TUESDAY: YESOD-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN TUESDAY
Rabash. One Should Always Sell the Beams of His House. 9 (1984)
Morning Lesson July 30, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 9 (1984). One Should Always Sell the Beams of His House
https://kabbalahmedia.info/sources/tuNiurqI
1. S. (17:57) He brings us here the allegory from Baal HaSulam about a father and his son on the street, so a friend is asking about this: Should I tell a friend that you love and care for that you see he’s harming himself, can you tell something to him or should we not tell him anything and just pray for him?
R. It depends on what state they’re in, but still we have to do something but the result of it will be stopping the pressure on the child which is more effective.
2. S. (18:53) He writes here “if we did all that we should do, then the Creator does all that is good for us”. How do we know that we’ve done all that we’re supposed to do?
R. It is when you see that you understand the situation and according to your understanding you’re willing to do everything. And everything you have in your hand is connection and turning to the Creator and there’s nothing more, so do it quickly.
S. It has to end with turning to the Creator?
R. Yes, it’s the only force that can change the situation, correct this situation.
3. S. (20:05) He writes in the article that everyone should judge to the scale of merit each of the friends and ignite all the sparks. How can we judge this friend to a scale of merit so that I see him again as great? How can we truly judge the friend to a scale of merit so that we can see him as great once again, or it’s not?
R. I have to say that they have eyes and don’t see, they have ears and they don’t hear. I don’t see I don’t hear anything bad about the friend and I’m only willing to serve to his merit, I’m willing to work for his merit. I’m willing to stand in this way, I’m willing to advance and make the right discernments in the connection between us.
4. S. (21:41) Rabash writes we have to believe all the Creator gives to us is for our own good even though we should pray in any case that the Creator will push away the troubles. If we believe everything is for our own good then why pray that the Creator will remove what He gave us?
R. We want to accept the guidance of the Creator as the good who does good to the bad and to the good. Meaning that what I receive doesn’t matter, it’ll be for my best for sure but we have to see that I receive it in a positive way. The fact that in a negative way or in a positive way according to my feeling I’m advancing to the purpose of life, the purpose of creation that’s clear but I have to correct myself so that I will feel the Creator’s relation towards me is always good. And it doesn’t matter if toward my will to receive he behaves harshly, seemingly badly, I have to feel in this good, the good, that it’s all for my benefit.
S. He writes a lot about making a covenant, that they might not feel the love as they do now and then they will continue their relationship as before and that’s what the covenant is for. What kind of covenant do we need to make in the Ten?
R. That each one cares for the whole Ten and we all care about everyone being only happy, feeling good, understanding good. And we will always see the upper force as arranging us in the right form toward each other and this is how we will advance.
5. S. (24:51) He divides it here to complaints against the Creator that a person has and he gives the example of the father and a child. Then he says the same with respect to the friends that there’s also complaints against the friends and then there’s making the covenant, that we have to remember how we started. The attitude to complaints towards the Creator and towards the friends should be exactly the same?
R. Not always, not always. Toward the friends it’s closer to me, it is more open. Here I have to stand and determine my relation and demand, make a substantial demand that I have to have the relation toward the Creator be always as good and doing good. And the relation towards the friends should be as a result of building the relation to the Creator as good and doing good.
S. Let’s say towards the friends we know we can act. Meaning you wake up, you don’t care about anything, you still smile, think about a friend, do something towards a friend. You play, he plays, together you build a reality towards the Creator. Can you play, act?
R. However you position yourself, this is what you will receive. Why are you looking at me?
S. It’s not clear because you can’t play with the Creator. What, I’ll force myself to say that He’s good?
R. We’re constantly playing with Him, constantly, we always depict Him the way we want. He’s telling you something, He does something to you, it’s all according to your assumption.
S. But it’s not like a game, an acting where you can smile or do something with your body. How do you change the attitude to a friend and how do you change the attitude to the Creator? Is it the same or is there a difference?
