Local Meeting

"The Freedom"

This week we continue reading from Baal HaSulam's clarifications around the freedom of choice.

As we've mentioned before, Baal HaSulam wrote extensively in order to assist students attain the purpose of creation - reaching equivalence of form with the qualities of the Creator (love and bestowal). This week we read about the four factors.

In the local meeting, we will read some excerpts from the article and then try to understand what is going on in the text, followed by another reading and discussions on the topics together.

We also have extra clips from Rav Dr. Michael Laitman as important clarifications of the article.

First, a quick recap of last week.

The Principle of Cause and Effect

• The law of causality (cause and effect) is a fundamental law in nature.
• It states that no formation or action in the world arises as existence from absence, but as existence from existence.

Transformation of Forms

• Everything sheds its previous form and takes on a new one.
• Every event or state is driven by prior causes that compelled it to change in a specific way — and not another.

One Purpose Behind All Causes

• All causes and effects serve one purpose: the Thought of Creation.
• This purpose was established as “The end of the act is in the preliminary thought,” and is known in advance.
• It includes the Creator’s desire, the process of development, and the final state.

No Random Events 

• There are no random events — all is predetermined by the purpose of creation.
• Creation follows fixed and absolute laws.
• We don't see the laws, so events seem random.

 Illusion of Freedom

• All parts of nature evolve.
• This creates in humans a sense of uniqueness.
• Constant change gives rise to the illusion of free will.

"The Freedom"

Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Baal HaSulam

Four Factors

Bear in mind that every emergence occurring in the beings of the world must be perceived not as extending existence from absence, but as existence from existence, through an actual entity that has shed its previous form and has robed its current one.

Therefore, we must understand that in every emergence in the world there are four factors where from the four of them together arises that emergence. They are called by the names:

1. The source.

2. The unchanging conduct of cause and effect related to the source’s own attribute.

3. Its internal conducts of cause and effect which change by contact with alien forces.

4. The conducts of cause and effect of alien things which affect it from the outside.

I will clarify them one at a time.

The First Reason: the Source, the First Matter

A) The “source” is the first matter, related to that being. For “there is nothing new under the sun,” and anything that happens in our world is not existence from absence, but existence from existence. It is an entity that has stripped off its former shape and taken on another form, different from the first. And that entity, which shed its previous form, is defined as “the source.” In it lies the potential destined to be revealed and determined at the end of the formation of that emergence. Therefore, it is clearly considered its primary cause.

Open Discussion

In your understanding, what is the reason for our development?

The Second Reason: Cause and Effect that Stem from Itself

B) This is a conduct of cause and effect related to the source’s own attribute, and which is unchanging. Take, for example, a stalk of wheat that has rotted in the ground and arrived at a state of sowing many stalks of wheat. Thus, that rotten state is deemed the “source,” meaning that the essence of the wheat has stripped off its former shape, the shape of wheat, and has taken on a new quality, that of rotten wheat, which is the seed called “the source,” which has no shape at all. Now, after rotting in the ground, it has become suitable for robing another form, the form of many stalks of wheat, intended to emerge from that source, which is the seed.

It is known to all that this source is destined to become neither grain nor oats, but only equalize with its former shape, which has left it, being the single stalk of wheat. Although it changes to a certain degree in quality and quantity, for in the former shape it was a single stalk, and now there are ten stalks, and in taste and appearance, too, the essence of the shape of the wheat remains unchanged.

Thus, there is a conduct of cause and effect here, ascribed to the source's own attribute, which never changes. Thus, grain will never emerge from wheat, as we have said, and this is called “the second reason.”

Open Discussion

The question arises, does a person have a hold on anything outside of nature?

The Third Reason: Internal Cause and Effect

C) This is the conduct of the internal cause and effect of the source, which changes upon encountering the alien forces in its environment. Thus, we find that from one stalk of wheat, which rots in the ground, many stalks emerge, sometimes larger and better wheat than prior to sowing.

Therefore, there must be additional factors involved here, collaborating and connecting with the force concealed in the environment, meaning the “source.” And because of this, the additions in quality and quantity, which were absent in the previous form of wheat, have now appeared. Those are the minerals and the materials in the ground, the rain, and the sun. All these operate on it by administering from their forces and joining the force within the source itself. And through the conduct of cause and effect, they have produced the multiplicity in quantity and quality in that emergence.

We must understand that this third factor joins the internality of the source, since the force hidden in the source controls them. In the end, all these changes belong to the wheat and to no other plant. Hence, we define them as internal factors. However, they differ from the second factor, which is utterly unchanging, whereas the third factor changes in both quality and quantity.

Open Discussion

Can a person imagine living outside of the commands that arise from within at every moment?

The Fourth Reason: Cause and Effect through Alien Things

D) This is a conduct of cause and effect of alien things that act upon it from the outside. In other words, they have no direct relation to the wheat, like minerals, rain, or sun, but are alien to it, such as nearby things or external events, such as hail, wind, etc.

And you find that four factors combine to the wheat throughout its growth. Each particular state that the wheat is subject to during that time becomes conditioned on the four of them, and the quality and quantity of each state is determined by them.

As we have portrayed in the wheat, so is the rule in every emergence in the world, even in thoughts and ideas. If, for example, we picture some conceptual state in a certain individual, such as a state of a person being religious or non-religious, or an extreme orthodox or not so extreme, or midway, we will understand that that state was established in that person by the four above factors.

Clips

Workshop questions
(chosen based on flow of the meeting)

Why is it important for us to know these factors?

Where does this week's portion of the article lead you?

How do we begin analyzing these important matters?

How do you understand the developments from the factors we read?

See You Next Week