READING: FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN SUNDAY

Rabash. What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet. 33 (1986)

LESSON MATERIAL

What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet

Article No. 33, 1986

It is written in the portion, Ekev [Because]: “And it shall come to pass that because you listen … the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy that He has sworn to your fathers.” RASHI interprets “And it shall come to pass that because you listen”: “If you keep the light Mitzvot [commandments] that a person tramples with his feet. You will listen and the Lord will keep, etc., will keep His promise.”

We should understand the Creator’s stipulation: “If you keep the light Mitzvot, I will keep the promises I have given to the fathers. Otherwise, I cannot keep them.” Surely, the conditions that the Creator wants are not similar to a flesh and blood king, who presents stipulations in favor of the giver. Surely, here they are in favor of the creatures, meaning that otherwise they cannot receive what he has promised. Therefore, we should understand the condition of light Mitzvot.

To understand the condition we must first understand the promise that the Creator promised the fathers. Clearly, this does not pertain to corporeality, for the promise was certainly for the Creator to give the people of Israel that they will be rewarded with the purpose of creation, called “doing good to His creations,” which is that the souls will obtain the root of their souls, regarded as the five parts of the soul, called NRNHY.

In order for the souls to obtain what has been prepared for them to receive, and in order not to feel the bread of shame while receiving the delight and pleasure, we were given the work called “work of bestowal.” This means that first, one must accustom himself in this work. In order to have room for choice, meaning to be able to choose the intention with which he observes Torah and Mitzvot, there had to be a Tzimtzum [restriction] and concealment, for then there is room for choice.

However, if the pleasure were revealed then he would have to observe Torah and Mitzvot in order to receive. He would do everything to satisfy his self-love because it cannot be said that he does everything in order to bestow, since when there is disclosure of light, the pleasure is greater than all the corporeal pleasures.

In corporeality we see a rule: The smaller the pleasure—in order to relinquish the pleasure—the less work there is. Also, it cannot be said that the pleasure he receives is with the intention only to bestow if he cannot relinquish it. That is, he must be certain that if he cannot aim to bestow he will be willing to give up the pleasure. Therefore, the smaller the pleasure the easier it is to give it up.

This is why we were given the concealment on the taste of Torah and Mitzvot and were given a taste for corporeal pleasures. We must believe in the words of the holy Zohar that every delight and pleasure that exists in corporeal things is only a thin light, meaning a very faint light compared to the light of the pleasure that is dressed in Torah and Mitzvot. For this reason, there is a reality where one exercises on corporeal pleasures and afterwards he can come out of the Tzimtzum and concealment to some extent, for he can already choose and say that he is receiving this delight and pleasure only because he wants to bestow.

Afterwards, if he passes the trial and receives the small discernment he has attained in the work of the Creator, he is given a bigger degree on which to aim to bestow. Thus he goes from degree to degree until he attains all his NRNHY from the root of his soul. And the NRNHY that a person attains is the 613 ways of the Torah, which are the 613 Mitzvot in the Torah and the seven Mitzvot of our great sages, which, in Gematria, are 620 names that one can attain.

It is written in the book, A Sage’s Fruit: Letters of Baal HaSulam (Letter no. 17): “It is written in Tree of Life, ‘The worlds were created only to disclose the names of the Creator.’ Thus, you see that since the soul came down to clothe this filthy substance, it could no longer cleave to its root, to its own world, as it was in its root before it came to this world. Rather, it must increase its stature 620 times more than how it previously was in the root. This is the meaning of the entire perfection, the entire NRNHY up to Yechida, for which Yechida is called Keter, implying the number 620.”

Now we can see what is the promise that the Creator has promised to the fathers, and how it is possible to attain such wholeness. That question is asked from two sides:

1) The need for this great wholeness. We know that there is no light without a Kli [vessel], meaning no filling without a lack. This brings up the question, “How can we have this feeling that we need to obtain the NRNHY?” According to what we explained, all the corporeal pleasures that the whole world is chasing are nothing more than a tiny spark compared to the pleasure in Kedusha [sanctity], and when one is rewarded with having even a tiny illumination of Kedusha he will feel great satisfaction with it. So who will tell him that he is still deficient to the point that he must obtain the light of Yechida, or he will feel that he has not yet achieved wholeness? Who will notify this to him?

