SUNDAY: BINAH-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN SUNDAY
Rabash. According to What Is Explained Concerning “Love Thy Friend as Thyself”. 7 (1984)
Morning Lesson August 4, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 1:
Rabash. Article 7, (1984). According to What Is Explained Concerning “Love Thy Friend as Thyself”
1. Rav’s Introduction: (15:26) A wonderful article, questions?
2. S. (15:39) How in practice to make himself a zero relative to the friends?
R. Practically everyone sees what opportunities are before him but you see that it’s an obligation it’s necessary, it’s not that he will just be like some mop rather to do anything in order to help others.
S. Zero relative to what?
R. You need to help in all your opportunities to connect to attain the goal of creation. What does he want, the goal of creation and you need with all your power to see how you can assist him?
S. This means making the friend into one to grow him?
R. Yes.
S. What is it to make myself a zero?
R. That you operate in this direction.
3. S. (17:11) He writes here that love is a matter of the heart but nature disagrees, so what can a person do so that the love of others will come to his heart and the heart disagrees and we have an inner problem we disagree. What our friend says here we need to annul before the friend and become a zero. How can you do it when you have no inclination to love anyone?
R. Hear again and again and again.
S. I can’t stand anyone.
R. These are big high levels I don’t think you’re in yet.
S. I have to reach such a state?
R. That you care what is happening between you and the friend. When you say I can’t stand him, that’s something.
S. Here what you say, what’s up with him and I speak nice to him and speaks back like this and you see that they don’t love you keep trying and become a zero, and they don’t relate to you?
R. First of all you’re just saying it for no reason. I know that people love and very much appreciate you.
S. Me?
R. Yes.
S. Why do you think so?
R. I see with my eyes, I don’t need to hear it.
S. Really?
R. Yes.
S. How would you feel it different from what you’re saying, what do you mean?
R. You feel that they look down at you about what you are saying.
S. If they would respect you, how would you think you would feel it? Well I sit down and I take my books, sit down and they give me instant coffee not black coffee. They don’t care about me, they know I don’t like black coffee. Just give me an example, look, when I love someone, I’m going to run from him?
R. I’ll tell you what, instant coffee we don’t have because we continue Rabash’s way. They didn’t have instant coffee. All those old people when I got to them, they didn’t know what instant coffee was.
S. The question I was asked was how can I truly annul myself before a friend even when I can’t stand him, how do you do it?
R. Why can’t you stand him?
S. He’s telling me ugly words.
R. Meaning the Creator already arranges already for you such feelings, attitudes that you hate them, that’s very good, meaning He’s giving you already a unique degree with what to begin love of friends.
S. You spoke about the study with Rabash’s degree. Did he reveal this hate between the friends even though you weren’t that many people you revealed hate?
R. Hate was barely revealed.
S. What did you have there?
R. Apathy, apathy.
S. Did people annul and try to be zero?
R. I would say neutral like theYre’s a gap between everyone.
S. How can we advance?
R. You need to advance upon this to get closer, nearer.
S. When you discover you can’t stand him you can advance, so the only thing you can do is annul yourself and then what?
R. Then to feel that you were truly advancing and in this you are getting closer and closer and closer to him, you understand as much as you will pass this border between you. You will try to incorporate in him, and him in you and by this you will feel in your participation a new force.
S. That’s the whole story to overcome this desire?
R. To overcome the repulsion, the rejection. The rejection is the force that the Creator made and we need to overcome it and then to the extent we overcome we begin to feel two as one. Then out of this already we begin to reach spiritual sensations.
4. S. (22:37) How does the system work to understand that the more Commandments a person does the self love will go down and is love for others, for the Creator will grow? As a result of certain actions?
R. No, first of all don’t ask me about the entire system, I don’t want to speak about that. We need together to open it up out of our experience, out of our actions. What we do need is to understand that only in coming closer between us do we attain that same state that the force of connection is revealed among us, and in the force of connection the Creator is revealed and that’s how we advance.
S. What shrinks self-love?
R. Self love never shrinks, one who is greater than his friend his ego is greater than him and we upon this self love, we need to be in love of others the mutual love between us. Then all our force of ascent is the evil force and more and more and more that I love myself and hate the other and reject them and rise above this rejection, this repulsion to love. Love covers all crimes. That’s actually the rule.
