TUESDAY PRAYER: NETZACH-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Tuesday
Lesson on the topic of “On the Verge of Lishma”
Morning Lesson April 16, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
On the Verge of Lishma – Selected Excerpts from the Sources. #5
1. Rav’s Introduction: (00:15) We are continuing becoming familiarized with the spiritual work in entering Lishma, we will read excerpts on it and discuss it and do a workshop if you want, anything to make it clearer to us how we get closer to Lishma because that is basically the entrance to a direct contact with the Creator. We have to scrutinize what we are lacking and we can demand and ask and receive an explanation and examples, mostly we have to come together and ask and demand of the Creator to show us what to do and how to do, and understand that his treatment of us resembles the way parents treat children as much as it may not seem similar or it might seem far away, we have to try to see it that way. And that’s it whatever else you will want to say or know now after we’ve been through the Passover holiday we can change things, reorganize things however you want, it all depends on the desire of the receivers. So go ahead.
Reading excerpt number 5 (02:41) “Only after he achieves the degree..” Twice
2. S. (07:02) From the excerpt we see the new degree begins before annulment before reality. What is this direction of annulling before the real reality?
R. I want to hear that the whole Earth is filled with His whole glory organizing it and running and managing and organizing all of reality. There is no place vacant from Him but rather everything is only Him, His thought, His control, His action, this is what I now want to discover in all of my senses and all of my strengths.
S. I want to feel this but how do I switch from this to the intention to bestow upon Him?
R. I want to bestow to Him, the fact that I discover Him as the King of the world and I do everything to show that to myself and to everyone, by that I want to bestow contentment to Him, the Creator’s will is that the created beings will recognize Him and know Him and see that there is no other force in the world that rules besides the Creator, and anything that appears to be against that, they try to discover that it’s all included in the Creator.
3. S. (09:26) What does it mean to be rewarded with other phenomena? What does that mean?
R. What other phenomena?
S. He writes here in the excerpt that we should be rewarded with other phenomena. I’ll tell you why I’m asking. Yesterday, one of our friends in the ten asked: we feel that we are entering a new state, so how do we adjust it and turn to the new state, to be in constant motion to see what we have to do next. So, I wanted to know if this is the new phenomenon that has awakened in our ten that the Creator awakened a new state in us?
R. The new state that needs to come is that we are connected together to each other, and we are so drawn to be “as one man, in one heart” that we feel no difference between us, rather all our senses are common, are shared and that’s what we should see as the goal of our development for now.
S. We as a group were formed in a certain state during Covid, in a virtual state and for some of the friends it’s pretty hard to, where we feel we need to be physically here. So, how do we adapt ourselves because for some of the friends, it’s really hard and we want to adapt ourselves to the new situation and we see that it’s difficult for friends, so how do we exalt this state of being physical here because it’s important for the connection not only to be in the ten but our ten within the whole Kli, to strengthen our connection to the whole Kli.
R. Everyday I see a change in where I sit and where the friends sit and where their screens are and what conditions it all happens and I’m not overwhelmed by these new conditions or changes in the connection between us, men, women, the screens. I just see that I need to see everyone together as one, united as one, and that’s what I try to do and that is my work. And I think that if we didn’t have such, if there weren’t such changes where I have to each time connect myself to 3-400 people in front of me, unlike what it was before where I saw all of them on the screens, it’s a difference, it’s a big difference. But the Creator now puts before me in order to continue advancing and I see in that His treatment, His work.
These perhaps don’t seem to us as big differences but in terms of the connection between us it’s meaningful, it’s significant. We will work this way for say a week and then we will talk and then we will decide, maybe do things differently. What’s important is that you ultimately come closer to each other, that the tens will grow stronger and that we will feel connected to each other, we will try to do that, this is part of our main work. Now because according to how much we come closer and connect to each other, to that extent we will begin to feel our spiritual state, only according to the measure of connection and that’s up to us. In each and every state the Creator throws us into externally, whether it’s a desert or Egypt or all kinds of incidents, as much as we try to always use these incidents to be more connected and more tightly connected to each other, by that we move closer to Lishma, to the entrance of the Upper World.
S. Does that mean before our eyes there should be the connection all the time and criticizing this connection has to be constantly before us or we can say, once a week, we can check it and see how we get along?
