THURSDAY: HESED-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: FROM MIDNIGHT TO DAWN THURSDAY
Rabash. What Is the Difference between General and Individual in the Work of the Creator?. 33 (1988)
Morning Lesson July 25, 2023
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation, which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio.
Part 1:
Rabash. Article No. 33 (1988). What Is the Difference between General and Individual in the Work of the Creator?
Rabash. Article No. 33 (1988) (00:54) Our sage wrote….
R. (31:54) Anyone want to say anything? An impression perhaps?
1. S. (32:08) The feeling of self love is not evident before we come to the feeling of self-reception. Why does self-reception separate us from the Creator? There’s a giver, there’s a receiver, why are we separated? Why is there inequivalence? Why can’t I receive delight and pleasure? What is the problem? Here in the article in the beginning I wrote this question but if you follow the sentence he tries to answer all those questions he says that this is why we need to engage in Torah and Mitzvot to really come to these discernments. Then he begins to speak about what faith is and also the phase of receiving reward. Afterwards when we receive or reveal this bit by bit, the question is should there be something on our part? Should we do something on our part so that this evil is revealed to us bit by bit, should we initiate something? Should we pray for it even though we are seemingly in this loop, in this closed circle of receiving in order to receive all the time?
R. Thank you. Anyone else can add.
2. S. (34:10) When a person feels that the situation is not as bad how can he justify providence and say that the Creator is good that does good?
R. It’s a question, truly. There’s a difference between feeling and the attitude toward the cause of the feeling. Let’s say a doctor, you come to a doctor with a wound on your hand and they tell you that we can’t leave it like that, that we have to open it up, so they open it and they extract all the pus and you speak badly about the doctor, no. On the contrary, you speak well about him, you pay him, you go home until it heals. We see here that there is the attitude toward what’s happening and the attitude toward the one who caused it and the attitude toward the one who heals. So what are you asking ?
S. How in our work when I feel bad in the situation where I feel bad, how do I justify him nevertheless. How do I justify providence? It says that the Creator is acting with me like a doctor as you said it as the good that does good. How do I separate between what I’m experiencing and understanding that is something higher that helps me?
R. According to the laws the Creator places, placed in creation that I now feel how close I am to him or how distant I am from Him but He’s giving me the feeling of attitude, closeness, or distance to determine my inner states.
S. When a bad state comes, do I have to say that it’s coming from the Creator?
R. Certainly.
S. Because in the allegory with the doctor, the doctor says there isn’t any harm to me. I come to him and he does good?
R. No, the Creator is the cause of everything.
S. The bad feeling I get also comes from Him. I have to point to Him?
R. Certainly, there’s none else besides Him.
3. S. (37:28) If we can elaborate on what the friend started you said there’s a correction that we can’t discover the Creator as an evildoer so what happens during the bad feeling because we have to discover that it’s from the Creator?
R. In spiritual work we can certainly say that although everything comes from the Creator, this is what I feel. I feel bad and the bad is in me, it depends on my attitude to the Creator.
S. The correction is in taking it in myself?
R. That’s not a correction, it’s only the beginning. The correction is when I can later associate my attitude to the Creator according to the measure of correction.
S. How should we discover the Creator? He seemingly acted and then He acted badly and then He hid himself so we wouldn’t discover him as an evil doer. What is our right response to everything that comes from Him?
R. That ‘There is None Else Besides Him’ and I can’t reveal Him for the time being because I don’t have the power to reveal Him as the one who only acts as the good who does good.
S. How does it turn Him into the ‘good that does good’ if He acted toward, if He gave me a bad feeling?
R. He worked toward giving me the bad feeling in order to give me the knowledge of the place that needs correction.
S. This awareness, from where do I get it? This awareness that I’m not remaining in the bad feeling and I have to turn it to myself to the good, where do I get this awareness?
R. From the awareness itself. How can it be that you ascribe anything bad to the Creator?
S. Well, that’s the first thing we need to do is to say that it’s from the Creator?
R. I received it from the Creator because ‘There’s None Else Besides Him’ and I received this from the Creator because He is the good that does good. Where’s the lack of connection here? I am either disconnected from the Creator or I feel incorrectly.