2) How can one overcome such great pleasures and say that if he cannot aim the reception of these pleasures to the Creator then he gives up the pleasures? From where will he find such strength? After all, we see that even in corporeal pleasures, of which we said that they are but a thin light, sparks that have fallen into the Klipot, it is difficult to overcome them and say that we relinquish these pleasures if we cannot aim in order to bestow. And since concerning corporeal pleasures we see that they divide into great pleasures and small ones, it is all the more so in spirituality, where there are many degrees and discernments. So the question is from where will one take such great powers to overcome?

To understand the two above questions, 1) From where will he take the need for greatness, and 2) From where will he take the strength to give up the pleasures so he can be sure that the pleasures he is taking are only in order to bestow contentment upon his Maker, we should precede with the words of our sages (Kidushin, 30): “Rabbi Shimon Ben Levi said, ‘Man’s inclination overcomes him every day and seeks to put him to death,’ as it was said, ‘The wicked watches the righteous and seeks to put him to death, and if the Creator did not help him, he would not overcome it, as it is said, ‘The Lord will not leave him in his hand.’”

We said that there are two questions here:

1) If man has been given the evil inclination, why is he unable to overcome it, but the Creator helps him? After all, choice means that a person can overcome, but here it implies that one has no choice to overcome, but only with the Creator’s help. By himself, he cannot overcome it. This brings up the question, “Why did the Creator not give man the strength to overcome it?”

2) If man cannot overcome, why does it say that the Creator helps him? This means that a person must begin to overcome and see that he cannot overcome, and then the Creator helps him. Why does the Creator not help him as soon as the evil inclination comes to him? What does it add to us that a person begins the work, since he cannot prevail anyway?

Therefore, why does the Creator have to wait until a person begins the work and then the help arrives. What is the benefit from losing time by the Creator waiting for a person to begin the work? Who gains from this loss of time? After all, the Creator should have given the help as soon as the evil inclination comes to a person, before a person begins the work. Why should He wait for a person to start the work and then the Creator will help him?

The thing is, as we said in the previous articles, that the Tzimtzum and restriction were in order to correct the world. Otherwise there would not be any possibility for man to be able to even begin the work of overcoming self-love, since by nature, the will to receive controls him, and this is the axis of Creation. What comes afterwards is only a correction, to correct the will to receive.

It turns out that the will to receive is the main thing, and the rest of the things that come later are only to correct it. It follows that the will to receive remains, but corrections are added to it. However, who is the one who undergoes all the corrections? It must be the will to receive.

It is known that even when we say that there is a degree that wants the desire to bestow, it still means that it does not use the will to receive that there is in the degree, but overcomes its desire and engages in the desire to bestow. It follows that the corrections that one should do are only on his vessels of reception, meaning to place on it the intention to bestow. And since the greater the pleasure, the more difficult it is to give it up and say that if he cannot aim to bestow he does not want to receive the pleasure, therefore two things must be corrected here:

1) Aviut [coarseness], meaning will to receive, so it is not too big, namely that the lower one cannot overcome. For this reason, he must be given smaller lust. Afterwards, when seeing that he can overcome a small pleasure, he is given a greater pleasure. If we see that he can overcome this pleasure, he is given a greater pleasure, etc., but how do we arrange it?

Therefore, man was given the work in faith above reason, which man slights, from the word “flippant” [in Hebrew]. This means that a person does not respect this work and considers the time he must serve with faith as a state of lowliness. That is, he understands that this work is for women and children, but not for intelligent and acute people.

Conversely, they must understand everything they see happening in the world, so it corresponds with their view and spirit. And when they need to do something but do not see that it is to their benefit, how can they agree to do things that are fit for fools, meaning people who do not scrutinize their thoughts or actions?

For this reason, they always try to avoid such matters. If they sometimes happen to work above reason because they have no choice, since reason is far away from them, they constantly wait for when they can be freed of such states. After all, it is unbecoming of us to live in the air, when the intellect does not understand everything he does as necessary for what he wants to achieve, and he wants to achieve a degree where he is among the prominent ones in the public.

When he looks at the public, how they engage in Torah and Mitzvot without any criticism, he says about them that they can observe everything enthusiastically and be meticulous with every detail because they have no sense of criticism. This is why they can be like that, with eyes closed. That is, if they had some brains they would be like me. That is, I observe Torah and Mitzvot but I see that this work is unworthy of me. However, I do not have a choice since otherwise I will have no connection with Judaism, and therefore for me everything will be forced and involuntary.

