Introduction to the Book "From the Mouth of a Sage", Talk 2
Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, Bnei Baruch, Israel
September 14, 2005
- 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 continuing with the Introduction to the Book"From the Mouth of a Sage." It's a special book, the first book of Baal HaSulam. It was a draft for Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), which is the primary book in the Wisdom of Kabbalah, describing the entire system/mechanism of creation, how it operates, how we are operated by it, how we are integrated in it and how through all of these operations of the system, we reach our Gmar Tikkun, the world Ein Sof.
Before Baal HaSulam wrote Talmud Eser Sefirot, which is an over 2000-page composition, he wrote, without finishing, a book called, From the Mouth of the Sage. It was like a draft for Talmud Eser Sefirot and as usual, he wrote an introduction to the book, which just the like Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot, it talks about the essence of this book, why he writes it, why he writes the book. Here too he writes, right at the very beginning of the introduction, that without studying the Wisdom of Kabbalah, a person doesn't reach the purpose of his creation and must reincarnate. Even if he is knowledgeable in the Torah and Mishnah and Mitzvot and everything he may imagine in this world. Only the study of the Wisdom of Kabbalah corrects his soul and only thus does one perform in this world what he should perform, and therefore does not need to return for another round again for the possibility of realizing the purpose of his existence in this world.
So where are we here?
On page 267, paragraph: "The Essence."
"The essence of reality expanded through the last degree, which is the corporeal body with a soul. Similarly, the concatenation was made by way of cause and consequence relating to the essence of the existence of reality, which are the conducts of His administering that hang down by gradations.
Thus, the Upper Light is Higher than High and will ultimately expand and come to the soul clothed in the corporeal body in this world, as it is written, 'for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying: 'Know the Lord'; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.' "
Reality is the Upper Light whichexpands from the World of Ein Sof (Infinity) through all the worlds to this world, and touches each of them and each of us. We don't see and feel these things and how they operate on us, but the events of life bring us to a state where we need to discover the secret of life, the purpose of life. And the ultimate goal is that one will reach a state of acknowledging or knowing the Upper Force to the fullest so that they will not teach each other to know the Creator but each and every one will reach the degree of the Creator and will be as the Creator in attributes, in every definition and with an eternal and complete existence. This is what every single person must come to.
Yes, "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord." Meaning all the desires – that's the earth, desire is creation – all the desires will be filled with the Upper Light, the Light of the Creator, called the land being filled with the knowledge of the Lord, the Light of Wisdom, the Creator. According to the law of equivalence of form, the Lights fill the Kelim. Meaning in order to be filled with Light, in order to know the actions of the Creator, to understand Him, to know the land, one must reach the same attributes and accordingly come to the eternity and perfection in which the Upper Force is in.
Question: What does it mean to be filled with Lights? It sounds scary to be filled with Light. Where? What does it mean?
Drawing No. 1
First of all, [Rav drawing] it's not scary because we were actually createdby the Light. Light is called bestowal, giving, and the creature is only a Kli for reception. Being filled with Light – meaning satisfying all the desires of the creature – that's not bad at all; it's not scary. Meaning every pleasure you can even imagine now, and that you will ever want, all of them together are called Light. Light or pleasure are one and the same. A deficit, a desire, a Kli(vessel), they are all the same. There is nothing more than a desire and the pleasure that precedes it. All these pleasures are generally called the Creator and all these desires are called creature. Other than these two forces – where one is empty, wants, and the other, the filling also wants – other than these two forces there is nothing. One wants to give the other, and the other wants only to receive from the first. That is the entire creation.
Drawing No. 2
Now we are in a situation. Let's say down here there is a point. We are here, blocked, everything is all blocked. There is a Machsom, a barrier, here and my real Kli doesn't open, as we say that a person operates only 2% of his brain and doesn't operate 98% of it. That's how it is. Just imagine with our ability to enjoy, to live, that's why our level of life right now is called Kista de Hayuta (a pocket of life). We live beneath the line of life. Let's say 2% of life in this world. A person is left with 2% of life. Can you imagine that person? Unconscious and barely alive, that's how we are with respect to our real life. That's all. What does the Wisdom of Kabbalah say? It teaches you how to receive. It's not frightening. It's how to receive. That's the vessel of reception, how to receive all the pleasures that are prepared for us, ready for us.
