WEDNESDAY PRAYER: MALCHUT-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT AND DAWN WEDNESDAY
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to the Book of Zohar, item 57
Morning Lesson January 16, 2023 Transcription Testing
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Introduction to The Book of Zohar. #58
Reading number 57 (00:46 ) “Now you can understand the aridity and the Darkness..”
Reading Number 58 (03:03) “However I do know the reason..”
1. S. (06:24 ) Baal HaSulam explains here the reasons why we have come to the state, he says that first of all faith has diminished but we know that it happened for a reason. The ego got bigger so probably faith has to be stronger above it so what exactly is the reason?
R. The world goes on people evolve, they exist in all sorts of dealings with themselves their own business, they become smarter, from year to year and this is why their questions are such that religion and what we can hear from the religious people, cannot satisfy them and cannot give and cannot answer their questions that they bring up, which is why people distance from this entire matter whereas the wisdom of Kabbalah is hidden, it’s concealed, it’s not revealed.
You should not to be interested in it and you cannot open it, so it comes out that each and every generation becomes more and more distant from the truth, from the creator, and has only an opportunity to either not study about nature, about the Creator about the development. They stay either within reason or just without reason or they enter and study the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is what’s ahead of us. This question that stands before Baal Ha Sulamand other Kabbalist they tried in some way despite the resistance to open the wisdom of Kabbalah before anyone who is interested in learning about the wisdom of Kabbalah about their life and this is why he wrote it.
S. Only revealing the wisdom of Kabbalah that every person can use it and can bring us to the right state?
R. Correct that is right
2. S. (09:29) What’s the sin of materializing?
R. I don’t think it can be explained briefly but whoever studies with us does not fall into all these mistakes of making a statue and an image of materializing or trying to create a Creator and all kinds of physical manifestation depicting him. Rather we speak of this as natural forces, the forces of nature which act in time and place.
3. S. (10:25) Is it possible for some students of Bnei Baruch to waste time on the letter instead of just going up.? If we need the heart on fire to move forward what to do for making the Creator burn my heart with the desire so that I will move on with my friends?
R. Whoever studies according to the method for example the method of Baal HaSulam, who has a plan and books, and studies in a group, keeps in the group a connection with the friends, even for the students of Rabbi Shimon it was a law that they had to connect to the Ten and only through that they were able to attend the final correction and write the Book of Zohar out of that state, so if we tried to do it as they did it and of course we are advancing correctly.
4. S. (11:59) Who are those workers that the Creator divided into two groups, One that is dealing with the external Torah and internal Torah?
R. Workers of the Creator are divided into two parts according to their nature. that on one hand there are those who want to enter the internality of the Torah to understand why a person is alive what is his role? What is his connection between him and the upper force and with this they come to the wisdom of Kabbalah. there are those who don’t care about these things they are way too exalted and they only care about how to succeed in life and then they come and become religious as we know religion and then there are secular who don’t care about neither this nor that they just want to live each day and these are the three groups in which the entire humanity is divided and there are more positions but these are the main ones.
S. Can one group hold the other?
R. No, no they don’t understand one another.
5. S. (13:51) How did it happen that those who received a revelation didn’t see their importance of connection and then lost it?
R. This is something I’m not sure will happen again. The question, how does the phrase it?
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S. How did it happen that those who received some revelations didn’t see their importance of connection and then lost it?
R. It cannot be, but if he attains attainment then he knows that there’s a Creator and that there are laws and what the Creator officer person to do to create connection with the Creator of something different doesn’t happen with religious people, only Kabbalists.
S. Within our courses, sometimes students start talking about revelations,Sefirot, everything standable. However they don’t have the importance of connection? How did he lose the importance of connection?
R. Not that they reveal them, they study now to reveal later, but for now we do not reveal. Okay?
6 S. (15:55) Is faith the force which allows us to select good versus evil and do we need to pray for more faith in our group?
R. Yes, we need faith, the light of faith..
7. S. (16:25) I want to clarify the matter of idle and image materializing, is that believing in all kinds of red strings or superstition?
R. All of that, all of that.
S. What else so we know what not to do?
R. I don’t want to explain these things.
S. So faith should have to be in a force before it clothes in anything corporeal?
R. Yes.
8. S. (17:06) It sounds like there is this layer in humanity that are called the workers of the Creator and they are supposed to draw the light for everybody. How does it happen? How does the system know that there is only one layer shouldn’t everyone do this?
R. We cannot demand from a person unless he is drawn to that, which is why there are certain people that are divided in such a way. All of humanity is divided into these layers according to the will to receive in them some here and some there are drawn to which is why not everyone comes to, as it’s written I saw those who ascend and they are few.