R. In the decision, in the decision. Maybe you should ask some more, I don’t know.
6. S. (28:10) Many times in the work in the group there are friends who give more strength and push towards connection and love; each time some friends awaken some friends less. I’m asking, we know that we have to give our love to the friends without waiting for a reward. Sometimes there’s this thought, this picture, that I tell myself we’ve made some effort in the group, in the connection between us and we expect more connection to happen, more unity. This picture, is that actually expecting a reward from the Creator?
R. Of course we expect a result. Without a result, without a reward we cannot live. So what do we do in all of the relationships between us and in the relationships between us and the Creator? We expect a reward. The question is what is the reward?
S. That’s really the question because you’ve said many times that today I should come to give and that’s it.
R. That’s a lie. How can you not demand anything? You are erasing the desire to receive that the Creator created in you?
S. Where’s the difference here? On the one hand I have to make my action with no reward, without expecting anything. On the other hand I do come and demand and expect something to happen, that the Creator will give us a higher degree.
R. Yes.
S. Where is the right attitude here in the connection between us, the friends and towards the Creator, my demand from the Creator?
R. What do you want to achieve?
S. I want to achieve a higher degree of connection between us each time, that our commitment to each other will be greater and sometimes it doesn’t happen, you see that the opposite happens. For instance even before we did the lesson preparation you feel that all the friends, all of them will be here and you feel it from the friends. They’re all saying we’re here, we’re going to be here and then you wake up in the morning you see everything opposite. How to treat that and how do we relate to that?
R. A person doesn’t own himself, he’s not his own ruler, from moment to moment he might change. What are you going to do?
7. S. (31:30) In the state where we agree with a friend that we come to the lesson and he doesn’t come to the lesson all of a sudden should I prove him wrong and that he went against the agreement or should I try to justify him?
R. We have to scrutinize the situations because without it we won’t be able to advance.
S. What does it mean to clarify the states?
R. We have to scrutinize or clarify what is our part of the situation, the part of the Creator and the part of the group. And how does it turn out that He’s working seemingly against the group?
S. Does this contradiction always exist and I have to justify him because he’s already in a high state or on the other hand I have to help him in the work so that he comes and participates and won’t harm himself this way.
R. On the one hand we have to establish a mood in the society that will help each one rise and get strength energy from society, from the environment and on the other hand we have to be ready to understand each and everyone, whatever state he’s in after the fact.
S. What attitude should a friend feel in the ten? Let’s say he doesn’t come, do we accept him in some way or do we care that he will attend and we don’t accept him not coming?
R. We have to come to a state where we accept the friend whatever state he’s in but we expect of him a more realistic response to our situation; that he will participate in the society and strengthen the society through his correct participation.
8. S. (35:10) To continue the question he says in the article that all the criticism that arises in me toward the friend that’s imaginary, that’s how I see it. So what I see in my eyes so to speak and what seems to be happening realistically, how do I work with that correctly? I need to see that as imaginary and work on myself or nevertheless work towards the friends?
R. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I have to help a friend and the friend has to help me and both of us through mutual help come to the right actions.
S. Because here I just need to lock all of my criticism, that’s what’s written here. So do I lock the criticism away or do I work with the friend?
R. I throw my criticism aside.
S. If I throw away my criticism it’s like I saw it incorrectly right?
R. They have eyes and they don’t see, they have ears and they do not hear. Why? And from this you begin.
S. A friend didn’t come to the lesson even though he promised he would. I see that with my eyes. The article advises me to see that I’m wrong, I don’t see correctly? How to build my work from here?
R. I don’t know. If you see that he didn’t show up then you see he didn’t show up, it’s not like you’re imagining that he is there when he’s not there. There’s a truth that you cannot deny.
9. S. (37:57) The question is, maybe it’s not really connected but I’ll ask it: the friends are described here and everything that’s happening, all the challenges of the ten and that the conditions are not ideal. How can we help the members of the ten really participate?
R. Example, the important thing is example. That you give an example to everyone and in what way you have to relate to one another.
