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Question: On one hand, a person feels that they have no strength for the work, and they ask the Creator to give them strength. Yet this is considered pride. On the other hand, they can turn to the group, receive the awareness of the greatness of the Creator from it, and only then turn to Him.
So what is the difference? In both cases, I am turning to the Creator.
Answer: You are not capable of turning to the Creator with the forces you currently possess. The Creator gives you an initial awakening, but with it alone you are unable to see the full depth of the problem or appreciate the greatness of the Creator in its solution. You do not yet have enough inner discernments to turn to Him.
Suppose there is a wealthy man who could solve all your problems, but you cannot bring yourself to ask him because you are under the control of your pride. No matter what, you are incapable of turning to him directly for help. You have such a strong feeling of shame that you would have to overcome yourself completely, yet you are unable to do so.
Such is human nature. A person is prepared to be killed rather than allow his inner “I” to be harmed. This “I” is a part of the eternal; it is his soul, and for its sake he is ready to sacrifice his body. For many people, this inner “I” is far more important than life itself.
For example, there may be someone who would give me a million dollars if I simply asked, yet I am unable to do it. Or there may be someone who could help me establish my life, yet I cannot bring myself to turn to him. We encounter this constantly. It reveals the force of our pride, the force of our inner “I,” the very force that separates us from the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/26, Rabash, “What Is ‘Do Not Slight the Blessing of a Layperson’ in the Work?”
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Question: We learned that if a person who studies the Torah directs the proper intention toward their study, they come from the state of Lo Lishma to Lishma (for the sake of the Creator). How does this happen?
Answer: It is said that one does not truly engage in the Torah while in the state of Lo Lishma. If a person remains an egoist, why should they study the Torah? If you are an “animal,” then live like an animal. But if a person uses the light in the Torah to correct themself and return to the source, then they truly can engage in the Torah.
However, for one who studies without such an aim, everything happens in the opposite way. Their eyes become blind, light becomes darkness, and darkness becomes light.
Question: If a person strives only for the Creator, is it called Lishma?
Answer: What does it mean to say, “I want the Creator”? What do I want to gain from that? What is it that you want from the Creator? Do you want to bring Him contentment? If a person desires to bestow upon the Creator, this is called Lishma, for the sake of the Creator.
This is determined according to the opening of one’s eyes in the Torah. If the Creator is revealed to you, and as a result of your aspiration toward Him you are in adhesion with Him, and if, in accordance with your desire to bestow upon Him, He fills you with His presence and His light, then it means that, through the equivalence of form, your desire truly has the intention to bestow upon Him.
But if you have not yet reached such a state, then you are only saying that you wish to bestow upon the Creator. In reality, you are deceiving yourself.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
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Question: How will it help me if I turn my Hisaron (deficiency) into a request?
Answer: We are constantly making requests. Whenever a need (Hisaron) arises, we ask. A person’s desire is called prayer. The desire that is in my heart is the prayer, because my heart is connected directly to the Creator, without any intermediaries.
Whatever I feel at any given moment (a desire to rest, to eat, to steal, to fall in love) are all immediately felt by the Creator, and accordingly, in the form of a response, the direction of my desires is corrected by various means: either internally—through what the Creator does within my heart—or externally.
In general, through both the internal and the external system surrounding me, the Creator gradually teaches me which desire is the correct one. So where is my work? It is in independently searching for which desires are correct and which aspirations are true. And when I attain those genuine desires that are in my heart, this is called that I pray.
A prayer is what I feel, what I desire, without having any ability to control it. The desire was created before me. Even before I begin to feel it, investigate it, study it, distinguish it from the others, and give it some name, it already exists within me.
The creature is the desire to receive. Therefore, I am unable to change it. I can only reveal it, clarify what it is, and how correct it is with respect to the purpose of creation. Then, accordingly, I arrange various external means for myself, using every possible aid (the group, the books, the teacher) so that this desire, which seems to me not to be properly directed toward the purpose of creation, will change.
However, this can be done only by means of external efforts and not by entering my heart and beginning to turn some little key or screwdriver there. That, I cannot do. I am not the master of my desire to receive.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
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As we engage in spiritual work, we increasingly identify all kinds of states that we were completely indifferent to before; we simply did not perceive the states with our undeveloped sixth sense.
Now that the sixth sense within each of us is beginning to develop, even if it has not yet reached the threshold of perception when it is fully open to spirituality, we can detect certain changes in it. It swells from the presence of a vast array of emerging revelations and distinctions.
This is called the soul, something we literally develop through our actions. One’s free choice lies only in willingly developing the soul, and a person is obliged to make this choice on their own.
Light from above will not come to you unless you want it to come and correct your soul, that is, to give it inner definitions (Avhanot) and endow you with sensitivity that allows you to experience the spiritual world.
This light will send you suffering so you will feel more and more lack in spirituality. But it will never correct you unless you first raise a prayer, unless you first ask to perceive spirituality, get closer to it, and subsequently become equal to it in qualities and adhere to it.
The soul cannot develop without a person’s own intense work. What does the work consist of? It consists of request, called prayer, the raising of MAN, in response to which the surrounding light corrects the soul. To the extent of your correction, according to the properties that are born in your soul, against this, you begin to perceive the properties of the Creator.
If you have corrected any one of the 620 properties of the soul, you feel the Creator in that corrected property. By fulfilling the commandment, performing an action corresponding to the corrected property, you thereby connect with the Creator, feel that He fills your property, i.e., the light fills the Kli—the corrected part of the soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
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Why Is Our Interpretation of Fear and Joy So Far From the Correct Meaning?
Our understanding of fear and joy stems from the natural qualities we are born with. We are born with a will to receive, and all our thoughts, intentions, desires, and longings are aimed at self-fulfillment. This is the most fundamental and initial form of the will to receive. The true will to receive that exists within each of us is actually far greater than what we currently feel. It has been deliberately reduced to a minimal level called “this world” so that we will strive, by our own efforts, to establish a screen (Masach) over it, an intention to bestow.
Once we are able to place an intention to bestow on this small desire, we are given greater desires. Thus, at every step from one level to the next, we first find ourselves in a will to receive for our own sake, then recognize its evil, wish to correct it in order to bestow, ask for strength from above, establish an intention to bestow upon it, and finally receive fulfillment. This is the only way.
We could ask, why we are not born with a will to receive already combined with an intention to bestow? Why must we seek for what it means to bestow, how to acquire this intention, and how to apply it to the will to receive within ourselves? Why must we do this independently?
The reason is simple. This intention cannot come from above because it concerns our relationship to the Giver. Otherwise, it would not be considered bestowal, nor would it truly belong to us. The intention needs to arise within the individual. Therefore, we are given simple desires to enjoy, along with an opposite intention, so that we initially use our desires to fulfill ourselves. These desires are not neutral. They are, in a sense, opposite to us, like a negative point. Therefore, we must first neutralize them, not use them at all, neither for ourselves nor for the Creator, and only afterward transform them into bestowal.
This stage, where we neutralize our desires and reach a state of not wanting to use them, is called the “correction of restriction” (Tzimtzum) or “Hafetz Hesed” (desiring mercy). Beyond this stage, we begin to work actively in order to bestow to the Creator. These are the stages of correction. If we did not perform all this work ourselves, it would not be true bestowal and we would not feel the pleasure of bestowing. Instead, we would remain with only the smallest pleasure, called a “thin candle” (Ner Dakik), which exists only in this world and can be received egoistically.
In our natural, initial state, we can enjoy only a very small measure of pleasure in this world. Each time we approach pleasure, it slips away, appearing briefly and then vanishing with only a tiny portion that we momentarily grasp. This is the entirety of pleasure available in the will to receive before it disappears.
Therefore, if we wish to experience more than what this world can offer, there is no alternative. We already see that progress does not bring happiness. Humanity advances, the will to receive grows stronger from generation to generation, and we provide it with pleasures beyond imagination, such as abundant food, endless products, and advanced technologies that are meant to serve our desires, yet we fail to become happier. In fact, compared to people who lived one or two hundred years ago, we are generally more dissatisfied and despairing today.
In other words, increasing the will to receive and supplying it with pleasures does not help. The result is negative, because the will to receive itself is insufficient. Today, people run around the world searching for pleasure, on the Internet, television, and in countless distractions, but fail to find fulfillment. On the contrary, they discover even greater emptiness. Many then turn to drugs and other addictions, but for what purpose? Humanity needs to eventually realize that this method of receiving, this way of trying to fill ourselves directly and quickly, is flawed. It will not bring true pleasure.
Ultimately, humanity will reach a state of complete helplessness. We could eat the finest food and taste it like gravel, follow ever-changing fashion trends and derive no enjoyment from the way we look, and change partners many times in a lifetime and grow weary of each. We will not find any “garment” through which to receive pleasure. Desires arise from within, and we continue to develop them by acquiring more pleasures, yet achieve nothing.
This process will unfold rapidly. Within a few years, humanity will feel lost, not knowing where to go next. In the past, there were thinkers, such as philosophers and politicians, who at least offered some vision of progress. Today, even leaders and economists are clueless on how to proceed. We lack both direction and knowledge of how to fulfill ourselves or guide our lives.
This is the true nature of the will to receive. It is a vessel that cannot fulfill itself directly. From this realization will come the recognition of evil and the correction of the world. There is no other way. Kabbalists define the will to receive as something from which we can derive only a tiny spark of pleasure. After the first taste, the pleasure disappears like a “thin candle.” Compared to the upper world, to the higher pleasure, it is merely a small spark that has fallen into this world and sustains it.
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Fear is a very good emotion that protects us; otherwise, we would be madmen. We simply need to learn how to use it correctly. Then instead of fearing it, we will bless it.
Question: What is the purpose of fear? Why does it arise?
Answer: The purpose of fear is to guide us correctly to the true path of development, to find the upper force of bestowal, love, and connection in our relationships with each other. Then there will be nothing to fear.
Question: Does this apply to anyone, to any ordinary person?
Answer: Today this applies to ordinary people as well. We see this by the state of the world we live in.
Comment: A state of fear.
My Response: The whole world is in a state of fear. Only someone who has no idea where they are could claim with bravado that they are not afraid of anything. That kind of attitude doesn’t show much wisdom. That is why we should actually bless fear; it guides us correctly toward the right goal.
Question: Toward one another then?
Answer: Yes, we need to understand that fear is given to us for a reason. It is a very positive quality.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/9/26
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Question: How will I have the confidence that I can disconnect from the Creator and act on my own if He does everything?
Answer: The fact is, you disconnect from the Creator only in acting as if you are the one doing something rather than Him. If you, like a horse under a rider, do not make some movement, you will never know how you differ from Him (the rider). So you have to say, “I am taking action!”
When you act, you begin to feel the difference between your desire and His desire, and so you begin to know yourself and Him.
After you have know yourself, attained Him, been in a struggle, accused, doubted, and yet revealed that this is good and made corrections, you come to a state in which, based on what you have done and experienced, you say: “There is none else besides Him!” But not before you have not done anything yet, but just started checking.
Now, after all the verifications, you say, “There is none else besides Him.” This means that you have adopted and copied all His actions in yourself. You definitely make a movement like Him not because He somehow makes it in you, but because you accept this movement willingly, as if you are doing it with Him. This is called the desire of the one getting clothed, and the desire of the one who is clothing.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/26, Rabash, “Who Needs to Know that a Person Withstood the Test?”
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A person cannot raise a genuine inner plea to the Creator; they can only do so by drawing strength from the group because the importance of the connection with the Creator, which they absorb from the group, surpasses the power of their own pride.
In an ordinary state, a person with a certain degree of pride cannot independently realize the importance of connection with the Creator, since pride acts like Pharaoh within them, and it is impossible to get rid of it.
Only when, as it is written, the children of Israel sighed from the work (that is, when a person gathers all his strength and receives help from the group), can they raise the level of importance of connection with the Creator, which will become greater than the level of one’s own pride.
Then they subdue their pride and turn to the Creator with a request for the Creator to reveal Himself and give them the strength to truly keep their pride under control.
There is no other way to get rid of it except by truly asking the Creator for the strength to do so. Only the group helps to generate a genuine request.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/26, Rabash, “What Is “Do Not Slight the Blessing of a Layperson” in the Work?”
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Question: This is how all of humanity is. We smile in order to get a position, and so on. We become friends in order to gain something from it. Right? This is human nature, by and large?
Answer: Yes, of course. We do not truly wish anyone happiness, kindness, or anything.
Question: Just to wish them well. But it’s not our fault is it?
Answer: Go to the one who made you and say to Him: “Look at how You created me! What can I do? I do nothing but scatter seeds of hatred around me. And You made me this way.”
Question: And He is waiting for us to come to Him like that?
Answer: Yes, He is waiting for us to reveal this and say it to Him, and then He will correct it.
Question: So, I have to feel that I want to do evil and to hate?
Answer: Yes! Absolutely! And I feel bad because I discover this within myself. And I ask the Creator to replace this quality in me.
Question: Will we ever come to this?
Answer: Certainly!
Question: So one way or another, this is the conclusion?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: That is, if I could somehow take myself by hand now and feel that I…
My Response: No, you will not.
Question: I will not. When will the time come when I will? You say that we are being led there.
My Response: This is what is truly called the “last generation.” We are at its beginning; only at its beginning.
Question: What is the last generation?
Answer: It is the time when humanity reveals its evil nature, opposite to the Creator, and begins to passionately desire to change.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 7/5/26
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Is Fear Directed Toward the Creator?
Fear is a correction applied to the vessel of the will to receive so that it is aimed in order to bestow. Fear is an attitude toward the Giver. There is an attitude toward the Giver that expresses concern: perhaps He will not give to me. Also, there is an attitude that expresses concern: perhaps I will not give to Him.
The former is egoistic, corporeal fear that belongs to the level of this world; it is the fear that the Creator might not provide me, in this life, with what I need. After that, we come to true fear, to a genuine attitude toward the Creator, not the concern that the Creator will not give to me, but the concern that I might not be able to give to Him.
Fear is the correction of the vessel, and joy is the filling of the vessel.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 22 “What Is the Gift that a Person Asks of the Creator?” (1987)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words”
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It is very important for us to know all of our qualities, and the path we must travel in order to use our one true freedom of choice for spiritual advancement. After all, if a person does not strive to advance, they are not moved forward.
You have a very narrow path before you, long, but narrow. Imagine that it lies in a desert where you cannot see it. Or, as if you are walking on water, your next step is unknown and invisible. With all the strength you possess, you must choose “north,” hold on to it, and direct yourself toward the goal with every step you take. Then you will make the right step.
Otherwise, it will only seem to you that you are moving forward, when in fact those are not real steps at all; they are merely what you perceive with your ordinary, animal senses. You may remain standing in one place, going around in circles for a thousand years. Therefore the method of reaching the goal, of taking one step after another toward it, of knowing whether you are truly advancing, or only imagining that you are running while you are actually running in place, is the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah.
A person must be able to see the path, and this is accomplished quite simply: his eyes must be opened so that he truly sees the desert before him, where there is no other road except the one unique path. Moreover, each person has his own individual path; this ensures they do not lose their way, allows them to see both the final goal and themselves, and enables them to know how to take each step only after first examining it.
If a person fails to do this, the soul will undergo incarnation after incarnation as time slips away. We exist beneath the plane of spiritual life, and therefore we can continue spinning in circles for another million years; that is not the issue. From the perspective of spirituality, there is no account for this earthly life because by itself it brings no spiritual benefit.
Kabbalists write in their articles about the forces within our soul, and explain how, by using the many opposing qualities that exist within us, we can choose the correct path and realize our freedom of choice.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/26, Rabash, “When Should One Use Pride in the Work?”
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Comment: You said that a person attains the names of the Creator to the extent of their correction.
My Response: I usually give the following example: to catch a radio wave, you must create the same frequency inside the radio receiver. This is called the resonance effect. Otherwise, you cannot pick up the external waves. There are millions of waves across all possible ranges outside the receiver. How do you catch something specific?
Each receiver acts like a transmitter in a sense; it does not merely receive. First of all, it has to generate the wave you want to pick up from the outside, i.e., the same oscillation frequency. Then, from what is outside, according to the law of similarity of form—in this case, the matching frequency—you catch the corresponding external wave and perceive it as sound. Thus, you need to match the qualities with what you want to experience.
Our eyes and ears are designed to detect a certain range of external influences because inside us there is a mechanism capable of producing the same frequencies that are outside.
This mechanism consists of nerve fibers, at the ends of which there are receptors, sensors, specific to each type of frequency. Heat, cold, and pressure are, in general, different frequencies of wave vibrations that I perceive according to the similarity of form in my vessel with what is outside.
How can I claim that the Creator is just and merciful if I do not first acquire the property by which I can find out what “just” and “merciful” are? That is, first of all, I must make a correction, and in accordance with this, I will be able to feel that the Creator really is like that.
Sometimes we say that a person doesn’t have a heart. It is just that his feelings are so undeveloped that when he sees someone crying and suffering, he does not feel bad or even understand it.
For example, an infant, even if someone is crying next to him, has no idea what this means. His sensory perception is not yet developed enough to understand that something very serious has happened to an adult, which has led him to such intense distress.
Later when the child grows up and develops the inner vessels capable of feeling sorrow or joy, he will be able to perceive what is happening in the world around him.
This is what happens with everything. We perceive everything only according to similarity of form.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
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Question: Can we say that the period of preparation is necessary so that we can come to feel the need for a connection with the Creator?
Answer: Of course. First and foremost, a person must feel the need for it. This is called the recognition of the evil of egoism. How else can I know that something good is being concealed from me?
In the article “What Is, ‘There Is None Holy as the Creator, for There Is None Besides You’ in the Work?,” Rabash illustrates this with the following example: the son of a wealthy man is kept in a basement. He has nothing, lives in misery, and receives only a small amount of food that is lowered down to him from above.
The son curses his father for his cruelty and for the life he has prepared for him. But when he is finally brought out and shown that there is another way of life, you can imagine the confusion he experiences.
We go through similar states as well. A person does not understand at all what is happening to him. He feels lost and unhappy until he begins to study and draw conclusions from the state he is in.
What does it mean to study? After lamenting his twenty years of imprisonment, a ray of light penetrates the basement, and he begins to see that everything had been done for his own benefit.
Why then did he have to suffer for twenty long years? Because only in this way could he appreciate and accept the goodness that was prepared for him. The Kli must be ready for the revelation of spirituality.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is None as Holy as the Lord, for There Is None Besides You,’ in the Work?”
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Question: In the greatest state of Lo Lishma does a person begin to desire the next stage, Lishma?
Answer: No, at the peak of Lo Lishma a person does not want Lishma, because he does not understand what it is. The greatest Lo Lishma is when I want to bestow to the Creator, to be with Him, I love Him to such an extent that I do not feel myself. It is like in love, the sensation of it fills a person so completely that it suppresses their will to receive. There is a lot of egoism there and even aggression, but it is extinguished by the feeling of the necessity of connection with the beloved.
How do I use my study? Each time I want something, I understand that I can realize it by means of study, in the course of which I receive the forces to realize what I want. At the same time, I must come to study with some desire. Suppose today I want by means of study to change this or that.
Study is about the specific payment you want, or power you seek in order to bring about a change within you?
But if you arrive without a precise definition of what you want to change in yourself, the study is futile. What is the purpose of the light’s arrival? You and your friends awaken it, and it simply circles around you and leaves.
By the effort that you apply during study, you draw the upper light upon yourself, which brings life, health, strength, and all that is best. And if you just sit and study, and you have no demand for these forces, then why did you come to the lesson?
When you come to a lesson, even if you do not yet know why, just as your friends do not know what they are awakening the forces around for, then the light itself builds the desire in you. Gradually you begin to feel what exactly you must desire. But in order to use study more quickly and effectively, you need to come prepared with a specific desire in mind.
When one of my students calls me and asks how to play a role in the theater because he is struggling, frustrated, and torn apart, I give him some advice. But the best advice is that when you have problems, something hurts, or things are not working out, come here, study, and that very light that comes will give you the answer to everything, including how to play the role.
Just think how down‑to‑earth this example is, yet you already believe that from your study of the Torah you gain the strength to improve something. The only power that exists in this world is the light that comes from the upper world. In other words, this is the only possibility to change something in your state.
There is no other means: You will not find such a screwdriver, fork, or pliers with which you could tighten something in yourself and thus change. Only the light can do this.
And although it has a general influence on the soul and advances it, I must define what I want from it, so that I catch this surrounding light and, using it like a screwdriver, tighten something in myself in order to change. This must be more or less clear to you, and you need to know this before you come to study.
In principle, we understand this: We gather in groups, discuss and clarify what our desire is, and begin to study, knowing exactly what we want from the surrounding light. And if nothing changes in me, then I must voice my discontent as to why it did not change anything in me: “Where are Your promises? Show me where I am at fault and why You did not do this for me.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/26, Rabash, “What Should One Do If He Was Born with Bad Qualities?”
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Chapter 19. Fear and Joy
Fear and joy are opposites. How can they be connected? Baal HaSulam writes in the Introduction to The Book of Zohar that the first action, the first correction, is called “fear.” There are commandments of the Torah, which are commands of the light, commands of correction, and which form the path that ascends from this world to the end of correction. This path is divided into corrections. The first correction we must attain is fear.
The Zohar asks, if the Creator is good, perfect, does good, and exists above any self-consideration, then why should a person fear Him? In this world, fear is usually attained through force. Indeed, it seems unfitting for the Creator, who is absolutely perfect, to demand fear.
The Zohar then explains that there is a type of fear called “fear of this world,” where we are afraid of punishment that could come upon us or our family in this world. Then there is fear of punishment in the next world, a higher level of punishment (and fear), but one that is still punishment. Later, when we correct our vessels into those of bestowal and acquire a screen (Masach), we completely stop fearing the Creator because we see that everything is good and does good. The Creator becomes revealed, and we understand that our previous fear of punishment did not stem from the Creator’s ability to punish, but from our own uncorrected vessels.
In truth, punishment from above is nonexistent. The only punishment is disconnection from the Creator. Then, we reach a different kind of fear, one that is related to bestowal: the fear of not being able to bestow. This fear itself is a correction. It enables us to build vessels of bestowal from our soul. Then, within the revelation of this fear, we receive fulfillment called “love.” Love is a result of fear. The greater our fear of being unable to bestow, the more the upper light fills us and brings the sensation of love, equivalence of form, connection, and adhesion (Dvekut) with the Creator.
Therefore, fear is a correction. Since we are initially made of a will to receive and this will must be aimed in order to bestow, otherwise we cannot feel pleasure, the correction lies in vessels of bestowal, or what is called “fear of the Creator.”
What does it mean that the correction must be fear, vessels of bestowal? If we receive pleasure in the will to receive, the pleasure immediately cancels the desire. For example, when one begins eating while hungry, the food is tasty and enjoyable. But as one continues to eat more and more, the pleasure diminishes, even if the food is the most delicious. Even exquisite delicacies will not add to the pleasure felt in the first bite. This is because the pleasure that enters fills the will to receive and cancels the lack.
Therefore, it is impossible to be both completely full and satisfied, meaning enjoying one hundred percent, and still feel pleasure. Once the vessel reaches saturation, it stops sensing fulfillment. This can also be seen when we yearn for, dream about, and pursue something for a long time, yet soon after we attain it, it loses its taste and feels ordinary. This does not have to do with time. Instead, the pleasure filled the vessel, and the lack, i.e., the hunger and the appetite, disappeared.
For pleasure not to be accidental, temporary, and fleeting, but eternal, it needs to grow along with the fulfillment and not disappear. As fulfillment increases, pleasure must increase as well, so that they support each other’s growth. How can we achieve this? We can achieve this by transforming our vessels into those of bestowal. That is, if we add an intention to bestow to the will to receive, the vessel attains a status above time and space. Then, even when the lack becomes filled, when the “stomach” is full, if the intention is to bestow, the more we become filled, the more we give, and the desire to give continues to grow.
“Above time” means that as we are filled more and more, our lack, appetite, and hunger do not diminish but increase, because we can give more. Therefore, we need to add intention to the will to receive. This intention makes the will to receive eternal. It does not vanish before the light that fills it, but instead it becomes eternal like the light itself when equipped with the intention to bestow.
This is the whole essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah—knowing how to receive. If we learn how to do this correctly, we begin to receive incessant pleasures and ascend from level to level, from strength to strength. We acquire more lack, correct it further with the intention to bestow, fill it more, and again increase the lack, and so on, progressing until we reach unlimited fulfillment, which is called “the end of correction.”
The end of correction does not grant the vessel a fixed capacity. If the vessel had a fixed capacity, it would cease to enjoy, even in order to bestow. Fixed bestowal cannot exist. On the contrary, bestowal must constantly grow, otherwise it is not bestowal. Therefore, we reach a state called “Ein Sof” (“infinity,” or literally, “without end”). In Ein Sof, we can expand our vessels unboundedly, along with intentions and fulfillment.
Then we arrive at true fear, which is the question of whether we can bestow. That is, as more deficiencies are added, can we establish a screen over them in order to bestow and through it receive in order to bestow?
This is the essence of true fear. As a result, we receive fulfillment from above, the light of the Torah. When the light of the Torah fills this fear, together they create a sensation called “the joy of the Torah,” a feeling of joy. By correcting our vessels, we receive fulfillment, the upper light called “Torah,” and reach joy.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 30 “Three Prayers” (1985) (7.29.2002)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 20
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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Question: On one hand, it is said that we should begin the work with “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” On the other hand, we say that we should always begin with “There is none else besides Him.” So how should one act correctly?
Answer: When I say, “There is none else besides Him,” I am speaking about my general approach, how I relate to what is happening to me.
Without a doubt, it is sent to me from above, and it means that I agree with the upper governance and accept the burden of the upper Malchut upon myself. This is what distinguishes me from an ordinary person on the street.
After I have said, “There is none else besides Him,” I say, “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” That is, relying on the fact that this has come from the Creator, I now detach myself from His action.
If I were to remain immersed in His action all the time, I would remain at the zero level of Aviut, nullifying myself and nothing more. Therefore, I emerge from this self-nullification and begin, through my own efforts and my own actions, to examine all these states; that is, to act independently.
I make my own corrections, as though everything depends on me.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/26, Rabash, “Who Needs to Know that a Person Withstood the Test?”
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Question: Is it possible to escape from evil for a month, or at least for a week?
Answer: I do not think running away from evil for a week or a month would help, because you would very quickly find that you need the disturbances of this world. You have not yet absorbed enough of them.
How can you verify this? Go to some remote village, isolate yourself there, begin studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, study the authentic sources together with your friends, and you will see that after a day or two at the most, boredom will set in, and you will have nothing to do. I am certain that this is exactly what will happen.
Question: Do we not provide one another with enough material for internal work?
Answer: No. You will not even feel the need to work with one another. I must constantly receive the disturbances of this world. Then I will have the need to connect with my friends in order to overcome these disturbances and attain spirituality. Otherwise, I will have no need for society, let alone for studies.
Do you think your studies will become more productive if you isolate yourself by withdrawing from this world? No, they will not improve, and your studies will not become more effective—they will not truly exist at all. The studies will become completely theoretical, with no real necessity for them. We have no possibility of advancing toward spirituality unless we remain connected with everyday life.
I, too, never stayed away from Rabash for long. Sometimes it lasted three days, but only occasionally. Of course, during the day I spent many hours with him, yet I still did not separate myself from ordinary daily life.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that ‘Law and Ordinance’ Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
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Question: If we say that everything comes from the Creator, does that mean that a person does not really exist at all?