S. He is also saying that there are the workers of the Creator who aren’t engaging in the internality of the Torah, so what does that cause that they don’t fulfill their role?
R. They don’t fulfill their role, as you said, there’s nothing to add.
9. S. (18:35) Why is interpreting the book of Zohar important? Isn’t it enough to read it and yearn for the Creator? Won’t the book already correct it all?
R. This is all according to the desire of a person. There are some that are fine with this and that and all sorts of degrees, steps in the ladder but as we advance together with humanity we are being cooked, prepared and more and more people are being drawn to the revelation of the Creator, to knowing him
S. What use can we make with the book of Zohar in dissemination right now and not wait until the state in the world will get worse?
R. To explain that if you do not do it the state will get worse.
Excerpt 59 (19:44): “All those who know the ins and outs…”
10. R. (19:57) And he emphasizes that they understand what is written in it.
Continues 59 (20:01): “…meaning understand what is written in it…”
11. R. (20:44) There was this popular idea many years ago. Well in our times there are still people who think that.
Excerpt 60 (20:58): “As for me since the day that I have been…”
12. S. (23:46) According to what BHS says in the article about the workers of the creator, the question is what is our role towards this wisdom if and when we do not have that leader who can teach us this wisdom?
R. So it is written in all the books. We have been speaking about it in all languages that is why whoever studies also has to keep teaching others and in this way it is known and revealed in the world that the Kabbalist of today think and 99% of the time think of the book of Zohar that it was composed by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochi.
13. S. (25:10) There is no righteous who has not sinned and with it can we say that we never really uncover or discover all of our sins?
R. We do not discover all of our sins and this is how it is until the end of correction. The end of correction is called in that way because we cover all of our crimes with the help of the Creator.
14. S. (25:55) What is the importance for the Kabbalist to know who wrote the Zohar, whether it is Rabbi Shimon or Moshe DeLeon?
R. It is actually not really important what I call a person that is the writer in my eyes, this and that. The main thing is the book but when we have some connection to some person and we connect the book to him and his students are known to us and when it was written and how so it is something completely different. Rabbi Moshe DeLeon lived in the 12th century or something in Spain. Compare that to Rabbi Shimon who was a known Prophet that lived 2000 years ago in the land of Israel Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, he wrote many things.
He is mentioned over many pages of the Talmud and more sources and Rabbi Moshe DeLeon, he is a person almost like we know people from our times that is why according to what is written by one or by the other we still tend to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on one hand and on the other hand we count on Baal HaSulam, that he, in his spiritual attainment attained that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is the writer of The Book of Zohar. That is what is right for our days. I can speak of this for hours but really there’s nothing about it, we are not in any Academy or among the wise people or scientists that like to argue. We have this and that’s it. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is the writer of the Zohar.
S. So he writes that he wouldn’t be surprised if he found out that it was written by Moses himself, the book of Zohar, the book.
R. The Book of Zohar is deep to such an extent and opens everything from one end to the other of all of the wisdom of the heavens that you could think that Moses received this in Mount Sinai.
15. S. (29:20) The book of Zohar, we see in this film that it is a small roll of paper and we have many books of the Zohar so how do we create let’s say all of these extra pieces of paper where does that come from?
R. The book of Zohar is an interpretation of the five books of the Torah. The Torah has five parts and the book of Zohar is the commentary meaning it was written by Rabbi Shimon and his students as a commentary for the Torah that’s why in the beginning it was very big, it was about the prophets and the writings and all of the chapters in the Torah.
It was a few more times more than what we have today it just all disappeared and the Creator organizes it in a way that materials come to us to the extent and in the form that is sufficient to us, that we won’t get confused or make any kind of, or using it incorrectly but this is what you have, that’s it, engage in that. That is why this is what we have all in all a book which isn’t too great isn’t too thick and it is not what it used to be the book of Zohar, what they wrote, if we will go 2,000 years ago back to the sources we can imagine a book that is about 15 or 20 times more than what we have today, even more maybe.
S. Why do they show, let’s say in the film, only a small book roll?
R. I don’t know what movie you’re talking about or what you saw there and how they brought it. What? Our movie about the Zohar?
S. Yes it’s ours and it’s just a small piece of paper and it’s not let’s say 20 books, it’s just a small piece of paper. You know, put in a wall and hidden.
R. I don’t know, that is what they wanted to show people. There’s 12 volumes right? We will do more at one point.
S. Let’s say we have an interpretation so a commentary of the original text, why don’t we read let’s say the original text of the Ari and use our special techniques, what we have, of connection. So if we will connect we would draw the light, let’s say from the letters we explain so what is the commentary about? Is that putting us more towards the corporeal levels but we want to come to the spiritual, to use the original text to our connection. Why don’t we use the method of connection and skip the whole commentary?
