HOD: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Baal HaSulam. Matter and Form in the Wisdom of Kabbalah
Morning Lesson January 28, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2
Baal HaSulam. “Matter and Form in the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
1. R. (06:23) Wisdom of Kabbalah all together matter and form in the wisdom of Kabbalah is observing it as well.
Reader continues: (06:34) “Matter and Form in the Wisdom of Kabbalah” twice
2. S. (11:33) What is formative research in the wisdom of table Kabbalah?
R. There is matter and there is a form, matter is the will to receive. Corrections over the will to receive shape the will to receive in different shapes similar to the Creator. These forms similar to the Creator, we call them Partzufim, faces, and that gives us some knowledge, some research. There is formative research and material research. Formative meaning that we learn on our matter the will to receive and in what shape and in what attitude we can use it, we can shape it and that leads us to this formative knowledge. What forms similar to the Creator, forms of Adam, similar to the Creator. What forms can we take upon ourselves so that we, the matter in the hands of the maker, we can advance this way, adapt ourselves, and make ourselves compatible to the Creator. In our research there is both formative and material part. He says both are used based on practical experience because everything comes to us as a result of our own efforts in building ourselves into an environment. Let us say that together with the friends we build the vessel from ourselves. This spiritual vessel that we build, it is like an expert who has taken a piece of clay and begins to shape it into a vessel. He knows what to add to the clay and in what way to work with it, when to dry it up, when to heat it up, and what to do with it, and how it can later be painted and refined more and more. Similarly, we work with ourselves and the corrections we go through, they are called degrees of ascent, degrees by which we shape ourselves more and more like the Creator. That is how we advance.
S. We’re allowed to aspire to a form that we have not obtained because the Kabbalists attained that form in matter, they actually attained it in their matter, right?
R. Kabbalists attained various forms, but we still do not know or understand these forms. Therefore, we have to go and exert and work and make an effort to follow those actions the Kabbalists talk about and then from your actions we know you. Meaning when we make these actions, by that we come to the same kind of matter.
3. S. (19:25) Trying to understand what he writes here; you have nothing in reality before us that will not have matter and form. What does it mean by that?
R. He means that everything has matter and form, matter is the will to receive, and its form is the extent to which it becomes similar to the Creator, to the bestower. So, in everything you have matter and form.
S. He says there’s matter which is man in the form is the liar?
R. He’s giving you examples from this world.
S. What does he mean that the will to receive is a lie is that what he is trying to say?
R. No, it is a quality, an attribute, one attribute of a person. He is not talking about the big, hidden concepts here.
S. According to what he writes, supposedly the will to receive is a lie and the vessel you build is the spiritual vessel you have to reach. That is what I understand that he writes.
R. You’re twisting it around, where does it say that what are you talking about?
S. He has a material which is man and there is a form which is the lie. The material has a form of the liar as if the will to receive is one big liar or Illusion or something?
R. You’re reading from the beginning of the article?
S. The end of the second paragraph, “And the word liar there is the matter which is a person and there is a form which is the lie.” I do not understand, it sounds simple.
R. Rav reads: “Science as a whole is divided into two parts one is called material research the other format of research this means that matter and form are perceived in every element of the entire reality before us. For example, A table consists of matter meaning the wood and consists of form the shape of the table. The matter being the wood, is the carrier of the form, which is the table. Also, in the word liar there is matter which is a person, flesh-and-blood person, and there is the form, which is the lie, the matter which is the person carries the form of the lie, meaning the custom of telling lies.” So, it is in everything what is your question in this?
S. It sounds that when he says, “liar” that it does not exist it is all an imagination in your eyes, and as you said we have to build a vessel?
R. Do you understand what a liar is? An ordinary person who now has this falsehood dressed in him, so he is called a liar.
S. Why is he using a lie here?
R. I do not know. That is what he says someone else could have said something else.
S. But there is a difference between truth and lies?
R. I am not philosophizing with you now. There is such a scenario such an instance and that is what we call a liar. Rav reads: “Hence science too which researches the elements of reality is divided into two parts, material research and formative research.” That is okay?
S. Yes.
R. Rav reads: “The part of science that studies the quality of the substances in reality, both materials without their form and materials along with their forms, is called material research. Even though the form is also there. This research is empirical based on evidence and deductions derived from practical experimentation and these practical experimentations are treated as a sound basis for valid conclusions.” What is your question on this?
S. No, no problem, he did not write, when he wrote the truth and lie, for no reason. He means that what I think maybe I am mistaken, that this whole world is one big illusion because it is a lie?
R. You want to take us to something else now?
S. No, I am trying to see what he wrote here?
R. He’s giving you definitions for basic things, truth and false let us say, and formative research and material research. What is your question?
S. What did he mean?
R. I do not know what his intentions are here.
S. What is truth and lie according to what he is saying?
R. He does not say that he is not talking about that. He says that if this form of lie is dressed in a person, then you call a person a liar. Meaning you have a person who is flesh and blood that also has this internal content that we call a lie, so that flesh that is now filled with this content of lie, is called a liar. He helps you understand what formative research and material research is.
4. S. (26:54) There’s a question about the difference between the wisdom of Kabbalah and its approach to form matter to other wisdoms. It seems that the matter is the will to receive, and the form is the intention for myself or to bestow. Here it says that there is a very practical approach towards studying the form, what we say the intention, we also know that we cannot understand the intention of the friend and we do not know it. It sounds as if we are working with the form as something practical or empirical, we can do something with, can you explain it?
R. What exactly should I clarify for you? In the wisdom of Kabbalah as in every science there is also matter and form. The matter in the wisdom of Kabbalah is the will to receive and the form that it takes is by restriction, screen, and the influence of the upper light on it, which then gives it a shape of bestowal. Accordingly, we also have matter and form in the wisdom of Kabbalah as in every other science. In every other science it is based on the degrees that we research. If you use biological matter of an animal or a dead matter of still or vegetative, or a desire which is already the person. In each and every level you have this formative research and material research.
