READING: FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN SUNDAY

Lesson on the topic of “Reforming the Heart”

LESSON MATERIAL

Reforming the Heart – Selected excerpts from the sources

1. RABASH, Article No. 12 (1988), “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”

A person who is born with the will to receive and wants to correct it into working in order to bestow, since this is against nature, he has only one counsel: Only the light of Torah can invert him into working in order to bestow, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice,” and the light in it reforms the heart. It is said that “evil” is receiving for one’s self, and “good” is when his heart is only about bestowal and not about reception.

2. RABASH, Article No. 12 (1988), “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”

That they are learning Torah in order to correct the heart, these are called “wise-hearted,” since everything is named after its action. For this reason, the Torah they learn with this intention is called “wise-hearted” and not “wise-minded,” since they need the Torah in order to correct the heart.

3. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 68, “Man’s Connection to the Sefirot”

One cannot correct one’s thought, but should only aim the heart—make one’s heart straight to the Creator. Then all of his thoughts and actions will naturally be to bestow contentment upon his Maker. When he corrects his heart to be a heart and desire of Kedusha, the heart will then be the Kli in which to place the upper light. And when the upper light shines in the heart, the heart will grow stronger and he will add and supplement continuously.

Now we can interpret our sages’ words, “Great is the learning that yields action.” It means that through the light of the Torah he is led into action, as the light in it reforms him. This is called “an act.” This means that the light of the Torah builds a new structure in his heart.

4. RABASH, Article No. 12 (1988), “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”

Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra says […] “Know that all the Mitzvot that are written in the Torah or the accepted ones, which the forefathers have established, although the majority of them are in deed or utterance, they are all in order to correct the heart. This is because the Lord wants all the hearts, and He understands the inclination of every thought. It is written, ‘To those whose hearts are straight,’ and conversely, ‘a heart filled with thoughts of transgression.’ Know that the Torah was given only to men of heart.”

5. Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”, No. 10

The Torah was only given to men of heart, meaning ones who have acquired the heart to love and covet Him. The sages call them “wise-at-heart,” since there is no longer a descending, beastly spirit there, for the evil inclination is present only in a heart vacant from wisdom.

6. Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”, No. 10

The Torah was given only to men of heart. Words are as corpses and the Taamim [flavors] as souls. If one does not understand the Taamim, one’s entire effort is in vain, labor blown away.

It is as though one exerts oneself to count the letters and the words in a medicine book. No cure will come from this labor. It is also like a camel carrying silk; it does not benefit the silk, nor does the silk benefit it.

7. RABASH, Article No. 12 (1988), “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”

When a person wishes only to bring contentment to the Creator, his heart, which wants to enjoy giving something to the King, to please Him, finds only one thing that the King can enjoy—that they will receive from Him the delight and pleasure that He wishes to give to the creatures. Since there is a tower filled abundantly, and he wishes to be the Creator’s guest, he should come into the tower and receive from Him delight, as this is the King’s pleasure. It follows that the light of Torah that a person wants to receive as “Torah of life” is for man’s heart, so he will have something with which to delight the King.

This is the meaning of the words, “And you will speak to all the wise-hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom.” That is, the spirit of wisdom filled him. Whom? The wise-hearted. This pertains to the light, for the light comes to the wise-hearted. The heart is called “desire,” and it wants to receive the Torah of life in order to thereby delight the Creator.

8. Ramchal, Adir BaMarom

The Nukva [female], who leads all the worlds, is called “heart.” Also, the Nukva feels the actions of all the worlds because she is the one who is impressed by the lower ones. It follows that the hearts in all the people are but parts of that heart. That is, all the souls are rooted in the Nukva and are therefore regarded as parts of her. Also, they are her MAN because she is not considered whole unless she is integrated with all her branches.

9. RABASH, Article No. 942, “Concerning the Mind Controlling the Heart”

“The mind” is regarded as Hochma, and the “heart” is regarded as Bina, which is light of Hassadim. The mind can control, meaning it has the ability to govern, so that specifically this will shine when he has a heart, which is the quality of Hassadim. Before he has Hassadim, the light of Hochma has no governance, it cannot shine, and that time is called “night.”

