TUESDAY: NETZACH-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Tuesday.
Rabash. What Is, “The Creator Does Not Tolerate the Proud,” in the Work?. 27 (1988)
Morning Lesson June 18, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 27, 1988. What Is, “The Creator Does Not Tolerate the Proud,” in the Work?
1. Rav’s Introduction: And we will try to turn the article into a prayer, that what Rabash writes to us, we’ll try to make this our prayer.
Reading Article. (01:00) “Our sages said, “Any person..”
2. S. (38:50) How do we turn the article of Rabash into a prayer? You said before that we have to turn it into a prayer?
R. Yes. First of all to understand what this article aims to explain to me. After that, trying to organize myself, my environment, according to the article, how do I hear what goal I want to advance towards with the article and so forth. After that, I have to continue more in advancing myself and everything that has to do with my inner work towards the purpose of creation; that I identify as all of us connecting to a single vessel, and that in that vessel will each find his point.
S. A person does this when he hears the reading of the article everything you just explained now?
R. He hears it, he reads it, thinks about it, it’s not necessarily during the time of the lesson.
S. Okay and how during the lesson, as we were reading, is there room for prayer, when I hear what Rabash writes and I’m describing it and I am asking for it?
R. Yes, listening to the article as I’m reading with the group and then I’m trying to break the article into a few parts, in each and every part I want to portray to myself what is the main thing I need to do for that part to work within me, and that’s how we advance.
S. And if a person doesn’t understand what is written he can’t understand what Rabash wants?
R. Then he has to read it slowly, bit by bit at home, with a clean pen and paper and really just do some research work for himself on this article.
3. S. (41:49) In the article I heard something new, a prayer after a prayer; after a prayer you have to make another prayer, after what you prayed? What is the state of praying after a prayer?
R. Because the article that he learns awakens more, new additional deficiencies in him and then he has what to pray for.
S. It turns out that a prayer it’s something like a very long campaign, you have a prayer before a prayer, you have a prayer, and then you have a prayer after the prayer?
R. Our entire life is actually one prayer.
S. In the present moment what am I asking for, what am I praying for, am I busy with what I asked, with what I will ask, with the now, what?
R. You have a will to receive in that desire you have to connect with all the friends, in that desire you have to connect with the Creator and the desire, you have to try to bestow contentment to the Creator by bestowing contentment to the friends, and all those things, you are actually doing all the time. It’s not specifically only during the lesson or reading the article.
4. S. (43:18) It says here the person that is proud cannot be close to the Creator and we learn that only people with the big evil inclination come to study Kabbalah, so if I have no pride then I have nothing which to come to the Creator, so there is a contradiction here, on the one hand he was proud he cannot be close to the Creator, on the other hand a person will not come if he doesn’t have pride?
R. Those who come to the Creator, who truly come to this spiritual work, people who have big inner pride and then they begin to learn and hear what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about and then they begin to discover how much their pride stands in their way, but they can’t do anything about it, the pride itself. And only after a long time of studying and being drawn after the study, they begin to identify that their pride really destroys them, stops them. And it can’t be there and work, they cannot work with that pride and it turns out that pride is the first obstacle for a person who wants to advance to get closer to the purpose of creation. That’s it.
5. S. (45:30) If a person is proud he cannot be close to the Creator, but if he has no pride he will not come to study.
R. Yes, and so the question is?
S. So the question is, how can a person with big pride when he comes to study, he understands that he cannot be close to the Creator because he’s opposite from Him and he wants everything for himself?
R. Yes, that’s all true and this is how a person identifies himself and studies himself that he is indeed immersed in great pride even though he cannot immediately see that. But yes, later he sees that he has nothing to do about his pride. It kills him and destroys him but that’s what he’s got; that’s on the one hand and on the other hand, how to destroy the pride? He also doesn’t know, that’s above him, that’s the beginning of the work, this is the beginning of the work. One who determines that this is my situation and I have nothing to do about it and I am powerless but he says what? I stay, I stay whatever happens.
I don’t have any other path. On the one hand there’s pride. On the other hand the condition of the Creator is that I gradually have to ruin that pride, take care of that pride and even transform it to something opposite of it and I stay until I establish that. How long? Until the end of life. That’s it. All in all, all, all the forces I’m working with come from the Creator, so I have to turn to the Creator and ask. He created it, surely He knows how to organize that and fix that and surely it all depends on how much I push and pressure and demand from Him, pray to Him. That’s it.
6. S. (48:29) In the article there’s a part that talks about a prayer and two phases. The question is let’s say I have a deficiency then I’m praying for and I turn to the Creator; now the Creator this is what He wants, He wants me to turn to Him; so now, why must there be the second phase where in the end I pray, I pray for something more, additional?
R. Where was it written? Maybe you’ll find it in the text?
S. I don’t remember exactly but it was written there about the prayer, there’s the first prayer, he prays and afterwards there’s a prayer to know what to ask for. So, the minute a person has a deficiency and he turns to the Creator, which is what the Creator wants, that he will turn to Him; so why do I afterwards need to pray again in order to know what to ask for what I really need?
R. Can someone help him?
S. It’s in the middle of the article he writes by this we can interpret the words of Rabbi Alexandry that after the prayer he would pray the main prayer saying that he wants the Creator to help him, to help our obstructor which doesn’t let us come and receive the delight and pleasure that the Creator wants it. But this obstructor is called the leaven in the dough and enslavement of Malchuts [kingships], meaning the will to receive for oneself, which is man’s own authority, which is separated from the authority of the Creator, which comes from Malchut, which is regarded as the root of the will to receive for oneself and it controls a person and does not let him emerge from her authority.
