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Article "What Does it Mean that the Creator Hates the Bodies in the Work" - Lesson 4

Shamati, Article 19
Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, Bnei Baruch, Israel
July 23, 2006
Lecturer: Michael Laitman, PhD

We are reading in the book Shamati, Article 19, page 33, paragraph, “We must also know…”

We must also know that there is a very harsh condition here in order for the effort to create a contact with the Creator: the effort must be in the form of adornment. Adornment means something that is important to a person. One cannot work gladly if the labor is not of importance, meaning that one has joy at now having contact with the Creator.

The effort is the only thing through which the creature can express itself. Since this is the only place where a person can express his love, show his attitude, there is no other way. Therefore every item where he exerts and sweats with his inner struggle should be very precious to him since every gram, every particle of exertion is an expression of love. That is what he sends or gives to the Creator. Within that effort they come together, adhere to each other.

We thus must understand that the effort he makes is the same volume of that spiritual Kli which he builds now to bond there, together with the Creator.

This matter is implied in the Citron. It is written about the citron, a fruit of the citrus tree, that it should be clean above its nose. It is known that there are three discernments: A) Adornment, B) Scent, and C) Taste.

Taste means that when the Lights are poured from above downward, meaning below the Peh (lit. Mouth), where there are the palate and the taste, meaning that the Lights come in vessels of reception.

Scent means that the Lights come from below upward, meaning the Lights come in vessels of bestowal, in the form of receiving and not bestowing below the palate and the throat. This is discerned as, “ and he shall smell in the fear of the Lord” said about the Messiah. It is known that scent is ascribed to the nose.

Adornment is beauty, discerned as above one’s nose, meaning scentless. It means that there is neither taste nor smell there. Thus, what is there by which one can survive? There, is only the adornment in it, and this is what sustains him.

As much as one evaluates one’s effort, by that he expresses the love instead of the effort. It becomes an expression, an eruption of one’s attitude towards the Creator and then this effort becomes pleasure.

There’s a person who sweats in food, in sex, in soccer. Again, is it called sweating or enjoying? He doesn’t feel it as an effort. He feels it as pleasure. It’s the same here, if we can give that example. The effort doesn’t feel as effort, but becomes entirely pleasurable.

We see about the citron that the adornment is in it precisely before it is suitable for eating. However, when it is suitable for eating, there is no adornment in it anymore.

This comes to tell us about the work of the first to count the iniquities. It means that precisely when one works in the form of “And ye shall take you,” meaning the work during the acceptance of the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven, when the body resists, then this work has a place of joy, of adornment.

This means that during this work the adornment is apparent. This means that if he has gladness from this work, it is because he considers this work as adornment, not as disgrace.

In other words, sometimes one despises this work of accepting the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a time of a sensation of darkness, when one sees that no one can save the situation he is in but the Creator, and he takes upon himself the Kingdom of Heaven above reason, as an ox to the burden and as a donkey to the load.

One should be glad that now he has something to give to the Creator. The Creator enjoys him having something to give to the Creator, but one does not always have the strength to say that this is a handsome work, called adornment, but he despises this work.

This is a harsh condition for one to be able to say that he chooses this work more than the work of whiteness, meaning a state where he does not sense a taste of darkness during the work, but when one feels a taste in the work. It means that then he does not have to work with the will to receive to agree to take upon himself the Kingdom of Heaven above reason.

If one does overcome one’s self and can say that this work is pleasant to him, when he now keeps the Mitzva (lit. Commandment) of faith above reason, and accepts this work as adornment, this is called “A joy of a Mitzva”.

This is the meaning of the prayer being more important than the response to the prayer. This is because in the prayer, one has a place for labor; he needs the Creator, meaning he awaits heaven’s mercy.

At that time one has a true contact with the Creator, and then he is in the King’s Palace. However, when the prayer is answered, he has already departed the King’s Palace since he has already taken what he had asked for and left.

Accordingly, we should understand the verse, “Thine oils have a goodly fragrance; thy name is as oil poured forth.” Oil is called “The Upper Light” when it is “ poured forth” means during the cessation of the abundance. At that time the scent remains from the oil (scent that remains is still considered a Reshimo (lit. Reminiscence) of what he had had. Adornment, however, is called so in a place where there is no hold at all, meaning even the Reshimo does not shine).

