MONDAY: HOD-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN

READING: FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN MONDAY

Lesson on the topic of “The 15th of Av: the Day of Love”

Part 2:

The 15th of Av: the Day of Love – Selected Excerpts from the Sources

Reading Excerpt #1 (00:18) “It is said in the…”

1. R. (01:08) Intense. That in truth from the perspective of the ordinary Din, judgment it’s the worst days, the 9th of Av and the day of atonement but when you correct them they become the best days, all evil becomes good. Let’s continue.

 Reading excerpt number two (01:47) “The 15th of Av…” Twice

2. S. (03:02) The literal is clear right?

Reading excerpt number 3 (03:08) “On the 15th of Av…”

3. S. (03:56) What makes the difference between the days, that one day is the 9th of Av and the other is the 15th of Av, this is the day of love and this is the day of ruin. What makes the difference?

R. The correction.

S. But it seems as if it’s divided to times, a good time or a time of desire, what is that?

R. It doesn’t matter how we call it, it’s times for the good and times for the bad.

S. Can the 9th of Av and the 15th of Av happen simultaneously? One after the other?

R. No.

S. So what makes the difference in the internality of a person, now he’s in 9th of Av?

R. The root of his soul, the 9th of Av and the 15th of Av.

S. And a person is the one who connects?

R. We can’t reach the 15th without the 9th.

4. S. (05:07) Meaning all the time we have to make corrections? Is there a physical time for that or the time is internal understanding?

R. The matter of correction is in relationships, between Israel and this world. That through that we reach the change in the lights that come down on us from above.

S. So it will be a state from the physical time?

R. No that has nothing to do with it. It’s signs, in corporeality it’s signs.

5. S. (05:56) Yesterday in the meal you gave us an assignment for the next week, to talk only about connection and love, that each one will present it to the friends, show it. Specifically this week when we are talking about love you also said to project waves of love to the friends, what is that?

R. Show them you love them. We have to use all kinds of means in order to awaken love in the friends towards the others.

S. How to project to the friends love without words, what action should I do?

R. I don’t know, ask your wife. Well what can I tell you, you have a cat at home?

S. No, I don’t like cats.

R. Oh, that’s why you don’t know. If you look at cats or dogs how they relate to one another, they don’t talk, that’s how it is. A cat comes to another cat and he brushes on him, you see you know the word but not how to do it.

S. I’ll learn from cats in short?

R. Yes, well it’s not simple, it’s a language.

6. S. (07:49) With your permission in excerpt number two it says the decree of the dead of the desert. What is that, I don’t remember?

R. That each and every year on the 9th of Av people used to die in the desert.

S. In what desert?

R. What they went through. They used to prepare graves and go into the grave and wait. Whether in that same day he dies, he dies, if not so he goes out of the grave and he keeps going with everyone. Supposedly that’s the story.

7. S. (08:48) This assignment you gave us it still feels very important. There are a few parameters here: there’s the work of a person with his friends, there’s a ten working with the person who’s projecting the love and there’s also the person who receives this love. How do we relate to each parameter?

R. Mister, that’s the matter of the heart.

S. When a person receives love from his friends it evokes a lot of rejections sometimes and sometimes shame or anger on himself and on the friends. How to relate properly to the love one receives?

R. That he will correct himself and think what he needs to do in such a case, not according to his feelings but according to the correction of nature.

S. In this exercise it’s supposed to be each one with his friend or the whole ten is supposed to do some work with a certain person in the ten?
R. Each ten must do it towards each and every other person in the ten.

8. S. (10:12) It says that a desire of each person should be incorporated in his friend to want to see in his friend. That’s the intimation in the Gamora, that this day each one bestows to his friend. The question: should it be a certain special day or every moment we should aspire to that incorporation?

R. No, it’s not written about the 9th of Av like that.

S. About the 15th of Av it says that it’s a day that the different tribes were permitted to mingle with each other meaning each one from the children of Israel would impart his blessing. Is that a special day?

