HESED: TIKKUN CHATZOT תקון חצות – LESSON WITH RAV MICHAEL LAITMAN

Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 198. Freedom

Morning Lesson June 17, 2022, Transcription 

Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio 

Part 1:

Baal HaSulam. Shamati 198. Freedom

1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, “The Freedom” article it’s freedom of Baal HaSulam that Rabash wrote from what he heard from his father. Freedom, do not pronounce it Harut but Herut freedom this means that it is written, write them onto the tablet of your heart. Writing is with ink, which is considered blackness, meaning what we need to write we need to write upon our desire, on our heart and with what should be written, with blackness, with ink. Why in blackness specifically, why in black, each time a person writes, meaning that he makes some decisions about how to behave and reverts to his bad ways which he cannot withstand to be bestowing to the Creator, to devote to the Creator everything outside of himself, it’s because the writing has been erased and each time he needs to write it anew. How so, it would be in the way of freedom from the desire to receive so it would be Harut, carved on his heart so he could not erase it so much so we need to try each time and try and try to write until it enters, penetrates such a state that it will not be erased. Then he is immediately rewarded with Herut, freedom thus the Kli the vessel for Herut is the extent to which it is written in his heart, meaning he must repeat each time the work on his desires more and more to obligate them to come closer to the Creator until these desires take on the right form. Just like etching on stone, carving on the stony heart of his to the extent that the engraving is the salvation, meaning to the extent that he needs to penetrate into the stone of his heart. How much, that depends on his will to receive, on the extent in which a person needs to be greater in his salvation and his correction, that is how his stone is stronger and greater, his stony heart is a greater, as it is written, anyone who is greater than his friend his inclination is greater to the extent of the engravings of salvation. Because the essence of the Kli is the hollow to the extent in which a person makes this hollow in his heart and this is as it is written my heart is hollow, Halal within me and then he is awarded with freedom from the angel of death to the extent in which in his stone which his whole heart is the stone he performs scratches and places where the bestowal of the Creator can enter and then my heart is hollow within me where the matter of lowliness is SAM itself and he must know it fullest and overcome it until the Creator helps him. Meaning we have here a great struggle with fear, laziness, despair, the main thing is our despair, where we each time need to seemingly begin this engraving anew to enter into this stony heart of ours but for us to know that each and every time, it’s a small scratch then bigger and greater until nevertheless he makes sufficient forms in his heart through which it becomes, all these forms, become the letters of the spiritual work and thus he begins to get to know within these letters his connection with the Creator and understands and feels the connection with Him.

Reading again (05:51) “Harut (engraved) do not pronounce it Harut …”

2. R. (07:28) Let’s answer a few questions so that we understand it a bit more. The article is not simple, but it is short but there’s everything in it.

3. S. (07:40) Emptiness this deficiency which is white, and we write by determining that the Creator is the one who operates in this emptiness? 

R. What we need to do with our hearts is to bend it towards the connection in the ten and to the extent in which the heart bows before the connection in the ten it’s considered that you are performing letters in it making letters in it I’m talking about practically what needs to be because what he writes sounds like very personal work seemingly the person could be able to do this on his own but does cannot happen alone we understand that it’s impossible rather the best would be if in the work I am with the friends bowing my heart to be with them to clothe oneself upon them to be within them to give them room to enter my heart and then it is considered that by that I am making from the matter of my heart which is stone I make of it flesh living letters. 

4. S. (09:34) Then you are incorporated in the friends in the ten. What does it mean that you are building a vessel for this quality of freedom?

R. Until we bend our desire to receive connect with all the friends in the group in the ten we will not let the upper light clothes our desire meaning something simple happens here practically I need to connect with the friends with their desires to serve their desires to be connected to them and wrap them embrace them internally with my heart and then my heart begins to take on form not of its own but the form of the friends and it is not important to me what degree they’re in rather if in such a way I am willing ready want to bow my heart towards them I build in my heart the first nine of the Partzuf and the heart remains as it is and then it turns out that with my devotion towards the friends in connecting to them and serving them through them to the Creator I connect in such a way and then the Creator has where to enter where to fill the vessels and then His light His illumination His reality His qualities are felt inside the connection between me and the friends and then with that I start to gradually open the world the spiritual world that’s how it happens. 