This is the meaning of Atik and AA. During the expansion, the abundance is called AA, which is Hochma (lit. Wisdom), meaning open providence. Atik comes from the (Hebrew) word VaYe’atek (lit. Detachment), meaning the departure of the Light. In other words, it does not shine; and this is called concealment.

This is the time of rejection to clothing, which is the time of the reception of the crown of the King, which is considered Malchut (lit. Kingdom) of Lights, regarded as The Kingdom of Heaven.

It is written about it in the Holy Zohar, “The Holy Divinity said to Rabbi Shimon, ‘There is no place to hide from you’ (meaning there is no place where I can hide myself from you).” It means that even in the greatest concealment in reality he still takes upon himself the burden of the Kingdom of Heaven with great joy.

The reason for it is that he follows a line of a will to bestow, and thus he gives what is in his hand. If the Creator gives him more, he gives more. If he has nothing to give, he stands and cries like a crane for the Creator to save him from the evil waters. Hence, in this manner too he has contact with the Creator.

It means that he feels darkness, weakness, loss of contact precisely in the place where he could express his adornment, his love. Otherwise where else would he show it if not in a situation where there is emptiness, where it’s concealed?

The Creator deliberately hides himself from EinSof down to this world so that a person would fill that space with Ein Sof (Infinity), with the Light of Ein Sof. This is why we should understand where we can pull powers from during the darkness. But a person never gets this situation of darkness more than the measure of his preparation, his ability and environmental external conditions to overcome them and turn this darkness into light, “that darkness shines as Light.”

He shouldn’t wait for when he will have the Light again, but he should shine with his own Light of Hassadim (mercy) upon this darkness, through his attitude toward the Creator. Then the darkness will shine as the Light, from a person’s Light. That is how he’ll be expressing his reaction to the Creator. When there’s Light, his vessels surrender, and of course they want to enjoy the situation. But, when the Creator deliberately creates darkness, emptiness, helplessness, weakness, that’s the situation where a person can express his own inclination toward the Creator.

The one who escapes that situation should understand that there is no choice left if he runs away. In this situation he has already lost the opportunity to come closer and express love. His fault is that he didn’t prepare himself correctly, because “a prisoner can not redeem himself from prison.” So, he has to strengthen his environment and the connection with that environment so that precisely whenever he falls, this Arvut (guarantee) will help him, and he would now take and use the power he’d accumulated within the environment. Then the darkness will shine as Light.

When there is a discontinuance of support from Above, only society can help. If a person did not prepare it, he then lost the opportunity.

Question: Is the work in a group the only escape of a person?

The escape is a result of lack of strength. Sometimes a person sees before oneself some obstruction, and is happy about it: “I will break its teeth, I will overcome it, and I’ll profit by it.” For him, it is another step forward with regard to one’s ego, the obstruction, the weakness. He feels alongside that a type of inner power that exists.

The problem is that it is not opposite one. A person is describing it as being in him. He doesn’t feel his own weakness and confusion and darkness as something alien. First of all he takes it as his own inner state. But after this scrutiny, assuming that he has prepared something on the side for these moments, then with that luggage that one has prepared, he can now work. But if he hasn’t prepared it, there is nothing to do.

That’s why “it’s all up to the six working days,” as they are called. If one has lost a day, one has lost a night.

Atik is the highest degree, and the reason that this discernment is called Atik is that the farther the thing is from clothing, the higher it is. One can feel in the most abstract thing, called “Absolute Zero”, because there man's hand does not reach.

This means that the will to receive can seize only in a place where there is some expansion of Light. Before one purifies one’s vessels so as to not blemish the Light, one is unable that the Light will come to him in a form of expansion in the Kelim (lit. Vessels). Only when one marches on the path of bestowal, meaning in a place where the will to receive is not found, whether in mind or in heart, there, the Light can come in utter perfection. Then the Light comes to him in a sensation where he can feel the sublimity of the Upper Light.

