TUESDAY PRAYER: KETER-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN

READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Tuesday.

Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]

Morning Lesson May 21, 2023

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

Part 1:

Baal HaSulam. Matan Torah [The Giving of the Torah]. #13

1. Rav’s Introduction: (00:33) Let us read.

Reading 13. (00:40)

2. S. (06:28) He begins this item saying that there are two parts in the Torah, commandments between man and the Creator and commandments between man and man. What are commandments between man and the Creator?

R. That’s in respect to the Creator; what we understand that we have to do in order to get closer to Him, bring Him contentment and carry out His will.

S. This is in order to get closer to Him but what are the commandments we do in order to get closer to Him which are called commandments between man and the Creator which are different from the commandments between man and man? What are the differences in the commandments?

R. For whom am I doing, to whom am I directed, towards the created beings or to the Creator?

S. So commandments between man and the Creator and commandments between man and man. Then in the next paragraph this is because they both aim to the same thing, to bring the created being to the final goal of adhesion with Him. So I do not understand what are those two parts that are aimed to bring me to adhesion with the Creator. Commandments between man and the friend in order to bring me in adhesion to the Creator I understand, it’s all the work we are learning to do between us, between the friends in order to achieve adhesion with the Creator. This is what I understand. What I don’t understand is what are the commandments between a person and the Creator?

R. That all you do is to bring contentment to the Creator. Meaning these Mitzvot that you do for the friends too, you’re doing them to bring contentment to the Creator, that’s it.

S. There are two different kinds of commandments, one is between a person and his friend and the second is between a person and the Creator.

R. Yes.

S. What is the commandment between a person and the friend?

R. That I have to bring the friend closer or get closer to him until we become “as one man with one heart.”

S. Why, with what intention?

R. To rise above our ego and connect above the general ego.

S. And to adhere to the Creator, become similar to the Creator?

R. That’s the step to cling to the Creator.

S. So everything we said now is the commandment between a person and a person to adhere to the Creator. Now there’s another thing, commandments between a person and the Creator. What is that?

R. To adhere to the Creator and discover that the whole purpose of creation is to return to Him in full adhesion.

S. So what do we do for this, what is the action?

R. That we are all already bonded with each other “as one man with one heart,” we are together making an effort to adhere to the Creator Himself.

S. So these are two actions on the same axis. I act toward the friends in order to adhere together with them with the Creator. So the first part is called between a friend and a friend and the second is between the person and the Creator?

R. Yes but ultimately the intention is the same; is one. To achieve adhesion between us and with the Creator.

3. R. (11:36) Okay, this is difficult to ask about, it’s difficult to discuss because it’s a very unique thing. So, let’s read and see a few more words there that can help us discuss it.

4. S. (11:56) How do we stop without working without reward and punishment and just start working unconditionally for Him?

R. Reward and punishment don’t stop, we can’t ignore them until we receive a unique correction where we replace the corporeal reward and punishment which is egoistic to spiritual reward and punishment where only doing good to others is our reward. From there we make even another step forward, which is doing good to the Creator and that’s the reward but without reward we can’t work, I always have to examine myself towards something.

5. S. (13:04) Yesterday we learned that the preparation for the reception of the Torah is the revelation of the evil inclination which is the vessel for revealing the Torah. Does it help toward the lesson to awaken internally the recognition of the evil, the need for the Creator so we have a vessel to receive the light during the lesson?

R. We have to awaken the recognition of evil because it does help us make steps forward towards love of others and from love of others to the love of the Creator where that is already beyond all limitations.

6. S. (13:56) What does it mean in the excerpts we read now that it’s empty and completely unreal?

R. What is this about?

S. Because it is a natural law for anything outside one’s own body to be completely empty and unreal.

R. So we have to reach through our efforts and exercises to a state where everything that we do we feel that if we do it for the sake of others, then we fulfil the others and in that, we feel that we are fulfilling our own vessels. That we are so incorporated with the others that fulfilling the others or fulfilling myself is the same and from there we already, later come to the Creator. So it’s impossible to have love of the Creator before love of others. After I feel that I fulfil the others, then I can already arrive at fulfilling the Creator but otherwise I have no contact with Him.