Answer: The fact that everything comes from the Creator does not negate the existence of a person. A person is the sensing element.
As we study, the Kli (vessel) is the desire to receive delight from the Creator. The Creator fills the Kli with His presence.
All fulfillment that comes beyond what is necessary (everything that appears after the first stage of the four phases of the expansion of the direct light) arises from the sensation of the Creator, from the sensation of the Host Himself, rather than from what He has prepared for me to receive.
The Kli is the organ that perceives spiritual reality. Accordingly, the degree of the Creator’s concealment or revelation corresponds to the degree of emptiness (darkness) or fulfillment experienced within the spiritual vessel (Kli).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/26, Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is None as Holy as the Lord, for There Is None Besides You,’ in the Work?”
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Why Is Love of Friends Considered the Most Important Action, Even More Than Actions Such as Being Content With Little and Other Corrections?
This is because in Kabbalah it is known that a person cannot correct themselves. What can correct us is the upper light if it comes to us from a more corrected state and illuminates upon us. Only in such a way does it correct our vessels. Therefore, we should not act on our own to correct the vessels, as if we had an adjustable wrench in our hand with which we open, close, and repair. Instead, we must invite a “repairman” to come and fix the system. This is the kind of light we must invite.
Therefore, we do not perform direct actions for correction. We do not look for where the screen is, bring it, place it over the will to receive, and hammer in a few nails so that it will not come loose, between the will to receive below and the screen above, like in diagrams, so that the will to receive becomes covered by a screen. Instead, we look for the means that will bring us a screen that will bring us correction. This means is not an approach to the correction itself but an approach to the one who corrects. This matter presents a great obstacle to people before they begin to understand that we must seek the corrector and not the corrections themselves. Without the corrector there will simply be no correction. It is exactly like a washing machine that breaks down and you try to fix it yourself without any knowledge of how to do it. It does not work. You will have to invite a specialist who will bring the required part and know how to install it in the proper place. Therefore, we must look for the right “person” who knows how to do this work. This “right person” is the upper light.
Therefore, the actions that must be performed are not actions relating directly to the vessel itself, but actions through which we can draw the lights most beneficial for correction. Kabbalists tell us that the most beneficial surrounding light for correction comes when we read a Kabbalah book during study with the intention of reaching our root, the place where we, our action, the study, and the Creator are in adhesion at a single point. Kabbalists also say that in order to sit and study with the correct intention, intention itself is most important.
How do we reach such an intention? Kabbalists describe several means for building the correct intention. Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Freedom” that the society comes before everything. Without society, we cannot unite our desire toward the goal and strengthen it, and our intention will be smaller than what is required to attract the surrounding light.
If we torment ourselves with statements such as “I am not okay,” “I am stingy,” “I am lustful,” “I am ambitious,” or “I am cruel,” then we invest ourselves within our bad desires to receive. A person is where their thoughts are. From that place, nothing is left for us except to get drunk or take drugs in order to dull the terrible pain we feel. Self-flagellation is useless. Therefore, it is written: “The fool sits with folded hands and eats his own flesh.” Such behavior is true foolishness because it does not aim us in the right direction. By looking at the filth within ourselves, we do not clean it. When a part in a car breaks down it must be repaired by a specialist who brings a new part and knows how to install it.
Many times, we constantly turn our gaze inward to our vessels and make ourselves miserable. Our inner state is spread before our eyes and we do not know how to detach ourselves from this sight, and we sit, grieve, and mourn over ourselves. Society must influence each and every person to come out quickly from this bad state, because from it we develop the “speech of the spies” about the Creator.
From a Talk on the Article “What Is the Substance of Slander and Against Whom Is It?” – Part 2, 6/13/2002
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Connection with the Creator is called faith. The extent to which I am able to connect myself with Him is the measure within me that is called the measure of faith.
What does this mean? My connection with the Creator can exist only on the condition that I wish to bestow upon Him. Otherwise, such a connection is impossible; There is no other kind of connection. It must be in the same direction in which He relates to me.
I will be able to bestow upon Him only if I begin to feel Him, that is, if I perceive His light, which comes to me and corrects me. This is what Rabash writes: when, during the study, I resolve to attain Lishma, that is, when I desire to attain bestowal, the upper force comes to me and changes me, making me into a human being.
What does it mean to be a human being? The measure of bestowal that I attain specifically in relation to the Creator, and not in relation to humanity, is called “man.” Man is the created being, the force that he brings forth and directs toward establishing his connection with the Creator. Only for one who crosses the Machsom does the spiritual degree he attains become the measure of the man within him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/26, Rabash, “What Should One Do If He Was Born with Bad Qualities?”
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Based on an understanding of our animalistic nature, we begin to realize that no one can ever unite with another. Each person remains separate.
Today we see that the family, as it once existed, is disappearing. The former relationships between parents and children are no longer the same. The reason is that as humanity develops, its ego and its desire to receive continue to grow. As a result, each person becomes increasingly distant from everyone else, and all the bonds that once existed within the family, the extended family, the nation, and society are breaking apart. Egoism destroys every framework and leaves the individual isolated.
After making the necessary discernments, one can come to the conclusion that a connection between people is possible only through the Creator. If we wish to fulfill the law, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” it cannot be achieved by force, as was attempted in Soviet Russia. Only through our connection with the Creator will we begin to unite with one another.
Even the smallest group can exist only under this condition, and all the more so the whole world, when it begins to fulfill the law, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is because every true connection can exist only on the level of the human. By “human” it means a connection with the Creator.
Everything else we do, apart from establishing a connection with the Creator, belongs to the animate level. These things require no correction, and we should pay them no attention, because it is a waste of time and effort.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/26, Rabash, “What Should One Do If He Was Born with Bad Qualities?”
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All the qualities that exist in a person that extend from the four qualities FWWD [Fire, Wind, Water, and Dust] have nothing to do with the evil inclination (Rabash, “What Should One Do If He Was Born with Bad Qualities?”).
It does not matter what kind of character a person is born with, whether irritable, foolish, lazy, or proud. From my own experience, I know that it is not necessary for only one of these qualities to exist within me. I feel that I have all of them, and one does not exclude the other. In other words, all four foundations can exist together within every person.
We say that if someone tries to break or eliminate all these tendencies within a person, then he is engaged in psychology, and nothing will come of it, because these qualities are not subject to change.
A person can be a great Kabbalist and still retain all these qualities without paying any attention to them. In our approach, this is not even the alphabet, it is only the very first letters of the alphabet: not to engage in correcting the animalistic qualities within ourselves, but only to work on our relationship with the Creator.
The “human” within us begins to grow only in relation to the Creator. And only in relation to Him can we weigh the good inclination against the evil inclination, that is, determine everything that needs to be revealed and cultivated, or, on the contrary, uprooted. But all of this is done only in connection with the Creator, and not in relation to my “self,” my natural character.
I should look at the friend in exactly the same way. The problem, however, is that when we work together, my animalistic nature and his animalistic nature may find it difficult to coexist.
But that becomes the second stage of our joint work, after we have come to know our own character well: whether irritable, wasteful, lazy, power-hungry, and so on. Once we know our character, we begin to see how we can work together by combining these qualities in order to understand what exists above: the unique character of each person in relation to the Creator. And here, perhaps, true unity becomes possible.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/26, Rabash, “What Should One Do If He Was Born with Bad Qualities?”
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Question: How do I know if I am taking the right steps now or not?
Answer: Kabbalists explain that when you arrive somewhere to study Kabbalah, you do not know anything at first. You do not even know where you are since you could be in several other places and not just here. There are a lot of people who are now sitting in other places, engaged in other methods, and they are also trying to learn and find something for themselves. There is a difference of place, a difference of method.
Are they in the right place? There is no answer to that. You basically were not given Kelim to make a choice now. You were let to do this based on what you subconsciously feel. If you feel that you have some doubts, go to another place and check. Check where you feel better—here or there. Perhaps, according to your soul’s development, you still need to be in some other place. Come to Bnei Baruch in some 30 years. Everyone goes through their own cycles.
There is a general law of reality called the law of equivalence of form. It is like a magnetic field: if you put a piece of iron in it, it is drawn to the magnet. In the same way, everything is drawn to its center of equilibrium. The soul works in the same way. If you feel some urge, it is your soul being drawn to its center of equilibrium, to where it feels comfortable and at rest.
Thus, a person who searches ultimately finds what they are looking for precisely due to this. The soul sets your hands and legs in motion, and you arrive somewhere. Ultimately, we all move in this manner and reach the right place according to our level of development.
There are people whose level of development calls for studying yoga or, for example, Ikebana. This cannot be grasped by the intellect; here knowledge is an inner sensation. Only then do the eyes open and you see.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/26, Rabash, “When Should One Use Pride in the Work?”
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Does This Law Operate for All Souls, Regardless of the Group?
This law operates for all souls whether they are in a group or not, but a person who belongs to a group draws surrounding light from the end of correction because they are connected with their friends here just as they are connected with them there. According to the same state in which they choose to connect with them here, they draw it to themselves, as if physically pulling that state from there to themselves, because they wish to realize it here and now in this world. This is considered that the upper world descends to this world, and this is indeed how it will be at the end of correction.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 29 “The Lord Is Near to All Who Call upon Him” (1985) (7.24.2002)
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”
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The states that a person goes through are not so important in and of themselves. Of course, it is possible to say that they are analogous to receiving a blow one moment, candy the next, then a stronger blow, and again a candy. But the “carrot and stick” do not form a Kli (vessel) in a person. Its continuous strengthening on the path toward the goal is exactly what is building the Kli.
The Kli is the intention. Neither the blows, nor Malchut, nor Keter form the Kli. The intention that you define, when you truly decide what it is, is called the Kli. Only in choosing the intention does freedom of choice exist.
Look at how the whole world spins and what it does: We seek peace and we seek happiness, nothing helps because the search is conducted in the wrong direction, and we only become more confused, spend money, and drown in a sea of blood. And so it is all over the world.
Look at what an enormous process of development the world needs to undergo in order to finally come to the conclusion that development must be in only one direction. All the achievements of science, engineering, technology, medicine, culture, and education are simply a mistake.
We made a mistake; we followed our egoistic desires and developed all sorts of things that are absolutely unnecessary. No matter how magnificent, grandiose, and fulfilling all the achievements of civilization may seem to us, it is Klipot.
We could have lived peacefully in caves and, being connected to the Creator, enjoy life. What difference does it make where you live?
The point of choice is in the direction toward the Creator. When this question awakens in me, I must strengthen myself so as not to turn in another direction. It is like a pointer rotating in a circle, at each of the 360 degrees, it seems to point to 360 targets, yet it aligns with the direction toward the Creator only once.
It is precisely here that I must “step on the gas.” This is where I must break out of the vicious circle. If I do not do this, all kinds of desires start spinning inside me again in this circle.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/20/26, Rabash, “The Creator and Israel Went into Exile”
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Question: What are the various tricks that help a person reach the goal of creation?
Answer: Suppose I look at something and become consumed with a strong desire for it. To change my desire, I begin to listen to music. The music awakens a different desire within me, perhaps a subtler, a more elevated one, yet still not truly directed toward the goal.
Then I open a book. From the Kabbalah books that I usually study, I choose the one that can influence me at that moment by awakening a more elevated desire, a more conscious and purposefully directed one. In this way, by using the external means that surround me, I bring about a change in my desire. But by myself, I am unable to change the desire to receive.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
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Question: How do we develop sensors that perceive spiritual pleasure?
Answer: The Creator influences us by constantly pouring out absolute goodness and benevolence. We are always under the influence of the Creator who abundantly bestows bliss and delight. Yet, we feel nothing because this sense has not been developed within us. We are like infants who neither understand nor feel what He is giving them.
This is called concealment. In other words, the concealment exists within us, in the sixth sense that has not yet been developed. The method for developing the sixth sense is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is the science of receiving what the Creator gives us. As of now, however, we still do not know how to receive.
How can this be done? Only with the help of the light that reforms. During the lessons, we awaken the surrounding lights that purify a person. What does “purify” mean? They make one’s perception pure and refined. A person becomes far more sensitive, and then one truly begins to feel spirituality.
As the surrounding light purifies me, it gradually enriches me with ever new and diverse states, sensations, and understanding. It teaches me little by little, just as infants are taught. The only difference is that I want to go through this process quickly rather than wait.
It takes twenty years to raise a child, and the development of a human being sometimes takes thousands of years before they reach perfection. But if I want this to happen quickly, I must awaken the surrounding light upon myself so that it performs this work on me as rapidly as possible rather than at the pace at which human history has developed over thousands of years. I want to go through this path in five to ten years. Perhaps even faster, although for now it is not yet possible. It is too difficult.
Thus, all I really want is to accelerate the development of my sixth sense, and the greatest thing required of me is to draw the surrounding light upon myself. That is all my work.
The faster the light teaches me, the more rapidly all kinds of states change within me, the sooner I will complete my learning. The expansion of the light and its departure form the vessel (Kli) that is fit for its purpose.
This means that I must pass as quickly as possible from one state to another, from one change to the next, ascents and descents, every kind of sensation and impression received from the group, from the books, from everything. Then I will more quickly reach the state in which enough different discernments have accumulated within me, and I will accordingly begin to feel and perceive what exists outside of me.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/14/26, Rabash, “What It Means that “Law and Ordinance” Is the Name of the Creator in the Work”
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Adam HaRishon (the first man) is only called by a name that confuses us and makes us think that we are similar to him, because we are also called people. But this is a spiritual Partzuf (system of bestowal) with which we have no connection yet, not a single point of contact.
To the extent that I acquire the desire to enjoy for the sake of bestowal, I will begin to integrate into this system. But it will not be the “I” that I perceive myself to be today, not my physical body and not my personality. This is a completely new desire, a new intention, perception, and sensation; everything is new.
Therefore, don’t yet think that you belong to the spiritual Partzuf of Adam HaRishon. Adam HaRishon is a construct of a corrected soul. And if I am in a state of bestowal to my neighbor, I adopt his desires and work with them in practice, I ultimately build the Partzuf of Adam HaRishon around me.
But if I have no desire to bestow upon my neighbor, I lack the material to create this Partzuf. I have to create an intention of bestowal over my material (desires), process it, organize it, divide it into Rosh, Toch, and Sof (spiritual head, body, and end), work with intentions, plan, and act.
If I shape myself in this way, I will become a part of Adam HaRishon, and I will be called “man” (Ben Adam, son of Adam). In the meantime, I have no connection with him.
Adam HaRishon’s body is the desires of all souls. If I want to become a part of Adam (and each of us ultimately must do this), I need to include the desires of others from all over the world and begin to fulfill them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/11, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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Question: The Igulim (circles) do not dissolve in the upper light due to the screen formed by Kav.
Why do we say that Igulim come first and then Kav (straight line)? Does this mean that without the Kav we would not be able to distinguish the Igulim?
Answer: The upper light comes first in the form of an Igul (circle) because this is the closest thing the light in the ten Sefirot has compared to the light of infinity.
There is no variation in infinity. But here there is already a difference.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/25, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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Those who have a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how” (Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning).
“Why” is the goal. And “how” is already the attainment of the goal.
Question: But how can I escape the weight that has fallen upon me, the hopelessness? How?
Answer: Constantly clarify how to get closer to the goal. And that is what keeps you going. The goal attracts you; it shapes you; it establishes how you should go through life, and at every moment you know how to use it.
Question: Should these be some intermediate goals?
Answer: It is the ultimate goal that is achieved at every moment of time.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/30/25
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Question: How is the desire formed in the Rosh (head) to receive light in the seven lower Sefirot?
Answer: When the light passes through the Sefira of the Rosh, it forms within the Rosh both this light and the Rosh itself. It turns out that the light assumes the qualities of the Sefirot de Yosher or the Sefirot de Rosh, and then enters the body of the Partzuf.
Question: What does the empty space between Igulim and Yosher mean?
Answer: The empty space signifies Sefirot de Igulim or Sefirot de Yosher that are unfilled with light either due to the absence of a screen (Masach), or because the Partzuf ends there.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/25, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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Question: What is the combination of the ten Sefirot de Igulim and the ten Sefirot de Yosher?
Answer: It is their mutual expansion; the ten Sefirot de Yosher spread within the ten Sefirot de Igulim.
Question: In the Rosh (head) there is the light of the entire degree, and the seven lower Sefirot are filled according to the screen (Masach). The decision about this process is made by Malchut de Malchut. But does the Rosh itself not yet perform independent calculations?
Answer: Everything is determined by Malchut de Rosh.
Question: Does the quality of bestowal arise at the moment of restriction (Tzimtzum)?
Answer: Yes, bestowal manifests in the Kli when the Kli is in a state of restriction.
Question: Are the ten Sefirot de Igulim in the world of Adam Kadmon the initial foundation of the screen from the side of the Kli?
Answer: Yes.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/25, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #174 “Concealment” (12.23.2001)
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International Kabbalah Convention, “Preparation to the Lesson 5”
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International Kabbalah Convention, “A Prayer in the Ten,” Lesson 5
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International Kabbalah Convention, “Preparation to the Lesson 6”
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International Kabbalah Convention, “A Complete Prayer,” Lesson 6
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Question: Is there a difference in the inner work we perform on the calendar’s new year’s day compared to any other day?
Answer: In the upper worlds, there are roots that can awaken their influence upon us when we turn to them.
The corporeal calendar has almost no effect on the quality of our appeal. If we think about it, there are thousands of different calendars in the world with days, weeks, months, various holidays, and forces that supposedly influence humanity.
We need to understand only one thing: if we wish to attain good outcomes, then on any day, in any month, in any year, we must turn to the Creator, to His power, to His mercy.
In this way, we will feel the degree we appeal to and advance by its strength.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/25, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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We are completely at the mercy of nature and are guided in all our actions, both in the body and in the soul. Yet Kabbalists say we have freedom of choice, otherwise there would be no point in creating all of creation if the upper force had predetermined everything that happens within it.
However, freewill exists above our current life, solely there, where we wish to rise above our egoistic nature, in a higher dimension, in the quality of bestowal.
Only in this ascent from one degree to another can we choose to rise under the blows of nature if we do not wish to use our freewill and do not make our own effort, or to advance of our own accord in the same direction, that is, to see it as the desired goal. When we seek the forces that can help us make this ascent, there we find our freedom of choice.
Kabbalists explain that freedom of choice exists only in building the right environment. In any case, I advance under the influence of the environment; only I do not usually choose it myself.
But I can choose my environment consciously and thereby accelerate my progress and change the nature of my ascent. Instead of being tossed about under the blows of fate like a beaten animal, I can rise by a beautiful path, by my own desire, full of feeling, understanding, and inner strength, as befits a human being.
If I examine the goal, wish to draw closer to it, and understand that to accelerate my development I must draw more light than comes to me naturally, then I make use of the means given to me, which is called Torah, the upper light that draws me and returns me to the source.
Regarding this work, it is written that if we leave it even for a single day without realizing our freedom of choice, we are stopped for two days in our development, and prevented from advancing independently. The natural upper forces begin to act upon us.
It is not enough simply to lose the amount of effort we did not invest; this would not teach us anything. Therefore, we must receive a punishment slightly more than our fault, so that when a stronger obstacle arises next time we will be careful not to stumble over it.
Thus the spiritual law states: “If you leave Me one day, I will leave you two.”
[16938]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam “If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two”
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Question: How do you view Kabbalistic art from the perspective of painting? What do you think of the idea of creating educational cartoons for children, and what would you envision these cartoons to be?
Answer: Kabbalah is just beginning to unfold. It awaits you. You will receive spiritual insights from us and begin to further develop Kabbalah and reveal it to people in various aspects. You will be able to tell, demonstrate, and allow them to feel what attaining the higher world brings us.
You will begin to create all kinds of manuals, textbooks, and tasks for both children and adults that will develop them and bring them closer to a sense of the higher world and the correct state of being between people.
I believe there is room here for all forms of creativity. Even drawing, which was never a feature of Kabbalah. It will become possible to somehow depict feelings, especially for children.
As you study Kabbalah, try to explore ways in which you can use your art to express something to others, so that they can better understand the message of Kabbalah. Think about this.
[248748]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 3/10/19
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Our entire world is made up of images of receiving because in our desire to enjoy, in our dark material, there is nothing. When a little light shines into it, and this desire is slightly impressed by the light, then various fluids, waves, and shifting currents arise within this desire.
These build within us, within our feelings and mind, the sensation of this world. After all, our world is not the true reality, but what we imagine in our feelings and minds from the light that faintly illuminates desire within in such a tiny, weak, unreal form, since there is no connection between desire and light.
When we unite and a desire is formed that has the power of unity from all its parts, then light manifests within the desire as it unites above the separation that exists between its parts. Accordingly, the light is revealed within it, and then within desire, within the heart and mind, the true forms of light, of bestowal, are revealed.
Whereas in our world, false forms of bestowal unfold within our desires and thoughts, like dark shadows that paint images on a wall. Therefore, we must strive to attain a true picture of reality.
[60010]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/11, “The Zohar”
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Know for certain that since the time of the ARI to this day, there has not been anyone who understood the method of the ARI to the fullest…
And now, by the Creator’s will, I have been rewarded with a conception [impregnation] of the soul of the ARI, not because of my good deeds but by a higher will. It is beyond me, too, why I have been chosen for this wonderful soul, with which no one has been granted since his passing until today (Baal HaSulam, Letter 39).
We know nothing about our work. It is unknown for what purpose certain people are given unique abilities. This will become clarified only at the end of the general correction when all of us will unite into one Kli (vessel) and will see how much we truly depend on one another.
Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that he does not know the reason why he was chosen “for this wonderful soul.”
Question: If one looks at this from an egoistic point of view, a person may ask: “How can he say about himself that he is the soul of the Ari?! Maybe it only seemed to him?”
Answer: As in any science, this is a statement of fact. Baal HaSulam had to say it for the confirmation of what he accomplished in the world.
[214147]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 10/16/16
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Question: How is everything measured in Kabbalah?
Answer: In the science of Kabbalah, we study that there are no absolute, true measurements; everything is evaluated in human perception. Therefore, it is always said with respect to a person who attains reality, as Kabbalah says: “There is no Creator without creation.”
Therefore, it must be understood that everything written in The Book of Zohar by its authors about the Creator, in the Psalms by King David, and in other sources is written by a person who comprehends according to his qualities and the level of his attainment.
In accordance with this, the person himself is evaluated, as well as his position on the ladder of degrees. Depending on where he is, this is how he sees the Creator. It seems to him that the Creator is changing, because he evaluates everything according to his desires and qualities.
There is no change in the Creator who is good and does good and who is in absolute peace. But every moment a person awakens his Reshimot, and according to this he decides whether the Creator is great or small, good or evil.
Therefore, we can understand Kabbalistic texts only if we rise to the level of their authors.
[4755]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 8/30/09
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Each group is a “circle” of desires, where everyone is absolutely equal. If we want to determine the difference in their levels, we measure the distance between their central points; this distance is called the “straight line” (Yosher).
Let’s say one group is the group of Rabbi Shimon’s students, great Kabbalists. The second has just reached their first spiritual level. Both form a “circle,” but the difference between them is measured by the “straight line” (Yosher).
Each level, each state, has its own “circles” and a “straight line” stretching from one circle to another through their centers. If a group is already at a spiritual level, even the very first one, there is already a circle between them, albeit a very small one. From its center, we can measure the distance to the center of Rabbi Shimon’s group, and we get exactly 125 levels or states.
To each new state, you ascend along the “straight line” (Yosher), and then build a circle within it. Then you ascend again in a straight line and form a circle. Thus we advance step by step.
And the central point of the “circle,” the shared desire of the group, is the unification of everyone, so that through joint efforts, we can reveal the common quality of bestowal, which is called the Creator.
[48221]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/11, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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I built a “wall” inside myself that shuts myself off from the world, from everyone. I live inside myself peacefully, alone. No one suspects that I live like this.
Comment: That’s interesting! You have hundreds of thousands of students and you say this is how you live.
My Response: That doesn’t matter.
Comment: Then share the secret.
My Response: The secret is very simple. I build this world within myself and therefore even if I am in contradiction with the world imposed on me, that contradiction does not oppress me or fight me. I simply set it aside and continue.
Question: Can you at least tell a little about what you have there in that world?
Answer: In that world I am a king. And I serve the great Creator. That is all. Everything is very simple.
Question: It is easy to say, but it is not so simple. Yet one really wants to be in such a world. Is there advice on how to get into it, into that world?
Answer: Squeeze through.
Question: How?
Answer: You must build it. A person must build it within himself. And when he builds it, he discovers that yes, it is possible, it must be done, and it will be eternal.
Question: Is it both security and peace?
Answer: It covers absolutely everything! It is the kingdom of the great king.
Question: “The great king,” but is the king Him?
Answer: Yes, and you build it for Him.
Question: You build it for Him? And then you end up in it? So that He rules there?
Answer: So that I will rule everything for Him.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/19/25
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The preparation period does not mean that we have to arm ourselves with patience and wait for it to pass. It will not pass unless we do everything in our power for to ensure its end in the next moment.
Waiting means that I am ready to invest effort in it every moment, without despair, again and again. And every moment I expect I will receive the reward—the power of bestowal that I demand, and so, again and again, at every moment, tirelessly.
If I am capable of this, if the states (entrances and exits) quickly replace one another, it is a sign that I can truly be awarded a higher, deeper degree. After all, the more transgressions and mistakes a person reveals during preparation, the more one advances in the single and double disclosure beyond the Machsom, and achieves correction.
During the preparation period, the group must provide everyone with the strength of consistency, perseverance, confidence, and patience, understanding that we have no choice, this is how we advance. And so year after year, until we are ready at every moment to give up immediate reward and to work even without it. That means we are worthy of crossing the Machsom.
A person strives so to the next degree that, due to the immense, passionate, burning desire for bestowal in him, he is ready to give it up and continue the stage of preparation. If the Creator wants to give me only this preparation, and I only want to achieve bestowal, then I am satisfied with this, and I do not need the Machsom, and then I receive it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/8/09, “The Nature of the Science of Kabbalah”
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All people lie, but it’s not scary, no one listens to each other.
My Response: The scary thing is that they do not listen. That is true.
To listen means to realize, to understand. Not necessarily to agree but to understand what the other means, why he has such a worldview.
Comment: To let him a little bit inside you?
My Response: No, not even to let him in. Enter into him and understand how he acts, how he thinks. It may well be that his way of thinking, his approach to life is correct. Try to argue with him, to align with him somehow, and so on.
That is what it means to listen to another. Listening means, first of all, to understand.
Question: Do you think people listen to each other or not?
Answer: No. Egoists cannot listen to each other. They are initially tuned to clearly satisfy their egoism.
Question: Meaning, only to push through their own opinion?
Answer: Not only their opinion but to achieve whatever I desire. That is the foundation of all of my behavior, and no one can move me from it. Only under the impact of enormous suffering can I somewhat change my opinion; still egoistically, leaning one way or another, and again continue to move egoistically.
Comment: This, in principle, is the cause of absolutely all troubles—people do not listen to others.
My Response: That is how we were created. After all, we come from the shattering of the common soul, the common desire. Therefore, in each of us there is an egoistic desire that acts only within itself. Each of us lives inside himself.
Comment: If a person heard that this is the result of his egoistic nature, would that be the beginning of a small shift?