R. Observe how much you see changes in relation to the connections, we will talk about that.
4. S. (16:08) He says here that after he attains Lo Lishma then there are other phenomena where he has no consideration of himself and he annuls before reality and then he achieves Lishma. Is there a way to describe this phase of attaining Lo Lishma, where we know we are ready to receive these new phenomena?
R. I’m not going to affirm your spiritual states; rather, according to the signs and the indications that Kabbalists write to us, you have to detect where you are.
S. And the state of Lo Lishma, is it a state that you attain once or do you have to get into it every time over and over again?
R. Typically, when you attain it, you attain it and you are already in it. Lo Lishma is a state where a person somehow recognizes what Lishma is and towards that state of Lishma which he only understands and he only envisions and he sees that he’s not in it yet and that means that he is in Lo Lishma. So, at least that degree it’s not simple, it’s very respected by the way. So, we have to try to see ourselves there at least, that we haven’t yet achieved Lishma, and that’s very lofty, very special but the Lo Lishma that we wish to detect and determine that we are in, that too is something big, and we all want to be in it and connect at that level of Lo Lishma, and then we will make another leap.
5. S. (18:45) Every time we are in the same physical action, during the year we have physical actions such as Passover. How do I see innovations here? Sometimes I see something new and I don’t sometimes, I don’t see anything new: everything is repetitive?
R. True, there are states that seem to be repetitive and unchanging or disappear and come back again, it’s true, but I nevertheless want to see just one thing in front of me; connection, connection. It so refuses to enter the heart and it’s far from our mind but we have to take that as our measurement, as our foundation that towards our connection, our unity, we have to see ourselves advancing every day. Even advancing in the sense that today, it’s clear to me that I’m far from the unity but I better see and feel that I am far, that too is progress. It’s like a wheel that’s turning forwards and backwards, so I have to see how I’m moving forward but I’m also going backwards, and so the negative, clear, negative sensation too, is a kind of progress for us.
6. S. (21:00) It is written in the article that there’s no consideration for himself but all these calculations are the truth. What does it mean that calculations and thoughts are the truth?
R. The calculations and thoughts and desires that a person has when they are truth, that’s already a great correction, maybe the end of correction. It depends on what data he uses to determine truth, what height, but truth means that one’s thoughts and desires are already in the domain of the collective, that he’s connected to all the friends and he’s completely dissolved in them, nullified in them and he doesn’t want anything besides them to be connected “as one man, in one heart.” That there will not be many different people in short, we are going back to the image of Adam HaRishon, of course that’s still far from us but that’s the goal that we should somehow put before us.
7. S. (23:00) What does it mean to bestow in order to bestow?
R. Bestow in order to bestow means that he cannot receive in order to bestow anything but that’s on the path and on the way. It’s working with the light of Hassidim, so let’s say that I am sitting next to the host but I don’t receive anything from him. However, besides receiving from the refreshments, I am completely doing everything to bring him contentment.
S. Why is it called bestowing in order to bestow? Why is it not receiving in order to bestow?
R. It’s not that I don’t want to receive, it’s rather that I cannot receive because to me that will be too great of a pleasure, that I am not going to be able to feel for the benefit and the sake of the host. So as much as I can, I do it not in practice let’s say but in potential.
S. And the point in the heart, the point of Moses in the person, is it a desire or an intention?
R. The point of Moses develops from within man’s heart, in that the center of the heart of each and every one and it develops according to man’s ability to labor in connection.
S. Is it a desire or an intention?
R. The point of Moses, it’s difficult to differentiate that. I cannot give you a precise answer here, but we will have to scrutinize it, typically it is the point of intention.
8. S. (25:48) From this discussion what receiver are we talking about when we’re talking about the receiver in the wisdom of Kabbalah, receiving what?
R. The desire to receive pleasure and delight from the host that really wants to fulfill you on the one hand, and on the other hand, that you will feel how much he enjoys fulfilling you and you wish to fulfill him in the same way.
S. And what if I don’t have the feeling of the host at all? Am I not receiving from him?
R. Always receiving from him, everything and all the time but you do you recognize it.
S. That’s what I’m trying to understand. When am I doing it in order to receive because the feeling of the host doesn’t exist right now, it’s this intellectual description that someone is giving to me, that’s what I have right now?
R. Yes.
S. And I constantly see that I’m busy, satisfying all kinds of desires and whims and all kinds of things that go through my mind. Is this regarded as receiving in order to receive?