7. S. (16:02) There is a scrutiny concerning the rent: therefore such actions cannot be called love of others because they are just by their end like rent that is paid off only at the end, nevertheless the renting is not regarded as love of others. So what is renting?

R. That by the actions between us we learn how it’s possible to begin discovering and feeling and getting closer to the Creator and to bring Him contentment from working between us. Therefore, all of these actions between us they’re like rent, they’re like a preparation, a preparation to bestow to the Creator.

8. S. (17:17) You said we have to awaken the recognition of evil because that helps us move forward. How do we awaken the recognition of evil correctly in the ten?

R. That I check myself, how truly do I relate to each and every friend in the ten as close and I try to maintain equal relation to all of them.

9. S. (18:01) Why is there a need to love the other in order to love the Creator?

R. That’s the first stage to come out of oneself so that we can inspect, see and feel how we are exiting ourselves towards the others or not. I have to be certain here that I prefer the others over myself, that’s how we come closer to truly loving the others. And then through these others we expand this concept all the way to the Creator. As we get closer to this, both toward the friends and towards the Creator, we need to reach a state where we don’t feel a difference between loving ourselves and loving the friends; loving friends and loving the Creator, it all becomes one.

10. S. (19:45) Is there such a Mitzva which is only between a person and the Creator that does not contain or include a friend anywhere in it?

R. All of the Mitzvot we discover towards the Creator necessarily go through the friends, by necessity.

S. That’s exactly what confuses us. We understand that there’s me, there’s the friend, and there are the commandments. Baal HaSulam explained a great deal, that there’s no difference between exiting one’s body toward the friend or toward the Creator. Now it says that between the person and the Creator, as if something that is unrelated to the friend, so that confused us.

R. I understand the difficulty in grasping these things because they’re still not in our emotion and this is why we can’t examine them with our mind. We don’t have it within us or in front of us so this is why it is still difficult and confusing.

11. S. (21:20) A commandment between man and the friend, I have to bring that friend closer and move toward the friend. In our work in the ten, if I see something in the friend, I know that it’s in me and I ask for correction for it. I draw the reforming light. He says that here, this action is in the end for myself, there is no action here, no commandment toward the friend. Why?

R. When you do something for the sake of the friend then you think that you’re doing it for him and you don’t imagine or feel that you are actually together in a single body. Your will to receive only separates between the two of you in order to give you an opportunity to correct yourself so that there are really no two here but just one. There’s one body of Adam HaRishon that we all belong to and we are completely incorporated with it. And so what we have to understand bit by bit is that we’re coming closer to a state where to me the others and myself become “as one man with one heart.”

S. But if I too begin with, come with a real intention that I am doing this in order to bring the friend closer to me and for me to move closer to the Creator, to bring contentment to the Creator and we’ll all truly be as one. So why is this not regarded as a commandment between a person and his friend?

R. Because what you see and what seems to you, it is not real yet, you’re incapable of doing it.

S. This is why I’m asking the Creator for help to correct me, I can’t do it alone, that’s obvious. But why in the end, the very fact that I’m turning to Him, so He will bring us closer, so He would correct me in order to bring the friends closer, why is this not a commandment?

R. Because it’s just words and bit by bit, to the extent that we make actions to get closer to each other, then these words become actions. In the meantime, it’s just words.

12. S. (24:31) When the person comes from love of others to the love of the Creator and then he comes to love the Creator in order to love others and it repeats itself through the degrees..?

R. In baby steps, you understand so that could be correct but basically we have to try to see these two things together in front of us all the time, from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator. So the goal is the love of the Creator and the means to achieve that is the love of the created beings.

S. [no translation]

R. That’s how it goes from one degree to the next degree.

13. R. (26:07) I see that these things are still vague and not sufficiently clear, not in the feeling and not in the understanding so we’ll have to keep working on them.

14. S. (26:30) How does it happen in a person that he feels and understands within him that there are four stages of correction of the soul: emerging from self love, entering to love others, to the love of people, from the love of people to the love of the Creator and all this through the reforming light. How does it happen?

