Bold and in quotes: Original text of Baal HaSulam
Regular: Commentaries of Rav Laitman
lowercase italics: emphasized words
Capitalized italics: transliteration from Hebrew
We are reading in the book Shamati, Article #125, Who Delights the Shabbat.
“One who delights the Shabbat is given an unbounded domain, as it is said, ‘Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will make thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father,’ etc. Unlike Abraham, about whom it is written, ‘Arise, walk through the land in the length of it,’ etc.. And not as Isaac, as it is written, ‘for unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these lands,’ but as Jacob, about whom it is written, ‘and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south’” (Shabbat, 118).
Shabbat is Gmar Tikkun (End of Correction). It is when all the Light that is intended for the will to receive (the creature which is the existence from absence) corrects this will in accordance to itself, according to the law of equivalence of form. It then fills the will to receive, and it is sensed in it in all profundity; in understanding, attainment, delight, pleasure and in adhesion from the creature's side, as it was originally in the Thought of Creation. That’s the meaning of the term Shabbat.
So of course, he who delights the Shabbat is given an endless land; it's without any limitations. That's because that state has to be like the final state that exists within the Thought of Creation to do Good to His creations. The realization of the complete Thought of Creation is called Shabbat.
It is difficult to understand this Gemarah as it is. Should every one of Israel be given the whole world, an unbounded domain?
We should begin with the words of our sages: “In the future, the Creator will take the sun out of its sheath and will darken. The wicked are judged by it, and the righteous are healed by it, as it is written, ‘For behold, the day cometh, it burneth as a furnace; and all the proud, and all that work wickedness, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall set them ablaze, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch,’ neither a root in this world nor a branch in the next world.”
In the future everything should be apparent, “Taking the sun out of its sheath.” Meaning, there are no limitations, there’re no concealments of the Upper Light. It has to appear to the Kli (vessel) without any limitations, as it is, with the intention, “He is Good that does Good,” “He is good to the good and to the bad, for the righteous and the wicked.” So all of these Lights (which all in all are the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) have to appear [to the Kli].
So if that’s the case, then how’s it possible that first of all, the creatures can reach it from the creature’s perspective? And besides, from the perspective of the Benevolent One, how’s it possible that each one of the creatures will have the entire world?
The Kli that in the end was corrected doesn’t lose those discernments that it attained during the breaking, the scrutiny, the correction, and the reunification into a single Kli. Those connections that exist amongst the souls don’t vanish. But each of them sustains their uniqueness and also remains separate from the other, yet is connected to others without any difference. Each Kli is an integrated part of the machine to the point that on the one hand each one sustains its independence, but on the other, they’re all connected as one man and one heart. And this special bonding is what gives the Kli (the general soul) the ability and the strength to disclose the entire Light of Ein Sof as benevolent.
So if that’s the case, then there is a question again: How is it possible that each and everyone will have 620 worlds or, as it says, the whole world?
The righteous are healed by it, as it is written, “‘But unto you that fear My Name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings.’ And moreover, they are refined by it” ( Avoda Zarah (Idolatry), 3b).
And we need to understand the riddle of the sages, what is a sun and what is a sheath, and whence does this oppositeness come. Also, what is “neither a root in this world nor a branch in the next world”? And what is “moreover, they are refined by it”? He should have said, “healed and refined by it;” but what is the “moreover” that he said?
Now we can understand the words of our sages: “Israel count by the moon and the nations of the world, by the sun” ( Sukkah 29). Thus, the sunlight is an epithet to the clearest knowledge, as it is written, “clear as the sun.”
We learn that Israel is the vessels of bestowal. Katnut (smallness), Yaakov, the middle line, Malchut that works only in the form of Tifferet. Malchut that works as Yesod is already the correction of the nations of the world, the correction of the vessels of reception. But Malchut that still corrects itself only in the vessels of bestowal is called Malchut that is in Tifferet, Tifferet Yaakov.
And this is why the Light that comes to the vessels of bestowal is Katnut. It is like the moon, it is the Light that shines only by reflecting and not by receiving in order to bestow. It's like the moon that reflects the light of the sun in the physical world.
And the nations of the world receive in order to bestow, because they are vessels of reception. Hence, they are similar to the sun in which there is the Light of wisdom and knowledge, whereas, Israel is about faith.
