YESOD: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Lesson on the topic of “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”
Morning Lesson July 22, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction – Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #26
1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, we are actually right now in a special time when more than two thousand years ago there was a matter of corruption. The corruption was revealed that existed between the friends and then as a result of that the connection between them was broken and as a result of that the temple was broken. All of the main disasters for this group of Kabbalists that is called the people of Israel. They always feel in those times problems and disasters and difficult things. This is why we are also learning about it at this time. Let’s hope that our study will help us to incorporate inside of us all the sparks of the shattering that also occurred back then and we will raise them to correction.
Excerpt #26 (02:04) “It’s impossible to accept anything without equivalence…” Twice
2. R. (04:45) We need to pay attention very much to what we’re asking for the Creator for because it could be that we’re asking not to our benefit to our detriment because each one naturally asks for himself and it seems to him that how much I’m praying, how much I’m asking, how much I am in effort forcefully turning to the Creator but all in all is his request is incorrect. The appeal is there but the request is not because the request can only be for the benefit of the collective for the benefit of the public and only when he comes after that. As we see in the composition of the prayer for this and for those, and for these and for those, and this and that, we ask for us at the end. Then in such a way our request is accepted and is rewarded with the abundance that comes to us for the correction of our will to receive and otherwise we’re not asking for a correction but seemingly that the Creator will fill our vessels of reception. This of course is against the plan of creation. Is this clear?
3. S. (06:24) When a person prays for the public even artificially what happens inside of him exactly?
R. If he prays for the public, for the collective, he draws the public because he is inside of the public. Therefore this prayer is a prayer for bestowal, connection for coming closer to the Creator which is according to what the Creator is expecting and therefore it takes place. But if a person is crying and asking and praying for himself then it’s not for the correction of creation. He wants to emphasize himself even more as he is anyway following the shattering he became disconnected from the others from everyone. Now he’s asking even more to be conspicuous relative to the others. What is the benefit? There is no benefit. This is why the Creator doesn’t help him. Then a person starts to get upset. How many years have I been making all these efforts? Where are the results of what I’ve been engaging in? How much I’ve invested but he doesn’t yet that he’s investing in his ego. That he’s not causing the connection of everyone, with everyone and to the Creator. Rather it is his only raising his personal back to the Creator and he wants to receive it personally. Which does not bring him closer to the Creator but to the contrary at distances him from the Creator. We have to pay attention to that. This is our main problem. Our main problem is the preparation for the prayer. We have to scrutinize where we are, in what state and what is it that we should truly ask for otherwise we will not receive the right answer or the right response from the Creator.
4. S. (9:05) Many times we also say that we have these thin inclinations, we just did a preparation. I don’t have a correct and pure intention. The light will illuminate and correct my intention. How can I approach it with the correct intention?
R. It’s not enough that you talked or heard in the preparation for the lesson or in general that you are talking about connection. The prayer itself should be as it is written as “the end result is in the initial thought”. What is it that you want to achieve that has to be clear? Meaning what do I want to receive in the end so that the Creator will help me? What am I expecting? What am I waiting for, why am I crying? What should occur to me? I don’t need beautiful precise words. I need to depict the state to which I want to reach. In a form of a portrayal not in words.
S. Can a person depict such a state to himself?
R. As much as you are capable of, yes, this is enough for the Creator. The Creator is a general upper force, and He is in a state where He is connecting all the parts of creation together and if you are in such a way also depict your goal to be in all of the different parts of creation together and this is what you were asking for. You are turning to the Creator and asking to connect together all the broken parts of creation. Then you are precisely going along with him towards the same goal towards the same side of correction and then it will happen.
S. What is it here he writes here in the text that he evokes mercy upon himself, what is it to evoke mercy upon myself?
R. That his heart will be soft for the desires. the yearnings of the friends so that he will be able to feel them to incorporate them together. Of course, these friends are asking, and they also want the same purpose of creation like himself, but they cannot express it and he is asking them that he and this is how each one of us when he is praying for everyone and asking of the Creator that He will perform the correction for everyone.
