READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN TUESDAY

Lesson on the topic of “Fighting the evil inclination”

LESSON MATERIAL

Fighting the evil inclination – Selected Excerpts from the sources

1. RABASH, Article No. 6 (1989), “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”

Tzava [army] are men of war. These are people who go each day to fight the evil inclination. They are called “army.” Therefore, after they have been rewarded with redemption, meaning after they conquer the evil inclination and emerge from the control of the evil, their conduct in the work is by way of ascents and descents, which is called Tzevaot [plural of Tzava (army)]. Meaning, at times they emerge from their control, and then are under their control again. Thus, the name for ascents and descents is Tzevaot.

2. RABASH, Article No. 6 (1989), “What Is Above Reason in the Work?”

During the work, a person should say, “If I am not for me, who is for me?” At that time in the work, they think that they themselves are doing the ascents and descents, that they are men of war, called Tzava, “mighty men.” Afterward, when they are redeemed, they attain that the Lord is of hosts [Tzevaot], meaning that the Creator made all the ups and downs they had.

In other words, even the descents come from the Creator. A person does not get so many ups and downs for no reason. Rather, the Creator caused all those exits. We can interpret “exit” as “exit from Kedusha [holiness],” and Ba [comes] as “coming to Kedusha. The Creator does everything. Hence, after the redemption, the Creator is called “Lord of Hosts.”

3. RABASH, Article No. 10 (1985), “Jacob Went Out”

It is known that Eretz [earth] implies the will to receive, which is the foundation, since all of creation and all the bad that exists in the world extend from this desire, as it is known that all the wars, murders, and so forth are rooted in the will to receive

4. RABASH, Letter No. 5

And when you feel that you are at war, each of you will know and feel that he needs the help of his friend, and without him, his own strength will wane, as well. Then, when you understand that you must save your life, each of you will forget he has a body he must preserve, and you will both be tied by the thought of how to defeat the enemy.

5. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 118, “To Understand the Matter of the Knees that Have Bowed to Baal”

One who has a choice yet struggles to go by the path of faith is called “a man of war.”

6. RABASH, Article No. 440, “Pinhas Saw”

One should always be in a state of overcoming. This is considered that he is always at war, as our sages said, “One should always vex the good inclination over the evil inclination” (Berachot 5a), and RASHI interpreted, “make war with it.”

If a person always walks in a state of above reason, the Creator says, “Behold, I give him My covenant of peace,” as it is written, “I will hear what God the Lord will say, for He will speak peace to His people and to His followers and let them not return to folly” (Psalms 85).

This means that after the Creator makes a covenant of peace with a person, he has no more wars, as it is written, “When the Lord favors man’s ways, even his enemies will make peace with him.”

7. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 19, “What Is ‘The Creator Hates the Bodies,’ in the Work?”

One should believe that the obstructions of the will to receive in the work come to him from above. One is given the force to discover the will to receive from above because there is room for work precisely when the will to receive awakens.

Then one has close contact with the Creator to help him turn the will to receive to work in order to bestow. One must believe that from this extends contentment to the Creator, from his praying to Him to draw him near in the manner of Dvekut [adhesion], called “equivalence of form,” discerned as the annulment of the will to receive, so it is in order to bestow. The Creator says about this, “My sons defeated Me.” That is, I gave you the will to receive, and you ask Me to give you a desire to bestow instead.

8. Meshivat Nefesh, Item 40

Our sages said, “Man’s inclination overcomes him everyday.” Were it not for the help of the Creator, he would not overcome it.” Rather, man must only commit to strengthening himself each time anew, and not retreat from this war or cause oneself despair under any circumstances.

Certainly, in this war, it is impossible to evidently see who is the winner, since the war is still long, the exile is intensifying, and each one experiences what he experiences. Yet, as long as we are holding our weapons in our hands—and our main weapon is the prayer—and as long as we do not cause ourselves despair from this war and keep gripping to our weapons, we are winning for sure, since as long as one strengthens oneself in prayer and outcry to the Creator, he is winning the war, as this is essentially the victory.

