TUESDAY PRAYER: HESED-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Tuesday.
Lesson on the topic of “All Your Actions Will be for The Sake of the Creator”
Morning Lesson April 23, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
All Your Actions Will be for the Sake of the Creator – Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #4
1. Rav’s Introduction: (00:20) All your actions will be for the sake of the Creator meaning that we have to always aim through all the actions, thoughts and desires that we have in this world towards the Creator so that He will feel that we are aiming everything towards Him, that we are aimed at Him. And all in all we want just one thing, that He will receive what comes out of our heart and connect it, correct it and fill it with His presence. Other than that we have no desires, intentions, actions. What we do is only from the necessity of existence and that’s it, that’s all we have. It’s simple and straightforward, very compact. Let’s see what is written.
Reading Excerpt #4 (02:06) “Why do we need to work for the sake of the Creator..” Twice.
2. R. (06:33) But don’t think that we just need to get rid of the shame and that’s our goal. That’s just a means, it’s a sign of whether we’re in equivalence of form or not. And the matter of shame must always rise and rise in our sensitivity. Some people are ashamed of one gram of the will to receive and some of tons of the will to receive and others don’t even feel that there is a will to receive that activates them. So the shame was given only for us to know in what state we’re in.
3. S. (07:37) If the Creator gets nothing from us working for Him and he doesn’t need that we will work for Him so what does it mean to bestow contentment upon the Creator?
R. It’s a good question. Even a cunning question I would say. The Creator Himself is only a vessel of bestowal, if we can call it a vessel, a will to bestow, a desire to give to the created beings, that’s what He’s got. But in order to bring them to state where they can receive His benefit, when they can feel the pleasure that’s coming from Him, they have to make the vessels for it. Then they can feel what is happening and understand what’s happening in them and thus they grow in recognising the action of bestowal.
4. S. (08:58) I heard you say in the beginning of the lesson that the Creator gets what comes out of our hearts. How can the heart become our heart?
R. We make efforts in getting close to each other. Sometimes we have these inner urges in each and everyone towards the others and the Creator collects these tendencies together and with that He puts together a system of bestowal, a single heart. This is essentially what we build and then we feel in this building Lishma, our spiritual world. This is what we later discover, we begin to discover Him by having between us some participation in the tendency towards each other, that’s how we come to it. We begin to feel the single vessel, the single heart, the place where we are all drawn to Him to being connected, to being together. This place is called Shechina and the Creator is already there and that’s how we discover Him, that’s how we become adhered to Him.
S. What does it mean that we direct our actions, our thoughts, our intentions to the Creator?
R. The general force of bestowal that we can establish between us and depict between us, this is called the Creator to us. Come and see, Bore, that’s the name of the Creator, Bo come, and Re see. And when we come and discover Him then we already understand what it’s about and not before.
S. But I heard you say that we have to direct our actions to Him so He will feel that we are directing them toward Him. So what is the thing we are directing and the Creator feels that we are?
R. We wish to achieve the force of bestowal, equivalence of form meaning to bestow to Him what we think He bestows to us. How can we do it? By each of us coming out of one’s self a little bit and connecting to the ten. From connecting to the ten we can thus calibrate ourselves and get closer to the concept of the Creator. And so from ourselves, from our efforts, from the direction that we have as we aim ourselves towards this single idea, from that we build, we establish Him, we design Him. Like little kids put together something from bricks or sand, that’s how we shape Him and that’s what’s called Bore, come and see. That we make it and it’s not that He exists that way before we shape Him in front of us. Rather there’s only some root, some force that has no relevance to us. We make Him only by making concessions to each other, the friends in the ten and connecting to each other, the friends in the ten. And that is what we are thinking of as already some construction of the Creator. We build Him, we make Him as it is written you have made me.
S. But what does it mean to build him? What does it mean that we build the Creator?
R. From all those tendencies towards bestowal, towards connection, where whatever we can each produce from our heart in connecting to the friends and all together what we shape from all the friends, that’s how we make Him. Meaning the Creator is born if we can say that or emerges from the connection between us.
S. So in building Him we constantly rebuild Him or we build Him and that’s it?
R. Yes and no. We always collect something, add something, accumulate something, yes, or that He deletes what we built and we have to start anew.
S. And the act of building the Creator, are all of us conscious that we’ve built Him or does it all depend on..?
R. It all depends on the participants. Some yes, some no, and each one feels on a different level that he is present in building the Creator and the efforts of the group, yes.