R. No, that’s you working as a beast.
S. What does it mean to receive in order to receive? It sounds like a degree to receive in order to receive?
R. You have an account with the Creator and you wish to receive from Him and enjoy.
S. In other words, will it happen only when I have some feeling of the host or before I have the feeling of the host, there is no such thing, as you said, I’m on the degree of the beast like everyone else?
R. Well, there is both this and that, we cannot pinpoint it and let’s not go too deep right now.
9. S. (28:07) It seems from the excerpt, that all our years of work are mainly in order to reach from Lo Lishma and then from Lo Lishma to Lishma can be quick. So my question is: first of all is this correct and once we get to Lo Lishma, it seems like the work changes, so what is our work then?
R. Lo Lishma means that a person wants to reach Lishma but he still cannot.
S. And before Lo Lishma, what does he want?
R. Before Lo Lishma?
S. So what changes? Is the description more accurate or what?
R. No, no I cannot discuss it this way, you all don’t understand it and you want to say words without a feeling behind them it is not worthwhile. We follow the verses and we advance bit by bit.
Reading excerpt number 6 (29:20) “We should know that the degree of Lo Lishma..”
10. R. (30:33) Meaning that as much as we can depict the importance of the degree of Lishma, then the degree before that, of Lo Lishma, even that we cannot depict to ourselves correctly. Meaning these degrees are without any correct feeling, understanding, depiction within the person until he actually attains these things for certain.
11. S. (31:20) What is conscious work on importance? What exactly should one appreciate more and more each day and what does it mean that he is working on the importance?
R. Every day a person needs to work on the importance of spirituality and the importance of the Creator and the group, the actions that he has to do in order to reach adhesion with the group and through that to the Creator.
S. Is there a boundary where you did your actions during the day but there’s another element which is important, that I understand there’s an addition here that we need to add to the actions, to the routine? How do you increase the importance?
R. By the environment and only by the environment. Where will you take it from? If you don’t have it within which you’ve already received or achieved then only from the environment.
S. How do you take importance from the environment?
R. That’s to the extent that you appreciate it and you invest in it then you can receive from it.
12. S. (33:03) A person who overcomes additional efforts towards connection, he doesn’t make the scrutiny of whether it’s Lo Lishma or Lishma, how do you scrutinize each time?
R. If he works in the group then he remembers.
S. Most of the time I’m not with friends. I’m in my day and in my head I have thoughts of the friends. I pray for the friends but here I feel that I don’t make this scrutiny. What is this scrutiny that I have to do now when I think about the friends?
R. How much are you incorporated in them in order to advance them towards the Creator.
S. And the scrutiny of whether it’s Lishma or Lo Lishma will come later or do I have to think about it now?
R. It will come as a result of your effort that you want to advance the friends, to push the friends towards connection or proximity to the Creator.
13. S. (34:28) Is Lishma the Exodus from Egypt?
R. Even before Lishma there is an exodus from Egypt, meaning when a person detaches from his ego.
14. S. (35:00) What is the deficiency a person needs to come to in order to reach Lo Lishma?
R. The deficiency that he wants to be above his ego, above his ego because otherwise he is not going to feel even what Lo Lishma is.
15. S. (36:00) What are the main stages in reaching Lishma?
R. The main stages in reaching Lishma, that is to become incorporated together and be “as one man, in one heart” and try to be, and thus, reach a state where everything we do is for the sake of the friends and the Creator, as much as we can. This is still called Lo Lishma, and from Lo Lishma we come to Lishma which is already complete, pure, bestowal outside the particular and collective will to receive of the group.
16. S. (37:50) It says in the excerpt we haven’t the intellect to appreciate the importance of Torah and Mitzvot, Lo Lishma. Why haven’t we been given the intellect to understand that?
R. It’s above our nature, that too is above our nature because to reach in order to bestow or not in order to bestow we have to see the differences between those two possibilities and this we do not have.
17. S. (39:00) What does a friend in the ten cause by bringing in the greatness of the King to the point where he is canceled as a candle before a torch? What makes a friend annul towards the ten?
R. Example: he should set an example of how much he wants and can and is drawn to connection with the friends in order to reach devotion.
S. Why is it written as a candle before a torch? It sounds like he is losing his choice?
R. He has a choice, he made a choice and now he wants to annul as a candle before a torch.
S. Can Lishma be partial or if he reaches Lishma it’s on all of his desires?
R. Lishma is degrees, according to the measure of Lishma, the size of Lishma, we count the degrees, 125 degrees.
18. S. (40:34) You said before that first we come out of Egypt and then we enter Lishma. Can you explain the difference, the gap between exiting Egypt and entering Lishma?