Question: He writes that, “…which is the corporeal body with a soul.” What is the connection between the corporeal body and the soul?
Drawing No. 3
As we have said, we have a point in the heart, that same point as in the previous sketch, and we feel it after we build a body. The body is all the desires that we develop or that develop in us throughout the process of our existence, through our lives, through our incarnations. Meaning, through incarnating, there are physical desires in me; followed by desires for money, honor, and knowledge. When I develop these pleasures they are what I call a body. This body has five senses, in which I feel my world. So what's my world? I have some Light around me, but instead of a Kli for it, I have only five senses with my desires, not with my point in the heart, but with my desires. Through the five senses I picture the world. Right? Four and five. This ability to see only my inner picture is my Klipa (shell) for the time being. What do I need to do? I need to develop my point in the heart, my inner desire, so that through it I will want not to exist in my five senses but in my sixth sense, the sixth sense which is called a soul.
All right, let's continue.
"It is written by our sages and in the book of Zohar, 'The whole Torah is the names of the Creator.'"
Drawing No. 4
What does it mean that "The whole Torah is the names of the Creator?" The Lights that enter the Kelim(vessels)…I have a desire, yes, these are desires. The soul (he’s writing “soul”) is a Kli (vessel), that’s a Kli of a soul, and the Light that fills it is called the Light of the soul. The Kliconsists of desires – 620 desires, 613 plus 7. Each and every desire, which is filled with pleasure that one wants to receive, is called the filling of a desire with a pleasure. Along with this feeling, this sensation, the sensation of need over which a pleasure comes, together they comprise a name. When I name something in spirituality, for example chicken soup, when I say chicken soup, I'm talking about the thing itself, the reality of it, which fills me, and how it pleases me; because I can't talk about something irrespective of how it appears in me, how I sensed it.
Drawing No. 5
That's the name. Normally we describe that name in Gimatria, with numbers. This name pertains to the need and the pleasure, which all in all express what I receive from the Creator, from the Upper Force. Hence from all these names, the sum of all these names, is how I describe the Creator, the Giver, according to my deficits and the pleasures that come into my deficits, I know Him. From Your acts, from what You give to me, from what You do to me; from that we know You. It's very simple. The Wisdom of Kabbalah speaks very pertinently, in a very practical manner.
"It is written by our sages and in the book of Zohar, 'The whole Torah is the names of the Creator.' "
Drawing No. 6
Meaning this general Light that comes and fills all the souls is called Torah. And there are two functions to this Light. It is a correcting Light called, "The Light that reforms," and a Light that also brings disclosure in them, it fills them. It functions in two ways, but it's all the same Light. What is the difference? The difference is in the Kli, what the Kli wants of it. If the Kli wants Tikkun, it corrects. If the Kli wants filling, if it wants filling after the correction, it fills it. If it, previous to the correction, on the contrary, it operates on the Kli in such a way that it feels pain and emptiness instead of filling, and that pressures the Kli to first of all correct itself, and then be filled.
"All the stories and the laws and the sentences, all are the Holy Names of the Creator.
According to the above that 'Anything that we do not attain we do not define by a name,' you will thoroughly understand the meaning of the Holy Names of the Creator. These are the attainments that expand from Him to His servants, the prophets and the righteous, each according to his merit, as it is written, 'we are distinguished, I and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.'
This distinguishing comes to us through the reception of the Torah and the keeping of Mitzvot, first only in the revealed way. It has the merit of purifying our bodies and enhancing our souls to such a measure that we become worthy of attaining the entire Torah and its Mitzvot as His Names. This is the entire reward intended for the souls at the end of correction. However, it is in this world too, as it is written in the Gmarah, 'You shall see your world in your life.' That explains to us why…"
Drawing No. 7
Wait a minute, wait a minute! Wait! Do you want to read it again? What is he telling us? As we’ve said before, we basically just have to correct our Kli, the Kli of the soul. What does he write? To find in it the holy names which are fillings that come from the Creator, or disclosures. Yes, we have to disclose. Each name describes in me, in my Kli, an act of the Creator, how the Creator operates on me, what He does in me, how He does it with respect to His bestowal and how it awakens me to do the same towards Him, an act of bestowal. So, that's the disclosure of the holy names in a person, in the soul.