S. So what do each of the participants bring into the building of the Creator?
R. His desire to connect with the others and build the Creator in it.
5. S. (16:37) This desire that is built entirely on the connection between us. Yesterday we really felt it in the ten. Every week when we meet we try to connect and bring that part and yesterday we had a meeting with another ten. Each one understands that in the connection between us sometimes you have to pinch, sometimes you have to add in connection with mercy and be more caressing and it’s not the same like you said. We raise it and then we do it. How do you direct yourself to really do every action in the connection between us in the right direction?
R. Well basically he first needs to feel the friends, what connection they are in and what he can add to the connection or how can he complete the connection. And thus that’s how he advances. I don’t have more to add to this, each one from his efforts as much as he can complement the ten.
6. S. (18:13) What does it mean that the Creator will correct everything that comes out of our hearts? What does it mean that the Creator will correct everything that comes out of our hearts?
R. If we intend to reach the Creator, to reach adhesion with Him through connection between us then we always have a way to move forward. The Creator corrects us, changes us, as if plays with us this way or that way; how we have to feel each other in connection between us and what else do we lack in order to advance toward Him, that’s it.
S. Can we say that this is the meaning of bringing to light the perfection of His deeds?
R. Well, it can be still far from wholeness, from perfection but yes, in order to reach perfection. Perfection is adhesion.
7. S. (19:41) What is the addition of bringing contentment to the Creator?
R. Bringing contentment to Him means that if the Creator is complete bestowal then His goal with the created beings is only one, that they’ll have the same state that He is in. And so all of our actions are such that we’re moving towards Him, towards equivalence with Him.
S. If all our work is to build the vessel, the equivalence with Him, why is it not enough for us to bring contentment to people, to connect, to build a vessel between us? What is the addition of bringing Him specifically contentment?
R. There are many details in this until we connect to that law of bringing contentment to Him. There’s a difference between bringing contentment to the created beings and bringing contentment to the Creator because the Creator includes everything and if we come to actually bringing Him contentment then we are bonded with the general Kli, with the root of all of creation. Whereas when we are working and bringing contentment to the friends, to the created beings, to the group, it’s still incomplete work.
S. Why?
R. The Creator is called the whole which means that still inside each and every person and inside these connections there are additional actions that we can’t detect. And so we’re asking the Creator to clothe all of these holes.
S. So is it something that has to come to begin with or only in the end?
R. No, this happens throughout the entire path but we feel it especially in the end.
S. So if we feel it only the end then why do we need to study it now in the beginning of the way and aim to bring contentment to the Creator from the very beginning?
R. That we have to understand that I have to do whatever I’m capable of and the Creator will finish the job for me.
S. Okay, so I can say this also with respect to love our friends. I have to do whatever I can in connection between us and the Creator will help me love the friends. Why do I also need to bring contentment to Him?
R. It’s not about just leaving the Creator with some part of our work to do, it’s also the kind of attitude towards Him. That in partnership with Him I do the part of the work that I’m able to do, that is up to me especially and He certainly orchestrates and settles everything with His forces. You could put it like this, the final correction or the complete action can come only on the condition that there’s light that is not of ten Sefirot but rather one light, a single light and then everything truly connects to a single vessel.
S. So practically what does it mean to aim to bring him contentment if it’s only revealed in the end?
R. No, you’re bringing contentment to Him in each and every moment.
S. But how?
R. By trying to exist in a society that’s aiming for adhesion with the Creator so that all the actions, even if you make mistakes and it doesn’t matter how, still we’re advancing.
S. This is clear. I mean if bringing contentment is not felt throughout the way but only in the last revelation, the revealing of the vessel?
R. No. Why? No. On the way as we rise from one state to the next we feel that we are ascending in bringing contentment to the Creator.
S. At every stage but when is the matter of bringing contentment revealed?
R. Every stage.
S. So what does it mean to begin with when I only begin to work on building the vessel I have to aim to something that I had no idea what it is, it’s completely disconnected from the feeling?
R. You have to think to begin with, how much you’re capable or incapable it doesn’t matter. You have to think that your goal is to bring contentment to the Creator even if you just say it in words as it’s written.
S. Why?
R. Because by that you’re like a little child that is learning how to speak even though you don’t really know what you’re saying, that’s how it works. You gradually cleanse your vessels until you put them together and you can put together a sentence or a story and that’s how we build, that’s how the system is built.
S. To continue the example of a child, what does the parent get contentment for? From the kids getting along between them. Why is it not enough for the Creator to say connect among yourselves and that will bring me contentment, leave me alone. So why is the instruction to do everything for the sake of Heaven?
