very defined and clear desire. How could it be that a vessel of Keter receives the light which is apparently the light of Nefesh, what is the connection between the deficiency and the fulfillment?

R. You’re correct, you want to say that the level of light or the intensity of the light or the kind of light, the type of light?

S. Everything there’s a lack of equivalence the vessel needs to receive according to its deficiency.

R. Let’s put it this way you have five vessels, Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut and each one of them a light can appear. When the light appears, it needs to be at a certain level. The light that is revealed in Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut, those are five different lights. How are they different? They differ first of all in their intensity and additionally let’s say they differ in color, let’s say, let’s say in the beginning the light appears in Keter and it’s a white light, and then in Hochma it’s red let’s say, and in Bina, it’s purple. I’m just throwing out colors, in ZA it’s green light, and in Malchut it’s a brown light let’s say. You have five vessels and in them five lights appear. We learn that the light is actually the same light, it’s like electricity that’s running through five bulbs so each light bulb is colored, is painted a different color and that’s why we see it in this way, but the light that passes through it is the same light. The same thing here, Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut are different vessels. The light that passes through them is the same light that appears differently in each one, so what are you asking about it?

S. In the beginning Keter and Yechida had equivalence right, before the entrance of the lights into the vessels?

R. Yes.

S. Now Keter and Yechida have equivalence, so later the vessel of Keter, deficiency of Keter, what should be the fulfillment of Yechida suddenly receives Nefesh, how does that work out?

R. Because the light that enters into the vessel is the weakest light.

S. How do they agree? He wants something else completely. What is the fulfillment here?

R. Because the Malchut activates in such a way that it’s the smallest light and also in the smallest vessel. The Keter is also for the time being the smallest, but when Hochma comes after the Keter then you draw greater light and then in Keter there’s an additional light in order to pass out of part of it to Hochma and in this way we see that the vessels grow in, accordingly the lights grow, until all of the lights will enter the Malchut and there will be NRNHY.

S. Meaning the fulfillment is gradual and not final, meaning that Keter understands that I will receive the Nefesh even though I want Yechida in my source.

R. Let’s put it this way.

S. I do this with the knowledge that it is still not the end of the path and there is still more to go through?

R. It’s the maximum level of bestowal it can be in. Each and every part of the part of the Partzuf wants to bestow as much as possible as much as it can. According to others it’s like a group. That’s what happens. I wish to receive the light of Nefesh, why? I have no one to bestow to, so what I can receive is only the light of Nefesh. When I will have more to bestow to. I will be happy to receive more and then I will receive the light of Ruach. I will bestow what I can down below me the light of Nefesh and that is how it works one by one. think about it please I’m willing to, we don’t need to rush through this

S. Continuing the friend, can we say this that there is no such thing as the light of Ruach if there was no entrance at the light of Nefesh meaning the existence of Nefesh allows the condition that there will be the light of Ruach, meaning there is no light of Ruach, the concept in and of itself there’s no contact?

R. Correct, there cannot be that the light of Ruach will be revealed unless the light of Nefesh will be revealed before it will be ready for it.

8. S. (40:22) Can you say that to the extent of the coarseness that reveals in it, to the extent of overcoming that determines the extent of the vessel?

R. Yes.

S. As much as there’s greater coarseness and it succeeds to the force of the society to become there’s no other force so we can increase the vessel?

R. Yes.

S. The small vessel is small, overcoming means it brings the light of Nefesh and then the vessel with more overcoming brings greater lights?

R. Yes.

S. That’s the trick that Baal HaSulam tells us about in the opposite value of lights and vessels. like from above downward we do this gradual work?

R. Yes.

9. S. (41:38) If I understand correctly then in the reception in the beginning before the restriction the light is refused according to the vessel of desire

R. Yes, the way he created the vessel the vessel thus received.

S. After the restriction the light is received according to the landlord’s desire?

R. After the restriction the vessel receives according to the desire of the host.

S. Then it continues and grows? Why do the vessels before and after the restriction, why are they called by the same names? Because it’s a different desire, here is the desire of the receiver and there’s the desire of the host.

R. He wants to equate his desire with the host desire, what would you do?

S. We simply call them desires.

R. But they equalize, if the host wants to give me a bowl of soup, I also develop a desire for the bowl of soup.

S. Why do I call the desire by the same name that I called it and its original vessel and not in the vessel where it becomes equivalent with the host? Because it makes us desire equivalence to the host, is it not the contrary to the host?

R. We give the vessel desire according to what he wants to receive the vessel for the light of Nefesh the vessel for the light of Ruach, we have no more than that in the wisdom of Kabbalah we only have lights and vessels.

S. I just thought it’s a different vessel because these vessels of the created being and those of the vessels of the Creator, so it’s as if we don’t differentiate between them?

R. If they reach equivalence, that same form, that same reception, that same bestowal, why do we need to name them differently?

10. S. (44:01) Continuing that point I’m not certain that it’s correct to ask this way, but it seems like the plate with the steak in it the Creator first gave me a glass of water?

R. Okay, let’s say that.

S. The created being accepts that with deficiency of the steak for the end of correction, the Creator gives me this glass of water, this light of Nefesh?

R. How do you feel it? How do you feel this desire for steak?

S. The vessel of Keter?

R. The vessel of Keter is not a great big will to receive, the big will to receive is the Malchut specifically, the vessel of Keter is a small vessel that’s an equivalence of form of the Giver that’s why it’s called Keter.

S. There is the light of Yechida that is created together with it which is the greatest light?

The light of Yechida is great because it’s close to the host according to its nature. It’s close to the host but it’s not the greatest light. We can’t feel the inverse relation between lights and vessels.

S. Is the coarseness of the vessel determined by the screen, by the ability to annul towards the Upper One, meaning that if I know completely then I get all the phases and if I just know a little bit then I get for example phase one?

R. Yes, that’s according to the annulment.

S. It determines the coarseness of the screen and all of the levels according to that coarseness?

R. Yes.

11. S. (46:10) He writes that the inverse relation is always before the restriction. It’s also according to the inverse of relation to lights and vessels?

R. Before the restriction no, before the restriction it’s direct law, meaning according to how much you want, that’s how much you will receive and there’s no calculation on the part of the receiver but everything is open and the light fills all of reality according to the need of the vessels.

S. He writes here that first, the upper vessels grow and through the lights they descend to the Partzuf it sounds like a law, what here is inverse?

R. When I go to receive after the restriction not according to my will to receive but rather how much I can bestow to the host through that and I am limited to that to how much I am able to receive. Can I bestow through everything that I receive? It’s a different type of calculation.

S. What is the inverse?

R. That I’m not using my will to receive but only according to how much my will to receive is working in order to bestow.

12. S. (47:50) Malchut feels the entrance of the lights, right? That’s the vessel that feels?

R. Yes, keep going, I can’t answer yet.

S. Who carries out the coupling when striking?

R. Who carries the coupling when striking? The screen.

S. What does it mean that the light of Nefesh enters the vessel of Keter? What does it mean?

R. That the vessel of Keter with coarseness on the degree of Shoresh, [root] receives the smallest light in order to bestow.

S. It says that Malchut deals with the greatest coarseness and it works with the bestowal of the vessel of Keter at the level of Shoresh?

R. You can say that for now, everything is correct.

13. S. (49:07) Those lights that enter within Keter specify the quality of the inferior vessels as if they feel alive like Keter, there is Neshama so they activate the vessel of Bina?

R. Yes, correct.