For this reason, as long as I forget that I am going above reason I can do everything like the rest of the people. But when I get the thoughts about the basis on which my Judaism is built, and I have to reply to my body that it is only as in, “The earth hangs on nothing,” I cannot overcome and say that the foundation of Judaism is based precisely on faith above reason. And specifically now I can keep the commandment of faith, since now I see that I have no basis. But usually, a person falls and lies under the weight of these questions.

Indeed, this is the question of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, who said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” For this reason a person says that the path of faith that the Creator has given us to work on, this way will never succeed. And if the Creator had only listened to me He would have let us work on the basis of knowledge, and not on faith. Certainly many people would join in keeping Torah and Mitzvot. But in this way, of faith, there are many people who even though they began this work, they escaped from the campaign.

Baal HaSulam said that the Creator chose that we should walk in the path of faith not because man is of inferior degree, so he cannot be guided except by the path of faith. Rather, this is the most successful way. This is why the Creator has chosen this way, so they will take upon themselves the order of their work, by which they will be able to achieve the goal called “doing good to His creations,” so the creatures will receive delight and pleasure and will also be in complete Dvekut, meaning in equivalence with the Creator. And although the creatures do not understand it, this is the truth.

It therefore follows that although faith is a slight and lowly matter, and we interpreted that slight comes from flippancy, meaning that it is not appreciated, it is still the way by which we can succeed in achieving the goal.

By this we will understand what RASHI interpreted, “If you observe the light Mitzvot [commandments] that a person tramples with his feet, You will listen; about this.” That is, he referred to faith, which a person tramples with his heels. You will listen about this and then you will have the Kelim [vessels/tools] to reach the goal.

This is what RASHI interpreted: “And keep; will keep his promise.” This means that the condition He has set is not for the sake of the Creator, as is the way of flesh and blood, who set conditions in favor of the giver. But with the Creator, the condition to observe the light Mitzvot aim for man’s sake, for precisely by this one can achieve wholeness and be rewarded with what has been prepared for him by the thought of creation.

Now we can explain what we asked:

1) Why does the Creator not help a person when the evil inclination overcomes him, but waits until a person begins the work to overcome, and then helps him, as our sages said, “if the Creator does not help him”? It is akin to a person carrying a heavy load that he does not have the strength to carry, so he asks for help and people come and help him. But when he does not ask for help, no one comes to help him. This can be said between man and man. But why should the Creator wait for a person to begin the work and cry out to the Creator to help him when the Creator knows that he cannot overcome the evil inclination by himself, since the Creator did not give him the strength for it?

2) What is the reason that the Creator did not give him the strength to overcome by himself, but seemingly told him, “I have given you the choice to overcome the evil inclination”? We should say that the Creator did give him the strength to overcome the evil, and at the same time we say that without the Creator’s help a person cannot overcome it. It follows that these two matters contradict one another.

We will understand these two questions with the two questions we asked:

1) When a person is rewarded with the smallest degree in spirituality, he feels in it greater pleasure than all the corporeal pleasures, as in the words of the ARI, that all the great pleasures we find in corporeal pleasures—which we see that the whole world is chasing these pleasures and receive through them satisfaction in their lives—all the pleasure in them extends from Kedusha, where through the breaking of the vessels and the sin of Adam HaRishon with the tree of knowledge, holy sparks fell into the Klipot [shells/peels]. The holy Zohar calls this light, “thin light,” which descended in order to sustain the Klipot. All the corporeal pleasures extend from this, and the smallest degree in spirituality, which is Kedusha, where the essence of the light is found, he is certain to derive satisfaction from this and will have no need for Gadlut [greatness/adulthood]. Thus, who will tell him that he needs Gadlut?

2) From where will he take such great powers that he will be able to receive the great pleasures in order to bestow, or else he will be willing to relinquish them?

It follows that since there is no light without a Kli, meaning no filling without a deficiency, for this reason a person must begin the work. When he wants to overcome the evil inclination but cannot, he becomes deficient. When he sees that he cannot overcome he asks the Creator for help. At that time the Creator can give the filling because he already has a Kli to receive the filling.

The reason that the Creator did not give him the strength to overcome by himself is that when a person has some filling, he settles for what he has. Then a person has no need to be rewarded with NRNHY of the soul by the Creator helping him, as it is written in the holy Zohar, “He who comes to purify is aided. And he asks, ‘With what is he aided?’ He replies, ‘With a holy soul.’ When he is rewarded he is given Nefesh. When he is rewarded more he is given Ruach.”