And the nations of the world, who did not receive the Torah and Mitzvot, as it is written that the Creator brought it to every nation and tongue, since they did not want to delight in the Light of the Torah, considered “the moon,” which receives from His Light, being the light of the sun, that is, the common Light. Yet, they do have craving and desire to study in the Name and to know Him, Himself.
But Israel count by the moon, which are the Torah and Mitzvot, where the sunlight is clothed within them. Hence, the Torah is the sheath of the Creator.
It is written in The Zohar that “the Torah and the Creator are one.” This means that the Light of the Creator is clothed in the Torah and Mitzvot, and He and His sheath are one. Hence, Israel count by the moon, to complement themselves in Torah and Mitzvot. Therefore, they are naturally awarded the Creator, too. Yet, since the nations of the world do not keep the Torah and Mitzvot, meaning the sheath, they do not have even the Light of the sun.
Of course, Gmar Tikkun reached by integrating Israel and the nations of the world and Israel will give to the nations of the world the ability to be integrated with its Kelim and with its Torah and thus they will be one Kli. But until that happens, only Israel will be able to receive the Torah , and towork with it with faith above reason.
This is the meaning of “in the future, He brings the sun out of its sheath.” And they said, “ Shechina (Divinity) in the lower ones; a sublime need.” This means that the Creator craves it and yearns for it.
This is the meaning of the six days of action, meaning the work in Torah and Mitzvot, since “The Lord hath made every thing for His own purpose.” And even the work on the six days is still the work of God, as it is written, “He created it not a waste, He formed it to be inhabited.” This is why it is called “a sheath.”
And the Shabbat is the light of the sun, the day of rest in the eternal life. That is, He has prepared the world in two degrees: 1) that His Divinity would be revealed through the Torah and Mitzvot in the six days of action; 2) that He will be revealed in the world without the Torah and Mitzvot.
And this is the meaning of “in its time; I will hasten it.” Rewarded—I will hasten it, meaning through Torah and Mitzvot. Not rewarded—in its time. This is because the evolution of creation through the increase of the suffering brings the end and the redemption to humanity, until the Lord places His Divinity in the lower ones. And this is called “in its time,” evolution over time.
But at Gmar Tikkun, ‘in its time’ and ‘I will hasten it’ connect together. Although it seems to the lower ones that they are progressing either by a path of ‘I will hasten it’ or ‘in its time,’ but it says that there is a way in between them called “the way of the land.” This path is done by both ways, because it is not possible to do it only through ‘in its time,’ or only through ‘I will hasten it,’ but it is an “average” between them.
But at Gmar Tikkun ‘in its time’ and ‘I will hasten it’ connect, as if a person was progressing both of them together. That is, he receives all the Kelim from ‘in its time’ as if he suffered all the torments without any part of them, as if he seemingly went through them and didn’t suffer. And also he receives all the Kelim by ‘I will hasten it,’ as if he constantly went with faith above reason and never had any question or doubts about how to do something in the best possible way, the way that is justified by the Creator.
Those two ways connect together. And it turns out that we don’t really understand how that can happen, because a person doesn’t actually experience them de facto. But it follows the same rule “that he swallowed riches, and then he vomits them up again,” as we learn about the middle line.
When we reach the middle line and everything is corrected, after we complete the correction the stony heart is corrected and joins that big Zivug (mating) that a creature can perform only in the Yesod of Malchut. But when the stony heart joins, there is a Zivug of Malchut de Malchut.
This is also in terms of ways to the Creator. When we progress in the way of the land, which is in between ‘I will hasten it’ and ‘in its time,’ and when we complete this way, in the end it isn’t integrated in actions that a person performed de facto in the middle line between ‘in its time’ and ‘I will hasten it.’ But then in the big Zivug, the whole issue of the suffering, ‘in its time,’ and the pure great faith in the ‘I will hasten it’ path join together, and both shine as one. And then the Light that’s all Shabbat shines.
First of all we learn that in all of our corrections we should direct ourselves in one line: Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one; that they have to be in one line for a person through the means at his disposal. It means that the group, the study, dissemination, everything he does to increase his desire and accuracy for the goal and the goal itself has to be in one line. And then his craving will be the correct desire and each step will bring him to the goal.
So, it’s similar about the Shabbat. In everything we want to do or correct we have to keep before us this issue of Gmar Tikkun, the “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one,” which is the concept of Shabbat. Then all of the Kelim (with all the sufferings and the faith) that we acquire along the way can or cannot perform on both sides, either between the nations of the world or Israel, join together into a single Kli. And then all of the abundance, all the “Good that does Good” appear; abundance that the Creator wants to show to the creatures, through which we give Him an opportunity to appear and by which we bring Him delight and pleasure, as He wants to give to us from the beginning.