5. S. (12:20) We have come to a question in the center of the ten, what should be written on the heart and how can we as a ten, what should we do as a ten so it will be engraved in our common heart?

R. What needs to inscribed altogether what we need to write there is YKVK, one heart that to the extent in which we connect to ten Sefirot, ten parts where the upper light according to his nature can enter and somewhat appear more and more inside the connection between us and then through that we become a Kli, a vessel for the upper light, a vessel for the Creator and then the Creator clothes in us and we are in Dvekut adhesion with Him.

S. What are our operations as a ten, so it becomes something that is not erased? 

R. That it won’t be erased, it’s for sure that it will be erased and many times along the way but each time, each time we have to start anew because each time we again and again build that same form from the vessel, from our desires so it will be similar to the light. This way we are closer to the Creator, we from the side of our hearts which are like bricks, like blocks, little stones but when we want to connect them in a form like the Creator then we build from that what we call the holy temple, as we say. Although it’s from stones, this vessel is completely in its intentions, in our efforts, similar to that light, that revelation of the Creator that clothes it. Then to the extent in which we try from our matter to be similar to the Creator he clothes in us, in his NRNHY more and more, exalted and more and more higher. 

6. S. (15:30) What is the right relation that has to be a feeling of lack of success and acts of connection?

R. This is a necessary state, that along the way we need to receive between each ascent and descent we need to be in all the changes and combinations of changing states. There cannot be a day without night or night without day. But rather day and night together give us what we call a spiritual day. Only in such a way. 

S. What does persistence in activities of connection do?

R. Everything depends on the persistence. Grace and mercy will follow me all the days of my life as it is written that time after time again and again we need to begin anew and each time we discover new discernments, and this takes many years. Look at how within the last one hundred years all of a sudden we received from above, from the Creator, from nature, the ability to live on average 80 years. We live 75-80 years, even more than that and we are not impressed already from such ages, why? Because we have come to a state where we need to continue our work more and more. Therefore it is no wonder that this happens this way. If you can compare to previous years, I can tell you, people who lived to 40 years old in the 1800’s, the 18th century they lived 40 years and that was considered old. Only special people, such intelligent people who engaged in spirit,  and the rich lived a little longer, but the regular people? Look at our times, even 70 years is not considered a boundary, 80, 90 will soon be the borderline age.

S. The more we advance toward correction the longevity will increase?

R. I do not know if it will be to that extent, but this is because a person needs to accomplish so much more during his lifetime to be able to go through all these states. Yes, we will have to include in us more states in us than we had before. 

7. S. (19:10) How to open our hearts for the greatness of the friends?

R. We need to think about that more, we need to try in each and every action that we do not see too much success and especially when we do not see success in it. We have to understand that this is because of the lack of connection with the friends. On the other hand when the heart is moved by something, it doesn’t matter what, try to connect that with our connection between us in the group and in this way truly truly more soft in the heart, we must because this is the whole correction. Relative to what is happening in the world we actually need to be with a soft heart. 

8. S. (20:28) What does it mean to know the angel of death to the fullest, is it to know all the lowliness?

R. Where do you take it from?

S. From the last line in the article.

R. From the lowliness which is the SAM of death he has to know it to the fullest. Meaning each and every time comes the will to receive, this is the potion of death, this is our ego, the will to receive, the angel of death. The one that kills everything and puts to death, the angel of death. In all those states and to try and overcome time and time again time and time again and to see that we are not capable and pray to the Creator to help us more and more until the Creator helps them as it is written.

9. S. (21:48) Writing with ink on a person’s tablet of the heart helps him to reveal together with his ten his own Reshimot, records or he is writing on the tablet of his heart given a second nature and increases his vessel?

R. Both.

S. How can I take this writing together with the ten and write on the tablet of my heart?

R. Try to connect all the desires of the ten together and present them to the Creator so that he would arrange our desires to correct them correctly. Like we do with dough, truly kneading it and to knead it into the correct form in such a way for Him to be revealed. That is what we need to ask for.

10. S. (23:20) You talked about softening the heart and I thought that was somehow in relation to the ten, but you also added that in it towards the world we also have to soften our hearts, what does it mean to soften the heart with respect to the world?