R. No, we can start roaming all throughout history and geography and whatnot. I don’t think that’s the way, let’s first of all study the principles and then accordingly we will talk.
19. S. (41:20) We just read that according to the importance of Lishma he should see that Lo Lishma is even more greater than the importance of Lishma. Why is it like that? If you want to eventually attain Lishma, why should your importance of Lo Lishma be even greater?
R. So you don’t slight what you have before you. That what you have to acquire now, you have to acquire it. So, don’t think about the degree, think about a few states from now. First we have to see that what is before us is the most important thing and the most necessary and I have to have it.
S. But to develop, shouldn’t you aspire for the final goal you want to reach?
R. No, I can’t even imagine it now.
S. So what do you yearn for? For Lo Lishma to be important for you?
R. For Lo Lishma to be important to me to see that I can’t work Lishma in order to bestow, to work in clean in order to bestow, clean from any calculation for myself but to the extent that I can do it, I do it with great effort.
S. So in Lo Lishma, what exactly is important in Lo Lishma?
R. That I am advancing towards Lishma, this and this and that, I go through all of the states and all of the stages.
S. And the desire should be to reach Lishma or should it be?
R. To Lishma.
S. So he wants to reach it?
R. Yes, the purpose of creation has to be clear before us.
S. So if I get the idea it’s not to slight the work we have before us now?
R. Yes, yes to see what is ahead of us as the most important thing.
20. S. (43:42) What disrupts us in seeing the importance of the work in Lo Lishma?
R. That I want to reach Lishma. There it is pure bestowal, unlimited, open, and Lo Lishma is still on the way.
S. But what stops me from seeing this importance of working Lo Lishma?
R. We have to increase it every time, if I cannot depict myself the greatness of the host, then I do everything for the sake of the host but if I don’t see this greatness, I will not be able to do anything for the host. So, Lo Lishma is when I am still, according to the greatness of the host that I see, that’s what I can do, and for the sake of the host, even if I don’t see the greatness of the host, I can work for him.
21. S. (45:15) I feel simultaneously the importance of Lo Lishma and of Lishma, so what is the purpose of the state of Lo Lishma?
R. In a state of Lo Lishma, I can feel how much I am in Lo Lishma, how much I am still making calculations together with my will to receive and this is what stops me.
Reading excerpt number 7 (46:22) “One must know when exerting..” Thrice
22. S. (50:20) What is this principle that it’s complete and not in part?
R. It’s wholeness. In spirituality we hear that a person has to be whole and complete, meaning it’s called all my bones shall see.
S. Is it a kind of a thought that from now on I am going to be […]?
R. Yes, that if you check yourself, you want to discover that all of you, all of your thoughts and desires are all together and working in the same direction,
23. S. (51:15) From the excerpt, I feel that from the yearning to work in Lishma, I discover that I am in Lo Lishma and then I can reach a complete prayer?
R. Yes, gradually.
24. S. (51:39) What is the reason that the transition from not from Lo Lishma to Lishma necessitates a prayer from the bottom of the heart?
R. Because here a person changes his nature.
25. S. (52:09) If the body completely resists connection and all the organs resist why will he have the power to turn to the Creator if he has a resistance to connection? Why will he not resist turning to the Creator?
R. What state are you talking about?
S. The state he’s writing about here. He writes that only then when he works in bestowing and not for receiving anything he begins to see the organs disagree with this view and then the advice he gives is to pour his heart to the Creator for help. But if he has a resistance at first why turning to the Creator will not produce resistance, where is the power to do that?
R. It’s a completely different degree.
S. What do you mean?
R. Either I have to overcome or I have to turn to the Creator to help me overcome.
26. S. (53:17) Can we also look at it not as an individual person but as a ten?
R. Yes.
S. Because he’s talking about the organs and then there’s also collecting your flaccid organs from the field and so forth. So let’s say the ten wants to do an action now and there’s resistance, you see there’s disagreement but to begin with there is agreement of wanting to bring contentment to the Creator. So he comes to the conclusion that only turning to the Creator will give a solution, that’s what he writes. So we each time have to reach that point again in the ten?
R. That you have no choice but only to turn to the Creator.
S. We see that sometimes there are parts of the ten that will never agree even though everyone wants to bring contentment to the Creator. There are resistances that can’t be solved.