My Response: No, it will not help. To hear is not enough; that is the point.
Here, upper forces of nature are necessary, hidden forces within nature that could help us become different, the opposite of our present state. And that requires a whole method.
Question: Do you think Einstein understood that there are hidden forces of nature?
Answer: He did not understand the possibility of changing man.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
My Response: That is correct. Because we cannot imagine how simple, near, and opposite to us the upper world is, the world of bestowal, of love, when we perceive everything in connection and not in separation, in isolation from one another.
Comment: We say: “Love, it is so simple! Let’s unite, let’s love each other.” And you say: “It is not so simple!”
My Response: No. I say: “It is not so simple,” because we are not capable of doing it.
We should not keep falling into the same trap again. Besides, love is not what we define in our world as love—some hormonal, psychological, or sexual satisfactions. No.
What is meant is the connection of people among themselves in inner unity, when we feel that not our bodies (bodies as if disappear), but we ourselves are inwardly interconnected, that some kind of inner joining, merging takes place, and this creates a new community, an inner, spiritual one. In this inner, spiritual community, we begin to feel ourselves living as if in another bubble, in a new world.
Question: Is this love?
Answer: This is achieved by love. Such a connection is called love.
If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?
Question: You often speak about the perception of reality. An empty desk, what does that actually mean?
Answer: It is an allegory. In general, a person who has no inner thoughts, no struggle, no constant confusion, no constant searching, he does not move forward, does not develop. He must always doubt himself and constantly investigate.
Question: Is this what you call life?
Answer: Yes. But when we look at such a person, we think: “He probably does not know anything. He is probably unsure.” In reality, it is the opposite.
Animal-like peace kills everything. That, of course, is terrible! We hope that the Creator will watch over us and not let us have peace.
[246073]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/24/24
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Comment: Einstein’s quotes are quite simple and at the same time very deep. Please comment, what exactly he means.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
My Response: Only in this case can you achieve true success. It is not by comparing yourself with other people, but by comparing yourself with nature: how you can truly reveal it, know it, and be in harmony with it. To be in harmony with nature, that is the meaning of life.
If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.
My Response: There is really nothing to add here; it is so true. Not to things, of course. And not to people, because people themselves are tied to things.
That means you must detach yourself from everything, determine your upper goal, and strive only toward it. At the same time, try somehow to explain to others, to direct them toward the same goal. This is what Einstein did all his life.
The only thing that interferes with my learning is the education I received.
My Response: Any education, in principle, confines a person within certain boundaries, not letting him break free from them.
But on the other hand, you cannot do without it. Yet, you must somehow act so that education does not limit you. This is what is meant by the saying: “Train a child according to his way.” Guide him in such a way that he develops himself.
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
My Response: It is better to say that I am crazy. Well, what would change because of that?
Still, I believe that my “madness” will contribute something to the world, somehow shake it, someday help, leaving such a mark that people will then find it easier to reach the goal of creation.
Question: In this case, are you speaking about yourself?
Answer: Of course. How else could I speak in his place?
Comment: Let’s be honest; people consider you not crazy, but not quite reasonable, not understanding what is going on.
My Response: I do not understand what is going on? On the contrary, I am ready to talk with anyone. Politicians and scientists come through this studio.
Comment: But your proposals that we need to change man discourage them. “He cannot be changed!” they say.
My Response: Yes, they are right, by our corporeal methods. In this, I fully agree with them.
But there is another method by which man and humanity can be changed. Here, nothing can be done, we will be obliged to do it. Otherwise, on the brink of death, humanity will agree anyway.
[246037]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/23/24
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Question: What should I do in order to feel the importance and greatness of the Creator coming from the friends?
Answer: You must respect a friend for the qualities he has, for the fact that he reveals himself in the group, and then you will begin to receive through him the light of the Creator.
Question: And who gives me this importance of the Creator? The Creator? Or is it my own effort?
Answer: The Creator begins, but you complete it. At the basis of these actions lies prayer.
Question: How do I gather it so that it becomes a true prayer, and not just me whining and complaining?
Answer: Think about it. Think about it all the time.
[348520]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/2025, “Rosh HaShanah“
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The ARI writes that it is not adhered to the light of Ein Sof, meaning that the form of the circular light of Keter of the circles is not the same as the light in Ein Sof (Baal HaSulam “The Study of the Ten Sefirot” Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter 1, No. 9).
Question: What is a round light?
Answer: A round light is different from any other (light) and is bound to its source. That is exactly what the Ari wants to say.
Question: Why does he call the Igulim (circles) “Sefirot” and not “Behinot“?
Answer: It is completely irrelevant now. “Sefirot” and “Behinot” are the names we use for the individual levels in each Partzuf.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/29/2025, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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Comment: All this propaganda and gaslighting penetrates every nook and cranny. It is the psychological manipulation of a person that makes him doubt the correctness of his own thoughts and leads to a loss of confidence and dependence on the manipulator.
My Response: This gaslighting wants to explain to a person that they are being controlled. In general. And a person should feel that he controls himself. And then there is a single combat between a person and someone who encroaches on his independence.
Question: Is this really an attack?
Answer: Yes! What else! This is enslavement. Well, what can you do? Such is the world.
Comment: Basically we see that almost 90 percent or more are subject to enslavement.
My Response: And they want it!
Question: So a person should resist this, simply not want it to the death?
Answer: He should not do that! He just needs to understand that he can be subjected to such an attack, and that he will no longer have freewill after that. And to avoid this, he must build himself up.
Question: Let’s talk about this a little. What kind of core is this in a person that he must build in himself?
Answer: To do to yourself what others want to do with you. That is, others want to impose their point of view, worldview, and attitude to the world on you, and you build it all yourself!
Question: So he is ahead of them and building himself up?
Answer: Yes. Moreover, he is so much ahead of them that he can fight them. He can put a wall between himself and them. That is what we need to understand.
Question: What does it consist of? What exactly is this wall made of?
Answer: This wall consists of confidence in my own method of building the world in me the way I want it to be. And everything.
Question: Which wall can withstand it? What kind of world should I build to make it stand?
Answer: It is as materialistic as possible, which will resist any attempts to crack this inner world of a person.
Question: Is this possible only for strong people, or is almost everyone capable of it?
Answer: No, I do not think everyone is capable of it. But in principle, this can be taught, and people can be pulled out of dependence, out of such a semi-underground, slave state.
Comment: You and I can see that the world is under it today.
My Response: Today, absolutely everyone is in a state where they are being controlled: thoughts, pictures, points of view, and so on, are being imposed. Humanity generally goes, of course… Crawls back into the caves.
Comment: Then still, if you say so, there is a possibility to build a wall.… And I will tell you something else; there is a very interesting observation. There are millions of views on the Internet about those who have gone somewhere, to some kind of hermitage. Someone went to the taiga and has been living there for 20 years, 30 years. One. One person leaves, and that is it, he leaves people. And people are watching and writing comments: “I wish I could.”
My Response: Yes, but it is not easy.
Comment: It is not easy. But this wall was built by some. And you are offering in an active world…
My Response: Absolutely active, without changing anything, only inside yourself.
Question: And yet, you do not say what it might be? Is that what it is? How to do it? Give me some practical advice.
Answer: I don’t know. I have built such a wall in me. It is as if I have fenced myself off from the world, from everyone. I live inside myself quietly, alone. No one suspects that I live like this.
Comment: It is interesting! Tens, hundreds of thousands of students, and you say, “This is how I live.”
My Response: That does not matter.
Comment: So, share the secret.
My Response: The secret is very simple. I build this world within myself, and therefore, even if I am in conflict with the world that is being imposed on me, this contradiction does not oppress me, does not fight with me. I just dismiss it and continue.
Question: Can you tell us at least a little bit about what it is like there, in that world?
Answer: In that world, I am the king. And I serve the great Creator. That is all. Everything is very simple.
Question: It is easy to say, but it is not easy. But I really want to go to such a world. Do you have any advice on how to get into it, into this world?
Answer: To crawl through.
Question: How?
Answer: It needs to be built. A person must build it in himself. And when he builds it, he discovers that, yes it can be done, it must be done, and it will be forever.
Question: Is it both safety and peace?
Answer: It absolutely covers everything! This is the kingdom of the great king.
Question: The great king. But is He the king?
Answer: Yes, but you are building for Him.
Question: Are you building this for Him? And then you find yourself in it? For Him to rule there?
Answer: For me to rule everything for Him.
[348336]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 9/17/25
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Question: Why is it said that light is at absolute rest if our entire path is accompanied by the light entering desire and exiting it?
Answer: The absolute rest of the upper light is its constant change with infinite frequency! The “unchangeability” of light means its rest, constancy in achieving a single goal, for it always performs only actions that lead to it. Its absolute rest lies in the fact that it does not change this goal, but acts toward it with infinite speed.
For us, rest means not getting entangled along the path, but striving in one direction and seeking for thousands of ways to advance there, keeping intensity and applying efforts. And all this is called absolute rest because I see a single goal before me.
Light enters into desire and exits it, and every moment its infinite number of actions take place. But if a person is in the quality of bestowal, then he feels all these various actions as eternal rest!
[16133]
From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Sulam [Ladder] Commentary”
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Question: How do the ten Igulim of the world of Adam Kadmon and the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) of the five Partzufim correlate? Is it the same thing?
Answer: No, they are different lights. There are many different lights: Yosher, Igulim, etc.
It all depends on where they are, how they are connected, and what they transmit to each other.
[348642]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/29/2025, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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Question: When we sing and dance as Rabash did, is that also a war against the evil inclination?
Answer: Of course, but it depends on what you are thinking about, why you are dancing, whether your heart wants to include all your friends.
In other words, clarify what force is born in this dance, in the embrace with your friends, what is it that you want to achieve through it. That is very important.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: How do I fill my friends’ Hisaron (deficiency)?
Answer: By helping them, by your actions. Find out what they want and try to be with them in it.
You are a giver because you see what your friend needs and you help him achieve it. That is how it works.
[345659]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: How is our making concessions toward one another in a ten related to a common Hisaron (deficiency) appearing?
Answer: In this way, you want to feel what the other feels, and he does the same toward you. This creates a common Kli.
Each of you tries to unite in the other’s desire to bestow: the first in the second and the second in the first.
Question: When we annul ourselves before our friends, we can receive from them. But what can we give them in this state?
Answer: You unite with them in order to create a common Kli. A friend bestows to me, and I bestow to him to the extent that we can unite.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/2025, “Winning the War”
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What is meant by a spiritual descent? Sometimes people think that it is a consequence of some corporeal failures like being fired from work or problems in the family.
But in truth, a descent is the feeling of distancing from the Creator, and an ascent is approaching Him. That is how we should understand ascents and descents, and work accordingly.
Distancing from the Creator is felt like not understanding what is required of you, not understanding your state, and suffering from your incorrect connections with other people. The remedy is to rise above reason and connect with the desire for correction embedded in nature, with the force of bestowal and love, so that it begins to rule over you.
[345711]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/19/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: Love for one’s neighbor is a great force with which one can overcome everything. Is the condition for its development mutuality? What is mutual love between friends?
Answer: Mutual love between friends exists when they know and understand each other and are united in their aspiration toward one another. Then they achieve unity, adhesion, and attainment.
There is a big difference between each person feeling their own individual place in the spiritual world and them uniting to feel a common place in the spiritual world.
This is an incredible difference! It means that each of them builds an entire world for himself.
In such unity, many in the group connect their desires in such a way that they feel the entire group as one whole.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: You said that we need to change our nature from reception to bestowal. Does this mean that on every desire to receive that arises in me I need to unite with my friends and bestowal to them?
Answer: I think so.
Question: In this action, when I connect with my friend’s desire and bestow to him, how can I make it so that the Creator acts?
Answer: When you unite with your friend and become as one, then you both turn to the Creator as a single person, and the Creator will no longer be able to refuse you.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/2025, “Winning the War”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #22 “Lishma (For Her Sake)” 10.16.21
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 47 (6.26.2006)
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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “To be as an Ox to the Burden and as a Donkey to the Load”
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4th part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “Lock and Key”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: What should I do if I do not feel my evil inclination or, on the contrary, I feel it, but I do not mind, I enjoy it and want to receive more and more?
Answer: You must conduct your internal analysis. Everything that is in you and pushes you toward the goal of creation is the good inclination. Anything that isolates you from the goal of creation is the evil inclination.
Every time from morning to evening, and in the evening when you finish your day, imagine yourself under the power of the good inclination. This is what you do during the day, this is what you fight.
Question: You said that morning lessons are a battlefield. But in addition to them, during the day we also have workshops in the ten, meetings of friends, and group events. Is this also our battlefield?
Answer: Yes, this is your battlefield. It is not necessary to face the enemy, because you unite with each other so that everyone reveals even greater negative qualities in themselves. This is the battlefield.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: To remain silent and restrain oneself is an opportunity to enter into an internal dialogue with the Creator. What happens to my desire when I see myself in this dialogue: does it decrease or increase, or does it shrink as if acquiring greater density?
Answer: We must try to get out of our desire to receive, rise to the desire to bestow, and unite with other similar desires of friends. To the extent that the desire grows and intensifies, I will be able to think more and more about how I can awaken the good force in the group and thus help the friends rise together with me.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/19/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: Does the “strong hand” refer to the blows that fall upon Pharaoh?
Answer: Usually, it depends on the person who interprets these blows in one way or another. But the main thing is that we want to show the Creator how ready we are to overcome our evil inclination that separates us and to unite with one another. That is what truly helps us.
Question: Can the “strong hand” be revealed without prayer?
Answer: No, you will not feel that it is strong except in accordance with the measure of your prayer.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: If we reach the point of complete self-nullification, do I reveal the Creator instead of my friends?
Answer: You reveal your friends, and within them, you reveal the next degree, connection with the Creator. This is the very point of prayer in which the ten should unite.
We must unite for the sake of the Creator so that we have a Kli in which to reveal Him. After all, this is our true goal to the extent that we can unite despite our egoism in order to reveal Him. This is our work.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/2025, “Winning the War”
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Question: If everything is controlled from above and a person does not have his own power, can we say that making concessions is not an action but the realization that I do not have a separate form?
Answer: No, you should make concessions not because you do not have your own form yet, which will appear later. After all, climbing the entire ladder from our place to infinity, to the highest rung, is felt in annulling our egoism and using it only for bestowal.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/2025, “Winning the War”
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When we read The Book of Zohar, we try to create a common space where we desire to unite all our points in the heart within it; this is what it means to study the Torah. Without such an intention, there is no study of the Torah.
The point in the heart is Israel (Yashar–El), meaning the desire aimed toward the Creator. Through study, we strive to attain the Torah, the light that reforms us. Then, within the connection between us, we reveal the Creator.
Within this connection between us and thus within the revelation of the Creator, there are 125 degrees, or 5 worlds, the 5 lights of NRNHY.
The complete absence of connection from which we begin our efforts to unite is called this world. The final point of unity between us is called the world of infinity.
This is how the entire system of the collective Soul is revealed, called Adam HaRishon, Shechina, or Malchut of infinity. The form of this spiritual vessel (Kli) is called the Creator (Kadosh Baruch Hu), the quality of bestowal and love that we reveal.
Everything exists within this system. The entire wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only of how to reveal the Creator according to the law of equivalence of form, as it is said: “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.” By connecting together, we form a system of connection between us that is similar to the upper force of bestowal.
This image must always be before our eyes as we read The Book of Zohar. I must constantly examine where I am on this ladder of connection between us, what The Zohar is speaking about at this moment, whether I desire to connect with others or resist it, and what hinders me.
I must constantly think only of this: how I (Israel) am connected to others by the force that unites us (Torah), and how within our correct connection, the original quality of bestowal (the Creator) is revealed.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/10, The Book of The Zohar
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #22 “Lishma (For Her Sake)” 10.16.21
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 46, 47 (6.26.2006)
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “The Agenda of the Assembly” (1.17-2) 1984
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4th part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “Lock and Key“
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Question: What is the basis for the unity of the people of Israel?
Answer: First of all, people feel on an animalistic level that the whole world hates them. Therefore we must explain that the entire world hates them because the Creator is displeased with them, that He is standing behind all the nations of the world and treats them this way. We must explain that He does not like them in their current state. They are the people of Israel. This main emphasis should be on this.
For the world, the explanation must be somewhat different, about what the real reason for its suffering, and the way out. There the explanation must be more general.
With regard to Israel, the explanation is simpler. They have a direct problem with the Creator. They do not strive for adhesion with Him; this is the source of the problem.
With regard to the world, the problem is twofold. Each time they receive a blow because Israel is not corrected, and it does not bring them abundance from the Creator.
Here, the explanation must be more moderate, with the right approach so that it is not distorted and turned into even greater antisemitism, which not only will not help, but will also hinder the correct development, and then neither we nor the whole world will be worthy of good. The explanation must be comprehensive. The reason and the solution must be explained very clearly so that it cannot be interpreted differently.
That is, the explanation must be comprehensive and true. It is not easy.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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How can one rationally explain the general law of the universe? It is from two directions. First is from the human, social side of life. Here we can rely on scientists and philosophers of all kinds, who arrive at similar conclusions through their research.
They come to results that are very close to the idea that an upper force exists in the world that possesses reason and its own freewill, and that there are individual changes in relation to us that depend solely on it. That is, it is not a blind nature, but something referred to as an upper thought.
Scientists discover this even through their study of nature. I understand them very well in this because, in some way, I also came from that direction.
And from our side, we must, to the extent we can, explain the wisdom of Kabbalah and cleanse it from the assorted rubbish that has stuck to it. As much as we can, we must point people to what is written in the true, ancient sources. There is no person who would disregard them. They may be feared, but no one dismisses them entirely.
It is good if we manage to present these sources in such a way that, in addition to direct quotations, we also provide a very simple, easy explanation, one that can be absorbed by anyone quickly and effortlessly.
It must be something that is grasped instantly, even by a person with little understanding. After all, people today do not have time, cannot stay immersed in a thought for more than a few seconds, and their level of perception is very limited.
What does “quick and easy” mean? It means as close as possible to their Kelim (vessels), according to the law of equivalence of form. It should be that in order for them to perceive an idea, little effort is needed that each time they need to exert effort or overcome something in order to grasp the idea, that effort is very small, a slight reflection, and they have caught it, and with a little bit of thought, they have absorbed it.
Exactly like that. Just a little effort, and what I intended to pass on is already within them.
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From the 1st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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Question: If we address the wider public, will we need to raise the topic of the group and show that it is a much more general concept?
Answer: I think the topic of the group is actually a very easy one to explain to the public. After all, the people of Israel are not a nation in the usual sense of the word.
At its foundation, it is a group of Kabbalists established by Abraham. The nation exists as a group, in collective responsibility, in relationships of equality by birth, always with a dismissive attitude toward money and honors.
Throughout all generations, the values of the nation were spiritual. If we add to this the antisemitism and general hatred from the world, it becomes clear that from both the side of good—the spiritual side, and the side of evil—the corporeal side, the entire nation is driven from two directions to exist as a group.
Therefore, this approach, when we speak about ourselves and include the entire nation in this process as a group, is very positive and truly resonates.
In the heart of each person, there is something that is rarely found in other nations, a sense of mutual dependence on one another. At the same time, the nation is split into factions that treat one another in extreme ways with hatred, with envy, which is something not seen in other nations.
A nation may be divided into several religions or parts that do not even interact, yet they allow each other to live. But here, that is not the case. There is no tolerance for division within the nation into factions.
We need to explain that, in fact, this is what brings all the evil that exists, that we are all responsible for one another “as one man with one heart.” The people already have a certain readiness for this: they understand that this is harmful, even on a corporeal level, and can also come to realize that, spiritually, this is damaging.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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Question: How can there be a completely inner action if there is no calculation, foundation, or knowledge? What remains of an action that has no purpose that I can imagine, no result that I can feel?
Answer: When we give birth to our children, we understand that they are not capable of anything, that they cannot do anything. We simply have to support them, educate them, and fill them with knowledge and food. In general, we want to give them everything we can. It is our instinct.
The same is true in the science of Kabbalah. As soon as we become fit to be parents, that is, to generate new Kelim, the connections between them, and to raise them as much as possible to the level of connection with the Creator, we do it. Then we feel how the Creator helps us. Our entire connection becomes just for His sake.
Question: What does it mean to generate new Kelim?
Answer: It means to feel an emergence of a connection with the Creator that we have not had before. And so we move up the ladder.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/2025, “Everything is Obtained By the Power of Prayer”
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Question: Are there any well-known scientists today who assert in their research that the upper force exists?
Answer: There are many such scientists. We are in contact with them and try to show how, through research of nature and research of the inner world of man, we come to the same result: that there is an upper force above us with certain properties, which apparently has a specific purpose in relation to us, and we should check our reactions with this.
And what is happening to us now is happening because we do not have the correct connection with this force and because we do not comply with the laws established by it in nature.
Today there are enough people in the world with education, titles, and status both in society and in science who can state this in a way that it can be heard.
And on the other hand, we who are engaged in the science of Kabbalah can add to everything they have said. We can add confirmation from Kabbalah to all their discoveries in quantum physics, in the study of biological forms of life, or in the study of the psychological nature of man. Kabbalah explains why this happens at all levels of nature: still, vegetative, animate. Kabbalah adds explanations together with them, and in opposition to them. In this way, we clarify things to such an extent that they will be easy and convincing for the general public.
This is from the human side. But from the side of the upper force, since we still do not fulfill its will, we are of course facing even worse states ahead. For it is known that blows purify a person, and then he becomes sensitive enough to understand and hear that these blows depend on something he does not understand and for which he does not see a reason. And since he wants to get rid of them, he will want to find the cause even though it is hidden.
Thus we come to a certain stage where we explain, together with scientists and with specialists who will actually be able to present our explanation, the “means to avoid blows.” On the other hand, society is already in a state where it wants to hear: “It does not matter what the solution is; just give it!” It is like a sick person who demands medicine just to get rid of the problem. This process is very rational.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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Question: Where is the boundary between the fact that I must make efforts and the moment when I can no longer do anything but remain silent and wait? How can this be felt practically?
Answer: Where is this boundary? A person must feel it themselves. There are no instructions based on instruments or indicators.
The spiritual space consists only of the forces that are revealed to us. And we must navigate it in such a way that we always feel we can rely on the one, main force of the Creator on one side, and on the egoistic force on our side, which we deny in its use and wish, as much as possible, to combine with the Creator’s force of bestowal.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/2025, “Everything is Obtained By the Power of Prayer”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #20 “Lishma (For Her Sake)” 10.16.21
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 45 (6.25.2006)
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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “To be as an Ox to the Burden and as a Donkey to the Load”
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4th part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “Hochma (Wisdom), On Which the World Stands”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: What is the difference, from an internal point of view, between the people of Israel and the Land of Israel? What do these definitions mean?
Answer: There is no difference! The people of Israel and the Land of Israel are both attributes of Bina. Both are necessary. We currently lack the attribute of Bina in the Land of Israel because there is no sanctity of the land, and there is no holiness of the land because the people of Israel do not dwell in holiness.
We must reach the correction of GE, that is, zero Aviut, the first and second degrees, as it were, Bina, and that will mean that internally we have entered the Land of Israel. Then we will also enter the Land of Israel externally because externally we will have the strength to be here and no foreign force will be able to invade us.
How did Moses defeat many nations? How did the Romans or Greeks defeat us when they came here? Every war boils down to one question: on whose side is the spiritual advantage—ours or theirs?
If we want to remain here, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” then we have no choice, in our life here today, in the Land of Israel, we must attain the attribute of “the Land of Israel.” Without this, we have no right to be here! That is why Baal HaSulam writes that if we fail to achieve this, only a handful of people may be left of us. The rest will be overtaken by the Arabs, and we will not be able to live here.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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Question: Why does the Creator give taste and smell to some but not to others? What does it depend on?
Answer: It is impossible to explain because we do not know the spiritual root of each of us. No one compares themselves to others. Everyone simply wishes to be together. Therefore, we must act as instructed, as we are obliged, and in the future, this will be revealed to us.
Question: How should one work in the group if there is no taste or smell?
Answer: Be devoted to your friends without any taste and with eyes closed; strive for unity with them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/24, “Sukkot”
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Question: Do I understand correctly that unity with the Creator is not just adhesion to Him, but a state in which a person completely annuls himself, becomes a channel for the light, and allows it to manifest in others without even being attached to the feeling of unity itself?
Answer: Yes, you are correct. You gave a very good definition!
Question: Should we feel joy in recognizing the force of the Creator that is moving us?
Answer: Absolutely, we must reach a state where all our actions, thoughts, and intentions bring contentment to the Creator.
Question: Who is dearer to the Creator: a person who has been righteous all their life or a wicked who has become righteous?
Answer: A wicked who has become righteous.
Question: What comes first: my desire to bestow to my friends because I want to bestow to the Creator or receiving energy from my friends that makes me strive more toward the Creator?
Answer: The Creator comes first. In our thoughts and actions, He is always first. It is for His sake, in principle, that we do everything.
Question: We have accepted the condition of mutual responsibility. But most people do not devote themselves to love for others, thereby causing suffering for the entire nation. Can we, Bnei Baruch, reach the desire of Lishma without the help of the entire nation?
Answer: Yes, even if we have just one united ten.
Question: I want to love a friend and see her as righteous, but I cannot because I see in her the same quality that is uncorrected in me. This quality in me acts as a wall between me and the Creator. How can I love my friends in what I do not love in myself? How can I rise above this?
Answer: Ask the Creator to correct this quality within you, and then you will no longer perceive it in your friend.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Noah Was a Righteous Man”
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In the beginning of the year, a person is judged according to his actions, and he is sentenced how much Torah he will learn at this time.
Hence, if his actions in the beginning of the year were righteous, he is allotted much rain. Afterward, they reverted from their way, meaning he sinned, and then he is considered wicked (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 883, “For Man Is the Tree of the Field – 1”).
On Rosh HaShanah, at the beginning of the year, it is determined who among the people will be righteous and who will be wicked.
Question: How can we always be righteous to receive a good fate?
Answer: Consider all your friends as righteous except yourself. That way, you will never be mistaken.
Question: If my friends are righteous and I am wicked, then who is a “whole man”?
Answer: Let everyone see themselves as wicked and strive to rise from this state to draw closer to the Creator and justify Him. That is the best approach.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/24, Writings of Rabash “For Man Is the Tree of the Field – 1”
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Question: There is a parable about a strong wind blowing at a tree, bending and almost breaking it. The tree told the wind: “You’re going to break me.” The wind answered: “No, I will make you stronger, your roots will strengthen, and you will become even more powerful after the storm.”
How can we realize that life is like this right now, that we are being broken precisely to strengthen our roots?
Answer: This must be realized. If we say that the Creator is good and does good, then we have no choice but to understand all His actions as good that bring only good.
Question: That is, those strengthen our roots?
Answer: Yes, we have lived through such upheavals throughout our history, such changes, that we must believe that special, good days are ahead, which we must accept with love.
Question: Do you really think that everything that has happened to us has strengthened our roots?
Answer: Undoubtedly!
Question: Among our people and other nations in general?
Answer: Yes, undoubtedly.
Question: But when one still feels broken, he is on his knees. How does he get up from his knees?
Answer: A person must think. Think about who I am, what I am, what I am for, who controls me, and what I am meant for. The person will see that all this prepares him for real correction. When he rises above his nature, the Creator awaits him there.
