FRIDAY PRAYER: NETZACH-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Friday.
Lesson on the topic of “You Have Made Me”
You Have Made Me – Selected Excerpts from the Sources
1. RABASH, Letter No. 76
“If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to do them.” The holy Zohar asks, “Since he already said, ‘walk’ and ‘keep,’ why also ‘do’?” It replies, “One who does the Mitzvot [commandments] of the Torah and walks in His ways, it is as though he has made Him above. The Creator said, ‘as though he had made Me.’ This is the meaning of ‘to do them,’ as though you have made Me” .
2. RABASH, Letter No. 76
What it means that one who walks in the way of the Creator makes the Creator. How can one think such a thing?
It is known that “The whole earth is full of His glory.” This is what every person should believe, as it is written, “I fill the heaven and the earth.” However, the Creator has made a concealment so that we cannot see Him so as to have room for choice, and then there is room for faith—to believe that the Creator “fills all the worlds and encompasses all the worlds.” And after a person engages in Torah and Mitzvot and keeps the commandment of choice, the Creator reveals Himself to him, and then he sees that the Creator is the ruler of the world.
Thus, at that time a person makes the king who will rule over him. That is, a person feels that the Creator is the ruler of the world, and this is regarded as a person making the Creator king over him.
3. RABASH. Article No. 30 (1990) “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
[It] is written, “One who performs the Mitzvot of the Torah and walks in His ways, it is as though he made Him above. The Creator said, ‘as if he made Me.’ And they determined it. Hence, ‘And do them,’ as a law and ordinance, which are ZA and Malchut.” This means that by performing the Mitzvot of the Torah and walking in His ways, a person causes at the root of his soul that Malchut above will work in order to bestow, like ZA. This is called “unification.” It follows that the meaning of “and do them,” is the intention to make this unification of ZA and Malchut, called “law” and “ordinance.” And that, too, is called “the unification of the Creator and His Shechina.” This is the work that the created beings should do.
It follows that the meaning is that since they are two names, the creatures must make the unification, so it becomes one. When all creations achieve their wholeness, meaning when all are corrected at the root of their souls, the verse “On that day will be the Lord is one and His name, One,” will come true. This is the work of which it is written, “And do them.”
4. RABASH, Assorted Notes No. 940, “The Point in the Heart”
When the Temple was ruined, it is written, “And let them make Me a Temple and I will dwell within them.” This pertains to the point in the heart, which should be a Temple where the light of the Creator dwells, as it is written, “And I will dwell within them.” Hence, one should try to build his structure of Kedusha [holiness], and the structure should be able to contain the upper abundance called “abundance poured from the Giver to the receiver.” However, according to the rule, there must be equivalence of form between the Giver and the receiver so the receiver, too, must have the aim to bestow like the Giver.
This is called “action,” as it is written, “Let them make Me a Temple,” where the acting applies to the Kli [vessel] and not the light, since the light pertains to the Creator and only the action pertains to the creatures.
5. RABASH, Article No. 13 (1991), What “You Have Given the Strong to the Hands of the Weak” Means in the Work.
Man’s heart should be a Temple for the Creator, as it is written, “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” One should be rewarded with the presence of the Shechina, as our sages said, “The Merciful one needs the heart,” meaning that all the Creator needs is man’s heart, so as to give him what He wishes to give him.
6. Zohar for All, Nasso, “Why Have I Come and There Is No Man,” items 105-106
It is written, “And let them make Me a Temple and I will dwell among them.” “Let them make Me a Temple” is any Temple, for any synagogue in the world is called “a Temple.” “And I will dwell among them” since the Shechina [Divinity] is the first to come to the synagogue.
Happy is the man who is among the first ten in the synagogue since they complete the congregation, which is no less than ten, and they are the first to be sanctified in the Shechina. There must be ten in the synagogue at once, and not come bit by bit so as not to delay the wholeness of the organs. All ten are as organs of one body in which the Shechina is present.
7. RABASH, Article No. 26 (1986), “A Near Way and a Far Way”
Baal HaSulam says, that the place where the Creator is revealed is called Shechina, and the Creator is called Shochen. However, when is He called Shochen? When there is someone who attains the Shochen. At that time he says that Shochen and Shechina are not two things, but one. That is, the Shochen is called “light without a Kli [vessel],” and the Shechina is the place where the Creator is revealed. It follows that all that there is in the place where the Creator is revealed is the Creator, and nothing else. However, there is light and Kli, meaning there is a Kli that attains the light.