This reciprocal appearance, like the two great lights, the sun and the moon, exist together at Gmar Tikkun. And one does not put out the other or somehow cancel the other, because each and every correction on the one hand, keeps and increases the uniqueness of each and every soul. And on the other, it works to cancel each and every soul with respect to others.
And one does not negate the other because it happens on both levels together; each and everyone within his own soul, expresses his soul to the fullest (if or specifically) by canceling himself with respect to other. But by annulling his ego he takes all the other souls and begins to realize himself through them and give to them. It means that he inserts his character, his egoism, and his self into all the other souls by bestowing to them.
This is why he doesn’t vanish as a personality. On the contrary, he lives by them and expresses himself; it’s a positive ego. We have to understand all the discernments, its nature. So it’s the same with everyone and here we’re not canceling anyone. Everyone has his own entire world, the whole Kli of Ein Sof and at the same time all of these Kelim, when they join together expose this big Shabbat.
Question: Baal HaSulam writes in several places that ‘I will hasten it,’ increases the Kelim, expands them. And now we said that at Gmar Tikkun they connected and seemingly become one. So, what’s the advantage of ‘I will hasten it,’ if they join as one?
One can't say that there is or is not an advantage to ‘I will hasten it.’ A person progresses only through ‘I will hasten it.’ When they say that a person progresses through pains and that pains purify the body it means that they give a person an intensity of pain’s to ignite his need to look for the source of evil. Suffering has no other function but to activate a person’s mind to be critical and aware and no more than that.
The will to receive in itself, without a person’s efforts doesn’t cultivate next to it an intellectual system, a system of criticism. That should be an additional effort on the part of man. It means the will to receive suffers or enjoys. Within it, there can be only these two forms of impression: the Light or its absence (the opposite form), pleasure or pain.
But on the path of their development pleasure and pain reach the state when, with respect of the depth of their Kli that comes out, they are felt as having the reason within them as in the case in Behina Aleph (the first phase) of the four phases of the Direct Light. At the end of Behina Aleph there appears the reason why it is in the state that it is in: there is someone who created it, someone who fills it, and that someone seemingly loves it or relates to it, and fills it with goodness.
And from that, Behina Aleph begins to understand that someone gives that and that’s His nature. And then the Behina Bet (second phase) evolves in it. So in Behina Aleph there is a place where there is only a desire which is unaware, and then it feels that it enjoys. Then within that pleasure it begins to distinguish that there is someone who gives it this pleasure.
There are many phases to the evolution. Each Behina contains all of them, otherwise, it wouldn’t come to a resolution. Even within Behina Aleph it has its own four Behinot (aspects). So it can be said that even in Behina Shoresh (root phase) there are four Behinot because “the end of the act is in the preliminary thought.” Within the Creator it was decided that it should be that way in that decision. In Keter and in Behina Shoresh, there already is the elicitation of existence from absence and that is the entire plan. And then it happens in all four phases.
So what am I trying to say? The will to receive that was created (if we’re talking only about the will to receive) can’t sense anything else besides what it’s created for. Everything else, meaning all of the other actions that it experiences, its improvement or its evolution all come through the Light that operates in it.
The Lights shake up the Kelim. And this is why the Light of the pleasure or the absence of the pleasure awakens the creature to begin to distinguish between the Light and the Giver of the Light—within the states of filling and absence of filling. From that, the intellectual system is created. The intellectual system is the system of Bina. There is nothing more than vessels of bestowal and vessels of reception in reality, the Creator and the creature.
So our intellect is already the system which is a result of bestowal. What does it mean? It means it is the result of the sensation of the Host who gives. Where does that Bina, understanding, come from? From that! It means that the will to receive doesn’t build our memory or discernments in a direct way. This is already created out of perception of something from the Light. This is why there is reciprocal participation, so to speak.
Question (cont'd): So, what’s the advantage of ‘I will hasten it?’
There’s no advantage of ‘I will hasten it.’ It’s not that there is an advantage or disadvantage. I wanted to say that the will to receive in itself doesn’t evolve. ‘I will hasten it,’ which comes to us, is as an acquisition of an intellectual system which comes entirely from Bina,from the qualities of bestowal, the qualities of the Giver and from sensing Him. No memory cell can exist if it doesn’t come from Bina.