R. It is not the same as toward the group because towards the group I need to truly give them  room, make room for them in my heart for all the friends. When I wrap and embrace them, not with my arms but with my heart, where I embrace them this way. With the world it is a little different, it is a more external manner although I would like to incorporate them into the heart. For the time being we do not have any preparations for that. Therefore we need to perform all kinds of actions that are more external. 

11. S. (24:37) He writes that the lowliness is the portion of death itself, but that the Lord is high, and the low will see, so it is not clear?

R. It is not important, it will work out for you and there are many questions that are not clear, but it will work out, take it as it is. 

12. S. (25:12) How do you soften the hearts before the friends in the ten? 

R. This is the whole thing, our work is only in how to correctly soften the heart towards the friends in the ten as then the Creator will enter the heart which includes all the friends and the Creator. Where all the friends are the vessel and I am as Malchut towards them and I sorted all these things correctly and the Creator fills this vessel, arranges it, awakens it, illuminates it. 

S. The Creator is the one who softens the heart?

R. In truth the Creator does everything, but we need to try. We receive disappointments, we receive the feeling of despair where we are helpless and incapable and in all kinds of ways. This is how the Creator arranges for us to see where we need to perform more and more changes and ask from Him. Sometimes it is enough for us to feel the deficiency, sometimes we need to express this deficiency more clearly both in feeling and in words. Also in our frustrations, in our prayers, sometimes in connection with the friends and in our appeal to the Creator, but we need to nevertheless arrange all the discernments in such a way that the Creator can clothe in them and appear. 

S. You said before that we have a big struggle with the despair, that it is mainly a struggle against the despair? 

R. We are constantly despairing and rising and sometimes we don’t even feel the extent  through these actions of rising and falling, rising, and falling and all of this is relative to the despair. This is despair from our forces at which point The Creator raises us up and we do not know how through this despair we cry, it is not crying with tears, but in a way that we are despaired, and we do not know what to do in all kinds of manners. Everything enters into that despair and then to the extent that until we return to the Creator in a more clear manner, more to the front I would say, and demand from Him His participation.

S. What is this act of bending where I have to bend myself before the ten? 

R. On your behalf you need to connect them together inside your heart and then you can present all of that vessel to the Creator. 

S. What is the difference between bending yourself and connecting them? 

R. To bend in which you are willing to work in order to serve them, in order for all of them to be connected and advancing and aimed towards the Creator. 

13. S. (29:27) The letters of the article do they symbolize the screen? 

R. Where do you see that he writes letters? 

S. The letters you write on the tablet of your heart?

R. Letters are the vessels in which we discover from our desires that we want to arrange our desires towards the Creator, towards connection with the friends. Then in all these efforts we seemingly make from the stony heart we write upon the stone, letters, which are called the letters of the work.

14. S. (30:47) I heard you say before that  in every act that comes out of connection it comes out successful, but on the other hand we always have this fear of insecurity, this fear of giving yourself up to such an activity. How does this tension between success and doing something together and the fear of giving yourself up to this joint act? How do you work with it and how do you reconcile it?

R. A penny and another penny add up to being a great sum. Where all these actions that we would like to perform but are afraid and we can’t, and we don’t have enough energy or persistence and the drive. This gathers together and we do feel that we have to cry out to the Creator, we have to arrange ourselves more and do more effort. It will come to such a form that a person is willing.

S. Is this in order to create a more precise, more accurate plea to the Creator? 

R. Between us and also within a person, the person with all of his powers and also the group and towards the Creator. Altogether there is no great confusion here, the person, the group, and the Creator. 

S. Because it really feels like that everything that the ten does together is successful, so why are there all these hesitations if you really know that this is so. Why are there all these doubts, yes, no?

R. You do not understand how these things are the most precious of all because this is actually, this yearning is the preparation, it is the longing towards the Creator that a person and the group establish, that’s the main thing. This deficiency is the concentrated, it is like the cream, the concentrate of all the efforts of each and every one that can finally be put together, that is what the Creator awaits and expects. There is nothing more important in all of reality. 

S. Knowing that the act is correct and on the other hand there is hesitation, does it create something new?

R. The despair, the despair that we go through is what builds in us the correct vessel. 

S. Is this what he means here? Writing on the tablet of your heart? 

R. Yes, to write on the tablet of your heart is correct. Meaning your heart is like a stone, it doesn’t want anything and then you slowly, slowly engrave on it with this etching, this engraving more and more acts of connection, bestowal to the friends, to the Creator. This way you give the Creator these letters of the work, which is against the desire, against the heart of stone, but there upon it you try to write the letters of the work.