R. It’s not that, okay, wait, wait, we’ll clarify that, it’s okay.
S. It’s written, the prayer when one prays for what he thinks he needs is only his Segula, his remedy; through this prayer the Creator will send him from Above an answer to know what he’s lacking and what to ask for?
R. Even if he’s not asking about what’s real, meaning, what’s important is to awaken the issue.
S. Yes, exactly that was the question. The thing is that the person has a deficiency and feels that only the Creator can help him in this deficiency and doesn’t let go; in the end the Creator gives him the feeling, so what is the other part coming to pray for what I really need, that’s not clear?
R. In truth, when a person makes or creates his spiritual vessel, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know how he does it, but that’s how it happens, that bit by bit, he comes to a state where he begins to see that he is already facing the answer.
S. So basically when a person prays for a deficiency he has, from this he gradually advances to the real deficiency, that’s what it means?
R. Yes exactly, we see this also in the rest of the places, we’ll see it in the articles.
7. S. (52:34) Crassness, is this the opposite of the subtleness of the soul?
R. Yes.
8. S. (52:51) At the end of the article he writes that envy, lust and honor; these two discernments are included in the pride and seemingly what is the connection between the lust and pride because lust is a beastly quality, so how is pride connected here, meaning he says that pride is a result of envy, lust and honor, so how do we fight, let’s say against lust? How do we fight against lust and envy?
R. Envy, lust, and honor we can’t really differentiate between them as we see, so we should just relate to them as a total, as a single thing.
S. Let’s say beastly lust, we say that beastly lusts are food, sex and family?
R. Yes.
S. And I’m sure each of us here is finding these lusts, one way or the other, it’s constantly in our minds our hearts and you understand that it’s connected and the prayers don’t always help, so the question is: What other exercises are there because I feel like here there’s the key to the pride that separates you from the Creator?
R. I don’t have anything to say envy, lust and honor in working with the friends is what saves you. Man is saved only by working on it in the group.
9. S. (54:42) On the one hand he writes that the purpose of creation is to do good to his creations and that the Creator created the evil inclination and made processes of doing, so the person can engage in these things and through them become corrected. On the other hand, the whole article is called, why he doesn’t tell, why the body, he hates the bodies in the work, so does he hate them or love them and He created them and made a way for them to know the Creator?
R. The Creator hates the bodies which is the will to receive in order to receive and he loves them when they are in order to bestow; they’re willing to connect.
S. But it’s a process, the process he created Himself; and there’s no way for the created being to contain, other than to begin with the will to receive and reach Him afterwards. So, this article basically says that it, that’s the way and in the end we are in equivalence of form with the Creator and then He will love us?
R. Yes.
10. S. (55:59) He writes from what I understand that the solution to the pride is to come to self lowliness, lowliness of himself which is the opposite of pride; there’s something really new from my perspective, he writes that before we come to the recognition of evil he doesn’t have a need of the Creator, he doesn’t need the Creator, he thinks he can do things, he thinks he can do something; only after he comes to the recognition of evil he wants to give himself to the benefit of the Creator and he sees that he’s powerless to do this, then he sees his own lowliness so that’s really new, that the recognition of evil removes the pride and becomes his own lowliness and then he can continue working?
R. Well and that doesn’t remove the pride by itself but it leads him to the person that he demands and then he resides in Him as the Creator.
S. And it is written twice or maybe three times in the article that he should look into his actions. Can you explain what that means?
R. You don’t understand the Hebrew?
S. I mean what is he supposed to look for in his actions?
R. What he’s trying to detect.
S. Detect for whose sake he is doing these actions?
R. The benefit, for whose benefit, how does he advance, does he already have recognition of evil, alright?
11. S. (57:53) It’s written here in the end that pride is not specifically between man and man but primarily between man and God, how can I awaken, how can we awaken in ourselves the idea that we are in pride if it’s not towards the friends, because I can’t even be aware that I am proud?
R. If you’re not in the Ten you don’t advance, you don’t discover it, it is only in the group.
S. In other words, so the friends awaken me to the idea, I don’t measure the pride with respect to Him but through them I become aware that I’m proud?
R. Each of the friends awakens some small illumination with respect to the article and then we start to bestow to each other with these illuminations until it becomes clear to us what is happening here, meaning we learn the results from this small light that each one attracts, that the Creator wants to shine on everyone and so if it’s not our mutual work, nothing will come out of it.
S. I see, and the matter of pride, can I measure toward the friends or do the friends help me awaken it?
R. The matter of pride I can measure in my relation towards the friends.
12. S. (59:44) The prayer that awakens, a more precise prayer, it seems like the Creator’s gradually inviting us to be in the dialogue with Him, He calibrates us more and more each time. So what is the right work in the Ten so as not to be thrown off by this process, so we are at work with the Creator in the process?
R. The main thing for us is to occupy my place in the Ten which means that I’m in connection with the friends and only in working with them there, in the connection with them, I scrutinize my inner aspects and I build these discernments by joining them one to the other and to the other until there’s a single vessel from that, that’s how I advance.
S. So it turns out that any request I have to the Creator should be something that’s related to the relationships within the Ten?
R. Certainly, yes.
S. Maybe that’s why he says the pride distances you because the minute there is the pride in the Ten you’re thrown off the path?
R. You’re not thrown off completely but you feel it depends on what is your state, how are you working exactly, you might need pride to see that this is where you get closer, this is where you get farther, your right and left, you know.
S. So it’s like two reins that you have in the person?
R. Yes, correct.
13. S. (01:01:39) He writes here we see what detains us from receiving the good, only our authority, that we’re unwilling to revoke our own authority. Can we say that the authority of the Ten is a replacement for our own authority on the way to the authority of the Creator?