Question: We were just talking about a tree strengthening its roots. The wind and the storm strengthen the roots of the tree. What do you call a person’s “human roots,” which are strengthened by all suffering?
Answer: I call a person’s roots his connection with like-minded people. What else does he have? Only this. If these roots are correctly connected, then we have a really strong tree.
Question: In other words, we can say that we, who came out of this unified state, should return to it, but after going through all the suffering, winds, and storms?
Answer: Yes. There is nothing you can do about it.
Question: Is this the plan?
Answer: Yes, because otherwise, we would be unable to find out our essence or the Creator and direct ourselves to Him.
Question: Summing up everything, you say that our roots are the connection between us, and the goal is to direct ourselves to the Creator. What practical advice do you have for strengthening the roots?
Answer: It is hard to say. A person should think about the essence of his life: What it is given for, what is exciting and special about it, and to whom can he bring salvation and correction. A person should be aware of all this.
Question: Is this our training?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is this how we train our muscles, with thoughts of where do I come from, what do I live for, and so on?
Answer: Yes, all the time.
Question: Is this your advice to absolutely anyone?
Answer: To any person. Think about it continuously.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/7/24
Comment: Can our brain communicate with the brain of the person next to us without us noticing it?
Scientists have found that if people spend a lot of time together, the activity of neurons in their brains becomes similar and sometimes nearly identical. Both brains start working synchronously.
After two weeks of watching the same movies, reading the same books, experiencing similar life situations, and talking only to each other, people begin to use almost identical language constructs, experience similar emotions, and share a common point of view.
Professor Moran Cerf from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois says people close to you somehow influence your perception of reality, and in such a way that it is difficult to notice or explain.
My Response: In reality, our brain communicates with the universal mind of the Universe. We are connected to it, like modems. There is an immense system between us, and through it, each person receives information.
“Direct” communication is often an illusion. What I say and what reaches a person I am talking to are not the same thing. The main influence of the environment passes through other channels.
That is why I am interested in my students studying according to the single system, from the same sources, reading my blog, and so on. Only in this way do we come closer to each other.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/3/18
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We see that when a little girl is playing with a doll, the pleasure she feels is real.
We also see that if there is a six month old baby in the house and he is crying, and we say to the girl, “Why are you playing with the doll and kissing it? It’s a false baby, come and play with a real baby,” she refuses, even though we are certain this is a true clothing (Rabash, Letter 12 ).
Question: What does it mean to experience pleasure in the correct clothing?
Answer: Clothing refers to the manifestation of pleasure. The proper clothing arises in relation to the consumer. For example, when a little girl experiences pleasure from a doll, she feels it even though the doll is just plastic. Her little brother, however, cannot give her the same pleasure because she has not yet grown to enjoy such things like her mother does.
Our task is to enjoy true pleasures that come in their proper clothing. The material world is full of various pleasures, but we must strive to relate to them properly so we do not “play with plastic dolls.” Instead, we should seek the kind of clothing that is right for us. This is how we will understand what the Kabbalists are trying to convey.
We need to engage with the Torah, the sources, and our relationships and understand that there must be certain connections revealed between us that will unveil true pleasures to us. So let us strive to reveal them.
Question: How can we see that we are “playing with a doll” instead of experiencing true pleasure?
Answer: You will not see this until you desire to transition from the doll to the real form of pleasure.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 12
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Question: What kind of preparation should virtual groups make for the convention?
Answer: If you attend our lessons consistently and make an effort to apply them in your ten, you are ready for the convention.
We prepare the program for it in advance: the lesson topics, the order of discussion, and so on.
Everything is aimed at preparing each participant so that at the convention, through being in a large gathering of like-minded people, he can collectively reveal the Creator with them.
The convention is a great force that draws the revelation of the Creator. Suppose 100 groups will gather together. This is a real force.
This is the purpose of the convention and the reason to attend: I want to be in a field of tension so strong that it evokes the feeling and revelation of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, on the topic “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What is this desire of the ten that the Creator feels?
Answer: If all friends in the ten are striving for the spiritual goal, this is what the Creator feels. They raise their MAN to Him, and the Creator cannot refuse them. Acting according to their desire, He grants them the quality of Lishma.
The Creator works on the ten in such a way that the ten feels who it truly is, how close it is to Lishma or far from it. Accordingly, they change their attitude toward life, toward the Creator, toward the purpose of creation, toward the request addressed to the Creator, and He gives them other Kelim (other desires).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/24, Writings of Rabash “And the Lord Saw”
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Question: If a person with a strong altruistic desire stands outside the group for several years, observes it, and sees hidden egoism that even those in the group of ten are not aware of, what should he do? Should he join the group even if he feels a strong aversion to it?
Answer: Why doesn’t he join the group?
Comment: Because he sees how egotistical they are.
My Response: He sees in them a reflection of himself. As it is said, “A person sees others according to the extent of his own flaws.” However, the friends in the group are working to rise above egoism.
Every time they reach a certain spiritual level, their egoism will intensify even more, and they will rise above it to an even higher level to discover the Creator at the next stage. Only in this way are both egoism and the opposing qualities of connection between souls revealed.
The fact that this person refuses to join the group is merely an excuse rooted in his great egoism. I understand it is difficult to humble oneself, but there is no other way. He must simply ask his friends for help, and for that he needs to nullify his egoism.
In any case, they need to start somewhere, maybe with shared meals, with dissemination, or through joining the group for collective work or study, though not yet for connection between friends. He may not be ready for that, but he will begin gradually.
During lessons, I usually encourage people to speak with each other and discuss topics, and in this way they can already connect with others.
He has to start, otherwise nothing will work. Everyone faces this problem. He is not the first, not the last, and not the biggest egoist; there are even greater ones. So he needs to lower his head and help push the group forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine. This single wheel has no freedom of movement in and of itself but continues with the motion of the rest of the wheels in a certain direction to qualify the machine to perform its general function (Baal Sulam, “Peace in the World“).
However, we do not see this in our world, not in the entire universe or even in one tiny part of it. There is not a single part of the general machine that would work correctly anywhere, at any level.
Initially everything that was created was corrupted, but it is moving toward correction. In the end, everything will end in a general corrected state when all the cogs will spin together in one direction, with one purpose, without any conflict between them in complete mutual understanding.
How should a person act so as not to block this machine? After all, none of us know its laws and cannot see our future since this machine is infinite, and man’s influence on it is also infinite. It turns out that one can only be sure of the correctness of those actions that are directed at one’s immediate environment, that is, in relation to one’s friends.
Everyone needs to find out what the general function of the machine is, and how to move his or her part in order to correct the whole machine and make it work correctly.
This machine is a common soul; each of its gears is a separate private soul, and a ten is a separate connection of close souls. So how can a person influence this machine correctly?
There are parts in the machine that one must activate with the help of one’s mind, experience, and sensitivity; and there is also a duty to activate this machine on the level of faith, from a sense of duty in relation to some parts of the machine because this is the desire of the upper one.
This machine ultimately gives a person the knowledge of in what form he or she should connect with everyone in order to feel this machine as perfect. A person must make the right decision and achieve the right correction between all parts of the machine to feel oneself to be at the center of decision-making and to take responsibility for the final result.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/24, Hitkalelut [Mingling/Inclusion]
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Question: Can our choice be that we leave the decision to the Creator?
Answer: We must constantly pray to the Creator so that He shows us what action is really required.
Question: Should this prayer be about choosing a good path or specific situations in the ten to find the best solution?
Answer: Maybe so, but usually about the best path.
Question: Everything that comes from the Creator is good. What determines whether it becomes the potion of death or the elixir of life?
Answer: It depends on how we perceive what comes to the ten.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/24, Writings of Rabash “For Man Is the Tree of the Field – 1”
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Question: We have groups and tens in our community. What should a group consist of? Are there any key elements that characterize it?
Answer: A group means several subgroups or tens. Ten is a minimal association, what is called a Minyan, there is nothing smaller than it in spirituality. This is the HaVaYaH, a unit, a cell.
Our current task is to reach a state where we unite into such a ten. Then we will represent a unit that exists in spirituality; until then, we do not exist.
When there are many such units gathered, they represent a spiritual body. But this is already a great achievement. If such a state manifests itself in our time, it will be a tremendous accomplishment.
And a final correction occurs when all the tens that should gather from the shattered soul of Adam unite together into a single spiritual body called Adam. Therefore, a group means at least a few tens united by a common aspiration.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: A couple of years ago, right after a congress, my friend and I had a big fight. We had such mutual hatred between us that we still cannot overcome it. What could you advise to overcome it?
Answer: Rise above it. You have to imagine that this is not your hatred, but something that is given to you so that you can overcome it together.
I have a student who periodically quarrels with his boss at work, and the boss threatens to fire him every time, although he is a very good specialist.
Once he came to me and said: “Probably, the boss will fire me after all. But I can’t do anything about that. I do not agree with him. What should I do? If I get fired, I will feel bad, but I cannot stay with him either.”
Then I told him: “As your spiritual teacher, I order you to go to him and say: “I hate you one hundred percent. But I have a teacher whom you know, and he ordered me to make peace with you and love you.” Since then they have been wonderful friends again.
We need to act the same way because, at each degree, we will uncover mutual hatred to rise above it into love. Hatred again, then love again. Hatred again, then love again. And that is how we rise.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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How do we correctly use obstacles that arise? Basically, we should not wait for them. It is best when we evoke them; that is, we artificially want to get closer to each other as much as possible, and in doing so, we strive to get closer to the Creator.
Naturally, in this case, we will feel rejection from each other, some obstacles, even major ones. It is the preferred path when we rush forward to the connection between us, although it causes us all sorts of problems.
But we do not fear them, we understand that it is precisely with pressure on ourselves and each other to unite that we can bring these obstacles closer ourselves. In this way, we can solve them actively and quickly, thus shortening our path. Then we have something with which to turn to the Creator for help, and will quickly complete the path of movement between ourselves and toward Him.
What do you mean, between ourselves and toward Him? By getting closer to each other, we create a place in which we want to feel the Creator, and He reveals Himself in this place in the connection between us.
Therefore, you should not wait for problems to come because if a person does not strive for connection, they may not manifest for years. But when one strives for unity, even artificially, not because of his desire, but simply because it is necessary, then this problem arises and becomes apparent. By invoking it, he begins to need the Creator’s help and thus advances.
It is called the “path of the Torah,” the “path of light,” when a person himself awakens obstacles, like an old man who walks bent over and searches as if he has lost something. This is how he accelerates his path because he asks the Creator to help him find what he lacks—new desires and their overcoming.
That is, both in the left line and in the right line, he needs the help of the Creator and turns to Him all the time. In this case, his path is fast, short, and rational.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Comment: I go through different states during lessons of fear, hatred, and joy.
My Comment: These are very good states. You must go through them because this is the Creator speaking in you. In no way should you avoid these feelings by dismissing any of them.
It is through them that one must hold on to the Creator and figure out: “Why does He make me feel this way? What for?”
But the most important thing is that you accept everything as coming from the Creator, whether bad or good, pleasant or unpleasant.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Comment: We have a small group where every member is invaluable. We deeply cherish each one. From the outside, it may seem like we maintain a certain gentlemanly decorum, that we don’t take off our white gloves. But, in my opinion, not taking those gloves off requires a great deal of inner work.
My Response: Then you will remain at the animal level. By avoiding conflict among yourselves, you avoid ordinary, everyday, and more importantly, spiritual challenges. Essentially, you stay at the zero level, like little children. You do not have an awareness or disclosure of egoism between you. I understand it may feel better to live like this rather than risk disagreements and separation. But you need to move forward somehow.
Therefore you need to strictly monitor that your gentlemanly relations remain friendly and loving, and at the same time combine them with the revelation of a common aspiration toward the Creator, which will cause all sorts of challenges that you will need to resolve together. Moreover, since you are afraid of splitting apart, it is essential to monitor this process closely.
I understand your concerns, but there is no alternative. You must keep striving to grow closer to one another, repeatedly, even in the face of various obstacles. And then you will incorporate these obstacles into an even greater closeness between you.
And how can you grow closer? Only by rising above the obstacles, in spite of them. This is what is meant by the right and left lines.
Comment: I can see how there is an internal struggle in my friends. A person clenches their teeth, wants to speak their mind, but puts all their efforts into keeping their gloves on.
My Response: That is very good. And you shouldn’t remove them. Each person, on an animate level, should understand that they criticize others because of who they are, and at the same time strive to come closer to others despite the tendency to maintain gentlemanly relations.
When you attempt to draw even closer, true spiritual challenges, rejections, will arise between you that you will have to rise above.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 132
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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “On the Verge of Lishma“
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 8, Item 30
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Is the correct prayer made up of thoughts, actions, feelings, or all of these together?
Answer: When a person asks from the heart, he does not make a calculation: 20% of thoughts, 30% of feelings, 20 to 30% of experiences. He simply asks from the heart.
Question: How can a ten come to one united prayer? We are all different. We all came to Kabbalah at different times, and each one has his own opinion. One wants to study, another wants to pray, a third wants to answer, one hisses at the other: “Be quiet, I can’t hear the teacher,” and so on.
Answer: It is precisely this discrepancy between people in the ten—when one is in one state, the other is in another, and the third is in a third—that gives the correct result. This one wants to pray and that one wants to study; this one wants to disseminate and that one believes that the most important thing today is to make a film for dissemination.
Each one has his own states, so everyone should understand that merging them into a single direction toward the Creator will bring the correct result. Each one from his own point.
So there is no need to worry that all people are different. They will always vary more and more in the ten. But if they strive toward the Creator, then He unites them together.
That is why it is said: “In Him our hearts will rejoice,” meaning in Him we unite. This is very important. We will not be united until we are incorporated into the Creator.
Comment: But when I look at others, I see that they are not in the Creator.
My Response: We do not check who is in the Creator and who is not. We all strive toward the Creator, each one as much as he can and in his own way.
If we try to unite outside of Him, it means a unification of egoists, and nothing will come of it. The Creator will make us even greater haters of each other. But if we try to unite in Him into a single whole, then we will succeed. Simultaneously with the feeling of unification, we will begin to feel the Creator and reveal Him in the connection between us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, Questions and Answers
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“What does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear Me?” (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 31, “How I Love Your Teaching”).
This means that a person feels stress, like before an exam when the examinee is asked and must give an answer. He understands that his future depends on this answer. This state is called “awe.”
Question: What does it mean that a Kabbalist is in awe of the Creator?
Answer: A Kabbalist feels he still does not meet the expectations of the Creator, and therefore trembles. It is like he is passing an exam to see if he meets the Creator’s aspirations.
After all, the Creator wants you to be successful students, to understand the Torah and its laws correctly, and to try to implement them in your relations.
Question: How can we create a feeling between us that we are genuinely standing before the Creator right now, that He is watching us, that we feel it, and are under strain?
Answer: It depends on the person, on how seriously he takes the Creator’s attitude toward him, and on his response to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/24, Writings of Rabash “How I Love Your Teaching”
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Question: It is said that “The Creator is good and does good.” But you are saying that the Creator is both good and bad. How should I envision the Creator?
Answer: That is an excellent question. After all, is there anyone else besides Him? There is nothing in the world except the Creator, the only one, who is kind, positive, and loving. So where do all the evil, hatred, and suffering come from? They stem from the concealment of the Creator. Only from that.
Therefore, the Creator said: “I created evil.” This means, “I created concealment of Myself.”
This concealment is what we must remove, and we can do so only through the connection between us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: It feels like we have run against some kind of wall. The evil inclination has already been revealed, beyond this wall lies the Torah, but breaking through it seems impossible. And we are running in circles, lending shoulders to one another to try and climb over the wall, ready to dig underneath it, helping our friends. This even fills us with pride: “Yes, it is hard work, but we are doing something important.” How do we stop running in circles and simply ask the Creator to let us through?
Answer: You have actually answered your own question.
Question: The problem is that the evil inclination clouds our consciousness.
Answer: Well then you have something to work against.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”
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The need for man’s work in order to receive the Lishma from the Creator is only in the form of a lack and a Kli [vessel]. Yet, one can never obtain the filling by himself; it is rather a gift from the Creator (Baal HaSulam, Shamati, 5, “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below?”).
Question: Does the taste of Lishma reveal itself only from within the darkness?
Answer: Yes that is correct.
Question: What should I do if I am afraid of the darkness?
Answer: See it as a gift from the Creator that He gives you the sense of evil within the darkness. Then you will want to escape the darkness because you will feel the evil within it.
But gradually, as you come to know the darkness, the evil, and the source of that evil, you will see that you need to escape not from the darkness itself, but from the distance from the Creator. Then everything will be fine.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/27/24, “On the Verge of Lishma”
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Afterward, he comes to a state of “Noah walked with God,” meaning that when the Creator is revealed to a person, when he begins to feel the existence of the Creator, he has no choice but to annul as a candle before a torch. (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 342, “Noah Was a Righteous Man”)
To annul before the Creator as a candle before a torch means to do everything the Creator wants from us and not demand more from Him. Just let us be what He wants us to be.
Question: How can I establish feedback to understand how the Creator wants to see me?
Answer: He wants you to be righteous (Tzadik). A righteous person is one who justifies all the actions the Creator performs on him.
It is said that a person should as if deceive himself and while seeing reality as his eyes see it still accept everything as perfect.
Even when he sees his existence as imperfect, he still believes that all this comes from the Creator and accepts it as perfect.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Noah Was a Righteous Man”
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Question: Should we come to a common desire? If so, which one? Or are we just building intentions?
Answer: The final state that the desire created by the Creator must reach is called “receiving from the Creator for His sake.” I cannot convey this state. This is precisely what is described by the words “receiving for the sake of bestowal.”
To do this, you need to gather absolutely all the desires created by the Creator, which are broken, separated from each other, and are increased by the upper light 620 times, and begin to connect them in order to attract the upper light to them.
If I have an urgent need for the Creator to correct my egoistic desire into an intention for His sake, then I can safely turn to the Creator, ask for it, and He will do everything.
This is our work; there is nothing else. It is actually quite simple. The only thing is that we need to be in this direction all the time, in one thought.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: There are two forces in a person. One of them originates from the evil inclination and causes suffering. This is the pushing force. The second force is the force of attraction that comes from the good inclination.
How important is it to determine the forms of future states in order to know exactly which one to transition into?
Answer: I think it is more correct if we identify each of these states with our egoistic or altruistic work and thus quickly move out from them.
Question: By calling egoism the evil inclination and acknowledging its existence, I am as if strengthening it. On the other hand, how then can I let the Creator correct it?
Answer: You just have to clearly define the evil inclination, acknowledge it within yourself, and then perceive it only when you need it. If you have the strength to start rising above it, then carry out this action. You will see how much the evil inclination helps you, more so than the good.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Two Forces within Man”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 130
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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “On the Verge of Lishma“
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Selected Highlights
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Comment: I decided that I only have Kabbalah in my life, and I don’t get distracted by other methods. But my “donkey” desires something different. For example, I want to go out and have a beer, I feel that urge. But I understand that if I go, I will not be able to get up for the morning lesson, and I will have a headache. I feel powerless in this situation because it feels like it is the Creator directing me this way.
My Response: Let us clarify: the Creator sends you to the lesson and the Creator sends you to have a beer. The Creator is everywhere, in both places. So which direction do you choose? Which Creator will you listen to?
Question: I understand that all of this is from the Creator, but can I pray for myself to follow the Creator who sends me to the lesson?
Answer: I do not think that is the best path because you will end up fooling yourself. It is better to use your ten to overcome the “beer” Creator. Then you will truly feel like you are in a fight, will connect more with the group, and will strengthen your connection with the Creator and the connection of the Creator with the group. In this way, you will really advance.
I believe that if a person finds themselves at a crossroads with two apparent paths, they should recognize that both are given by the Creator so they must decide which choice the Creator would prefer.
Question: Can I pray for myself and ask the Creator to help me choose the right path?
Answer: That is a weak prayer. It is much better to pray through the ten. A genuine prayer is always done with what is called a minyan, a group of ten people.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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The wicked one’s question, he must take upon himself a new acceptance of the burden of the kingdom of heaven, called “fear,” each time anew.
The power to be able to overcome and take upon himself the burden of the kingdom of heaven is through* Torah and *Mitzvot [commandments], whereby observing them, a person is cleansed from his evil, for only then will he be able to accept the burden of the kingdom of heaven (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 31, “How I Love Your Teaching”).
Question: What is the acceptance of the authority of the Creator during the revelation of the question of the sinner?
Answer: When a person has questions that he needs to answer, he usually addresses these questions to the Creator and must answer them clearly.
Question: At the moment a sinner’s question arises, what will contribute to the instant disclosure of the power of overcoming earned with the help of the Torah and the commandments?
Answer: It is the realization that all the questions he has about the Creator, about the path, and everything that exists come from the Creator.
Therefore, a person should sincerely and briefly try to answer this without spinning. Then he will begin to realize who he is.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/24, Writings of Rabash “How I Love Your Teaching”
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Question: You said that love of friends is where we meet the Creator.
Where exactly do I meet the Creator?
Answer: You meet the Creator in getting closer to your friends.
Question: I tune myself to this work, feel the friends in my heart, and feel love for them. What is manifested in this love as the Creator?
Answer: A common desire, aspiration.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot“
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Question: Is it possible to find harmony and balance between the corporeal and spiritual worlds?
Answer: Harmony is very simple: live in our world only for the sake of what is necessary for the body and direct everything else to the development of the soul.
Question: How do I know what I need? Where is the boundary of corporeal needs?
Answer: If you can do without something, do without it.
Question: What does it mean to live only for what is necessary?
Answer: Living means letting the body exist while allowing the soul to grow.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Before we grow up, we derive pleasure specifically from Lo Lishma (not for Her sake), regarded as “clothing of falsehood.” This is called “shadow,” “concealment,” and then there is room for work, and we derive vitality from false things. Afterwards, when we are rewarded, we receive the light of faith (Rabash, Letter 12b).
Question: There is a false clothing, a concealment that I am in most of the time, and there is a shadow of faith, a place for work. How can you not make a mistake when you are in concealment?
Answer: It is possible to avoid mistakes only in connection with friends. Then you will have different options to choose from that constantly change places and meanings. You quickly begin to understand where you are, where the truth is, and where the falsehood is, and in this way rise toward the truth.
Question: Do the sufferings of the soul lead to turning away from false pleasures toward true ones?
Answer: Yes, this happens when a person truly feels that all the earthly pleasures that people enjoy do not touch him. He wants something eternal, real.
Therefore, move forward and always choose the highest possible pleasures that you want to direct to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 12b
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Question: What does it mean to come to the lesson with the intention to purify myself? How can I check if I truly have that intention?
Answer: Analyze what you were thinking about before the lesson.
Question: Is it possible that someone gets up for the lesson every day simply out of habit?
Answer: That is why you do not see serious results from your studies. Sit for a moment before the lesson and think about yourself, your state, and what lies ahead.
Gradually, you will see what thoughts, feelings, and requests you can bring to the Creator.
Question: But how can I check my focus on the request for purification? After all, a million different thoughts and requests can come up.
Answer: That is exactly why you should ask, in your own words.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/24, Writings of Rabash “According to the Sorrow Is the Reward”
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Question: What should one do when a person feels his or her spiritual vessels are empty and neither knowledge nor actions fill them?
Answer: It is necessary to check whether this is really the case and then systematically work through those properties that a person does not see in oneself.
Question: Could it be that these vessels have already fulfilled their purpose and need to be transformed?
Answer: No, don’t think about converting them. They will acquire the necessary form themselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/20/24, “Sukkot”
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Question: How can one learn to understand the signals of the Creator?
Answer: You need to reveal it all within yourself: what you feel, what you think, and what you see.
The Creator speaks to each of us every moment in a new way. We just need to tune ourselves to reveal the appeal of the Creator to us.
Question: How can we instantly establish contact with Him?
Answer: It depends on how much we desire to be connected with Him, to rise to Him, and to understand Him, so that He feels us more and is revealed within us.
[334849]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/24, “Continuing the Convention With an Ascent”
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Question: What is the best way to form a desire to unite? Most of the time I am in imaginary pursuits and indifference, but I have to cling to something in a friend. But each friend is different. What should I pay attention to?
Answer: Pay attention to the fact that I want to cling to a friend and he wants the same thing. If you have a joint direction of desire, you will connect and form one common desire, a single form.
Question: But I do not feel this friend. Do I have to enter into some interaction with him?
Answer: Yes, this interaction will gradually find you. You will cling to it and through it to the friend. It starts with the fact that you want to unite with all your friends and reveal that you actually do not have a particular desire for this. You constantly forget about it, push it away, and therefore nothing happens.
Question: How can I unite with a friend who has no love for me? How can I get strength from connection with him?
Answer: You can gain strength by wanting to connect with him, even if you do not know him or feel distant from him. It is only through this desire that you begin to achieve any connection with him.
Question: Does the power we receive come from the ten or the Creator?
Answer: Only from the Creator.
[334707]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”, Lesson 2
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Question: I know that I will go through everything to the end with you. I want to hear from you what you expect from us, and we will do it. What should we rise above now; what should we cancel?
How do we clarify the importance of spirituality from the chaff and get to the bottom of it? When I asked you, “What do you do when you’re scared?” you said, “Close your eyes and jump into the unification.” Where is this point? Where do we jump to?
Answer: In principle such a wish applies to our current state. There can be no next step if a person does not realize he is stepping into the unknown. Therefore, we have no other way. I am not hiding it; how could I hide it?
Do you see what kind of world we live in? It is not easy. On the one hand, we can resent the fact that the Creator sets up such events for us. But on the other hand, you still have to go above knowledge. And then we will overcome everything.
Question: Where should we jump now with our eyes closed?
Answer: Only to the center of unification. If we really jump into the very center, then in flight, we will see how the Creator greets us there.
[334387]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/24, Writings of Rabash “You Stand Today, All of You”
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Question: If one of the “gears” in the mechanism of the ten is faulty or off-tune, but the friend does not realize it, is it possible for the ten to correct it together? What should we advise him?
Answer: This is about group work between friends. You must study together, tell each other how to act, and strive for a state where you will start this common mechanism in connection with each other, a common soul that will work because of you.
We have to accept these conditions and try to become engaged in them. Within some time (everyone has their own) each of us will eventually agree to work in tune with the rest of the gears, with the rest of the machine.
Question: Maybe we need a new method?
Answer: There are no new methods, because the system originates at the initial state of creation and is directed at its final state. Therefore, all we need is to study the spiritual mechanism a little, and most importantly—try to start it.
Question: That is, we must bow down and understand that the Creator is making this movement over us, and we cannot do anything. Or can we still do something? What is the correct opinion?
Answer: The correct opinion is that you will constantly look for what the Creator wants from you and try to do what He sees fit.
[334761]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection”, Lesson 4
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Question: Why can representatives from different conflicting countries in the global group have good relationships and embrace each other? We want the external world to be the same. When will that happen?
Answer: Not anytime soon. But we cannot give up and wait. It all depends on us.
Question: If we are blood sisters, it is easy for us to find a connection between each other. How can we also become like family in the ten so it would be easier to melt our hearts and find mutual connection?
Answer: In reality, we are much closer to each other than blood brothers or sisters. So, there is no need to think that there is a great distance between us. We must realize who we are and how separated we are, and this will happen very soon.
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection”, Lesson 4
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Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine. This single wheel has no freedom of movement in and of itself but continues with the motion of the rest of the wheels in a certain direction to qualify the machine to perform its general function (Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World“).