15. S. (35:20) Despair is something that is clear but how to behave when friends in the ten or maybe not in the ten talk about connection success about the Creator is with us and it’s as if we are doing everything without the Creator and everything is great, and we do not need anyone. I personally hate these words because until we have a spiritual vessel and a pipeline to the world, we are not there. What should we say and what should we do? I participate in all the activities but within me I am just nothing.

R. I say only one thing, one who disqualifies something does so through his own flaws. Meaning what you see is what you see. Then you say, but I see how they, but you don’t see how they  say… rather you see. Therefore don’t say about them anything. There’s between you friends and the whole organization that are truly in a state that is much more than our average. I do not want to say more than that and we do not see it because one who disqualifies does so through his own flaws. Then you will see that all together you are also in the spiritual world but anyone who negates something does so with his own flaws and you cannot identify it because you are seeing it with your own flaws. As Baal HaSulam writes, that later you will discover there was no angel of death, there was never such a thing, it never was, and it was never created. Rather everything is in order to give us an impression from the state, the imaginary situation so that we will be able to assemble upon this an address to the Creator.

S. This is exactly the point in this imaginary situation when they present wholeness and there is no plea to the Creator we succeeded by ourselves like that shield and sword. We succeeded in uniting by ourselves, this is what I hear from the friends.

R. No, not true, they are also in this and also in that, in two states, not in both and not at once, not together at the same time, but continue and you will see that this is how it is. We need to maybe hear a few times what we are talking about.

16. S. (38:22) Do I have to write every time, therefore what is this work? Every day it is a new hold that I have to write but it is the Creator who writes? 

R. Every single moment I need to see my desires in how I am connecting them with all the friends in the ten and how I present them to the Creator to correct them. Unite them correctly and fulfill them in order to bring contentment to Him so He will enjoy us. As if in our daily work we try to build a vessel that He will fill with himself. We only present the vessel to Him; this cup and He fills it up and this is what He enjoys. When the upper light fills the four walls of the vessel. 

17. S. (39:56) It is written that lowliness is SAM itself, it is the potion of death itself. What is such a feeling, is it increased or intensified?

R. I do not know where you are reading? Don’t read two words because I don’t understand because there no such words here. Who is the angel of death? 

S. Before the end he is awarded with the freedom from the Angel of Death since the lowliness is SAM itself, the angel of death?

R. Yes, so that is rewarded with the freedom from the Angel of Death because the lowliness is SAM itself. When a person feels his own lowliness it is really the Angel of Death himself, this is what he says. That we have to lift ourselves in our work and overcome and rise to the Creator and demand and ask and by this we are rewarded with freedom from the Angel of Death. The lowliness is when we lower ourselves, this is actually the Angel of Death itself. We have to constantly lift ourselves. Restrain yourself a bit. 

18. S. (42:00) There is despair but no prayer, why? 

R. You still haven’t come to despair which is despair without any solution, and this is why you are still running away. You go to sleep, or you do something, and you think it might help so it is not the final despair yet, this is why you are still in what is called between heaven and earth. What is the solution? Increase the work as much as possible, as intensely as possible in the group and then the upper light will influence you more intensely and will promote you and advance you. 

19. S. (42:49) From the article it raises as if lowliness is a negative thing, and it is the Angel of Death itself. We have to recognize it fully and overcome it until the Creator helps him.

R. So what?

S. We learned that lowliness is a good thing and I’m supposed to feel worse than everyone  and the Creator who is high will see the lowly. What is the matter of this lowliness here? 

R. Nothing that the Creator created without a reason that we have to run away from it. Even though it is written sometimes that we have to run away from things. Rather we have to use every single quality in us because it comes from, ‘The end of the act is in the preliminary’ thought.’ We have to respect each and every quality and find where its place is and how to use it. Lowliness is something great, who was as low as Moses. There are many discernments in this. Nothing was created in a negative way but in order to complement all the other qualities and then  together all of them without missing any of them, without canceling or without omitting anything, together we come with wholeness.

S. What is the meaning when a person discovers this lowliness and identifies it as a negative quality and then if he overcomes it he becomes positive? 

