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

READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Sunday.

Michael Laitman. Baal HaSulam. The Arvut (modified)

Morning Lesson May 26, 2023

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

Part 2:

Baal HaSulam. The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]. #23

Reading The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]. #23 “With These Words we Clearly…”

1. R. (03:41) Meaning there’s a condition for the receiving of the Torah that’s first and foremost a connection between people who wish to receive it, then it’s possible.

2. S. (04:05) Baal HaSulam explains here that Israel received the preparation Egypt and only then it received the Torah and so we say now let’s put it this way, the Israeli Nation, I don’t know how to explain the world vessel that wants to sanctify the world, not everyone’s going through the slavery in Egypt so how are they going to receive the Torah?

R. I guess not everyone needs to go through Egypt physically, historically as you are trying to ask.

S. I don’t want to ask historically, I want to ask about the desire not being ready?

R. The desire well I guess nevertheless they need to receive the Torah differently but it cannot be that it’s not designed for everyone, I don’t know I can tell you what I think but I don’t see any sources that are talking about that. I guess that through the connection that the created beings have attained and that preparation which the nation of Israel is ready for He will also transpire through all the other nations.

S. It turns out that we need to seek?

R. Again.

S. If it’s not written in the sources from some way?

R. Seek what?

S. We need to seek what will come about?

R. It will be revealed, you need to form connection, the connection that’s required of you and how later will it unravel with everyone else in the world I don’t know but it’s also not my work. It’s possible that there is some work for me but it’s not my job to explain it to each and every person.

3. S. (06:20) For years I’ve been talking about this now you will remember, it says the soul sweetens me and the agony polishes man’s sins, so say without agony can we receive the Torah.

R. Without agony you can’t.

S. Why?

R. Because we need to keep the Torah within our desire it’s a desire to receive desire to receive pleasure. How would you like it to change without blows, without prizes, I never understood.

S. When I started studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah, I suddenly started receiving all kinds of blows where I didn’t understand where it was coming from. They told me, look if you stop studying Kabbalah then you won’t have blows. What’s the reason for that? Why do you get these blows when you start studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah, you get blows from here from above, why?

R. He who adds knowledge, adds blows.

S. Why, what is this reason for getting blows?

R. Nature with its diversity relates to everyone very differently and everyone has a special demand from above.

S. Then he writes below this explosive sentence, then when they gather together all these people of the nation then they came together and became one heart and one man, so everyone gets blows in order to receive the Torah?

R. I don’t know exactly what you mean by blows, I don’t know what you mean exactly by blows, so I don’t think we are placing something cruel on the word blows rather anything that is not exactly aligned with a person’s desire is called a blow.

S. Meaning there’s an adaptation for each and every person there’s suffering in a way, not everyone receives the same thing?

R. No.

S. In order to straighten him out?

R. Yes.

S. We need to bless that we get suffering because we progress?

R. We need to try and want to develop and want to develop and not to be sleepy somewhere half asleep, rather nevertheless move forward.

S. I’ve got lots of blows in life, ascents and descents, I have lots of these and when I came to Kabbalah I came so it will be better for me in life. Then what happens, it became even worse, I came to get closer to the Creator, that He will bring me closer without suffering?

R. If you want less suffering then lower yourself to the level of an animal in anything.

S. What does it mean to lower myself to the degree of an animal?

R. You have your retirement fund, you have your apartment, you have a good wife, everything you need, so what do you want?

S. Really, I’m looking around me and I’m telling you until today I’m getting blows, it’s not that it ends.

R. No, you’re not getting blows, you are complaining.

S. Just complaining?

R. Yes, it is not nice, not good.

S. What should I do?

R. Stop demanding what you don’t deserve.

S. I never thought about what do I deserve and what do I not deserve, that’s my whole problem as a result of my studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah?

R. It won’t do you any good, your demands are irrational.

S. Meaning I should just accept the state and move forward?

R. No, it’s not about accepting, you live well, you will live better, so add exertion, otherwise didn’t you teach thousands of people this way? Didn’t you explain it to thousands of people throughout your life?

S. Yes, certainly.

R. Why don’t you demand from yourself?

S. You’re right, thank you very much.

4. S. (12:36) We always work on connection and drawing the surrounding light, but at the foot of Mount Sinai they’re asking us to be “as one man with one heart,” what is the structure of “one man with one heart,” and what does this connection need to add in order to realize that?

R. “One man in one heart,” meaning to have one desire for one goal, and each one is helping and supporting the others to reach it. Simple.

S. What’s the difference between our usual work in connection because we want to connect and we make efforts, exertion we draw the light and all of a sudden here there’s this click, where we’ll become one in all directions, in heart and thoughts, everything becomes where the person is just lost there within, and I can’t depict this state of “one man with one heart?”

R. When we don’t feel any differences between us, we work like, let’s say soldiers heading out to battle or to some special task. Each one supports the other and we all share one goal. What’s not clear?