R. This happens by studying and by practical work, in action in the group.

15. S. (27:20) How do we come to the general necessity for correction, the Torah is a method of correction.

R. The general urgency for correction, we begin to feel after we are immersed in the work in a serious way together. Then between us we begin to feel this field of desire to connect between us and get closer to the Creator and so forth.

S. Because those who succeed in correcting themselves are only a chosen few, who really came to feel such a complete deficiency, so as to truly emerge from their nature. But here in the first stage of receiving the Torah there was a thin coarseness on the occasion of the reception of the Torah. The coarseness was not like today, so they succeeded in uniting and came to this necessity and they received the Torah but it’s a prolonged process. Here it’s a continuing process so I’m asking how a person can want to be corrected or that here will be your burial place. You understand this situation, either I’m dead or I received the Torah. It’s like we all have to put ourselves to death in our feelings and that necessity has to be together.

R. I don’t know what to answer you because clearly a person has to feel in himself that if he doesn’t attain the truth then he’s dead but the question is: what does it mean to him to be dead or alive? We still don’t truly feel these two degrees very well and we’re not so afraid about and care about that so we’ll see. We have another week where we’re going to try to reach a feeling and an understanding that is deeper.

S. I’ll tell you because it’s the same question asked before, it shocked me because we all come to a state. Each of us was given a certain amount of time, a quota of time to achieve this. How do we not waste these moments?

R. If you incorporate with the friends and you want to help them and be with them then time is not really pressuring you and scaring you because you’re with them and in this. So first we have to be so interconnected that we only think about the collective desire, the collective understanding and feeling; and that’s what is important for us and not each one individually.

16. S. (31:58) He makes a distinction here between work for the friends which doesn’t bring you outside of nature and work with your friends that does bring you outside of nature and brings you to adhesion with the Creator. What distinguishes between work for the sake of others that doesn’t bring you to a new nature and work that does?

R. Connection simply, the connection that exists in a group that begins to be shaped. That people know each other, get closer to each other and study together but they still don’t have a very clear goal or stages of attaining the goal but that’s how you can understand it. And then when they enter connection between them they see that they have to truly be as one and in that one they begin to discover their root, the Creator. We will learn what’s next and we’ll see what to do based on that.

Reading 14. Twice (33:48)

17. S. (38:51) It is written that in the work between man and the Creator there is habit and between man and his friend it’s not fixed. There’s a feeling in the ten many times that the actions we do between us already become a kind of habit, so how do we create between the friends constant renewal so that it doesn’t become a habit?

R. If you don’t completely change then there are no changes but if you do change and your people you’re changing every time, then there are constant changes between you in the relationships between you. If you want to come closer to each other and be a little more “as one man with one heart” then your work is in constant change and it teaches you about all the manners of connection that exist between you. Therefore, precisely through such work between the friends you come to advance toward connection with the Creator.

S. Externally should we always make changes or it’s not necessary?

R. No. You yourselves feel that you are changing all the time and that will compel you to make changes in the connection between you too. If however there are no changes between you and you don’t feel that you are in this dynamic, that you don’t have this dynamic of changes between you then it’s a problem because then how will you advance, how will you constantly establish changes of connection between you more and more?

S. You said many times that even if the state seems constant and the same there are always changes. So maybe sometimes even if we don’t see changes there are changes?

R. But it’s all from the perspective of the person. If there is something out there, I don’t know what we have to detect between us constant changes and try on top of these changes to constantly establish good, new relationships, to tie ourselves up together.

S. If we don’t feel a change it should concern us?

R. Yes, of course. Look if there were no changes in the people of Israel then what would you write in the Torah? What would they convey, how would they advance?

18. S. (43:00) I wanted to ask for help in clarifying the issue of habit as opposed to working with changes. I think I heard from you in the past that in the habit itself there is pleasure so is it the issue that there’s a concern that if I work out of habit then I’m basically trying to draw pleasures into myself?

R. If the habit is pleasurable and you’re drawing a habit, then you’re drawing a pleasure.

S. This is exactly the question. If we feel there is habit in the work we should be concerned that the work might not be clean?

R. Yes.

19. S. (44:02) He writes here that a person bestows either to others or to the Creator and then he feels emptiness, he doesn’t feel taste in that. Then, by great effort he comes to the adhesion, to the second nature. So the person who does achieve adhesion feels taste? What’s the connection between adhesion and taste? Can we reach adhesion without taste? Why does there have to be a connection?