R. Yes, but still each one needs to reach the state where he feels that he is giving up, that he can’t, he can’t cope with the calculation for self, the self benefit and when it comes to the Ten and starts working together with them, that becomes a bit easier and clearer.
S. But he says that a person can’t relinquish his own authority, so he needs some replacement, something else?
R. He nullifies towards the Ten and then they help him nullify himself. Why do we say envy, lust and honor take the person out of this world? Envy, lust and honor, these are bad qualities, how do they help me come out of the lower world to a higher world? Envy, all right, envy we can somehow understand, but also there is such envy that we know from corporeality how it ruins the person and here it has to be the opposite that I help the Ten and support the Ten and so forth and then there is lust and honor, what else should we get rid of besides these three qualities?
R. Nothing, rather specifically from feeling how these qualities hold on to us, we get the strong and powerful desire to escape them.
S. So it says the three of them are a type of pride because of his own authority, so he has to relinquish his own authority but how can he relinquish his own authority?
R. We are going to have to read and think about it more.
14. S. (01:04:35) He writes that pride is not specifically between man and man but mainly between man and the Creator. Why does pride separate a person from the Creator?
R. What’s more than pride? Who is stronger, who is greater, who do I turn to first, am I working or is the Creator working? In every place pride is the initial obstacle.
S. But why doesn’t he separate for example between man and man?
R. That too, between man’s friend, what the problem, the pride each one towards his friend.
S. But he writes that the main thing is the separation from the Creator and also that the Creator is not willing to dwell in a place where there is pride?
R. Right, yes, so what? That is an obstacle between man and the Creator and between man and his friend, both; what can you do? We have to get rid of that.
15. S. (01:06:03) What I hear from all the questions is that there are moments when the good inclination governs and the person is willing to give up everything and there are some moments where the evil inclination controls and doesn’t ask you and takes everything, so where is a person’s decision because it seems like the prayer is also motivated by some inclination that governs?
R. Subjugation.
S. But it seems like the inclination controls him too, even when I surrender, it’s the good inclination that’s controlling, then it says, you will work totally with the Creator, so it’s like someone is controlling me in that moment. So it’s not clear where a person has no control over him and he takes a decision?
R. How can we make a decision when he’s in the middle?
S. That’s what I’m asking, where is he free? Either he’s influenced by this and by that, so what does he do, he’s an automatic machine from here and from there?
R. Very well, good discernment.
S. So?
R. Write it down.
16. S. (01:07:14) He writes, meaning a person is told I will give you everything you want and everything your soul desires but first give me a soul. How can you agree to this condition? How can I give my soul before I see some result or I don’t know something. It’s an unreasonable condition?
R. But this is what you are standing towards each and every moment in life. You’re willing to give your soul, your spirit, it doesn’t matter what you call it, for all kinds of things that you demand to get every moment in life. You understand? That is how we build ourselves.
S. Yes, but let’s say I get to know a woman, I see some results, I’ll have a house, I’ll have kids, I have something to work for, here I’m told no, first give your soul and then I give you everything, your soul wants so, it’s like it’s inverted, it’s the other way around?
R. I don’t see a difference, in both cases you have to agree with this condition, that you give whatever you’re demanded of in order to get a reward.
S. I’ll think about it.
R. We’ll think together, too.
17. S. (01:08:46) In the answers you gave about the connection were pride is specifically with respect to the Creator, there were questions about the connection with the friends and the matter of being able to work with the friends but for a moment we forget the connection to There’s None Else Besides Him, in the end we have a connection and we want to reach it but how do we strengthen together with the friends this connection so we don’t forget that in the end He decides, He gives the answer, He has the final word?
R. I cannot take that into account from the beginning, otherwise I have nothing to do; understand? So it is a very beautiful law that there is None Else Besides Him but it takes everything out of my hands, after that I have got nothing left, if there’s None Else Besides Him then I sit and wait doing nothing until He does.
S. That wasn’t my intention, my intention is keeping the connection together with the Creator, connection with the upper force, the connection between the friends and at the same time turn it to Him. So actually the prayer is the connection, the request, a hold in the request as you asked in the beginning; how do we always keep this and do not come out, I don’t know?
R. This is by the non-stop prayer and turn to the Creator and that all the friends will join that as much as possible, we’re not giving more than we can handle, it’s what we can handle, I assure you, you’re going to see that, we are able every moment, we want to achieve what we call, “My sons have defeated Me,” that’s it.
18. S. (01:11:27) Why is pride such a great sin in our work?
R. Because it separates us and between us and the Creator. As it is said, “he and I cannot live in the same abode,” that’s what the Creator says.
19. S. (01:11:52) How do we detect pride, it seems like it hides. How do we work with it correctly?
R. Only to pray, specifically towards prayer. It’s the simplest thing because here I cannot do anything only to pray.
20. S. (01:12:25) So pride includes envy, lust and honor which we need in the work but the Creator cannot live with pride, so how do we establish it in the work?
R. We pray, we ask, we prepare ourselves towards the friends and as a result we come that way towards the Creator.
21. S. (01:12:56) Where is the line so that envy, lust and honor that make up the pride will be beneficial for the spiritual work?
R. It comes bit by bit, most important is that we work on this together, then we obligate the forces of nature, the upper force to establish that for us.
22. S. (01:13:34) It is written in the article that this is what He advises a person to lower himself and cancel his authority and give everything to the Creator. What does it mean practically for us to give everything to the Creator?
R. When I make the calculation and in advance I make a decision that everything will be as if it is the Creator Himself, how to put it, He decides over all of creation that it has to achieve adhesion and wholeness.
23. S. (01:14:36) it is written that a thousand will go into the Bible to read, ten into Mishna, ten to the Talmud and then one comes out to teach. So what are these degrees?