10. RABASH, Article No. 12 (1988), “What Are Torah and Work in the Way of the Creator?”

When all his actions are in order to bestow, then he is regarded as “wise-hearted,” and comes to a state of “Torah of life,” which is the names of the Creator, where the delight and pleasure that He wished to give to the creatures is found.

LESSON

Morning Lesson September 8, 2023

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

Part 2:

Reforming the Heart – Selected excerpts from the sources, #7

1. S. (00:08) Hello, as a preparation for our Congress in the upcoming, at the end of the month, we are going to read chosen excerpts about reforming the heart but before there is a report.

2. S. (00:23) Hello friends, we are standing before a very special Congress that will take place at the end of the month: September 30th and October 1st here in our home in the center. This convention is called, ‘Opening the Heart,’ that is the topic, opening the heart. We will have four lessons in this congress. The topics will be in the first lesson, we will talk about the main work is in the heart. The second lesson will be connecting ‘as one man in one heart.’ The third lesson will be to overcome the burdening of the heart and the fourth will be the prayer from the bottom of the heart. In general this whole Congress, we are going to have it, especially here in our home because there’s no more natural place where the heart can help open than when you are home with your friends coming from all over the world in one place, with our Rav, with our method.

In this Congress we will have very warm gatherings of friends and special meals and also you can come over before the Congress and stay a little after the Congress. We are starting to host friends from September the 28th until October 2nd, so it’s going to be a very big celebration of connection and the result, we want to come to a real opening of the heart; that should be the result of this congress. Rav, I wanted to ask a question if I may? The heart is the closest thing a person has in this life and it’s very hard to open it. Everything but open, why is it so that the thing that is most yours is so hard?

R. There are a lot of screens on it that are closing it, concealing it, even from a person itself, from man itself, even man himself doesn’t really feel his heart. That’s how it is. We need to work a lot on our heart so it will get a bit softer and more open towards the friends that to begin with we don’t have any connection or feelings towards them and we are going to have to learn how to do it. It’s a problem that comes from the shattering of Adam from the Sin of the Tree of knowledge.

S. It’s as if this is exactly what I’m asking about because I’m, on the one hand, we are learning a method that is so emotional. The whole concept is emotional here and the heart that enables all your feelings is so blocked and hardened. So how do you peel these layers that block you?

R. That’s only through the rubbing of the hearts between you. If a person wants to lower, to take off layers from his heart he needs to work on it. To get closer to the friends and to understand that without entering a connection with them, strong mutual connection his heart will be blocked.

S. The opening of a person’s heart is it my opening my own heart or does someone open my heart? Why is my work with my friends what causes the opening of the heart?

R. Your work with your friends specifically opens your heart because we have to make the efforts there and then we can’t come closer in the hearts.

S. But why is it there? Why specifically the work with the friends is what opens the heart?

R. Who else can you work with on opening the heart? You have one purpose, one goal. With friends you are constantly coming closer to the goal by coming closer to one another, understanding the materials, understanding the necessity, you don’t have anything else in life, someone you can work with.

S. When we work on the connection between us how does the opening of the heart happen? Do I open my friend’s heart and he opens mine? How does it happen, this action that our heart opens?

R. It happens in a mutual way as much as we want to be connected in the hearts we discover each and everyone’s heart and in all those hearts become more sensitive, more open.

S. What does it mean that the heart is open?

R. I can’t explain what open means but the fact that he feels the others that he wants to be connected to them ‘as one man with one heart’ and when they want altogether to discover in their hearts the Creator as it was for Adam HaRishon.

3. S. (07:19) I also wanted to add that in addition to the preparation for the opening of the heart we will have in the Congress, we will also be opening this place. We are opening the walls expanding the space so that I will have room for all the Kabbalists to sit here together in one place. I want to say that the house, this house will be open to host and everything is ready. We are waiting for all the friends Men, women, with everything is here, you don’t have to take care of anything just to come?

R. We are not limited right?

S. We are not limited, we have the space, we have everything for anyone who wants to come if you want to come. We have room for you here on how to prepare ourselves and open the heart. What is the right preparation for opening of the heart?