10. S. (39:22) I wanted to share that I personally work with None Else Besides Him and the good that does good; I work not just in the ten but in everything that happens to me throughout the day. I wanted to ask if that can help all the friends?
R. Yes, yes, even when you’re not with them in the ten it still helps.
S. If I can ask another thing, I mean in the work, not just opposite the friends when I’m not with them but in every event that also is not connected to the ten. Whatever happens to me on the road or anywhere I use None Else Besides Him, so this is the question.
R. Yes, that too influences everyone, that too influences everyone.
11. S. (40:50) How can we receive strength or where do we take the strength to fight the spies within us and overcome them?
R. Basically only through the connection between us. There the Creator hides all our steps until the end of correction, there is where all of us are more and more corrected. We have to forcefully advance toward the connection between us and there find and implement these forces.
12. S. (41:51) In the article, Baal HaSulam gives this allegory about the father and the child who wants to poke his eye with the pin. So what spiritual pleasure would we receive if we wouldn’t behave incorrectly like the kid in the allegory, if we would really fulfill the commandment of the father?
R. We would discover the upper light, that’s obvious.
13. S. (42:51) Can I have the nerve or the gall to make a demand to the Creator because He gives me all the thoughts; can I ask Him to send me only good thoughts about the friends?
R. Of course. The Creator is the force of good that does good to the good and to the bad 100%, in all the states but we feel Him according to equivalence of form. There’s a difference between what we feel, what we experience and expect, think and receive.
14. S. (44:00) You answered a friend about how to deal with his friend who doesn’t come to the morning lesson and you said we have to scrutinize in the Ten whose fault it is, the Creator’s, the friend’s, the ten. My question is the scrutinies that you’re talking about in the ten, you said talk about it openly when the friend didn’t come. There’s a situation, where is it his fault or our fault and should we talk about it this way?
R. If you can’t speak that way then speak a different way.
S. What do you mean in a different way?
R. However you can.
S. In the ten? Together in the group, right?
R. Yes of course. Always try to work to speak from within the Ten that connects together to a single mechanism, to a single circle.
15. S. (45:25) I keep seeing people doing good things for themselves in that they have faith more than anyone else but they think that others have little faith and that they are doing bad deeds. Even people who seem to me like they are at the highest level, they have deficiencies, they find deficiencies, they find faults in others. It angers me and saddens me and rises above my desire to connect. How do I relate to this, what do I do with it?
R. I would recommend not to allow such thoughts and desires to fill you up and that’s it. That should find balance, it should pass but this attitude of yours just indicates how much more correction you lack, okay?
16. S. (47:02) How to work correctly with the thoughts of the spies that come up in your mind, how to work correctly with these thoughts?
R. These thoughts have to be scrutinized and how much a person agrees with them and then raise them to a prayer, to a demand, a request. What else can you do?
17. S. (47:34) It says in the article put the shoes on his feet to lock away the spies as though they no longer exist. What does it mean as though? Can you get rid of those spies or do they stay?
R. First of all spies only indicate to us where we are, the extent to which we’re still immersed in qualities that are not correct; that not all our qualities are aimed at the purpose of life, the purpose of creation. That with all of these qualities together in the right combination we get to the goal. It’s what we can say, that’s one. Two, these spies also awaken within us all kinds of questions, contradictions and by that we advance. We don’t want these forces, we do want these forces, we understand how much they are in our favor or not. Meaning in creation there is actually no good inclination and bad inclination, good and bad. All of that was only intended for us, to take us to a development, take us through evolution. So these spies simply show us how much we still have desires, deficiencies, thoughts that are not balanced, that we don’t yet know how to relate them to. So why not? The more we have of that the faster we’ll advance.
S. How can we use these spies when we recognize them and help each other to use them correctly in the ten?
R. You have to surface them so they’re not hidden, so they become revealed and then you have to try to work with them in a circle, all of us together.
18. S. (50:50) We see how you relate to the lesson, to participation. This is simply the most important thing. When you were studying, learning with Rabash how did you relate to a friend who didn’t come to the lesson?