R. For now.
27. S. (54:40) If I do some physical action like kitchen duty it’s much easier to describe to me that I’m making an action of complete bestowal and not receiving anything. What corporeal action is best to describe the inner action of bestowal?
R. You need to sort out and scrutinize what is the most important for the friend or for the group before whom you want to express your act of bestowal and this is what you should do.
S. Each time it changes because I thought there is one action you can always focus on.
R. In general it is an act that leads to connection but these actions in life can be many in the life of the group, there can be many such actions.
28. S. (56:23) In this place where I put the deficiency of the friends into my heart and raise MAN, what does it mean that the organs disagree, that I see that they do not want to advance to the Creator? What does it mean that then they agree afterwards?
R. Not all your desires agree to it but if you continue then you connect to the friends and the friends give you the powers so that you feel that gradually your organs do understand the importance in the act of bestowal and you come into a common action with them.
29. S. (57:50) You said that we need to appreciate that the Creator gives us such high and lofty thoughts about connection. These thoughts about connection and bestowal, these are the thoughts that I need to cancel and then raise as gratitude to the Creator?
R. Yes.
Reading excerpt number 8 twice (58:50) “It is hopeless to wait for a time..”
30. S. (01:02:43) In Lo Lishma what should we be cautious of, like he writes that many fall in Lo Lishma?
R. Lo Lishma is when you try and try to nevertheless work in order to bestow but you see, understand, feel that these actions are still coming out in some way in order to receive. If it weren’t clear to you that you are getting some benefit from it you wouldn’t be able to do it and so these actions are regarded as Lo Lishma, not for the sake of the Creator but for the sake of myself.
S. Why does Baal HaSulam write that many fall in working Lo Lishma, what do you fall there?
R. Because you cannot rise into working completely in order to bestow.
S. But all of Lo Lishma the essence of it is that you’re not really working in order to bestow, you only want to. So what exactly are you falling, where are you falling, you can’t be in order to bestow?
R. It is the fact that you want to but you can’t.
S. So why does Baal HaSulam define it as those who fall specifically in the field of working Lo Lishma?
R. Because they cannot perform actions for her sake, Lishma.
S. What stops them from working in Lishma?
R. Absence of a screen, absence of the intention.
31. S. (01:05:02) So they will die without wisdom and still they will bring contentment to the Creator. Who is he talking about, what is written here?
R. Dying without wisdom means that the action that they wanted to do now and by which to attain the wisdom of the Creator and advance towards adhesion with him, this they cannot do. That’s it, so they fall. This is called dying, that the upper illumination that they did have disappears, departs.
S. Is he talking about people physically who died?
R. No, he’s not talking about that at all. He is talking about people not getting the upper illumination.
S. They leave the path, what does it mean they die?
R. Dying means that the little bit of illumination that they did have disappears.
S. What happens then?
R. What happens then? They start over at some point on the path.
S. So it could be all kinds of life cycles a person goes through?
R. Many, countless. Countless such points where you have to start over.
S. So I’m asking, he might be talking about every person in whom there are these cycles where he falls and dies and starts anew?
R. Yes, in each and every person. But here we’re talking about people who are actually struggling to achieve in order to bestow.
S. So Baal HaSulam writes about the students he saw around him and the people?
R. I didn’t speak to him but I guess here he writes about people who do want to reach Lishma. But it happens with everyone. No one comes to Lishma smoothly. Look at what’s written in the Torah, it’s like the collective example for the common vessel.
S. It’s a bit comforting to read that even if you don’t succeed you bring contentment to the Creator, it calms you down a little bit.
R. Even if you don’t do anything you bring contentment to the Creator but this is not our work. Our work is to come to a state where we do it and understand and feel and see inner action. That we’re bringing Him contentment and we equalize with Him, we are playing with Him like a child with the grown up, etc. Although there’s the pain of raising children as it says, there is also great contentment to the Creator that we bring Him.
32. S. (01:08:43) To reach his state where he only wants to bestow? Thanks to what?
R. A person who comes to a state where he wants only to bestow, well he receives from above an illumination that awakens him and advances him towards it. It teaches him, gives him the possibilities to bestow and then he performs an act of bestowal.
S. But thanks to what does he come to it? What’s the salvation here, what leads him to a state where he only wants to bestow? What is it in our work that does it?