R. It’s like the worlds, that we have to achieve the world filled with good, the world of Atzilut and there we get fulfillment for all of the deficiencies.
24. S. (01:15:14) There’s a question about the text, what does it mean about the idol worshippers?
R. There’s a difference between the death that a person comes to if he worked on himself and if he didn’t because one who worked on himself merits different results, put it like that. One who didn’t work on himself has nothing besides the beast that is now dying and disintegrating. He doesn’t have anything besides the records with which he started with basically.
25. S. (01:16:13) What will we feel when we come out of ourselves and enter the Creator’s domain?
R. We will feel that we are in the upper force which is Good Who Does Good, which surrounds everything, includes everything and we wish to be in unbounded connection with Him. That’s what we feel in principle. I can’t say much more about it because I also lack words for it, we don’t have words in this world for it but you will see as you advance, when we are incorporated in it.
26. S. (01:17:20) About the Creator it said that He is proud, the most proud of them all. How can that be?
R. Everyone says how can it be that He created the evil inclination if He’s not connected to it. It’s the upper force that exists above everything so it has no problem to harness and turn all the good forces and bad forces and all of creation from one end to another; to change it and bring it from shattering to the end of correction. That’s the force that exists above nature.
S. This makes Him the most prideful of them all?
R. I don’t know to what you can add these things exactly but maybe, yes.
27. S. (01:18:31) This weekend our ten went to some place, we were together up north in some house. We closed ourselves off the whole weekend and in the work we were doing between ourselves we had this feeling that there’s a force working there, not on my intellect or the friends, it was a feeling that a different force was working. Now we’re talking about pride. I suddenly perceive that it’s not that my pride has been annulled, it was there, but I’d like to ask how to really reach a state without shutting yourself up North for two days? How can we really let this force work now, too, in our daily life because the pride is not annulled, it’s always there.
R. In our lives it is more difficult and if man has the opportunity to run off. Yesterday, I had a lesson with many women here, many women present. I tried to imagine how can I bring them to a state where they will be able to take off the clothing of pride, a little bit of ego from them. It’s tough, it’s difficult.
S. In trying to look for what was so special, what did we do right in that action so then we can try to do it time and again. That was the feeling that we were going to a place that is true. There was really something special that happened so I’m asking first of all because I don’t really understand what happened there and the second question is how to succeed in doing this more?
R. It’s all up to you, it’s all up to you. You need to get used to exiting and entering such states, exiting and entering until you’re able to determine that we are in this state and that’s how we live.
S. Is there some advice on how to succeed in doing this? This week we’re now going anywhere.
R. You have to try and do it here.
S. How?
R. All the material is before you, I don’t know what do you mean how? Try. We are before the Creator somehow connected in the state where we can have some discernments in every article we study and from that point begin to establish what else are we lacking to reach, “as one man in one heart.”
S. I have this feeling that there was that place that made it, the fact that we did this action. We went out, encouraged this thing. Is there a way for the place to be here without going anywhere?
R. Of course, what difference does it make? What, the walls of this building are not suitable for connection?
S. Exactly. So I’m asking, how?
R. What do you mean how?
S. How to do it in this place?
R. It all depends on your feeling, on your feeling. I think that this place, this building, this hall, we’ve made enough corrections in it to be able to realize here the end of correction. Truly, it all depends on us.
28. S. (01:23:38) Is pride an illusion or is it something real?
R. Is the will to receive an illusion?
S. It’s felt as something real but..?
R. So why pride isn’t? It’s one of the expressions of the will to receive.
S. I’ll tell you why I’m asking, because I heard you say a few moments ago to undress the clothing of pride and in the prayer there’s also a sentence about it. I wanted to ask about that, how do we run away? Now you’re saying it’s not an illusion, it’s an expression of creation. Thank you.
29. S. (01:24:35) Do you see a difference between the clothing of pride between men and women?
R. Yes, I can’t even articulate it in one sentence but for men it’s more practical, closer to action. For women it’s more distant. They are more distant from it, from realizing it, but we have to help.
S. What is special about women? Maybe they have additional pride or a different form of pride?
R. It’s completely different. I can’t find the words for it but it’s a form of pride that’s entirely different. What can you do, it’s nature. Yesterday it appeared quite clearly, on point.
30. S. (01:25:58) In what state would you like to see the women’s Kli? What’s the good state we can reach?
R. We simply need to take upon ourselves the work in connection between us, above all of our egoistic calculations. They fill us now with our feeling, our intellect. We need to be above them and make a calculation only regarding connection, that’s it.
31. S. (01:26:46) What is the source of the pride for women that you’re talking about that is standing in our way?
R. A woman is the center of reality, Nukva. Therefore we have no choice but for each one to take care of their inner or internal woman and also take care of the inclusive women, the general women of ours.
32. S. (01:27:27) In the woman’s lesson you related to the pride and ego of the women. How can we undress this clothing of pride and a little bit of our ego? Do you have some advice or exercise for us?
R. Try, try to talk to women respectfully, don’t disrespect them. See how they can be helped to rise above their ego.
33. S. (01:28:00) You said that we should help. Should the men pray for the women, that they will be able to overcome their pride?
R. It’s possible that yes, we’ll see, I don’t know. We are starting to get a little deeper into this time of correction, the period of correction. We don’t have much guidance about it, not much material about it. Rather we’ll need to aim ourselves as best as possible and see along the way. The process itself will teach us, okay?
34. S. (01:28:53) For the women the ego is imprinted so strongly, every woman is a world rising above her friends. How can we overcome this nature?
R. I don’t know how we do it. I think that if we come closer to them and start to work on them and on us then together we’ll be able to come out. From the general ego, in this way, we’ll come closer to correction.