5. S. (12:37) What does a person need to do if he feels that his prayer is not for him, it’s for the friends, it’s not equal he continues but he doesn’t have the forces it doesn’t give him the power to add and quantity and quality?
R. This is how it will be until he realizes that you don’t need anything besides falling with and asking, with helplessness, lack of strength, lack of knowledge, of hopes, of anything with the very last strength and you will waste all of your forces to that for the prayer for the right prayer. With the right prayer you will discover each time that you are asking for yourself. Again you will raise the importance of the collective, the importance of humanity, the importance of the Creator, the importance of the many that you are asking for everyone. It’s not important who you are and what you are, it’s important that you annul yourself. This is called that my soul shall be dust for all and so on. The most important thing is to establish the right request. This is why it says it’s better to have little but with an intention. That if you, even if you are asking, even with one sentence but this sentence is organized properly, it reaches the goal and it makes a deficiency in the Creator to help you. If you’re just crying out from the morning to the night it’s also good but if it’s not scrutinized enough according to your degree then it doesn’t quite get the response.
6. S. (14:35) You said that I become sensitive to the request and the deficiencies of the friends and ask for them, after I felt the lack of the friends how correctly now like you said, do I put it all into one sentence, how in the correct way from that cloud of the feeling of the friend should I build it correctly?
R. There is work in the mind here, in the intellect and work and the emotion. The most correct is the work of emotion because spirituality is emotion not intellect. We need the intellect only in order to correctly establish our emotions. This is why we try to connect to a single system and feel how we then exist and ask for that.
7. S. (15:39) No translation
R. No, that is incorrect. What do you mean I’m asking for each and every one? If there is some problem then I ask for some friends but as it is I asked for our connection and not for each and every one. I’m asking for the connection, that we will all be connected.
8. S. (16:24) Regarding prayer some words come out of my mouth, but it does not satisfy, how exactly will the prayer settle in my heart, how will we build the common prayer for the Creator to hear us?
R. Man’s heart, it’s not his heart but rather all of the friends who are connected together that is his true spiritual heart. This is why it is written as one man in one heart. So let us depict correctly what the heart is, what our heart is and ask to discover in our true heart, our common heart, the Creator.
9. S. (17:32) I don’t know if I understood correctly but why to be in mercy is to receive for oneself and not bestowal?
R. We need to be in mercy in order to be similar to the Creator, the force of bestowal, the force of Hassadim, in that same force of Hassadim then all the rest is revealed. This is why our first correction is to be in mercy.
S. The friend means the text where he writes that therefore when he evokes mercy upon himself it is considered that he is performing reception for himself in that case.
R. Ahh that. Well so what it says here that when he evokes mercy on himself he is engaged in self reception because he is asking for himself, and if it’s for himself then it doesn’t matter if I’m asking for matters of bestowal or matters of reception I need to ask for everyone, the prayer is the prayer of many. If one can include within himself the group then he can pray and because that is not the prayer of the many but it is his true prayer when he became incorporated with the many, with the collective, but usually we express the prayer as we call it the prayer in the public, that we connect with the friends and in this way we raise our request.
10. S. (19:47) What is to be cautious with what I’m asking for, after all I’m asking for the friends so how do I aim myself so that my request will be truly correct?
R. That I come out as a representative of my public, of my group, towards the Creator and this each and everyone can do, in that we don’t hinder each other, and I’m asking for the group. This is called to be a representative that I incorporate within myself all of the deficiencies, all the yearnings, the goals of the friends and I elevate them to the Creator.
11. S. (20:47) I wanted to ask, I heard you saying that on one hand we need to ask with one precise sentence and I also heard in the lesson now that you said I don’t need to ask according to nice words and precise words but rather I need to ask for according to that picture that I want to reach meaning emotionally ask, so what is the prayer?
