MONDAY: TIFERET-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: between after midnight and sunrise of Monday.
Baal HaSulam. The Freedom
Morning Lesson June 17, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. The Freedom. (The Freedom of the Individual)
Reading “The Freedom of the Individual..”
1. S. (02:20) He writes about the freedom of the individual and he says that it’s only around the first factor, which is the source.
R. Yes?
S. If I understood, his freedom is only about choosing the environment, not himself.
R. Yes, that’s how he changes himself, through the environment.
S. Yes but nevertheless, he goes back saying that the freedom of the individual is defined in its source where he has absolutely no choice, it’s ‘copy-paste’ from the previous generations.
R. Right, but still it can be changed by adhering to a new environment.
S. To change it, man’s goal is to change his source?
R. Could be, now we’re not speaking about the goal but the change, that you can make a change through the environment.
S. Why does he define the freedom of the individual as only the source and not the environment?
R. Because to begin with it only depends on the source, afterwards it changes through the environment.
S. I didn’t get it, in truth I didn’t get it.
R. Soon, you will.
Reading (04:16 – 05:55) “The General Shape of the Progenitor Is Never Lost”
2. S. (06:05) Can you explain what it means that the conceptions turn into concepts?
R. Gradually these concepts go into a person and through the concepts, the intellect, it goes deeper inside and they become tendencies, let’s says habits, that a person acquires in some society, in some environment. Later on, it becomes, as if, his inner qualities that he wasn’t born with, but he into what he had before.
S. It says that “the conceptions of the progenitors over hundreds of years become tendencies and forces within the person”. So I don’t understand those words, what are “conceptions” and “the progenitors”?
R. That what we had in their mind for the children becomes as the first concept, it’ something natural.
S. Can you give me an example so we can understand it better, what are “conceptions in the progenitors that become tendencies in the sons”, for example?
R. I don’t know, now, how to
S. I just want to understand if he’s speaking here about bodies, fathers and sons, or states that the person is going through.
R. It is states that a person is going.
S. Internality.
R. Yes.
S. So all these generations are life forms the person is going through and each of those life forms the conceptions are immersed in him?
R. Yes, it’s immersed in him and he takes it as things that are a part of his nature, already.
S. Okay, that’s as far as the internality of things but as far as the externality of fathers and sons, in this world, in the bodies, does it work the same way?
R. I guess so.
S. How could conceptions or insights that a person experiences in a lifetime, they go to his sons, it’s not genetics, his son is alive somewhere?
R. I don’t understand, if his son live somewhere else, so he gave him his genes, his influences, who knows, also as much as they connected today; why do you think that if he’s not at one place but in two different places, and in two different worlds, so it doesn’t affect one another?
S. Influences?
R. Of course, no doubt.
3. S. (09:02) There is the example you give sometimes with little kids who pick up the phone and know how to activate it without being taught, that there are things that they acquired as an instinct.
R. Yes, yes this we can see in our senses what’s happening today. You don’t want to learn it, if you try to explain like someone explained it to you, that push on that, push on that to that. No,no no, no, no, he wants to figure it out himself and he understands a principle from inside, it is wondrous, but that’s what we see.
4. S. (09:52) What is then, ‘the freedom of the individual’?
R. You want to read that excerpt again?
S. We could read it again.
R. “So it is that each source had taken the primary shape of the progenitor and had taken on a new shape as a result of the three factors that were added to it, and which changed significantly, The general shape of the progenitor, read it.
Reading: “Now we have come to a thorough and accurate understanding of the freedom of the individual. However, this relates only to the first factor, the source, which is the first substance of every person, meaning all the characteristics we inherit from our fathers and our forefathers and by which we differ from each other. This is because even when thousands of people share the same environment in such a way that the other three factors affect all of them equally, you will still not find two people who share even one attribute. This is because each of them has his or her own unique source. This is like the source of the wheat: Although it changes a great deal by the three latter factors, it still retains the preliminary shape of wheat and will never take on the form of another species.”
R. Yes, it’s very interesting, let’s say we see all the Chinese, all the Africans, let’s say, all the Jews, all the Turkish, no matter what, millions; there’s still in each and every group remains something on its own.
5. S. (12:00) The word ‘freedom’ is a little confusing, we typically ascribe ‘freedom’ to the concept of ‘free choice’ and here it seems like he’s using the word ‘freedom’ but there’s no talking of free choice there’s something predetermined that makes each one unique, in and of itself, but he didn’t choose it, he doesn’t control it, there’s no freedom whatsoever?
R. Correct.
S. So why is he calling it the freedom of the individual?
R. Because that’s what separates him from the others.
S. So it is the uniqueness of the individual, not this freedom of the individual?
R. Let’s keep going, correct question.
6. S. (12:41) The Creator said, “because I need a virtuous people” and He took Israel and dispersed them around the world and each one of Israel absorbs into himself a quality of one of the peoples and came back to Israel”. So the question is: how Israel’s work in sanctity serves that nation and serve that Israel correctly?
