WEDNESDAY PRAYER: TIFERET-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT AND DAWN WEDNESDAY
Zohar for All. Introduction of The Book of Zohar. The Vision of Rabbi Hiya
Morning Lesson January 02, 2023 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Zohar for All. “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”. The Vision of Rabbi Hiya
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #15
Reading “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”. The Vision of Rabbi Hiya
Reading Item 49. (00:25) “Rabbi Hiya fell to the ground,..”
1. S. (08:08) Can I ask this, we read the Torah and the Zohar and we read about the forces that correct our desire to receive, why did these words have corporeal meanings, why isn’t it just a collection of symbols that have no meaning?
R. I understand you but the thing is, these forces work also in spirituality and in a partial way, a very minimal way and also in corporeality, that’s the first thing. The second thing is the book is written for people who live in our world and acquire and grasp the upper world gradually. That’s why it’s written in this way.
S. If I listen without translation then it’s easier for me to focus on the feelings and to just disappear within the friends but if I listen to it in Russian then the brain is a powerful instrument and then he immediately places with each word some forms and it’s very difficult to turn it off
R. I understand you but there’s nothing you can do. You have to work with both, in the intellect and in the feeling.
S. And the fact that the brain puts all these forms and images and on one hand you cannot turn it off and on the other hand you are trying to and try to convert it into the feeling is that purposely made this way?
R. Yes, this is so you would have to exert and then you would truly disconnect.
2. S. (10:38) The dust that consumes all the righteous: what is it?
R. The fourth phase that cannot be corrected.
3. S. (11:03) What are the high souls from Yechida and GAR de Haya?
R. We will talk about them later and how to correct them. The question is correct but we cannot correct them using the regular light.
4. S. (11:39) He talks a lot about all the Rabbi Hiya, Rabbi Shimon who walked together on the path and then you explain that it’s not quite that they’re walking on the path together and then it says that all the pillars of light on the way, and they are found all incomplete. What does it mean that they haven’t reached a correction?
R. That they are on the path meaning they haven’t reached wholeness because the path, the spiritual ascent until you reach the complete equivalence of form with the Creator.
S. The question is: is there a personal correction in general?
R. Yes, both.
S. Rabbi Shimon came to the general, the personal or both?
R. I don’t want to talk about it. Even if I answer you correctly then you will take it incorrectly or the other way around. So what for? It’s like a child will ask you for a special formula in math: what good would it do for him or you?
S. He writes that because of this all the high souls because all the souls are connected with one another.
R. Of course they are incorporated in one another. They separated and now they have to reconnect again.
S. How can we connect this to the Assiya, not to the high worlds but to our life, to our tens?
R. You cannot connect to our lives but you can connect it to our tens because when we connect between us we begin to learn what it means to build a ten and build souls.
S. And the insolence of this dust?
R. The dust we have not reached yet it’s Malchut de Malchut and we did not come to it yet.
S. Where is hidden here that it’s very hard work?
R. It’s very special work.
5. S. (14:17) What is it that Adam HaRishon only corrected his part? Is there something corrected in the soul?
R. There’s work in partial correction, each and every generation has work of its own and what we need to correct is already the last correction, it’s called a final correction, so they have no restriction on any of the other corrections.
6. S. (15:06) In the text it is written Rabbi Yosi answered from the name of Rabbi Shimon. What does it mean in the essence when the wise one does not answer out of himself but out of another one?
R. It’s not Rabbi Simon or Rabbi Hiya, it’s not bodies, it’s a clothing; it’s spiritual clothing of one quality in another.
7. S. (15:49) Today I am on duty in my ten and what do I give to my ten if I don’t understand anything in the Zohar? What do I extract out of the lesson?
R. I don’t know, it depends on their degree, you have to talk to them in such a way that they will understand or really feel something.
S. Meaning, if I don’t understand anything in the Zohar, what do I have to give them?
R. Don’t give them anything, take something else that’s more understood. It’s not too bad.
8. S. (16:58) Is the Zohar the language that creates emotional association which we need for our development?
R. Yes but nevertheless that’s not the main thing about it. We will come to such things.
9. S. (17:31) I feel the anger and the envy of Rabbi Hiya towards the dust. Why are these feelings occurring if he knows that the souls come to correct themselves?
R. Because it disturbs his correction. He wants to make the correction but the dust interferes. It’s Malchut de Malchut that’s most obstinate and it doesn’t let him approach correction.
10. S. (18:10) It is written in the text by the sin of Adam HaRishon all the souls dropped from Him and fell into the Klipot. The question is how to release the souls?
R. The souls are us if we connect, if we get rid of our ego and our will to receive then we release the souls from captivity and they will fly into higher degrees.