R. When a person is in adhesion with another person and everything he feels, he feels what is in the other and what is in him, then out of those two feelings he feels the Creator, he already feels something of the Creator. The more he broadens, expands his connection with the environment then the sensation of the Creator in the connection between them is stronger, becomes stronger and becomes more solid. This is all of our work, all of our advancement.

S. He writes any action towards the others feels empty, without any flavor.

R. If it’s just an act for another then yes, but if it’s an act for another in order to approach the Creator, then he already feels these actions as spiritual actions.

S. To be in adhesion a person needs to feel taste in that action of bestowal or there’s no connection, or you can be in adhesion and not feel taste in the action of bestowal?

R. In order to be in adhesion a person needs to feel the friends, to feel the Creator, feel the connection between them and to know by what he maintains the connection.

S. It’s clear, I’m asking about the emptiness and the taste. Can you be in adhesion and still feel emptiness like he writes here or there has to be a taste?

R. Is it possible to be an adhesion and feel emptiness?

S. He writes here that action toward the others, that brings you emptiness, he feels empty.

R. No, if he feels in adhesion, that’s impossible.

S. Impossible, so he has to feel taste, pleasure in that action?

R. Yes, adhesion has to give him the taste.

S. So taste is a measurement?

R. Yes. It’s difficult today. These things we learned, we didn’t learn, we fall between them, we want to scrutinize but still can’t, it’s good. It is good.

20. S. (47:57) Baal HaSulam writes here that one doesn’t feel any difference between the two parts of the Torah because until he completes himself with respect to others and the Creator.

R. I did not understand what you’re saying.

S. Baal HaSulam writes that we see with regards to the Torah and Mitzvot Lishma even in terms of the practical part of the Torah, one feels no difference between them because until he completes himself in the love of others, whether it’s others or the Creator, it’s felt as empty and not tasteless. So is it one and the same, these two parts?

R. He doesn’t feel a difference, this is what he’s telling you. If you give to the Creator or you give to another from bestowal you get no fulfilment, no satisfaction.

S. So the study of Torah for him, for the others or for the Creator is basically on the same line. I just don’t understand why are there two parts of the Torah, how can there be two parts?

R. We will study this.

21. S. (49:32) This state that we’re trying to scrutinize it’s impossible to ignore the fact that all the actions we do feel empty just as he writes. He writes that these actions of Mitzvot we do in the degree between man and his friend and man towards the Creator. We exert and we ultimately feel emptiness. But he gives hope here, he says that by great effort he gradually rises to a second nature. Meaning until I complete this matter of great effort toward love of others then I don’t have a second nature. What’s the great effort?

R. That you’re trying to find pleasure in giving.

S. To whom?

R. To the friends and then to the Creator.

S. So the exertion toward the friends, I have to feel pleasure in that?

R. Yes, why not?

S. But then it will ultimately be for myself if I do it to feel pleasure. I do it for myself and not for the friend.

R. Again, I didn’t understand.

S. If I love my friends and in respect to my love of friends I’m serving them and I feel pleasure. Then the action I do for them is to feel pleasure because this is my fulfilment, the pleasure. So I still do it in order to move to the next stage but I have to complete this action of really doing for them, for the benefit of the love of friends. But if the result of all of these actions is to bring me pleasure then I stay in the same place.

R. Correct.

S. So what to do, how to feel this great labor?

R. It’s exactly by this that the great labor comes. We want to come to a state where how we relate to the friends will be not through our egoistic desire but through the desire to bestow.

S. How will I annul my egoistic desires because that is the only thing that ever drives me?

R. That’s what he’s explaining to you.

S. So this is what we should really ask for, only for my egoistic desire to be nullified?

R. Of course, besides this we don’t need anything else.

22. S. (52:42) What has to be clear is the Mitzvot between man and his friend. They demand from him, around him, in everywhere he turns. Is that the friends themselves?