S. When a person discovers how important he is to himself all the time, what is the action he should take right now?
R. That he’s important to himself, now his action is to make the effort to take one step towards the friend in order to be closer to him.
S. Then he discovers even more that he enters inwards?
R. That is called love covers all crimes, that the more that we advance, we will also discover more crimes.
S. How can I help a friend reveal what’s bothering him, each one should help his friend?
R. Just show him that there is nothing more important, nothing greater than connection. Give an example.
5. S. (25:52) The last paragraph says something from the word sum, granted is the potion of life, not granted is a portion of death. He continues if he’s rewarded then his self-love is annulled and finally he aims to receive a reward in the strength of others and by this reach the love of the Creator and his only wish is to bring contentment to the Creator. I want to ask about going after love of friends but the aim and the passion is for love of the Creator. I noticed that oftentimes I exert in the Ten in actions and it’s not organized properly that the intention behind it is love of the Creator. I engage in love of friends because I need to, because I learned that somehow beyond it you reach the love of the Creator. The question about this is to make it more precise, what is the flaw in it?
R. You think that by this you engage in love of friends you will reach love of the Creator?
S. I understand this is what I need to think but in practice I find that I’m not always thinking about it?
R. Why are you engaging in love of friends?
S. Because I got used to it and in the back of my mind I know this is how you get to that goal but it’s not before my eyes, the Creator is not the goal each and every moment.
R. And that’s the problem. If the Creator is not the goal then what’s the benefit of the actions?
S. That’s the question?
R. Meaning that we need first of all to increase the goal, to enlarge the goal and then from the goal then it should be the most important of all, then we will get into realization and realization is in connection between us.
S. Friends speak of it,meaning in the Ten they say this is the goal the friends remind me of it, I see that in me and not always revealed as the goal?
R. That’s correct, that’s how it is for everyone, that’s how it is for everyone. Then we need to talk about it, that we have no other goal besides to reach adhesion with the Creator.
S. Is this something I need to look for, if I see that the goal is not precisely held within me it should keep me restless?
R. Yes.
6. S. (29:07) There’s a promise from the Creator when a person tries to love the friend he shouldn’t be harmed by it, because the will to receive always preserves itself but if I nullify myself before their friend it’s a subconscious concern that my friend will take advantage of it seemingly take your guard down, when you do such a thing relative to the friend?
R. Okay, so?
S. Mentally, intellectually acquire such a promise that there’s no need to worry about anything but that the Creator will accompany this action because the will to receive thinks of itself. I’m just going to lower myself towards the friends, annul myself and he’s going to take advantage of it somehow, exploit it?
R. I don’t understand your connection question to begin with. What do you want?
S. I want to overcome and come closer to the friend but receive this guarantee that he will not harm me and that I’m not going to lose anything from that. Is there such a thing?
R. I can’t get closer to somebody and be afraid that it’s going to harm me. There’s no such thing.
S. That fear is there from the get-go?
R. Then it belongs to the Creator, it doesn’t belong to the friend or me.
S. What does that mean?
R. I need to have confidence in the action of the Creator that this action will be correct with respect to me.
S. But even in the end if there is some harm?
R. There is no harm in this. How can you understand that there’s some harm?
S. The ego! Ego feels it is being harmed?
R. Yes that’s what the ego feels.
S. So don’t consider its feelings?
R. No.
7. S. (31:42)) What does it mean to keep the Commandment of love forcefully, love of friends forcefully?
R. That we make the effort, each one and himself to enlarge the attitude to the others in love.
S. When we gather we get the strength from one another by annulling before one another?
R. Right.
S. My point is that annulment that we do before one another, how significant is it to acquire the vessel of love of friends?
R. Well very important? I don’t know how to measure it, but it is very important.
S. You told the friend if you reach hate it’s a very high degree, why? We really need to reach a state where we feel how much we hate in order to reach greater love of friends?
R. The more we will advance we will feel both connection and hate. Both these poles will be standing out more and more.
S. This is part of our work, we grow?
R. Yes.
8. S. (33:20) With everything there is, I have to have the fear that I might fall?
R. Let’s say.
S. How do we come to this fear?
R. What is it called to fall?
S. I don’t know, come out of the path, wallow in self-love.
R. You need to make the effort to be tied to the friends to such an extent that it will protect me. If I begin some spiritual action, I don’t know what it is or where it will end. But if I’m tied to the friends, if I’m truly in them within them then it protects me in some manner. Thus that’s how we need to constantly protect ourselves, keep ourselves to be constantly in connection with the ten, let’s say the group and to be in the center.