11. S. (18:52) If the dust is Malchut de Malchut the desire to receive what do we do to turn the dust into bestowal?
R. Even the dust that has no chance of becoming a foundation for something good, that nothing good grows out of it, even the dust will eventually let go of its qualities and become the soil of the earth.
12. S. (19:30) What is the vision? What did Rabbi Hiya see?
R. Let’s see we haven’t finished reading it yet.
13. S. (19:44) It said that the key only had all the wholeness and it troubled Rabbi Hiya and all the sages that wrote the Book of Zohar, so why did it trouble them?
R. He saw the dust and he couldn’t understand how to reach the end of correction if before us there is dust that cannot be transformed into a source of life; there’s no life out of dust.
S. And what did they do to solve this problem?
R. Let’s see. From here they begin to explain a little.
14. S. (24:06) What is to kiss the dust?
R. There are several types of connection, embrace, a kiss and a coupling, or mating. We have three degrees of connection. Not like in our world, corporeally but there are three such degrees Ibur, Yenika and Mochin and so on.
S. What does it mean to kiss the dust of the earth?
R. It’s already a correction. The correction of this dust that was good for nothing and he accepts it and corrects it.
S. So we are now receiving the dust?
R. What are you talking about?
15. S. (22:44) First it is written that Rabbi Hiya said that the dust will be holy. How is it possible? It is written in the beginning of 49 where Rabbi Hiya said, “the holy light that was illuminated in the world..”
R. Dust is such a state of Malchut where it’s unable to do anything, not to receive, not to bestow, nothing. Dust is the last degree of the existence of matter out of which nothing can come out, nothing can grow out of it. This is dust, it’s like something that is burnt, like ashes, so out of such a state nothing can grow, nothing can develop. That’s why Rabbi Hiya says, “how can it be that from our state, from such an ego we will receive something.” It’s possible that we can correct it in such a way, to such an extent that it will rise above itself. And afterwards there is repentance.
S. But how can the state of the Malchut turn into light and then from nothing?
R. We correct it. What seems to be dust is in effect something that’s ready for correction: you will see how it will be later.
S. We are the last generation, we are in a state of dust and we are waiting for the final correction?
R. Yes.
16. S. (25:09) How do I clothe my spirituality in the friends and leave out the filter of the ego?
R. Only through efforts and prayer.
17. S. (25:42) What does it mean: the insolence of the dust?
R. It means that it’s incorrigible and uncorrectable. Whatever you do with it, it does not devote itself to correction.
Reading item number 50 (26:21) “Rabbi Hiya rose and was walking..”
18. R. (26:42) You see what you have to do in order to attain something: enter a forty day fast.
Reading continues. (26:55)
19. R. (27:07) Another forty days.
Reading continues. (27:10)
Reading item number 51. (28:05) “In the meantime, he saw several..”
20. R. (29:56) Good we can read it because here he speaks in such a way that it passes. You can read ahead.
Reading Item 52. (30:20) “Rabbi Shimon started and said,..”
Reading Item 53. (32:30) “A voice came out and said,..”
Reading Item 54. (33:35) “Who is so wise among you..”
21. S. (39:12) I would like to clarify that it is written that he cried and posted for 40 days, fasted for 40 days?
R. 40 years are all the degrees through which the will to receive has to get updated and upgraded to the will to bestow, it is the height of Bina: 40.
22. S. (39:53) The Rabbis went and wept, do these opposite qualities speak of a state of correction and prayer?
R. Yes.
S. And do they come at the end of correction to the degree of Rabbi Shimon?
R. At the end of correction, all of us will reach that same degree, otherwise it would not be the end of correction. Each one, each and every soul, even the worst soul, the biggest evil doers, the complete wicked, they too will reach the end of correction as the best.
23. S. (41:06) At the end of item 50 it says that as the result of his distress about the dust, he craved to see Rabbi Shimon’s degree because he had decided that Rabbi Shimon not whither he ground. Where did he get the impulse to decide and see where in his degree he is still there?
R. From the root of the soul, from the root of the soul, because he was really close to the degree of Rabbi Shimon.
24. S. (41:41) Yesterday when we read these excerpts in the group, we noticed that they are sometimes written in different languages. There’s a technical language and this is more poetic, more elevated, then there is a technical language, is for us to feel the different senses and flavors?
R. Here it speaks about the complete degree of Bina and this is why it is called that way, yes.
25. S. (42:29) Item number 51 is written about angels who assist the soul to bring her back to her place. How does the soul find its place?
R. What we ask, how we raise MAN, what we wish to happen, we ourselves don’t do. We activate such forces in nature that are called angels, and they perform and they do it.
S. What does it mean that the soul finds its place?
R. The soul rises and is in its place and participates in the correction.
26. S. (43:39) How can a student see the degree of his teacher, to see such a vision?
R. To the degree that he wants to cleave to his teacher, in that degree he can feel what the teacher has, not to the degree that the teacher has it, but to the degree that he can annul himself before the teacher.
