NETZACH: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN
Baal HaSulam. The Peace
Morning Lesson June 10, 2022, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 2:
Baal HaSulam. The Peace (The Wheel of Transformation of the Form. start with: “Any state that the generation is in is like a book,”)
The Peace article, The Wheel of Transformation of Form (00:20)
1. R. (00:24) Yes, any state that the generation is in is like a book.
Reading Continues: (00:34) “Since every state the generation…” Twice
2. R. (04:07) Well, it’s as we learn afterwards in the Partzufim, spiritual Partzufim, that first we make a restriction, screen, reflected light, calculation, meaning the upper light, and then we receive in order to bestow, and then we can receive from the store as it says.
3. S. (04:28) It turns out that this action of the restriction, the screen, the reflected light, is as we learned in the previous article? It said the pleasure itself will cover the connection with the Creator?
R. Yes.
S. How can we do it precisely? Because we got accustomed to receiving only the pleasure. How is the pleasure built from the connection with Him?
R. Through the friends, through the friends, otherwise you will never be able to perform an act of bestowal.
S. That’s the payment in this store, that I will be in connection with the Creator?
R. Yes this is the payment. This is why between you and the Creator there are people, the group, humanity, and you by paying them, you are receiving from the Creator.
4. S. (05:45) Why does a person need to borrow? Can we just pay right away when we take?
R. Let’s wait for the rest, and then you will see if your question is appropriate, pertinent, or not.
Reading Continues: (06:12) “Rabi Akiva depicts two kinds of people…”
5. R. (07:48) In other words, whatever happens we see that through bad deeds and through the good deeds we nevertheless come to a state where all of us are improving, and all of us learn how to borrow correctly from the shopkeeper, right? What is he telling us here? That the deeds of the wicked themselves against their will, lead to the good deeds. On one hand on the other hand those who want to borrow by all means let them come and borrow. In other words we have before us two ways and nevertheless we advance in both but there is a short way and a long way, but it is also a way.
6. S. (08:51) In the end everyone becomes the one who wishes to borrow?
R. Yes, along the way of the wicked learn that we want to borrow, and we come and borrow. Because otherwise you cannot reach the end of correction you have to come with the right vessels.
7. S. (09:18) Why do I need to take a loan, why a debt, why can I not pay right away?
R. How?
S. Well there is some sort of an equal value to each pleasure, how is it determined?
R. It is determined by the screen and the reflected light, to what extent do you want to pay for the pleasure you are receiving. To what extent is the pleasure that you are receiving directed in order to bestow. To what extent are you receiving in order to pass it on to the other.
S. What does it mean that I pass it to the other?
R. That you want to bestow upon them, and this is why you come to the Creator, and you want to receive.
S. Here we are talking about all the pleasures in general?
R. Of course it does not matter which, anything besides what is necessary for existence. What is necessary for existence is called neither praised nor condemned. This you can receive in order to exist on a minimal level but anything beyond it you already need to calculate. Besides the existence, your own subsistence you already get pleasure. Subsistence for existence you receive it without pleasure in order to exist.
S. If I am in contact with the Creator with the friends and the Creator through the ten, how can I measure here and how can I receive this pleasure?
R. This is already work with the screen in the group, or you can put it differently, in the spiritual Partzuf.
S. What am I measuring here, the pleasure and my feeling, what is being measured?
R. This is the matter of calculation at the Rosh of the Partzuf over all the desires it has in the Partzuf in the Toch. What it receives and what it passes on to others, how much it receives from others, how much it bestows upon others and in the end how to direct it all to the Creator. These things are what we need to start getting incorporated and integrated in them.
S. How to get into it, we have connection with the friends in the ten?
R. Think about how you perform actions of reception and bestowal in the connection between you in order to bestow upon the Creator, think. Ask the Creator to explain this to you, to participate in this until you start feeling how He is helping you and changes your relation, your thoughts, your desires and how you begin to feel that your whole relation, your whole connection to Him between you and to Him, he changes accordingly.
8. S. (13:32) Should we pay with love for all our personal debts, or should we also pay for the debts of the whole ten and the whole soul of Adam HaRishon?
R. We will scrutinize that along the way, it’s not that important. You already want to pay for everything, it will become apparent.
9. S. (14:10) It is not clear how humanity will advance toward values of connection and mutual responsibility because this is already beyond the will to receive?
R. Beyond the will to receive to advance through the power to bestow to the Creator and shines and passes on to the lower ones.