S. We do all that but I don’t feel that fear that every moment if I don’t engage in love of friends that I might fall.
R. But, according to what we learn in each and every action we first of all need to see ourselves as in the society in the love of friends, but then this action that we’re increasing the connection between us meaning the love to such an extent that this love becomes a vessel for the revelation of the Creator, our connection with the Creator.
9. S. (35:00) In order to keep the Commandment you need the one who commands it to be greater than the one who’s keeping the Commandment?
R. Right.
S. The one who gives the Commandment could be the Creator or it could be the reward for which I work?
R. Yes.
S. Without the Commandment this equation is clear but in order to check what is my intention the reward or the Creator, what helps me here overcome so the Creator will be my reward, will be the one that commands it, not the reward?
R. How can I do that? That’s by the friends. That I receive such an impression from the friends that what they’re doing they’re doing all the actions because the Creator is great in their eyes.
S. The greatness of the friends comes from the friends at the expense of the reward?
R. Yes.
10. S. (36:16) What do you do when there’s a conflict? Should I annul before the friends or before the goal? The friend said let’s meet to play basketball to ride some bicycle. Instead of being with them I can invest in reading an article and studying, disseminating; so, I annul before the child’s play or the goal?
R. What an interesting society you have.
S. Well sometimes they say let’s meet for a bicycle ride in the mountains, for example.
R. Usually that doesn’t bother.
S. My time is limited. I want to choose either to read an article or ride a bicycle?
R. Choose.
S. Annul before the goal or before the friends? I do not want to hurt them, insult them, they will hate me.
R. I don’t know, you can’t choose here. You check according to your state. Why are your questions so not straight? Yes, I know your life is like that, twisted.
11. S. (37:23) He writes if each one is incorporated and annulled before his friend they become one mass. The question is when can we make this action of incorporation and annulment, this can be in the gathering of friends but how can we go beyond it, if at all. Again, it says if everyone is incorporated and annul before his friend, they become a single mass. The question is when do we do that action of incorporation, the mingling? Does it happen only in the gathering of friends or it can happen throughout the day?
R. Nobody knows when. Rather, if we yearn to it sometime, then it occurs.
S. If I understood you correctly, you said earlier that in each action that I do I have to think of love of friends?
R. Right.
S. How do I do it? Now a certain desire is revealed in me. I work as much as possible and this desire and this action, I’m thinking first of love of friends then love of the Creator. How do I make it more precise, this work?
R. You first of all think always about the Creator and love of friends as a means to reach love and connection with the Creator.
S. And the Ten based on this sentence, if everyone is nullified before his friend mingles and becomes one mass, a great power so every friend needs to put in a little something and the Ten has to ensure this happens?
R. Yes of course, that everyone to connect and join this action to be tied to one another and reveal the connection in which the Creator will be revealed in him.
S. How as a Ten can we check if we’re doing it’s happening, how do we check it?
R. Only over time that you are going as such together and making the effort to go together.
12. S. (40:08) How not to reach indifference even when there’s hate and friction because I assume indifference is the most severe thing?
R. Right.
S. Because sometimes there’s friction with the friend and sometimes you want to get rid of them but because of the friction it causes you to think about them. What I thought is that there’s this line here that says, ‘But in the righteous there’s a difference, gather them, it is good for them and good for the world.’ If we are holding on to it as a society that Ten, and we come with that and first of all we have fear because we have fear of influence in the world and responsibility, so how not to fall into indifference that hate is preferable to indifference?
R. No, we don’t do it like that or think like that, because we can surely be greatly mistaken and that we need connection to come nearer and we don’t let up on that. We don’t let up on that. Don’t concede it. There’s no such thing that we can get farther just to not feel the gap between us, the distance between us, no, that is forbidden.
13. S. (41:57) He writes in the article you have to make oneself as zero towards the friends, then he says you have to make yourself a zero twice or (Rav, even a thousand, what’s the importance?) Well, zero is an absolute thing, what can be less than zero even a double zero, what does it mean to annul twice?