R. The prayer is a true deficiency of mine as much as I become incorporated in the friends and then I raised this deficiency to the Creator.
S. Now how do we make the prayer from words to an emotional expression, to an emotional picture?
R. We don’t even need the words. The creator doesn’t need words. I also don’t need words. I need inside of me emotionally to reach a state where I feel the deficiencies of the friends and how much we all want to adhere to the Creator and that collective state, our common heart, as much as it yearns for the Creator, that is the prayer. The prayer doesn’t mean to be with beautiful words or special nicely phrase sentences, it’s a feeling, it’s a feeling of a true deficiency.
S. So this transition from, kind of like what I’m trying to understand, what does my ability to establish internally this need, this emotional expression to more connection with the friends, to more adhesion, what does it depend upon, this true prayer this emotional prayer that’s inside of us?
R. As much as I prepare myself, what else can be here? As much as I prepare myself and I connect with the friends, and I want that all of us together will connect to the Creator, and I suffer when I discover that we’re not connected between us and also with the Creator and I ask that it will be closed.
12. S. (23:42) The difference between prayer for one friend or prayer for the whole ten sometimes it’s felt like when you pray for the whole ten it’s less kind of less real it’s kind of more general and with one friend you feel the resistance, the ego, so what you said it’s better for the whole ten, can you expand on that, what’s the difference between for praying for a friend or praying for the group?
R. We need to pray for the entire group and to ask that we will be connected between us and with an inclination to the Creator until we will give him room to settle within us, that is all, meaning this is called a prayer for the revelation of the Shechina.
S. It can’t, and I’m there in that inner depiction?
R. You are the representative of the public.
13. S. (24:50) Is the feeling that you’re ten is not capable of coming to a state of prayer even if it’s not done in the form of a prayer but just that feeling or that thought, is that considered prayer?
R. That too but nevertheless we need to think about it, to establish it correctly, the prayer can be in that you read something, some article or something, and then it becomes established within you more and more desire for connection and between you to the Creator.
14. S. (25:35) Question from a friend for another ten, if the friend is not participating in the morning lessons but he participates in the zoom meetings and somehow in the life of the ten what should we pray for in relation to this friend and what can we do for him?
R. I cannot answer that, this is something you need to scrutinize, this is something that you need to scrutinize.
15. S. (26:38) I’ve heard from you that the mind needs to participate in establishing the feeling, how does that happen?
R. Think about it, the most important is the inner feeling of what does the prayer mean, it’s a feeling in the heart. What the heart feels inside even if you don’t understand it and you cannot depict it but the inner feeling in the heart that is called a prayer, because that, that which is inside of the heart this is what the Creator feels.
16. S. (27:30) It seems that it is not possible to reach prayer before the Creator awakens that Reshimot inside us so what is the work of the individual to help the Creator to awaken that Reshimot in order to turn to Him?
R. The prayer that the Creator will bring us to Lishma, for her sake, that is the work in order to reach for his sake.
S. But if I asked the Creator to awaken the Reshimot inside of me so am I not going to be awakening mercy upon myself, is it correct?
R. You can ask for forces of bestowal, that this you must have in order to connect with everyone and to support everyone.
17. S. (28:54) We know that the friend is perfect and every fault we see in him is actually in me so why do I need to pray if the friend is perfect, after all only I need correction?
R. If you will see him as perfect then you will be perfect, that’s it. This is why you can pray to also see everyone in perfection the whole world because this is the truth, you should see that only you are broken.
18. S. (29:43) Is there a risk that a prayer can be tainted with corruption?
R. It doesn’t matter, the Creator understands that we need to try, and it will work.
19. S. (30:19) Tell me please if I don’t feel the lacks of the friends and it turns out that my prayer is not whole?
R. Ask that your heart will open up and you will feel the friends. That is very important.
20. S. (30:51) There’s always a disturbance in the prayer where is someone prays for the other, so he receives first. How many times I find myself that I’m praying for the others, for the group, but it turns out that I’m expecting to receive at first. How do we rid ourselves from those thoughts?