R. The right preparation is for me to know why I came what I came for so we have to scrutinize which materials can prepare us for this and that we will come closer. We will come closer in our hearts towards one another and we will come to a state where we can receive everything in our common vessel that portion that gift. How do I say what the Creator wants to prepare for us?

4. S. (09:10) What stands in the way of connection is this matter we have to bless the evil as we do with the good. At the moment a person blesses the evil he can’t connect and love?

R. Yes.

S. My question is how to do that? How to bless evil?

R. If we reach the source of the good and the bad and everything which is the Creator that he’s the source of everything we can bless this and that as one.

S. How to come to that source?

R. First of all, constantly think about it all the time. From the thought, all the other stages will come, okay?

5. S. (10:34) In our nature we see that a newborn, when it is born for it to grow, ultimately defines its father as the greatest lion, his parents are the lions and then he can grow, to blossom. What in our Ten do we do? How do we generate this feeling in the ten so that everyone will open?

R. There are a lot of things written about that you have to work on in the Tens. I have nothing else to add. These are questions that we have been discussing.

6. S. (11:15) What should I do so that when I come to the Congress I will not be a guest I will be a partner?

R. To know exactly what you are coming for, what the topic of the Congress is, what we have to prepare in order to incorporate in that topic that subject and to listen to everything that we have prepared for that convention. We have materials that we are preparing ourselves with in order to know how to participate cool, correctly, specifically those topics in this convention.

7. S. (12:10) In the congresses there is a very big ability to connect. Why can’t we feel it now, that connection that we feel in the future? This is going to have to be very happy in this Congress very strongly. Why don’t we feel it now? What does it depend on?

R. Because we are like the force of an important deed we are still in like stress and preparation for it in order to implement what we think needs to be implemented. That is why this effort, these stresses, this tension, does not let us be in happiness actually. That is how happiness happens. Happiness happens when you give the heart freedom and it can be filled by the environment; that is in happiness. You can’t give the heart freedom because you are still in that tension, we will reach it.

S. How do I focus the desire in the heart for this place at the Congress? How do I focus? I may focus in my head or all kinds of things but how to connect focus in the heart?

R. Try to take all the participants into your heart that they are all in your heart and the way they are connected between them through your efforts whether they are in connection or not that is whatever but when they are connected between them through your effort that you press on them that you gather them that you hug them through your efforts they become worthy of receiving the upper Light that is it try.

Reading Item #7 (15:13) Twice. “When a person wishes only..”

8. R. (18:59) Here there is some problem, internal problem. On the one hand we need to expand our heart, love, connection. On the other hand the light of Hochma enters there and it is a complete, seemingly, a complete contradiction to the feeling of connection and of love but that is how it really happens in spirituality; according to our connection we attain the upper Hochma, the upper Wisdom.

9. S. (19:43) I asked you this before too. Why is it hard and everything flows and everybody stroking each other? I see here they are speaking nicely to me. There’s nothing of let’s..?

R. They do not know you.

S. Exactly how do I explain this sorry for saying this? When I come home and my wife comes home and everything is great everything flows, nice, kiss each other, five minutes afterwards if there is no argument, something is wrong?

R. That is correct.

S. I said what happened today? Is something bothering you? She says, where were you until noon? I was at work, and then we start arguing and fighting and I feel that from that I can advance because one comes, one comes to and then I, something starts happening with working with the ego otherwise, it is a waste of time, it is the movie repeats itself but I feel I’m advancing because what I said.

R. Exactly you are advancing because of that you are advancing,

S. Exactly when I sit here, he says good morning to me he’s nice to me.

R. What you are missing is..

S. I’m telling you that I’m afraid of it. If I say a word not in the right place everyone right away is complaining, so I’m afraid to say it. If I practically talk to you about how I can advance here, meaning that there is a fear here to touch each other you called it once sparks, there are no sparks. I’m missing what I’m like, so let’s argue a bit. I have a fear about it. Sorry, I remember like ten years ago, you told me that there’s a lot of new people here, he said you know what I’m afraid they will be collisions here in the tens and I said why and you said that there will only be me and you left, it is recorded, that’s proof, I’m proving that it exists how can you not be afraid to reach, to stroke each other a bit without getting insulted and leaving, that’s what I’m missing here?