It therefore follows that the place where the Creator has chosen to set His name is as we learn, that we need to correct our vessels of reception to be in order to bestow contentment upon the Creator. This is the meaning of equivalence of form. Then, in that place, the name of the Creator appears.
8. RABASH. Article No. 47 (1991) “What Does It Mean that the Right and the Left Are in Contrast, in the Work”
It is written, “and do them,” since we begin with action and end with action, but there is a discernment in between, meaning before he is rewarded with vessels of bestowal or after he is rewarded with vessels of bestowal. This means that through the actions, he is rewarded with Kelim, and then, through the actions, he is rewarded with the light. This is called “so you may be wise in all that you do,” meaning that afterward he is rewarded with “Learn and know Me.”
9. RABASH, Article No. 557, “Concerning Ohr Hozer [reflected light]”
The upper lights are already prepared for a person, as in “More than the calf wants to suckle, the cow wants to nurse,” and all we need is a Kli [vessel]. After the Tzimtzum [restriction], this Kli is called Masach and Ohr Hozer, and this is what connects the upper with the lower. That is, through it, the lower one connects to the upper one.
When this connector does not exist, the lower one cannot see the upper one, and the upper one is regarded as nonexistent from the perspective of the lower one. Hence, to the extent that one begins to work for the sake of the Creator, to that extent he acquires connection with the upper light. And by the measure of his connection, so is the measure of his attainment.
10. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 57, “Will Bring Him as a Burnt Offering to His Will”
We must evoke a desire from above to administer below.
It is not enough that we have a desire, but there has to be a good will on the part of the Giver, too. Even though above there is a general desire to do good to His creations, He still waits for our desire to awaken His desire. In other words, if we are unable to evoke His desire, it is a sign that the desire on the part of the receiver is still incomplete.
11. Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article No. 4, “What Is the Reason for the Heaviness One Feels when Annulling before the Creator in the Work”
The essence of one’s work is only to come to feel the existence of the Creator, meaning to feel the existence of the Creator, that “the whole earth is full of His glory,” and this will be one’s entire work. That is, all the energy one puts into the work will be only to achieve this, and nothing else.
One should not be misled into having to acquire anything. Rather, there is only one thing a person needs: faith in the Creator. He should not think of anything, meaning that the only reward that he wants for his work should be to be rewarded with faith in the Creator.
12. Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 14
All the multiplication in spirituality relies on the letters derived from the materiality of this world, as in, “And Creator of darkness.” There are no additions or initiations here, but the creation of darkness, the Merkava [chariot/structure] that is suited to disclose that the light is good. It follows that the Creator Himself hardened his heart. Why? Because it is letters that I need.
13. Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 38
The most important is the labor, meaning to crave to labor in His work, for the ordinary work does not count at all, only the bits that are more than usual, which is called “labor.” It is like a person who must eat a pound of bread to be full. All his eating does not merit the title, “a satisfying meal,” but only the last bit from the pound. That bit, for all its smallness, is what defines the meal as satisfying.
Similarly, out of every service, the Creator draws out only the bits beyond the ordinary, and they will be the letters and the Kelim [vessels] in which to receive the light of His face.
14. RABASH, Article No. 217, “Run My Beloved”
It is a great rule that the person himself is called “a creature,” meaning only he alone. Other than him it is already considered the holy Shechina. It follows that when he prays for his contemporaries, it is considered that he is praying for the holy Shechina, who is in exile and needs all the salvations. This is the meaning of eternity, and precisely in this manner, the light of mercy can be revealed.
15. RABASH, Article No. 386, “This Is the Day which the Lord Has Made”
“This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” “This is the day” means that “this” is called “day,” and not something else. What is it when the Lord “makes”? It is that each one will attain that “we will rejoice and be glad in it.” “In it” means in the Creator, in Dvekut [adhesion] with the Creator, which is called “equivalence of form,” which is that each and every one will understand that there is no greater joy than to bestow contentment upon one’s Maker. This is what we hope for. When the general public achieves this degree, it will be called “the end of correction.”