R. First of all it’s the root of our soul which we don’t know. Next it is what happens to him, how he comes to a group, to the method, becomes incorporated in them, how he understands and feels more of what is required of him. It all depends on let’s call it fate.
S. And in the work a person reaches the ten and the group and so forth. What saves him? What is the action that saves him to reach that state that he only wants to bestow?
R. If he comes to the ten then the blessing is in wanting to be incorporated in the ten and to receive together with them this strength. Then he will have enough in order to connect to the Creator and receive from Him all the strength, all the force he needs for the ascent. But this is already available for every person here. For every person here this upper force is already available and he can receive it and use it to advance all the way to the end of correction.
33. S. (01:11:03) It is written that their reward is very great. What is the reward and do they enjoy it?
R. The reward is that he gets a connection to the spiritual world even though he doesn’t enter it. He wanted to enter it, he wanted to strengthen himself in this, he wanted to bestow upon everyone but perhaps it’s still not his time.
34. S. (01:11:47) In calculation of bestowal of trying to make actions of bestowal towards the friends, how do you keep the cleanliness, how do you become precise in the actions of necessity, of food and sleep and these things to make them clean?
R. No, no, no, you don’t need to. Eat and drink as much as you want, sleep it doesn’t matter. Your spiritual work will begin to limit you and direct you in terms of how to organize things in corporeality.
S. Is there a place here for friends to help make these actions more precise?
R. I think there is but do we need it? We are in a group and anyone who wants to organize his life correctly has enough examples, plenty of examples.
S. Can I advise a friend, tell him he’s working a bit too much, things like that or we don’t go into these calculations?
R. I don’t think we should do this but consult with other friends and if you have doubts then do it.
35. S. (01:13:26) He writes here that the work is not limited by time but by his qualifiers and the measure of one’s control over one’s heart. What are these limitations, who are these qualifiers and what’s the measure of control over his heart?
R. When a person knows how to direct his heart toward connection and knows how to be incorporated in the common vessel of the ten and strengthen the ten.
S. What are his qualifiers, the friends in the ten, the teacher?
R. All the forces that he tries to follow will come closer and closer to him or he comes closer to them.
S. You said before if I heard correctly it’s kind of fate or luck a person has? So he might work with all his qualifiers and the control of his heart and so on and still it doesn’t depend on him?
R. We don’t know what it depends on, in the end we don’t know. We have to do what Kabbalists have left for us, what they have revealed about the upper system and how we use this upper system in order to enter that system ourselves. Is it known? It is filled with so many details and connections that we simply need to try, over and over again to try.
36. S. (01:15:30) So who enters Lishma ultimately?
R. We need connections. You’re asking who. It’s according to the root of the soul and according to the connections to a higher soul, that’s true. Let’s call it connections, cronies or family connections whatever, but this is what determines in the end.
S. So why are some people being allowed to think that they might reach Lishma soon?
R. Everyone will reach Lishma, everyone. There’s nothing that will not happen there. “And everyone knows Me, from smallest to the biggest,” that’s it. However some will make it today and for some it will take a few more years.
37. S. (01:17:00) I didn’t understand the matter of the measure of his control over his heart. What needs to be controlled?
R. His desires. To what extent he can hold onto his desires like with a fist, strongly and to do what’s required. But a strong fist is the group closing him, it’s not that he’s such a hero. If he’s still a hero that means he hasn’t started working with himself.
S. A person discovers that he has less and less control?
R. Until he is zero.
S. So his measure of control needs to be great, small, he has to discover that he does control or doesn’t?
R. He has to discover that he has no control at all and that his whole control is to the extent that he can hand himself to the hands of the group.
38. S. (01:18:11) What we nevertheless do to not fall, what can we learn from those who didn’t succeed? Because he writes that many didn’t succeed, they fell in the path.
R. But they fell and they got up and they continued. They fell again, they got up again and kept on going, that’s what we have to learn. A thousand times a person will fall and rise.
39. S. (01:19:07) How do we give one another a kind of nepotism in the right way?
R. I don’t know, I don’t hand out nepotism. I just explain the content of the work but carrying it out is the person’s work.
S. And how do we protect one another because Baal HaSulam writes in a kind of harsh way that they will die. We are gathered here and everyone is making many efforts. How do we protect one another so we don’t die?
R. By us giving each other a hand, each of us gives a hand to the other so we hold each other not to fall. There is nothing to do here, the work here takes time until it’s understood and we have to do it.