R. Yes, the day of revelation of love.

S. We see that we should always aspire?

R. It’s like that always but especially on the 15th of Av, it’s the root of love. That’s how it is.

9. S. (11:21) Can I ask about the cats? No. My question is this: a Kabbalist, he sees that the entire nature is in love?

R. I can’t tell you about all the Kabbalists but I think that the foundation of nature is love and that ‘I’ve created the evil inclination’ is called that upon all of nature supposedly came down the evil inclination and it’s conducted until a certain time in order to specifically reach a necessity to reveal love.

S. So let’s suppose Rav walks in the nature, in the woods. What, the still, vegetative and animate are all in love?

R. Everybody’s in love and connection like in an underground connection and in the air and on each and every state. Nature is entirely love, one system. 

10. S. (12:45) Is it correct to see it in a way that originally a mother gives birth in order to give birth and then she has an interest to guard her child that’s a part of her. It’s egoistic but from the baby’s perspective he experiences infinite love in giving and it doesn’t depend on anything, it doesn’t matter for her that it’s egoistic. Is this the reason you just said that nature is good in its foundation and upon it there’s like a net from the perspective of the baby because he grew in bestowal, so he has this bestowal in him and then the ego starts growing. Can I see it this way?

R. I don’t think so. We need to see the way we see it. I created the evil inclination, that still before man was created, man is the result of the evil inclination and all of his qualities are development of the evil inclination. We have to receive from the Creator upon all the revelation of the evil inclination we have to get a special force of the good inclination in order to balance it and in order to invert it into the good.

S. Why did I hear just a second ago that you answered the friend that you think that nature is originally good?

R. Teva, nature, in Gematria equals God and its foundation is the good who does good to the bad and the good and everyone. But in order to show them the good He’s doing to bring them to the ultimate good He needs to go through this path with them.

S. And for them, for the created beings, for us there’s no conditioning root, the tip of the Yud of the original root?

R. No, the spark is there, the spark of good is there otherwise we couldn’t respond, we couldn’t react towards the Creator, towards the light.

S. And with correlation to the mother and child can I see it or is it too high and it doesn’t clothe there?

R. No, the mother and child if we see it then we see it like two animals and she who gives birth to the child has a desire of love and connection and taking care of him and so on. We see that it’s the living level, animate level.

11. S. (16:05) A person who lives in this world and he is completely blind to what’s around him, he doesn’t see, he doesn’t feel.

R. Correct.

S. I’m not talking about us, I’m talking about humanity, people outside. When will humanity understand everything that’s going on? Let’s say with the weather, all the fires, what’s happening is what they told us was going to happen for many years and everyone’s ignoring it.

R. So you’re asking when will humanity understand that everything that is happening to us is connected to our attitude towards one another?

S. Yes, meaning what is bad enough for humanity to wake up?

R. We don’t have any knowledge about that, there is no limit. I think that it all depends on our dissemination, the intensity of our dissemination, nothing but that. 

S. Basically our dissemination should cause humanity to be in recognition of evil faster?

R. Well, yes.

Reading #4 (17:43) “Regarding the most important matter…”

12. S. (18:34) It’s such a sublime and beautiful excerpt but it says that the Creator chooses his children with love?

R. Right.

S. When does Israel start choosing the Creator?

R. You’re asking about something else. The Creator gives conditions and from these conditions a group of people that to begin with have unique conditions, unique character, unique nature, they come closer to the Creator and choose Him. And not on the good but from the bad side, because each one, you can see it from something opposite and so on. Meaning there is great work here to those souls that need to choose in the state of being like the Creator.

S. He also says that this is the most important matter.

R. Yes.

S. Where does this importance come from in a person?

R. For all of creation. That the created beings cannot start discussing why they were created in a certain way and why do they have such qualities but they need to choose eventually the upper force. That He will manage them without any question on their behalf, they all accept Him in heart and soul.

S. He says that it’s the beginning of the salvation and the end of correction.

R. Yes.

S. I understand that it’s the end of correction revealing love but what does it mean that it’s the beginning of salvation?

R. Then and only then we can attain why we are like that. How by connection, between opposite forces, we reach an identification, equivalence of form with the Creator.

S. The beginning of salvation comes from above or from us?

R. It is all from above.

S. Especially at this time as we read that it’s the good days, the days of desire. What should we do? Suppose a person who surfs on waves, the waves give him the energy but he has to know how to surf. So what should we do in order to surf on the waves of the times of desire?