Our main work is to reveal how interconnected we are and how we must tune ourselves together to be included in the work of this machine, not simply to be driven by it, but to begin to understand how we can activate it. That is our task.
Question: Should we just wait patiently?
Answer: No, absolutely not. Waiting patiently will not help. We must begin to activate ourselves along with the mechanism of the machine, and gradually we will become involved in its collective forward motion. We need to start right now, and the activation comes when we begin to sense its movement and integrate ourselves into it.
[334720]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection”, Lesson 4
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Question: How can we feel that the Creator is ready to respond to us? How can we open our heart and trust Him?
Answer: Open your heart to your friends. Let’s say you have nine friends, and you are the tenth. If you truly unite with them, the Creator will enter your open heart, and you will feel Him.
You will begin to ascend the steps of the spiritual ladder and start to realize what you read in the sources.
[334552]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Point in the Heart”
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Comment: When you are not here with us there is some decline in the importance of the lessons; some friends no longer connect to them.
My Response: It has always been and will be because a person was born and grew up in such a way that he has to see some big example in front of him. Therefore, I advise you to get used to going with your teachers.
I had a teacher too, a great teacher. He died in my arms. Nevertheless, everything continued.
I asked him this question too and he would say that it should be this way. So it is not scary. After all, we are interconnected, nobody is leaving anywhere and nobody is coming. Whatever is going on before our eyes are children’s games. We have to be above them.
[334860]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Things that Come from the Heart”
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We live in a time when Kabbalah must spread among our nation and all of humanity, so we are stepping back somewhat from the strict conditions that Kabbalists used to impose on their students and we allow anyone who wishes to study.
However, it is important to understand that while a person is permitted to study from below, a completely different condition is given to him from above: he must be the head of the family, take care of his wife and children, work, and not live off handouts from his parents.
It is not uncommon to hear someone say that they can afford not to work because they have enough to live on. But this does not free them from the obligation to work.
Rabash would say: “Go to work. No one is saying you have to earn.” After all, earning and working are not the same thing. He did not accept students who did not work.
A man must be the head of his family and work like everyone else eight hours a day. This was a law for him.
[334797]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/24, “Continuing the Convention With an Ascent”
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Question: It is written, “As their faces are not similar to one another, their views are not similar to one another.” How can we come to one desire so that it aligns with the Creator’s desire?
Answer: Under the influence of the actions the Creator sets before us, we try to be in one desire, like one person, and thus we become a single body.
And when this body consists, for example, of ten people, it has ten times more strength than if a person were alone.
[334671]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”, Lesson 2
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Question: How do we reveal the need to fulfill the desires of others?
Answer: By being connected with others, helping them, and feeling what influences them and how they advance under the influence of that force.
Question: How can we in the ten influence each other to develop a desire to bestow?
Answer: Through our example.
[334665]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” Lesson 2, /12/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”
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Question: You said that a person who studies Kabbalah grows internally and one’s perception of the group changes accordingly. Every year I check this state and indeed the friends and feelings are different and we all go through various states. What is happening qualitatively within each of us?
Answer: A more corrected desire that is more suitable for common connection is gradually revealed in you. I think you have gone through good states lately and are ready for the Creator to be revealed to you. That cannot be expected—you must act.
To act means to create such connections between yourselves that will be suitable for our connection with the Creator. That is what we need.
[334623]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Devotion to the Spiritual Goal”, Lesson 1
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Question: A man who was upset came to a sage and complained, “Today I thought why even pray or ask the Creator for this or that? Doesn’t He already know what is best or worst for me?”
“The Creator certainly knows,” the sage replied. “The question is, do you?”
Do we know what is better or worse for us?
Answer: This is a complex question. We need to understand that the best state for us is to be similar to the Creator. How do we achieve this? That is what we study. And how do we implement it? We also study that. The task is simply to implement it, but that is the problem.
Question: What does it mean to be similar to the Creator?
Answer: To be similar to the Creator means following the laws of the Torah. These laws are: love your neighbor as yourself and do not do to others what you do not want done to you. These fundamental laws bring us closer to the Creator.
Question: Do we know this is better for us or don’t we?
Answer: We know, but we do not want it. It is like with children. You tell them what is good for them, but they do what their egoism tells them.
Question: Is it better for the ego?
Answer: Yes.
Question: As a result, do we end up doing what is worse for us?
Answer: Yes in the end, there is a constant struggle between these two forces within us.
Comment: I see. But still, the idea you mentioned is attractive. It sounds good: do not do to others what you do not want for yourself.
My Response: It sounds good until I start seeing what is more important to me.
Question: Meaning, what is more important for oneself, for one’s egoism?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What is the correct request? What if we wanted to ask: “Let us do what is better, not worse”? What is the right request: “Help us choose the better” or “Help us accept everything that happens to us”? That is, we believe that You give us the best.
Answer: Help us realize where in our world there is a greater similarity to You.
Question: By doing so, do we choose the best?
Answer: Yes, in our attributes, in our desires, etc.
Question: Does the Creator indicate where? Does He guide a person in this way if the request is truly deep and sincere?
Answer: Yes, if we truly desire it.
[333805]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/15/24
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Question: Can the connection within a ten be stronger than the common connection at the convention?
Answer: These are completely different things. Connection in the ten is your personal connection with your root.
However, connection with all the people attending the convention is the connection in width, not in height. Therefore both are necessary.
Question: How can we convey the correct intention to the center of the ten in order to achieve a connection of the branch with the root?
Answer: I believe that if we follow the articles of Rabash and Baal HaSulam, we will ultimately reveal the entire network of connections between us and the Creator. Then, it will become clear that we already exist within this.
[334838]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/15/24, “Continuing the Congress With an Ascent”
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Question: If the system consists of tens, how will all the people in the world fit into this system since you have said that not everyone needs to study Kabbalah?
Answer: It is like in our earthly system. Someone does something, helps another in some way, and that person helps someone else, and so on.
We are all interconnected anyway, and as a result, everyone will eventually reach the final correction (Gmar Tikun).
Question: How does the spiritual individuality of each person help serve and move the spiritual system?
Answer: Each person, through his or her ten, influences the common system and thereby moves it forward.
[334754]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection”, Lesson 4
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Question: Not all of us have a high IQ to absorb the huge amount of information from you. How should we properly prepare ourselves? What would you recommend?
Answer: In relation to Kabbalah, everyone has the same kind of mind because none of us can be better or worse at attaining the spiritual world. We all start from zero. So, no matter what natural talents you have, you are neither better nor worse than others, both men and women.
It is said from the beginning that a clever person doesn’t necessarily learn or succeed more. So there is no need to envy someone who seems to show great intellect. In Kabbalah, there is no such thing as a genius with a special memory coming in and everything is revealed to them. There is nothing like that. As the Shechina says: “I dwell in the lowliest of my people.”
Therefore, there is no need to invent any special methods of attainment or revelation. Everything will come to a person in due time when it is necessary for them.
Question: Can you give a general piece of advice of how a person can properly prepare themselves before a lesson or an event?
Answer: A person should not have anything clouding their mind, let them come empty. But if they are in the mood, they can read Psalms just to make sure it doesn’t overwhelm them. Nothing more.
The main thing is to remain calm. The Torah enters in a state of soft influence on a person. So there is no need to rush or be overly eager; nothing will slip away from you.
[334749]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”
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Question: When I, as a cogwheel, join a working mechanism, if the mechanism starts to malfunction, will it grind down this cogwheel or will it give it a chance to correct itself and fit into the mechanism?
Answer: The machine accepts the cogwheels, ensures they take its place, and gradually allows it to see the part of the machine’s overall work that it needs to perform.
Question: Is it not replaced as defective?
Answer: No, there is no one to replace it with.
[334729]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection”, Lesson 4
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Question: What is true self-sacrifice to the Creator, which is our ultimate goal?
Answer: True self-sacrifice is when we desire to squeeze all egoism out of ourselves, all intentions for self-benefit, even the smallest ones, whatever they may be, and remain solely directed toward our friends and through them to the Creator.
When we reach this point, we will indeed see that spiritual gates open before us.
Question: What actions allow me to pass goodness to my friends?
Answer: By showing an example of how to unite in order to be ready to receive upper forces from the Creator.
[334636]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Devotion to the Spiritual Goal”, Lesson 1
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Question: What is this system of the ten, which is a spiritual cell that must be integrated into a single spiritual organism?
Answer: All souls existing at the degrees of inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature are connected with each other, influence each other, and determine each other’s states.
We need to take into account that we are one single system and must be completely corrected in relation to each other. That is, our connection determines the correction of universal egoism, and then such a connection appears between us that is absolutely identical to the Creator. We need to reach this state.
[334746]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”
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Question: I am very impressed by the women’s questions. That has never happened before. In the past, all conventions were overwhelmingly dominated by men’s questions, but today it is the opposite. What is going on? Is there some general shift happening?
Answer: I am very glad that such changes are occurring. It is written that Israel was delivered from Egypt thanks to the righteous women.
That is exactly what is happening. We see that at this convention, women are outpacing men. They are quicker and clear-headed, which I am very pleased about. So we should push them forward. We will follow their lead.
[334668]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”, Lesson 2
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Question: All the work on connection takes place in the ten. We gather at conventions from many countries. What can we pass to one another?
Answer: We infect and inspire each other with our desires.
Show everyone else how you are striving toward spirituality. You need nothing else. The wisdom of Kabbalah itself is not very complicated, but it is difficult to put into practice.
Understanding the basic principles is quite simple, but not through words, but rather through feelings.
[334502]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Point in the Heart”
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Question: How do we avoid substituting our own ideas for the genuine tuning required to hear the Creator?
Answer: To hear the Creator, your entire ten must unite into one single desire. In that state, you will feel that there is someone above who cares for you, guides you, corrects you, directs you, and brings you together.
After several such actions between you and the Creator, you will begin to feel how He gathers you and envelops you in a shell. From that moment onward, you will form a spiritual vessel (Kli).
[334510]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Point in the Heart”
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Question: Can we attain the unique connection between all souls?
Answer: We can attain everything, step by step.
Question: If we understand exactly how each soul is connected to another, will this enable us to unite better?
Answer: No, you cannot attain this now. When you achieve unification with your friends, and study the connections between you based on this, then you will be able to attain what your connection with the Creator should be.
[334559]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”
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Question: If everyone originated from one soul of Adam HaRishon, then what is the root of the soul?
Answer: It is the root that every person has in the soul of Adam HaRishon—the place in the soul of Adam from which everyone originated.
Question: What does it mean to unite souls if there is no distance in the spiritual world and everything is unified?
Answer: To unite souls means to return them to the place of Adam HaRishon where they merge into one single desire.
[334565]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”
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To correct this, meaning that because the receiver wants equivalence of form with the root, and if it were to receive it would feel unpleasantness, the Tzimtzum occurred (Rabash Article 28, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”).
Question: It turns out we are talking about the work of the lower. But I constantly have the feeling that you protect us like children and give us a screen from above.
Answer: In reality, the screen does come from above, always. All actions are ultimately performed under the guidance of the upper.
However, we must ask for spiritual advancement and for the ability to carry out these actions from below, from our own state.
[334408]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”
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Question: Sometimes my thoughts wander during lessons and I only perceive about 10% of the lesson. Is there any way for everyone to get more out of the lesson?
Answer: Listen to each lesson several times, discuss the lesson topic with your friends, and in this way you will absorb more. Preparing for the lesson through discussion will allow you to absorb more because your thoughts, desires, and aspirations interact with each other, and through this, you become more ready to receive what the Kabbalists are talking about.
[334704]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Walking in the Footsteps of the Kabbalists”, Lesson 3
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Question: Before us lies an immense field of love and bestowal. I can distinguish different qualities within it. There is the segment of my ten, my group, and the vast world group. What should I focus on, not to lose myself, but to bring benefit?
Answer: We must all feel like one ten, one group, and in that state, connect with the Creator. It is not that difficult. Each of us has inner potential for this.
Let us act together. Everyone should feel themselves in this demand, in connection with others, and constantly remain in one inner point.
[334620]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Devotion to the Spiritual Goal”, Lesson 1
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Question: It is said that a student can use the attainment of the greatness of the Creator reached by his teacher, which turns bestowal into reception and becomes his fuel. How does this happen?
Answer: There are such examples in our world. If we begin to feel greater strength in achieving something, we can thus draw closer to that goal and master it.
Question: You, Rabash, and Baal HaSulam want to pass light to us. There are many of us here, and this gives us great strength. What condition can we meet now to open ourselves at least a little for receiving the light?
Answer: For this you must be interconnected with one another, study together what the Kabbalists talk about, try to implement it in your connections with one another, and together appeal to the Creator. Thus, you receive strength from Him.
To become similar in form to your teacher means that just as the teacher is now in some kind of connection with the Creator, the student can receive from him the forms of attitude toward all creations and apply himself accordingly.
Question: It is difficult to measure our inner efforts of devotion to the teacher. Are there any external criteria for when I can say that I am committed to him?
Answer: You need to follow all his instructions in the group and your studies. Do your best, and that is it. In this way you will receive strength from him.
[334674]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Walking in the Footsteps of the Kabbalists”, Lesson 3
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There is a special power in the adhesion of friends. Since the views and thoughts pass from one to the other through the adhesion between them, each is incorporated with the powers of the other, and by that, each one has the power of the whole society.
Therefore, although each person is an individual, he has the power of the whole society (Rabash, “The Need for Love of Friends”).
The power of all is our common power with which we all come closer together and with the Creator.
If we unite with our friends, feel their desires, their path, their goal, and want to move forward with them, then in the end this happens to us.
Question: When friends ask questions, I try to feel their hearts. I do not feel it yet, but I really want to. We all try to feel each other’s hearts and keep going. What is next?
Answer: Continue until we unite, until we perceive in our feelings, desires, and intentions that we want an internal connection between ourselves and the friends. Only the Creator can give such a connection. And He gives it to us.
But we do not just wait for it to happen. We ask the Creator; we persistently demand it from Him.
Question: Can I do this at the same time: to try to unite, and—for each internal in-and-out—to demand the connection of our hearts?
Answer: Yes.
[334660]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten,” Lesson 2
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Each and every individual in society is like a wheel that is linked to several other wheels placed in a machine (Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”).
Question: When the Creator brings us into a group, we have a certain role to start functioning like a cogwheel in a machine. But sometimes it takes years before I begin to understand that I depend on my friends.
We are just beginning to study the mechanism, but are not yet working like a machine. Could it be that some cogwheels work faster in their internal development than others?
Answer: That is not our concern, but the Creator’s. He sets the entire machine in motion and ensures the correct combination between all its parts, as there are millions of them, and each one performs its unique role, different from the others. Therefore only a force outside of us can do this.
Question: Until we start functioning as one mechanism, how can we help each friend find his or her place so they becomes part of the mechanism?
Answer: In the machine’s operation, there is a state where all its parts work together and move the mechanism as a whole. And there is a state where these parts start up individually, depending on how much they understand the launching of the machine and its operation.
Therefore we need to study this system, stay connected with each other, and eventually we will begin to understand and sense its proper functioning and our place in it.
A person in their development in this world reaches a point where they must know why they were created. When they start asking, “What was I created for, and what is the purpose of my life?” they gradually come closer to entering the system of our world, reveals it, and thus begin to understand their role.
[334716]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection,” Lesson 4
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Question: We must become faithful helpers of the Creator. Is the calculation done with each individual or only with the ten?
Answer: The calculation is done both with each individual and with the ten.
To bring the ten closer to this work, we must talk about it, discuss it, and constantly stay focused on it. This is not too difficult because we are all interconnected and have no other choice.
We truly exist within a single system. If this system is correctly activated, with our proper participation, everyone will benefit, and we will reach the goal of creation more quickly without wandering into unnecessary decisions and actions.
We must engage in a common goal, and in order to achieve it, we will connect with each other in various unities. In this way, we will more quickly restore our part, our block, our portion of the common soul.
[334726]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection”, Lesson 4
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Comment: We all have different qualities. According to what do we rise above them?
Answer: While in the group, I want to unite with my friends, to be like them, accepted by them. We do certain exercises together, and through this, we come to understand each other more.
Even if I do not hear them, as a result of going through certain states together, each one becomes similar to the other and resembles the other.
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”, Lesson 2
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Question: How can we become united, like a single whole? After all, we have different qualities and different perceptions. How can we overcome this and become homogeneous?
Answer: We have to understand that all our contradictory, opposite qualities, thoughts, and feelings are given to us only so that in unification we achieve such a common state that would be able to contain the entire spiritual system.
Therefore we should not dwell on this, but simply move forward. One who is walking will master the road.
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Devotion to the Spiritual Goal”, Lesson 1
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The female’s craving for the male makes a soul. And also, the male’s craving for the female and his adhesion with her produces a soul, which includes the soul from the craving of the female and takes it. Thus, the craving of the lower one, the female, is included in the craving of the upper one, the male, and the two souls become one, without separation.
And then the female contains everything, taking both souls and becoming impregnated by the male in them (Rashbi, Zohar for All, Lech Lecha, “Like an Apple Tree among the Trees of the Forest”).
The male’s craving for the female and vice versa are two different cravings, two different copulations.
The Book of Zohar explains which of them is the first and which is the second. Depending on this, one or another type of soul is born.
But this is not important. The main thing is that they merge together. Of course, the Nekeva conceives since it accepts the male part of the soul (Zachar). Therefore, it turns out that they get included in each other and become one whole.
Question: And yet this intercourse differs depending on who was striving for whom?
Answer: Yes, this is what determines who is born: a boy or a girl.
Question: In what case does this happen? Suppose a boy is when a man longs for a woman, and a girl is when a woman longs for a man?
Answer: Yes, it seems so.
Question: Why is it that precisely the Nekeva is decisive? As it is written: “And then the female contains everything, taking both souls and becoming impregnated by the male in them.”
Answer: This is how nature created it.
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From KabTV’s “Men and Women” 8/20/24
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They are all savages, and there is no tactic they will accept unless through religion (Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation).
Question: Baal HaSulam calls egoists (people who think only of themselves) savages. How can the Kabbalistic methodology change egoists into altruists?
Answer: This is only possible if we start to attract people to us with all sorts of enticements. Otherwise, I can not imagine what else could be done to make every person feel that by approaching an altruistic society, they are entering a zone of absolute confidence, peace, calm, and can live no matter the conditions because everything will be balanced for them.
Question: And yet, what is the unique feature in the Kabbalistic methodology such that it can lead to an ideal society?
Answer: It must be understood that attracting people to the society of the last generation means attracting them to the correct similarity to nature. Therefore a person will feel that he has suddenly entered a state where he is in harmony with the surrounding world, with problems of weather, health, and everything. All of this will begin to approach a normal state.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 8/8/24
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Question: You said that we need to question our feelings, our perception, and to enter the ten. Does this mean that we should subject our perception to the criticism of the group?
Answer: I think this is necessary.
Question: In such moments, I feel the urge to escape from the unbearable state. There is no sense that the group is helping. What should I hold onto to not run away?
Answer: Hold onto your friends.
Question: Is this the process of the recognition of evil?
Answer: The recognition of evil happens gradually.
Question: What is needed for this to become a correction?
Answer: The desire.
[334626]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Devotion to the Spiritual Goal”, Lesson 1
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Question: What is your request to us in order to see us as your students?
Answer: I ask only one thing of you: hold onto each other and all together hold onto the Creator. This will lead you to final correction, liberation from all the evils of this world, and to the attainment of the highest degrees of the spiritual world.
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Walking in the Footsteps of the Kabbalists”, Lesson 3
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Question: Is there room for mistakes in each person’s spiritual work in the ten that could negatively affect others? Or are all mistakes also a part of correction?
Answer: They are a part of correction, but mistakes do happen.
Question: Can they affect the work of the entire ten?
Answer: Even more than just the ten.
Question: How can we avoid making mistakes?
Answer: You should be afraid of distancing yourself from your friends. The closer you are to each other, the fewer chances you have to make a mistake.
For every member of the ten to take their proper place, the ten must be ready to go through all the stages of correction. It is not that difficult. But the friends need to know this and be prepared for it.
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Discovering the Power of Connection”, Lesson 4
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Question: Each Kabbalist acts in his generation according to the power of the light. Is the light getting stronger, and what can we do to increase it?
Answer: Day by day we must test ourselves to what extent we can carry out what the Kabbalists said, each person at his level and degree, based on his reasons, each tries to do what they said.
Then we will feel we are climbing the steps of the spiritual ladder and so are ascending to the highest state.
All Kabbalists who attained the upper world, the Creator, can explain our path to the Creator to us, and can explain how we are interconnected with each other and with them. After all, altogether we represent one unified system in which everyone helps another attain the Creator, connect with Him, and pass this connection over to others.
We must try to learn from our teachers to pass on our methodology.
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/13/24, “Walking in the Footsteps of the Kabbalists”, Lesson 3
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Question: The Creator gave us the evil inclination and the Torah as a spice. Can we say that we are stuck in the evil inclination and not using the Torah as a spice?
Answer: Yes, and that is why we must ask. If we try to replace our egoistic, evil heart with a good one, we will need the Torah, which will act on us, and our heart will become good.
You need to develop the importance of the goal. Only the importance of the goal will keep you moving toward a state where, no matter how many of your uncorrected qualities are shown to you, you will still keep moving forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/24, Writings of Rabash, “One Learns Only Where One’s Heart Desires”
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It is forbidden to nationalize property before the public reaches this moral level. Before there is a reliable moral factor in the public, the collective will not have fuel for work*.*
The whole world is one family. … However, the actual process is gradual (Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation)
Comment: Baal HaSulam points out several prerequisites before people can move to an altruistic society.
My Response: If I am not sure that 90% of what I have made with my own hands, have extracted from the ground, and so on, goes to society and ultimately to me, then I will not be able to work.
Question: So is this process likely to take hundreds of years?
Answer: I would not say it would take hundreds of years, but a couple of generations, yes. About fifty years.
The realization should be in steps: first in the form of knowledge, then in awareness, and then in the realization itself.
[333324]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 8/8/24
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Question: In our world men do not need much, everything is much simpler for them than for women. Women are so different and multifaceted. What is the reason for this complexity?
Answer: A woman is like the whole world. The female gives rise to life for any organism. It is the most complex organism in our world.
Question: Is the Nekeva (female) so multifaceted in the spiritual world too? Or is it still some kind of one desire, one state?
Answer: In spirituality this is absolutely not felt, since the female part suppresses itself in relation to the male part there, and the male part prevails in everything.
Question: Does she suppress herself deliberately and consciously?
Answer: Of course. After all, in principle, she should only give the sex of the child and some earthly properties and the higher properties come from the husband.
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From KabTV’s “Men and Women” 8/20/24
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Baal HaSulam was a very private man, a man of his narrow circle. European culture was clearly manifested in it. This is even evident in his music, which had a prevalence of the Eastern European, Polish melodies, with some Italian accent.
He is very specific in his presentation. Even when he talks about science, Kabbalah, and everything in general, his expression and style are based on knowledge of the deep layer of the Talmud, the Mishna, the Prophets, holy writings, and the Torah.
For example, sometimes he mentions a few words and at the same time casually refers to some source. If a person catches this, he understands the subject right away and perceives the text in a different way.
For example, sometimes even in our conversations we say that “Love covers all transgressions.”
However, in Kabbalah we mean that this phrase is from the Psalms of David, and at the same time we understand what kind of sins they are, what kind of transgressions they are, what kind of attitude a person has toward a person when he hates the other and is ready to destroy him. In the end when he moves to the state of love for the other, then all those so-called previous transgressions and the previous hatred on the contrary support the love he has achieved.
It means that this phrase includes such a huge layer, the order of states that one has to go through in order to say “Love covers all transgressions.” Without that it is just a nice phrase.
Another example is: “I have washed my feet, how can I rise from my bed?” Who knows what it is talking about?
This is a passage from Song of Songs. From the Kabbalistic point of view, Malchut says my “Reglaim” (legs), meaning the end of the Partzuf, the Kelim, the desires that receive the entire Light of Hochma are already up above. I am in the horizontal position, meaning I have already washed and cleaned my limbs, my final states. I cannot use them anymore.
How can I rise now also from this state “to embrace you, my Darling?” meaning to connect with Zeir Anpin in the receiving desires when I already annulled them. This is how the soul of a person, i.e., his desires, speaks with regard to the connection with the Creator.
It means that a multitude of various states, conditions, and interpretations of what is happening are implied here. This is a very serious system of relations. This is how it is said “How can I rise to you, Darling, open the door, since I already washed my feet and lied on my bed?”
Phrases like this can also talk about anything: a rider and his horse, a donkey and his driver, etc. Therefore, we need to adapt all of this to today’s generation that does not understand or know anything, and after all, has not heard about the existence of the Song of Songs, or even of the Psalms of David, or other sources.
We have to show them a short path. We do not have time to study all these sources even though they talk about pure Kabbalah. However, they speak in an allegorical way, while we have to bring a person directly to the revelation of the upper world. This is the reason we create our own media sources.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Expiration Date of Kabbalah” 1/31/10
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Question: Let’s say I am in bestowal, seemingly without any calculation, above knowledge. But at the same time, there is a calculation of “what’s mine is mine,” and “what’s yours is yours.” How do we transition from this to “what is yours is yours” and “what is mine is yours?” How does it fit together?
Answer: “What’s mine is yours” and “what’s yours is yours” is complete bestowal, the highest attitude one person has toward another. “What’s mine is mine” and “what’s yours is yours” is complete reception. Between them, there is “what’s mine is mine” and “what’s yours is mine”—this is sheer egoism.
How can I connect these states? Everything that I can give, I give. I also receive everything I can receive for the sake of another because, in this case, my receiving is like giving. It turns out that I give everything I can, and everything I receive is also equivalent to giving. That is how we act.
If all our thoughts are only for the sake of giving, then we are completely righteous. If we want everything for ourselves, then we are absolute villains, sinners. This is where the dilemma arises, how do we divide our states into sinful and righteous ones.
Therefore, Kabbalists advise us to divide our desires into giving and receiving. Those who work for the sake of bestowal will be called righteous, and those who work for the sake of receiving will be called sinners.
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From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Growing Stronger in the Ten”, Lesson 2
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Question: The more we study, the bigger our ego becomes. Should we have control over the ego and recognition of it?
Answer: No, we don’t have control over the ego, but we can have recognition of it.
What should we do? Keep moving forward, always asking the Creator for unity and connection with our friends. In this way, through our unity, we will reveal our collective ego and finally ask the Creator correctly to correct it.
Question: How can we avoid fearing the loss of what we already have? By understanding the voice of egoism, how can we still serve the Creator?
Answer: You should tell everything to the Creator, and then you will receive answers from Him. Based on these answers, you will gradually change, and everything will fall into place.
Question: So, should we hold on to the Creator and try to detach from egoism?
Answer: You can try to detach on your own, but it won’t really help. The Creator does this as well. The most important thing is to annul yourself before the Creator. And to annul yourself before Him, you must first annul yourself before your friends. Then everything will work out.
When you ask the Creator to connect you, to the extent He does so, you will feel how close you are to each other, and this is how you will move forward.
[334629]
From the World Kabbalah Convention “Strengthening the Ten” 9/12/24, “Devotion to the Spiritual Goal”, Lesson 1
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Question: I know that a friend does not pay maaser and does not follow the group’s rules. How should I relate to him, annul myself, and unite with him?