R. That means that you’re bringing him contentment?
S. Of course if I connect with my friends by this I bring Him contentment.
R. Why?
S. Because we’re all parts that put together this vessel called the Creator.
R. Okay so you’ve done it but where’s your direction, where’s your relation?
S. So the direction is to bring Him contentment through the connection between us?
R. To begin with. That’s the whole difference between the worker of the Creator and one who’s not.
S. Otherwise what would happen, what’s the danger if I did it only for the sake of love of friends?
R. You wouldn’t get anything out of it, nothing would work because you can’t build a relationship between people if it doesn’t ultimately aim at the Creator; it doesn’t follow the entire order of creation and you won’t be able to do it.
8. S. (28:17) Is it correct that bestowing in order to bestow is love of friends and receiving in order to bestow is love of the Creator?
R. Well let’s say, it’s not exactly like that but let’s say it’s so.
9. S. (28:47) Concerning shame, Baal HaSulam writes that it is its own creation. You also emphasized that we must not lose this means that we have, it’s very powerful. In the work between us and in general in reality I see that this feeling disappeared. There’s this ruthless desire to receive and here too I feel it. We’re not ashamed. It’s as if we have awareness, we know we are proficient. There are collisions between friends and perhaps we do something. For example if there’s a situation between me and a friend I can simply somehow shut off or annul but still I’m not ashamed and he’s not ashamed. So what does it mean to be ashamed before a friend or the other way around?
R. For now we are ashamed of other people finding out that we are egoists, that we don’t know, that we don’t understand, that’s for now. But ultimately we have to be ashamed of not sufficiently helping the friends, supporting the friends. That’s the only shame we should have.
10. S. (30:42) It says here that they should work only for the sake of the Creator and from this there will be benefit for the created beings. How before we begin to work on connection for the sake of the created beings can we place this goal of benefit to the Creator at the top of our engagement?
R. This is how a person should speak in the group and prepare the group and prepare himself so that everything they want to do will be for the sake of the Creator. This has to be the preparation.
S. We do many things, we have many gatherings. How do we make it not only words but really in our bones, in the essence, at the basis of everything we do?
R. It depends on how consistent we try to be in that and come back to that and demand it from ourselves and from the entire group. Because the success depends on whether it comes from the heart of the group, from the heart of the ten.
S. How can I demand this from the group, from the friends? It’s only in understanding, something you can’t see.
R. That depends on mutually influencing each other with our friends. If there is no choice and we want to reach the purpose of life then we can’t be shy here or stop ourselves but really try to be as one man with one heart. That’s very important. By that each one can cover for the other and complete the others and the Creator’s attitude towards the person or towards the group is a completely different attitude.
11. S. (33:27) When does a person awaken to the Creator by himself and not out of suffering or emptiness but a genuine awakening toward the Creator?
R. It’s not truthful, it’s just awakening, the Creator awakens him.
S. And when does it come from the person himself?
R. Never.
S. It will always be recognition of evil, revelation of evil and then connection with the friends?
R. Not necessarily this way but nothing can come out of the person that’s just the evil inclination.
12. S. (34:12) What are we building between us? Can we say that these are channels of connection that the Creator builds?
R. Yes.
13. S. (34:31) It turns out that the goal of life is to connect between us for the sake of the Creator, bringing Him contentment. And the Creator doesn’t need it, He doesn’t get anything out of it?
R. I wouldn’t say that He doesn’t need it or doesn’t receive anything from it, that’s also incorrect but it’s not that He has a deficiency for that. He has a deficiency that the created beings will come closer to Him and adhere to Him, that’s His deficiency. But it’s not a deficiency in the sense that we have a deficiency, like what was created in us because He doesn’t lack anything. It’s in order to bestow, it’s a deficiency of bestowal and not of reception.
S. It seems like with the wisdom of Kabbalah the deeper you go it cuts off where you get the benefit. It’s not here, not here, not here. It is eliminating it if you think you are doing it for something and then you realize no, it’s not here. You end up being in a vacuum. Why does it feel like this is the secret to spirituality, that in the end you understand that you’re not doing it for anything?
R. When you’ll find what is truth and what is the quality of the Creator and wish to adhere to it. That’s it, that’s what you discover.
S. It’s a reality without any triumph or profit or benefit, it’s a completely different reality.
R. That is actually the benefit, it’s the greatest benefit, it’s eternal benefit. As it is said the purpose of knowing is that we won’t know. This means that a person is incapable of revealing this but ultimately he does, he reveals Ein Sof, infinity. We don’t have the vessels for this, that’s why we can’t speak or think in this direction.
S. But sometimes you do get. I remember in the beginning of the way and throughout the years sometimes you have these tiny moments when you feel that wait a minute, I don’t know what’s ahead of me but this is something really different and great and opposite.