S. In other words there has to be a promise of He is good and does good to begin with?
R. Yes.
4.S. (40:29) I wanted to ask about an insight that repeats itself in the article. He says that in order for the will to receive a person is willing to do anything. He reiterates it in several places. What is this that from a place of the will to receive he’s willing to do anything and then suddenly he should want something else?
R. What do you mean, will want something else? What are you talking about?
S. From a state of the will to receive being willing to do anything to satisfy itself, even if its promised the next world. I will still do anything to satisfy the will to receive. What does this state happen to where the will to receive even thinks in the direction of bestowal, wants in the direction of bestowal. He writes that there’s no chance in the world that he will be able to do this unless he is given this from above?
R. Yes.
S. How does this transition happen? From where does the need of bestowal come?
R. When will he feel the need to bestow?
S. Yes.
R. Meaning that at some point he will be certain that from the Creator only the good comes and he is feeling it as bad. Then it’s most likely he will ask for his sense to be corrected.
S. How does this first stage of recognition of evil happen? Over the feeling over the satisfaction of the will to receive happen? Are you willing to do anything only to satisfy the will to receive? How does recognition of evil happen there?
R. Together with the good or bad that you are receiving now you also feel the source of this good or bad and then you wish to separate between the act itself and the impression from the action.
S. But when the consideration is all about satisfying the will to receive there’s no satisfying the Source you want to satisfy the what I receive you’re not even considering the source?
R. If you’re still in such things you’re not asking that you’re still a baby you simply cries when it feels bad that’s it.
S. But there’s no weeping and suffering. Those that want to be satisfied with the will to receive they’re not crying that they’re suffering. I’m asking where is the first point of recognition of evil in relation to the will to receive?
R. The first point begins from the awareness that the one who causes everything in him is good and He causes the bad so he would correct his vessels of perception.
5. S. (44:11) First of all, it is a fascinating article. He takes us to many insights on how the person comes to a recognition of evil and correction and in the last sentence he says the fact that he has to aim is not in his hand and only the Creator can help here. In other words, any situation, whatever it is, a person asks for the correct help at that moment he moves to the next phase. if he didn’t ask he missed it?
R. Meaning he didn’t reach a correction yet if he’s not asking he will not have correction?
S. Yes.
R. When does he not ask? When he can feel that the evil is in him and it depends on him.
S. But he doesn’t explain, at least I don’t see how I come to a state where we ask for help every moment that if we have this everything will be fine?
R. We’re not asking for help because we can’t connect these two things together. How can something bad come out of the Creator?
S. This is where we are protected. The father watches over the son and he goes to the boss and tells him to find my son don’t tell him it’s me he’s guarding us so we don’t blame the Creator?
R. Yes, we can say so.
S. How can we come to a state where we ask for help at every stage?
R. Perhaps that’s what we’re lacking recognition of evil, where we asked to rid ourselves of the state and not from the cause.
S. I’m sorry I don’t understand the answer. We want to come to a state where we see if we will understand that everything comes from the Creator and we don’t deny it?
R. We do not turn to the Creator in order to get rid of the lack of connection with the Creator, we only want to get rid of the bad feeling, and that is not enough.
S. What do we need in order to get rid of the lack of connection with the Creator?
R. We need to understand. We need to understand that the bad feeling comes, it’s not bad, it points to the true bad. Not that we feel bad, but the place that we feel bad, that we receive this feeling because of the lack of compatibility between our vessels and the Creator’s vessels. That’s why we feel bad. When we cry, let’s say we turn to him and we ask, we need to ask for the correction of the vessels that we’re lacking in the understanding of the situation and understanding the situation. What we lack is to understand it on what we depend. Let’s say that I take a bitter medicine and I cry about the medication, ‘why do I have to swallow this bitter pill?’ But, I shouldn’t cry about that.
S. Why do I blame the doctor? What should I cry about?
R. I have to blame myself for not following the doctor’s orders and that is why I am now sick, the reason is that I didn’t listen to him. I didn’t listen to the doctor, and that is why I am sick and that is why I feel bad now and I have to take a bitter pill and get better only by this.
S. That is the question, how to be in constant demand for the doctor, tell me what to do. I want to remain healthy? Do you want me to remain healthy?