R. Still don’t see it, the question is to the point, but I still cannot say that there’s an answer for that. You have part of the nation that is wondering off somewhere between the nations and have no idea that they are part of Israel, and when will that actually happen?
S. I’m talking here right now in the ten, in Bnei Baruch, in the current state, each one has a nation in him, one of the nation’s of the world so everyone has a nation within them one of the nations of the world. How here in the work in the ten, together, can he work correctly as an Israeli, on one hand, and how does he give to the nations of the world what they need to receive from Israel from inside the ten right now?
R. I don’t have the ability to explain that, it is a right question, we will solve it.
7. S. (14:24) Can we say that the source of the wheat is constant and the source of man changes?
R. No, I don’t think so.
S. Because we see here that the qualities that go from father to son keep changing although the wheat will always remain a wheat.
R. Also the wheat has some changes, like in man.
S. Yes but it’s kernel, it’s seed?
R. Also, a man cannot become a dog or a cat, it is the same as the wheat.
S. Yet we see that all of the developments start from the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, there’s a development of the source itself and the wheat remains wheat but a man develops he becomes something else?
R. No, he remains a man, he remains a man.
8. S. (15:35) So it means that there’s no evolution, there’re slight changes within each and every species but there’s no evolution where one species develops from another species?
R. No, we also see that it doesn’t happen.
S. There’s a whole theory about it.
R. Well, theory.
9. S. (16:09) So again about the question of the freedom of the individual, in the beginning he explains to us that there is the source and then there are factors that influence it, and then there are things that change to the law development, and now he says suddenly that there’s the freedom of the individual and you have a source that nothing can influence. So what does change in us, what kind of change are we have supposed to go through as we develop?
R. We need, through a social influence on us, become people that understand that the main thing for them is incorporating into one, through their environment.
S. What is my source, what is the source of men, what is our source ultimately that doesn’t change
R. That you are a man.
S. That I am a man?
R. Yes.
S. That is something that I have to discover, that I am a man.
10. S. (17:27) We have a Congress ahead of us by Asia, a Congress about Prayer, and also today in the afternoon lesson and throughout the entire week, we continue to work on the prayer
R. When is the lesson, at noon?
S. Yes, today we have a lesson at noon until 1:30pm, we have fifteen minute preparation.
R. Will it be a lesson here or as usual through Arvut?
S. There’s a physical lesson here in Petach Tikva or anywhere else all the friends will gather, otherwise it will be virtual. We also announce that the Saturday noon lessons will be with preference for women, this means that women are going to be allowed to ask questions, invited to ask questions, and in Petach Tikva if both men and women are studying in a couple, then there’s a preference for the woman to come here and watch, and if they are men who study by themselves, then of course they are obligated to be here and we will go down to breakfast. And we wanted to announce an update that the Moscow group has gathered physically and their part of the content of the meal is to lead the meal, and that’s what is ahead of us.
R. Okay, is that it?
11. S. (19:19) A question from the Australian team about the Congress, first of all, they want to update about the exercises of composing a prayer and they’re going to bring it up in the morning lesson and they’re asking, what is this state that we want to attain in this Congress?
R. I don’t know, that’s you are organizing the Congress is that correct, who are who is organizing?
S. Asian groups are leading it.
12. S. (20:16) We spoke to you at the beginning of this process.
R. When was that?
S. About a month ago, you said, we asked what are you expecting, how should we come out of this Congress, and you said we will be together and we will have one prayer, that we will come out of this together.
R. Yes?
S. And now we are going through a process with the Rabash articles, we are becoming Rabash’s students and he’s taking us all the way to the Congress, from the prayer, from the work. So the question is, how can this preparation prepare us for the Congress, how will we come out it?
R. Start discussing it in your own, amongst yourself, that’s it, why do I have to be continued to be mixed in this, what do you think?
S. You are right. Maybe the friends in Asia, wait and give us some details: what’s planed in the Congress, what’s planned up to the Congress, for example they mentioned the prayer exercises and we heard about it today as well, maybe we can clarify it.
R. Yes, please.
13. S. (22:29) As was mentioned, the are prayer exercises which are about compiling a short prayer, I think it was about a month ago when Rav give this direction about common prayers and make them as general as possible aimed a the general Kli, two or three sentences. We are going to collect those prayers and use them as the prayers in the preparation for the morning lesson. Beyond that, we have a clip which is made of gifts of love, each ten can record themselves singing a Nigun and send them to us and we will collect those clips and select clips will be screened during the meals, Gathering of Friends. All those are exercises that we think will help the world Kli prepare themselves for building a true, deep deficiency for the prayer, the prayers that we wish to be at the end of the Congress. So the more friends who will participate and send us clips and prayers, we will be able to reach together this common deficiency, as Rav guided us and we will have this Congress in such a way that that prayer that rises from it will go straight to the Creator, L’chaim!
R. L’Chaim.