SUNDAY PRAYER: HOCHMA-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Sunday.
Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 46
Morning Lesson May 12, 2023.
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. (Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot [Flavors, Dots, Tags, Letters (TNTO, pronounced Tanta)]. #46)
Reading Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot, Flavors, Dots, Tags, Letters. #46
1. R. (01:18) What we are learning here we’re learning about how the Upper Light passes from the Creator to the created beings. So he says the Upper Light when it comes to correct the vessels, to fill the vessels, to activate the vessels and so on until it brings them to their final purpose it’s divided into Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot, four kinds of the ways the lights bestow upon the vessels.
Reading continues… Item #47.
2. R. (03:24) That means that in such actions sometimes the light works on the screen: inner light, surrounding light, light that comes from above, light that comes on the sides of the vessel and then through the actions of the light on the screen, the screen starts refining itself and as a result of that, the lights exit the vessel and the vessel empties.
Reading continues.
3. S. (08:27) When can you say that the screen rises to the Peh of the Rosh because it sounds as if there are all these sub actions in the couplings?
R. Infinite.
S. So can you say that it finished its process of development?
R. That’s nature, it’s all endless, infinite and all the actions don’t have limits, just in order to explain to us the Kabbalists put it into some kind of limitations, borders and that’s how they tell us about it. There are infinite actions, there’s no number.
4. S. (09:20) What by definition, do we say it is from here onwards, it’s considered as completely refined?
R. Zero, nothing, that there’s no more forces to extend the Upper light from above downward to push it from below upward. Then it’s called that it stopped. There’s a place for a new state.
5. S. (09:59) It is written and here the Upper Light does not stop shining at every moment. What does that mean?
R. That on behalf of the Upper One there are no breaks. There is always the same relation towards its created beings, to bestow good to them everywhere, any place, in all cases, in all states.
6. S. (10:39) We discussed the act of coupling and striking in the Partzufim, we talked about the first coupling on striking and it seems that there’s lots of couplings when striking afterwards in the process of refinement.
R. Of course when the screen rises from the Tabur to Peh and all the way to the refinement there are couplings by strikings.
S. And each one of these actions, the Partzuf brings contentment to the Creator or to the host?
R. No, no. Wherever we take a decision that we respond to the actions of the Creator, only there we bestow back to the Creator, but wherever it goes through just nature, so there is no such thing. It’s like if you swallow a nice, pleasant slice of something so you feel it in your throat and for that you say that’s a blessing but afterwards, when it goes through all your vessels your intestines, etc., so you don’t bless it anymore. You don’t feel it like in those flavors, Taamim, etc., that’s why it’s something that is felt in us so strongly.
7. S. (12:18) What’s the information that is accumulated in the Rosh as a result of the refinement of the screen, that the Rosh decided to bestow one-hundred percent and then it cannot and then eighty percent and then it cannot, until it realizes it cannot continue bestowing.
R. The Rosh always wants to do maximum towards the Upper Light just like the Upper Light bestows upon him, that’s it.
S. What does it reveal at the end of the process of the refinement of the screen? What does it learn that it tried bestowing?
R. That it bestowed everything. It bestowed everything. All the light that comes to him, he wants to bestow it or receive it one-hundred percent in order to bestow.
S. And he failed to hold onto it for even a moment?
R. Who said he did succeed or didn’t succeed or if he must succeed altogether and in what exactly.
S. And every phase of every degree of the refinement of the screen there’s another clash of inner light?
R. Yes, yes. That’s how the Upper Light obligates the screen to refine itself.
S. It seems that in the beginning the inner light necessitates the screen to receive the light and then it turns out that the surrounding light needs the screen to refine?
R. But it knows that he is connected to him. They become two partners with the screen between them.
8. S. (14:09) Why in the refinement of the screen there’s a coupling on each phase? Why doesn’t it come out from the Partzuf and that’s it? Why is there a coupling when the light comes?
R. The coupling by striking happens in the Peh de Rosh and then in the Guf after it receives there is the beating, the striking of the inner light and the surrounding light. That’s what you’re asking about?
S. I understand that the entire entrance of the light from above downwards, there are couplings.
R. Of course.
S. And inner light enters. When the screen refines there are couplings?
R. Well let’s say it’s couplings during it, okay.
S. So I’m asking, how could it be a result of the coupling? Is it that the inner light exits the Guf?
R. That’s the tendency of the screen, that it wants to drive the light outward.
S. Is it the result of the coupling by striking that the lights want to enter the vessel and a result of the couplings that it comes out of the vessel?
R. Yes of course. You sit before the host. There is a part that you receive and a part that you don’t receive.
S. And why is it a coupling when striking when the light comes out? What’s the main thing here? It’s natural to bring out the light.
R. Not natural. It’s a mutual decision between the light and the screen.
9. S. (15:48) So what we read about the couplings during the time of refinement, why are they not called clashes?
R. It’s called Nekudot.
S. There are clashes. They have decisions to purify, to refine. It’s a clash, why is it not called coupling during the time of refinement.