The raw will to receive is only a sensation of good or bad. And even that sensation of good or bad is actually existence or absence. Even feelings of pleasure or pain are very elementary in what a person feels. Immediately after, he starts to test and criticize the pleasure or the pain according to the Host, according to his self-respect, and to his pride. These are already levels of evolution that evolved in him through the Light.
In primitive animals or in any primitive body you don’t have these discernments. Actually, the will to receive in itself, in its raw form, is very, very simple. It tests whether or not it has or doesn’t have. And everything else is a result of acquiring the influence of the Light.
This is why ‘I will hasten it’ is not that we acquire a little. ‘I will hasten it’ means that we acquire the quality of the Creator and we’re integrated in it. And in that we have free choice, the expression of our self. The self of the person is not within the will to receive. This is just the substance that senses. The self of a person is what builds above the will to receive in resembling the Creator. We have to resemble Him completely to the fullest. That means we acquire from Him the entire form of bestowal. And that’s acquired only through ‘I will hasten it,’ and only through free choice.
It means that it’s not that we progress through a path of sufferings. The sufferings are only to beat me up until I understand that’s enough, I have to start doing something here.
But when do I tell myself that it’s enough? If it is within me, it’s until I sufficiently complete the four Behinot.Prior to that I won’t say that it’s enough; I will continue to work like a donkey and wait. But from outside they can affect me and increase my awareness. And then these four phases will evolve much more quickly than through pains alone, which are not through pains alone whereby they invert in their four Behinot and bring the awareness from within.
Society can do that much more quickly by influencing me. But in any case, I have to come to a resolution that I transcend the blows. They are purposeful, there’s a reason to them, and there’s a special attitude toward myself and now I will use it. It means that I take the blow and begin to invert it into a change in myself. I use what appears to me as negativity, next to the understanding that it’s not negativity but it comes as a purposeful thing. There is the blow on one side and its purpose from the Creator’s point of view, on the other. When I increase and extol His purpose sufficiently, then I have a hold on it, I take the blow as a means and I transcend it in the attitude to the goal and progress.
So it all depends on the level of awareness next to the blow. And this awareness is that either I receive blows until it brings me awareness, or a society can bring me this awareness much faster. De facto it is both ways.
Question: What does it mean that Baal HaSulam writes that the path of ‘I will hasten it’ is like a person who can take a hammer and slowly slam a rock, but if he blows up the rock at once it is more effective compare to slow blows? Why is there an advantage to this thrust?
Theoretically, we have the ability to give a final blow but we avoid it. We don’t use all of the means it takes to reach this blow. This escape and not using the means to reach this blow, stretches time; it’s also laziness. It also is the lack of the use of society. It’s how it is reciprocally between society and man. Society also contains several like that who are not working to realize their opportunities. And that’s how it happens.
There are many opportunities in society. And for each and everyone they are called the right time for breaking through (for redemption), and that opportunity passes and it’s not realized. What can you do? Because of that, it is so important to accumulate efforts, to gather them and not agree to be with people in society who are idle, if they are considered friends. Not the ones, which just join us, and still have a different status. Everyone must understand that to the extent that he is lazy, everyone is harmed and it all comes back to him.
There are many opportunities, because this system is very dynamic and has many states, from which we can really realize the jump. There are a lot of discernments about that because we complete many corrections afterwards, when we receive powers and the status. And only then we give back what we received.
Question: What does it mean that ‘I will hasten it’ expands the Kelim? Is there a state where at Gmar Tikkun some will enjoy less than others, because they work more ‘In its time’ and ‘I will hasten it?’
First of all, as mentioned, ‘in its time’ and ‘I will hasten it’ come together at Gmar Tikkun. In other words, no one will lack either ‘in its time’ or ‘I will hasten it.’
Secondly, the expansion of the Kelim from the first state to the third state is precisely through ‘I will hasten it’ through awareness that a person adds in his self-evolvement, by which he begins to understand and recognize the Creator who is within the Light of the pleasure. That’s why the Light of the pleasure grows within him 620 times more through awareness, through ‘I will hasten it.’ This is why it isn’t absent from anyone.
Question: What causes a person to avoid?
There’s the ideal state in which every single person works like a corrected machine in realizing himself to the maximum of ‘I will hasten it,’ of what each and everyone is capable of realizing according to the calculations from Above. This doesn’t happen de facto. De facto, as Baal HaSulam says, we are progressing by the middle path between ‘in its time’ and ‘I will hasten it.’ It’s called the way of the land.