R. I did not hear.

S. The Mitzvot between man and his friend is not fixed and the demand surrounds him wherever he turns.

R. Yes, because he encounters it every moment.

S. Who demands and surrounds him?

R. His friends.

S. So towards them I can recognize whether actions are good or not?

R. Yes.

23. S. (53:44) In what way the Creator is fixed and specific?

R. In that He is good and does good.

24. S. (54:00) It’s still not clear what is the difference between Mitzvot between man and man and Mitzvot between man and the Creator.

R. That difference is on the face of it. Superficially or externally there is hardly any difference. There is no difference between bestowing upon a person or bestowing upon the Creator except that to the Creator you can’t bestow anything because He has no deficiencies. Therefore we can’t bestow upon the Creator, only by bestowal upon people and by them we aim for the Creator.

25. S. (55:02) Working in practise and towards the Creator does that also happen in order..?

R. Speak more clearly.

S. Working in the practice and in potential towards the Creator it also happens in order, from love of the created beings we come to love of the Creator?

R. From the love of people we come to love the Creator. Yes? We learned this in the beginning from the first commandment, from the love of people to the love of the Creator. Please? Nothing. I see that the topic is quite vague, not so understood and not so exciting. It doesn’t give you a lot of joy, it’s really felt.

26. S. (56:23) It is inspiring and relevant, it’s just hard to ask because it’s slippery.

R. So you should ask some more.

S. I say I want to connect to my friend because I’m told that in the action of caring for my friend I come out of myself and I’ll benefit from that.

R. So?

S. Instead of being immersed in self love where we feel there’s no more taste, the advice is to connect to my friend, connect to the ten, we’ll get a greater pleasure there.

R. Yes?

S. So it’s a kind of Mitzva between man and his friend, I connect in order to come out of myself. Is that “as one man with one heart?”

R. No it’s completely not because here you have an egoistic goal only. I want to connect to my friend because there I will find greater pleasures, so this is like going to make a profit with him in some business.

S. So what are the Mitzvot between man and his friend which are not transactional, business?

R. That you help a friend in order to help him reach his goal.

S. But why would I do that?

R. Because through that you become similar to the Creator, you come closer to Him and you rise above the human level.

S. Okay, so this action is between man and his friend?

R. Yes?

S. Where does the Creator enter the picture in the context of this holiday when he gives us the Torah? So between us it’s somehow clear but when you involve the Mitzvot between man and the place, the Creator, that becomes less understood.

R. There is the Creator and there is a created being and in order to bring the created being to the level of the Creator and for it to feel that he is reaching the degree of the Creator, the Creator created it in the opposite form to Himself and gave it the created being, an opportunity to change itself, a change, a chance to change its own nature, to change his behavior and everything to acquire new vessels, different vessels in order to be like the Creator, to raise the created being to the level of the Creator. What happens next in order to bring the person to that level? We have to start, the first of all lifting him, pulling him out of the nature, out of the nature he was born in, which is the evil inclination in which a person wants only to respond to anything he sees and feels in his reality, that he is only searching, how to benefit himself every single moment.

And this is how he lives, and by this he becomes more and more solid, meaning from day to day he becomes more egoistic, worse, more solid in his own ego, until he begins to feel that by this, he each day, instead of profiting which he thought he would before, he is losing, and his nature, specifically his egoistic nature is what disrupts him. What should he do? He cannot get out of that nature. So the Creator brings him a method, you can change your nature from the nature of reception to the nature of bestowal and the nature of bestowal is where I live, where I am, do you want to be like Me?- by all means. So there is a matter of instead of hating others, you need to love others and this will gradually bring you closeness to others, connection with others and then instead of hatred there will be love. This is basically what we try to understand and somehow do. Thus far, is it clear? Clear.

27. S. (01:03:17) So in my effort to love someone outside of me, that effort will bring him to be closer to me and then I will feel that I love this action of bestowing to him and I get pleasure from it because it’s already a part of me?

R. No, so?

S. So is that the part that we are talking about, that love of others doesn’t really exist for me? I will feel, taste in that and enjoy that only if I feel that the friend is part of me, so our effort, when we make the effort the friend is not a part of me yet and then there is no pleasure in that and the pleasure begins only when I feel that he is a part of me? This action is the Mitzvot between man and his friend that he connects to the friend and they become one?