It means that if he already prepared himself for love, so that when he receives the revelation of the Creator, he does so only in order to give back to Him, otherwise he doesn’t want to feel Him, then there is room for the Light to appear.

Question: What does it mean to prepare oneself?

To prepare oneself is when the attribute of bestowal becomes the most important thing in one’s reality. In other words, that this concept will be as it is written, “A righteous lives by his faith.” With it there’s life, without it, it’s death—literally. That there is nothing else besides this.

Of course, this can come only after a lot of effort, the environment and the books. But if one understands that in this life, in the true way which is unseen, and outside of this life, only the attribute of bestowal dominates, then it will be easy for him with this sensation to always yearn for bestowal. Then, according to his grip of the importance of bestowal, he will begin to discover within this importance the attitude of the Creator toward him, which is called the Upper Light.

That’s on condition that one has already acquired the importance specifically for bestowal. It’s called the Returning Light and faith, the Light of Bina. In it, appears the Creator’s attitude towards a person, which is called “complete faith,” Light of Hochma within the Light of Hassadim. There one has Ibur, Yenika, Mochin, VAK, GAR—all the illuminations, the Reshimot (reminiscences); they all are different variations of those relationships. When the importance of bestowal comes from the creature, which is called “the preparation,” Masachim (screens), then from the Creator’s side the love is revealed.

However, when one has not corrected the vessels to be in order to bestow, when the Light comes to a form of expansion, the Light must restrict and shine only according to the purity of the Kelim. Hence, at that time the Light appears to be in utter smallness. Therefore, when the Light is stripped from clothing in the Kelim, the Light can shine in utter perfection and clarity without any restrictions for the lower one.

It follows that the importance of the work is precisely when one comes to a state of nought, meaning when one sees that he annuls his whole existence and being, for then the will to receive has no power. Only then does one enter the Kedusha.

We must know that, “God hath made even the one as well as the other.” It means that as much as there is disclosure in the Kedusha, to that extent the Sitra Achra (lit. Other Side) awakens. In other words, when one claims, “it is all mine,” meaning the entire body belongs to Kedusha, the Sitra Achra too argues against him that the whole body should serve the Sitra Achra.

Hence, one must know that when one sees that the body claims that it belongs to the Sitra Achra, and cries the famous questions of “ Who” and “ What” with all its might, it is a sign that one is walking on the path of truth, meaning that one’s sole intention is to bestow contentment upon one’s Maker. Thus, the primary work is in precisely that state.

One must know that it is a sign that this work hits the target. The sign is that he fights and sends his arrows to the head of the serpent since it yells and argues the argument of “ What” and “ Who”, meaning, “What mean you by this service?” In other words, what will you gain by working only for the Creator and not for yourselves? The argument of “ Who” means that this is Pharaoh’s argument who said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?”

It’s the attribute of the wicked to ask “who” and “what.” That’s how one’s argument is divided when he is in a bad state. With respect to the good state, there are never complaints. Actually, in the good situations complaints come afterwards because, when the Creator gives a good feeling, He seemingly blocks the person from expressing himself and therefore one loses free choice. Free choice can only be in an unclear state, in a state of darkness and confusion.

Above the Machsom (barrier), there is work with Masachim (screens) that a person creates for himself the place of concealment and works from there. He rejects the Lights and arranges the place for thought, for efforts outside of the Light, outside of the Creator and then, once he is certain that the connection with the Creator will not break him and control him, but will give him independence, to that extent, he opens up the connection.

Just look at how strong a person has to be towards the appearance of pleasures in mind, heart, thought, desire, awareness and knowledge. All of them he should reject at the time of their appearance in order to stabilize his attitude.

Now, the Creator seemingly arranges the darkness Himself, not us. So in that respect it’s easier for us now to build our attitude toward the Creator. Because rejecting pleasures is very hard work. And if they don’t come, then since one has nothing to lose anyhow, it is easier for him to build the right attitude toward the Creator.

The darkness we are in right now is a great favor from Above that the Creator gives us. In the books it is said that it’s very hard for Him not to express love and fill the creature with the abundance he wants. The restrictions that the Upper One establishes are much harder to perform for Him than His craving for a complete state from the side of the creatures.

