READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN MONDAY

Rabash. Hear Our Voice. 39 (1985)

LESSON MATERIAL

Hear Our Voice

Article No. 39, 1985

In the Slichot [prayers for pardon], we say, “Hear our voice, the Lord our God, have mercy and pity on us, and accept our prayer mercifully and willingly.” In the Monday and Thursday litanies we say, “Have pity on us, O Lord, with Your mercy, and give us not to the hands of the cruel. Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ Hear our voice and pardon us, and do not abandon us in the hands of our enemies to obliterate our name. In the end, we have not forgotten Your name; please do not forget us.”

We should understand why it ends, “In the end, we have not forgotten Your name; please do not forget us.” It implies that this is the reason why we ask that the Creator will help us, because it says, “In the end, we have not forgotten Your name.” What reason and cause is there in “In the end, we have not forgotten Your name,” for which we say, “please do not forget us”?

To understand the above, we must know how are the nations who are asking heretic questions, since we say, “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’” We also need to understand why we say to the Creator, “Give us not to the hands of the cruel.” Who are the cruel? Also, it seems that if we were not placed in the hands of the cruel in exile, it would not be so terrible and we would not need to pray to be delivered from the exile among the nations.

We will explain this according to our way. Since we are born after the Tzimtzum [restriction] and the concealment, and only the will to receive for ourselves is revealed in us, it lets us understand that we should work only for our own benefit. By becoming enslaved to self-benefit, we become remote from the Creator. It is known that near and far relate to disparity of form and equivalence of form.

For this reason, when a person is immersed in self-reception, he is separated from the life of lives. Naturally, he cannot feel the flavor of Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], for only when he believes that he is keeping the Creator’s commandment not for his own benefit can he adhere to the Giver of the Torah. Since the Creator is the source of life, at that time a person feels the taste of life and calls the Torah, “Torah of life,” and the verse, “This is your life and the length of your days,” comes true.

But during the separation everything is dark for him. Although our sages said, “One should always engage in Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma [not for Her sake], and from Lo Lishma he will come to Lishma [for Her sake],” there are many stipulations to this. First he needs to have a need to achieve Lishma. A person thinks, “What am I losing by engaging Lo Lishma, for which I should always remember the reason why I am learning Lishma? It is not in order to receive a corporeal or spiritual reward. Rather, the reason I am learning Lo Lishma is to thereby achieve the degree of Lishma.

At that time the question, “Should I labor for something I do not need?” awakens in him. The body comes to him and says, “What will I gain by your desire to work in order to bestow, called Lishma? If I exert in Lo Lishma, will I receive something important called Lishma?”

In truth, it is to the contrary. If he tells his body, “Work in Torah and Mitzvot Lo Lishma, which is the reason by which you will achieve Lishma,” the body will certainly disrupt him, if this is his purpose, to achieve Lishma. It brings many excuses to a person why he cannot do the work of Lo Lishma.

Perhaps this is the reason why the body disrupts people who learn Lo Lishma so that it will lead them to Lishma, and does not let them engage even in Lo Lishma, since the body is afraid “lest the man will achieve Lishma.”

This is not so for the kind of people who do not learn with the intention to achieve Lishma, and engage in Torah and Mitzvot because the Creator commanded us to keep His Torah and Mitzvot, in return for which we will be rewarded in the next world. During the study of Torah they do not aim to exit self-love and be able to keep Torah and Mitzvot in order to bestow. It follows that since he is not going against the body, meaning against self-love, the body does not object so much to keeping Torah and Mitzvot, since the body’s view is that it will keep everything in its own authority, meaning in self-love.

But for those who intend during their engagement in Torah and Mitzvot to be rewarded with Lishma, it is difficult to observe even Lo Lishma, since the body is afraid that it might lose all the self-love and will do everything for the Creator, leaving nothing for the body. It follows that there is a difference even in the Lo Lishma, meaning in the intention of the Lo Lishma itself. If the intention is to remain in Lo Lishma and not to go further, meaning achieve Lishma, a person can persist in learning Torah because his body does not pose much resistance.