S. Is it not through the recognition of evil?
R. This is not the recognition of evil, this is beyond the recognition of evil. It goes into the recognition of good where we can build such systems between us through which we can bestow to the Creator.
S. What does it depend on, it doesn’t depend on them anymore?
R. I don’t understand what you’re saying.
S. From where will such power come within the will to receive which suffers blows? Can it get such discernments or is it something else?
R. Yes, inside the will to receive a person begins to attain new actions. He begins to see how much he is to receive to bestow. The will to receive can distinguish all these things down to the last tiny detail.
10. S. (15:34) If there is no breaking as preparation for this and we cannot use anything, meaning should we follow?
R. If there will be no shattering then the sparks of bestowal would not enter into the vessels of reception, so we would never know what it means to bestow. We cannot see anything in this world today, any still vegetative and animate. Maybe the still, but everything is mixed up there, in the vegetative and in animals, you can feel certain acts of bestowal. They also love it when they are embraced and they are given to, and they are willing to give it to the right pleasure to the connection to the person, although it is still far from the spiritual feeling, spiritual understanding. We are the results of the shattering without which we would not be able to receive into the will to receive certain sparks of holiness of bestowal. We would just be asking, what is bestowal, what does it mean to give. Still vegetative and animate seemingly understand what it means to give but only because it lives with us, among us people. They gradually receive a certain bestowal from us, a certain influence from us and then they begin to bestow to us in return. To want us to embrace them and to love them and to keep them warm, they can also do the same relative to us. Meaning we see that will to receive carries in itself such sparks and we just need to awaken it from the outside and it is the same for people. As much as we awaken the will to receive to be in mutual bestowal in the ten especially and by that we scrutinize the attitude of the Creator to us., how much He is in it, how much He is our partner in it and this is how we advance. Ultimately it takes a long time because with respect to the ego we are the biggest and the greatest, but that is what is going on.
11. S. (18:52) We can understand from the article that our responsibility and our duty in the store is only to take what is in the calculation in the Partzuf that gives us permission to ask and not beyond?
R. Yes.
12. S. (19:26) It is written here, to enjoy the debt, the loan. If I understand correctly I can enjoy, what does it mean as a debt, I can enjoy only if someone feels bad. Meaning I have no other pleasures?
R. Yes it is like stealing in the store, you cannot see who you are harming, you can but you are taking from nature, from the Creator, from other people, this is the meaning of stealing, we are all thieves, we always start from that. Until the restriction and from the restriction on we make a calculation, and we receive only in order to bestow, to bestow in order to bestow and then to receive in order to bestow. To bestow in order to bestow is when I don’t receive but I also don’t steal, I do not take anything for myself and then I can build my vessels like that. I can build vessels of Bina and after building those vessels of Bina and using those vessels, I can even take in order to bestow, that’s how it is.
13. S. (21:11) Reading this article I get really tense inside, maybe I don’t understand it. It says that the hand writes, does it mean that it only writes down bad deeds, or does it write both bad and good?
R. Everything remains in spirituality, everything a person does, he does with his desire. It seems to us like we are doing it with our actions, we move around some part of the still vegetative or animate world, but we are not moving anything it just appears to us this way, it is the imaginary world. What we actually do is that we use our desire, more or less in which certain direction towards connection or to disintegration, this is written. That’s why all your actions are written in the book.
14. S. (22:32) If a person sees that he took something and he is in debt, but he cannot pay it back?
R. This is correct, we are all in great debt and we have to learn how to repay it. Gradually, slowly we are coming to a state where we will be able to pay and take care of that debt.
15. S. (23:13) I heard you answer that we might even pay for the debts of our friends. What about humanity that sins and doesn’t know there is an accumulating debt? Do we teach them to pay through connection or are we paying for them as well?
R. Everybody will pay eventually but don’t worry about it you will see the system and you will see how it is being completed.
16. S. (23:45) Sometimes we say the Creator gives a gift and sometimes the hand writes, so what is a gift and when do we have to pay for the gift?
R. There are many things here we will learn about it; it is still ahead of us.
17. S. (24:06) It turns out that the first type of debt is when we go faith above reason, and the second type is we acquire the screen and restriction and yet we are still paying, is this right?
R. This is not correct, but we will learn about it so do not jump ahead about things we have not yet learned yet.
Continues (24:47) “And If You Say What is the Difference…”
18. S. (31:32) Will we pay for everything with love the minute we overcome all the crimes with love, will all the debts be canceled?