Why does that happen? Because a person is looking at this machine of creation as a machine operated by someone, and that’s how it works. And from the perspective of a person, there is no place here to add of himself. ‘Adding by himself’ is only by each giving to the others.
A person cannot affect himself. If he is detached from society, he will progress in the direction and pace that he will. It hardly ever happens, but let’s say it does for the argument's sake. But the whole path of ‘I will hasten it’ comes from a person's awakening from the environment (from the general system), which he prepares through his own efforts. And they make an effort to awaken him.
This work is the primary work to increase within a person his Kelim and self-awareness with respect to the general situation, because we don’t have to increase our mind and our sensation with respect to ourselves. It appears through ‘in its time.’ We just have to increase our participation, intellect, discernments, and all of our scrutiny with respect to the general system.
In our connection with the general system there is implemented what is called ‘I will hasten it’ which is only in the incorporation of a person within the general system. So, to the extent that others help him and awaken him (each and everyone), it can affect the ‘I will hasten it’ of a person.
We just have to understand that ‘I will hasten it’ is the attitude to the whole, in which the Creator appears. ‘In its time’ is when a person suffers blows that are felt in his will to receive until he begins to feel that there’s a relation between these personal blows and the general system.
You have to go through four degrees of evolution and only then will you understand to a degree that there is a connection. When it evolves in the ordinary ‘in its time’ way, it can take maybe twenty years or thirty years. That’s normal if he doesn’t awaken by himself through society, connections, contacts, and transitions between himself and this system of the souls.
Question: How can one identify the point that he has to correct?
Precisely, according to the blow a person can’t always identify what he has to correct. He receives a blow in one place and it’s totally disconnected from his reason. This requires special evolvement until he begins to identify that it comes from a certain state, from the source, from a certain reason. It depends on knowing the system.
That’s the whole thing about the expert and the critic. In some state I suffered a blow, something went wrong and I don’t know what. And then I ask someone who knows the whole system, and he says, “It happened here because it came out of there.” The blow itself doesn’t make me know this. It has to be a higher degree than the state where the blow itself is sensed. And the difference between them is in the four phases of evolution.
Society brings me the knowledge of the entire system and along with the blows it begins to give me the responses instead of the blows. And then immediately I see it one opposite the other as I identify it. If it’s personal, I see the blow and then I understand where it came from. Because the blow is felt in the heart and the understanding comes from the mind and I have to connect them together.
Whereas, if I receive the blow from society, then I get both the blow and the response from society at the same emotional level. And this is very beneficial and it’s very effective. Say, something happens to me, and I receive from society a negative response; these are two things that I can connect immediately and I don’t have to be smart. They immediately get connected in me, not through the system of the brain that’s connected to the heart, in which you forget all of the thoughts and impacts. It happens in a natural, earthly, emotional way, immediately.
That’s why society is so effective for progress and influences a person. We see how it affects everyone because it acts on the emotional level—directly on me, on my will to receive—not through the brain. All of those people around me don’t have an effect through my brain, they effect me directly even without my criticism.
I have pride, honor and all kinds of sensations; I am connected to a thousand things; I love them or I hate them. And then they immediately come into that system directly without me being able to oppose it. I can’t resist it because it comes from the system of Adam ha Rishon (the First Man), where we are connected together naturally. And then they affect me and I am ‘naked’ against them, defenseless.
That’s why with ‘I will hasten it’ through the influence of society one can complete this whole path very easily. Whereas, if it is through the intellectual systems, which is also ‘I will hasten it,’ when person develops it, and wants to affect his emotions through the intellect and build the system of correction of mistakes), it takes a lot of time. It’s unnatural. Natural is emotion.
This is why the social connections are so effective, because they come naturally from the connection between us in the general system of the common soul.
And here we should also distinguish between the sources of the soul: some are more emotional, some are more intellectual. So, accordingly there’s also a difference in how they express themselves, and how they realize themselves. Whether a person likes it or not he is built in such a way that he has an intellectual part that is pretty destructive or dominant, while another person is more emotional. So, there is a difference. But as a whole everyone is affected by society directly.
Hence not using this tool is a loss that can’t be complimented in any other way. A person through society reaches within himself and as if puts his hand into his soul. He works on it, he works in it through society because that’s where the society is. And he has no other way to affect himself in this manner. Through the intellect a person starts building all kinds of theories and self-persuasions. That’s a very, very long way.