Answer: It depends on the mutual agreement between you. If you join a group where there are minimal Kabbalistic rules, you must follow them.
Therefore, your attitude toward the friend should be based on how he fulfills the conditions the group has committed to uphold.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/24, Writings of Rabash “According to What Is Explained Concerning “Love Thy Friend as Thyself”
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Everything is mingled with each other and when the souls come out, male and female are mingled in them as one (The Book of Zohar, “Like an Apple Tree between Forest Trees“).
Question: Why is both masculine and feminine included in each of us?
Answer: It comes from nature. Our body is designed in such a way that it cannot have only one property; it has both male and female hormones, all kinds of properties. Even in the human psyche there is a masculine side and a feminine side.
Question: What is the function of the second half, which does not seem to apply to me, I am a man. Why do I need female hormones?
Answer: Without it, you would not understand a woman. Such one-sidedness would manifest itself in many things, and you would not be able to develop because the female component also takes part in your development. Conversely, there are some masculine qualities in a woman.
Question: Does it happen that masculine qualities prevail in a woman?
Answer: Yes, it can be detected even by appearance and not only by matching properties.
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From KabTV’s “Men and Women” 8/20/24
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Question: What is a mutual guarantee in a person’s internal perception on a sensory level?
Answer: It means that you pray to attain mutual guarantee together with your friends, and in response, you receive the revelation of this quality from the Creator.
Question: I feel that I want to connect with the friends, but it may harm them. I realize I will not unite with them because I fear my egoistic influence on them. Is that part of the calculation and part of the mutual guarantee?
Answer: Partially, yes.
Question: How can I progress from this state?
Answer: Ask the Creator for the feeling of how you might harm your friend, and then you will see what to do next.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/24, Writings of Rabash “You Stand Here Today – 1”
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Question: What gifts can I give the Creator to buy His love?
Answer: Don’t pull the upper light to yourself with your ego, but want to bring it through yourself to your friends.
On one hand you are connected with the Creator and on the other hand with your friend, with one or many, or with all, bringing light from the Creator to them.
Question: Does this happen only through prayer?
Answer: In every way of this world. It can be with the help of a prayer, desire, or even without words, with actions.
Question: How do I make sure that I gave Him a gift?
Answer: You have to feel it. Ask the Creator to allow you to feel if you are acting correctly.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 40
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Question: You said prayer is needed to break through the bubble of illusion where we are separated. What kind of prayer is this?
Answer: We should not think about ourselves, but about our common desire, intention, and goal, of how we unite our desires into one perfect desire. We need to understand this well.
Question: What do we give to the Creator if He is perfection?
Answer: Our desire to be connected to Him, to adhere to Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”
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Question: What do you do when a person wants to nullify himself, performs this action, but then becomes passive and indifferent? What is the mistake here?
Answer: The ten should hold him in its arms, let him try, and you will help him.
Question: Let us say his opinion differs from the others, and the others do not accept his opinion. Then, the friend seemingly annuls himself, but at the same time, he loses strength and cannot do anything. What should he do?
Answer: It is true that he has no strength because he does not yet have real, correct desires. It is impossible to receive strength from egoism.
In principle, the main thing is to pray, to ask the Creator for strength, and to understand where he was thrown and in what state. From all this, he will receive the right feelings, from which he will slowly rise to the Creator. He will see that he needs to ask.
Question: How should the group act? You said that it should hold him in its arms. What kind of support is that? Should we say that you have a different opinion, but we still love you? Or should we listen to what he says?
Answer: No, it is not necessary to listen. If you hold him, he would understand this and want to gradually free himself from your help and learn to hold himself.
That is, he should gradually become independent. That means that in any circumstances, he will orient himself toward connection with the Creator through his friends.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Internality and Externality”
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Question: Why is it important to maintain the understanding that everything we ask for and include in our prayer is what the Creator has awakened within us?
Answer: How could it be otherwise? Everything comes from the Creator. That is stated at the beginning of our prayer: “I am the First, and I am the Last,” and “There is none else besides Me.” By this, we strengthen ourselves and place ourselves in the position that the Creator has affirmed as our true state.
Question: And if we miss this moment, are we essentially missing the connection with Him?
Answer: Of course.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/24, Writings of Rabash “He Who Prays for His Friend”
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The person received an inheritance from his teachers not to let anything be built on this dust, except for the Temple (Rabash, Notes 804 “Raises the Poor from the Dust – 2”).
Dust is not soil, stone, or sand, but specifically, dust, meaning a part of the earth that is useless for anything.
When a person sees that they stand on dust, it indicates that there is no future, and they still do not have the foundation on which to build the Temple, a house of sanctity.
Question: To build the Temple, on our part, we need agreement with the Creator, patience, lowliness, and prayer. What does it mean to agree with the Creator?
Answer: It means agreeing that we are low in our desires and must unite with one another in prayer to the Creator to reach correction. That must be clearly understood both emotionally and intellectually. It is a good degree.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Raises the Poor from the Dust – 2”
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Question: Is there any hierarchy in women’s advancement? Is it built in a special way?
Answer: There is no hierarchy at all. Women are not like men who have to constantly rise up and forward.
Question: It turns out that a woman is focused on herself: home, clothes, etc. Is that why you often say that women’s work is to put some kind of pressure on men?
Answer: Yes, not only to put pressure on her husband, but also to raise children, especially boys, to encourage them to study, and so on.
This, in fact, is her spiritual work despite her down-to-earth nature.
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From KabTV’s “Men and Women” 8/20/24
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It may seem that love for one’s neighbor is something simple and insignificant, like advising a child to be friends with others instead of fighting. But in fact, it is the borderline that separates our corporeal world, where we live in love for ourselves, from the upper reality where only those who have attained love for others exist.
We need to understand that this border above the corporeal world is very clear and strictly guarded from the spiritual world. Standing guard at this border are immense forces, stern and highly demanding, which precisely determine who must remain in our lower reality and who is worthy of existence in the upper reality, in the future, spiritual world.
Therefore our entire work consists of exiting the lower reality that we perceive now. Moreover, we do not even realize how low and limited it is, because it is just our life and our world; it is us.
In fact, Kabbalists explain that the main thing is to cross the border and enter the upper world, and from there continue to ascend higher and higher. We must not let the forces of nature influence us and confuse us, which pulls us back under the control of the egoistic laws of this world.
This is the main purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah: to teach us how to cross this border, to familiarize us with the laws of the upper world, and to begin using them. In other words, Kabbalah’s task is to save us and prepare us for existence in the world of the Creator who dwells on the highest degree of the spiritual world.
That is why Kabbalah does not deal with this world or anything below the border with the upper world. Only those who transition into the upper spiritual world begin to study its laws, to reveal these laws within themselves, and to learn how to use them correctly.
Before a person crosses into the spiritual world, they can understand little from the wisdom of Kabbalah, because it is entirely devoted to the laws of the upper world. Therefore all our efforts should be focused on this transition from our world to the upper world—in our feelings, perceptions, understanding, and awareness.
Everything that relates solely to this world does not pertain to the reality where we should remain. The soul, which is present in each of us, is a divine particle from above, and it strives to return to the same state, the same reality where the Creator is, meaning to the upper world. Only in relation to this upper world do we assess ourselves, not in relation to anything below the border between worlds.
Everything worth doing in this life should only be for the sake of rising from this world to the upper world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/24, Writings of Rabash “According to What Is Explained Concerning “Love Thy Friend as Thyself””,
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Question: At a convention, we will not always have the technical ability to be with our ten. It feels like we have to maintain an internal connection. How can we internally maintain this point of unity?
Answer: I do not think that we will always gather in the form we are doing today.
After all, you will not gather the ten that you will gather at the convention today every time, because next time others will come, and then others. Therefore we need to do something so that all this does not fall apart. I do not know how much it helps that we hold conventions. Maybe it does the opposite.
The thing is that people are used to working in their place, from their city, from their country. And here, everyone is mixing. Once upon a time, many years ago, this was good. And now we need to think carefully about what to do with conventions in the future.
Question: We are now virtually connected with our ten. What am I adding to the fact that now, while here, I want the friends in my ten to advance toward the Creator?
Answer: You transmit all this through your internal connection between hearts.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/24, Writings of Rabash, “You Stand Today, All of You”
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Question: Everything I see comes from my Kelim; therefore, I do not see the complete picture of the universe. How can I rely on what I see?
Answer: The thing is that only at the beginning should you try to unite more and more. Later you will have an inner sense of unity that will guide you by itself. Then you will not need any effort to get closer to each other.
But in general, to the extent you get closer to each other, you will be able to get closer to the Creator and begin to attain Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash, “The Point in the Heart”
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Question: Has each of us who studies at Bnei Baruch in one way or another heard the Creator at least once? Can this be said?
Answer: No, we are only preparing to hear Him.
Question: How do we hear the Creator in the ten?
Answer: If you are united with each other in the ten, then the quality of hearing will manifest in you. In other words, no one will hear the Creator individually, only together.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Point in the Heart”
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Question: You said we should either work on our own flaws or the flaws of our friends. Which is more beneficial?
Answer: When a person works on his or herself.
Question: How is a heart of stone different from a heart of flesh?
Answer: The heart of flesh is actually the heart of stone.
Question: If I try to feel my friends as myself, how should I deal with their egoistic desires?
Answer: You should not take on the egoistic desires of your friends. You should distance yourself from them and allow them the opportunity to understand and correct their own qualities. A person cannot correct someone else’s desires.
Question: Is a pure heart the heart of the group and a heart of flesh a personal heart? Or are they the same?
Answer: No, a pure heart is a heart completely corrected of egoism, even in one person, while an egoistic heart is filled with egoistic desires. These are two opposite states.
Question: There is always a contradiction between body and spirit. How can one strengthen the spirit?
Answer: By being connected with good friends.
Question: If I constantly, many times a day, reveal my own evil, where in this endless prayer for my own correction should I include a prayer for my friends, and what should it be like?
Answer: It should be one united prayer where you care both for the correction of your own heart and the correction of your friend’s heart.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/24, Writings of Rabash “One Learns Only Where One’s Heart Desires”
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Questions about Spiritual Work—172
Question: We have a healthy egoism that drives us, and there is also what is called the evil inclination. How can we learn to distinguish between them?
Answer: Try to discern this based on your connection with one another. You should be in a state of maximum closeness with each other, and then you will begin to notice various nuances in your relationships. At that point, it will become easier for you to turn to the Creator and ask for His assistance.
Question: What will allow us to speak with the Creator directly?
Answer: Being in the same qualities and aspirations as He is.
Question: How important is it to have the desire to reveal the Creator?
Answer: This is the most important reason for you to engage in the wisdom of drawing closer to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Internality and Externality”
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Question: Can we say Zeir Anpin is like a Rosh (head) in relation to Aba ve Ima?
Answer: No. Zeir Anpin (ZA) defines Aba ve Ima‘s actions by raising MAN to it, but ZA is not a Rosh.
It starts the action like a small child screaming and asking, which affects the adults who care about him and give him what he needs.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Sulam Commentary, Item 50″
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Question: You said that we should not allow the forces of nature to confuse us. How can a person make an internal choice to understand that they are not confusing, but helping him?
Answer: If he places himself in the most neutral state possible, he can correctly assess what influences him, why he reacts in a certain way, and will be able to choose the right path.
A neutral state begins with one nullifying one’s ego before one’s friends. This is the most important alignment. Without it, a person will have no reference point for how to position oneself neutrally in relation to one’s friends and to perceive them as upper ones with regard to oneself.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/24, Writings of Rabash “According to What Is Explained Concerning “Love Thy Friend as Thyself”
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Question: What is the difference between descent and exile, and how can we work with it?
Answer: Descent is the revelation of additional egoistic desires that I need for an ascent. That is, a descent is for the sake of an ascent because one thing cannot be without the other: I fall in order to rise.
Practically, a descent is a part of the ascent. We even have a song: “We are falling upward, we are soaring above ourselves,” which is true. When a person engaged in spiritual work experiences a descent, he is glad because it brings him additional opportunities and understanding of issues he could not identify before.
We must understand that our egoistic intentions, desires, thoughts, and feelings do not just happen to be revealed in us. We see that no one around us thinks like that: “Oh, how egoism is revealed in me!” Have you heard this from any leader or anyone else? There is no such thing.
But if we feel this, we should rejoice because the material for our ascent is being revealed. We call it a descent, but in fact it is an ascent along the left line. And in parallel, in the right line, we are already building our ascent in bestowal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/20, “Questions from World Kli”
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Question: What does coming together in spiritual space mean and how do we do it?
Answer: Coming together in spiritual space means gathering our spiritual desires so that they give us a common desire, new in quality and strength, to accomplish something spiritual in the unification of the common Kli, in transmitting of the common light, so that we feel that we want it, that we desire it passionately. Then, the unification between us and the Creator occurs, Zivug deHakaa (coupling by striking).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash, “A Congregation Is No Less than Ten”
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Question: How do we increase the desire to become similar to the Creator in the group? How can the group help us develop or generate Hissaron?
Answer: We must raise our desires, our common Hissaron, to the Creator and urge Him to correct and fill it. That is what we expect from the Creator.
Question: How are the heart and Hissaron interconnected?
Answer: What the heart feels is Hissaron. Hissaron is the desire to become a vessel for the Creator. When your desire aligns with the desire of the ten, this is a correct Hissaron.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/24, Writings of Rabash “I Will Remove the Stony Heart”
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Question: Let’s say I experience suffering and understand that the Creator sent it for the purpose of correction. Then the suffering becomes a correction for me, through which I bring pleasure to the Creator and establish a connection with Him. Where can I get pleasure from the connection through suffering if I do not have Kelim of bestowal yet?
Answer: You will not be able to derive pleasure through suffering. Do not lie to the Creator.
Comment: But if we understand that suffering came from Him, it does not feel so bitter.
My Response: No, connection with the Creator does not feel like bitterness. That is impossible. There is nothing better than the light. All suffering arises from the absence of light.
Question: Then how do you turn it into joy?
Answer: Correct yourself through connection with friends.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/24, Writings of Rabash “He Who Comes to Purify Is Aided – 1”
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Question: Usually, the recognition of evil is sudden and surprising. Can it be balanced, anticipated, or desired?
Answer: Sure, it depends on how much a person wants to receive the upper light, see himself and the world in this light, and continue his correction.
Question: But this happens extremely rarely. Can this be taught? How can we bring the recognition of evil closer?
Answer: Only through your desire for correction and, of course, together with friends. There is nothing more to say.
Question: Is any particular process required for us to be worthy of receiving correction?
Answer: Yes, you must recognize how you differ from the Creator, why you are receivers and not givers, and ask to be corrected.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Cure before the Blow”
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God created us in His image and likeness. But where does the certainty come from that He worked in a realistic manner? (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)
Comment: A person’s understanding of the phrase “created in His image and likeness” is exactly that, according to His image and likeness. You know, like how Shishkin painted, Peredvizhniki…
My Response: That is incorrect. What within us resembles the Creator? Besides our desires and intentions, which we can correct and bring to similarity with the Creator, nothing else within us can be similar to the Creator.
Question: Please tell me, if He created us in His image and likeness, should we still strive to reach this after all?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: And He laid out a long road for us, for millennia humanity has been traveling it.
My Response: It seems to us that it is a long road. But in reality, it is not long. No. Man was created to understand, accept, and then actualize.
Question: To become like the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: If it were possible to ask from the Creator’s perspective, are we already in that state or not?
Answer: Time does not exist for the Creator. Past, present, and future are one.
Question: If it could be said that He sees, what does He see?
Answer: He sees everything in the state we should be in.
Question: Already in the completed state?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Question: We speak of the “united soul,” is this Him and the united soul of humanity?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: And we, from our side.
My Response: And we, from our side, must move toward this from below upward. And that is why our path is long.
Question: With all these descents, ascents, and so on, but is it necessary for there to be falls and rises? Is all this necessary?
Answer: It is for the realization of the path.
Question: So, the entire purification process is exactly along this path?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And if the path were smooth?
Answer: We would not have formed into what we are supposed to become. We must fully desire to become like the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/15/24
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Question: In the 1920s, before Hitler came to power, Baal HaSulam predicted the Second World War. The scary thing is all his predictions came true. In his writings “The Last Generation,” he talks about the possibility of a third and even a fourth world war after which only several thousand people will remain.
Do you also believe that out of eight billion people on Earth a few thousand will survive and complete the universal correction?
Answer: I do not think this is how it will happen. I feel events will unfold in a much gentler and smoother way.
Question: Why has the number of people worldwide increased to eight billion? Only 100 years ago, the world’s population was about two billion. There were periods in the development of mankind when only a few thousand human beings lived on the planet. Why is there such growth? What is the reason for this?
Answer: It depends not on us but on how these people can perceive and implement the spiritual methodology.
In other words, the number of people somehow helps in correcting the ego, which is distributed among a huge number of people.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 8/8/24
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Question: Is temple of ten people where the Creator resides the ultimate perfection?
Answer: This is a whole Kli. It cannot be said that it is perfection, but it is a whole Kli.
If you ask the Creator to unite you into one whole when you are striving to connect with each other, then He performs this action upon you, and then in the connection between you, you begin to feel spiritual forces.
This is what we must achieve in the process of our correction and unification.
Everything we do (study and other actions) are only needed in order to achieve complete unification among us, because in accordance with its quantity and quality, we will reveal the spiritual world in our unity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Point in the Heart”
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Question: If someone in the ten is unable to annul to the Creator, does this affect the ten?
Answer: It absolutely does. If someone in the ten is lagging behind everyone else, the whole ten should help him be with everyone. Alone, one cannot advance to the Creator, to the goal of creation. The main thing is that you want spirituality, this is fine, but only on the condition that you will give everything over to others.
Question: But there are those whom the Creator does not give the opportunity to invest. How can we balance it?
Answer: We must continue. And then you will gradually reveal the entire system you are in and see how to act best. You will learn on your own.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, Writings of Rabash, “The Point in the Heart”
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Question: Baal HaSulam attained all levels and wrote many melodies. Can we say that the melodies of the spiritual worlds are unchangeable, and everyone who attains spirituality can reproduce these melodies unconsciously as if from internal spiritual memory?
Answer: It is a very high level when a person who reaches a certain spiritual level begins to hear a melody that comes from this level.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/24, “Music, Melody, and Song in the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Question: What is love of friends? What is spiritual love?
Answer: Spiritual love between friends is a relationship between two people who want to rise and help each other in their ascent.
When uniting with another person, you think about what you can give and receive from them. These mutual and simultaneously opposite movements concerning each other oblige you to act.
If a friend offers you to receive something, then receive it; or if he wants you to give something, give it.
And he acts precisely the same toward you. Only in such mutual work with each other will you be able to advance together.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/11/24, Writings of Rabash “According to What Is Explained Concerning “Love Thy Friend as Thyself”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 15″
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 1″
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Selected Highlights
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Question: What does it mean that the Creator will reveal Himself between us as the center of unification?
Answer: By creating us, the Creator gave us the opportunity and mind to understand and feel that He can be between us. He is ready for this. He made preparations for this, which is why we can discuss it today. The time has come when we can reveal the Creator in our unity.
Question: What does it mean that He made preparations?
Answer: He created all of reality, the globe and the people on it, and revealed Himself in relation to them. And after He reveals Himself, we, on our part, must take several steps forward toward Him.
Question: You said the strength of His revelation depends on the unification between friends. What determines this strength of unity?
Answer: It is impossible to measure. I understand that, technically, this could be measured. It will not be now, but later when we can feel the screen and feel with what force we are attracted to each other and how we hold the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/24, Writings of Rabash “You Stand Here Today – 1”
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Question: The congress is a big gathering. How can I feel that I have my ten at this huge congress?
Answer: The entire congress is one ten. All mankind is the Partzuf of Adam, his ten Sefirot. There are no more than ten parts.
The fact they are divided into tens, and tens, and more tens does not matter.
This is necessary so they all can make their own small, correct contribution to the common Kli.
Therefore, we must think about the general, because everyone at the congress wants to be together as one common whole.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What can help us not forget that there is a connection of love with our friends and with the Creator and constantly maintain the singularity of the Creator?
Answer: Constantly think about it and live by it. Only in this way will you be able to maintain your connection with your friends and with the Creator.
Question: Is the attainment of the level of oneness the initial part of the request or the culmination of spiritual work?
Answer: This action is revealed at every degree. It is felt by you in response to your efforts.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/24, Writings of Rabash “You Stand Here Today – 1”
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Question: How can one understand that a group is advancing?
Answer: If with each passing day the ten experiences more and more revelation in understanding the entire system of the universe, then it is advancing. You simply need to study, read, and try to see the world through every article you learn, and then you will succeed.
Question: Does our connection extend to those friends who were with us but have left the community? Should we continue any relationships with them?
Answer: If they do not come, then there is no need to. You can reach out if there is a specific reason, but generally, you should not pull them back forcefully or try to persuade them to return.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/24, Writings of Rabash “You Stand Here Today – 1”
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Question: What determines the transition from receiving the light of mercy for oneself to love in connection with the environment?
Answer: A person must change their attitude toward society, toward people, and toward the group. Then they will develop the desire, the vessel (Kli), in which they will feel connection with the Creator.
Comment: We must perform a correction in our connection in the ten to become as one. But the main correction concerning the entire society, all of humanity, lies in including their vessels, as they are the most important.
My Response: No, we are not yet able to think about all of humanity or even about all of society in this way.
But at least within our groups, we must feel that we are preparing for this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/24, Writings of Rabash “Run My Beloved”
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Question: What is the difference between religious people’s fear of the Creator and the Kabbalists’ fear of Him ?
Answer: The fear that religious people experience stems from the fear of punishment. On the other hand, Kabbalists do not have this type of fear. Instead, their fear is focused on the concern that they might not fulfill the will of the Creator.
A serious prayer is required to transition from the one type of fear to the other.
Question: From time to time, we feel fear of the Creator. How can we maintain this state consistently?
Answer: It depends on your environment, on your friends. If you all think about this together, it is as if you are keeping a ball in the air. Just as a team can keep a ball in the air when playing together, it is the same here.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone in Whom There Is Fear of Heaven – 1”
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Question: What do we need to do together so that we can build the Third Temple beyond what reality shows us?
Answer: We must regret that we are shattered, that there is no connection between us in our hearts and minds, and that we do not feel like one whole. Therefore, our condition is still far from being corrected.
But despite this, we must still move forward and hope that the Creator will gather us together and shine upon us, and then we will be corrected.
Question: On what basis does the holy community unite in order to become one whole and raise a perfect prayer?
Answer: On the basis that it desires to reach the Creator, to be close to Him, to influence Him, to receive from Him, and thus move forward toward the purpose of creation.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Cast Their Seed Among the Nations”
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First, there must be a small establishment whose majority are altruists (Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”).
That is, these are not just natural altruists, but people who were egoists and corrected themselves.
Question: What does a small group mean? Is it enough to have a hundred people, or should it be several tens of thousands?
Answer: This is not a matter of chance. There should be a serious group of people who have the right to apply their knowledge, powers, and laws to other people.
I think several hundred to several thousand people are enough to begin implementing altruistic principles.
Question: They will probably act as an ideological group. Should the entire nation be involved in the implementation and then the entire world?
Answer: The implementation should occur gradually throughout the entire country. Everyone should be involved in it to the best of their ability.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 8/8/24
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When a person is rewarded with a temporary illumination of Kedusha [holiness], it is considered that he has entered the Temple.
The ruin of the Temple is when the illumination is taken away from him. (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 566, “Cast Their Seed Among the Nations”).
Correctly using the glow of holiness means thinking only about the correction of the common Kli, the common soul, which is called Beit HaMikdash (Temple).
This is not a building that can be built in Jerusalem, but our common soul, which we create from all individual souls through unification, and inside it, in every heart, we prepare a place for the Creator.
You can sustain the glow with the help of prayer for correction, for merging of the hearts. We must unite all our individual desires into one desire, and the Creator will fill it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Cast Their Seed Among the Nations”
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Question: What role do children play in the relationship between spouses?
Answer: Children should see that everything is fine in your family, that you understand each other, and live in harmony.
Question: We often have different views on how to raise children. But you say that our life together serves as an example for the children.
Answer: Of course. For example, if you are at home and your wife is at work, the children should see that you clean the house, wash the dishes, or do something else before she comes home.
In other words, each person should understand that they can do something nice for their spouse without being prompted or reminded.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 7/30/24
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Question: According to The Zohar, I must constantly strive to earn my wife’s favor. On the other hand, it says that the husband (baal) is the master (another meaning of “baal“). So in what sense is he the master? This is a very interesting system.
Answer: This system dates back to ancient times, has gone through all stages of human development, and still, our nature somehow breaks through.
Question: Help me understand from the perspective of Kabbalah: in what way is a man truly the master, and in what way is he not?
Answer: If a man properly fulfills his functions, the wife, no matter how you look at it, depends on him. If he thinks about how to do something pleasant for her, something she needs, and cares for her, she will feel that she cannot do without him. In this way, she becomes dependent on her husband.
Question: What other pleasant things can a man do for his wife besides lifting her spirits, giving gifts, or flowers?
Answer: Women do not need much. The man needs to do just the minimum, but in a way that shows he is putting his feelings into it.
Question: Can you describe the specific functions of a man? What do they entail?
Answer: I do not think this requires much definition or explanation. If you focus on making your wife feel good, especially by uplifting her mood, you will notice how your life changes.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 7/30/24
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Julia asks:
The Creator is a good screenwriter, in the drama genre. Can we know the ending of the story in advance and influence the course of events?
Answer: We know the ending of the story. It is the complete correction of human nature.
Question: Can we influence the course of these events?
Answer: No, we do not know how we should change or in what order we should correct ourselves. But in general, the path is clear.
Question: Then why is this being done? For example, the way is clear to us—rise above egoism, above our nature, but how to do this is not very clear. Why is all this being done? Point the way, tell us how to get there, and humanity will go accordingly.
Answer: The way is very simple: love your neighbor as yourself and be like the Creator, and so advance.
Question: But this is very difficult. Is it possible? Is a person capable of doing this?
Answer: Yes, we have the strength to ask for it.
Question: So it is on me to exert effort and raise a request, an effort and a request? Only this way?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Do all spiritual practices and all religions come from this phrase? Can I say this or not?
Answer: A person does whatever comes to his mind. But in the end, rising above our ego to love everyone is what is required of us.
Comment: There is this call, by and large, which resonates all the time. And a person, passing it through himself, makes all sorts of angles, spiritual practices, and religions and builds everything.
My Response: He dodges it.
Question: Can I tackle it directly? Is there a straight path to loving your neighbor as yourself?
Answer: No. One would not agree to accept such a commitment directly. A person cannot exist in this. But little by little, I think we will come to this.
Question: Come to live this way?
Answer: Yes.
Question: “Us and the Creator”—such a direct connection?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/24
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“Fear of sin” means that he is observing everything only for his own sake, that the reason is for himself. “Fear of heaven” means that the reason is the Creator, that he observes Torah and Mitzvot because this is the Creator’s will (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 250, “Anyone in Whom There Is Fear of Heaven – 1”).
We must reach a state where all our organs, desires, and intentions agree with what we do. Then, we will come to the correct fear of heaven.
The root of genuine awe and fear of the Creator is the desire of a person to bestow to Him. They fear they might be unable to give themselves entirely to the Creator.
We must strive for our reverence and fear before the Creator to assist us in our spiritual work so that we can direct ourselves to Him.