R. We just need to do what he says, to feel ourselves that we’re together, to hold ourselves together, to find ourselves that we’re connected to one another. This feeling is like us standing on a board in the ocean and if we hold on to each other, so we can advance.

13. S. (22:27) What does it mean to hold onto a friend?

R. To hold on to a friend is when I’m concerned about him and he about me in complete faith. That only in this way we can go through the abyss.

S. I depend on him holding me or is it enough to hold him?

R. You depend on him and he depends on you. And along with that each one only thinks of the other without any condition of what I get from him; but my whole purpose is to hold him and 100% to promise him success.

14. S. (23:35) At this good time which is the day of love how should we, how does the teacher think that we should pass on this message to all of Israel if there is such a thing?

R. No. If today you go out to cry out for love, so they think that now you want to put another party together and everybody’s going to jump you.

S. So what is your advice? What should we do?

R. Between us, for now it’s between us to implement it in a tangible way as much as possible.

Reading #5 (24:39) “There is self love…”

15. R. (25:51) Yes, if a person corrects his heart which is all of his desires, they will be with love towards the others. That all the others all in all it’s the Creator, so it will all be corrected and he’ll feel this love in all his organs. All of my bones will testify, okay?

16. S. (26:25) What is the medium between self-love and love of the Creator?

R. Something in the middle between them.

S. But besides self-love and love of the Creator there is nothing else. Maybe it is the motion between the two, the trend in that direction but what is the medium?

R. The medium that from it you can reach this and that. That’s what I think.

S. But in truth, in reality there is nothing else right? A person is either in self-love or love of the Creator.

R. Yes of course, there’s no other.

17. S. (27:19) Self love closes a person in his own reality. How can there be an exit from this perception?

R. Which perception?

S. Of self-love. How can there be anything else besides self-love?

R. How to come out of self-love?

S. Yes, exactly.

R. Coming out of self love, we can’t with the qualities of the Creator had put in us, honor and so on. And then we feel a need in a special attitude towards us from the environment. By that, we gradually come closer to the reason of the others that also brings us to love of others, to connection with the others. And then, we ask the Creator to have such a quality, that special attitude towards the others.

S. How to depict the love of others, the love of the Creator when a person is still in self-love?

R. That just like the way he loves himself, he can slice off of the self-love and pass it to the love of others. Gradually in that way, part by part. 

18. S. (29:30) Giving and projecting of love is a little bit understood. But what is and how to agree to accept love from a friend?

R. The matter is what for? If I receive it for myself there’s a calculation here but if I receive it as something higher then I don’t have shame or anything here and I only look at the goal. 

S. And how to put the Creator into this state of reception?

R. The Creator is as the source, He is the source of connection. 

19. S. (30:50) If this is the right direction of thought, what self-love is this about if a person all his life only harmed himself both health-wise and..?

R. I don’t understand you. A person is concerned his whole life how to do better for himself.

S. How? I can’t even stop smoking or eating sugar, I know it’s harming in the body.

R. That you know but there’s a matter of a feeling and a matter of knowledge and the feeling defeats everything.

S. It’s as if there’s something in a living person that understands he’s harming himself but he wants to feel good and he feels he can’t do anything. So he reaches all kinds of places to learn how to stop this, how to learn something new.

R. Yes.

S. It is a kind of deceit. On the one hand I care about myself on the other hand I do nothing in order to….

R. Our whole life is a lie, right?

20. S. (32:14) He gave us an exercise to project a waves of love to the friends. It feels like a technical action that even an actor, a professional actor without a heart, can do this action. It has nothing to do with a friend, who he is, what he is for me. It’s not hard to project waves of love, sometimes if it helps me make money I’ll do it for my client, it’s a good deal.

R. So it’s not a lie?

S. But the reward, it feels a bit not..

R. What not?

S. I’ll ask it differently, what am I supposed to love in the friend?

R. You love the friend because he is your partner in reaching the purpose of life.

S. This will be revealed in the future, in the meantime I imagine him differently.

R. Why differently? Now too you measure him. The way you bring him closer with you to the meaning of life.

S. That’s true. We had this scrutiny in our ten about the distance between us this week. We talked about it, we’re trying to scrutinize why there is a distance between us, why each one holds his cards close to his chest and we’re not opening ourselves to the friends and going into each other. Everyone is doing a lot dissemination, we read the articles but we don’t melt into the heart of the others. Even though we know we should do it, we’re not able to do this action.