But if a person aims, while engaging in Lo Lishma, to thereby achieve Lishma, it contradicts the view of the body. While it is true that he is still engaging Lo Lishma, but since the aim is to achieve Lishma, the body will resist every single movement and will present obstructions over every little thing.

This means that when those who do not go for the goal of achieving Lishma look at the obstructions that people who are walking on the path to achieving Lishma speak about, they laugh at them. They say that they don’t understand them, that they take every little thing as a tall mountain, and every little thing becomes a huge barrier for them, and they have to muster great strength for every single movement. They do not understand them and tell them: “Take a look for yourselves and see how unsuccessful your way is. We, thank God, study and pray, and the body has no power to deter us from engaging in Torah and Mitzvot. But you, with your way, you yourselves say that every little thing you do is as though you have conquered a tall mountain.”

We can compare this to what our sages said (Sukkah, 52), “In the future (referring to the days of the Messiah), the Creator will take the evil inclination and slaughter it before the righteous and before the wicked. To the righteous, it will seem like a tall mountain. To the wicked, it will seem like a hairsbreadth.” Although there it discusses the days of the Messiah, we can take an example from there, meaning explain here that those who intend to achieve Lishma are regarded as righteous, since their aim is to be righteous, meaning that their intention will be only for the Creator. To them the evil inclination is regarded as a tall mountain

Those who haven’t the goal of achieving Lishma, meaning to exit self-love, are considered “wicked” because the evil, called “receiving in order to receive,” remains in them. They themselves say that they do not want to exit self-love, and to them the evil inclination seems like a hairsbreadth.

This is similar to the story that is told about Rabbi Bonim: He was asked in the city of Danzig, Germany, why Polish Jews are liars and wear dirty clothes, while German Jews are truthful and wear clean clothes. Rabbi Bonim replied that it is as Rabbi Pinhas Ben Yair said (Avoda Zarah, 21), “Rabbi Pinhas Ben Yair said, ‘Torah leads to caution, cleanness leads to abstinence, and fear of sin leads to holiness.’”

Therefore, when the Jews of Germany began to adopt cleanness, the evil inclination came to them and told them, “I will not let you engage in cleanness because cleanness leads to other things until you finally arrive in Kedusha [holiness]. It follows that you want me to allow you to achieve Kedusha. This will not happen!” What could they do? Because they yearned for cleanness, they promised it that if it would stop interfering with their work on cleanness they would go no farther, and it has no reason to fear that they might achieve Kedusha, for they are truthful. For this reason, the Jews of Germany are clean, since the evil inclination does not disturb them.

When the evil inclination saw that Polish Jews are engaging in cleanness, it came to them, as well, and wanted to obstruct them because they would achieve Kedusha, and it opposes it. They said to it, “We will not go farther.” But what did they do? When he left them, they kept going until they reached Kedusha. When the evil inclination saw that they are liars, it promptly fought with them over cleanness. Therefore, because Polish Jews are liars, it is hard for them to walk in cleanness.

In the same way, we should understand those who engage Lo Lishma and say that our sages promised us that from Lo Lishma we come to Lishma, and therefore we need not make great efforts to achieve it, but that it will eventually come. Therefore, we have no business with the view that we should always remember that everything we do in Torah and Mitzvot is in order to achieve Lishma and this is our reward, and this is what we expect.

Rather, we will engage in Lo Lishma and in the end it will come, as our sages promised us. This is why the evil inclination does not come to divert them from engaging Lo Lishma, since it sees that they have no desire whatsoever to achieve Lishma, so it does not bother them at all, as with the story about Rabbi Bonim.

But with those who do yearn to achieve Lishma, the evil inclination sees that they engage in Lo Lishma because there is no other way but to begin in Lo Lishma, as our sages said, “He should not engage Lo Lishma unless because from Lo Lishma we get to Lishma,” and they sit and wait, “When will I achieve Lishma already?”