R. Yes.
S. So these are just..?
R. Milestones.
14. S. (37:43) Can we say that bringing contentment to the Creator is the revelation of the Creator to His created beings, is this bringing contentment?
R. Revealing the Creator to His created beings is the topic of all of the wisdom of Kabbalah, of all of our efforts.
S. Is it not the intention to bring contentment to the Creator?
R. No, the intention is the means.
S. Yes but the goal is to reach contentment to the Creator. So the doing is to help the created beings reveal Him.
R. Have it this way.
R. No, enough. Take a notebook, write down all your questions and afterwards check in six months what you got out of it, what answers you have. That’s what you do, okay.
Reading Excerpt #5 (39:01) “When a person wishes to walk on the path of truth,..”
15. S. (42:34) What does it mean that it doesn’t matter to me what state I’m in but that the main thing is to toil and pray?
R. Because from every state I have to come to bringing contentment to the Creator. So with respect to the state itself I have no criticism, this is how I got it from above and I have to continue my relation from below upward.
16. S. (43:18) What does the amount of shame depend on? How can I make shame more sensitive?
R. Well this develops in a person gradually and also takes on different characteristics; from what is the shame, how he’s ashamed in relation to what etcetera. But it goes along with all of man’s development.
17. S. (44:06) [No translation]
R. For the sake of the Creator means that I try to do for all the created beings together because I have nothing to give to the Creator but the fact that He created beings in order to do good to them, it’s as if He gave us a possibility to love and to do good to all the created beings and we need to do it. That’s the way it is.
S. [No translation]
R. The Creator does everything for his sake.
18. S. (45:30) About shame, so we know that basically every step we take, every moment, everything we say to not be ashamed. Maybe we don’t pay attention to it, not conscious of it but it’s so that our honor won’t be hurt. My question is: how is it possible to change this shame in the direction of the will to bestow that I will be ashamed of being far from the Creator?
R. We spoke many times about how shame becomes honor through people’s actions. Yes, check in the previous lessons.
19.S. (46:42) What is the difference between love and connection? If we don’t have love how can we maybe work with our honor and annulling our honor?
R. There are degrees in connection and the highest degree of all is called love. Before that it is different levels of connection and in different conditions.
20. S. (47:41) Why has the Creator created us as rebels? Why is it so hard to accept what the Creator gives to me and bow my head? I feel that it is not hard but impossible to agree. I would have created it much differently. What is this state?
R. You are right, it is impossible but it’s done in such a way, specifically so that through it we would find what is the evil inclination in us and what we can do in order to change it into the good inclination.
21. S. (48:48) It’s about the quality of being merciful. “You will be merciful, as I am merciful.” What is this quality and how to attain it without any personal calculations?
R. It is really about changing our nature from receiving to bestowing and this is what the wisdom of Kabbalah places before us as the goal, the goal of creation, the goal of correction, the goal of our life.
22. S. (49:56) It said in the end that the test, if I bring contentment to the Creator, is that whatever state I am in I see that I am happy or pleased?
R. The fact that I am controlled by the Creator, so it doesn’t matter what manner of control I feel on myself, if it is His control, I am satisfied.
S. A person who’s always pleased then what is he asking for?
R. It’s not right, he’s not incorporated in the group, he doesn’t understand his life, he is not connected to the purpose of life if he doesn’t have any deficiencies whatsoever. He has to discover what more he needs to do in order to achieve completion.
23. S. (51:25) Baal HaSulam says we have to pray from the entire heart but what heart is he talking about? My egoistic heart or the heart of the ten, how can I reach a state where I pray from the bottom of the heart?
R. The heart is the person’s will to receive to the extent that a person knows, recognizes the inside of his heart then he can direct it more correctly toward the Creator.
24. S. (52:23) You said before that the Creator doesn’t exist and we build Him. Then you said that the Creator completes what we begin to build. But when the Creator completes the person discovers that the Creator setup everything to begin with?
R. Put it this way, it is not like a person discovers it so easily but put it this way, so in the end of course a person discovers that the Creator does everything but a person must each time agree with what the Creator does. In other words reveal what the Creator does and even repeat the same actions and agree with them and be thankful.
25.S. (53:45) It says that we have to trust the Creator that the Creator will receive his prayer. What does it mean?
R. Trusting that the Creator will receive or accept my prayer is because without it I won’t be able to turn to Him with my prayer. I have to be certain that He hears every single prayer, every single desire. The Creator wants to direct it and even if he doesn’t want to direct it towards the Creator, the Creator still accepts because we are inside the Creator and whatever happens in us comes to Him. The question is: are we adding to it our own desire?