R. Look in the Wisdom of Kabbalah there’s this matter of, it’s assumed that a person should reach things on his own from the study he should advance, feel the changes from his friends even if there are not so many changes, he himself, as he changes he feels it and understands. This means that we do not do it externally as it happens outside each one according to his advancement.

S. You ask me more, I am laughing because he already just wrote it what we just read, he wrote everything is great, everything is beautiful and if there is no light of wisdom because when you have that connection, the argument, so we are afraid of it we are afraid to deal with it meaning to attain mercy you also need that wisdom?

R. You’re complaining as to me also I understand..

S. No, you give blows. How do I reach it is a problem you need to solve. How not to be afraid to touch the friend of it but we will get sparks there I don’t know how to do it.

R. I will tell you this is not our way. This is not our way to awaken a friend by poking him.

S. I’m not poking, I’m saying it’s like the donkey driver?

R. It is like the donkey driver.

S. What should we do, just to continue like that?

R. No, each one to make himself more sensitive, to open his heart, to open himself to come closer to your friend, he’ll become more sensitive and discover the changes that are in the heart of his friend towards him, towards everything. We don’t need to open our mouths this way to start talking. On the contrary, a person should see that he is becoming more sensitive to his friends and that’s why he is more and more feeling all kinds of changes, thorns of sorts but that happens because he becomes more sensitive rather than the friend attacking him.

S. It is very nice, what you are saying is true, we are speaking about opening the heart in the Congress, okay, you said opening the heart, he’s opening the heart so what do you recommend? That I come to the Congress and I am more sensitive from my nature. I’m not really sensitive, so how do I become sensitive toward the friend? Do you have a patent for that? How do I do it?

R. I don’t know if I think about you. I am not so…

S. You’re desperate for me so…

R. I’m not despaired but after all these years working in the union and he’s the spokesman so you understand?

S. How do I attend to sensitivity? Is there a patent for that?

R. You will have to rob your own self in a very strong will, manner. The truth is everyone has to do it, but I don’t know what to say. I do not know what to say because I also lack that and what I think is to search, search.

S. Maybe I can add something to the friends? Look, when I come here in the Ten, it’s very pleasant for me, the friends, but I have nothing to lose. I come, I want to attain. It’s nice work, friends are great, the place is amazing?

R. How come you have nothing to lose? It’s the next world?

S. Right, great. How do we reach a thought?

R. Isn’t that a loss for you?

S. No, it is beautiful what you said, it’s a key sentence to attain the next world, but the importance of the next word. How do I attain the importance of attaining the next world?

R. A connection to the Creator. A direct link to the Creator.

S. Okay, I like what you are saying. It’s difficult what you are saying. You have to remember that it is a connection to the Creator?

R. There is nothing more or less than that.

Reading Item #8 (28:25) The Nukva [female], Who leads all the worlds, is called “heart.”

10. S. (31:04) It is written that the heart understands and feels.

R. Yes.

S. We usually say that the heart only feels?

R. The heart understands it is also written a lot.

S. It is also written but in feelings usually with everybody it that the heart that feels and when we say then that the heart understands and feels it like takes the romance out of it it is like the force of the heart, even a contradiction what does it mean that the heart understands? It has a brain sometimes and the understanding ruins the pure desire of the heart?

R. According to what we are learning, the way we develop the heart adds to it. Meaning the more the heart is big, the bigger the heart the more it understands the real emotion reaches understanding.

11. S. (32:38) I wanted to ask, he wrote that all the hearts and all people gather to the same one heart. What does that mean, it is that one heart?

R. It is the heart of Adam HaRishon, a system, the heart of the system.

S. What is the heart of Adam HaRishon?

R. Adam HaRishon is the system the Creator created and that is the root of all created beings.

S. What is it that our heart that we give back to there?

R. When we do not feel ourselves disconnected from that system rather we go back and we are incorporated; we are united in it again.

S. What I’m trying to understand is the uniqueness in that heart compared to our heart. Why do all of our hearts need to eventually reach that one heart?

R. Because we are parts of it seemingly, parts, it is just that each one according to his own ego feels himself separated, disconnected.