When the evil inclination sees that they are exerting to achieve Lishma through the remedy of Lo Lishma, it promptly comes to them and does all kinds of things to disrupt them, so they do not achieve Lishma. It does not let them do even tiny things Lo Lishma because of fear, since they are exerting to achieve Lishma, as in Rabbi Bonim’s reply.

Accordingly, there are two discernments in Lo Lishma: 1) His purpose in Lo Lishma is to achieve Lishma. He always examines whether he has already taken a step in his work toward arriving at Lishma. When he sees that he has not moved an inch, he regrets it and pretends that he has not even started with the work of the Creator, since his gauge in Torah and Mitzvot is how much he can aim for the Creator. For this reason, when he sees that he cannot even aim the smallest thing for the Creator, he feels as though he hasn’t done a thing in the work of the Creator, and regards himself as a useless tool.

At that time he begins to contemplate his purpose. The days pass and he cannot come out of his state; all he wants is self-love! Worse yet, each day, instead of looking at disruptions in the work as though they are nothing, he sees them as tall mountains; he always sees a great barrier in front of him that he cannot overcome.

Baal HaSulam said about such states that a person advances precisely in these states, called “states of Achoraim [posterior].” However, one is not allowed to see it so he will not regard it as Panim [anterior], for when a person sees he is advancing, his power of prayer weakens because he sees that the situation is not so bad since in the end he is advancing, though in small steps. It might take a little longer, but he is moving. But when he sees that he is regressing, then when he prays the prayer is from the bottom of the heart, according to the measure of suffering that he feels due to his poor state.

By this you will understand what we say in the litany, “Have pity on us, O Lord, with Your mercy, and give us not to the hands of the cruel.” We must know who are the cruel. We should know that when we speak of individual work, then man is the collective. That is, he contains within him the nations of the world, as well. This means that he has lusts and views of the nations of the world, and he is in exile among the nations of the world that exist within him. This is called “the hands of the cruel.”

We ask of the Creator, “Give us not to the hands of the cruel.” In corporeality, a cruel person is one who gives troubles to people mercilessly, not caring that he is hurting others. Likewise, in the work of the Creator, when a person wants to take upon himself the burden of the kingdom of heaven, the views of the nations of the world in him come and torment him with the slander he hears from them. He must fight them, but they are stronger than him and he surrenders and is compelled to listen to them.

This pains and torments him, as it is written, “And the children of Israel sighed from the work and cried out, and their cry from the work went up to God, and God heard their groaning.” Thus, we see that man’s suffering from the evil inclination is the reason why he should have room for prayer. It follows that precisely when he is at war with the evil inclination and thinks that he cannot advance, precisely here he has room for progress.

Baal HaSulam said that a person cannot appreciate the importance of the time when he has serious contact with the Creator. It follows that a person feels that he is in the hands of the cruel, and the nations of the world in him have no mercy on him, and that their cruelty against him is especially when they ask him as it is written, “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’” This is a question of heresy, that they want to obliterate the name of Israel from him, as it is written, “Do not abandon us in the hands of our enemies to obliterate our name.”

It follows that the main thing they want is to uproot Israel’s faith in the Creator. With these arguments they separate him from the Creator so he cannot connect to the Creator, to adhere to the life of lives and feel the taste of spiritual life. This is why he says that although he hears each day their spirit of heresy, as it is written, “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’” but “we have not forgotten Your name,” meaning I still remember the address to turn to.

That is, although only the Creator is left within us, and not what there is in the name, since they cause the name that stays in us to be dry and tasteless, still, “we have not forgotten Your name. This is why we ask, “Please do not forget us,” meaning that He will give us the strength to approach Him so we can attain what is contained in the holy name.