R. How much distance is there between you and the friend, and in this he is more successful, better, stronger and more drawn to the goal and so on. That is how you measure.
S. Against every quality of his?
R. I can’t really say like that in every quality and what, but you measure and you understand more or less that in this he is better, and that he is better and that’s how I am like this at the end with everyone. That’s how it is on one hand, because that’s better because if I annul towards them, then I’m drawn after them I’m carrying along with them.
S. Exactly in this someone asked you, in the beginning of the lesson what does it mean to make yourself a zero before the friend? You told them it means to help them attain the purpose of creation, do everything to help him. Seeing him successful, as great, as wise, what is the connection between these two?
R. I don’t know what you are saying.
S. You just said to a friend to make myself a zero before the friend and to see the friend as more successful and more wiser than me and bestowing more than me. To another friend you said make yourself a zero before the friend?
R. It means to help him in everything to attain the action of creation.
S. It’s an action and not a determination, how do you connect these two, do you have to have both simultaneously?
R. It can be two different people, different times, no don’t tie these things.
S. When I see that Rabash is giving me advice I have to make myself a zero before the friends and I now realize and actualize his advice?
R. Right.
S. In the Ten I have to work with these two forms, yes, both?
R. Maybe find a few more, what can we say? Look, how else can we do to make yourself that you’re a zero will respect to the friends? They will help you to ascend. You don’t understand that as much as you will try to do it you will get actions, better than anything I can tell you in all our lessons. Try practically and actively.
15. S. (45:22) Rabash writes in the example where he makes himself a zero and considers he is receiving from a friend ten times and if he is a double zero he is receiving from his friend a 100 times more. We are not to receive but to bestow, this example sounds like it’s receiving more, what should I tell myself so that this example will not?
R. To the extent that you will feel yourself lesser than the friend you could receive from him more light and receive more from the Creator through him.
S. To say that I’m receiving from the Creator through the friend?
R. Of course, it’s always from the Creator.
16. S. (46:15) I have thoughts about myself. How do I turn myself into a zero towards friends towards life, I cancel the thoughts in my head and think of my friends?
R. You are all entirely invested and engaged and helping the friends to advance to correction. That’s what you want to do, that’s what you want to be in.
S. I say it some moment I was able to cancel my thoughts about myself and think of the friends and ask for them, what’s it mean that I add another zero to this?
R. It’s not important, leave all these zeros that’s not important. You’ll learn to count them, what’s important for you is that you help them in everything possible, in everything that you reveal that you can support them and to help them do that. Alright?
S When you read the article it sounds like you’re working with yourself in order to annul yourself but here what’s important is the help of the friends, it’s not that I simply annul myself but I help the friend. Is this the essence of this in helping the friends?
R. Yes.
17. S. (47:59) There’s a friend who’s in a descent and he told me I don’t need the society I need to cleave to Rav with everything that’s happening in my life. The question is, how do I reinforce convince this friend in order to help him out, because I feel this torment in my heart?
R. We need to talk with him, we need to explain that alone we cannot. A person doesn’t take himself out of the pit from the prison, he needs the society to help him, to escape from there to save him. It’s written in many places and thus just to sit and eat oneself up it’s not going to help. One must be in a society and to annul towards them so that they will take him out of that pit.
18. S. (49:33) In the Ten each one has to give his best all with all his might. Why does Rabash say we need to annul, wouldn’t it be preferable to use the qualities of the gift the Creator gave him?
R. Repeat please.
S. In the Ten each one needs to give his best but Rabash tells us we need to annul. Would it be better for society if everyone used the gift the Creator gave him?
R. Of course we need to add all the good things and to conceal in this all the bad things in order to not bother the friends and that’s how all of us help one another, how to exit this pit. Of course that’s how we do it.
19. S. (51:04) When we say from love of others to the love of the Creator there’s additional work to reach that?
R. No, love of others ends in love with the Creator, ultimately the path is not alone, but maybe it seems confusing to us right now but it’s rather simple, just to rise above our ego.
20. S. (51:45) How can a person whose nature is entirely the will to receive and he cannot love anyone else if it’s not for his own personal interest how, can such a person suddenly reach the love of others?