R. It connects between them but what is the goal?

S. That’s the question, but if I’m able to do this action did I not already use the right intention? How can I reach connection with a friend and this feeling that he’s a part of me if I haven’t used the intention that I want to reach the Creator because the person has no strength to do this action unless he has a goal to bring contentment to the Creator or somehow become equal to the Creator. So on his own he can’t do this action of loving the friend without an additional cause, so I understand that in coming to the feeling of being one with the friend, it already contains the goal and the aim because otherwise I wouldn’t reach it. So again this state we come to when we feel that we are one with the friend these are the Mitzvot between man and man?

R. Yes. I want to do good to a person according to the Creator’s will, according to the Creator’s will and this is called loving Him.

S. Baal HaSulam writes in a different place, when a person completes loving others at the final point he already reached the level of love of the Creator if I understand it correctly. So I raise the question again: so what are the Mitzvot between man and the Creator because in completing that state of loving others, love of friends there is no other action or there is, what are the Mitzvot between man and the Creator that also have to take place?

R. I come to Mitzvot between a person and his friend and out of this I come to Mitzvot between the person and the Creator.

S. So if I’ve reached the state of “one man with one heart” with a friend or with the ten, now what does it mean that I also have the Mitzvot between man and the Creator now?

R. Now we can all unite, so much so that we will raise the Creator above ourselves, that is it.

S. And it’s because we also say “from love of the created beings to the love of the Creator?”

R. Yes.

S. So it turns out that we tried to understand what it means between man and the Creator but it is just irrelevant to us. We first have to connect and only as the ten or the other, so together we can understand what are the Mitzvot between men and the Creator, until then there’s nothing to talk about.

R. Yes.

S. This is the state of when we connect “as one man in one heart” will begin to receive the Torah and work with the Creator?

R. Yes.

28. S. (01:08:08) If a person is in the group, he’s talking about the state before the barrier. A person is egoistic, people enjoy disseminating, people enjoy studying, other people enjoy doing actions in the group, and that taste of course is an egoistic fuel. Is it worthwhile to look for actions where I don’t feel any taste? And then it could be because that taste essentially doesn’t let me advance because it’s egoistic?

R. And how do you depict to yourself a situation where you do advance?

S. Like he writes that I feel emptiness?

R. And then what?

S. And then I still make an effort and I am at least bribed and then the Creator’s help, I guess. Because if there is fuel, clearly my ego is involved, so my question is: is it worthwhile to look for like, for instance, I like studying, so another person likes or really dislikes doing actions of giving or just to flow with what I like?

R. No, if you go only with what you like you will never get out of it. You still have to try to become similar to the Creator each time and this is by getting closer to the friends, so each and every day you will have a specific goal to come closer and closer to the friends.

S. So to look for actions where I feel no taste?

R. No, not with or without taste but with connections, increase the connection between you.

S. Yes but this is a general term, in connection there are many, many actions, some of which there is, contain, give you a taste and others don’t, so should I look for actions where there is, where I find taste, where I don’t?

R. I would say both.

S. Because it’s impossible without any taste?

R. Of course.

S. You have to live from something?

R. In our situation, that’s still the way it is.

29. S. (01:11:00) To make Moshe’s question even more precise: in actions that we’re doing, we should look for what would bring the friend joy, what brings the friend a sense of taste?

R. No, the friend might feel flavors in all kinds of forms that are inappropriate.

S. No, the scrutiny is to look for the actions done towards the friend that prevent him, hinder him from moving towards our common goal, not to say his egoistic needs but his egoistic needs towards the goal. So I’m not looking for my pleasure, I’m looking for pleasure of the friends and actions towards them?

R. Yes, that is what Rabash writes in his articles.

30. S. (01:12:02) What to do in a state where some of the friends feel the topic is vague and uninspiring and so forth?

R. It’s natural and we also see it in the reception of the Torah, that there are those who were running to receive the Torah and those who stood from a far, and they also change places. One day I’m like this, and one day I’m like that. And it’s good and it is correct, this is how the vessel becomes incorporated. It happens to each and everyone.

S. How to awaken each other in such a state, those who are running forward towards the reception of the Torah, how can they attract those on the sidelines and vice versa?