R. No, that clash, the beating it’s an action that reveals the resistance.
S. Yes, that’s a clash. The clash of the surrounding light with the inner light.
R. That’s how it’s called.
S. Where it cannot receive and it’s in shame, etc., right?
R. What do you want to ask? I heard a thousand questions already.
S. The light becomes refined from the Partzuf: from Tabur to Peh.
R. From the Tabur to Peh by the rising of the screen. What next?
S. From the path outward, there are couplings, there are more couplings. Why are they called couplings and not clashes?
R. Because all those couplings are called Nekudot.
10. S. (17:20) There’s a sentence here, when the screen is refined of the coarseness of the root as well the level of Malchut departs since there’s no coarseness of the Guf there. What is the refinement of the screen? Could you bring it down to the language of normal people, the refinement of the screen?
R. The refinement of the screen is when a person dies.
S. What does it mean to die?
R. Dead because he cannot receive the Upper Light in order to bestow. That’s called that the screen is refined.
S. And then he says from the courses of phase one, the screen is left because there is no coarseness there. How could it be that the coarseness leaves when the screen purifies?
R. The screen that refines, that’s called the coarseness disappears.
S. What’s the coarseness of the screen when the coarseness leaves?
R. The appetite.
S. The appetite leaves?
R. Yes, it’s like when a person loses a desire to live, so he dies.
S. That’s a positive or negative action?
R. For now it’s positive because it helps the Partzuf advance to receive the next portions.
S. I didn’t really understand. What did you just say now? Can you explain that simpler?
R. By the screen descending from the Peh to the Tabur it receives the inner light and then by the beating and the clash of the inner light and external light, the screen starts refining itself, and comes back to the Peh of the Partzuf. It drives the Upper Light out and becomes an empty Partzuf and there he gets an opportunity to again receive light but different, not like before from above downward into the Partzuf, the inner light, and again to refine itself from inside to outside and that’s how he does it, five times on five degrees of coarseness in him.
S. This question sounds Chinese to me, everything that is written here. These are actions in our internality, in our desires?
R. Yes.
S. Do we need to reach a state where we feel that?
R. Yes, you have to feel it. That it descends that it ascends inside.
S. When does a person feel what’s written here?
R. When he has a screen.
S. What does it mean that he has a screen? What’s that state?
R. What does it mean? It means that he can receive in order to bestow.
S. Those are already high degrees.
R. I don’t know, high or not, I’m telling you the condition. If there is a screen you can receive in order to bestow.
S. Meaning you are already in Lishma as you say.
R. I also don’t want to get confused about that.
11. S. (20:60) Asking about the clash of the surrounding light and the rising of the screen from Peh to Rosh, what defines one light from the other and what’s the result of the differentiation from above downward?
R. Everything is determined by the screen. That’s the answer to everything that you said.
12. S. You return on the word decision. What’s the decision we need to make in order to reach the actions of the Creator? Is that a decision that repeats itself?
R. It’s the decision that repeats itself, that it’s different every time. Meaning I want to receive in order to bestow, but every time in different states.
13. S. (21:55) As a result of the clash of the lights in the Guf, they leave the Guf. Where do those lights go?
R. They are around the Partzuf and expect to go back in again.
14. S. (22:18) The Peh de Rosh of Galgalta, is that something that remains constant in all the future developments in the refinement of the screen?
R. The Peh de Rosh of Galgalta, the way that it received the first time, that’s the way it remains also AB, SAG, MA and BON, all those parts of the Partzuf and all the Partzufim that were used, that’s how they remain just the way they are and upon them the next Partzufim are added that we will learn about later.
S. The example you brought where we feel the flavors when we are eating with the Peh and then when you swallow it into the Guf so you don’t feel those flavors. Can you explain more about how that works because we learn that these flavors are in the Guf. From that in which the lights come out, I don’t understand that example.
R. Tanta is felt in the Peh (Taamim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot) all those lights, there are four lights. They are all in the Peh de Rosh. That’s where they are felt. Whatever is below the Peh de Rosh is not felt. It is felt as a fulfillment, but not that fulfillment is divided into many things. You can order a thousand meals and receive them and enjoy them in the Peh, but once they fall into your Tabur you don’t feel anything there. It’s all just one fulfillment.
Reading item number 48.
15. R. (25:08) From above downwards.
Reader continues.
16. S. (27:28) It’s written here that there’s no sum or some part in spirituality and when it starts being refined it has to be refined completely. What defines the Guf in the refinement of each degree?
R. It becomes ready to accept the next light. If it wouldn’t refine itself, just like you don’t reject everything you got back to the host, so you wouldn’t have any way to accept more from him.
S. But as the light expands it can become refined as if in the first refinement, meaning in a normal order. Here there are five degrees of refinement.
R. There’s no other way. He accepted those five portions. Now he must leave them. You understand. It can’t be any other way.
17. S. (28:44) There’s no sum or no partiality in spirituality. What does this principle mean?
R. That each and every spiritual action has to play out till its end. All the way. If it uses coarseness, it must refine itself from all that coarseness, same thing with the screen, same thing with the restriction, everything. There’s no bit, meaning it has to reach zero.