Drawing No. 8
What else did he say? He said it is through the Light called Torah that reforms, that corrects the Kli. And because we have… I'll write 613 because we don't really know what the 620 is. So we have 613 desires in the soul because it consists of 248 in Galgalta ve Eynaim(GE; skull & eyes)up to the Chazeh(chest) and below the Chazeh in it's AHP (ears, nose, & mouth) there are 365 parts of not doing, so all in all it is 613 desires or attributes of reception. All of them must be corrected to have the intention to bestow. This intention is corrected only through the Light that reforms called Torah, and then when over all of these desires, there's an intention to give to the Creator in the same extent that He wants to give to man, to the extent these desires are filled with pleasures, with Lights, and the Lights that fill the Kelim are called "the holy names" because any such pleasure, such filling indicates the source, the Creator. That's why it's called "the holy name." By that I know the Creator, in this way, in that way, how He relates to the creatures, to every single creature. That's basically it. That's called performing Mitzvot, correcting each desire with a Mitzvah with the intention to bestow. Correcting it to have the intention to bestow is called doing a Mitzvah,and then to study Torah. Meaning what? Receiving the Light in the corrected Kelim.
Drawing No. 9
In us, in the Torah, there are several items. First the Light comes and it awakens us, Ohr Makif awakens us and it gives us a need. After the need when we are awakened, say the first raising of MAN, the Light begins to come to us and correct us. After the correction, here I only want. I don't know exactly what I want but it's the first MAN. The second MAN is when I want to be corrected. The Light that reforms comes. Then when I correct myself, I raise MAN for filling and Light comes and fills me. And the Light can be called Torah or it can be called other names according to its actions in me. But only the last one that comes and fills the Kli gives me the understanding about the Creator. It's called, "in the holy name," so it gives me a name, a filling, and before that it's only corrections, preparations. We should always understand what operation we're talking about. They're all generally called Torah.
Question: I want to ask if this is somehow connected to the Torah that Moses wrote, or is it completely unrelated?
It doesn't matter, all the Kabbalists describe the same process. Moses wrote about it in a different style and the authors of the Talmud wrote it in a different style. Kabbalists write it for us in the language of Kabbalah, language of the Midrash, language of the Bible, language of Agada(legends), language of the Halacha. It doesn't matter what form it is written in. All the books describe the same process. There’s nothing else to write. What else would they write about? How you should get along in this world? What's the use? He tells you in the beginning of the Introduction to Pi Haham, (From the Mouth of the Sage), whatever you do in this world is worthless, if you didn't take advantage of this reincarnation,if you didn't enter spirituality during this life; you'll just reincarnate again. You'll be born out of whatever mother you come from, you'll go through kindergarten, school, etc.once more; as usual, until your next opportunity.
Question: What I meant was, when he writes that "the whole Torah is the names of the Creator."
Yes, because the Torah is only the sum total of all the Lights. It's the sum total of Lights that fill all the parts of the soul, the parts of Adam HaRishon, bit by bit, meaning the 7billion people in the world if they develop and fill themselves through the process, each and every one of them. When these 7billion times the 125 degrees we should ascend... Let's say that the soul is divided, we say that there are 600,000 souls, but let's call it 7billion, and each of them must reach 125 degrees and be filled. So what will appear will be the general Kli (vessel) and the general Light. The general Kli is called creature and the general Light is called Creator; the Creator clothes in the creature. All these Lights that a person discovers, are generally called Torah. All of these Kelim in order to be filled with Lights, must be similar to the Light according to the law of equivalence of form. Just like in this world if I want to feel something I have to share the same attributes between me and what I feel. A Kli that corrects itself towards similarity with the Creator is calledIsrael (straight to the Creator). Meaning, with the inclination toward the same attribute. So Israel, the general Kli, and the Torah and the Creator, which is the Light in general, they are all one. They are all in the same structure: the Light, the Kli and the intention to bestow, what we call the Masach(screen), are all as one. All three as one.