R. Of course, what kind of debt will you have, just like you demand from your child.
19. S. (32:03) Work, actions in the ten, in the group, which are still in Lo Lishma, not for her sake or what we do in dissemination. Is this not paying the debt? Is this only preparation?
R. Yes.
20. S. (32:32) Who are the collectors?
R. These are angels. Qualities of the upper system that settle on the person and constantly keep him in the system for better or for worse seemingly. They shake him up until he performs the correct acts of bestowal, and this is how he is considered to be paid off.
21. S. (33:26) What is the difference between feeling the forces of rejection and the sense of recognition of evil?
R. The forces of rejection are in order to awaken in us corresponding feelings against them.
22. S. (33:52) Is there a difference between the force of rejection we feel and the sense of recognition of evil, are these two different ways?
R. The sense of recognition of evil is a general thing and the forces of rejection are individual forces that come in order to show a person where they are, and they demand the person to wake up and do actions against them. The sense of recognition of evil is a general sense but the forces that appear, those are individual forces.
S. He said that the sense of recognition of evil is the quicker way?
R. That is relative to a person, the person has to develop this sense of recognition of evil. Let’s say he is in a group and very quickly comes to recognition of evil, where his good forces rise, and his negative forces are how can he use them.
23. S. (35:02) It talks about two kinds of people here, we as your students are in between those types. Meaning we have to choose to which side we lean each day, so a question regarding this, it says that people of the second type are not under those agonies and suffering like the first type, but we know that according to the labor is the reward, meaning that people of the second type, they give pains of love and longing that they are not with the Creator and the suffering should be greater than the corporeal suffering?
R. Yes this is called the torments of love, you are right, and the important thing is to reach those and to make a calculation of how much I am lacking in love of friends, love of the Creator and I am willing to pay for that until I complete my entire work for it.
S. Then opposite corresponding to the corporeal suffering when there’s hard work, it doesn’t seem like suffering of the first kind, and you have greater suffering towards the Creator?
R. Yes.
24. S. (36:46) This allegory about the net that captures the whole of reality, it sits very well with, There Is None Else Beside Him. But where is, He Is Good and He Does Good, if the debt is collected from me in every action, how does it sit together?
R. Because they wish to educate you to be a grown up. You can say this about all the teachers in school, all the systems that educate you; “Where is the Good That Does Good?” “What is this generation where they constantly demand of me, they pressure me, they push me forward?” “When will I get some time off from them?” But it’s necessary.
S. What is the final purpose of this store?
R. For you to learn how to correctly repay all the infinity that you will get from the Creator.
S. We always say that the end of the way we will be similar to the Creator but in the end we will always be in that store and keep paying. It doesn’t sound like equivalence of form between us and this force of bestowal?
R. Where are you taking this from?
S. I do not know.
R. Well if you don’t know, then say that you don’t know but don’t speak so confidently to the whole world about these things, that never end, the final judgment.
S. Can you explain?
R. Yes there’s nothing to explain here, through all these actions that we are coming down on us, through them we need to learn how to relate to these seemingly positive forces and negative forces and seemingly connection, seemingly separation, disintegration and we should know that in all these things we need to weigh them only according to how close we are getting to the purpose of creation. Only that.
S. Can we say that the purpose of creation is to learn to pay for everything that I receive, and this is the equivalence?
R. Yes but it is not the goal, it is rather the path and the end of the path when you receive a screen over the entire light of Ein Sof and you have no more connection with these harmful elements, these problems. You are incorporated into Ein Sof because you acquired a complete screen.
25. S. (40:01) Yesterday we had a meal with another ten and they really showered us with light. I wanted to ask, sometimes you suffer a blow, and it hurts you for a few days and now I feel because of the connection we had that yesterday, and that is continuous I’m sure all the friends feel it?
R. What is the question you were talking about a lot of time about your question. Maybe you can just ask the question in one sentence from the beginning to the end with a question mark at the end of it.
S. Why does it feel now that the physical connection is more correct when you say that the virtual connection is closer to the spiritual?
R. Physical connection is only in the beginning when we need to start from it but later on we don’t need any physical contact. We would not even need to see each other to feel each other in our five corporeal senses, our bodily senses. We are rising to new levels of feelings and discernments, more spiritual in nature.
26. S. (41:50) The development of the sense of the recognition of evil, is this part of the law of development?
R. It is the main aspect of the law of development.
S. We can calculate after the restriction, how do we calculate before the restriction so as to achieve the restriction, to come to it?