R. We have mutual responsibility. We have activities toward adhesion, we have all kinds of exercises that we have to do. We must not neglect this.

S. So what can we do for instance?

R. Do all kinds of exercises where you awaken the friends to be obligated to connect to others and in this way everyone will participate, everyone will participate, there is no choice. I, too, feel on myself besides my regular problems. Yes and all of that is for the best.

31. S. (01:14:19) You told us that you would come to the gathering in the beginning of your path and you would see a sink full of dishes where the friends would sit together every night. Can you explain from your impression what it means?

R. No, I was not with them. Rabash told me “Don’t go, don’t go.” They were old men sitting there and they only did it as a habit because they had to, not because at the end of the day they had something to summarize the day with.

S. Rabash would sit down with them?

R. No.

32. S. (01:15:35) In the least pleasurable action, cleaning something, there’s always a future pleasure that shines of acquiring spirituality and a person sees that there is nothing to gain in this world, maybe some little pleasures but future pleasure, if I labor, then eventually I will get spirituality. This thing, it’s always there and it’s always unclean. I don’t know how to explain it?

R. In the meantime it is called from Lo Lishma you come to Lishma.

S. Because I feel if this thing disappears it will be very difficult to stay on the path?

R. Impossible.

S. Is it okay to rely on it and use it?

R. Yes, whatever a person gets, he gets it as a necessity to advance. We certainly have to understand that without these temptations on the path we would never take one step forward.

33. S. (01:17:05) I actually wanted to ask about that as well. What do we in the society want to show the friends because there is a matter of Lo Lishma and the matter of Lishma and do we want to highlight to one another that to bestow it gives pleasure and we want to awaken this thing or the opposite, that the real, true pleasure we’re looking for, to bestow is without pleasure and so I’m a little confused with what to project, portray to the friends so they can come closer?

R. I think that the main thing that we can show them is actions of bestowal from each one to the others because intentions we can’t convey it and to open it, to reveal to them but the actions you can, this is what you need.

S. The challenge that we are able to portray are external only?

R. So what?

S. It can disconnect?

R. Why disconnect? When I see that my friend bestows, really, why? No.

S. Meaning I can do actions to show that I annul to the friends even though I am not in line with them?

R. Even though you don’t annul?

S. And it helps?

R. It helps, it certainly helps because our external actions, even though they’re false, the friend receives them as true ones and this awakens him and he does the same, and this is how it goes from one to another. This is the meaning of the verse, “Each shall help his friend.”

S. Okay, thank you and if I may ask another question about raising the Creator above us. What isn’t clear, is if we are already connecting and then we are required to raise the Creator above us, then what is that in that initial connection that is different, when we ask it this way, what is the difference between raising the Creator above us and connecting between us? Is it clear, I guess not?

R. Raising the Creator above us and connecting between us well?

S. It sounds like there are two stages. The first, that we need to connect all the friends inside of me into some single unit, into some commando unit and the second stage, we have to break through the gate?

R. Okay, suppose.

S. I don’t know how to express it, so the question is what’s that second stage that is different from the first stage and in what?

R. In the first stage you connect, in the second stage you do something.

S. So what is the practice? What is the action?

R. In connection, that you want to break the boundary between you and the Creator.

S. But the Creator does not need that, we need that?

R. That is something else, so what?

S. Why do we need another action to connect even more?

R. But what are you doing in the connection, say you connected, so?

S. This is this thing, to call a connection of the ten is a mutual bestowal without, without a reward for one another, that the quality of the Creator rules over the friends, there is some flow?

R. So?

S. Where’s the addition because that’s already the Creator?

R. But that’s still not an action, you have connected, what is next?

S. So the question is this: what is an action?

R. When you now discover the Creator in the center of your action and you bestow contentment to Him.

S. How do we bestow to Him contentment above us connecting?

R. Connecting, that is between yourselves but bestowing contentment to the Creator is something else, it’s to connect to Him and take Him into your system, to perform a Zivug [coupling] over His vessels in order to fill Him with all your desire.

S. Meaning in the natural resistance of each friend, in our common resistance towards one another we try to, attempt to rise above it and bestow to Him above that resistance?