35. S. (01:29:31) What’s the difference between the ego and the pride?
R. Ego is more fundamental. It is the will to receive, it’s like gravity, you cannot escape it. Ego can be influenced through the environment, through a certain event and then a person begins to feel it as good or bad, as something that is harmful, disturbing. You can work with it.
36. S. (01:30:20) What’s the difference between pride in spirituality and pride in our world?
R. Pride in spirituality and in our world, I don’t know what to say. What is pride in spirituality? Our world is also in spirituality. I don’t know, I don’t quite understand the question. There are such discernments here that we don’t know precisely how to define them.
37. S. (01:31:06) It’s written that the lowliness of ourselves means that we on our behalf have no force, that we can completely annul ourselves to the Creator. Therefore before we come to the recognition of evil we have no need to ask for the Creator’s help. What’s the difference between the lowliness of ourselves and the recognition of evil?
R. With recognition of evil we understand that we have no choice, we need help from the outside, outside of us, otherwise we won’t attain the purpose of life or anything.
S. But the lowliness of ourselves is also..?
R. Our lowliness doesn’t cry out so much, that’s what I would say.
S. It’s also said that when you reach the lowliness of ourselves there are only two things that you should ask: not to escape the battle and to at least have the ability to pray for the Creator; the second is that the Creator will really help one to come out of the body’s domain. I still don’t understand the lowliness of ourselves. Is it a motive for prayer?
R. Why not, what’s the question?
S. I can’t understand the difference because if there is no recognition of evil completely then there is nothing to ask the Creator?
R. Again.
S. What I don’t understand is the difference between lowliness of ourselves and the recognition of evil?
R. Again.
S. I can’t understand the difference between our own lowliness and the recognition of evil. Why in recognition of the lowliness of ourselves, you have the ability to pray and in recognition of evil if there is recognition of evil, it seemingly includes the lowliness?
R. I have to think about it, it’s not a big problem here.
38. S. (01:34:01) You said that together we need to undress the clothing of pride but what is the action?
R. I didn’t hear well.
S. You said that together we have to undress the clothing of pride, that ego of us. What is the action, the step we have to do to realize this goal?
R. The best action is coming closer to the friends. That is certain to help us arrange all the conditions for the correction.
39. S. (01:35:08) Pride is like a stone we always stumble upon and the friends that were as teachers for us with their pride, they come down and become ridiculous. How can the ten help a friend that is in such pride that she can’t even connect to the meetings of our ten?
R. Still, nevertheless you have to try. Try and include them in the ten and hold them in our meetings and gatherings. There’s nothing to do here but also understand that whatever the mind doesn’t do, time does. We have seen these things before, everything will work itself out, just don’t let go, anything but leave. They don’t want to leave us and we don’t want to leave them.
40. S. (01:36:40) When we surrender to the Creator is it when we completely stop receiving for ourselves and become like an extension of the Creator? The ego is like a distant point but we lose the perspective of ourselves so it feels like we become an extension of the Creator, like a reflection?
R. We need Katnut, Gadlut, Ibur, Yenika, Mochin, all sorts of discernments in annulment before the Creator. So I can’t tell you that it always annuls the person, no.
41. S. (01:37:42) It says in the article that when one draws pleasure for himself he doesn’t have the intention of receiving the pleasure that enters his domain but only the domain of the Creator. What does it mean to draw pleasure to the Creators domain?
R. We do everything in order to bestow to Him, to draw towards Him.
42. S. (01:38:17) I had the same question. The whole thing is we need fuel together to work, to have pleasure until we give everything also including the pleasure to the Creator for His sake. Could you elaborate on that because there was already an answer. You said we need to make..?
R. On that it’s written, “each shall help his friend.” If we don’t provide examples to one another nothing will help us. We must receive power, energy from being together, being incorporated together and get energy and forces from the society.
43. S. (01:39:27) When I hate my nature and feel that it is better to be not created, in what form does pride work within me? Can it help me to attain a new nature by hating my old nature?
R. It’s best if you don’t destroy your nature but rather learn how to use the good nature and the bad nature in order to connect yourself with all of reality and together with the Creator, that’s it. To reach hate is not that much of a problem, the problem is to learn to build a correct relationship both with the good and the bad.
44. S. (01:40:40) Can a person recognize the Creator’s control in his own life? In addition to the work with the ten, can one identify that?
R. Yes, we will attain it.
S. How can one identify it, how to know that this is correct?
R. We will scrutinize it, it’s ahead of us.
45. S. (01:41:45) We said that the men should help the women with respect to the pride and this made me think that if the women help the men then we’re basically helping ourselves. What actions should we do in order to help the men that are basically closer to realize this aspect?
R. We need to speak more between one another, see how much it will help in the families. Rabash talked to us about it a lot, how much the more men and women talk within the family and pass something to the children, depending on their age, but sometimes there is what to pass on to them. We will see how much it helps them and it calms their spirits that are running wild in our society. We want to approach the Creator, there is fire that comes to a person, we need to be prepared. We want to come closer to one another despite this tempest storm that can rage between us.
46. S. (01:43:45) How can the ten feel from the depth of its heart the evil so it can come to a common prayer?
R. Everything is before you, it is all written, we just need to read it again and again and try to realize it.
47. S. (01:44:24) I have this question: How can I, what is the way for me to receive all the pleasures from the Creator for the sake of the Creator, where everything I receive is for the Creator rather than for myself?
R. Do it through the friends, for the benefit of the friends, for the sake of the friends, then it will be extremely easy to send it toward the Creator.
48. S. (01:45:16) In the article it says that if you work in Lo Lishma it is better not to be born and there is an explanation about it in the article but it is still not clear, how can we understand this? Because I think that we were born to pass from Lo Lishma to Lishma. So what does it mean that it is better not to be born?