S. This vision that we have here, is this the attainment of the student?
R. This is his attainment.
S. What’s interesting is that this is the attainment of Rabbi Hiya, that but they wrote this book together, they wrote about his attainment?
R. These are different moments, but here it is said about how Rabbi Hiya attained a degree below Rabbi Shimon.
27. S. (44:53) It is written that all of those wings were awaiting them to bring them back. Do we receive help to rise from degree to degree even if we are not in spirituality yet? What is the order of the work there, what do we have to aim for, and what do we have to do to ascend, even when we are not in spirituality, just by reading the Zohar?
R. We are also receiving something from these things. Even now, as we are reading the Zohar, we are also receiving some little illumination of these states.
S. How to receive not a small illumination but a big one, I am an egoist, I want to get more out of the reading, so what to do?
R. Invest more in it.
S. What does that mean?
R. Connect to the friends and invest with them in order to rise to a higher degree.
S. I’m asking, we are all reading it, we are half-asleep, what do I have to do? I see everyone around, what to do?
R. Pray that we’ll wake up and try to raise to a higher degree who lifts us up.
S. That’s how they advance us?
R. Yes, yes. On their wings.
28. S. (46:18) When we say that all the souls will reach the end of correction, does that mean everyone can be corrected only by clothing in corporeality, or is there a correction without clothing in corporeal forms?
R. There are both.
29. S. (46:50) It says about the shame of Rabbi Hiya, I understood that shame is a lack of a screen. Does he annul himself before his teacher and he stood at the feet of Rabbi Shimon, that’s how he compensates for the shame?
R. Yes.
30. S. (42:24) By being close to the degree of Rabbi Shimon, does it mean that he was before the ascent of the degree and it’s an illumination from a higher degree?
R. Yes.
S. This higher degree, when he feels it, does it mean that they have a common screen between him and his teacher?
R. Relatively.
31. S. (47:56) We have new students with us learning the Zohar and they ask, It says that Rabbi Hiya craved to see Rabbi Shimon. What does it mean to be craved by the Kabbalist?
R. He wanted to support his degree, to raise his degree.
32. S. (48:24) Now when we are reading the Zohar there’s a feeling of calmness, protection during the reading of the Zohar. Does it happen because of our connection? Because we are connected so nicely and he is giving us a gift?
R. We are being allowed to feel it through in the form of a gift because we ourselves have not earned it yet.
33. S. (49:00) When a student craves the correctness of his Rav, what is the action of the fast that he enters?
R. He is prepared to restrict the will to receive, his will to receive, this means that he is entering a fast, in order to belong to a higher degree of his teacher.
S. What does he rely on in order to do it?
R. On the fact that he has faith in the words of the wise ones, of the sages.
34. S. (49:56) When we persist in external actions, how does that advance one in spirituality?
R. You are working with the desire, the desire to receive. You are restricted, and you do something with those certain actions against the desire. This is why you are going to succeed to come closer to spirituality, to bestow.
35. S. (50:25) How does the Malchut of Malchut get corrected?
R. It is corrected in the final correction, not by us. We are doing all the actions that do all of the correction until Malchut de Malchut and it is corrected, let us say of its own accord.
36. S. (51:12) What is a fast, a hunger on the spiritual degree and how can we make such exercises?
R. That we want to receive nothing in spirituality for our own rather only for the benefit of others.
37. S. (51:30) What does it mean that Shechina, divinity, is sitting alone?
R. That if a person lets go of his reason and accepts the reason of the upper one, then he attains Shechina.
38. S. (51:49) What should we expect each and every day?
R. That we will connect in the heart and in our mutual heart, and in our mutual heart we will reveal the Creator.
39. S. (52:07) Why did he kiss the dust if it bothered him so much?
R. Because precisely in the dust, it revealed the general correction for everyone.
40. S. (52:23) What do you recommend when we are studying the Zohar? What do you recommend we do in our daily meetings, in our daily ten talks?
R. To feel that we exist in one heart.
41. S. (52:45) What does it mean that the king visits the deer in the daytime?
R. He wants to advance it and for it to enter his whole.
42. S. (53:17) What is 2 times 40? Fasting twice, 40 days?
R. This is for the vessels of bestowal and the vessels of reception.
43. S. (53:45) When a student wants to cleave to his teacher, what does he want to hold onto, the greatness of the teacher or the overcoming of the teacher?
R. Whatever is available I would say, not to make the analysis. Whatever is available, this is what you grasp on. This is it, 2 times 40 I would want to add, this is in the light of Hasidim and in the light of Hochma. This is why he fasted twice, and 40 is the degree of Bina, 40.
Reading item 55: (54:55) “In the meantime he saw many of the friends…”
Reading 56: (57:15) “Angel Matat took an oath..”