26. S. (54:55) If the Creator knows what to give and what not to give, what’s the goal of prayer and request?
R. How a person relates to it. To what extent he is adhered to the Creator or not.
27. S. (55:15) What does it mean that the Creator will help you the way that He understands and not the way that the person understands?
R. The Creator always advances us towards the purpose of creation but there’s a difference if we want to advance towards it or if He advances us against our will, that’s the difference, that’s the difference between the path of Torah and the path of suffering.
28. S. (55:47) So if we feel empty and we lack joy and we struggle for connection, the Creator is still happy with our efforts?
R. Yes, yes, happy nonetheless. Anything but leave, anything but disconnection but if we are in the system, the Creator is happy with us, He is content with us.
29. S. (56:14) How do I receive this state, accept this state and turn to the Creator?
R. Connect your desire to the desire of the friends and with the common desire turn to the Creator.
30. S. (56:30) Is it enough to always think how to bring contentment to the Creator both in the ten and in life?
R. Yes, yes.
31. S. (56:45) What’s the difference between thinking that I bring contentment to the Creator and actually bringing contentment to the Creator?
R. Even when you think that you want to do it for Him that too is an act.
32. S. (57:06) What is this action of equivalence of form with the Creator? How does a person achieve that?
R. It is when they have one intention, one goal and then they operate in the same direction.
33. S. (57:28) Bestowing is fulfilling the friend’s desire or lack, if the Creator does not have a lack how can you bestow to Him?
R. The Creator does have a deficiency, He wants to bestow upon the created beings, to fill them to love them. This is His quality, His only quality, love out of which He operates and therefore, we need to not forget it and with this same quality to try to approach Him, to come closer to Him.
34. S. (58:18) Do we know at a certain stage the Creator receives our prayer or it’s always about faith above reason and we believe the Creator hears it?
R. In the beginning you can call it faith but afterwards we discover that we can pray to Him and be in connection.
Reading Item #6 twice (58:50) “We should know that when..”
35. S. (01:02:04) What is the Kedusha escapes the person, what is that?
R. When a person wants to approach the Creator, come closer to the Creator and feel himself in connection with spirituality and he sees that it is to the contrary, he’s completely unable; everything gets colder and disappears from the senses, from the feelings.
S. So the light disappears in that time but with the Kedusha escapes the person?
R. Yes, if he had some feeling of connection with spirituality now he doesn’t.
S. What is the difference between that state and the state where he tries to blemish the Kedusha as he writes?
R. This is already from his perspective, on his part it is an active action and there it is a passive action, where he sees that what he had, the connection he had with Kedusha moves away, gets colder, disappears.
S. So it follows here that man is never the operator, he’s always the operated one?
R. No, it turns out from this part that no matter what, we have to constantly keep the holiness, the Kedusha so it fills you as much as possible, so you will not let it run away but only increase it.
S. And how do I do it if the Kedusha already escaped me and I have darkness?
R. Prayer, connection with the friends, what else do you have? Only two things.
36. S. (01:04:00) But it feels like a great gift when you have this connection to the Creator, when you feel that there is an escape, that you’re trying to escape so how do you hold on here, what is the overcoming he mentions here?
R. Try, try, overcoming. You search in what way you can, return to a tighter connection with the Creator.
37. S. (01:04:34) Why does the Kedusha escape the person?
R. In order to pull the person after it, it is a flirt, that is what the Creator does.
S. But it is difficult, there are times when it’s difficult to reach the state where a person is not in Kedusha and he really is, in that he has no feeling of it, so he’s kind of on a loop and he doesn’t know how to come out of it?
R. Yes, but still don’t think that you are running the process. It is the Creator who organizes it in this way in order to teach you and connect you to the process you will have to go through, so it is all for your sake.
S. And this also is a question, that you said that it is not in my hands, that it is what comes from above, and so how can I believe or feel that it really comes from above and because okay, even if it comes from above, at the end of the day I behave as I am managing these things: how do you change this?
R. So here there already has to be a system of connection with the society, in the society, so they don’t let you or anyone in the society, in the ten, a way to think that the connection with the Creator disappears altogether because you are still in Him. And no matter what, the Creator is always with you and it is always Him who is, who is running it.
38. S. (01:06:55) What does it mean that he wants to blemish the Kedusha? How can he blemish the Kedusha? What does it mean?
R. How is one question but how does he want? Such states come when he does want to go explicitly against the Creator.
S. What does it mean? What does he want to do to the Creator?
R. He wants the Creator to do what he wants, what the person wants.
Reading Item #7 twice (01:07:45) “On the intention, there is prayer..”