R. By the light that reforms, the upper light illuminates and what He illuminates you love and what He doesn’t illuminates you reject it and feel repulsed. It all depends on the upper light and all our work is how we aim the upper light on us so that we will have a tendency to correct actions.
21. S. (52:44) How to distinguish between a state of indifference and passive annulment? How do we distinguish between a state of indifference and active annulment?
R. I don’t know if we can see it on the outside, but inside a person does need to investigate this and see what to do with the indifference, despair, a lack of forces. I think that the main thing for him is to hold on and respond to the society and in each and every state he should have only fear not to get farther from them not to get distant from the society. That’s it because if he exits the control of the society and the forces in which the society can influence him then he is lost, because the Creator operates within the society to the extent that the friends think upon one another, the Creator is in them and they succeed.
22. S. (54:30) I noticed that I relate to our common vessel in the Ten separately and separately to each one of the friends, and my love for the mutual vessel is like a mother to her child. Is this a good attitude?
R. Let it be like this for the meantime.
S. The moment one of the friends seems to me as harming the common vessel, I begin to be protective of it and the love of the friend disappears. What do I need to do?
R. To rise even higher and to think they’re all your children.
S. It’s not that they are mothers of this vessel but that they are all my children?
R. Components of this Kli.
23. S. (55:51) What does it mean in the article that the measure of fear is the measure of faith?
R. Because truly, the fear is at the foundation of the vessel and above the fear already is the faith, faith is already much higher.
S. What does it mean that fear is the basis of the Shechina?
R. That’s how Kabbalists revealed that according to the fear give it such a connection between the vessels that in them the Creator can dress and clothe and His appearance as such as the force of faith.
24. S. (57:09) Why is the method based on changing the importance of friends and not talking about love which is something that’s easy to attain and easily confuses everyone. The importance is much more realistic and can be applied daily, so why do we focus on love of friends and not working on raising the importance of the friends?
R. Because the love also includes importance. If I love someone he is important in my eyes.
25. S. (58:09) What do I need to love the friends for, is it the fact that they bring me to the Creator or something else?
R. Only that it is enough, that without them I cannot attain contact with the Creator and only through them I can do it, so already on this I love them.
S. This action between us when we connect and come closer and justify one another, when we feel this ,what else do we need to feel in this connection? How do you transfer that emotion from love of friends to love of the Creator?
R. We need to simply go forward and that’s it,and each time we will see how the Creator is leading us more and more.
26. S. (59:40) Let’s say that a friend justifies his friend in the work and he positions them as one and him as a zero toward them. Then a similar feeling toward the Creator in gratitude that the Creator truly showers us with gifts everyday and this is the path and that He rewarded us, and he cannot imagine it, he can never thank Him for that. Why all these feelings and why is that not considered love of the Creator to some extent?
R. I don’t understand why are all these sensations we feel are not called love?
S. Yes, the fact that we justify the friends or justify the Creator and whatever he does we justify Him and feel great gratitude is that considered love? Why is it not considered love?
R. Afterwards it changes to love. Alright, these are questions that are not to the point
27. S. (01:00:47) Can we look at the hate that’s revealed as reward for our actions and connection, because only from this state can you pray to the Creator.
R. We can turn the punishment to reward. It depends on how we ask.
28. S. (01:01:32)Yesterday we had a workshop in the Ten, we saw how some of the friends are afraid of giving up their will to receive, but the question is how to help those friends not to despair. If we’re only working with the will to receive we will not receive anything?
R. We still need to learn very much, read very much, and read articles constantly. I have nothing more to add. We need to start learning.
29. S. (01:02:41) In the end there he writes about being rewarded, but we know our work in love of friends is in coercion and I can’t do things because the body will always resist. How do I turn this coercion into a Commandment in which later I will be rewarded with love of the Creator?
R. Continue and see where it will bring you from one to another.
S. Is there something about the person’s exertion that has to practically do more of it and at the end everything comes to a prayer and you pray, and then?
R. You want to understand how the light influences us and how it changes us so you can’t understand everything. You are told that by this and this and that, this is how you go from side to side to side. But how exactly it’s done, don’t investigate it too much because you won’t understand.
S. Does it mean that there’s a possibility that he will not be rewarded, a person can work and not be rewarded?
R. Why? If he does everything as it’s written he will be rewarded.
S. It’s obligatory?
R. Yes, Kabbalists write to us about absolute actions.