R. Be it so.

34. S. (01:23:00) There is a relation between Hafetz Hesed and the reception of Torah?

R. Yes.

S. What is the relation?

R. Hafetz Hesed, delighted in mercy means one does not want anything for himself, rather he only wants to bestow to others.

S. Without the will to receive for myself, how, without self love, how will the love of others come?

R. Self love you have to begin with, love of others it’s something you have to acquire upon the love of yourself.

S. Yes but this is the fuel, love of self is the fuel for the love of others, to measure the Creator, to self-love because without it I would have nothing to overcome without a Masach.

R. True, that’s true.

S. And I wouldn’t be able to give contentment without a Masach?

R. Right.

S. So thank goodness that I love myself?

R. Okay, what do we have here?

35. S. (01:24:52) What is the point of transition from serving the friends to serving the Creator?

R. Serving the friends is when I do an action on my own, serving the Creator means I have to do a group action.

36. S. (01:25:38) You said that I am included in the friends in such a way that it doesn’t matter who feels to join, me or the friends. What is this work in? What is this form of reception where it really doesn’t matter who is pleased?

R. Well, that is the complete incorporation we try to come to. We try to be “as one man in one heart.”

S. And later you said I expand the Kelim of the friend to the Kelim of the Creator. What does it mean, I expand the Kelim of the friend to the Kelim of the Creator?

R. Well, that is in our sense more and more.

37. S. (01:26:35) If in exchange for love of others do we need to believe that the Creator is giving us an answer, to teach us how to love without any reward?

R. Of course everything we feel, we feel from the Creator, from the Creator. Although these may be clothed, it can be clothed in the friends in all kinds of manners. However, it truly comes from the Creator, meaning the Creator wants us to feel this way and understand this way.

S. So if out of the sensation of emptiness we feel the love of others, out of that we will learn how to receive the Torah?

R. Yes, bit by bit.

38. S. (01:27:52) If behind every friend there is the Creator, what do we need to change, to come close to the Creator, is it the light of the Torah that changes us?

R. To the extent that we come closer to our friends, we come closer to the Creator which is behind them because the Creator himself is something we cannot identify, but in the form of the friends as they are presented through Him, we can come closer to the Creator through the friends.

39. S. (01:28:47) Thank you because your answers really helps us on the path and I wanted to know: us wanting to love the friends causes us to cleave to the Creator and rise above the ego? This also brings us to a state of a certain lack of care towards the ego. Is it part of the correction, that I can say, as long as the ego becomes indifferent, I come closer to the Creator?

R. Well, that’s something, I can’t say but it happens on the path.

40. S. (01:29:41) We hear that to come to the Creator we need love of others. But if there is no flavor we understand that there is a need for hatred and if there is no hatred. The question is: how to feel where the border is?

R. That will come, we will discover a border between the two and we will locate ourself, where we want to be and where we are.

41. S. (01:30:28) I guess I’m a little confused. I hear all these questions about what is in it for me and I’m not hearing questions, I mean, it’s just, it feels like we forgot, we have all the tools that we need, those three ‘H’s’ carry us through everything, in every situation in every circumstance?

R. You are correct.

S. So what, how can I help the brothers settle down, put their head down, go back to work and quit worrying about what is in it for me?

R. Through your example.

42. S. (01:31:41) We spoke about the fulfillment for the self is not the way to advance. I wanted to ask about joy because if I am pleased from the path apparently it seems there’s no fulfillment. Is it something different?

R. No, we will scrutinize it and we will see there is no difference.

43. S. (01:32:22) With your permission, it says that the love of the friend and the love of the Creator?

R. They start getting the same.

S. It’s the state where they come close and they have one root.

44. S. (01:32:57) The distance between the friends brings me pain in the heart and I’m feeling hopeless. I feel like I can’t come closer to the Creator, so how can I use all these feelings for advancement?

R. We will reach a state that you will know how to use everything you have. When you don’t have anything you can just throw away everything will be right for use.

45. S. (01:33:50) Tell me please, how, when we connect not to lose the drive and stop working but to continue the fulfillment of the vessels of the Creator?

R. That is something we are always learning, we’re always learning this.