R. Yes, but if we don’t make it to Lishma then it’s better if one had not been created because we are starting all these corrections anew. That’s it.
49. S. (01:46:19) What does it mean to connect all of our deficiencies into one deficiency?
R. Toward one goal where we wish to connect between us and adhere to the One Creator.
50. S. (01:46:52) About the pride, I wanted to ask: What does this verse mean that this heart will rise in the path of the Creator?
R. We don’t surrender before the Klipot, the shells, that’s it.
S. Isn’t there pride in this term?
R. No, on the contrary, on the contrary, his heart grew taller in the ways of the Creator and the rest of the ways, we don’t even take them.
51. S. (01:47:42) How to use the pride for the ten?
R. Whenever you connect you can be proud that you connected.
52. S. (01:48:05) It says in the text about three degrees, the first degree is a donkey, then it is Lo Lishma, then it is Adam. How can we become Adam, if you divert from the line you become a donkey, if you come to the group you are in Lo Lishma, but how can we be Adam?
R. On the other hand when you are inside the group you feel that you are in Lo Lishma and from this you can climb, you can rise to Lishma.
53. S. (01:49:00) How to understand the expression Adam within Adam, man within man, and how can fear help a person?
R. Fear is a very good thing because it aims a person on the path, along the way, it only depends what we put before it, before the fear, what we wish to be afraid of, what not and so forth.
54. S. (01:49:48) Rabash writes here that there’s Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and there’s Rabbi Ben Yochai and it’s the same person, sometimes he writes Bar or Ben, is there something here?
R. No, it’s the same, Ben and Bar, it’s the same.
55. S. (01:50:05) We are talking a lot about pride today. There is this state where we are basically creating an environment and by talking about states we are not in, as if we are lying to each other, then we are supposed to be impressed by that, so we are manipulating our ego to be impressed from what each one is telling us and from that we get the force to advance. Now many times here I see that pride doesn’t let me be impressed because I know it’s a game, it’s a manipulation on myself, so on the one hand, sometimes, I am really excited and I’m really moved from that, on the other hand, this pride we are talking about, it’s stopping you and you don’t have strength, you simply, it’s sometimes you say it doesn’t let you accept the friend, it doesn’t let you be impressed by them and you are like an automatic way out to overcome the ego?
R. What do you recommend?
S. I don’t know. I see that sometimes it’s very difficult. Even now we are heading towards a Congress, what a friend described and they weren’t, they were impressed, so when you let go of something, when you are above your own reason and the ego doesn’t let you, many times it happens before a Congress. Why do we need another Congress, what will be different this time? The ego, this pride, it doesn’t let you be impressed but when you walk with it, with a society there is the explosion that comes later but annulling at that moment, it’s..?
R. It’s always, always like that.
S. But it’s so hard to annul this pride, it stops you?
R. It’s a time of investing power, who wants it?
S. I’ll tell you even more, I see it’s harming my friends because if I’m not impressed by the Congress I’m stopping my whole ten because I’m not bringing them my impression. Now I have to act as if I am so impressed towards the Congress and I know this mechanism, that later I will be impressed and something good will happen and strong and the Creator goes into the work there when we put our half a shekel but the ego is..?
R. It’s good, if you overcome the ego and you give energy to the society and you collect the entire part.
S. But pride here is so present, it doesn’t let you, you don’t even know how you are in the Congress at all.
R. That’s correct and that’s good.
S. How to overcome this pride that doesn’t let you go into it many times?
R. Only prayer, only a request from the Creator to provide strength, what else can you do?
S. I don’t know I am so excited that we have this Congress but it’s an impression and again we can at least walk it?
R. I promise that you don’t know how many more states like that you are going to have where you hate him and you dislike them, on the other hand you understand that only through them, it is possible to advance.
S. And it doesn’t harm my friends these moments that you are not..?
R. Yes and no, sometimes you act in the will to receive, sometimes you have the will to bestow, sometimes, it’s like this, sometimes it’s like that, you need everything.
56. S. (01:54:23) Once in a while it happens that we see that a friend is really, really weak and even sometimes a friend comes and says I am done. And on one hand we say try once, try twice and then let go. On the other hand, maybe now he’s in his best possible state, he has no air, he has nothing to hold on to, now is the time for him to break through and then he leaves, and it really hurts the ten because it’s a real shake for the ten. What can we, what conclusions can we get out of it? How can we learn something from that or is it not in our hands anymore? What’s the right way to relate to this?
R. First of all you need to detect it ahead of time as much as possible, also to hold him as much as possible, of course without coercion but have several gatherings, maybe scrutinies, maybe talk to his wife, perhaps, if it’s a man, and then see how you can offer strengthening, reinforcement. I think that there is almost no state where, unless a person is full of pride or has some plans ahead of him, he thinks the world is opening up for him but typically he can be convinced and leave him in the group. What is he gaining from it, let him convince us. First of all the question is like this, I heard that you are leaving, what did you find, tell me, maybe I will leave with you.
57. S. (01:56:48) Maybe that’s a bit dangerous, maybe he will convince me. Should we really open it up when a friend is weaker, he should tell us why he wants to leave?
R. Yes, it’s a problem.
S. I don’t know, until today we said we only increase, we let him rise up, we don’t let him carry us?
R. Not that he is going to carry us out but he wants to pour his heart out and tell us and do something? What, we’re going to shut his mouth? No, I actually think that we need to learn from all those outcomes, what’s happening, what’s good about us, what’s not too good about us. I don’t know what you are keeping there, behind your backs there, relative to the society, relative to me, talk about it, open it up and we will see. Maybe there is something that we are not seeing, we don’t understand.