It follows that receiving help from above causes him to need to extend his NRNHY. That is, each time he wants to overcome his evil but cannot, the Creator helps him with a holy soul. But if the person could overcome by himself, from where would he have a need to ask the Creator to give him a higher degree than the one he has?

But now that he is asking the Creator to help him, he is not asking for degrees. Rather, he is simply asking the Creator not to be under the control of the evil. It turns out that the reason why a person wants the Creator to help him have the strength to aim in order to bestow and not be in the domain of the Sitra Achra [other side], but that he wants to be in the domain of Kedusha [holiness/sanctity], meaning that his only wish will be to bestow upon the Creator, and this is all he needs, and not any high degrees, but simply to serve the Creator and not himself, this is the force he asks of the Creator. When the Creator helps him, the holy Zohar says it with the help of a holy soul. Each help is through a soul that the Creator gives him. Therefore, by this he goes from degree to degree until he attains the completion of the soul, called NRNHY.

Now we understand what our sages said, “Man’s inclination overcomes him every day.” This brings up the question, “Why does he need to overcome the evil inclination every day if he has already received help from the Creator and has defeated it? Why does it need to come to a person once again? And for what purpose does it come each day?”

With the above we understand that since through the help he receives from the Creator, he receives a soul, then each overcoming, when a person wants to overcome and be purer, he thereby receives a soul. This is why these overcomings cause man to be able to attain the NRNHY of his soul.

And the second question, “From where will he take strength to overcome?” It is not by his own strength. Rather, this is the help that the Creator gives so he can overcome it. It follows that through one thing there is correction of two things

LESSON

Morning Lesson September 1, 2023

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

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 33, (1986). What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet

Reading Article. (00:28) “It is written in the portion..”

1. S. (31:45) First of all, I’m excited to be here in the morning lesson after a long time, together with the friends and the Ten, and the question regarding the first part of the article he writes here, they share, there’s a part that here, that’s confusing about the light Mitzvot, how are they related to the verses that he brought up?

R. The question is that we actually need to feel whether it’s a light or harsh or heavy Mitzva. After every Mitzva that we need to do, which we received the commandment for from the Creator, we can ask, demand for us to have an explanation and the power to implement it correctly.

S. If I understood correctly, he calls a light Mitzvot specifically to faith above reason?

R. Yes.

S. It seems the opposite to me. I especially, constantly want control and criticism and everything and anyone who can go above reason I admire this. That’s the hardship to rise above one’s reason?

R. I don’t understand your definitions of what is above reason.

S. Well, we’re supposed to reach faith above reason, meaning our will to receive?

R. Yes.

S. And that’s the hardship, it’s much easier for me than to be with faith within reason, in my will to receive and here he says that it’s easier to be in faith above, isn’t it the opposite?

R. Okay, first of all that’s something that we need to scrutinize. We need to feel it first and then we’ll understand what’s happening with us here. That’s one, and secondly, I don’t think that all in all, that there’s a special problem here. Faith above reason is where we take upon ourselves the reason, the opinion of the Creator and His purpose and His goal and His forces, that are more important to us than that which we have for ourselves. That’s what we need to come closer to and then we will understand what it’s made up of.

2. S. (35:27) In the end of the article he says that the force of overcoming is not from one’s own self, one’s own power. He also describes that a person has to carry the load and then ask for help, but if he’s like carrying out the overcoming, carrying the desire?

R. The desire, meaning the desire that a person has to go above reason but he doesn’t have the forces.

S. In the example that he gives, a person is seemingly starting to carry the load. He doesn’t talk about desire, he talks about him seemingly starting to do it before he got help, so it seems that he does have some certain force as a person?

R. Yes, well, well.

S. Isn’t that a contradiction? Either he doesn’t have any force at all or he is forced enough to begin carrying it and then he needs help to continue?

R. Yes.

3. S. (36:44) Regarding pleasures, why do we have to give them up in order to aim to bestow?

R. All our nature is us working according to the feeling of pleasure. Then as we work according to the extent of the doing and the extent of pleasure in it, we make the calculation that whether we want to do it or not. But if the pleasure is less than that in which we need to invest our forces and our deeds, then we just don’t have the strength to do so. Simply our desire does not work and vice versa. When our desire feels that it has a big pleasure in doing that we have no problem, we do it heart and soul. Now comes the question: how can we supply ourselves with the forces to do all of the things that we decide to do? How can we do that? There’s the group, Torah, all kinds of counsels, advices, but what do we do so that I will be able to oblige myself above my desire, against my desire, to compel myself to carry out actions that are completely seeming to me as illogical actions. And here we explain how to do this.