S. What’s unclear here is that we are constantly doing actions of connection and there’s a certain degree which is beyond our regular actions of connection which is called “as one man with one heart.” What is this leap beyond our usual actions during the day and reach the state where we are all locked on that structure, where we all disappear?

R. I want that what you want in your heart to come true. That’s how it is for each and everyone.

5. S. (15:25) When we spoke about that we have no demand, it’s also in the excerpt that we just read, the part about agony, and we know that we need to progress through two forms: Akishena, will hasten it, and Beto, in its time. We also read in the Peace in the World,’ the last sentence, where it says this is all a private calculation when one works for one self. The individual produces more than he receives for his own pleasure without much pain. How do we reach this state where there’s not much pain but there is a world of bestowal and goodness, how do we reach this quickly and nicely?

R. When we are aimed only at the goal and we aim everyone to that goal. We don’t think each one about himself but only about the friends. Then we discover that in this way we are advancing to our mutual goal, our shared goal uniformly.

6. S. (17:08) How can the new students integrate in the study together with the veteran students and the world Kli?

R. I don’t know what to tell you. I think it’s up to a person and not up to the veteran students, newcomers for example there are those who come in and the same day or most of the following day, he feels himself as if he knows everything, he’s got no problems no problem to connect with everyone, and there are those after 10 or 20 years, feel themselves as if they are they haven’t even started. It has to do with man’s nature of that person’s nature but society itself is ready to accept everyone. Try to all of you be as friends to one another and then there should be no difference between you.

S. Are great desires felt from new students, what practical advice could you give them right now?

R. Practical advice to a new friend or new student, I don’t know. Look at others and learn from it. I have nothing to propose, I myself am not someone who quickly connects with new people. It is best if someone who’s here wants to integrate in our society it’s best for him to, how shall I put it, he should take up on himself an assignment, a job, a project so it’ll be easier for him.

7. S. (20:48) We see that Kabbalists write that the path to spirituality is paved by torments, I want to ask how can we love this process, how to love it?

R. I don’t know what to tell you, how do we love it? There’s simply no choice. I need to reach the purpose of creation through the method which is called the Wisdom of Kabbalah. That’s what I tried to do and loving the path comes afterward, this attitude of love to the path, to the Creator and to the friends, but that takes place over time, it takes place over time.

8. S. (22:34) In the excerpt it says because each and every individual from the nation was removed from self-love and his whole effort was for love of others like the commandment to love your friend as yourself. You told us that camping against the mountain when they feel the mountain of hate, but it’s when they move through self-love, how do they feel the mountain of hate, what is that occasion?

R. It’s not exactly what you’re saying, Mount Sinai is that hatred departed from them, and they increase the hatred towards the nations of the world. We still have to learn about that.

S. It’s two stages?

R. Yes.

9. S. (23:35) What does it mean that humanity takes it upon itself to love of others?

R. That we will want to connect between us, come closer between us and try to reach such a connection where in it we will reveal the whole of reality. It all depends only on us.

10. S. (24:30) This line that says as the salt sweetens the meat, agony polishes man’s sins, I guess it says out of corporeal suffering?

R. Yes, usually not.

S. Love torments spiritual things?

R. Yes.

S. When a friend receives all kinds of corporeal sufferings from the Creator what can we do to sweeten it for him, to mitigate it since instead of suffering you get an impulse forward?

R. With corporeal sufferings we need to help the friend.

S. What is relative to the Creator?

R. Prayer, not to argue but to activate a prayer to the Creator.

11. S. (25:47) As written in the article, salt sweetens meat and agony polishes the sins of the person. How can a ten measure its sense if it has no agony during Shavuot?

R. Shavuot doesn’t necessarily mean during the holiday of Shavuot that we don’t have agonies, it’s not speaking about that. It’s talking about agonies that the person receives on his path to the purpose of creation to the purpose of life.

S. I’m talking about our ten. How can the ten do the scrutiny, not the individual but the ten?

R. That they will sit together and connect and start discussing what their state is, what is possible to add and in such a way they will succeed to progress onward.

S. What about responsibility towards other tens?

R. They need to give an example first and foremost to other tens how they are connected.

S. Is that scrutiny enough for a ten to attain the full light of Torah?

R. We are capable of revealing the light of the Torah completely during this time and it doesn’t matter what time.

12. S. (28:13) Since there are veteran friends and new friends, what should a new student with a deficiency, does he have to try to bridge the gaps as far as knowledge goes or simply enter the society and try to do as they do?

R. Try to do as they do.

13. S. (28:46) I’m probably wrong but I feel as if we are having a bit of an intellectual exercise and I would like to ask for more feeling feeling, maybe simplify the whole thing. If we look at our friends who are so so great, how many days they have been sitting here to have the greatness of the Creator in order to give His light to the world, and to aim our desire towards the friends so they will receive what they want. That’s the feeling and I’m asking you, we have half an hour left in the lesson and I just want them to be together in the feeling that the friends are great and they deserve to be glued to the Creator for eternity, please!