LESSON

Morning Lesson November 18, 2023

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

Part 1:

Rabash. Article No. 39, 1985. Hear Our Voice

Reading Article. (00:40) “In the Slichot [prayers for pardon],…”

1. S. (27:20) It’s not a personal war with the evil inclination each one fights, it’s true, but we as a ten, when I read this article and I look at it, if the man goes to a social event the will to receive goes with him. When we begin to work and connect between us then the destructions begin, then the difficulties begin as a society. One of the things that gives us strength is this thing, meaning we have tens, we have the world Kli, we have you, we have the Kabbalists but the work is in the tens, I mean that’s the internality of the person. So how do we silence this evil inclination there inside the ten?

R. That is by all of us connecting and aiming at one goal and then in that goal the evil inclination disappears.

S. So the more we adhere, sometimes even physically in terms of thinking about it, et cetera, we restrict it?

R. Yes, we have to, yes.

2. S. (29:02) Here in the allegory when he speaks about the cleanliness, the Polish Jews and the German Jews, it doesn’t matter how many times we read it and hear it and you also talked about it; it’s difficult to agree in a mature way that this is how it is, that what’s revealed is the opposite. A person wants to be clean, there’s a strong desire in a person to be clean and nevertheless that’s not how it is. How can we agree with it, accept it and stop wanting to..?

R. We have to be aimed at connection; connection, adhesion and don’t pay attention to seeing yourself in..

S. Why does it say that cleanness brings to abstinence et cetera?

R. It’s correct but on the way, as you want to reach it. It’s not that you’re already in it.

3. S. (30:21) He says here that even though the Creator is dry, the most important is that we have not forgotten His name. It sounds like a very high degree already, what is he talking about?

R. I can’t explain that. A person is always attuned to getting closer to the Creator and getting closer to the Creator is by connection with the friends in the ten. Don’t forget that their name used to be that the Creator is Good That Does Good and rely on that until we truly receive such a connection that the Creator will be fully revealed: the name of the Creator, The Good That Does Good.

S. What does it mean that a person creates such an environment around him that doesn’t let him forget it?

R. Yes, of course, that’s our entire work.

4. S. (31:53) In this example of the Polish Jews and the German Jews, it put me in an unpleasant state. Can you explain it better? I can’t even depict to myself that someone, especially a great Kabbalist, says that if someone is beautiful, pretty his intention must be bad. I can say this to everyone. If I see someone has invested a lot, if he’s invested a lot I guess he has a bad intention; I can’t do that because they’re yearning to be in Lishma.

R. This is the joke that comes to us from the 17th or 18th century, there are other conditions there. There are the Germans, and the Jews that lived in Germany used to guard themselves externally like the people they were with, the German people. The Jews of Poland were such that weren’t so attentive to their externality as the Polish would do in that time. That’s why it’s discussed. Also it’s something that stayed with Rabash, you have to understand when he grew up and how he was brought up in those times, in the beginning of the 20th century. There were still such conditions the way he writes. To this day we see a difference, also in their clothings and customs, of those who came out of Poland and those who came out of Germany, also different characteristics, so that’s an example that he gives.

S. If we’re talking about us, we are not getting into the inner work of the friend but if the friend externally stops coming to lessons or in some external way he expresses less activity we give him some support, if everything is good with him we don’t touch him. Maybe in this context we can strengthen our approach, is the right approach even?

R. I don’t understand why not? If he is on the path why should we stop him or hinder him, we just have to show him that we’re going together. If we’re not going together and someone is turning sideways then we have to try to put him back on track.

S. The question is what should we do to the friend who should have come to the lesson today but didn’t come. Let’s say he says, “I’m working with the intention, I’m praying for you.” How should we awaken him?

R. No no, that can’t be, the intention doesn’t replace the actions since all our actions go through the ten, the group. Therefore we have to carry out all the physical conditions of our connection between us.

5. S. (36:21) Is a person’s request to work for the Creator, before he comes to the group does this bring him to the group and work in the form of Lo Lishma? Again, if a person wants to work for the Creator before he comes to the group, before his spiritual work then he searches. Is his reward that the Creator brings him to a group where he can work in the form of Lo Lishma?