4. S. (39:31) He writes that we can start with corporeal pleasures, initially start with those and I noticed, though, that many times, that we get corporeal pleasures that they don’t think about them and then the greater can give you some sin, corporeal pleasure, and it makes it really hard for you to overcome?

R. Right.

S. How do you work correctly with those pleasures that you can overcome and can’t overcome?

R. We need to constantly raise the line, the bar to the extent which spirituality is more important than reception, that the force will be still in connection, our connection with my environment, meaning with my group and that’s more important to me than all the other pleasures. How can we measure what’s important and what’s not? Only according to the pleasures that appear to me in this and in that. We don’t have any other possibility of talking about what’s important and what’s not, rather only by this measure, by this weight.

S. Okay, so it’s correct when you think about it in your mind. Sometimes we get pleasures that are big, intense and you try to think about the friends connected together and you don’t succeed because of that great intensity. I remember you once gave advice that if you have some thought that’s disturbing you, some strong desire, just realize it and get it over with.

R. I don’t remember in what relation that I said that, but it could be.

S. The question is: why does it take us so long, it sometimes it feels like you have to fight with things and you get this big pleasure?

R. That is the entire ladder of our ascent until the final correction. This whole ladder is made of actions that we need to do, left, right, left, right and rise this way and rise, to rise up, upon the spiritual ladder.

S. Does the external form of the pleasure have any significance?

R. Appreciate these forms.

S. Should we pay attention to them or not?

R. It depends on how you relate to it.

5. S. (42:45) It says here that he is obligated to increase in stature six-hundred and twenty times. It seems like some precise measurement?

R. For each and everyone to rise in the spiritual degrees is in the degrees of ascent. Where each time the difficulty to overcome the desire to receive is more and more.

S. Can we say that when we do mutual bestowal, common bestowal, one towards one another, cause contentment to the Creator, and this part is done bit by bit, that eventually we can reach six-hundred and twenty times the purity of the vessel? Can you say that?

R. Yes.

6. S. (43:57) At the end of the article Rabash teaches us how to ask for help from the Creator, and he says that we need to simply ask to give us the force to bestow and not be in the control of the ego, but to be in the work of the Creator and not for myself. He says that the Creator responds and gives a person a soul, NRNHY. What is this that the person gets from the Creator?

R. Forces, forces that help a person to carry out acts of bestowal that he sees before him.

S. How can we describe it to ourselves when we still don’t have it?

R. When we’ll have it, we’ll have it. It’s not worthwhile to imagine things.

S. A person feels unwell and his will to receive is clear but bestowal, he doesn’t know how it is. How can you ask in a simple manner, to simply ask what he says here to give his forces of bestowal?

R. There’s a friend before you and you’re being told, try to connect to him, try to help him and try to be sensitive that he’s also trying to help you.

S. Well, such connection in this world we have a lot, we have one another, we sometimes get pleasure from this, we sometimes suffer from it but it seems like there’s something else here, the connection of the soul, something from a world that we don’t know?

R. No, if you want to connect with the friends in your Ten, and you do it with all your might, and you go over all the exercises that the Creator sends you, then you attain its vessel of the Ten. You invest and you ask and you draw into this vessel the help from Above, the Upper Light, and this is how we advance.

7. S. (46:48) How do we initially acquire the ability to bestow, how do I acquire a true desire to bestow and then how do we then realize it and actually bestow?

R. First of all, in every person that is born he has the root of his soul. This is called the first drop of the vessel of bestowal that he needs to acquire. This is what we have in each and everyone, and when the time comes to a person to begin to develop his vessel, then he starts to see that he’s in some specific form, in a certain society, in a certain study, something that’s attracting him.

S. As I said before that we have some force, personally each one?

R. That’s called the root of the soul. Period. The point in the heart.

S. And to activate it we need external help?

R. Yes, that, too, comes from the Creator. He activates this point and brings this person to a specific environment, as it’s written, “Puts his hand on the good faith that says, take.”

8. S. (48:42) What is levity?

R. When you can’t stand on one’s own goal and gives up.

S. He ascribes this to faith above reason, that we don’t give it importance?

R. Yes.

S. Is it the correct attitude of faith above reason that we need to acquire?

R. Faith above reason is already the Upper Force, it’s a spiritual force that clothes a person and gives him the possibility to go above his reason. Faith above reason is that spiritual force that we can go above reason with.