R. Nice, we need to connect to Him, he really feels it deep inside himself, yes. His soul is crying.

14. S. (30:32) I want to understand this sentence, that the purity of their forefathers will shine on them?

R. What the degrees of the first Kabbalists did for us, they already corrected somewhat the vessels of theirs that enters the collective Kli the collective vessel and we don’t need to correct those stages that they already corrected. Therefore we have much easier work, we are thus called the last generation even though it appears to us that we are in this dead end, with hard work, where is it and when will we see the breakthrough from this. Truly thanks to our Patriarchs, our forefathers, meaning the past generations of Kabbalists, we are as Baal HaSulam writes at the end of redemption, nearly at the end of the redemption. Everything depends on us to make this final effort, this final leap, this final attack.

15. S. (32:48) We spoke about veterans students and new students and it turns out during the pandemic we will learn how to connect virtually and now during this time when the pandemic is over and you can gather physically, we reveal that it is more comfortable in the tens in the lessons. We also discovered virtually no one interrupts you and it’s much more convenient, not where we gather physically. Someone coughs, someone speaks, interrupts, how to overcome this state in order to gather physically?

R. What is  he recommending, I didn’t hear? He’s explaining to us about the state, we all understand and feel this state and we all suffer from it on one hand. On the other hand I’m happy that we have an opportunity for thousands of people to connect with us even if they don’t identify with us and we don’t see them and they don’t see us, it doesn’t matter, in any case we’re in the same network, what should we do? I don’t know, it seems that what the mind doesn’t do, time will and we need to continue and we will see how time can manipulate us, new conditions reveal new people coming and as such that’s how it would become revealed. In any case, we are in a very nice and special time where truly we can understand and discuss a little and in practice we can progress to connection and in that we reveal the Creator and His Torah, His instruction.

16. S. (36:05) When I was in the virtual space during Covid it was quiet I was with myself in front of the computer, no disturbances and now that we’re gathering again physically, the friends presence is bothering me, one is coughing, one is doing something else. How do I overcome these disturbances when I sit with people physically as opposed to sitting alone in front of my computer?

R. It’s habit, I can’t explain it. Go to a kindergarten, go to any place and look at what shouts and people running around and arguments and the kindergarten teacher is rather calm, she understands that this is the normal state for these kids. That’s how it is with us too.

S. He also said that we’re almost at the end of the time of redemption, it depends on us to make the effort, the final leap, the final attack. You say it’s a beautiful period we are entering, what is that period?

R. The period is very nice because we receive revelations from above without making efforts that is adapted to them from below.

S. Why?

R. Because the time itself acts, that the time caused it.

S. Why do we get something beautiful from above without exertion from below?

R. Because the time caused it, time is a cause for that. Where we, at the end of it all reached this incarnation in which it will go to close the entire process, to seal.

S. What is expected from us?

R. To continue, but to continue and we will reveal the end of the incarnations.

S. And what is the beautiful thing that is revealed or is about to be revealed?

R. Adhesion among all of us and the Creator.

17. S. (38:45) Today in the lesson I really feel and I see friends here and other friends who arrived here. I feel the heart of other great friends who are trying to wake us up. You said in the lesson if we are ready to receive the light of Torah then accordingly we receive. The question is what are we lacking in order to feel first of all the importance of this Congress of Shavuot and what are we lacking in order to receive the light of Torah?

R. Connection, we lack connection to feel the importance of connection, the urgency and to participate in it all of us to participate with heart and soul. From that we as if we will blossom, this desire to everyone, we will spread out the seeds of it to everyone.

18. S. (40:36) I heard you say that everything depends on us to make that final leap, this final attack?

R. Yes.

S. Why is it seemingly the last, what’s the emphasis here?

R. According to what we understand, if we make that attack on connection, then we by doing so we will invite the force and the light at the end of correction. Even though we ourselves are not worthy of it and we’re not special, we are nothing but because of the time because of the state that the Kabbalists prepared, because we are not in a good state. We ourselves there’s nothing for us to be proud of but if we will want and ask for it then thanks mainly to what we received from our forefathers, we will be able to draw the reforming light and it will draw us to become reformed, to become corrected.

S. What is this action to make the effort towards the final leap, what is that final leap?

R. That finally we don’t do that, we demand the Creator to perform that act upon us.

S. What do we want to leap to?

R. To the end of correction.

S. Not less than that?

R. There is no less than that, there is no middle ground, there is no state of a middle ground between us and the end of correction.

S. What does it mean to demand the end of correction?

R. Demanding the end of correction means to demand the end of correction where all of us as one man with all with one heart corrected adding and complimenting each other that’s the end of correction. It’s the end of all the corrections where we all return to the system of the same system of Adam HaRishon, 620 times more.

S. When you say we’re in the final attack, the final leap, our action is a final attack with prayer?

R. An inner demand of the heart and also with prayer.

S. A demand is not a prayer?

R. Yes but there is a difference in the style. Do we have a prayer today, when?

S. 9:15.

R. 9:15, nice. We all need to come here and who is the messenger of ours for the prayer?

S. A friend is in charge and he is taking care of everything.

R. Okay, do you want to be in his place?