📜 THURSDAY PRAYER: GEVURAH – KABBALAH MED-TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
READING: BETWEEN AFTER MIDNINGHT AND DAWN THURSDAY
Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 13. A Pomegranate
LESSON MATERIAL
13. A Pomegranate
I heard during a meal on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, October 5, 1948
A pomegranate, he said, implies to what our sages said, “Even the vain ones among you are filled with Mitzvot like a pomegranate” (Iruvin 19). He said, Rimon [pomegranate] comes from the word Romemut [exaltedness/sublimity], which is above reason. And the meaning will be that the “The vain among you are filled with Mitzvot.” The measure of the filling is the extent to which one can go above reason, and this is called Romemut.
There is emptiness only in a place where there is no existence, as in “The earth hangs on nothing.” You find that what is the measure of the filling of the empty place? The answer is, the extent to which one raises oneself above reason.
This means that the emptiness should be filled with exaltedness, meaning with above reason, and to ask of the Creator to give him that strength. This will mean that all the emptiness was created, meaning it comes to a person to feel this way—that he is empty—only in order to fill it with the Romemut of the Creator. In other words, one is to take everything above reason.
This is the meaning of the verse, “God has made it that He will be feared.” This means that these thoughts of emptiness come to a person in order for one to have a need to take upon himself faith above reason. And for this we need the help of the Creator. It follows that at that time, one must ask the Creator to give him the power to believe above reason.
It turns out that it is precisely then that one needs the Creator to help him, since the exterior mind lets him understand the opposite. Hence, at that time, one has no other choice but to ask the Creator to help him.
It is said about this, “One’s desire overcomes him every day; and were it not for the Creator, he would not overcome it.” It follows that only then is the state when one understands that no one will help him but the Creator. And this is “God has made it that He will be feared.” The matter of fear is discerned as faith, and only then is one in need of the salvation of the Creator.