S. If you really did find something there are all kinds of but if you really found something you can put your finger on it but if you didn’t find it it just feels empty, there’s empty space.
R. So scrutinize the empty space.
S. But it doesn’t feel like it, you need to know his action, to take part. He doesn’t feel anything for a year, another year, for ten years he doesn’t feel?
R. That means that he’s not investing, he’s not investing in his advancement, he’s not building his soul.
S. Outwardly it does seem, he looks active, he does, he is disseminating.
R. We need to check it. I don’t believe that you can’t keep a person unless they are going to give him some compensation out there, that he’s going to deal with it.
S. Is there a state that a person feels empty?
R. Of course and each and everyone might feel it or is feeling it, what do you think I didn’t feel it? That I didn’t see it on Rabash? Of course.
S. There are these points that I think that everyone goes through them but if it takes time, you know a person can be in the animate degree, for him it’s good to stay in the sun with a beer and the beach, he doesn’t want anything?
R. That, too, shall pass, that, too, shall pass.
S. Not to let go?
R. Keep the connection, maintain the connection and he will see that the Creator arranges for him all the time.
58. S. (02:00:10) I can’t understand what you said earlier. If a friend wants to learn in a different place or if he is interested in different places to learn, is there some room to hear from him what is good in other places?
R. No, I didn’t say it like that. What are you taking it from? You didn’t hear what I was saying. Maybe you heard what you were saying to yourself inside.
59. S. (02:00:42) I think what the friend is saying that we should ask him if he found a different place, he finds interest there?
R. I didn’t say that, too, you wanted to hear that but I didn’t say that.
60. S. (02:01:06) When a person feels that he has no spirit is he fit for dissemination?
R. How can he do it if he has no spirit, with what will he go out to the general public writing and speaking, with which inner spirit, inner charge?
S. Must I have the spirit in order to disseminate? Can I do an action I am qualified to do, must I have the spirit?
R. Did you see a salesman in a store or on a market somewhere where he jumps up and he yells like a landlord that is going crazy. How can he be indifferent and sell something?
S. Okay, so the next day he will sit there without some spirits. Some days he has enthusiasm but the shop is open, he’s working?
R. Okay, that might be also, that’s not the work, he needs reinforcement. You need to send someone his way to work until they wake up.
61. (02:02:28) Is there some place for us to start thinking, maybe, we did something wrong here, we let him do this or that, you know sometimes a friend, he doesn’t come to every lesson, he used to come, now he’s at home watching us, then he comes a little less and he has all the reasons and refuses. Maybe we should examine ourselves. Why didn’t we tell him something, you can’t coerce him but at least..?
R. You need to hold him as much as possible but keep your finger on the pulse and feel, is it worthwhile for him to keep going for him and for us to keep going in this way?
S. I’m asking even before he reached that state because it’s many times, it’s a process, if a friend says I am leaving and it’s a surprise, we don’t know but many times we feel, it’s like an organ in your body, you feel it’s a bit more distant, suddenly it’s not this and that?
R. So we need to do..?
S. It is something for us to examine: why did we let go, why weren’t we sensitive enough? That is something that we never talk about, we talk about it, when he’s out there already, but before?
R. No, they have to be people responsible for caring for such friends who are growing weak, that it’s always going to happen in our society like that. We are not a for-profit company in the stock market that’s always going to have some fire burning inside. We must, we must organize the connection between us and with the Creator in such a way that will be able to hold on to it all of the time.
I’m in it already, for many years and I have seen so many cases this way and that way and it seems to me that a person has to build for himself all kinds of obstacles so he won’t run away, so it will work, really work on him in a way because what your intellect, what your mind doesn’t do, time will. So many states, time goes on and goes on and ultimately, a person sees what benefit he has from these times that seem to have no benefit in them but actually there is a big benefit there.
62. S. (02:06:05) If in my work I do everything I need to do, I come to all the lessons, I work in the ten, I disseminate over time, for a long time, I make the scrutinies. I know it’s about revealing the Creator, gaining the quality of bestowal, everything is clearly discerned but just like the articles of Rabash, I check in my vessels what I receive and I see that I don’t have the quality of bestowal, I don’t have the purpose of work, I didn’t attain it, what should I tell myself in this state?
R. Did you come to receive forces from them or to give them forces? With what intention did you come to this gathering of friends, think about it, answer to yourself next time, when you go to that meeting.
S. I am asking in general about the entire path, the Gathering of Friends is just an example. I am asking about the entire path. I came here, I do, I put in all the efforts to get the quality of bestowal and the fear is, later I look around me and I say I don’t have the quality of bestowal. What is the problem here? I didn’t receive what I came to get?
R. That you want to receive.
S. So what do I have to change here?
R. Stop wanting to receive the quality of bestowal.
S. And then.., okay.
R. But it’s clear, right?
63. S. (02:08:08) I want to continue. We have no power to do anything but to ask. Also we are before a very big Congress. I am asking this great society to exert in prayer.
R. I am with you. I am with you. However, you can’t imagine to yourselves in what states I was, I went through, and also I have seen Rabash in such states. Really, sitting on the floor in Tveria. I came to him. He was sitting on the floor in Tveria looking at me, not seeing me. Through me, he was looking and he said, “Who told you to come?” Do you understand? That’s how it is. “Who told you to come?” Very difficult states. You are going into the internal forces of nature. When we look all around everything is still, it’s the smallest degree, the lowliest degree but when you go inside you have to be very strong and persistent.
64. S. (02:10:40) What is the state where the Creator is not with a person but says he who is proud, him and I cannot dwell in the same abode?
R. This is how he says of course, he’s there, there is no state where the Creator leaves a person, ever. However, he gives you this feeling that he’s throwing you away.