Thus we should understand that the situation before us is the easiest situation, the most desirable one for the beginning of the work. On the one hand, concealments that are here are a clarion that pulls us to something unknown. On the other, they give us the possibility to express something. He doesn’t confuse us, He doesn’t silence us or cancel us with the pleasure which could have appeared and then we’d be lost. Therefore we have to regard the state of darkness as an adorned one, a state ready for adornment.

Question: Baal HaSulam writes that “when one sees that he annuls his whole existence and being, for then the will to receive has no power.” What does it mean that “he annuls his whole existence?”

It means that the desire he is in right now which is to feel and to determine everything, now he cancels it with respect to the darkness and he’s willing to work under these conditions, meaning work within this darkness as if it’s Light.

The darkness isn’t really darkness. It is the revelation of a selective, special, different attitude toward vessels of reception or vessels of bestowal. It doesn’t mean that if one is not in his vessels of reception, he won’t feel darkness, or, if one switches to vessels of bestowal, he will feel the Light. The darkness one is feeling now shows how much one is absorbed in his vessels of reception. It’s very simple: “Just move to the other side. Switch the same Kelim, start relating differently through them and then you’ll discover it’s not darkness.”

The Creator seemingly shows one in a definite order and relation what He doesn’t like specifically. Just as a person comes to another, he can come this or that way—by two ways. A person will learn that when he comes to another in one way, the latter will push him away, but when one comes to him by another way, he will accept him. Basically that’s what the Creator teaches us: This specific attitude is wrong; leave these Kelim, leave this attitude; try another way.

It seems as if the “ Who” argument is a rational argument. It is a worldly comportment that when one is told to go and work for someone, one asks for whom? Hence, when the body claims, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” it is a rational argument.

However, according to the rule that the ratio is not an object of its own, but is rather a mirror, what is present in the senses, appears so in the mind, and this is the meaning of, “And the sons of Dan: Hushim.” This means that the mind judges only according to what the senses let it scrutinize and devise some contrivances and inventions to suit the demands of the senses.

In other words, what the senses demand, the mind tries to provide them their wish. However, the mind itself has no need to work for itself, for any demand. Hence, if there is a demand for bestowal in the senses, the mind operates according to the line.

The mind is like a person looking in the mirror to see if he is dirty, and every place that the mirrors shows as dirty, he goes and washes and cleans, since the mirror showed him that there are ugly things in one’s face that need to be cleaned.

However, the hardest of all is to know what is considered an ugly thing. Is it the will to receive, meaning the body’s demand to do everything only for oneself, or is the will to bestow the ugly thing that the body cannot tolerate? The mind cannot scrutinize it as with the mirror. One cannot say what is ugly and what is beauty, but it all depends on the senses, and only the senses determine that.

Hence, when one accustoms oneself to work coercively, to work in bestowal, then the mind too operates by lines of bestowal. At that time it is unreal that the mind will ask the “Who” question, when the senses have already grown accustomed to work in bestowal.

In other words, the senses no longer ask the question “What mean you by this service” since they already work in order to bestow, and naturally, the mind does not ask the “Who” question.

You find that the most important is bestowal, and the mind does not ask questions because it only serves the senses. The work is in the “What mean you by this service,” and when one hears that the body does ask the “Who” question, it is because the body does not want to degrade itself so. For this reason it asks the “Who” question. It appears to be asking a rational question, but the truth is, as we have said above, that the primary work is in the “What.”

We can’t admit to ourselves that we’re working only according to pleasures and their absence. It seems to us that the mind is more in control in our sensation and that it determines our actions. So, if we knew how to calculate in our mind, how correct and true bestowal is, we would then work accordingly. This is all nonsense. We only work in order to fill ourselves with pleasure or some good sensation. And that’s the only thing that determines our whole bestiality.

Our rational actions, if any, are above the sensations; they are faith above reason. They can only be with the Light of Hassidim with the attribute of Bina, which a person acquires afterwards above the Machsom. But for us, it’s all according to our potbelly, and that’s why one should not get confused to think that, if he had understood, he would have behaved differently. Nothing would have helped him; he would still act according to the pleasures.