S. What is the purpose of that one heart in the system that is part of Adam HaRishon?

R. It is the heart the Creator created and we need need in this hard to feel Him to unite with Him

S. Our connection to the Creator happens in that same heart?

R. Yes, yes, you don’t have any other. There is no other place, no other emotion, only that heart as well but with respect to our perception we are disconnected.

S. What does it add to our perception of the awareness that we are in that one heart?

R. The integrality of creation, that all of creation is one system, one place one vessel, Adam ultimately what we, when we say Adam, it is a system that resembles the Creator.

S. When we connect to that one system do we start perceiving reality in the same way?

R. In a general way, one for all.

S. It’ll be one reality for everyone?

R. Yes.

S. Where is the uniqueness of each and everyone when there is one reality?

R. It is enough we come to a state that we reach a stage where the Lord our God is One.

S. It annuls that, we do that?

R. Each and every one brings us back to where we are all together. We return to the state of Adam HaRishon. It’s the correction, it’s the final correction. That is what we are trying to come to.

12. S. (36:21) We are already in a state of an open heart?

R. Open heart? No.

S. He said we are already in the state, just not aware of it.

R. That is something else. Don’t take that into account, we are not in an open heart, that is what we have to come to. By that we are trying to advance in the upcoming Congress, to bring the hearts a bit closer. There is nothing more important than that, all the wise things, all the things we are learning about in the wisdom of Kabbalah, in general. It is something you should discover with an open heart.

13. S. (37:19) You told the friend that we need to feel that we are losing something if we are not connecting, that we are losing the Creator.

R. Well, of course that is the main thing.

S. A lot of times we talk about the Creator as a system, like we just said in terms of a light of vessel. What gives the most inspiration is that we call him The Good Who Does Good but we can pass our feelings into words and I could with that, we want to reach…?

R. Yes.

S. We come to the Congress so how much do we need to increase, glorify the Creator that is behind the friends? Or maybe not do it and the Creator will be revealed on His own?

R. No, no, no, we have to forcefully depict the Creator standing before the friends and that we have come to the Congress and in general to any of our connections to the Ten or to many tens together to the lesson, that this is all in order to, time and again, come closer to the Creator and to be before Him.

S. Thank you. There’s another thing we learned today. We were in the previous excerpt that we want to give a contentment to the Creator. How can we think about it or depict it before the Congress, how to use that? What do we do? In order to give Him contentment or how to think about it?

R. That is each one according to the way he can depict it in his own heart. I don’t know, but we want to give Him contentment by connecting, coming before Him, showing Him that we are connecting. We want to connect, help You because in our connection we want to give You contentment from all of us, your children.

S. The article we read by Rabash he writes in a very nice way that man that is in bestowal and is getting the light of Hassidim, that he only wants to feel and say thank you to the Creator, that only by being able to say thank you not for asking for anything back to himself. We have the force of reception inside of us all the time or is it burning in us? How to control it and sustain it so that we will be able to really come with the right intention. How do you take over the heart?

R. The heart is in the hands of the Creator, it is not in our own hands, that is why we need in our intention, in our tendency towards connection between us, we should turn to Him and to be in a constant demand for Him to help us to be connected. We do not have anything beyond what you need to really be wise at heart that we want to connect between ourselves.

You will succeed. The main thing is not to lose your hope because specifically through the ascents and descents, all the blows, when one falls and he climbs, you don’t know how to go up again there is a disappointment again, actually through all of these things we rise.

14. S. (42:08) Continuing their questions the heart of the soul of Adam HaRishon that we are parts of. There are a few terms that are similar that you repeated a lot here to the lessons that the Creator feels that we are part of Him, is that field that the Creator blessed and the heart of Adam HaRishon, is at the same thing?

R. We can say that, yes.

S. Why am I asking it? Because we are speaking about opening the heart and we are also speaking indirectly and a direct connection to the Creator to see everything that He is leading us to that field.