9. RABASH, . Article No. 380, “Anyone Who Sanctifies the Seventh – 2”

Our sages said, “Man’s inclination overcomes him every day. If the Creator did not help him, he would not overcome it.” We should understand why the Creator did not give us the power to defeat the evil inclination. But if this is not within man’s hands, why does the Creator not do everything?

In other words, why must one fight with the evil inclination while the Creator only helps him, but if the person does not begin the war, the Creator does not help him? Also, why does the Creator need man to make the war and then He will come and help him, as our sages said, “One should always vex the good inclination over the evil inclination,” and RASHI interpreted, “make war with it” (Berachot 5a)? This implies that first, one must begin the war and then the Creator helps him.

10. RABASH, . Article No. 380, “Anyone Who Sanctifies the Seventh – 2”

A person must begin the war so as to have Kelim and a need for salvation and the help of the Creator, as was said, “If the Creator did not help him, he would not overcome it.” It follows that He did not give man the ability to win the war on purpose, since through the war one obtains the Kelim and need for the abundance.

Hence, we need both: to enter the war so as to obtain Kelim, and the help that is required is that specifically the Creator will help him, since through the help he obtains the inheritance of the land.

LESSON

Morning Lesson October 15, 2023

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

Part 2:

Fighting the evil inclination – Selected Excerpts from the sources. #5

Reading Excerpt #5 (00:13)

Reading Excerpt #6 twice (01:03)

1. S. (03:56) What does it mean to vex the evil inclination over the good inclination?

R. When a person disagrees, he disagrees with what awakens in him, the evil inclination and he is asking to put them to death.

S. How practically to adapt it, to put one before the other, the good and the bad in the ten?

R. Imagine a state where you’re in an egoistic state and you rise just a little bit above that state. You will be in a better state, an altruistic state and you have resistance. This is the work that we have to do and that state is called war.

S. So we fight against what’s opposite of us?

R. We fight that which opposes the Creator.

S. What is the victory because it says here that if the Creator…?

R. If a person tries to be closer to the friends and together with them closer to the Creator, in this way he can begin to submit before Him all his bad qualities, his evil qualities and turn them into good qualities.

S. How can I take my evil qualities, let’s say those that cause separation, how can I turn them into good?

R. The Creator gives one strength, the Creator gives forces and from the evil qualities you begin to acquire the good corrected qualities. But it’s not the Creator doing it, who is doing it?

2. S. (07:04) How can one be above reason all the time?

R. Always above reason?

S. How can a person be above reason all the time?

R. He can’t always be above reason but he can yearn for it, he can have an inclination for it. He needs to do that and then when the Creator raises him to faith above reason he feels that he can be close to the Creator.

3. S. (08:15) I wanted to ask what does it mean that the Creator makes a covenant of peace with us? What is that state, covenant of peace, how can I feel it?

R. When we attain it, you will see it, we’ll have no contradictions. On the contrary, we will have the correct state, we’ll understand one another.

4. S. (08:50) Every time we are successful in overcoming, even if it’s something small, afterwards a bigger challenge comes, a bigger problem and then we have to overcome again. How not to run away from the campaign?

R. Well that’s our path. We go from step to step, degree to degree and the Creator is helping us. We need to receive from the ten each time the power to advance, to rise, to climb, higher and higher. Why else do we need the group? To help us grow stronger, connect, and mount the top.

5. S. (10:05) I wanted to ask but you already gave an answer. What does it mean to make a covenant between the friends?

R. You connect in such a way that you can always help one another.

S. How to keep the condition of covenant, because we see everything that’s happening around and that’s a calamity. You could say that it comes on account of the states, that we’re not keeping the covenant or the Arvut.

R. You need to be tied together and understand that the covenant is in each one and everyone together. The ten has to care only about how all of us are connected, and all of us ensure that each one is connected.

6. S. (11:36) It’s not clear if a person has to search for the war with the evil inclination or the peace with it.

R. They’re connected to one another, so it depends on the state a person is in.

S. When does going above reason become an escape from the relationship between the friends instead of dealing with it?

R. We need to try and deal with and face the disconnection between the friends, that’s the main thing. Constantly protect the connection between us and from between us to the Creator.