All of our calculations are such that we understand neither ourselves nor others. The only choice we have is to go with the opinion of the society and try to have society elevate this adornment, meaning bestowal. When we acquire this attribute then we will reach the scrutiny, intellect and actions that are above our potbelly.

Question: What joys is Baal HaSulam talking about? What is joy?

Those who never felt it can not know. What is it, a dish? Something one eats or an instrument? What is joy? Joy is a result.

We always talk about the impressions in the Kelim as either positive or negative. The Kli can be programmed according to what it feels naturally, meaning that one is happy according to who one is. Perhaps we can add to that state through upbringing and habit. Then a person will have further ability to enjoy with additional pleasures on top of those he was brought up with and has grown accustomed to. All of that becomes second nature, meaning, an addition to nature, and then one has a variety of internal impressions in which one can feel pleasure.

Correspondingly one also feels the sufferings. They go one opposite the other. Something that gives me pain correspondingly gives me pleasure.

Joy means the ability to reach fulfillment in which a person feels not only the fulfillment, but also livelihood. Livelihood is the sensation of the source of life, not the Creator. One feels that by it one revives oneself. It is a fulfillment of an additional degree of internality and a more internal sensation; it is connected to the goal which by itself might also be corporeal, meaning egoistic.

The joy that we’re talking about here is one that is connected to unity. It is a result of a person being separated from the source of his love; having felt hatred, distance, rejection and then gradually coming closer to the state of loving Him back, coming closer to Him, embracing and mutual love. Then, when all of these previous phases appear, from minus to plus, all of them together bring him the sensation of joy.

One should experience the same phases with respect to the friends and toward the group. There cannot be love of friends if a person doesn’t feel toward them hate at first, rejection from them, that he doesn’t want them and that he hates them etc. Then the importance and the scrutiny bring him to the right attitude and thus he discovers the whole volume of the Kli.As usual, when we begin we do so from the opposite state. That’s it.

Question: Here Baal HaSulam talks about the mirror, "…the mirror showed him that there are ugly things in one’s face that need to be cleaned." This revelation gives onw pain, so how can one look at it?

How can a person see that mirror? If one is not willing at all to see what’s in the mirror like a common person in the street, then if someone tells him that he is wicked, proud and an egoist, he will beat that person in the face. And he will be right in doing so because he doesn’t discover these things on his own.

Why doesn’t he see them?A person can see in one’s Kli only what one can tolerate. He can’t discover bad things. The bad things appear according to one’s development. They appear because he has the preparation to tolerate them, and so he either corrects them as a righteous, or he doesn’t correct them as a wicked.

We are talking about people who are beginning to work on themselves in order to get to spirituality. So later, to the extent that they prepare themselves and their environment as support, a bad sensation about themselves appears that they can tolerate. Even if they think they can’t and feel that it is really burning them, they can tolerate all theses feelings.

Here again the important things are the choices confronting them in regard to this feeling: what does one do with it? Some enjoy it. It’s a kind of masochism: “I enjoy being wicked, I am so evil.” They don’t turn this sensation into a tool, a springboard for corrections, but enjoy themselves this way too. It all depends on the extent to which society prepares him, and to the extent he prepares himself through the society.

We have to understand that every situation a person is in—good, bad, in between, it doesn’t matter which—at present, a person can deal with it only according to the previous preparation. The previous preparation appears in the present state as a person and an environment: the Matsa (bed, origin) and its evolution and the environment with its evolution. From both of them, automatically and determinately, regardless of anything, we can understand how a person would behave. How he prepared himself with respect to the environment and the environment with respect to him determines what will happen in next moment, what Reshimo will appear to him and the way he will react to it.

If it hadn’t been this way, there wouldn’t have been (the concept of) choice. Just imagine how would it be possible for us to also calculate, judge and act all at the same moment. (Being able to do so), we wouldn’t have anything. If the minute the Reshimo appears one understands, knows, determines, and one can change anything seemingly, then one is like a puppet, a marionette; he is then absolutely operated upon from Above.