R. Yes, of course, the Creator brings the person to the group, there’s no doubt on that.

6. S. (37:22) In the article we see there’s importance given to the days of Monday and Thursday because the litanies are on that day. Why are they more important, why are Monday and Thursday more important days or they seem to be important according to the prayer?

R. That’s what the sages determined a long time ago. Some say that during Mondays and Thursdays there used to be a marketplace in all the cities and people from all the places, from all the villages would come to the marketplace and therefore they determine the prayer there. It’s written in many places that this is the reason why Mondays and Thursdays are such days.

7. S. (39:01) Yesterday we read the article together in the ten. I have to say before asking that it’s really like magic how these articles are internal and how they awaken the heart each time anew. I wanted to ask about our work. I’ll read something here Rabash writes: “and a person begins to think what is his purpose? Days goes by and he cannot come out of the state that he’s in, all he wants is self love and even worse is that every day where he should have looked at instructions in the work as though there are nothing he sees them as tall mountains, he always sees a great barrier in front of him that he cannot overcome.” He writes about such states that precisely in such states that are called states of Achoraim, posterior, there a person advances. How do these states that we need in the work, disruptions, how do they not turn off the yearning? Such states, as they repeat instead of causing us to pray they turn off the yearning, they make a person despair. How do we use these states again and again in order to ask and not to break?

R. This depends on your connection with the friends, that’s where it’s all about. Either you are connected with the friends and then together, through your connection you can turn to the Creator or you’re on your own and then you’re under the personal influence you’re given from above.

S. So if I recognize that actually I’m not connected to the friends I see that it makes me despaired, it doesn’t give me yearning. What do I do about it?

R. So you have to make actions to be connected with them, what’s the question?

S. As far as I’m concerned, that’s my whole life. I’m performing actions in order to connect with the friends.

R. But you see that it doesn’t work so you have to replace them, to scrutinize it.

S. That’s what I’m asking, what should I..?

R. Examine your relation, check with what the friends and the Creator advises and demands. We have many details about that in the articles of Rabash and then you’ll see what you have to add.

8. S. (42:09) What is the flavor in the spiritual work, how do we develop it and not lose it?

R. Only by tighter and tighter connection of all the friends; this is essentially the solution.

9. S. (42:38) A person sees that his thoughts are much more calm in relation to what he sees is happening to him on the outside. Is that the truth?

R. It’s a sign that he has to correct himself immediately.

S. Meaning to pray?

R. Meaning to pray and get closer to the friends, get closer to the friends.

10. S. (43:20) Our evil inclination doesn’t know that it’s better to receive for the Creator, it has to give us obstacles on the way, obstructions?

R. This is what a person has to scrutinize.

11. S. (43:41) Recently Rav was talking about the fact that we are at the entrance to the King’s palace. The question is what else are we missing so that the Creator will hear our voice?

R. Be together, only to connect and then the Creator will hear.

S. Wait a minute, to do what? What does it mean to connect, what are we supposed to do, what? Can you put a finger on a single point in our connection, what exactly is it?

R. This is called a prayer in the public, that’s all.

12. S. (44:22) It is written, the reason I am learning Lo Lishma is to thereby achieve the degree of Lishma. My question is: What does it mean to learn Lo Lishma and what do we need to do to learn Lo Lishma?

R. That’s what we constantly read about in the articles. The articles repeatedly talk about how to move from Lo Lishma to Lishma.

13. S. (45:05) In the article, in the example it says the Polish Jews advance until they achieve Kedusha. How is it possible if they’re liars? How could they achieve Kedusha if the person is a liar?

R. Together, that’s the solution, together. Also when connecting together we discover how opposite we are to the goal and connecting together reveals how we’re aimed at the goal; it’s all together, that’s the problem.