The fear before our friends lies in wanting to see the same feelings in their attitude toward us as we express toward them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone in Whom There Is Fear of Heaven – 1”
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Yet, this fear of heaven is akin to the fear of flesh and blood (Rabash, Notes, 250 “Anyone in Whom There Is Fear of Heaven – 1”).
Question: What does it mean that fear of the Creator is akin to the fear of people?
Answer: This is a complex degree. In our world, a person instinctively fears the authority and power of those around him. Therefore, one must strive to reach a state where he fears the Creator at least as much.
Question: What does it mean to fear the Creator? Regarding people it is clear: you see them, they affect you, and they can limit you in some way or punish you. But with the Creator, there must be some sort of connection?
Answer: Of course. Without a connection with the Creator, you cannot feel how He relates to you or what He does for you. Therefore, you will not be able to match Him in the relationship, “I am to the Creator, and He is to me.”
Question: For example, what does a thief fear? That he will be punished. But what is the correct fear concerning the Creator? Is it the fear that He will punish me, or is it the fear that I will fail to do something for Him, to show love?
Answer: Yes, all types of egoistic fear. Then ask for your fear to be above this, and when you receive it, you will understand that you have ascended.
Above egoistic fear is fear before the greatness of the Creator who rules everything and holds everything in His hands. All our states depend solely on Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone in Whom There Is Fear of Heaven – 1”
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Question: On the spiritual path we are often overwhelmed by contradictory impressions. How can we understand whether we are approaching the Creator or moving away from Him?
Answer: You can understand this by the level of connection you have. The closer you are to each other, the more you can imagine that the Creator is also close to you, even though He remains concealed from you.
Question: If there are contradictions or conflicts between us, does that mean there is a conflict with the Creator?
Answer: There may be conflicts, even many of them, but these do not necessarily hinder your connection with each other.
Love can withstand any conflict, so you should never break the connection. That is something very important to keep in mind.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Cast Their Seed Among the Nations”
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Question: How can we distinguish between obstacles given to us as a test of our determination (which we must overcome) and those given to us to guide us onto the right path?
Answer: Obstacles that we are not meant to overcome appear as actions we must take for the sake of others, and therefore, they are considered good obstacles on the path.
Bad obstacles, on the other hand, stand as barriers separating us from the Creator, and thus, we must go against them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/24, Writings of Rabash “What to Ask of the Creator—to Be His Servant”
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Question: Should we work with obstacles by overcoming and eliminating them?
Answer: If obstacles arise on our path toward achieving the purpose of creation, then we must go against them.
Question: Some people are supported by their families in their study of Kabbalah, while others are seemingly led away from these studies by their families. What does this indicate? What does the Creator want to give through such obstacles?
Answer: The Creator wants to give a person the opportunity to overcome these obstacles.
Question: Who is the true worker in the eyes of the Creator?
Answer: The one who cares about correcting the collective Kli (vessel).
Question: Are my personal doubts also obstacles? Should I clarify them or pray to the Creator?
Answer: Pray to the Creator and clarify them.
Question: Everything that happens to us, including obstacles, comes from the Creator. To verify this, one might observe how these obstacles are later resolved; the problem arises and it turns out that everything is for the best. Can one see how all obstacles are resolved?
Answer: No, this is completely incorrect. You should not spend time on this. It will lead you away from the correct attitude toward the Creator, nature, and everything in general.
Question: What is the connection between the feeling of a blow I experience internally when an obstacle comes to me and the feeling of connection?
Answer: The connection between these two feelings is that through the blows, you sense how distant you are from the source of the blow, and through unity, you feel how close you are to your friends.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/24, Writings of Rabash “What to Ask of the Creator—to Be His Servant”
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Question: How can we care for the Creator and serve Him? How can I, a tiny bug, do something for the Creator?
Answer: You can do what pleases the Creator, and by doing so, you help Him in arranging the entire universe.
Question: How can we guess the desires of the Creator?
Answer: The Creator desires our closeness with each other and with Him. This is something we clearly understand. Everything else we can attain when we ask Him for it. Then He will reveal Himself to us even more. We will find out exactly what He wants and what else He requires from us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/24, Writings of Rabash “A Near Road and a Faraway Road”
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Question: Why does the body surrender and allow a person to work for the Creator only when there is true love for Him?
Answer: This is the effect of the light. Sometimes the Creator allows people to feel such an attitude toward Him. This is done so that a person can understand what it means to be closer to the Creator or further away from Him.
Question: You said that peace is correction through love. Is it appropriate to ask the Creator to send peace to the world? Or is that too much?
Answer: No, it is not too much. However, it is best if this is tied to you and your ten.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/24, Writings of Rabash “A Near Road and a Faraway Road”
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Question: In order to pray for society, one must first join it and feel the Hisaronot (deficiencies) of others. But now we are discussing the need to pray for the Shechina (Divinity) to raise it from the dust. In this case, does a person not feel one’s neighbor’s Hisaron?
Answer: He does. The Shechina in the dust is a state in which a person feels suffering for everyone, for the entire Kli. One feels like he is part of the broken Shechina.
Question: I thought that the Shechina in the dust is when we are self-centered and feel separated from each other.
Answer: It doesn’t matter. Even in egoism, we still feel that we are together. Egoism does not connect us, but we are as if in one egoistic hole.
Question: What do you still need to ask for? To feel the Shechina? It is said that you cannot ask for yourself, but if you do not feel the desires of others, then the prayer will not work.
Answer: A person should imagine what “Divinity in the dust” means. Even if he is not particularly successful at this, he must still try to imagine that all souls are far from the Creator in the pit of egoism.
Question: But we are trying, on the contrary, to raise society higher and imagine that everyone is corrected except me. Does it turn out that I should only pray for myself?
Answer: No, we must pray for all souls so that they unite and the Creator can shine in them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Cast Their Seed Among the Nations”
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Question: What is a spiritual obstacle?
Answer: A spiritual obstacle is something that hinders a person’s spiritual development.
Question: How can one come to a greater taste in Torah and in prayer so as to not be afraid of obstacles and to unite more with their help?
Answer: It depends on how much you invest in your spiritual path, and how much you ask the Creator to clear the path for you to allow you to advance and to give you the physical and mental strength to overcome everything that arises in front of you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/24, Writings of Rabash “What to Ask of the Creator—to Be His Servant”
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Question: If the Creator is the goal throughout the journey and unification and love of friends are the means of revealing the Creator, then it turns out that this is an egoistic action. Will there be a moment when the means are more important than the goal?
Answer: Then what is special about the very action of unification if it is not aimed at achieving the result of merging opposite parts above your individual egoism?
Comment: But reaching adhesion seems rather selfish: I want, I desire, adhesion.
My Response: This is an action above the ego, which does not disappear. You remain divided into parts, and an even greater differentiation of egoism manifests in you.
At every moment, you feel the inner division and opposition growing between you, not as between primitive people, but as between developed people in whom there are disagreements about tastes in cooking, art, life, and so on.
At the same time, you begin to feel exactly how your mutual complement emerges above all this in attaining the Creator since He is comprehended in the difference between you and your correct unity. We have no other tool to sense Him, to model Him, in ourselves.
We must necessarily consist of opposite properties that can combine. Thus, from their combination we will understand what the Creator is; He belongs to another state above this world, which is something we cannot comprehend. But when we model this state in ourselves and arrange it, we begin to understand it, but still from the opposite.
In fact, we do not feel the Creator, but something we create in ourselves. Therefore, the Creator is called Boreh—”Bo – Reh,” “come and see.” Come, that is, create Him in yourself, and then you will feel Him, get to know Him.
We create this as black and white—two opposites that unite into one single whole and complement each other.
[333276]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: I want to follow your advice and love my friend. But my egoistic nature causes repulsion, and I must rise to the level of love for him. So what is my prayer for the other?
Answer: When you try to rise above hatred to love and you make serious efforts to do so, such great egoism is revealed in you that shows you cannot do this. Then you begin to realize that only the Creator can help you, and you seek contact with Him. It is in this search that one can find the Creator.
Question: So what do I ask Him at this moment?
Answer: Ask Him to help you be in love above hatred.
Question: But it sounds like I am asking for help for myself?
Answer: Why is it for yourself? You want to show love for others! It appears above hatred, above egoism. We do not understand what the manifestation of the quality of bestowal is. It seems to us that I bestow and this is my gain. No, this is not my gain.
The spiritual property requires us to absolutely renounce and rise above egoism. You are making a restriction. We do not feel what the first restriction, the screen, or the reflected light are when you completely start working for bestowal. Then you want to connect to the Creator so He can help you with this. There is no personal gain here; it has long been left behind.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What is the awe from the fact that the Creator is great and rules over everything?
Answer: It is awe before the power that includes all worlds and controls everything. Moreover, its control does not depend on time, place, or movement. It passes through distances and obstacles. This is the power of the Creator.
Question: Until I reveal the Creator, I am in awe of my teacher and friends. Is this the same thing?
Answer: In general, yes. If you have such a connection with your friends, then you will have a connection with me and then with the Creator.
[333312]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone in Whom There Is Fear of Heaven – 1”
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Question: When I need to connect with someone and I do not like that person, is it possible to see that the Creator is benevolent to me in this situation, even in an abstract sense?
Answer: I do not know what it means that the Creator is good to me. To the extent that I realize that the entire program works solely for me, for my benefit, I start to reveal that everything in the world exists only to help me correctly express myself within the overall creation.
I begin to discover that I am the only being capable of acting independently within all of creation, that there is no one else in the world except me and the Creator. Then, I realize what I truly need to do.
At this point, it is necessary to nullify my egoism to rise to the level of the Creator as a partner and constantly remain in this state. As it is written: “And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the Lord.”
We must feel that we are chosen, special, and capable of bringing the world to correction and a new state. The Creator has chosen us and we must be worthy of this choice and not beg Him to grant us some egoistic indulgences.
We must act in accordance with the mission He has entrusted to us, and under no circumstances should we lower our heads. On the contrary, we should elevate ourselves even higher so that the mission given to us truly fills and inspires us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How does prayer help build a screen if we do not ask for it directly or we do not explicitly say in the prayer: “We ask to build a screen”?
Answer: You are asking for it because you are praying for someone else. By doing this, you build the screen.
Asking for someone else is the most reliable way to change yourself and your position regarding the entire Kli.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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Before one is answered for this prayer of the poor, how can it be said that He will answer him the prayer of Moses, which is the Torah (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 436, “Three Prayers”).
Question: What does it mean that the Creator answers the prayer of the poor?
Answer: The poor means someone who has nothing. Therefore, the prayer of the poor is a specific prayer coming from a person who feels deprived. And if his prayer is based on this, then the Creator answers him due to his huge deficiency (Hissaron).
Question: How should the Creator answer the prayer of the poor?
Answer: You will see how He does it gradually, in different ways.
Question: Is it possible to find examples of such a prayer somewhere?
Answer: There are books called Siddur. You can find many different prayers in them. So take these prayer books, read them, and you will see how the Creator answers you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Three Prayers”
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Hence, when teaching morals, we see the importance of Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], meaning which level of pleasure one can have, as well as which punishment he might suffer (Rabash, Assorted Notes, “Hear, My Son, Your Father’s Ethics – 1“).
Question: How do we reveal these measures of pleasure on our path?
Answer: Gradually, we begin to feel that there are immense fulfillments in the spiritual realm for both the mind and the heart. Moreover, the pleasure you experience practically fills the entire world. Some feel it more, some less, but through you, the world is filled as well.
Question: In the group of ten, I can clearly sense from which of my actions the Creator derives pleasure. And what about the nations of the world? How should I engage with them in a way that brings pleasure to the Creator?
Answer: Reveal the purpose of creation to the nations of the world and help them move toward this goal in some way.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/7/24, Writings of Rabash “Hear, My Son, Your Father’s Morals – 1”
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Question: What is better to strive for from the point of egoistic fear: real fear or a state of trust in the Creator?
Answer: Both are necessary. You need to reveal all the vessels (Kelim) within you, examine what is felt in them, and then return to the Creator with this.
Question: The Creator has no desire to receive, so He has no fear. Can we reach such a state to become like Him?
Answer: You want to become similar to the Creator, so you work toward this. Eventually, all your egoistic fears disappear because they are replaced by adhesion with the Creator, connection with Him.
That is how we should feel our progress.
Question: In our ten, we are trying to grasp the state of fear. How can we present this together to the Creator?
Answer: You should discuss among yourselves and come to a specific conclusion about what exactly you want to request from the Creator. Then connect and express your desire to Him. That is possible.
Question: I have a fear of my desires that I do not even know and certainly do not control. Should I be afraid of this?
Answer: Be concerned about what is in your heart now, about your current qualities.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning Fear”
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Question: If the Creator shows us the suffering of ordinary people and we are directly related to it, is there any work of ours here, correction as tens?
Answer: Of course there is. Empathizing with someone’s suffering allows us to take away a piece of that suffering and make it easier for them.
Question: What should we do in this case? Gather for common prayer? What should our actions be?
Answer: You just have to ask for the best for everyone. That’s all.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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Question: Why should a man be the one to pursue a woman?
Answer: This is how the Creator arranged it.
Question: Why is this a unilateral action?
Answer: Because she is a woman and you are a man. Each should take into account their own side.
Comment: Let us say I won her over, got married, but it turns out that this process still does not end.
My Response: The process never ends. You must win her favor every moment. You are given no rest so that you have to fight with yourself.
To persuade a woman, to please her, you must fight against your male nature, pride, contempt, and so on. It is a kind of self-discipline. It turns out that you are constantly renewing your relationship.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 7/30/24
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Question: You teach us that ultimately everything depends on the correct request to the Creator. How can we ask correctly from the heart of the ten?
Answer: Try to imagine the pain the Creator feels when we are distant from Him and how much pleasure we can bring Him if we ask to draw closer to Him and to be included in Him. That is very important.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Ruin of Kedusha [Holiness]”
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Question: If I see flaws in others, it is as if I am looking at myself in a mirror. Is the right action to immediately turn to the Creator to correct myself? How can I make this action automatic, or would making it automatic be a detriment?
Answer: It depends on what you ask for. If you ask for the correction of this quality in yourself, naturally, you should expect yourself to change in some way. If you are asking for friends, you should see how much they are changing. But in any case, there will be changes.
Question: If the transgression I see is mine, do I need to say automatically, “This is me? Do I need to be corrected?”
Answer: Yes.
Question: Does this mean that any request is about correcting yourself?
Answer: This is how it is. Do not worry. The main thing is to ask.
Question: And if I ask for correction of a friend without seeing specific flaws in him, does it mean I do not have them either?
Answer: This also happens.
Question: So you do not always need to instantly attribute any flaw to yourself, right?
Answer: No, but when I ask for the correction of some flaw, I can ask for myself at the same time.
[333267]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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Question: While working within our ten we make great efforts to unite, but when we meet with other tens, the sense of unity is much stronger. There are no barriers, only the power, strength, and unity of thoughts and souls. How can we retain such a gift within our group? Does this mean we are ready for connection with the world Kli?
Answer: Perhaps you are already ready, but it still must be strengthened and developed.
Question: How should our efforts and love for the Creator be properly balanced? Sometimes it seems that one cancels out the other.
Answer: Try to connect everything, and from that place ask the Creator for closeness with Him.
Question: If some are interested in Kabbalah and listen to our materials a bit, but do not have the desire to make an effort to study on their own, should we encourage them? Or should we wait for their Reshimot to be revealed?
Answer: It is always worth encouraging them, even for your own sake.
Question: If the heart reveals not only love for the Creator, but also questions for Him, how can this be corrected quickly?
Answer: Try to ask questions while simultaneously expressing love.
Question: Is the desire to receive for the sake of bestowal the same as love?
Answer: In general it symbolizes a good relationship.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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If one makes the labor with the desire to bestow, so he is rewarded with finding. In other words, the Creator gives him Torah and wisdom (Rabash, Notes 545 “Laboring and Finding”).
Question: Is it possible that all the Torah and wisdom are already within us? However, since we are not yet similar to the Creator in our qualities, we do not perceive the Torah as a finding.
Answer: No, a person receives wisdom from the Creator in small portions, which fill him, and he feels it.
Question: It is said that the Torah is a gift to us. But the Creator loves everyone, and gifts are given to loved ones. Why can’t everyone reveal the Torah, but only those with a point in the heart? Why doesn’t everyone understand the Torah?
Answer: Because they cannot rise above their egoism because they are deeply immersed in it. But gradually, they are purified from egoism, and rise higher and higher until they begin to feel that the Creator desires the quality of bestowal from them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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Question: If the ten pray together and receive a response from the Creator, should we say that the ten did the work or that the Creator did a good deed for the ten?
Answer: No, the request comes from below, from the person or the ten, and the Creator responds from above through the ten and perhaps directly to each individual.
Question: In our harsh world, there is a feeling that all of us have hearts of stone.
But we so deeply want to ask the Creator to make these hearts soft, like clay, from which we could sculpt a vessel and connect. What can make our hearts soft, collective, and unified?
Answer: The light of the Creator; if He influences us with His light, we will instantly turn into very soft lumps of clay that are able to unite with one another and we will feel Him within us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Ruin of Kedusha [Holiness]”
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Question: We learn that the most powerful prayer is in the ten. How can I draw the power of the ten into my prayer when I ask for them?
Answer: When you invest in your friends in the ten, they can help you to the same extent. But if you don’t, in a way you separate yourself from them. Then what can you demand?
When you ask for them, you can draw the power of the ten into your prayer only if you have a certain preparation and connection with each other.
[333385]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/24, Writings of Rabash “What to Ask of the Creator—to Be His Servant”
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Question: How do you understand what you are stealing in spirituality if we have one common Kli there?
Answer: No, besides that, there is a settlement with everyone.
Question: But how to understand that I am stealing now?
Answer: You have to start feeling it.
Question: Is this some effort that I am not putting in?
Answer: No, not necessarily. This is primarily what you can take from others.
Question: It turns out that if I do not have a clear intention to steal from others, then I cannot be said to be stealing?
Answer: It is not that easy. Maybe you want to overtake your friend in this, do something first, and so on.
Question: But that does not stop me from thinking that it is not worth being too active, because in that case I am stealing? Does that not stop you?
Answer: No, this is not true.
Question: Then how do I make the calculation?
Answer: Help your friends.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/7/24, Writings of Rabash “Hear, My Son, Your Father’s Morals – 1”
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Question: If I see that there is no love in me and hatred is growing, how can I reach the point where it becomes painful? How can I not take this for granted? How can I cry out because of it?
Answer: You cannot do anything on your own because this is your nature. You are being shown the truth, and not even all of it. What you must do in your prayers, in your requests, to the Creator, is to express your desire for these qualities to leave you.
Question: How can I constantly act together with the Creator? How can I correctly express love? If the Creator hides Himself, is it better to conceal my egoism or, conversely, to manifest love?
Answer: It is better to conceal your egoism and reveal it only to the extent that you wish to show it to the Creator and ask Him to correct it. In other words, strive to be in controlled egoism as much as possible.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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Question: When a person prays for their friends and feels pleasure from this process, what is this state? And how can this pleasure be conveyed to the Creator and to others?
Answer: You should thank the Creator for giving you such responses in the form of pleasure and try to learn from Him how to ensure that your actions also bring Him delight.
Question: How can one learn to do this?
Answer: Observe what the Creator does to bring you pleasure, then do the same for Him with the hope that He will be delighted.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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Question: We can experience the Shechina in the dust through our relationships with others, especially when there is some sense of detachment from them. This can be felt as both a punishment and a reward. What is the reward? How does the Creator help people by giving them the sensation of dust?
Answer: The reward is that a person is brought closer to even greater darkness. They enter a deeper state of insignificance, worthlessness, and inability to act, which leads them to the point where all they can do is cry out to the Creator. But it is precisely this cry that liberates them from the captivity of egoism.
Question: Is there any way to avoid the taste of dust in the work of bestowal?
Answer: No, there is not.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/24, “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”
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Question: What advice would you give to a husband and wife about family life?
Answer: At least once a day both should think about how to bring joy to their spouse. When they come together, there is a union: he to her, and she to him.
Question: If I try to do something nice for my husband, thinking it will please him, but in reality, he doesn’t like it, how should he react?
Answer: He should understand your intentions. The most important thing, as we learn in Kabbalah, is intention.
Therefore, I wish you both to have the right intentions toward each other and to work together to set everything right.
[333067]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 7/30/24
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Question: If the Creator is good and desires to give us pleasure, yet His name, being devoid of pleasure, has a Hisaron under restriction, how can they be that they are one? Even if I am to the Beloved, and He is to me, they still have opposition.
Answer: No, in absolute value, this is not an opposite, but complete equality.
His name is bestowal. I value Him because I receive from Him and I relate to Him in the same way. That is, we both bestow to each other. The Creator gives a person the light of fulfillment, the light of joy, the light of knowledge. And a person gives the Creator for the opportunity to help him, fill him, and bring him closer to the Creator.
Question: If we pronounce the names of the Creator, does this mean we lack precisely these properties?
Answer: No, you just try to call Him by different names in which you feel His manifestation.
Question: Are the negative names we use to refer to the Creator that originate from egoism still considered His names?
Answer: Negative names have nothing to do with the Creator. They proceed only because a person does not find the correct image of the Creator and, therefore names the Creator with words opposite to His properties.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/24, Writings of Rabash “He Is One and His Name, One”
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Question: What can you advise a person who has just joined our system? What should he pray for?
Answer: He still cannot pray. He does not feel what, why, and to whom. One does not have any components of genuine prayer.
Therefore, there is no need to demand anything from him. Let him listen. Let him be present. The surrounding light will gradually affect him, and he will improve. Therefore, the only advice is to develop an awareness of the importance of the environment.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Ruin of Kedusha [Holiness]”
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Question: What change should I feel when I raise my prayer?
Answer: You should feel that the Creator responds to your prayer, lifts you a little toward Him, and you understand more where you are, with whom you are connected, and how you can take part in the general correction.
Question: But at the same time am I asking not for myself, but for the entire soul?
Answer: Yes, but you are involved in it; it comes from you, so everything is credited to your account.
Question: We mainly work in the ten, and I first focus on my friends. How can I switch from my friends in the ten to the entire soul?
Answer: We do not quite understand how this is done yet, but we will get there. We only need to master this path when a person, based on his small egoistic desire, receives an impetus, rises closer to the Creator, tries to contact Him, and asks to use all his spiritual desires, his entire soul in this connection.
Question: Are all my spiritual desires something that also applies to my friends?
Answer: Yes.
[333252]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Ruin of Kedusha [Holiness]”
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Question: Suppose there was enjoyment and then it disappeared and left an impression, a memory, a Reshimo. Why do we forget this sensation?
Answer: This is a problem. Everything that once was and has passed gradually fades away. That is why we need to make efforts to renew the correct impression of what once was.
Question: How can one reach the sensation of the taste of reward?
Answer: If you have a reward, then you will feel the taste, and this taste needs to be remembered.
[333135]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/7/24, Writings of Rabash “Hear, My Son, Your Father’s Morals – 1”
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Question: How, despite the fact that the Creator loves us very much, can one avoid complacency and continue to prove selfless love to Him? What does it mean to be a good student of the Creator?
Answer: A good student of the Creator is someone who strives to understand the Creator’s desires for them and fulfills those desires. They believe that if they do something for the Creator, it is not a reward for their feelings, but rather the Creator is paying attention to them, and they will have to account for it later.
[333178]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/24, Writings of Rabash “Laboring and Finding”
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Question: Creation is just the desire to receive. Did the Creator instill in us the ability to bestow, or do we need to ask Him for this?
Answer: We need to ask. We have no abilities or desires to bestow. Only if the Creator influences us with His light can our egoistic desires become altruistic.
Question: How can we move from all our desires to one that is not present in us? How can we want something we cannot even imagine?
Answer: First, desire, not for yourself, but for the Creator and strive not to receive, but to bestow.
From this, you will see that your desires to receive are opposite to those to bestow, so one cannot simply replace the other. There must be a transformation within a person. That is how it happens.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/24, Writings of Rabash “He Is One and His Name, One”
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The reason those people agreed to unite into a single group that engages in love of friends is that each of them feels that they have one desire that can unite all their views, so as to receive the strength of love of others (Rabash, Article 8 “Make for Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”).
The Creator gathers such souls from all over the world. We see how people suddenly find us, start listening, organize, unite, and come to conventions. This happens under the influence of the upper light, which draws ever closer to us. As a result, we gradually rise like sprouts from the earth.
This is how the article “The Flower Buds” in The Book of Zohar begins: “The flower buds have appeared in the land.” This is how the souls grow.
People are given the desire to unite into a group and an explanation that this is necessary for them to come closer to each other up to the point of loving one another. In our world, the word “love” has become so worn out that it manifests as something purely egoistic.
But when we begin to apply this concept to our friends, we start from the premise that we are one soul. There can be no greater connection between individual souls than when we unite into one integral whole. The general program of creation drives us toward this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: The Creator gave us a group, a ten. If everything is good, well-established, and comfortable in it, is this proof of our connection with the Creator? How can we strengthen this connection?
Answer: You can strengthen the connection only by working together as one person with one heart, and all your thoughts and desires will be directed to bestowing something to the Creator.
What is there between you that you can give to Him? Raise your requests to Him.
Question: What practical actions do we need to take in order to create a Kli capable of receiving the royal gift of spiritual pleasure?
Answer: Unite with each other, be as close to each other as possible, and ask Him to connect and fill you even more.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/4/24, Writings of Rabash “By Your Actions, We Know You”
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It is impossible for an individual to obtain inner light before one is rewarded with repentance (Rabash, Assorted Notes, #459, “Because of Humbleness and Fear of the Lord”).
Question: What is this repentance?
Answer: Getting closer to the Creator.
Question: What can we bring from the individual to the collective besides intention, prayer, and actions toward connection?
Answer: Nothing more is needed.
Question: In what state should a person reach the feeling of humbleness each time to be granted help from above?
Answer: Only in the state of the right prayer, the right request.
Question: Throughout life a person experiences different states, from individual to collective. What does he take with him at the end of his earthly journey, the individual or the collective?
Answer: Only the part that can ascend to the Creator.
Question: What will be the signs in the work in the ten that we are growing in mutual annulment, humbleness, and fear before the Creator?
Answer: You will feel that your thoughts and intentions align and that you all understand how to work and understand the sources together.
Question: Why does the Creator sometimes erase the memory, the sense of His greatness?
Answer: So that we have space to work and can again realize why we act this way toward each other and Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/6/24, Writings of Rabash “Because of Humbleness and Fear of the Lord”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letters 60 & 44”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Sulam Commentary, Item 57″
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3rd part of the Lesson – Lesson on the Topic “The Power of Internal Dissemination of the Ten”
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Selected Highlights
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Question: What creates joy, or what does it form from the feeling of being satisfied with little: serving the King for an individual or for the entire world group as a whole?
Answer: To be satisfied with little is generally wrong. The fact is that when we receive some small return from the Creator, the spark of light sent by Him turns inside us into a huge fire of love, understanding, and gravitation toward Him.
So it is just a saying that you have to limit yourself to something small.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Prayer”
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Comment: You said that our movement follows the law of “negation of negation.” So past experience does not help us and turns into a Klipa. .
My Response: This is intended for you to annul yourself before your friends and before the Creator. When you annul yourself, it becomes clear to you how to act.
Question: How does the popular quote work here: “There is none so wise as the experienced”?