R. Look, we are studying. The first part of our studies, let’s say what we’re doing now, right now with the Book of Zohar, it is as if our first reading. When we are done with it, we will keep going in a form that is more internal but I don’t see a different way to do it. I don’t see another way. Obviously we are also lacking the study, to a certain extent, we are lacking the study of the 10 Sefirot and more of the writing of Baal HaSulam and we will keep doing it. Let’s hope soon that we will be able to also have time for that.
16. S. (34:30) More on the previous item, everything that we are reading here now about how he wrote the Zohar and the Sulam. He writes that specifically through our teaching we can complete his intention. He writes it this way: “I did throughout my clarification a clarification for every person through which he can delve deep and look into the book of Zohar because only then will my intention be complete in this clarification”. How do we do that kind of work to complete the intention of the teacher?
R. We need to read the sources that we are learning from, to try to be in all the lessons, to try to understand the text that we read, to implement it on ourselves and the connection between us and as a result of that to expect a response from above, that is our work.
17. S. (36:00) How do we strengthen the force of faith?
R. The force of faith can be strengthened only in the connection between us. The force of faith, Emuna, is the force of Bina that will expand between us and will give us an ability to be connected and count on one another to receive forces from our mutual connection together. That is actually the quality of Bina. Bina is in the middle between Malchut and Keter. On one hand it has all the quality of Keter, of bestowal, and also all the qualities of Malchut, which is reception and that is what she stabilizes there as Ima Bina, the mother. That is why we have to establish ourselves in the group in that way.
S. What is the difference between the force of faith as you described, we need to attain and the force of the faith we have in our teachers?
R. Our teachers pass this knowledge to us, the means, and how to be connected. They organize us and so on. They all help us also in studying and in organizing to come closer to the quality of Bina.
S. How do we strengthen this force within one another?
R. We give examples one to the other.
S. Just one other thing. Yesterday we had the unity evening, very powerful, very strong. What is the result for the world, on us?
R. The results all depend on you as much as you take forces from this evening and implement it between you, realize that force between you.
18. S. I get many opportunities to meet people on the outside who have questions even about the meaning of life, what is the purpose of our life but the moment you give them a book or a clip, here is the answer, here is BHS, here are the answers, he doesn’t want it.
R. First of all they don’t understand, it is difficult. People aren’t used to reading more than a computer page or a newspaper and you give them some studying book with the Torah or something also in a language that they are not used to, in a form that they are not used to. Who has a book? Who read a book lately? Ask people at your workplace or whoever you’re bumping into, who does that, who reads? He will watch the news maybe on TV. That is it. Even a newspaper is not something you buy anymore. People do not know how to read at all.
S. You are right I even had this person make fun of me, this book, what do you want me to do with it? But the moment you say that there is a solution, a person, as if doesn’t want it.
R. He doesn’t want it because it will put him in a place where he has no choice. If I will now hear an opinion by a wise big person and he says this and that, this is what has to be so it puts me in a decision, do I follow him or not? that’s it.
S. What is the art here, not to reject but to actually give a person the opportunity to…?
R. I remember for me it was very difficult to start explaining in those years, to start explaining to people, no, I couldn’t. What did I do? I started writing in Russian because Russian people aren’t so spoiled like Israelis, they are used to reading, they’re used to thinking and in this way they came closer to the wisdom of Kabbalah and the Israelis next to them started hearing that they’re interested in something and then gradually the people have gathered that today they are Bnei Baruch as you know.
S. So the Russians are the solution?
R. No. I’m saying this is how I was able to come out of that dead end.
S. And these people who have a question but aren’t ready for the answer so there is no solution here we just need to circle around them until they are ready?
R. Yes, until they become ready.
19. S. (42:34) What is the difference between the Zohar with the interpretation of Baal HaSulam and the other interpretations of the Zohar?
R. As much as I have checked I saw that except for the Zohar with the commentary of the ladder there is not anything worth opening and studying or reading, that is it. With all due respect for all the people that engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah, no matter how or in what way or what, I respect every person that opens a book about revealing the Creator to the Creator being which is the topic of the wisdom of Kabbalah and whoever engages in it even if he is mistaken.
1,000 times it is still correcting the world but except for the Zohar with the commentary of the ladder I do not think there is anything that can draw a person and bring him into the correction of the soul, correction of the world, there just isn’t including sweeter than honey and all kinds of commentaries that I’m not criticizing but I myself didn’t discover anything that even comes close to the commentary of the ladder. Okay?
Excerpt 61 (44:25): “Accordingly the question arises…”