R. Yes our calculations before the restriction are how to get to a state of how we restrict our will to receive in practice. Not because he doesn’t want it but because he’s willing to stand up against his desire. This is called the resistance, the hardness in the screen. Then after we have these forces balanced of coarseness and hardness then we can make calculations in it.
27. S. (42:58) It is not clear what we said before in this whole process. This bestowing for in order to bestow, what is this work, how can you work in this before you come to receive in order to bestow?
R. We’ll get to it, I understand it’s tough, what does it mean to bestow in order to bestow. Bestow in order to bestow is when I’m making a calculation and I have not reached the level of receiving in order to bestow. Meaning I can’t bestow in practice to the Creator by receiving and giving Him contentment, but at least I’m in bestowal by not receiving by approaching Him, I am in the degree of Bina. Try to think about it more and see. If they put the thief in a store of all kinds of good things and he doesn’t think anything, not because the owner is looking at him through the cameras but because he wishes to remain honest and clean and not harm the host, the owner. Meaning inside he’s got this pillar and that is how he wants to establish himself. This is the degree of Bina and the resistance to receiving should be in every aspect of the will to receive. By that he will come to the degree that fits the owner by which he cannot receive, but to bestow to Him in practice, he can’t. Because he’s got nothing to give to the host, he only purifies himself and he does not receive. This is the degree of Moses as it is written, it is the loyal servant of my house, and he is truly loyal to the Creator because he will never steal anything from Him, and the Creator opens up to him all the treasures.
S. The work is passive?
R. It’s very tough work, it is not passive at all. It is work not feeling pleasure from reception but feeling pleasure from being close to the Creator.
S. Avoiding reception and getting closer to the Creator, are they the same?
R. No, approaching the Creator there’s another part of receiving in order to bestow. This is bestowal in order to bestow. Think about it more, it has to become clear to you.
28. S. (46:17) From where does this thief have the strength to resist those pleasures that the Creator opens up for him?
R. He asks the Creator through the group to have certain powers and the main thing here is patience to continue day in and day out and wait and expect for it to happen.
29. S. (47:01) Baal HaSulam is talking about the suffering from reception and from stealing that’s one thing, the other type of suffering is when you have no Creator. Why does it turn out that the Creator did not create the created being with? Why did He create the created being to suffer?
R. We suffer not from the suffering itself, rather we suffer because we are lacking that which we think is pleasure and we want to enjoy the rest and we have to move and so on and so forth. Meaning our sufferings are always the result of something that is lacking and this lack is created by the shattering of Adam HaRishon.
30. S. (48:22) How through the thefts that a person does he repents? What is actually repentance?
R. Repentance is when we assemble before the Creator and wish for Him to take care of us, to connect us, our screens the will to bestow, restrictions, everything in that we understand that we have to be before Him and then later to connect us to become the bestowers practice from bestowers to one another to bestowers to the Creator.
31. S. (49:10) Is the conscious drive to participate with the Creator as the owner of the store, is it a necessary force for developing the desire to bestow, how do we come to it in our work in the ten instead of waiting passively for an action from above?
R. It is only through the work between the friends there is nothing more here. We need to connect between us and come to a state where we combine our forces like a bouquet of flowers that are brought together, and then inside this common force we ask the Creator to take care of us and it is certain that He will, right away.
32. S. (50:14) What does it mean that there is a complete screen, how will it be expressed in the relationships in the ten?
R. If we connect between us, by that we obligate the Creator to respond to us. This is called our complete common screen.
33. S. (50:57) How to develop the force to resist the will to receive?
R. The force to resist the will to receive, it is only by us supporting each other and reaching the Creator and asking of Him begging Him and then we get a screen. In this screen we relate to each other as one body and out of this one body we already raise our request to the Creator and then for sure he will answer.
34. S. (51:49) The will to receive is not concerned with theft until it is caught, how does a person come to a decision to stop stealing without being caught?
R. In the work between us everything is solved in the work within the friends. If I want to help them I start getting such questions about how to do this and how to do that and that I go over all your questions, all your actions and ultimately I organize myself very quickly to the force of bestowal, the general force of bestowal.
35. S. (52:42) Is the division of the two parts, the open store and those who want to borrow, is that a division that only exists in all of humanity or also in us or in the desires of each person?
R. Yes in people’s desires in ours and others and all of humanity and ultimately everything will be revealed in the final correction, and everything is completed in the final correction.