R. The Creator isn’t letting you. The Creator is not letting you finish this action of connecting.

S. And now to project waves of love, it sounds as if you’re putting on cream, coating it with cream on the mess. It’s like putting a cream on not such a good cake.

R. Well what?

S. It’s clear that we have to pray and wait for the light to make the change and the Creator will act and help us to realize what we want but the path until the end doesn’t make life easier.

R. The end will be that you stand in a circle, you hold each other’s hands and cry to the Creator like little children that He will help you. That’s it. Like little children, without mind, without reason, without everything we are demanding your help. Connect us together to such an extent that we are incorporated in you. You are our source, we want to come back to incorporate in our source.

S. In the scrutiny of the distance between the friends we had a pretty long workshop about it and more than one friend says he feels distance from everyone, even the closest people seemingly. And he also feels that distance from himself, that he’s no longer certain who this self living in me is, what he wants. It’s as if I’m not revealing the whole truth to myself?

R. Correct.

S. Is there a reason to dig in there or should we let go of that and keep working in the connection with the friends?

R. That’s right, we don’t have to all dig in the same direction. We need to be concerned about the connection between us to such an extent that it will be so powerful that in that connection that it will swallow everything. We’ll swallow everything in it.

21. S. (37:31) You just said that the Creator doesn’t let us reach such a connection.

R. Right. So even though, we need to come closer to Him and demand it. 

S. Why doesn’t He let us if we’re already identifying that we’re not close, we’re not open, we do want to open up. So why doesn’t He let us?

R. It’s like with little children that come up to you and ask for something. You want their desire to be strong and true, that they’ll really want it because according to that desire they also get pleasure from that same candy you’re going to give them.

S. So if we’re asking and not receiving what we ask for, this is the answer of the Creator?

R. Yes, it’s a sign that our desire isn’t whole yet.

S. That’s a sign? That He tells us that we need to strengthen the desire?

R. Yes.

22. S. (38:48) What does it mean that which you hate you should not do to the other? Suppose I’m not fond of being awakened in the morning but I know it’s good and then I thank the friends and the Creator for it.

R. Well?

S. But I hate it when someone wakes me up from my sleep. So what does it mean what I hate not to do to my friend? There are many such things

R. Of course, of course. Think about it. Through time.

23. S. (39:39) There’s a sentence saying that besides a person everything is the Creator. There’s also a sentence that says that everything we see outside of us is our own desires that help us correct them when we see them from the outside. How can we relate to these two sentences?

R. Both things you said are not precise.

S. Can you please help us be precise about them?

R. I don’t know exactly what you mean.

S. We are told that everything I see outside of me, all the friends I see outside of me are my own desiss and through me trying to connect to them I am correcting them seemingly.

R. Yes.

S. And the second sentence says everything outside of me is the Creator?

R. Yes.

S. So how can we connect these two sentences? Each one seems to be something different.

R. Yes.

S. How can we connect the two sentences?

R. We don’t, we just work on both until they connect, until we see that it’s all one.

24. S. (41:24) You said that holding to the friend means that I’m concerned about him and he’s concerned about me. I have a problem in my workplace with my manager. I want to help him and he says forget about it. Don’t give me corporeal importance give me spiritual importance. What should I do?

R. I don’t know. It depends on which relationships you’re in. The relations aren’t clear.

S. I simply want to help him and he doesn’t want.

R. So he has his own problems about that. 

S. Where is the limit of love?

R. You cannot demand it from a stranger that you’re not in one system with, where you’re coming closer to the Creator.

25. S. (42:38) Is the first connection the most difficult one, do the other connections get easier the more we connect?

R. The correct connection is the final connection.

S. Is the first connection the hardest?

R. Oh yes, that’s right.

26. S. (43:07) I heard in the lesson that holding onto the friend is when I’m concerned about him and he’s concerned about me so we can cross the abyss together. All I think about is how to hold on to him and all he thinks about is how to support me?

R. Yes.

S. So the purpose is to cross the abyss and to the extent that I can hold onto the friend that he will hold me?

R. Yes.