S. And how not to take it in levity as looking down at it?

R. What do you mean, how not to take it? Of course you can take it lightly. When you come to faith above reason it demands of us many drills in advance that precede it, as then we come to the ability to work in faith above reason.

S. With respect to all the work in overcoming, all the lusts that he referred to, I didn’t understand the connection between that and faith above reason. He says that we always need to be in overcoming and once we overcame it’s because we received faith above reason?

R. Yes. Depict to yourself that you have the force of Bina and you want to raise it above everything, and then to the extent in which you appreciate this, the force would be still above the force of reception, that’s called the faith above the reason.

9. S. (51:13) What is the degree that I am above the general public?

R. The nation is like this corporeal bodily part that goes and whoever wants to go before that in the desire to bestow and to raise himself, then he needs to raise himself above reason, above what his intellect and feeling and his desires, his thoughts to find for him.

S. Is the assistance of the Creator through the friends?

R. Also, through the friends.

S. All the friends?

B. Mostly through the friends but it is in such a way the Creator bestows upon a person, one has many more possibilities.

S. How much is my work actually in overcoming dependent on me or on the friends?

R. It depends on you first of all, and when you make efforts, then you know and discover that you can also connect to the environment. It’s not that the environment is drawing you, managing you, no. You need to aim yourself and the society will support.

S. Meaning the force of bestowal is this that I am constantly and drawn to the inclination to give the force to my friends?

R. No, I didn’t say it that way.

S. Maybe again to give the explanation?

R. You need to try and be in the force of bestowal, above the force of reception and present it above yourself into the society and to try and connect that way with them.

10. S. (53:49) He writes here, he talks about The Zohar, that when he comes to be purified, is aided and if he is privileged he receives a soul, even more Ruach. This that he asked of the Creator and the Creator helped, he’s not asking for high degrees but just asking for the Creator to be under the control of the ego. There’s the matter of the advancing of degrees and also a matter of not asking for that?

R. There are probably such times, such states that sometimes you feel it and sometimes you don’t. That’s not important right now.

11. S. (54:40) He writes here that when he looks at the general public how they observe Torah and Mitzvot without any criticism, and in this he says that they can carry out their work without any criticisms because they have no sense of criticism, that if they had some brains they would be like me. He sees that whatever they’re doing is not because they’re strong and overcoming just because they’re not like me, and have this sense of criticism, they do things simply. How do you exit this state?

R. Again.

S. When he looks at the general public how they observe Torah and Mitzvot without any criticism, and he says that they can do it enthusiastically, in all its details is because they lack a sense of criticism. That’s why they can do things with eyes shut. That if they had some brains they would also be like me. He’s like talking about himself like he’s going through states and overcoming things?

R. Yes.

S. It’s actually the opposite because you can’t see how big they are and how much they’re overcoming but he sees them as small and that things are going easy for them, it’s a rather dangerous state. How do we exit that?

R. One needs to raise himself to a degree in which he sees everyone as great. That is specifically working above reason. There’s nothing we can do about it. You see before you, four-hundred people are sitting here, yes? And you need to value each and every one as great.

S. Right but he feels about himself, I have a sense that they don’t have, I have the securities that they don’t?
R. Who, that person, lets say?

S. The same person that sees the others as small?

R. He has what to correct.

S. Warn him not to stay like this?

R. No, let him be in those thoughts, those are thoughts that are sent to him from the Creator. For him to be able to depict himself in the correct state toward them, that he has to raise them above himself.

12. S. (57:48) He writes that each overcoming that a person wants to be pure by this he receives his soul, what does that mean that he receives his soul?

R. He is receiving forces that already belong to his soul.

S. Meaning in the Ten that if I receive some state, and identify that I am in my will to receive, I receive aid from the Creator to overcome and I begin to feel something of my soul in the Ten?

R. Well, you’ll feel, and then we’ll talk.

13. S. (58:46) He writes it is not in a person’s ability to overcome if the Creator doesn’t help him, so what gives a person this recognition, this awareness that he is absolutely dependent on the Creator?

R. He simply understands how he needs to overcome, how he needs to grow. How does a baby grow, how does a child grow? Only by the adults, by the relatives, by the parents. It doesn’t lower anything from them, he demands everything from them that he does, he asks. He’s the Lord, the Host of it.

S. Can we even advance without asking? Sometimes a person can ask, is it possible?

R. Yes, sometimes a person can ask for that. In many cases a person advances and he doesn’t feel that he is advancing but later it comes to him.