7. S. (12:49) In our ten I feel the friends suddenly in a very strong and clear way. It was revealed that the war is against that same wicked and the friends, each one fights on their own in the exact same way they fight against the same wicked. That caused a shock and a closeness between those friends, that I’m searching for my brothers, it was a revelation of the brothers. I saw that it didn’t happen for all the friends in the ten, it only happened to part of the friends in the ten, at least right now. The question is: How do the friends that this revelation happened to, how can they help the ten with this?

R. You need to see it from within the work in the ten, I can’t get into it and tell you. Search for it, discover it, but talk about it.

S. I feel it’s something very strong. How can we protect the ten as a ten and God forbid there won’t be a division in the ten?

R. If you think this way no harm will come to you just gently start correcting the situation.

8. S. (14:44) I was thinking if I combine the text that we just read before and this text that we just read, if I become a warrior that’s when I can hear the Lord speaking words of peace?

R. Yes, that’s possible.

Reading Excerpt #7 twice (15:24)

9. S. (18:52) Why is one who follows the path of faith considered a warrior?

R. Because he goes against his nature, our nature is not faith.

10. S. (19:22) Part of the victory and the fight is to justify the Creator and renew the covenant every time?

R. Yes, yes.

Reading Excerpt #8 twice (19:47)

11. S. (23:26) Except for prayer, what other weapon do we have to fight the evil inclination?

R. We don’t. Before the prayer we have to connect between us, ask for the connection in the prayer, come closer to be “as one man in one heart” and the prayer. That’s it but there are many details in it. That’s why although it looks as if there’s nothing besides prayer it actually includes all the relationships between us and between us and the Creator.

12. S. (24:31) We just read a few excerpts about the inner war in man but there is also an external war that we see. What’s the connection between those two wars?

R. There is no connection, there is no connection. We have to relate to the war, that it shows us as much as we still are not united, externally and also internally.

S. Also these words like overcoming, faith, adhesion, now prayer, can you put these in order?

R. No, from inside we’re going to start seeing how it organizes correctly in everyone and not that I’m going to do this work instead of you.

S. What should we aspire to, peace or victory, as it’s written here?

R. I don’t see a difference between them. Peace and also victory is what happens the moment we are connected in the good way between us and with the Creator.

13. S. (26:11) What is the difference between the prayer from the center of the ten and a person’s individual prayer, what is the power of this and the power of that?

R. A personal prayer from within a person is only a preparation, that’s all it can be, but not that it really affects the system. A prayer that comes from a ten is already a prayer that belongs to the entire system and truly changes reality.

S. Nevertheless what’s the power of personal prayer, what does it give us?

R. It’s only a person’s preparation to reach the common prayer.

14. S. (27:24) It’s written, number eight, that a person should strengthen himself each time anew without retreating from this war and without causing himself despair under any circumstances. What could show us a person is causing despair to himself and how to avoid this?

R. Pay attention to where his eyes are directed towards – that has to be only to the center of the group and to try and locate the Creator there.

15. S. (28:25) We have many paths, many systems in the ten. To what extent is dissemination part of our connection in the ten?

R. Dissemination is a very important part, especially in our times, in our days. Because by this we can really change reality.

S. And for the correction of the connections between us, correction of the soul between us, which dissemination is more powerful: dissemination a person does with himself, with others, sharing excerpts and such, or part of a mass dissemination organized by the organization?

R. Both. Who knows how we’re affecting the public, the individual in the collective and the collective that is put together from individuals. There still isn’t a form that we can stabilize.

S. As an organization, how important is it for us to develop such systems that will support not only the creation of content but the connection of the entire vessel around dissemination?

R. It’s very important but I don’t know how realistic it is. Really everybody connects, there are a few dozen people that are connected to the dissemination and that’s also good – but as much as more come we’ll have a stronger intensity in dissemination and in that way we’ll advance in a quicker way to the correction.