65. S. (02:11:18) I felt that today’s article came up at the right time, the matter of pride, it’s so concealed and multifaceted, and from all the scrutinies of the friends, the question is about coming to prayer from our efforts. There are so many types of prayers, I guess, and everything a friend falls into a matter of women or relationship in the ten, all the commandments we do here in Bnei Baruch. It’s as if we need to look for the different types of prayer in order to reach different feelings. How to relate to the Creator?
R. Yes.
66. S. (02:12:14) One of the harshest expressions of pride is the inability of a person to ask for help, is that asking for help? Rabash has an article like that it’s the only sin?
R. Yes, ‘why didn’t you ask?’.
S. It hurts especially when a person’s reality crumbles and he can barely hold the sack on his back. It’s a classic place but he doesn’t ask for help from the friends. I don’t know what’s happening with the Creator. Is there importance before the matter of asking for help from the friends on the way to annulling your pride?
R. A person has to ask for help, he has to because by this they help the friends, actually, it’s not that they are helping him, he is helping them. Spirituality works according to the laws of bestowal not according to the laws of reception, this is why he who asks for help is helping others.
S. So, we are talking about actually asking for help with your mouth, with your lips, from the friends, bring yourself to an unpleasant state?
R. Yes, yes, why not?
S. How can you help a friend to do that, many times, specifically in this state, he just goes into his shell?
R. We know each other so well, we have to understand that what’s stopping us is, I don’t know how to say it, how do you say it? ‘Baal Dev al,’ when there’s this spiritual force that diverts us or makes us go against each other, it is stopping us from asking etc..
S. But is the correction or the change in the person’s state depends categorically, absolutely on his request for help from the friends, or if he has a request from the Creator that He will be able to work with this state and that’s enough, or does he have to ask for help from the friends in practice, verbally?
R. It’s best, it is desired or at least he should, inside, depict inside himself how he is coming and asking, that, too helps, even if he’s not asking openly.
67. S. (02:15:16) We see along the path, let’s say, the beginning of the path, the first fifteen years, they give you fuel that you will be able to constantly live off of these actions, that’s something that fills you?
R. Well, it’s like with children.
S. Clear, at some point there’s a turning point where the fuel becomes different?
R. Yes.
S. So where to extract the power where, egoistically, you are not able to deal with it, where do you get the power from?
R. Running away is something you cannot do, life goes on, you will still be running around that same world even if no matter what you want to do, it won’t help you. However, I think that a person should try to look, I have no words, I don’t know? There’s a difference between someone who comes a little bit to Lishma, something opens for him, and someone that did not come to that. Because if someone reached some of it, even though he’s in a state of where he falls and it’s difficult, he still knows the real structure of the world unless he hasn’t come to that, and then that’s a whole different story. Then you really need to be in touch with the environment with very serious ropes.
S. So what I’m trying to scrutinize is that you can see that you are not able to just extract fulfillment from just about anything but the only thing you want to go to is what will benefit your spiritual development; and you see that the body is seemingly holding you, not to move, but the desire resists harshly to go towards bestowal and connection, although it is clear to you that this is what we have to do. So what’s the power you can activate against this resistance that you have within?
R. I would say dissemination, bestowal, teaching, this is what gives a person a lot of strength, I don’t know besides that.
S. Clear, but this thing where you don’t have that fuel that used to fill you and make you run and do things, as far as the process goes, it’s correct?
R. Yes.
S. So what should I do, should I run around all the time like in the early years?
R. Of course not, it’s a different state, the shape should be more settled down; the wise, he sees what is born, I already understand what is going to happen and I organized myself in a more balanced way.
S. Clear, so what is your anchor, what are you holding on to, specifically, from now onward?
R. From me?
S. Me, let’s say, what do I hold on to?
R. My goal is clear, to carry you as much as I can, forward.
S. Clear, and us, when I feel it is changing?
R. And also to teach you how you should keep on going, you and your students.
S. Clear, and for us, what should be, now, where should we extract forces from right now?
R. From advancing, from advancing.
68. S. (02:21:11) On the same matter we discussed, it happens sometimes that my wife distances herself from the path that influences the men. How should the men protect themselves so the woman’s distancing will not bring him down?
R. He doesn’t have to belong to her, so much, that’s what I think, she doesn’t want to be in the manners of this society, she doesn’t have to, she doesn’t want to come to our meal, she doesn’t have to, she doesn’t let the children, my children to come over, so I don’t bring them, I will agree to everything. However, where I am, personally, in the study, in the society, in the group, that’s mine, that’s somewhere where she can’t go in, that’s it, it’s a very simple thing.
69. S. (02:22:47) To continue this scrutiny to have fuel, let’s say, in the work, we shouldn’t, let say, focus on reception, we shouldn’t focus on pleasure because it could be for ourselves; so where do you get, let’s say, to extract the forces from advancing? What are these forces, could that be pleasure but I also have to give it to the Creator, this, so where does my fuel stay?
R. My fuel in the work comes from lack of choice, and also Rabash writes somewhere, I don’t remember where, that anyhow you will work and the fact that I’m also anyhow I am advancing, I understand I can’t give my will to receive the fulfillment it demands: food, sex, family, honor, knowledge, however, still I am advancing.
S. You also said something really interesting to the women as an answer, “to calculate as if you are the Creator Himself, what does that mean, actually?
R. I don’t know, ask your own question.
S. Okay, you have to give everything to the Creator also the pleasure, and you answered the women, “okay, make a calculation as if it is the Creator Himself”, can you elaborate on that?
R. Well, you help me around here, I am sorry I don’t know what exactly, I don’t understand the question.
S. Maybe he meant that to be similar to the Creator is to depict what it means to bestow, how to help the friends, maybe that’s what he means?
R. No, I don’t understand the question.