S. Over time we learn that the center of our work is the main part of our work is requesting how to ask, how to make the request qualitatively and precisely?

R. Yes, our development depends on our connection between us and the Creator, to the extent that we turn to Him and then He turns to us.

S. Meaning by the means that we progress from which we request from the Creator?

R. Yes.

S. What is the request from the Ten, is there a difference here?

R. With the Ten we are in a constant request to be in more and more in one Kli and one faction, to hold ourselves together in this codependency. That is our feeling towards the Ten where we will be, ‘as one man and one heart.’

S. What about before a person turns to the Ten and before he asks, what’s the scrutiny he needs to do in order for the request to be correct?

R. I don’t think that there is much of a scrutiny before that, rather all of the scrutiny begins in the extent that he is in the Ten and how he holds on to them and connects everyone that way.

14. S. (01:01:27) Yesterday three groups connected together in this form of a meeting of this kind of meal and preparation for the convention and we were forty friends. Of course for such a meeting to take place, many, many friends made many efforts. One made hummus, one made the table, one did content and technology, there was a lot of work. How does every friend that comes and makes the exertion and come and participate in this meeting, how can he do a little more, maybe something internally so that it will be even more in bestowal? Beyond the action that he does physically prepares, what he does, arranges things?

R. The physical actions you are dividing everything up amongst yourselves as much as you’re capable of as much as I understand. But besides corporeal actions, it is the work of the heart, as much as I answered in my heart and to the connection between us.

S. What does that mean the work of the heart? What can I do in order to take out a little bit more of a drop of bestowal for me? I already did the physical action. I came and I am doing?

R. Physical doesn’t mean anything necessarily. Rather, you want to awaken yourself and all of the friends and all of the groups that are participating. That together, you are participating in connection between you and in order to reach one Kli, one desire. Surely, everyone has a different desire but we want that these desires and these different desires will be aimed to one direction.

S. In truth I don’t really know how to ask this, he wants to add a certain layer, a certain depth to the actions. I’m searching for how we do this and you gave me some advice, like two days ago you wrote to me and you said, to see the Creator in the center of the connection with the friends. And that sentence is going with me all the time since, but what else can we do beyond that and try to feel a little, what else can a person do in order to be beyond the infrastructure of the actions here?

R. Everything in your power and your ability to do, do so. That is what is written.

15. S. (01:04:57) How to intensify the sensitivity of the evil inclination that comes to the person every day?

R. That is by participation with the friends out of envy, lust, honor, and you will reach a state that you will feel how much the connection is the most important of all.

16. S. (01:05:37) When the evil inclination appears to a person, does he need to ask for help for himself or pray for the members of the Ten?

R. Actually, we need to reach a state that the request for myself and the request for the group is actually the same request. If it is a correct, spiritual request, that before me, in front of me, there’s a spiritual goal, then I advance to it or the entire Ten will advance to it. It’s the same thing.

17. S. (01:06:19) It is written, ‘One who comes to purify is aided.’ What is aided? What is the holy soul and what does it mean to use the holy soul?

R. That we receive desire that already belongs to a connection between all of the desires and that is how we advance more and more to the center of creation.

18. S. (01:06:51) How to stop being afraid of the work of overcoming that is to come? After all the work will be harder and harder?

R. That is incorrect, not correct. We need to advance more and more and I do not have to answer that.

19. S. (01:07:21) Since yesterday morning I’m not in a deficiency but an unbelievable paradox and what he talked about the ice cream here, until this day he writes how do you come to a plea that can receive filling when I myself don’t know what the filling is and I don’t know what filling is? I have no idea what a filling is and I don’t know how to come to the filling. Then he writes and where he gets the deficiency for such a filling. I don’t know what the filling is? Is it a riddle you could solve for me?

R. No.

S. Why not?

R. I just can’t, very simply. Most of your questions, from an ordinary question, you inflate it more and more, until.

S. It explodes, yes but what is the filling that they talk about? You don’t know what it is?

R. I’m not sure.

20. S. (01:08:34) He wrote and because of that there is a reality where a person will do exercises on corporeal pleasures and then he will be able to become out of the restriction and concealment because he has a reality of choice, meaning he will be able to receive delight and pleasure because he wants to bestow. What are those exercises on these corporeal pleasures?

R. That he will be able to receive them in order to advance to connection specifically by them, to them and to the Creator.