5. R. (30:10) I do not want to add here to this article. because he also mentions here, a little bit about philosophy, and I do not really want to go and rule things out now.
6. S. (30:10) You said that Kabbalists attain different forms of connection, so what is a form in spirituality and what kind of forms exist?
R. According to how much we connect between us even though we are in a will to receive but we connect between us in order to build from ourselves the shapes, forms of bestowal. Then it turns out that by this we have material knowledge, we attain our matter, its attributes, the extent to which we can or cannot work with it. Also, we come to a higher matter in order to bestow meaning that its form is already similar to The Creator. Then it turns out that it follows that, in resembling the Creator we acquire a new form, and this form is done to us by the upper light and because it comes from the Creator it gives us the shape of the Creator. Meaning our behavior, our form of connection with each other takes on the form of the upper force. That form is called Adam, similar to The Creator. That is what I can say, I am afraid to leave the boundaries that they set here.
7. S. (32:31) Why did Baal HaSulam always go as far as to knock out the philosophical approach?
R. Did you attend yesterday’s lesson, and the lesson before lesson?
S. Of course.
R. We talked about philosophy, right so what are you asking?
S. According to his articles like the wisdom and Kabbalah and philosophy and this one, Baal HaSulam always emphasizes how wrong it is to take qualities on their own if they are not clothed in matters, why did he go so far to show us?
R. Because he wants to take people out of all sorts of imaginary forms, detached from matter, detached from realistic implementation, which is by Tzimtzum, Masach, Ohr Hozer, to truly connect with others through, “Love thy Friend as Thyself”, and achieve love thy God. He wants to save people from states where people are imagining as if they carry out the Torah, and all kinds of good things. That is why he is so against philosophy because philosophy allows you to be whatever you want. As long as you speak well. It is the opposite from what the wisdom of Kabbalah demands, which is from your actions we know you. That everything has to be done in practice and that means within the desire. If it is not built within the desire that leads a person to resemble the Creator, then the person is still on the animate level and so he wants us to know the truth. Today this is permitted to say because we are in the last generation. Therefore, what used to be forbidden we understand why because it was not feasible. Today where everyone has to realize it, then it is permitted to talk about it everywhere.
8. S. (35:20) Can we attain the form with no matter, or will that be philosophy if we try to obtain forms if it is not clothed in anything?
R. If we are talking about form without matter or matter without form, then we do not attain truth. Because we do not, we are not in this ability to truly research like that. We are the carriers of the research; we have to discover our own matter which is the desire and discover its true form either in order to receive or in order to bestow. That gives us both form and matter and that is how we advance in the wisdom of Kabbalah, that the light excels from darkness. We discover the darkness, the matter itself and its form, we identify with it and then we work with it in order to bring it to light, to the other form, to an opposite form.
S. The Creator Himself does not have matter or a ten?
R. Right, it is the will to receive.
S. We need to clothe upon ourselves the material and we have to clothe the form on us?
R. Yes. We are made from a will to receive but we receive upon ourselves the upper influence and then we become a will to bestow, that gives us both form and matter.
9. S. (38:10) What’s the importance of the relations between the form and matter and researching the truth?
R. Matter and form he explains to us, that everything we perceive has matter, and we can do material research on it and also informative research meaning in what form is the matter.
10. S. (38:47) Do the spiritual forces also have a form and matter?
R. Spiritual forces means the will to receive that took upon itself a form of in order to bestow. so, the intention is the form and what they are, is a will to receive which is the matter.
11. S. (39:14) Is it right to think that we cannot change the matter but only the form can be attained?
R. No, matter needs to be obtained also. The will to receive we also do not understand it, do not feel it, we are in the animate level and here we are talking about matter on the speaking level and this this is what we need to attain.
12. S. (39:51) Is the interaction with the matter and the light what determines the forms themselves?
R. Right, yes, the influence of light over matter gives the matter shape.
13. S. (40:12) Why was imagination given to a person why do we need it?
R. It already depends on surrounding the lights that we need to learn to be under the influence of the surrounding light, and this is how we will learn that. The surrounding light builds our future, takes us from one state to the next. It comes to us from a higher degree, influences us and pulls us forward.
14. S. (41:01) Baal HaSulam has articles like this that we are studying today that everything seems understood. What should we really take from these articles and how to work with them in the lesson?
R. I would not consider it an article. Baal HaSulam wrote it as a sort of an unfinished form. There is a lot to add here but he probably wrote it to complete it later, but later did not receive the urge to do it and did not continue, therefore. Rabash would say that many such things happened to him like that in life, like his melody’s for instance. He said there were two months in his life where he put all of those melodies together and after that, left it all and did not go back to do more and that is all we have today from Baal HaSulam. All came from those two months when he had that muse. Similarly with the writing, sometimes he would write more sometimes less, and I do not know from where these states came to him because we also know on the other hand, that he was a person who worked against his ego, above his will to receive. Externally, that is what you would see, that is what would happen. That suddenly he feels like doing this, then he does not, then he feels like doing something else, and that’s not really correct, these were just the periods. The Kabbalists go through different states, different times, that we cannot understand. He is participating with all of reality, with the worlds, not just our world but even the well-being in our world, then he is impressed and inspired, moved by all people of the world, and that is why he may turn this way or that way.
S. How to work within the lesson, what to take from this article?
R. We need to review it several times and if you review it today, during the day, then we will repeat it tomorrow and we will see. If we can learn it differently, and I will be in a different mode as well and not scattered as I am today, that is really how I feel myself now.