Part 6 · Chapter 17

Understanding the Sefirot of Circles 0:03

So we just finished talking about the ספירות of עיגולים. So the ספירות of עיגולים, we're talking about the top one is the main one and the inside one is the least important one.

Why? Because there you're focusing on what you want. So like there it's just like whatever you're using to represent what you want is just like this token representation, but it doesn't really reach the thing that you're trying to represent.

So it's really you see it as being, you know, transparent and being kind of, you know, irrelevant. Like let's say you're going to make a, you know, language, you're going to pick what you have to name something. So the name that you pick for it is really irrelevant, you know. You can pick any name, and whatever it is because the main thing is you, the main thing is what you decide.

So you see the main thing is you, and you see how everything else was just whatever you decide, that's what it will be called.

The same thing, like now we're coming to ראש השנה and יום כיפור, the whole purpose of your ראש השנה, יום כיפור, אלול, ראש השנה, יום כיפור is to is is the we want to recognize the ספירות of עיגולים until we get to the top עיגול. That's our goal. We want to recognize that to have מסירת נפש for God Himself, the בעל הרצון, and realize that everything is totally the whatever He wants.

If He would tell us to chop wood, we'll chop wood. If He tells us to jump off the roof, we'll jump off the roof.

If He tells us to, you know, run around waving our hands and screaming like an insane person, we'll do that, whatever He wants. And whatever God wants to happen in the world is that's what happens in the world. And if He wants there to be eleven ספירות, there'll be eleven ספירות, whatever He wants.

And everything, you know, all these things of טבע and the order and, you know, this whole thing about a דירה בתחתונים and גילוי עצמות, and all like these are all invented by Him.

Just, you know, it's really and it's really irrelevant. So that means that if you in order to do תשובה, you have to say I don't care, I don't care about שבת, I don't care about עבירה, I don't care about תורה, מצוות at all, I don't care about anything, you know, because just whatever God wants me to do. If He tells me to do that, then I'll do it.

But you don't care about it as like a thing on its own and say like, well that essentially has something to it, you know.

Tashuva: Indifference to External Commandments 2:22

And this whole דירה בתחתונים thing, we don't care about that either.

That's תשובה, to reconnect to the original source, which in this case is the first עיגול.

Then from Rosh from יום כיפור to סוכות is going into יושר. And the ספירות of יושר, it's the opposite. Once you make that commitment, so then once you say, okay, so whatever God wants I'm going to do to do I'll do, and it's totally irrelevant, whatever He wants. But once God picks something that He wants you to do, then that thing takes on the full force of your מסירת נפש.

That means that if God tells you to put on תפילין every day, you will die to put on תפילין every day, and nothing is going to stop you from putting on תפילין every day.

Communist Russia could not stop them from putting תפילין on every day, or keeping שבת, or any, you know, any of these things, even to like tying your shoelaces.

If somebody comes and tells you to tie your shoelaces like the גוים tie their shoelaces, you'll laugh in their face and let them kill you, right? So that means that even for the smallest פרט of the רצון, you'll have a total מסירת נפש. That's this next step, but in order to do that, you first have to stop, not care about it, you know, the things themselves, and has to be irrelevant to you and realize, which is like the עיגולים, where you realize the main thing is just His רצון, and everything else is irrelevant.

And then when when it comes to בפועל ממש that השם chooses the way He wants it to be, which is when it switches to יושר, then the main thing becomes the מעשה, that it has to be like this according to the חיצוניות, פרטים of הלכה, and if you don't care about the כוונות, and you don't care about, you know, all those things are not are are irrelevant.

They're just ways to get you to get to that thing. The main thing is not your כוונה and your feelings and all that holy stuff, the main thing is that you do it.

And that's it. Whatever you got to do to get yourself to do it, that's fine, but the whole main thing is it has to be done exactly like this.

Action Over Intent: The Central Role of Deeds 4:29

And that becomes the top thing. So then when it comes to בפועל ממש, the מעשה becomes the main thing. Like the story I told you guys last week, the story about the פריערדיקער רבי coming to America, there was someone when the first when the שליח went was going to to Johannesburg, I think.

Yeah, you have the plan, they have the plan already, right, because when you're sitting down in 770 or on the boat onto America, whatever, and you're making your plan, that's the thing of עיגולים, that you're making your plan based on what you want. You're not taking into consideration ation, what's possible and what's practical. The only consideration you're taking in is what you want, and everything else is בטל to that.

Then, once you choose on one plan בפועל ממש, then you have to make that, that's it, that's your goal. And now you have to figure out how you can get that. So, that becomes totally set. And now everything you're doing is just to figure out how to get that, and how to get yourself to want to do it even, you know, whatever you're going to have to do.

Decisive Commitment and the Power of Action 5:31

But that becomes now the main thing. That's the thing of a החלטה. Once you decide this is going to be the way it's going to be בפועל ממש, then at that becomes the main thing and you switch, and the main thing becomes the מעשה, and the בפועל ממש. In other words, like there's a certain point where you're when you're planning, let's say, which house you want, so you have to be, you know, the main You're flexible.

Could be this one, could be that one, whatever. But that's for the stage, you know, a certain stage. Once you come to where you eventually you have to make a decision and say, "That's it.

I'm going to do only one." You have to pick one, and only one. And it's hard for people to do to make that jump a lot of times. It's an immaturity. You know, like, you ever see kids going to like a bakery or a toy store or something and they only have like $1? They could buy any anything, but there's so many things they want all of them.