16. S. (30:43) According to the excerpt we just read, is the victory a result of persistence to the power of prayer even when we don’t see a result?

R. Yes, you are right.

S. So what can give us this persistent, this perseverance?

R. Still we have a connection between us and in this way we hold on to each other.

17. S. (31:22) It seems that with all those excerpts the war seems necessary, but we don’t hate the war in order to attain peace, we don’t reach love.

R. That’s correct. We don’t hate the war enough in order to attain peace, that’s what we learn about and we talk about. Let’s hope that we start hating every separation between us as something unbearable; that there is no worse and then connection, a lack of connection and separation, they will escort us all the way towards the purpose of creation.

18. S. (32:32) What is the prayer of the ten, what should the prayer of the ten look like?

R. “As one man with one heart,” in the ten, that we’re praying with mutual bereavement about a certain problem towards the Creator, that’s how we’re putting Him before us.

S. Do we need to pray for one thing, one particular problem or each one has to express?

R. No, no, no, on one thing, one thing.

S. How do we come to scrutinize this one thing?

R. Think about it between you, make a preparation and pray.

19. S. (33:36) You said that we are inside an egoistic state and that there’s resistance and we rise above it a little bit and want to be in a better state, an altruistic state. That’s the work we should do and this state is called war. In that state that you describe, is it important that each one will look after himself so it won’t be expressed in the relationship to the friends but happen inside of us?

R. That’s true, too.

S. And that’s what advances us?

R. Yes, yes.

S. If we’re in a state where we can’t hold ourselves back and that resistance inside comes into an external expression in the attitude between the friends, is that the reason that we see these horrific wars outside of us?

R. Yes. You have a mind, you have the feeling, you have everything in order to reach the correction.

20. S. (34:57) These days it’s very difficult not to be influenced by what’s happening outside in this world. I feel that what’s important is to increase the prayer and disseminate, that’s what saves me from this situation. In the ten it’s split. Some of the friends think we should enter into this grieving and these horrors and watch the news and I keep saying no, we shouldn’t do it. What’s correct? I feel like if I’m getting to it, it’s very difficult for me.

R. Hug everybody and awaken them from the warmth in your heart. That’s how it is.

21. S. (35:53) If my only weapon, as it’s written, is the prayer, in truth I don’t know how to pray, I I think also in ten we’re not exactly praying as needed, and also the prayer before prayer, chronologically maybe to do it, but prayer. For us, the prayer is something sort of, we’re ‘winging’ it, we say, “yeah, let’s do a prayer, let’s put together a prayer at the end of some meeting, it’s like a summary. But if it were the foundation, how should it be constructed, how should we build it, how do Kabbalists do it in a perfect way so we can be an example of them? We think we know how to pray but we don’t?

R. It’s not simple, the main thing is the prayer because after all your efforts to the Creator only the prayer reaches Him. What you give Him, like a manager at work, that your whole future, let’s say, depends on it. You give him some requests, you write down what you want and why and how, all of this has to be passed through prayer, your request. Try it, try together with the friends, and the Creator is like the one who is managing the whole world. Take that prayer, He will take that prayer and decide what to do with it. Or He says, “these guys need to suffer a bit and find themselves and annul one towards the other in a mutual way,” and so on. Meaning what can the Creator answer that and in that way you will advance, clear?

S. We thought you could tell us how it is in a perfect ten, how much time was dedicated to it, all day or part of the gathering?

R. Constantly, it says, “I wish they pray all day”, and during the prayer check yourself, you correct yourself, you raise a second question, a third and so on. And then gradually everything comes to one, that’s why you have to discover, but it shouldn’t come from suffering but from your heart.

22. S. (39:32) Is there any connection between our internal wars in our connection and wars we see in the corporeality, are they both a conflict of systems?

R. Yes, there is a connection, obviously there is, we are not aware of it so long but there is a connection.

23. S. (40:36) In the last two days I’m asking myself what would Rabash and Baal HaSulam tell us right now, what kind of advice would they give us right now?