R. You should continue more and more and then you will see as it is written I wish he would pray all day and then you will see how much everything will fall into place, but don’t stop praying.
21. S. (31:56) We know that the prayer is made of thanks and request and when a person is in thankfulness you’re thanking the Creator for awakening me, for bringing me to you, for giving me these friends, it’s kind of self-gratitude, self-thankfulness, it’s like within the ego, is that okay or how do we arrange it correctly?
R. It’s okay the most important is to not disconnect from the Creator, from the group and through the group to the Creator, this is how we should be connected all the time, that’s it, and then all the thoughts and desires back and forth, it should all pass through there, me the group and the Creator, we shouldn’t divide it, cut off this connection.
S. Is there a state all together of praying correctly without having gratitude beforehand?
R. As much as you have it, it doesn’t matter, as much as there is it doesn’t matter, the most important for me is these three components to hold them together.
22. S. (33:22) In the context of what you said and the establishment of the emotion inside of the prayer, inside of you, that feeling, how do you do this if you’re talking about a common prayer after all at the end of every day we write a common prayer and it ends with some form of an edit of sorts so what how do we do that from a common feeling of the ten?
R. Ask for a deficiency, ask for a deficiency that the Creator will give you a need, a need for the feeling of the friends, a need for the feeling of the group, a need. Each one should ask that I will lack.
S. That I will be lacking, what?
R. Think about that, what is it that you lack and more and more express it in an open way, what do you think that you are lacking.
S. After all there’s also the friends here.
R. Okay express that there, what is it that you are lacking.
Reading Excerpt #27 (35:07) “My teacher cautioned me…” Twice
23. R. (36:57) This means that we should try to reach truly a great concern for all of the friends that we will connect more and more in our hearts to be as one man in one heart so that he will aim as it says here to love each one as his own soul. Israel here means each one who yearns directly to the Creator. For us it is anyone who is in our framework.
24. S. (37:54) What does it mean the prayer of the morning, Shacharit?
R. The Shacharit prayer is when a person wakes up when he awakens when he rises up it’s like you’re getting up in the morning when you’re raising the dawn. It’s not important it could be in the middle of the day, it could be the evening but when you have awakened it’s called that you’re in the Shacharit prayer.
25. S. (38:31) I wanted to ask all the passages we read talk about connection and unity recently we finish reading, almost finished reading, all of Rabash’s articles a few hundred articles by Rabash in our ten and most of the articles don’t talk about connection in an explicit way except for those ten or twenty articles that you usually tell us to read, most of the article speak about inner work in our prayer, why is that so?
R. Because how many words can you find to talk about the connection between us, rather we need to let a person have more forces and more tools to be able to do an inner scrutiny so you’ll be able to take himself and exam and how he connects to others, that’s why all the articles not just Rabash all together all the material is in order to help a person seek within himself more and more discernments from the shattering that he can raise and ask for them to be connected and corrected for everyone. That’s why it is the way that Rabash wrote, as much as I understand.
26. S. (40:17) I would like to know how to elevate all the friends in Arava, how do we make this connection, through our own tens, our home tens, and how do we connect that here in Arava to connect all the friends practically?
R. Well try, try to connect you are there in Lithuania in a beautiful connection. I see from there the pictures that are being sent to me this afternoon, I will be talking to them, to you guys that’s the agreement that I made. So let’s hope that nevertheless we will help you guys and we’ll all together with the friends there be more and more connected, how to do it we’re learning that again this is prayer we are not capable none of us has the force of bestowal that we need to each time every moment renew and intensify, rather only through the prayer to the Creator. Always the Lord will complete it for me only through our requests, we also learned this in the wisdom of Kabbalah itself that we raise MAN and the Creator then from above upon this MAN performs an act of connection and brings the upper light.