36. S. (53:18) For what are we all in great debt?
R. To begin with we are all in a great debt because this is the system of Adam HaRishon after the shattering, that the Creator created for us and we have to pay, to compensate for what we are and the way we are built. That is, for us to get rid of the shame and pay by our own force, overcoming with the will to bestow that we will get from the Creator and in the will to bestow we will be like Him, we will reach His level. We will climb the rungs of the ladder in 125 degrees until we reach the top of the ladder.
37. S. (54:24) What is to do bad that is written in the notebook?
R. It is theft or even lack of support. Lack of support in my friends is like I break, and I do not keep the force of Bina, I breach it and beyond that it is the force of Keter. Either bestowing in order to bestow, being idle, being lazy in bestowing in order to bestow or in receiving in order to bestow.
38. S. (55:09) What do we borrow from the store? Corporally, spiritually, or the forces to obtain the purpose of creation?
R. Whatever you want, whatever you want. However by this you also learn what you should ask for, what you should ask and what you should get.
39. S. (55:32) How to do the calculation of how much to ask for the ten so that a Kli of bestowal will be built in them?
R. What to ask so that a vessel of bestowal will be built?
S. How to do the calculation?
R. There is no limit here. You should ask until I receive within me vessels of the bestowal. To all the time be drawn forward.
40. S. (56:12) You answered us earlier that we have to come to the Creator and ask him and beg before Him. How to raise these merciful beggings in the ten to the Creator?
R. That is actually very good, it’s very easy when we are all asking something from the Creator that’s important for all of us together. We talked about it, we decided, we connected around a certain deficiency and we with this deficiency can reach the Creator and the demand of Him this. What’s unclear? Simple things, like in this world.
41. S. (57:06) What does a person need to do if the will to receive subjugates him time after time?
R. This will always be like that until the final correction. This is the work of the will to receive. When it’s revealed more we feel how much we are subjugated before it, how weak we are, how uncorrected we are. It’s very good, that’s the action of the will to receive.
42. S. (57:42) What does it mean that we are not receiving any compensation?
R. For that we need to read the article again.
43. S. (58:07) What does it mean to stand before a king as standing like that?
R. Well this is something that we can imagine. If I’m standing before the Creator when the Creator includes inside of Him all the corrections then I have nothing to do, just to see how uncorrected I am, how much I have to correct myself and how much all of my corrections are in the Creator. If I do correct myself then I do not need beyond that. What I want is basically to be in contact with the Creator, now as we are all in an egoistic state. So it turns out that if I’m asking something from the Creator then I depend on Him and I feel it as a flaw. But later I will get closer to Him then all these opportunities to ask of the Creator will be a pleasure for me. That I depend on Him, that I’m connected to Him, that I see myself connected, attached. What could be better than that? And I am already looking for a way to be more and more connected with all my cells in the body and the soul. Whereas now for me it is like some unpleasant state, to say the least.
44. S. (01:00:21) What to do with the fact that we are all thieves in the ten? How to relate correctly to this matter? What kind of picture should I arrange for myself in my eyes?
R. If we are connecting, forgiving each other, understanding each other and still want to connect between us, then all this system of thieves becomes a system of righteous people.
45. S. (01:00:53) If I ask through the ten do I need each and every one if they agree with that request? Say a friend says to me if you didn’t ask me then you’re stealing.
R. I did not understand.
S. When we ask for something through the ten do I need to ask every friend if he agrees with that prayer of mine or does it not necessarily have to be that way. Because a friend is telling me that each time you are asking through the ten, you have to ask me, maybe I don’t agree with it. If not you’re stealing?
R. No you are not stealing anything. It may be that you are still in such states, such relations that you have to ask each other but usually these things are already clear and obvious. If I’m asking for bestowal for a common action I don’t need to turn to the Friends because it is already clear that this is how we have to advance. That’s how I understand it.
46. S. (01:02:24) When the person starts to suffer and care for the society he has to go through a certain degree of suffering?
R. Yes, otherwise, if he goes through this path he could be like a leader of that environment, passing it through the same paths he himself goes through.
47. S. (01:03:04) If in order to perform corrections I need to feel that the whole world belongs to me and all these things that we are always talking about. Then why are these calculations here suddenly? The shopkeeper, the debts and all that. Don’t I need to feel that the store is open completely and everything is for me?
R. If this confuses you then don’t approach this picture yet. But ultimately when you start seeing the system as a round, whole system then of course this is how you will discover the general system, where we are all connected and tied and there’s nowhere to run to.
S. The meaning is that there is a calculation eventually or there is no calculation?
R. Of course there is a calculation.