So, it's hard for them to just whenever they finally get something, it's like disappointing because it's only this thing. It's not everything else. But it's still you have to pick one thing, and then you have to decide, that's it, I'm going to get that one thing, and you can't change your goal. Every time you change your goal, you start over. So, you have to pick, you decide when you do it, and make a firm resolution to do it no matter what, and then then that everything has to be just to figure out a way to do that.

That's how you That's how you, you know, do things.

That's why on סוכות, you have to go into the סוכה. Because you have to realize that the מצוות are only like a temporary structure. You have to be able to see through, and realize that you're doing them only because השם said so. You have to be able to see the מקיף in the the עיגולים in the יושר, you know what I mean?

That's why it has to be temporary, and that's why it has to be to see through the roof and everything. So, like, I like to tell people on סוכות that the the purpose of סוכות is to teach us that you're not supposed to be פרום.

Sukkot Lesson: Flexibility Beyond Fixed Goals 7:19

You know, because it becomes like a thing that that people have a certain picture of what it means to be פרום, and that's like their goals. They want to be like that, and they forget that they just want to do whatever השם wants. But you got to go out of your box. Yeah, the whole thing is like the whole year you have a certain house, which is like a set structure of like the way that and the point of it, which is like it's it's basically, you know, your It's like a שולחן ערוך, you know what I mean?

It's like your picture of like how you're supposed to be, you know what I mean? Like you try to like keep everything within that box, you know, protect from outside influences, whatever, you know. But then every now and then you have to do תשובה, and remember why you're doing it, and you have to remember that it's temporary. That it's really a flexible thing.

Once you realize that, then you have to make it set, but most of the year it has to be a house, you know? Has to be But you have to start off with at least start off with the כוונה you're doing לשמה.

That's why like in הלכה it's always the main thing is when you start doing something that you have to remember that it's לשמה. Cuz when you start doing it, that's when you decide to do it, you have to decide to do it because השם said so. Once you decide to do it, then you can forget why you're doing it, the main thing is you do it. You can kind of forget about it.

Because now it's it's like it's a different רצון. It's not It's like now that you decide you're going to do it, you know what I mean, you kind of forget why and you focus on how to how to do it. So, it's all right to forget about the You don't have to be able to hold the כוונה the whole time.

The Hidden Ancient Will and the Circle Structure 9:04

As long as when you initially decide to do it, that's the consideration that's, you know. כך הוא ברצון הנעלם הנקרא רצון קדום הנעלם מכל הרצונות, כללות י' ספירות דסדר עיגול בתוך עיגול, עד עיגול דעשיה שהוא רצון מעשה, עשיית מעשה, להיות כל אשר חפץ בפועל ממש כו'. Yeah, so that's the way it works with the עיגולים.

That first is the רצון קדום, which is the original desire for the דירה בתחתונים, the אלף השביעי. And then it goes all the way down to, from the general desire for a for a דירה בתחתונים, to the רצון for the exact form of how the world's going to be, down to every last hair on your head.

And then, once that picture of the way the world's going to be was decided, and like the whole history and all of that, so then השם decided He's going to do בפועל ממש. And that's the last circle.

והעיגול העליון הכולל הכל, the upper circle which includes everything, הוא רצון הקדום הלז, שבא רצון לעצמו להיות הזה להיות בפועל ממש, but when this רצון for yourself, cuz in the level of עיגולים, it's a focus on yourself yourself, that you want it cuz it's going to do, you know, make you happy, right?

Like you want the house, it's cuz you'll feel, you know, you'll feel good and everything, feel people need a house to feel like fulfilled and have their own space and everything. So once you decide that you're going to actually do a certain house,

From Desire to Intellect: Shifting Focus 10:32

הרי הוא להיפך, it's the opposite. שהרצון נעלם, the רצון becomes hidden, ומתלבש בשכל, and it goes into שכל. So now you say, okay, that's it, I want to actually get a house. So now you take the רצון and you put it aside, and you say, okay, now my the main thing is going to be not my רצון anymore, but the שכל. The שכל is going to got to tell me what is a reasonable thing to want.

So in עיגולים, you say, "Yeah, so I think I'll I would like to live in in a great, big palace. You know, like maybe Buckingham Palace or something like that, or maybe we'll use Buckingham Palace for the garage and build a bigger palace."

So then when he comes to actually do it, so he reaches in his pocket and he sees he has two nickels and a dime, and for that he could buy a cardboard box and like live, you know, outside the museum or something like that.

So he realizes that his שכל tells him that he's going to either have to drop his expectations a little bit or he's going to have to get a job or like, you know, some some other kind of he's going to have to come up with some more reasonable thing, and he's going to have to figure out also a way to do it. Even if he doesn't lower his desire, in a way he does.

I mean, you know, in other words, because he has to make a practical picture of what what he wants. So in the שכל, the picture becomes something limited, and then he also has to he has to figure out a way to do it that's practical.

Intellect Shapes Practical Limits and Plans 12:07

Even if he's not going to lower The thing of like the אורות דתוהו and the כלים דתיקון is that you don't lower your final goal, but you figure out a practical way that will start leading you towards it.

Yeah, but, you know, you could also Normally, people don't do the אורות דתוהו and the כלים דתיקון. Normally, people just do the אורות דתיקון and the כלים דתיקון.

We're not really up to תיקון yet, but it's almost the same thing for now.