Only because a person can now prepare himself for the next moment and have this ability does he have choice. And that choice he has is to prepare oneself only for the next moment and not the present one. The present one has already been realized. This is why we have a problem understanding where there is choice. It is all from Above or not? Is it in the hands of God or not? The two concepts: “If I am not for me” and “There is None else besides Him.” In the morning, “If I am not for me,” in the evening “There is None else besides Him.” How can that be? It is precisely that: before the preparation and then after the act.

Question: Question from London: How can one increase the importance of bestowal below the Machsom?

Being below the Machsom (the barrier), one can increase the importance of bestowal only through the society. And where does society draw the importance of bestowal, if it is below the Machsom too? From one another.

How can we believe what people on the street tell us? They can force us to do anything they desire, because we are given in the hands of society. There is nothing we can do about that. That’s how we are built. Since we all are in the system of Adam ha Rishon, one is dependent on all the souls.

Since one depends on them, he has no choice, whether he likes it or not, one is dependent on them. Because of that, it means that in this world too people can come to a person, start confusing and affecting that person. Their opinion of him is very important to that person: he is willing to work only to gain society’s appreciation, to be proud, to take pride in its eyes, and so on.

We have to use correctly all of these circumstances and these means of preparation. It is very good that one depends on society. It’s a good preparation that the Creator has made. Now it depends on what kind of society. It depends on what it requires from one and how it will affect that person. Thus one should tell the people around him: “Start influencing me, work on me, lie to me that spirituality is good,” because they will tell him, “how do we know that it is good?” “Lie to me. Just lie to me.”

I gave the example of the musicians with Rabbi Elimelech (I don’t recall the name exactly) who would pay musicians to play while his wife would say: “How can you pay them, when we have nothing at home, we have nothing to eat?” He said: “Without it I can’t awaken to God’s work.” “But they’re nothing but a bunch of drunks who don’t know anything but to drink vodka and can hardly even play these instruments!” He said: “I don’t care who they are. They impress me.” He was a great Kabbalist.

It other words, society is not what counts. What counts is the way society affects me. This law of dependence on society stems from the system of Adam ha Rishon, so one should use it.

Question: What does it mean to prepare the environment?

Prepare the environment that will influence a person in what he thinks is important in one’s life. That’s it. One doesn’t have the energy to become something great. One doesn’t have the energies: “My day is wasted this way, that way, in a thousand things. My thoughts run around in a thousand places, in what is, what is not.” How does a person force oneself to be locked on a single goal? Society can brainwash one in such a way, that he will be constantly directed in that path.

A person who understands his own weaknesses, sees his own confusion, and understands that anyway he is obliged, as Baal HaSulam writes, to exert himself in this world, (needs to decide), either he works uselessly and reincarnates in the same previous state, or he gets good results out of this exertion, and really within this reincarnation comes to something. If one takes upon oneself that resolve, he goes to that society and demands to be influenced, and requests that of them. Then he asks them: “What do you want from me? I’m ready to pay you.”

As Baal HaSulam said, “Take someone and pay him to disseminate.” “Even if that person doesn’t know anything and he only has the talent to speak nicely so that everyone will cry, be impressed?” “Yes, what do you care? Hire someone for yourself as well. You could tell him: 'I will pay you, you will come to me and you’ll say: 'Spirituality,' 'Creator.'” That’s it. What does one care? It will impress him and one will work accordingly.

It all starts from lying. Let there be a lie in a person, on the other hand, we will be impressed by the truth. That’s how we should work, and that is what determines our choice. Those are the places of choice.

Question: If there is a system of Adam ha Rishon and a person depends on the system, what’s the difficulty in acquiring the greatness of the attribute of bestowal?

Society doesn’t give one this greatness. What does society give one? A person doesn’t feel it for two reasons: he doesn’t surrender himself to that society and that society doesn’t provide him, doesn’t impact him with this rumor. Two conditions are required. First, one should want to subjugate oneself and be influenced by society, because a small can receive from a great and not vice versa. One has to be less than the society and the more one negates oneself compared to them, the more one is impressed with them. So either one doesn’t subjugate oneself enough to society or society doesn’t affect him as being strong and powerful with its unique and vital message.