R. The general answer is through the society. There is nothing you can do. Through the society you get to the real recognition. Here, there is a lot to scrutinize, why the society can build for us the right perception. Why specifically through the society we can rise above our feeling, by what we rise.
6. S. (50:50) Baal HaSulam writes to us that in order to understand that we are sick we need to study that we are sick. He also writes that the Torah also exhausts the person. How is the matter of the exhausting of the person bring us to the recognition that we’re sick?
R. No, it’s actually not the reason. Rather,we study, connect, act and operate from within the group and from this from the study in the connection between us,from this comes to us a gradual recognition of evil, that what we are missing is the right discernment. How to look at the situation, how to see within this situation who is the operator, who is the cause, and on what our healing depends. That is it. So what are you asking?
S. By losing our power this worked at exhausts, how can we discover the recognition of evil that we are sick?
R. The fact that I am sick, I do not need special work for it, the Creator reveals it to me even without an effort on my part. Now, what exactly is the reason that I feel bad? This is already the problem. This is specifically the problem that the evil inclination that awakens in me separates me from the source of health from the Creator and because of this I feel bad. What do I need to do? How to bring me to that source, the source of the good. I have to change myself from receiving to giving and accordingly I will grow closer to the Creator and feel good.
7. S. (53:54) I want to continue to scrutinize in this direction. By asking the Creator not to condemn him our entire correction asking the creating numbers to agree to what he’s doing with us, is this the whole?
R. No.
S. What else is there?
R. We have to find the source of the illness. The illness does not point to you being sick but to you being far from the Creator, it points to the reason, the reason. Like the doctors, they constantly discover new things. So here is this bacteria here is this problem this is what we do to our bodies etc. in other words we look for the reason.
S. No translation.
R. In general, they tell us what the reason is that you are growing farther from the society the Creator wants to bring you closer to the complete correction. so you would connect with everyone as one man without one heart without any difference. you are of course unwilling to do this and then in this feeling that you’re not in a complete connection this is already dealing with this is called being sick. Each time do it, extend that you are not ready, that you are far etc . Accordingly the illness is determined it could be just a cold or something worse etc.
S. If I understand you correctly, if there’s a situation that I feel bad in it or far from the Creator then I have to run to the society?
R. But it is a problem. It may be enough for you for a millisecond but not more than that. you need many inner proofs to yourself so that you would really be a dedicated servant to the creator so that you would want to approach him and sympathize with the corrections.
S. Is it both to go to the society and ask the Creator to help me to enter the society more?
R. Yes. You need to read more and more of these articles of Rabash. There is no place in all of our literature that speaks of these things the way that he wrote it. Although you cannot jump into these articles right away. They seem to us like everything is straightforward but they are very very deep and it becomes clarified only if a person is willing to go with faith above reason. Meaning his articles we haven’t even revealed to ourselves how much they change you, how they are actually written for our generation, for the generation of the Messiah. Only to this, it seems very simple, very kind of weak. Who am I? What am I? But from within, inside of him he stood at the level of those giant ones who were in the first generations. He is really so, you will see. Those who are rewarded with seeing, those who merritt seeing.
8. S. (58:30) How do I start to read these articles above reason? What can I do? I want to do what you said. I feel that there is a great deal of depth to them that I’m not able to grasp. How do I approach it? How do I try to do something in order to feel and grasp what he’s trying to give us?
R. It does not work intellectually. There is also the matter of time. You have to go through several years until every single little thing is absorbed in the feeling. I’m trying to say that only persistence, persistence, that is it. anything but leave. If we relate it this way, to the treatment and the doctor, all the doctors are doing in us and then are ready for the treatments and we are rewarded with a healthy state.
9. S. (01:00:09) You told a friend sometimes external intervention can last for a quarter of a second and later I heard you correctly say that you have to be a properly devoted servant to the Creator. So what is the advice? What can I do to be a devoted servant of the Creator but I will not need that external help?
R. Annulment, consent above the intellect.
10. S. (01:03:01) You said that if the Creator shows a person something bad that is the place that he should ask for correction?
R. That quality is bad in the Creator, that is where he needs the correction?
S. Yes, so if he shows something bad relative to the other that is clear that is something that you need to create the attitude to the other. but there are many instances in life where he feels bad the Creator shows them bad but it has nothing to do with the attitude to the other?