14. S. (46:04) Why does the evil inclination work so strongly on us in order to separate us from the Creator?

R. In order to give us a place to overcome, a desire to overcome and get closer to the Creator. It works exactly in the qualities and forces that we have to overcome in order to advance towards the Creator. It’s impossible otherwise, without a resistance we can’t reach the goal.

15. S. (46:56) At the end of the article it says do not forget us. Does the Creator forget us?

R. We have to pray that way. It’s not that He will forget but we have to pray in that way, to be afraid that He will leave us alone.

16. S. (47:35) We learn in the article that although a person is an individual he includes within him an entire collective, a community. Does the Creator give a person suffering in order for the person to do the right work inside the community?

R. No, he doesn’t give us suffering. In order to explain positive things to us towards the goal we have to be shown the opposite, the incorrect things with regards to the goal. That’s how it is, the advantage of light out of the darkness.

17. S. (48:40) The question is to direct our outcry to the Creator because we have a tendency to cry at the friends, at the society but not to the Creator. How do we turn this cry together to the Creator?

R. The cry meaning the request.

S. A request for correction, yes?

R. Yes, so we have to connect between us and discuss between us, how do we fulfill this request, even write it together and then read it together, try.

S. We have this inclination to blame each other.

R. No, no, I’m not talking about that, these are things that you have to get rid of first. You have to try to connect and then write a plea towards the Creator and then you’ll see how much of that happens.

18. S. (49:58) The body presents to the person all kinds of arguments, all kinds of questions in order for him not to work Lishma and a person has different answers to the arguments of his body or is there only one answer? It says I have no answer to give him, it is though I lack. I want to answer somehow but each time it asks different questions and I don’t have answers to these questions. Maybe there is some trick we can use all the time?

R. No, we have to ask Him together. If you ask together you will begin to feel how the Creator is turning to you.

19. S. (51:05) In the last paragraph it says the name of the Lord, the Creator is dry. What is that state, dry?

R. The Creator has many names. In that system, that matrix system to which He turns to us, we will learn about that.

20. S. (52:01) When it’s impossible to determine if we work in a state of Lo Lishma or in Lishma, is it better to be in a state of ‘sit and do nothing?’ What is your recommendation?

R. My recommendation is to clarify between the friends and see what to do.

21. S. (52:31) The evil inclination is revealed in Lo Lishma when we have an intention to reach Lishma?

R. Yes.

22. S. (52:45) In the state of the nations of the world, when we are under the governance of the wicked, does it mean that we see our friends as wicked in our thoughts?

R. Yes.

23. S. (53:31) How can we build the accurate intention to reach Lishma?

R. Only together. If we connect, then bit by bit, it’s not immediate but we can feel that we have the possibility to build a single intention.

S. Does the Creator open up for us the way to reach adhesion before a person tries to achieve adhesion or before he tries to work on it?

R. No, the opportunity, yes. He does pull a person through the person who has such a preparation in his soul but it’s not that He truly holds him to this path. A person should already begin to work with his own forces.

24. S. (55:13) I wanted to ask about this state of from Lo Lishma to Lishma. It brings us so many troubles if we can call it that. Can we work without thinking about it, not doing it for Lishma or Lo Lishma and maybe the state of Lo Lishma will come even if you don’t think about it?

R. For the time being it’s okay to think about it without scrutinizing the reason, yes.

25. S. (55:49) What is this name of the Creator that we don’t want to forget? Is this a prayer asking for help or is it the fear of forgetting about Him?

R. We need to scrutinize that but usually it’s the desire to be in a constant connection.

26. S. (56:29) What does it mean to be together, to ask together?

R. To be together and to ask together means that we connect between us and only out of the connection we begin to turn to the Creator.

27. S. (57:00) When a person suffers due to his evil inclination can we say that the Creator is closer to the person by that?

R. Yes, yes.

28. S. (57:28) To the extent that we control our thoughts and desires against the Israel within the person, by that we create evil in the world?

R. Yes, of course.