S. What does this principle mean?
R. It means that the will to receive doesn’t agree and can’t stop mid-action and remain in that way. Either go forward or backward. But in its final form.
18. S. (29:46) What is Tanta?
R. It’s initials for Taamim, Nekudot, Tagim, Otiot.
S. Is Tanta against the Ha-Va-Yah?
R. Right.
19. S. (30:14) What does it mean that the force of judgment, the refinement of the lights and the departure of the lights is already mingled in them?
R. The force of judgment means there’s a deficiency in the resemblance between the light and the screen. That’s why the screen ascends from Tabur to Peh and drives the lights outside of them.
S The awareness is in the lack of equivalence? That’s what is called judgment?
R. Yes.
20. S. (31:12) The couplings that when the screen becomes refined, there are new couplings? Or they return to the couplings that took place beforehand where they received the light.
R. No, it’s new couplings. They come from the previous planning in the Rosh.
S. Where do they suddenly get new desires? What’s new there? The light, the desire?
R. Also the light, also the desire. All degrees in spirituality are completely new.
S. What becomes renewed there? Why is there suddenly this new desire?
R. It received flavors, taste. That’s why now when he feels it he has a different attitude towards what he got from the Creator. And then a rejection, restriction, driving the lights back out, rising upward it’s all new.
S. Can you say that it returns to a desire previously had?
R. It never had a desire like that in the past. Now it has a desire after he tasted the light. After the Taamim. It’s something completely different. In spirituality, each and every state, even the adjacent states are very different.
21. S. (33:00) Can we say that the screen is the importance for bestowal?
R. That’s how it expresses itself, that for him it’s important to equalize with the light.
22. S. (33:42) The coarseness of the screen in the Peh, it’s clear that it’s less than the coarseness of the screen in the Guf. In Galgalta, is it bigger than AB?
R. The coarseness of the screen in Galgalta is phase four and in AB it is phase three.
S. In comparison with the screen of the Guf in Peh, what’s the coarseness?
R. It’s the Peh de Rosh, Dalet and in AB it is phase three. What is in Galgalta, it’s the general phase four, but then from Peh and below to the Tabur, it’s phase four on phase three and phase two on one, and root of phase four.
S. The Peh of the screen of Galgalta: what is its coarseness?
R. The general phase four.
S. Why is the screen of the Guf? What does it rise? What is it called?
R. That it refines itself.
S. What is it called that it rises to the root like the Peh.
R. It refines itself until the root. Until Shoresh?
S. It’s written that it’s like the Peh, like the Peh of the initial coarseness of phase one.
R. That was to begin with before it refined itself, after it received everything and the beating of the inner clash that happened on the Tabur and then it rises back up to the Peh, then it’s already in the coarseness of the root.
S. When the light enters from above downward, that’s a clash of direct light and inner light, right? That whole state?
R. Wait what?
S. When the light comes from above downward, the entrance to the Partzuf, that’s the clash of inner light and the surrounding light?
R. No. It’s not a beating. It’s not that clash, the lights that enter from above downward are the light that develop from the Peh and below the Partzuf.
S. The coupling on striking, what’s the striking there? What lights?
R. As usual. Against the will to receive that now receives in order to bestow.
S. Meaning above there’s the direct light and what does it hit, the coarseness of the screen?
R. Yes.
23. S. (36:35) The clash, the beating, it is the light that clashes with the restriction and the clashes on the screen?
R. Yes.
24. S. (36:57) He says those places that come out on the screen during the times of the refinement through the order of the degrees, they are not considered as real couplings. Why?
R. Because they exit during the refining of the screen from the Tabur to Peh.
S. And then?
R. Then their opposite of the true degrees that are developing during the formulation of the screen from Peh to Tabur.
S. Like the first level that came before the process of refinement, those are called the Nekudot. Those are Nekudot? Is what he is claiming here?
R. Every time the lights exit the Partzuf it is called Nekudot.
S. What’s that, some illusion as if it doesn’t exist?
R. Who told you that?
S. Look what he’s saying, they are not considered as real degrees of expansion.
R. Yes, that expands from Peh and below, but they rise from below upward through the Peh and exit, so.
S. Why does he claim that they’re not real, they’re not true?
R. Because it’s lights that were in the Guf and now they exit.
S. Thus, are they not real?
R. Well, that’s how they call them.
25. S. (38:59) What does it mean the degrees that come out of the Partzuf while it refines itself? What does that mean?
R. The places come out of the Partzuf during the refinement because the screen rises from Tabur to Peh, it gets the light out of the Partzuf and those lights come out through the Peh, from the Guf to the Rosh.
S. He calls it degrees.
R Yes, degrees.
S. What is the essence of that, is it a desire?
R. What desire is the difference, it is not light.
S. But it’s levels that come out in the Partzuf, is that a light or a vessel?
R. Are you reading these texts?
S. I’m reading with everybody, I’m trying.
R. Doesn’t seem that you’re reading.
R. Read it at home, twenty times.