Reading Excerpt #28 (42:23) “There is not an organ in man’s body…”
27. R. (43:11) The Zohar writes in that way; we already understand what he’s talking about there.
Reading Excerpt #29 (43:19) “Love covers all crimes…”
28. R. (43:38) This is Likutey Halachot, meaning a summation of all the rules that a person needs to do for such a book, Likutey, like an assembly or an assorted rules, it’s not just one volume there’s several volumes of it and there it speaks about the forms of connection that we need to connect between us in order to be worthy of connecting to the Creator. That is actually the rules, Halachot, from the word, Halacha, like walking on the path as we’re advancing towards our complete correction. We’ll do a workshop, we’ve been with you actually through a part that’s called the correction of the shattering, so let’s say in a few words, let’s do a summary, what is the correction of the shattering?
Workshop: (44:54) What is the correction of the shattering?
29. R. (46:06) What is the correction of the shattering the correction of Adam HaRishon why specifically we come through the shattering to the correction even though it was not corrupted to begin with yes, and what helps us discover the corruption why when we reveal the corruptions we can only come to the general correction of creation and why do we need to correct if we didn’t corrupt, if all those things are actually what we’ve been through we talked about and all in all try to include them within one system that is built this way, is shattered, goes through the corruption and correction and then what happened, what was it missing. It was missing to be connected with the Creator wholly and what is the whole connection considered, that each and every detail that now it is after the shattering instead of just coming to the connection with all the other details but rather it can reveal in all of the details the Creator, which was not before between each and every desire of all the desires, that there is in this system of Adam HaRishon. If the Creator wasn’t felt but rather as some general force that gives vitality but now that there’s a shattering between them and they feel the ego rejecting one another to the extent in which they want to connect and return to being in one body. Now they’re demanding the Creator to correct them and to be revealed as the force that connects between them, and then they feel the connecting force upon that force that differentiates between them during the shattering. Then they reveal Him fully 620 times more, this is just as we in the whole intensification of the forces also need to discover the force against Him. Let’s say in an amplifier we need to increase the force of resistance and upon the force of resistance we discover the force of connection. Therefore it’s revealed as much as we are opposite to one another, distant, hateful, hate and this is truly revealed 620 times as the force of bad and then upon the force of bad we demand for the force of good to come and connect, that’s called that love will cover all crimes, and this is how we come to the revelation of the Creator in the correct and true way, okay?
30. S. (48:46) What to do if I understand with my brain but my emotions do not turn on, I try but still I have no emotions?
R. Continue there’s no feeling what can you do, ask and try with the friends to come to a state in which we begin to feel, that’s how it always is I not once saw that I didn’t like something, like let’s say, to eat and later I was given again and again to taste those things and although I didn’t want to but when I tasted it again and again I started to feel, understand what flavor is in that specific food until you get accustomed to it you start to love it and that’s how it is with every single thing, in everything, how new fashion comes our way let’s say hairdos dresses everything so no one receives it as, wow it’s so beautiful and good, rather slowly, slowly we get used to it and then we see that it’s really nice and good there’s nothing nice or good inside of it it’s just that a habit becomes second nature.
31. S. (50:27) Is it possible in order to learn how to ask correctly for the friends, while choosing the words of the prayer to do a special exercise, for example to include in the phrasing of the prayer the list of the names of all of the friends in the ten?
R. You can try, just for it to be with the right intention not to harm anyone and to move towards connection as much as possible with love to everyone, a friend can’t, they can’t, they can even better but really in a soft way.
32. S. (51:19) You recommended more than once to read Psalms, how the prayers of King David help us to phrase the right prayer for the ten? Many times it sounds like I am praying for myself, but we now learned that that kind of prayer is incorrect, so what is the right approach to reading Psalms?