R. In relation to the Creator, who else causes this?
S. I have to correct it even if I don’t understand the relationship to the Creator?
R. Yes.
S. It seems like a leap. What is the difference between the correction of the, like we say we cannot correct the attitude of the Creator except through the attitude to the other. What is the difference between that and working directly to the Creator? I don’t have the.That is not clear.
R. It is also not clear to me what you are asking.
S. When the person feels bad relative to the other, then the Creator shows him the place for the correction,that is clear. However there are instances in life where there’s nothing to do with the other but he still feels bad. You said that you have to correct the attitude to the Creator and we say that society is the means. That is the magnifying glass that I can do my analysis and understand but here I’m standing before the Creator. I have no grasp in it, what kind of correction do I have with the Creator if not through the society?
R. We get all of our influences from the Creator, the Creator is the source of everything. What we need is to try to identify him. What is the source that causes us the bad feeling? Well, so what is the problem?
S. That is from above down but from below up my correction is always through the Ten. There are instances in life where a person feels bad but it has nothing to do with the Ten so I don’t understand what is the correction. What is the correct Creator showing?
R. The correction can only come through the Ten if a person corrects his attitude towards the Ten, in the end he corrects his attitude toward the Creator.
S. Meaning there Is a correction where a person directly understands that it’s through the other and there is an indirect correction. Let’s say a person has no money to feed his children does it have anything to do with the Ten? But the correction is still through the Ten, I connect with them and I guess this thing will work itself out or not. Is that how it is? Not indirectly?
R. Yes, let’s put it this way.
11. S. (01:06:42) Let’s say a person comes to the morning lesson and he feels distant from the Creator and it gives him a bad feeling of suffering. What does he need to do with this bad feeling now? He feels that the bad is inside of him then he turns the corner and receives an answer that he needs to exert some more. How to react to the fact that I need to exert more. Automatically it seem that I need to exert more, is this the correct reaction from a person.
R. I need to ask the Creator for adhesion, more connection, more connection and more connection. So what my [ no translation]
S. No translation
R. Yes.
S. It is as if he was sent to do work now. Now you see me far from the Creator. I have to make a different labor now? That’s the answer that I got?
R. Yes.
S. The question is do I need to leave the Creator alone and put him aside and start exerting according to what I feel with my senses, that’s what was depicted in me?
R. I don’t know, can you feel that you are free from the influence of the Creator?
S. No, under that influence you receive guidance when you are acting from this guidance that the Creator is letting you know that you need to exert more in order to come out of your state. You must purify the vessels you might exert more you have to put in a certain effort that is depicted in you?
R. The correction of the vessels is specifically by attributing all of your senses to the Creator more and more so.
S. What does that mean?
R. It means you probably did not connect everything that you feel as coming from the Creator. Now you have to check, where are all your contacts? Are you in contact with him or not?
S. A person feels distant. He sees a certain distance from the Creator. He sees what bothers him the fact that he is not okay, he is not exerting enough, he’s not serious enough. Everything that can be depicted in the person to portray him as a sinner. The question is how does he work with it? What does he need to do with how wrong he sees himself on all accounts?
R. He sees that he is wrong because not all the senses, all the thoughts and desires and calculations are connected to the Creator.
S. Right and what is the remedy?
R. A prayer.
S. Prayer?
R. Yes.
S. But the feeling is as if you are being thrown out of the prayer? They say they tell you go exert?
R. Exertion in a prayer.
S. What am I asking?
R. There is no other excursion or other labor in the end, it is all about a prayer. When I’m asked to connect it to the creator with all of my hands and legs with all my thoughts and feelings and all the calculations.
S. When the person feels that he wants to be connected to the Creator as you said with all of his feelings he feels that he has to do it through the friends. The attitude that he can correct and express is his attitude to the group he needs to build such a system where he can truly be adhered to the Creator?
R. Yes.
S. It’s through the Ten, through the group and he feels that it labor its an effort he has to put in but its hard for the friends and not as a prayer for the Creator he has to exert widely toward all of creation towards his friends towards the people in the world that he needs to correct the system between himself and the Creator. It is a broad feeling. What does he have to do with it? Go and do this action?