R. Yes.

S. I want to give a small example if you would let me, this week we had a preparation where we discover that the Creator is playing with us and pulling the strings. We had a friend that had to go into the hospital and then another friend who had Corona and then a friend from the group died. The wife of a friend that is with us, died at a young age and then two more people went to the hospital and one had an operation. In short we came to the conclusion after all those work meetings that, guys, something is happening here, that was really the upper Force pulling us and leading us to turn to Him. Maybe we did something wrong, maybe that is a place to open the heart without waiting for all of these signs?

R. To open the heart is something you have to do to begin with. Even before these meetings you have to open your heart and prepare yourself for the connection. That is one thing, another thing is usually after we connect we bring all of our forces and incorporate them into the connection that is what we should do. That is all.

S. I just wanted to add to the friends not to wait for those signs, let’s do things in the good and simple way without things that will lead us to those discernments through pain.

R. Yes.

15. S. (44:56) Number eight it says that all the actions of all the worlds bring the feeling to the Nukva because she is inspired by the lower ones. So they’re asking what does it mean when the Nukva gets inspired by the lower ones?

R. A part of these ten Sefirot, which is the main part, the Nukva, the Malchut is impressed by all the Sefirot before her. That’s it.

Reading Excerpt #9 (45:43) “The Mind is regarded as Hochma…..” (Twice)

16. S. (47:22) Why doesn’t a person have control in his heart?

R. Because it is a desire, the desire comes before the person. All a person can do is not to establish his desire but what to do with the desire through the Creator, through the environment but in itself that person does not control his own desire.

S. What can you do to stabilize the desire after it wakes up in him?

R. Of course.

S. In what can he aim his heart?

R. Through the environment, through his environment, that is what we are learning.

S. To stabilize towards what?

R. Establishing his own desire, stabilizing it, making it as suitable, as adapted as possible to the Creator, so that the Creator can work with this desire and fulfill it and bring it closer.

S. That’s a control of the heart on a man?

R. Control on the heart is through the environment because the heart is all of your environment, your ten, it is not something inside of a person. The heart is the general concept.

17. S. (49:17) Sometimes you say that the Gathering of Friends is more important than a lesson and there are going to be a few gatherings in the Congress. So how to really have them special so that they open our hearts?

R. The topics we will learn in a Congress and work on that is what I recommend.

18. S. (50:21) I reach a nice feeling in the Congress open heart, warm heart, meals and it’s good and pleasant but it is not the light of Hochma it is something tiny, what are we lacking something that I’m lacking?

R. You should probably add more food, songs, things like these.

S. That is perfect, really every meal, hummus will feel like a Congress, where is the light of Hochma?

R. The light of Hochma depends on you, not on the food.

S. What am I not doing?

R. What are you not doing? You should examine it. I cannot tell you.

19. S. (51:09) In the Congress obviously there will be states for the friends because the way we understand Rabash articles and everything and like we said in the questions it is a person in the work and he comes to a workshop he says again connection, just connection and specifically that is where the work is, that a person who understands that it’s not just.. he feels how much he adds in the connection how much he comes out of it how we justify the friends every time and this mercy?

R. We did not justify him every time, we help him, we are incorporated in him, we accept him as the source of the deficiency, that he specifically shows it to us.

S. There is work and a friend that gets a burdening also one that gets uplifting is that he has to bring good spirits, so how do we really take and incorporate the whole vessel?

R. Incorporate with everyone and then both the deficiencies and upsides and all of these things; everything works together.

20. S. (52:18) With this question he pushed me into thoughts about the work with opening the heart in the Ten. Now with my wife I learned, thanks to the wisdom of Kabbalah, that I need to let her take everything out, whatever is in her heart, whatever difficulty it is, I have to accept it. Now yesterday, a friend in the Ten asked friends, “Open your heart, say what you want.” And I said, “I want you to come to the lesson today.” He answered and said, “I’m working and I’ll be in the Arvut system.” And I said that, “I want a leader and he said take a teaspoon!” I see also in the last time, he didn’t make it because of his work because of other reasons. The question is: How can I take an example from my family and in the Ten bring the importance of the friends to fill it all the way? How can I bring this image into the ten to fill my friends desire?

R. You should imagine yourself that you are connected to that friend even though he is not really coming but you are connected to him and you want to go all these steps you’re going through alone, you want to go with him, take him by your hand and go through all this stuff together and that is how he will also be in the Congress.