R. There was barely such a situation, there was almost no situation where a friend didn’t come to the lesson.
S. If he still didn’t show up was he justified? What kind of relation did he encounter?
R. There were people who had to scrutinize to see what happened but the attitude was always what happened. It wasn’t that to begin with people just think that he’s just tired or something but that something happened.
S. There was a pressure in the society that it was something not normal had happened?
R. Yes, that if a person didn’t come to a lesson then what happened.
S. What could the society do?
R. A few people who were responsible for the attendance in the lesson had to clarify, call the person and check and see and bring the person to a state where he understood how much he stops everyone, harms everyone. How could it be that a person doesn’t come? It’s not possible unless he’s so sick that he can’t get up or some other thing, I don’t know.
S. How can the society gently show a friend that slighting the lesson when he says I have other thoughts in mind?
R. There’s no such thing, there’s just no such thing. We made a commitment that we are coming together every day until the final correction and there’s no giving up on that.
S. So how to show correctly, gently that we make no concessions, that it’s important to us and we don’t just accept any kind of attitude just because he’s a friend.
R. I don’t know how to do it in a gentle way but send to him a few people who know how to speak in a delicate way, in an elegant way. I don’t know. Still, you have to treat that very severely on the one hand and on the other hand very gently.
S. But how to keep this pressure hanging in the air so I can’t allow myself to do such a thing?
R. I don’t know. I think that only if you’re really sick then you allow yourself to stay in bed, that you really just can’t get up. It’s not that I have this strength to come but how will I learn, how will I.. that’s not the calculation. The calculation is simplethat I can’t get up.
19. S. (55:54) So on the one hand we hear Rav giving this advice, on the other hand we just heard from Rabash that I mustn’t criticize him.
R. What criticism?
S. That I didn’t come to the lesson.
R. Why?
S. For a reason that he says it’s justified but from what I understand from Rav, it does not fall under the criterion of justified.
R. I don’t know where you take all of these..
S. From reality.
R. Reality is different from what’s written, it’s a different thing, reality. There is no reality, what we make is reality.
S. Well that’s the question we’re trying to scrutinize. Rabash says do not criticize. I hear from the Rav a certain attitude towards the morning lesson and I see in reality in my eyes something else, so what am I supposed to do? Should I criticize or not, how should I relate to the friend?
R. First we have to clarify, find out what happened. If it’s about, let’s say a friend’s attendance in the lessons so what happened? Maybe there are such conditions that prevent him from coming. So we have to clarify but it’s not that we forgive to begin with, or punish to begin with. That’s it.
20. S. (57:54) I want to ask if it’s connected when he says that the spies are in me when I see something in the friend. If there’s a situation where I’m between two friends and each of them says something about the other and because of that they cannot continue being together. It is what I see?
R. Yes. They don’t?
S. Right now they see something else but I see that there is this situation. So besides praying, I couldn’t find anything that they would listen to, the lesson or these articles but..
R. Typically by that we won’t get to anything. We have to sit them down together and get them to discuss. We as the third party bring the two parties to discuss and see what are the complaints of one towards the other and so on. Maybe you’ll discover that they don’t have any complaints, it just seems to them, it’s all fictional.
21. S. (59:18) I wanted to ask about the mutuality that happens between a person and his ten. To what extent do the actions that each one does influence the ten or is each one his own person with respect to what he does?
R. They have to discuss more between them in the ten and not that one and then the other, then the third. Rather it has to be clear to them about what certain state they agree on as a group. On this and this and this and that and all of these group collective agreements should be as written in their hearts, and that they have to use it.
S. If I understand correctly, topics that we agreed on in the ten, these topics we have to follow, the group decision that we have come to?
R. Yes.
S. To what extent are the operations of each one influencing the ten? Or is one’s operations, the things he does and the calculation is only on him and what he does does not reflect on his environment?
R. Well, there is this and there is that, I don’t know. But if it is a group question, a collective of discernments then everyone follows that.