S. If I receive an opportunity for corporeal pleasure, what does he do?

R. Let’s say that you will receive it.

S. And what?

R. That instead of this and you will become closer to the friends then let it be like that.

21. S. (01:09:30) About the matter of overcoming, the Creator gives us a state. Let’s say He distances you from the Ten completely and takes all of your powers and you come to a state that you cannot overcome any action which is to actually come closer to the friends and to the Ten. And then we come to a state in which we really ask for the simple thing: just let me come back to be amongst them and to come closest to them, to bestow to them something, and to distance from the corporeal pleasures. It seems like in reward the Creator drops you even more. In the feeling, let’s say if I’m asking for the force to overcome that I’m receiving even more difficulty in the overcoming and then it turns out that a person comes to despair and he releases like I’m asking, like it’s not helping. Either I’m not asking correctly or what?

R. You need to ask from the Creator to help you. The Creator has no problem to help and carry out every action, rather only your request is what He needs.

S. When we come to the request from the Creator and we ask Him to help us overcome and come close to the friends you get another descent?

R. Possibly, but the main thing is that you understand what is the request, and how deep it is, and how much you need it, and how much you want to solve it. You scrutinize all of these details in your request then you reach the solution.

S. We actually have to come to a state to the depth of the request?

R. Yes. You don’t let up from the Creator.

S. But it seems like it’s a state where He didn’t even help you?

R. No such thing, learn from babies.

22. S. (01:12:01) To continue the friend’s question: why does a person manage to ask for corporeal things and is not capable of asking for spirituality?

R. In corporeal things he sees what he wants and what it can bring him as a result but spiritual things, not so much. He doesn’t believe so much and he is not stubborn in his request.

23. S. (01:12:36) [no translation].

R. According to how much you see, according to how much you see, go according to that.

S. From the action that is in our group where sensitivity rises, when some pleasure comes close to you and fear appears that I won’t receive it for my own self. When you try to build the intention, you see that it is a lie in the intellect and then you come to a request. You ask for the intention, that I understand that you are either trying to build the intention or you ask for it. Where is that degree that you see you come to the intention in order to bestow a certain pleasure?

R. You need to continue trying, you need to continue trying.

24. S. (01:14:22) You said that we need to depict ourselves that you seemingly have a degree of Bina, that you want to raise above all the pleasures that you are using. How to do that, how to depict such an action to yourself?

R. Imagine to yourself that this is what you’re doing, what does it matter for you?

S. What does it mean that I have the degree Bina, that I want to raise above myself?

R. No, not the degree; bestowal.

S. But Bina exists over the desire to receive and we always have to go above it?

R. No, it depends on how you raise this degree.

S. How in our state to rise above?

R. Give it importance.

S. What is it? What is that degree Bina the connection of the friends, is it my love towards them?

R. Yes, bestowal from your friends to the Creator.

25. S. (01:16:00) It is written that the will to receive is first and the spiritual work is when we build the work above reception, there are many things there. How can we choose the desire to receive on which we need to work in bestowal in the Ten?

R. Above all the desires, above all the desires because all the desires have the same direction.

S. What can we start with?

R. You have to start from one specific desire and understand that you need to talk about one desire but each one feels it differently.

26. S. (01:16:48) Why if we overcome our pleasures we also overcome the state of concealment and restriction?

R. Everything will be in balance and the more we advance the more difficult it will be and we grow up in this way. ‘He who is greater than his friend, his inclination is greater.’

27. S. (01:17:26) How should we not lose time and rise in the degree and ask for help from the Creator?

R. Only with the help of the connection with the friends.

S. That boundary, I was given some kind of weight to which I start picking it up, what is the order of the things? Should I first arrange these things and then turn to the Creator?

R. That depends on the state of the entire group; we will understand from our actions.

28. S. (01:18:23) How do we work properly with corporeal lust? Should we replace those lusts with connection?

R. To replace it with something spiritual and the direction of connection.

29. S. (01:18:52)) It is written here that they see when they overcome a smaller pleasure they’re given a bigger pleasure. What is the state that a person knows where they overcame a pleasure and they can put a check-mark on that?

R. According to how much he is given now, according to how much he’s given now.

S. What action does he need to do to know he overcame something?
R. If he overcomes it.

30.S. (01:19:31) How should we know in the Ten what is a Mitzva and how do we come to reach Tzimtzum, restriction?

R. Only from the connection between us, first of all our goal is connection. If we reach a special intensity of connection, we know where we are and what to do next.