If that had been the case, could anyone escape from here? No one would be able to run away from our society; no one would have the strength to leave. Why are people leaving? Because you’re showing you have nothing. If you had pride in the Creator’s paths, if you were clear and are burning with its importance, could anyone leave this place? Of course not. You are the ones who are driving people away with your indifference.

Question: Let’s say, society does something and it influences. Maybe the problem is the person who can’t decide. The question is can one force oneself to be subjugated?

There’s a reciprocal work here: a person with respect to the society and society with respect to a person. True. But society can force a person. When he comes at first, he has to sit and listen. Then the society tells him, as if it is telling a cat: bestowal is important, blah, blah, blah, all kinds of things. He sits.

But he is not like a cat; he has a point in the heart, and he comes with a desire. He doesn’t understand what it is, but he has some kind of sensitivity and then he begins to be impressed. This is when, like a new person, a novice, he is forced to bow, compelled to participate, to accept the sovereignty of society on him.

The society explains to him that this is necessary in order to attain the goal. Those new people who come in don’t know anything; they have to receive everything from the society. Maybe we should prepare a beginner’s notebook. Working on it, clarifying what are the society’s liabilities in regard to each and every one would be especially beneficial.

Question: The question is how seniors, who are seemingly sitting secure on their own seats, each with his own position etc… Because it gives pride, a kind of feeling natural possession, that you take advantage of it, take it for granted.

Get rid of it. If not so, then let’s close shop, we’ll go some other place without any duties, without any positions or anything like that, and that’s it. Is this the way the seniors will understand that they have nothing?

Question: Can society help an individual diminish himself with respect to society?

Of course! It can do it through examples and also through importance. We should play with man’s ego because from Lo Lishma one comes to Lishma. When we begin praising someone that annulled themselves, that person takes pride of annulling himself, and it’s good. It’s good! The ego supports the fact that one annuls oneself. How can that be? It's because from Lo Lishma one comes to Lishma. (We should utilize) all the possibilities, whenever we are dealing with anything.

We’re forgetting that for any state we are in, there’s a more internal state. When one begins working on the ego, on lowering oneself, one starts seeing in that more internal flavors that make it worthwhile to leave the present circumstances of being lowered, take the lowering itself only and go deeper and deeper in. The Light is inside all the actions just like Behina Aleph creates Behina Bet, where one discovers something more internal in the situation.

That’s why it is said that from Lo Lishma one comes to Lishma. It’s unnatural because in nature, there is a situation, that’s it. However, inside there’s already the next state. When one reaches it, one sees that he wants to work only for that next state; just subjugating oneself is in itself the reward. One doesn’t need the reward of being proud. Being in it, without anyone knowing about it, that in itself is the reward, and it will be disclosed as such.

Question: Question from Paris: If friends within the group that want bestowal, spiritual work, are afraid of self-criticism, does a society like that have the right to exist?

It’s a problem. To behave with one another by wearing silk gloves, being very gentle is not a good and a short way to reach anything. A person lies to himself, to others. He doesn’t come into contact with others. Maybe we should not be rude and repulsive, but we should be willing to behave above all social consensus. That’s important. It’s a question from Paris and so the more they wave off their corporeal culture—they don’t even understand how corporeal their culture is—the better. They think that they are being people, but actually they’re animals, just like it is written in the Zohar.

In other words, in an egoistic society the culture such as people being courteous to each other or civilized with one another comes to make our lives easier. Because even though each one is an egoist, we will be able through certain common rules to be in contact with others, instead of killing each other.

There are social rules, consensus, and we respect them, because through them we are able to exist. Otherwise we would eat each other up. But if we elevate these rules above all the principles, it’s not good since these rules are made to enable us to tolerate ourselves and others as egoists. To the extent we want to get rid of the ego, we have to leave this consensus, this culture and this courtesy. On the contrary, we have to discover the evil in such a useful manner so that we correct it.

Therefore a group, where its members behave with each other courteously, with diplomacy, such a group is not a group of friends. They have the same connections as in a club, not as in a group of friends. Friends are those who try to connect between them through their points in the heart.

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