S. The example we have been talking about is participation in the lesson. A person decided that he’s not coming. Why is it influencing everyone?
R. He has to be able to provide an answer to the question. Why doesn’t he come?
S. Let’s say he has an answer. Is the decision he took not to come, his decision, his action, does it influence everyone or is it only his decision?
R. He has to decide as though he hears it from everyone.
S. Clear, but in the end, the fact that he decided something, will the result influence everyone or only him?
R. What do you mean the result will be on everyone? Of course it will influence everyone. Let’s say he doesn’t come to the lesson, that influences everyone.
S. What is the boundary of mutuality between the person, the individual and the group? Or does everything have an influence and with everything you do you have to take into account that influences the group?
R. Of course.
S. If there is anything that doesn’t influence the group?
R. No.
S. How do you move if everything is..
R. To begin with either I work alone or I work in the group, that’s it. Why do I work in the group? Because that’s the way to advance, I can’t do it on my own.
S. Clear. So at the point that I decided I’m working in the group everything I do influences the group?
R. Yes.
S. How do you live in a state where you feel like you are tied from every direction, everything you do is..
R. Of course, of course and I’m going for it happily because that is what leads me to the spiritual degree.
S. How to act correctly? How to be a beneficial part in the group?
R. That I do it with all my strength. Whatever is up to me I strengthen the group, I pass it on to them in my behavior, my view. But it’s impossible otherwise.
22. S. (01:04:39) From what I understand in the article, he writes that the fact that a person sees that the friends are going in love of others he expects his own strength in love of others to grow as well. And from what I understand it’s incorrect, I’m not supposed to expect my own strength to grow in relation to the friends. And then he explains that the minute that everyone remembers why we gathered and that everyone has their own spark there’s a flame that lights up. How do we come to that place of concentrating the effort not on doing more, acting more, adding more, but concentrating the effort on everyone being a small spark; that we make a common effort and we add it to the flame and increase that, and not my own strength?
R. If I think about it, if I work towards it, then it will happen.
S. What does it mean if I think about it?
R. If I want to strengthen the group and not myself. Let’s say there is some kind of contradiction between us so that’s what I’m working towards.
S. But then I automatically increase my own strength. I say okay, I worked, and I did something here and I’m expecting something.
R. I don’t understand what you’re saying.
S. I’m saying he gives us a practical action to do here. How to increase the flame which is to remember why we gathered in the first place? How do we do this practically so that I don’t do this and then expect my own strength to grow even more?
R. After all our actions during the day and in general we need to see the order of how we are connecting. How we are connecting, how we are uniting, how we become as one man with one heart more and more and more. We collect ourselves. And then accordingly it will be possible to hope for such a unity that will reveal the complete, true picture of reality within us.
S. It feels like this point of judging every friend to the side of merit, how like a friend didn’t get up and things like that. That point is exactly what adds more. Is this what reignites the flame?
R. Yes.
S. How do we say from now on we are shutting off all these things that we think about each other and move on from here?
R. You have to decide. This is each and everyone’s inner decision and maybe it will change in a few minutes but you have to stand on that every moment and examine it and surface, raise this decision and thus advance.
S. Should this be something that is presented in the ten?
R. Yes of course, then why do you read the article? You receive some Torah of Rabash and what for?
S. Because these arguments accumulate each second, each day. So we have to think together each day and think..
R. No, you don’t even need to sit together and you won’t be able to tell each other anything new. No, You just need to understand that only through the inner scrutiny within man’s heart, this is where he clarifies his relationship to the demand of the Kabbalist.
S. Final question. So what brings each person in the ten to the inner scrutiny that he does each moment, each day?
R. He wants to feel that he advances, he wants to know that he advances.
23. S. (01:09:57) He is talking about cattle and oxen. Which is really like a security check, how can we make a covenant when part of the security is in me and part of the security is in the friend?