R. Yes, very simple.
S. That was the question: it appears like a lot of work?
R. No no no, it’s not a lot of work the Creator does it at once. We have to be ready to give ourselves up to Him and He in one moment will make all the corrections. This is the reforming light.
12. S. (01:13:10) First, what does it mean to aim to bring contentment to heaven? To aim to bring contentment for the sake of heaven?
R. The Creator will enjoy. On my part, it is regarding us operating or working in order to bestow.
S. Then he writes that a person has to labor and only he who labors remains in complete faith. What kind of labor is required if everything is done by the Creator?
R. No, no, no, What does it mean that the Creator does everything? The effort is what I want to achieve? I want to come to bestow upon the Creator. that’s it. Bestow upon the Creator. What am I bestowing ? What am I giving to the Creator? Let’s say I’m asking him to correct my vessels of bestowal so I will work entirely to bestow?
S. To constantly come back to that state that I just want to bestow to be in bestowal?
R. Yes, so that I will be able to bestow.
S. That’s the effort?
R. For now.
13. S. (01:14:48) What is the work of the collective and the work of the individual here?
R. It might change but usually the collective means we are aimed towards one goal and want to connect in it, in order to influence the source, in order to give to the source to bestow upon the source to the point that each one asks for this.
S. In the beginning of the article it’s written that man there’s one that works an hour and a day and then the other more and according to that you can measure his faith, so what is complete faith?
R. That we relate all of our deeds to the Creator, all the thoughts, all of the causes that happen to him, everything is connected to the Creator with a single source that’s called complete faith.
S. That is something we reach through individual work or the work of the collective?
R. We come to it as a result of our individual efforts. That is it.
14. S. ( 01:16:42) We learned that faith is bestowal. What is the meaning of faith in this article? Do we need to do something different when we talk about the vessel of bestowal wanting it or let’s say wanting faith? What is actually the difference in this?
R. He says faith has a general name. it is the connection to the Creator.
15. S. (01:17:35) It is written in the first paragraph that after a person reaches faith he is already a whole person so what should we understand from that?
R. That faith gives everything to a person because it is his connection to the Creator and openly I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me and the adhesion between them.
16 S. (01:18:37) It is written in the article that whoever makes efforts not to separate in faith in Him even though he feels bad in providence he gets a reward. Is the reward the ability to raise a prayer even though I feel bitterness?
R. That could be too but you might already feel adhesion and then from adhesion you raise the prayer.
17. S. (01:19:18) What does it mean to devote yourself to the Creator? Is that letting him work letting him work inside of me?
R. It means to give all the points of contact, all of the ends, all of the causes and consequences to the upper force and to participate in that completely, completely, in a devoted manner. That is a very great degree and of course it is the result of the prior corrections to it.
18. S. (01:20:21) The state of a feeling of an illness, the group shows a lot of proof about your illness and in the group of person accumulates forces on how to use these forces correctly. Let’s say friends who left the group or friends that want to come back or only want to come to the lessons?
R. The question is not clear and I can’t answer it. In general, you need to check the clear criteria upon which you accept your friends who have already left. They need to suit the same laws that you define in the group and then everything will be in the norm.
19. S. (01:21:38) Knowing that we know where is the evil, why are we not ready to facilitate this medicine? To facilitate the process of receiving the medicine from the Creator?
R. This medicine seems to us as too bitter, too bitter. That is why we cannot swallow it, we cannot take it.
20. S. (01:22:38) I heard that the Rabash sometimes recognized himself as complete evil, but many times we do not get there, we feel that we are righteous and we deny that state. What is the first step in order to start denying our will to receive, our evil inclination?
R. To connect to the friends, otherwise you won’t have the vessels, you won’t have the foundation upon which you can change anything.
21. S. (01:23:26) How can we feel the Torah and the Mitzvot internally in order to rise above my will to receive and how to ask the Creator to help me to help me do it correctly?
R. To rise above Torah and Mitzvot meaning that’s in order to bestow, if we change the usage of it to in order to bestow then we rise by them. That’s what needs to be done. That is why we need to make an effort to come closer to the Creator and then to ask him that He will help us be in bestowal, in faith above reason in connection among the friends for them. By that to rise above our ego so you know it’s rising above the ego.