R. They would only say one thing, “where is your prayer, where is your request, where is your request, you have a Manager, where is your prayer”? And we are not doing it.

S. Why aren’t we doing it, we don’t listen to you?

R. Ask yourself, ask yourself.

24. S. (41:42) In one excerpt, he recommends to vex the evil inclination by the good inclination, and in the other one, it says that we should start the war, so the question is: Do we need to start the war or the war starts and we get together and respond?

R. We don’t want to start the war, we don’t, even though we need to be in it and be ready for it, the war against our evil inclination, but actually we don’t have any forces to really begin that work. Even though it’s written that in each and every moment a person has to wage war with the good inclination against the evil inclination but we cannot. The Creator does that work and brings us to it and we need to participate.

S. And we ask about the external war; we now have threats from Iran. Maybe it’s an all inclusive war. Do we need to wait there as well or start, or wait for it to come to you?

R. Yes.

S. Yes what?

R. Yes, it can turn into a collective war, yes but I’m not taking it off the daily task, what can we do? We are to blame that to begin with we weren’t successful in the war without the real life weapons but with thoughts, intentions, in desires, in spiritual actions, we are guilty in it. That’s why we are coming to corporeal actions, we will see what is going to happen but from this I am gone but it’s not good that we, the nation, will not wake up enough. They’re satisfied that the Americans are sending aircraft carriers here, missile carriers and more things. Supposedly that’s what is going to help us in the war of the evil inclination.

S. Not only do we see that animals help each other when they run out of burning woods, they don’t devour each other. We see here that even when we’re running out of the woods, we’re eating each other.

R. Right, right.

S. The evil is revealed on top of the evil!

R. Yes.

25. S. (45:57) You feel in this war, the cry of the mother’s, what should be our message from women towards the people?

R. The women are a huge power, if they are connected they will be a big, positive action in the world. I have nothing else to add, let’s hope that they understand what they have to do.

26. S. (46:50) Something from excerpt number five, “One who has choice yet struggles to go by the path of faith is called ‘a man of war’”, give us counsel so we can go on the path of faith and wage a war, please.

R. I cannot tell you more, that is what is written in Rabash and Baal HaSulam excerpts and now we’re reading from more Kabbalists who came before, there’s nothing else to say! Just read it and read it and repeat it and try to understand it more. A few times read every excerpt and then you will understand a bit more what they mean, you will come closer to the reason and they will affect you more. And in this way we can support each other: we in the sages and they in us! I’m sure that it will help us and everything depends on as much as we want to help us soon.

27. S. (48:41) What should be the early preparation in order to reach the prayer that becomes a true weapon?

R. The prayer that comes out of the heart!

S. And the preparation?

R. Also the preparation, yes.

S. How to increase the power of prayer, what does that depend on?

R. The power of prayer depends on the connection between us, to be ‘as one man with one heart’.

S. It turns out that my power of prayer depends, you said that the preparation needs to extend from the heart?

R. As much as your friends will come into you, meaning connect to your heart and from the mutual heart, you will turn to the Creator.

S. So it doesn’t even depend on me, the power of prayer?

R. You personally, no.

28. S. (50:12) In our dissemination, should we tell the people that the hate should not be outside but inside?

R. Hatred should not be with the enemy but towards our ego, only towards it.

29. S. (51:14) We learned that internality and externality, we have trouble in our country and the whole world, and there are rallies against us even in the world, we need to have a prayer that will connect everyone, pray that everything will calm down, how to pray that the whole world to also come down?

R. Adhesion in the ten, adhesion in the Creator and by this we cover everything. How can that be that after so many years, you are asking about that again?

S. I want to say that because we made this push, we see where we are disconnected in the internality and the externality because the whole world suddenly revealed real problems, as if around the world, that’s what I wanted to say.

R. Okay.

30. S. (52:47) We’re thanking the Rav and we have the next part of the lesson, the social time here.

R. That’s very important, specifically the social time, if prayers will come out of this and new discernments, the plea to the Creator, the plea to the friends, so by this you attain your correction, it’s a great correction that has to come from this, specifically, good luck to you all!