R. Of course we depend on each other because to begin with, in the system of Adam HaRishon we are all interdependent, we don’t feel it at all we have to take into account that in my decision I work on others and they work on me and that is how we advance.
S. And practically are there no tactics?
R. We have to see, you have to see. I don’t think it happens so fast and so clear.
24. S. (01:11:16) Rabash writes at the end of the article that we should shut off all the spies if they do not exist in the land anymore and all the questions and demands they have we should shut them off. This is what Rabash writes, but I heard from you that we have to raise them so they’re not hidden so they will be revealed and you answered some of the friends that we have to scrutinize and clarify these spies, so I have to understand now, how it connects that by raising them up it allows us to shut them out? Is this how it works?
R. To make them revealed.
S. But then when they’re revealed, the advice from Rabash is to shut them out, not to deal with them. How to then reveal it?
R. If you don’t discover them then you won’t be able to lock them and you won’t be able to work above them.
25. S. (01:12:35) We have a greater opportunity to build the relationships between us because women do not have time dependent Commandments. How do we come to a state of mutual concern where I am concerned about the friend and the friend about me? How do we decide on this point of connection?
R. Try each time to develop it further and further and also to talk about it between the friends and the women and the men separately.
26. S. (01:1:43) A practical question, can we scrutinize the obligations that a friend takes upon himself? Let’s say I can go to the lesson two days a week so we demand from her with respect to those two days or are we trying to get her to expand her obligation?
R. We have to go towards the Creator.
27. S. (01:14:20) What is to harm the Ten? If we’re talking about this, that just by not coming to the lesson I am harming the Ten and the world Kli, so how can we determine this as harmful on one hand with respect to our general work. And on the other hand, to leave a person some space to develop himself and take decisions himself, and what we try and call free choice? How does this work together in balance?
R. This is impossible for now. We need to continue the way we are right now. Another month or two, it is possible that we will be able to make some summaries and continue.
S. Another question, a person is in the Ten, and he feels that his perception is flawed to begin with as an individual. I understand what I heard from you that there is a formula in order to make a correct decision, you need first to connect very strongly in the Ten so that our perception will be corrected and that out of this corrected perception then to make every decision no matter how difficult or uncomfortable it may be? And the Ten has the possibility to solve these problems and the manner to solve them correctly. Is that correct?
R. I think so. I think so.
28. S. (01:16:9) If we see that the example of the morning lesson does not work, let’s say the last 5 years those who saw it as a purpose of their life and they do not see it as how to work with Kabbalah. Otherwise they come every morning and barely miss any lessons but those who do not see it as important, they do not reach every lesson.
R. There’s not much you can do, nothing much you can do with it.
R. What will it give you if it commits or does not commit? What percent of it can actually lift his incorporation? But in principle, all these commitments do not work.
29. S. (01:17:5) What do we do in a state that out of our desire to justify and accept the friends in all cases that it can maybe turn into apathy?
R. We have to talk about it, the lesson summary.
30. S. (01:18:38) According to the scrutinies of this excerpt the friends brought up, we want to uproot all of what the spies bring to us, what does it mean this slander?
R. He’s willing to lose everything but that, but the purpose of creation.
S. Only for the purpose of creation, thank you. The question from a friend, how can we help to support our men so they will wake up for the morning lesson? How can the women help the men wake up to the morning lesson?
R. Speak to their women. Speak with their wives. A woman can really manipulate a person, a man. If he wants it, the man will get up and go to the lesson. Man is very weak compared to a woman.
31. S. (01:20:12) In the article it says that the main thing to pay attention to, is the matter of love of friends for we have many spies. I do not see the friends engaging in love of friends as it says in the article and that we need to overcome that. There are states that the women and the men in the morning lesson but then you feel that the friend is in the morning lesson because the woman sent him, the wife?
R. From Lo Lishma we come to Lishma?
S. You are saying it is not important why they came but to accept them but to do this action of justification? The main thing in the friend is in the morning lesson and at least he is in this?
R. Yes.
S. And here we can continue above reason?
R. Yes.