R. Perhaps in several ways he might see himself, the friends, or the group all of reality or the Creator himself until he goes through all those forms of lowliness. Then he comes to a state where the lowliness is the will to receive which must be corrected to work in order to bestow and then instead of lowliness there will be pride and greatness.

20. S. (45:11) You said that in order for the light to operate on us, as much as possible during the day we have to intensify our efforts in the ten. This intensity, is it quantitative or qualitative and this intensification, this amplification of our intensity is it my feeling or is it something I see that I put into the ten, or how does it work?

R. We each on in the ten should draw before as the common vessel which are all of our desires that we see in which we have to approach the goal, that we unite them together and increase them and with them we are drawn toward the Creator. In this way from minute to minute from day to day each and every one should think this way and imagine it this way. 

S. I shut my eyes and imagine to myself that my ten is connected to a single common vessel and I ask the reforming light to fill this vessel? 

R. This is fine if you are thinking about this all the time, and you try to update this vessel. This nearing the Creator there is equivalence of form with the Creator and on the contrary, it is good, it is very good. 

S. It turns out that I should  see this result and aspire for this result, for the light to enter the Kli this way? 

R. You need to constantly see yourself as praying, praying all the time, ask all the time. 

21. S. (48:02) About the prayer, can we ask for connection for the friends to be in Arvut with them when his ego doesn’t agree with it?

R. Of course when  have you seen when your ego doesn’t agree with it?

S. Yes but I noticed that I ask, the ego doesn’t want?

R. Okay. 

S. I don’t want to also.

R. If you sympathize with your ego that is correct, but why do you need to sympathize with it? 

S. It feels that there is no validity here, until the ego agrees I won’t agree either?

R. This is not correct, the ego wants this, and you want the opposite.

S. How to give more strength to my desire to be disconnected from the ego?

R. Split yourself into two halves, a good and a bad inclination and sympathize more and more with the good inclination. That you want connection, you want to advance, you want bestowal and you do not want reception, you do not want remoteness and distance from the ten. Try constantly work on it bit by bit and this way you will see how you advance. 

S. This will necessitate as much as possible with the incorporation with the friends? 

R. Of course, it’s just words.

22. S. (49:57) What is freedom from the Angel of Death? He says that the main vessel here is the preparation for the deficiency, what is that deficiency which each time gives us something to yearn, to build more and more. What is this deficiency? 

R. A deficiency for connection with friends is a sacred and holy deficiency, all the other deficiencies are not holy, and they are not sacred. Meaning they are not leading us to the goal. 

23. S. (51:22) What is a soft heart? 

R. A soft heart is one who has already acquired corrections to work in order to bestow and then it feels the others within his heart. 

24. S. (51:44) How can we attain freedom in the ten in order to remove the stony hearts from us? 

R. This is what we are talking about all the time, is how. The main thing is the connection between us and the common prayer to the Creator. 

25. S. (52:06) What is the difference between including myself with the friends and letting them incorporate in me ?

R. Among the friends it is an external activity as a preparatory action but in the end what I have to do is to give them a place in my heart. 

26. S. (52:33) Is the combination of these two called the softening of the heart? 

R. Yes in the end, yes. Rabash writes beautifully about it, how the friends are in my heart. 

27. S. (52:49) How can we help each other to make this engravement on our hearts?

R. To the extent that I cancel my ego and I make of my desire some good action for the friends, for the sake of the friends. Accordingly to that extent I do this. 

28. S. (53:24) It is written  the matter of the vessel is the Chalal, the hollow. What does it mean and how does that lead to freedom from Angel of Death? 

R. I want to build a place for reception of the abundance from the Creator the light from the Creator. Because then I give Him contentment, I give the Creator contentment, and this is why I do it. This is a great work, and it is already on our next degree, not on our current degree. Now, each one has to cancel our egos in order to connect with the others so we have a common desire between us and then in this common desire we will be able to turn to the Creator and do the work.

29. S. (54:25) You said to imagine a common vessel. How do you imagine a vessel, what is that and how to imagine it so it will be as close as possible to the correct picture? 

R. A deficiency to bestow upon the Creator on behalf or from the perspective of the ten. Meaning our desires to connect, to bestow upon the Creator one bestowal from everyone, from the whole group to the Creator.