40. S. (01:20:36) How to bring back what I lost in spirituality?
R. How to bring back what you’ve lost in spirituality? You don’t need to think about that. Don’t look at your past, yesterday, what you used to have, don’t be sorry about that. You simply need every time to discover more and more steps, the next steps, the next goals where you will also cover all your transgressions from the past. That’s it, that’s how it happens, that’s why you don’t need to go back.
S. What do we need to do?
R. Just go forward.
S. How?
R. Again connection, again bestowal, again strengthening between us and that means forward.
41. S. (01:22:05) In our generation we work as a group. What is Lo Lishma and Lishma as our group? What are those states as a group together?
R. There is a calculation. Even though the calculation goes with each and everyone there’s also a calculation with the ten; we need with this calculation to take it into consideration. The Creator takes everyone into consideration but also He takes the whole group together into consideration. We don’t yet know how it happens and what’s the relation between the two but it’s very important. We also don’t know what character each and every one of us in the ten has because that too is also very important for the personal state of each and every person. We’re not yet talking about that.
S. You say we shouldn’t take into consideration the attributes of each other?
R. No, I’m talking about the spiritual character, who you are, Netzach, Hod, Hochma, Yesod, etc.. That’s still ahead of us.
42. S. (01:23:48) I see that a person doesn’t have a chance to come to this in our generation on his own, controlling his heart and all these actions. It’s not like some individual?
R. That’s true.
S. So we need to maybe scrutinize how we as a group attack this state, this action of Lishma and Lo Lishma. Maybe we can somehow describe this more in the structure of our ten?
R. We need to come closer bit by bit to acknowledge Lo Lishma and to get to know Lo Lishma is only possible for us to the extent that we yearn for Lishma. Then as a result of that we will start understanding, feeling, being incorporated with the states Lo Lishma and as opposed to that Lishma. And these two states we’ll start understanding, one compared to the other. It will become more clear for us what we’re lacking, what we’re missing in order to be in Lishma. From that we’ll understand how much we are already, and in what way and percentage in Lo Lishma. And this is how we will advance, but this time may be long, it may take a long time as he writes that one can stay there for ten years until you reach Lishma.
43. S. (01:26:12) This topic really clarifies one’s personal yearning to reach Lishma and Lo Lishma, meaning, how I do this?
R. You can only do that through your friends. Alone it’s impossible to even approach it.
S. Is it still me doing it through the friends?
R. That doesn’t matter, it’s always the Creator but you do it through the friends.
S. So each of us needs to depict to himself how he does it or he needs to see how the friends do it? How do I include their deficiency within this, their deficiency to reach Lishma? Do I need to relate to this in some certain way? Is there an opposite way I need to work? How do I through the friends bestow to the Creator?
R. It’s better this way, in the meantime it’s better to do it this way.
44. S. (01:27:28) Maybe you can explain more about the control of the heart?
R. The control of the heart? Don’t you feel that the heart controls you?
S. Yes, yes, of course, but there’s an opportunity to change my sensitivity for the benefit of others.
R. Change?
S. Yes, is that the control of the heart meaning changing direction? Does it talk about the changing of the intention?
R. No. The control of the heart is to what extent the heart hears the friends, the group rather than yourself. About the heart as it is said, “we don’t own the heart.” Who owns my heart? The group. To the extent that you give yourself to them, they control your heart. In this way we are incorporated into each other.
S. Can I change the deficiency towards the friends and for them to enjoy like me? Is that the control of the heart?
R. Yes.
45. S. (01:29:43) In the article Lo Lishma and Lishma did something change in our life, maybe you do something or some other actions?
R. Probably, yes. There will be new actions, the approach changed, yes, a new world.
46. S. (01:30:25) You answered a question earlier when the friend asked why Baal HaSulam defines falling from the matter of Lo Lishma. You said because we cannot do actions of Lo Lishma. What is the to do the act of Lo Lishma?
R. To execute the action of Lo Lishma is I try to understand in what state of Lo Lishma I’m in, where I’m willing to do in order to receive or not, in order to bestow, willing or not and that I must have the main thing before me; the goal should be clear before me and I’m working for it.
S. How does the person do those scrutinies?
R. I do it.
S. How does a person do these scrutinies that you said now?
R. Well, we come closer to it gradually and we will do it. Where I feel that I can’t work without identifying the goal, I can’t work if I don’t see any benefit in attaining the goal and profit in it and so forth. Okay, maybe we will move to something else?