R. King David is like the general Malchut the general Malchut collective, hence it’s called David King of Israel hence we need to try and find in his Psalms all kinds of versus maybe even short sentences a few sentences together where they will be felt in ss close to us, it’s possible that it will benefit us greatly try there are Psalms in all languages it’s the most popular composition in the whole world and you should have the Psalms book it’s not a lot and there 150 songs as we call them, and try to find there each time to find yourself in them in a verse in a sentence or even in a whole paragraph a whole excerpt are all kinds of such things but it really, really helps. I did a booklet, yes, in Russian, I did in Russian a selection from Psalms, I shortened them, sorted them, and made them a little more. Try to read that, it’s only in Russian probably, yes.
33. S. (53:58) I feel that in all the prayers we tell the Creator what to do for us instead of asking of Him that he will show us what to ask, how can we know that this is a correct request?
R. That’s very nice really. There are prayers that we’re asking, show us how to walk, how to advance, what to do, and not that we’re demanding and asking, yes, that’s correct, very nice.
34. S. (54:43) What does it mean the end result is in the initial thought with respect to the prayer?
R. The end of the act is the end of correction where I am corrected and therefore see the whole corrected world all my friends corrected, and we advance that way. In the initial thought is that that’s what I want to come to, that’s what I want to reach, I want with my efforts to come to see everyone corrected connected together the whole world.
35. S. (55:30) How to learn to cover all the crimes in the ten with love and connect the entire ten to it?
R. That is the beginning of the work and the end of our work where to the extent in which we inclined towards correction we need to think that way that we’re connected together in such a connection that the Creator can enter between us to dwell in us, to wrap us, to embrace us, it’s all possible in the measure of connection between us if we connect between us we can come to a state in which the Creator will hug us. Let’s try.
36. S. (56:35) How can we hear and understand the Creator’s answer to the prayer?
R. We can feel it on our friends on the women friends on the men friends where we asked, let’s a strong together something important it’s the most, most important thing to us, meaning connection between us to feel ourselves in one heart and not in many hearts in one inclination and not many for one goal and not many goals and this way as we connect more and more between us we will ask for that to be and that we want the Creator to enjoy from us and we want Him to embrace us to hold us to not let us run away from this state, if we ask good and strong we can feel how the Creator is within us and is implementing within us the correction.
37. S. (57:52) Can the ten influence a friend whose heart is a heart of stone?
R. Of course but first we need to understand that if she is our friend and she cannot soften her heart then it’s on us to help her soften her heart, and it’s not just like that that she’s an our ten and that we are connected to her as probably we do need to work upon her and to pray for her and to give her examples yes, and there is no bad here we have to suffer and understand that such a thing, well usually in every group there is seemingly such a disturbance or even two or three and we need to work against them nevertheless and not throw them God forbid because it will stop us from advancing.
38. S. (59:14) What state should we reach in order for the correct prayer to burst in the heart?
R. We need to soften the heart, we need to open the heart and to understand that only in our common heart we discover the Creator, the next world, everything in our common heart so the more that we feel and understand and come closer to it, it will be ours.
38. S. (59:59) What is the reason that before the prayer of Shacharit one should take upon himself the Mitzva of help your friend as yourself rather than before other prayers?
R. That was arranged that way by the ARI as they would study from midnight until the morning and then they would pray, and therefore we need to try after we exit the lesson to try and all together summarize the whole lesson, what we felt, what we thought, what we were impressed by one another, how we can now turn to the Creator each apart and all of us together, so if we perform such a summary after the lesson it doesn’t have to be that we’re sitting and discussing but each can do such a thing and you will feel how beneficial this is.
39. S. (01:01:37) Is it possible that at least for a few seconds we will be rewarded with seeing everything is perfect or are we just kidding ourselves?
R. We will come to a state in which we see all of creation and ourselves in a perfect manner but for that we need to have a strong desire and a correct desire.