22. S. (01:24:52) I saw that the inner intention, the most precise one, is specifically in the bad feelings and once the bad feeling goes by the sharpness disappears. How do you reach such a work that constantly you have the bad state so you can always add that sharpness of perception?
R. It depends on our vessels, with my vessels. They perceive how lowly I am in relation to the Creator’s demands, to the same extent, I feel myself that I come out of the limits of these demands and I need to correct myself.
23. S. (01:26:22) It is written here that whoever can make efforts and say that the Creator sent them the bad and that it was for his own good he remains in faith. To the extent that he can say that the state that he is in was sent from the Creator. In what is our effort? What does it mean that the person can say that these are the friends and I’m just in my mind aiming that is for my good. What is this effort?
R. What is this effort?
S. He writes that whoever can make efforts and see that the Creator is sending the bad is for his own benefit and he remains in faith so what is our effort?
R. Our effort is to remain in faith and the Creator constantly changes the conditions and every time upon the new conditions we need to try and remain faith, meaning in addition between us and from that to the Creator.
S. Is this effort intellectual that I convinced myself that the Creator is good and now he bombs some place and now he did something bad and I just switch in my head and say that it is for the good? What is this effort?
R. The effort is that I want to be connected with all of my friends and to connect in such a way that the Creator will appear in front of us, as you hear it is all emotional.
24. S. (01:28:47) There is a known story that there was a village where everyone was healthy and they didn’t need a doctor. Then a skin doctor came to the village and suddenly there’s a long line and everyones sick and everybody has a skin disease and they want the doctor to heal them. Today we read an article of Rabash that he also mentions that healing, that it can only come from the Torah as the healing potion and if you didn’t know there’s a doctor’s strike today because of the state of the country so I want to ask you when will we, the nation of Israel will reach the awareness that only the Creator can heal us?
R. Ask the people of Israel. I don’t know.
25. S. (01:30:15) What is the difference between the work of the individual and the collective?
R. There is an essential difference between the work of the individual and the work in the general. In the work of the general we need to connect everyone we need to examine through in comparison to everyone, to the general of the people and in the work of the individual we only examine the individual. That is one thing, the other thing is how to observe it. The work of the public is that we all connect and be with one man in one heart as Adam, Adam HaRishon. The work of the individual is that each and every person is part of 600,000 parts that must see himself and correct himself first of all. That is it. There is a lot of material about it. It is not clear all the way because we have still not reached the time that we need to apply this to realize it.
26. S. (01:32:09) In what cases does the correction happen when we speed it up? When I try to discover the illness and the lack of the correction in me or when I ask the Creator to correct those desires?
R. On the one hand, I need to correct myself to be the correct connector between the group and the Creator. To suit myself to the Creator and the group and I am in between the connector between them and that is my work and to pray.
S. Do I need to help the friends correct themselves or is that the work inside of me?
R. No,I need to examine myself. To the extent that I am suited to be in connection with him. To the extent I am able to be in connection with all of the vessels, all of our Kli, to the Creator.
27. S. (01:33:33) The fact that everything comes from the Creator makes me be indifferent and passive a lot of the time. According to the example of the father that comes to the factory there,what action should I do before my father goes to my boss and talks to him?
R. To try and be the connector between the father’s desire and the owner, which is me, which is me, I’m the connector. I myself have to make a correction up on myself to bring the connection between the Creator and the one that is activated.
28. S. (01:34:57) Faith is connection with the Creator in an open way. How can we exist in the connection with Him and that it will be for the collective and now our own fantasy?
R. When we work together in the connection between and then connecting to the Creator and then it turns out that we reach a state that we have reached the correct and true work.
29. S. (01:36:02) The article is special in the show,it tells us that the gentle mothers cook their children and eat them without letting the other kids eat them how they will to receive, how evil it is. Then it becomes more evil and so how do you reach such a recognition, we don’t have those problems but how do we get rid of the will to receive?
R. That is the work in the group there is nothing more. That a person needs to see the extent to which he needs to be included with friends to a single desire, a single vessel, a single goal and to participate with them.
S. Then he can discover how much the will to receive is evil and would want to get rid of it?
R. Yes, because he will discover how his will to receive does not let him be included.
S. Then he will be able to turn to the Creator?
R. Yes.