Answer: When you annul yourself before your friends and before the Creator, you begin to understand how to make a new state from the past one. It is only by annulling yourself! Then the upper light will create a new state in you.
Question: You say that we only need to change our intention. Is the quality of the intention either zero or 100 percent?
Answer: The entire system is calibrated precisely in intentions. The ladder (Sulam) is a constantly changing intention over our egoistic desires in strength and quality.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Which prayer is not pleasing to the Creator?
Answer: Egoistic ones.
Question: It is said that you need to bring your desire closer to the desire of the Creator and then He will answer your prayer. What is this process?
Answer: To desire what He desires, and He only desires our correction. Therefore, a person who strives for correction comes closer to the Creator.
Question: Which prayer is more important for the Creator: the prayer of many, or the cry, tears, and true repentance of an individual?
Answer: The prayer for everyone.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Prayer”
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Question: What should we pay attention to so that we understand that our desire to receive is truly being corrected and purified?
Answer: To feel this you must attract all your aspirations to a certain center of desires and gather the center of the group to attract the reforming light to all these desires. That is when you will feel the correction.
Question: Will the landmarks be only in feelings, in states, or could there be some rational calculations here?
Answer: No, only sensory ones.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/24, Writings of Rabash “Affliction Precedes Mercy”
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Question: Do we need to be concerned about the advancement of friends who do not want it?
Answer: There is no need to, you won’t drag them against their will.
Question: What if we are in the same boat?
Answer: It doesn’t matter. A person must work on achieving what he wants himself. We can only help him if he wants to.
The people in our group give their consent a priori to advance with us, so we care about them but not about others.
Question: Should we oblige them to show up at least twice a week?
Answer: No, leave them alone. This will only make it worse for you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/31/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Is Acquired through Suffering”
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Question: How can you find your personal inner need for the Creator?
Answer: Gradually ask the Creator about everything; He will help you approach this.
Question: What do we, Bnei Baruch, need to do for all of us to cry out to the Creator and ask for mercy for all of humanity?
Answer: You need to unite more and more with each other in your ten and raise a collective prayer to the Creator, and you will succeed.
Question: What can be called Katnut (small state) in our relationships?
Answer: Katnut is a particular measure of filling for Malchut, which accepts this filling and considers it sufficient for the time being.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Prayer”
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We must show each other how much we desire to connect because it is precisely in the connection between us that we attain the Creator.
The Creator cannot be revealed in one person. At a minimum, two people are necessary, two who reject each other and simultaneously strive to be together above their egoism. There must be a dipole, two interconnected opposite qualities: love and hate, one above the other.
That is a challenge for humanity because people do not understand it. Either I am all in love or entirely feel hatred. Either I love a little or hate a little. However, opposing these two qualities and connecting them one above the other is very difficult.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to live in this, not rejecting, but developing both qualities—the thickness of egoism (Aviut), the restriction of its direct use (Tzimtzum), and the screen (Masach)—when I begin to work above egoism in the quality of bestowal, in connection with the upper light, i.e., in love. Then I turn into a complete Partzuf—a soul.
The problem is that I have to implement all this. Kabbalah is not a simple method. Such an action requires gradual mastery. It is truly a wisdom, a skill that must be learned gradually. Therefore, spiritual work takes many years.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is it enough for me to set a good example for the friend without expecting any reaction or should I still check his response?
Answer: You do not expect any reaction from your friend that would oblige you to continue setting positive examples.
You wait for your friend’s reaction to adjust your own, to change your attitude to an even more advanced one. That is, the direction is always positive toward getting closer to each other and greater mutual penetration into the quality of bestowal that would fill the space between you.
Question: What is the next degree in this situation?
Answer: The next degree in this situation means that despite rejection, you understand that you must move forward with reason, feelings, thoughts, and intentions. You keep yourself in a state of rejection and build a connection above it.
In such mutual internal tension, you move forward. If you think there should be some kind of love or romance here, this is certainly not Kabbalah. In Kabbalah, there are only two opposite states, one above the other. Then, you begin to ascend from our world to the next level.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Your teacher Rabash knew all the states that you were going through. Knowing that you had to go through terrible despair, hopelessness, could he not have helped you in any way?
Answer: Did he not go through such states himself? He went through them the same way I am now, the same way my students go through and will go through them.
Every Kabbalist goes through absolutely all states. That is why he can write for us. No soul, starting from our world and up to complete correction, can jump over any state.
Question: You said that Rabash was patient and that you could even yell at him. Was there ever a time when he wanted to kick you out?
Answer: No, he understood everything. Once, after Rabash’s death, I met a friend that earlier had studied together with me at his place. And he told me: “I remember that you once did not want to go to the sea with Rabash as an escort because you were terribly offended and angry about something. And then I went with him.
While at the sea he said: “Let’s call Michael anyway.” I called you and told you that Rabash wants to talk to you. And you answered: “Tell him I don’t want to talk to him.”
I told him what you said and asked: “Why don’t you kick him out?” And Rabash replied: “I’m not kicking Michael out because he has a special soul.”
That is, he understood that I was really in a terrible state and could not behave in any other way, and whatever was going on with me passes. But with this call, he accelerated my spiritual development.
Of course, he saw who I was, what I was: on one hand, a jerk, but on the other hand, I still had a lot of potential, and therefore he tolerated me.
But I was as loyal to him as I could be! Of course, I had very difficult conditions when I was worried, smoked, shouted, and swore. I don’t think I could have behaved any differently today. No.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Exile” 1/29/10
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Question: How do you learn to recognize that the Creator is clothing on you and what He wants from you?
Answer: This can be felt internally when you work with several levels, higher and lower, you are an adapter between them, and you understand how to make contact with each of them, canceling yourself. Then you represent a thin middle strip between them, which is called a Klipat Noga.
And so does, in principle, each of us. If we communicate with each other correctly, then none of us will have anything but this strip or small dot that glues one level with another.
That is, you must be a completely invisible fastening link in the chain. What does invisible mean? Not violating anything from the previous and subsequent link from you. They cannot be held together without you, and you have to do it. That is the only reason you exist.
And then it turns out that the whole huge organism of souls works ideally when everyone gives everything, everyone does not take up space, and then the place is filled with higher light.
Question: Are you a specific subordinate link in this chain?
Answer: Of course; nothing more.
Question: This chain, including Rabash and Baal HaSulam, goes before you. It does not matter if you exist in physical attire or not, do you still remain in this chain for the entire time until complete correction?
Answer: Absolutely. This cannot change.
If I have connected to Rabash, it is because my soul stands in the hierarchy in a place that determines exactly this connection of mine.
And if certain disciples have come to me, it is because those souls stand in the hierarchy close to me, below me, so that I can conduct a technique on them to the fulfillment that I can receive through Rabash and above from his father, and so on, and so on to the very world of infinity. But this chain is constant, unchangeable.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You are a Small Screw!“ 3/13/10
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Question: The idea of transforming the egoistic nature of a person into an altruistic one with the goal of achieving adhesion with the Creator looks beautiful.
But I do not understand how this idea can be conveyed to the masses? To whom? This is an educational process, not just something you tell a person and that is it. The educational process is in the hands of the exploiters, and this is not beneficial to them.
Answer: I think that the educational process of a general type, the one that spreads to the entire system of humanity, is in the hands of the Creator.
Therefore, Baal HaSulam and other Kabbalists write that we are obliged by all means to begin dissemination and lead humanity to this goal as quickly as possible, to explain to it what awaits us if we follow this path correctly and what awaits us if we act incorrectly. We have a clear instruction, and we must follow it.
There is such a force in nature that knows how to lead and develop humanity, we just need not interfere with it and rely on it.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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Question: We evaluate everyone solely by whether they strive for unity. If not, then this methodology is not suitable for us.
But who said that unification is important and the goal of the entire universe? Why not some kind of abstraction, like an out-of-body experience? This is more important for another person.
Answer: I am not interested in what is more important for the other person. Everyone can make up whatever they want.
We believe Kabbalists, and this faith is confirmed by our knowledge when we follow their path and reveal the upper world.
They tell us that once we were one single whole and then scattered into pieces, meaning egoism tore us apart, separated us from each other, and acts between us as a repelling force.
But we have to cancel this force and reconnect. The moment we do this, we will immediately perceive the next level of the universe, the next world, called the upper, the divine, because it is above egoism.
Then we will already identify ourselves, not with our body, but with our common unified desire, which we have assembled from all the pieces. This common desire is called the soul.
Kabbalists explain to us how to do this and what we feel in the process. As for what comes to different people’s minds, so what can be done? This is where the disunity of humanity once began.
As Maimonides, the great philosopher of the XII century, writes, initially people felt that there is one single force. Initially, this was known to everyone. And then they saw that this force manifests itself through various actions in nature: wind, sun, and so on at the inanimate, animate and vegetative levels.
And people began to come into contact with these forces because they are closer to them than some abstract force called the Creator.
They began to worship the possible signs of nature, even to the point where they began creating idols, building temples, and making offerings. This is how religions and beliefs began to develop.
Thus, people broke away from the feeling of the one Creator, the single force of nature, and unification with Him and fell into the feeling of ordinary animate nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Unification in Doubt” 4/10/10
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Comment: You once explained that there is a layer of souls that communicate with each other and actually interact on some spiritual level without even realizing it.
My Response: Yes, we do indeed exist on a spiritual level, but we just don’t feel it. Like, for example, a newborn baby who is born in our world, he is registered in all the records, many people are already working for him, supplying him with food, diapers and everything necessary, but he does not feel it.
But he is in this system. The system takes complete care of him, responds to him.
Similarly we are in the spiritual system, but we do not feel it. And the system responds to us and provides everything necessary for our advancement. However, in our case, everything depends only on us, on our desire.
Question: When transitioning to the next phase, does a person perceive the same thing in a completely different way, for example, the same layer of our conversation?
Answer: Of course, differently. He begins to feel the system in which he exists: how it responds to him, how he can influence it, what “he himself” means. He comprehends himself in relation to it.
Yet there is a difference for a person, whether he is an infant, a small child, or an adult.
Comment: Understanding this is a very interesting thing. In my opinion, only Kabbalah allows this to be done.
My Response: When that world, that universe in which we actually exist, is revealed to a person, it is the highest pleasure for him, which fills him infinitely! We are created by this light, this perception, this eternity, perfection, and harmony.
Therefore, today, when we are outside of it, our life represents absolute misery. But for lack of anything better, we are content with this, like a person born in prison does not feel that there could be something else. Try to release him from prison, he will immediately want to go back because he will not be able to orient himself in another world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Am I a Puppet?” 4/10/10
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Question: What kind of awakening should we give to the Creator after expressing gratitude to Him?
Answer: You should always try to talk with the Creator. This is everyone’s duty. A person must check what kind of prayer he is sending to Him.
Even if a person does not address the Creator, some desire still rises from every heart to Him because He controls the entire world and each of us. Therefore, we need to control where our heart is directed and how it relates to the Creator.
Question: How can we combine different contradictory states and still control the direction of the heart?
Answer: This is a long-term work on oneself aimed at rising above the states that arise in your heart and directing them to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Prayer”
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Question: How is the bread of shame felt in the heart and not in the mind? What actions do you need to perform in the ten in order to receive the Creator’s blessing on the bread of shame?
Answer: Unite and turn to the Creator from the center of your unity. Then you will feel how much your appeal will immediately deserve a response.
Question: There is confusion between corporeal and spiritual shame. How does the bread of shame feel in spirituality?
Answer: When you reach the sense of shame for your actions, you will feel what the taste of shame is.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “The Path of Truth”
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Question: How can we develop our collective deficiency for the light in our ten while maintaining an atmosphere of joy?
Answer: Why does this prevent you from being joyful?
Question: If there is a state of joy from unity in the group, it seems that everything is already good.
Answer: Are you in adhesion with the Creator?
Question: No, rather in a good connection between us.
Answer: So what is this, kindergarten?
Question: If it is still kindergarten, then what is lacking in this effort?
Answer: There is a lack of desire to connect with your friends in such a way as to create a place for the revelation of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/31/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Is Acquired through Suffering”
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Question: You said that I cannot achieve spiritual love if I do not feel rejected by others, right?
Answer: Of course, what will you build your love on? If you simply feel love for someone, then this is corporeal, carnal love or some earthly attraction.
Let us say you like a friend, a child, a woman, food, etc., i.e., all categories of our main interests. But this is not what we are talking about. You can build love only based on rejection from a friend.
Question: Let us say a friend for whom I initially have no feelings is sitting in front of me. I begin to strive for love, for unification with him, and in response to this, the Creator sends me rejection from him, right?
Answer: Yes if you really strive for a connection with him.
Question: Is my test that if I truly strive for connection with him, the Creator will certainly send me rejection from him?
Answer: Not right away. You will have to work with a friend, as is usually done in our world. Then, you will definitely begin to feel some kind of rejection. These are already spiritual sensations that are not typical of our world. You will even think: “Why did I suddenly hate him so much? I suddenly stopped liking this and that in him?” That is how spiritual qualities manifest themselves in him and you. Therefore, mutual rejection arises.
But if mutual attraction continues between you, and you embrace with pleasure, dine with pleasure, and communicate, then this is earthly companionship.
In Kabbalah, any connection is built only on rejection and hatred. Love is built by effort.
Question: What is the work of a friend regarding me at the moment when I strive toward him? Must he try to show me the same?
Answer: This is already difficult. Your friend may show that he is striving for you, or on the contrary, he demonstrates complete disdain. The Creator gives you all sorts of exercises.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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The sensation of connections between us is called the world. The worlds themselves do not exist. We should not think that when we climb the spiritual ladder, we enter the first, second, or third floor. These floors do not exist; they are all within us, and we form them from our relations with one another.
Therefore, the word “world” comes from the word “Nehelam”—disappearing or approaching. That is, we are the ones who create the worlds, our specific relationships.
If they reach the above-egoistic properties at the first level, then we begin to sense ourselves in the world of Asiya. That is already a spiritual world, meaning a state where we can give and receive, but not in the same way as our world.
It seems to us that here we, too, give and receive. In reality, we only receive all the time since we are unable to give. Even if physically we give, we still pursue the goal of receiving. We can never do anything opposite to our original desire.
Therefore, everything that exists at the level of our world and in our state today requires correction. We have to establish connections between us where we always want to give to one another both in intention and in action, to fulfill one another and do something that the other one desires.
Thus we will come to the state where relations between us will begin to form the next world—a higher state where a property of bestowal manifests at the first egoistic level appears in us.
Therefore, there is more selfishness in everyone who rises higher. It is on it that he builds his relationships with others in giving to them and thus feels himself to be in an increasingly higher world.
He feels his existence in some property of bestowal, perhaps only to 5 to 10%, but this is already some revelation of the Creator. In this way, he begins to understand the concept of nature, its creation and origination, its development, and the transformations he and this nature go through. That is the way we go through our development.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letters 40 & 28”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam, Commentary, Item 27″
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Question: As we know, American universities are rocked by anti-Israel demonstrations. We are disliked at American universities, particularly prestigious ones: New York University, Yale, Columbia, Harvard, UC LA, UC Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, etc.
In other words, at expensive universities where well-to-do, intelligent, thoughtful students study, anti-Israel sentiment flourishes, that is one thing. But at the same time, as has been the case throughout the centuries, there are strange accusations about everything you can imagine. How does this align with intelligence, development, and sophistication?
Answer: It aligns very simply because one has nothing to do with the other. There can be very serious, educated, intelligent, well-rounded people, and at the same time regarding Israel and the Jews, they…
Comment: Will repeat the most terrible, most absurd rumors about leprosy, poisoning wells, and so on.
My Response: Exactly. They will repeat anything you can think of.
Question: Can you explain what this is? How do all these absurd accusations align with a person’s intellect and reason?
Answer: They do not fall within the same domain as human reason. Completely different centers are activated, and a person begins to shift to a completely different mindset and starts listening to and believing what they are told.
Comment: Predominantly, the sponsors of these universities are Jews and Jewish organizations. In principle, both the administrators of these universities and the students understand that they would not have scholarships, for example, if Jews stopped supporting these universities. There would be no salaries for teachers, and so on. What is happening to reason here? It is like I am biting the hand that gives.
My Response: No, I do not think they are so afraid that these donors will stop funding them.
Comment: Really, even though they declare that they do not want to accept donations from anyone connected with Israel?
My Response: They wish to “cleanse” themselves.
Question: Is this above money, above everything?
Answer: Yes. They think that this call will affect those who are still donors, and they will give even more to show that they belong to a different kind of people.
Question: Are you hinting at Jews now?
Answer: Yes, at Jews of course.
Question: So Jews will pay for anti-Israel propaganda?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Where is the logic here? We keep circling around this, that there is no logic here either.
Answer: There is no need for logic.
Question: What am I “cleansing” myself of? I continue to pay to Harvard University, let’s say, I am a Jew…
Answer: Yes. You think this is a good university, and it produces good specialists, and you are for pluralism.
Question: I see. So I am for democracy, freedom, and so on, right?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: Now please tell me. I am Jewish, I am studying at this university. Everything around me is full of posters and demands for the destruction of Israel.
My Response: It does not affect you; you walk with your nose held high and do not notice these posters.
Question: Is this me, a Jewish student?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But is this a good situation? I mean, I go on and still feel like a Jew, and I go…
Answer: I don’t know how you feel like a Jew. Even if you feel like a Jew, you must show where you agree and disagree with the Jews.
Question: So I can even join them?
Answer: Yes of course. Absolutely!
Question: Tell me, is there a connection? If I continue studying at this university, does it mean that I support all this anti-Israel fuss there?
Answer: No, not necessarily.
Question: But I continue studying there? Is that right? Or should I leave this university in protest?
Answer: You are asking me about completely different things now.
Question: Yes, it is a different area. I am asking you what is the right thing to do?
Answer: I believe that Jews should not be in such universities. They are exposed to a direction of hatred that will force them to renounce their Jewish identity.
Question: Then tell me, do you think Jewish sponsors should withdraw from these universities?
Answer: Of course!
Question: How do you think Israel should fight this?
Answer: I don’t think Israel can fight it. It is just a phase. I hope that someday it will pass, although it is still unknown when. But if Jews start leaving these places, others will feel it in their wallets, in the support, in everything.
Question: So, you think if you feel it in your wallet, in your salary, in the fact that the university is becoming poorer, your brain will start to work?
Answer: Of course.
Question: So should Jews leave such universities both as sponsors and students?
Answer: Yes.
Question: They should not support them in any way?
Answer: In no way.
Comment: All right. I see that graduates from these universities: Yale, Harvard, and so on will be leading the country in 10 to 15 years. That is definitely in America.
My Response: Yes.
Comment: So in 10 to 15 to 20 years America will no longer support Israel in any way.
My Response: Probably.
Question: Will Israel be able to exist without this support on its own?
Answer: It is certainly difficult. But here arises the question of the survival of the State. I believe we need to turn to the upper force, to the Creator.
Comment: You are saying it will be difficult.
My Response: It will be difficult.
Question: It will be difficult and therefore we must turn to the upper authority?
Answer: Yes.
Question: In principle, this is where things are heading?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: As I see it, America will eventually become anti-Israel. We understand about Europe, too, that it will also abandon Israel. In one way or another, looking at the future, Israel remains alone. That means Israel must become a kind of fortress.
Answer: Yes.
Question: How can it become this fortress?
Answer: By firmly standing its ground.
Question: And what is my Israeli ground?
Answer: It is that I unite around our goal and bring the people closer to the Creator.
Question: What is our goal, the goal of the people of Israel?
Answer: The goal is to explain to the entire world the method, the intention, and the purpose of the existence of humanity.
Question: What is it?
Answer: To attain the upper force.
Question: Is that the goal?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So must the people of Israel unite around this goal and stand as one?
Answer: Yes and then, no matter what happens, they will stand strong.
Comment: And all these enemies around us, and everything they will do…
My Response: There will be none…
Question: So if we connect to the upper, our security is guaranteed?
Answer: That is why we are placed in such conditions.
Question: So you just said that America, Europe, and our surroundings are being pushed from above to make us turn to the upper?
Answer: Yes that is what is said and what is written.
Question: Without such suffering, is it possible to turn to the Creator through reason or heart without being pressured?
Answer: No, it is impossible.
Comment: You have a very firm rule: you always say that without these sufferings no progress is possible.
My Response: No.
Question: So are you a materialist here? Are you saying this material must be squeezed?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: And only then will it…
My Response: Start to move.
Question: Is the movement the address to the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What do we say? How do we address the Creator?
Answer: We ask for help. Help us unite. Help us be stronger. Not stronger than anyone else, but just by ourselves. We do not need strength to oppress anyone. We need strength to counter our own egoism. Then everything will fall into place.
[333143]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/29/24
Question: How can you best focus on your friends, that is, on fulfilling them so as not to stray?
On the one hand friends are a tool. On the other hand, only through love for them can one reach the Creator. How can I guide myself correctly?
Answer: Try to treat your friends with the same love as the Creator treats them, and concern yourself with their unity so they are always occupied only with what the Creator sends to them.
Try to group them and direct them to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/24, Writings of Rabash “Affliction Precedes Mercy”
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Question: To align with the Creator’s attributes one needs to reach a very strong desire, akin to desperation. Does this mean one should completely give up his desires?
Answer: No. You simply need to make your aspiration for the Creator stronger than all your other desires.
Question: It is said that what a person strives for is what he is given. But if we strive and wish for the Creator to reveal Himself, why doesn’t He reveal Himself to us?
Answer: Because you do not desire it strongly enough yet.
Question: If the Creator is a desire for bestowal and our life is a material desire, how can they be united?
Answer: Continue on, and you will see that they unite and do not interfere with each other.
[332719]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “The Path of Truth”
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Question: In our world, I am the desires of my body. If I remove these desires, is that self-annulment? How do I unite with my friends without seeing the desires of their bodies?
Answer: Try to rise above yourself, above your desires, and connect with each other solely with desires for bestowal and love. Ask the Creator to help you with this, and you will feel the response.
Question: So my individuality, my body, is egoism? Does this mean that without egoistic desires I can connect with everyone?
Answer: Absolutely right.
[332722]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “The Path of Truth”
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Question: If friends have a desire to work together, how can we help them reveal a deficiency (Hissaron) for spirituality?
Answer: Read about this in the ten before or after our lessons so they can hear and see where you are getting these articles from. Engage them.
Question: Group work is clear, but can individual work with the sources help? Is it necessary, and what is its importance?
Answer: Individual work with the sources is effective when you get explanations of what is written in them.
If you do not know and are just guessing, it will not help you much.
[332753]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/31/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Is Acquired through Suffering”
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Question: Which questions to ourselves, to the soul, and to the group of ten prepare the Kli (vessel), the Hissaron (deficiency), above reason?
Answer: When you ask the Creator, each other, and the group of ten about things that are essentially within you, but you do not yet feel, you are practicing faith above reason.
This means you do not know, feel, or believe yet, but you want to reach a degree where your faith will give you that sensation. This is called faith above reason.
[332750]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/31/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Is Acquired through Suffering”
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Question: Kabbalists have a great, strange power that cannot be described. You say that it is impossible for a person who is not in attainment to feel spirituality, it is impossible to feel bestowal. But a certain energy comes from a Kabbalist.
Is this the energy of bestowal?
Answer: No, this is not spiritual energy. It is not what comes from him, but what you feel.
Comment: But there is a huge number of people, and I do not feel such energy from them.
My Response: Just because you feel something does not mean it is spiritual. You only feel what you feel.
Question: But let’s say you can fulfill a person so much that he will not even ask questions. Does he feel it, perceive it?
Answer: Because next to me he feels confidence, security, perfection, and fulfillment, the question disappears. He can run to me from the other side of the world. He came running with a question. He sat down next to me, the question disappeared. I had the same thing.
It is completely natural. When you find yourself next to a large, relatively great person, you become integrated in him, stick to him, and that is it, you do not need anything, you are already filled.
Question: But is this spiritual fulfillment or not?
Answer: I would call it psychological.
Question: Does it mean that we do not feel spirituality at all?
Answer: Not yet. Where can we do that? Do you already have spiritual intentions above yourself? Not yet. Therefore, everything that is felt is felt as preliminary psychological states.
[329886]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Power of the Kabbalist “ 2/6/10
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Comment: Stanisław Jerzy Lec escaped from a concentration camp twice. The first time he escaped, he was caught. The second time he escaped, he was caught again and was given a shovel and told, “Dig your own grave.” He used that shovel to kill the guard, dressed in his clothes, and escaped for good. The rest of his fate is known to us. He came to the Land of Israel, then went back to Poland where he experienced various sufferings, anti-Semitism, and so on. But at the same time, he wrote amazing things.
Please comment on his statement:
“People are lonely because instead of building bridges, they build walls.”
Question: It is so sad and accurate! Tell me, we are always looking for a cure for loneliness, ministers of loneliness, and so on. He writes: “We need to build bridges, and everything will be fine.” Why do we build walls?
Answer: We cannot tolerate each other.
Question: So it is better to build a wall?
Answer: Of course. And a wall is not just a limitation from me but for me as well.
Question: So when I am physically next to someone, I cannot adapt to them, it is hard for me to build bridges. But we should, right?
Answer: Yes. But how? I have not learned how to do this. I just see over the years that only life, as explained by the Torah, will probably lead to this.
Question: Only follow the Torah?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Then can you say in one sentence what it means to follow the Torah?
Answer: Always, little by little, getting closer to everyone.
Question: To everyone? To enemies, to non-enemies?
Answer: Absolutely everyone.
Question: What happens to me then?
Answer: It changes you. It changes your DNA.
Question: Even my whole genetics?
Answer: Yes, all your genetics.
Question: So, just keep aiming in that direction?
Answer: Yes.
[332468]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/24
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To rise from our animalistic, egoistic level, we need to strive for the next level—the altruistic human being.
We can achieve this either through immense suffering that forces us to reach the goal or through our own efforts when we know what lies ahead and understand the forces of nature at our disposal. Then we can help ourselves and bring ourselves to absolute coexistence.
Question: Should the aspiration to the higher degree, to the Creator, be like fuel throughout this stage? Otherwise why would 90% of egoists suddenly want to change their nature and care for society more than for themselves? They need some motivation. Can the upper force be this motivation?
Answer: Of course.
Question: But how can this happen if it has not been manifested until now? Even religions have not helped although they claim that the Creator is goodness and love.
Answer: Religions operate on a very low level. Moreover, they have already disqualified themselves if I may say so.
Comment: But in the early stages, they really did help humanity; otherwise, we would be like animals.
My Response: Yes, without religion we could not have existed; that is clear. Then began the thousand-year long process separation of religion from progress, from the changes in mankind, up to the creation of educational institutions where natural sciences and Kabbalah are studied.
Today, we have reached a state where we can calmly explain to all people on Earth, without any prohibitive restrictions, what Kabbalah is, why it is needed, how to master it, and what can be achieved with its help.
[332258]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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Question: Do you ever have moments when you are surprised that you give out certain information?
Answer: Yes, it happens that I can easily express some information. It is a muse; it is simply a human property.
There are Kabbalists who could do it amazingly. I envy them a lot. After all, if I weren’t a teacher, I would float at my level and would be trying to rise all the time. But since I have to simplify the information I receive to the level of my students, I envy those who have fluent language.
But I was specially given a very difficult and complex Hebrew. I generally do not have a good grasp of languages; I have an absolute inaptitude for them. It’s hard for me in this regard.
Therefore, if I succeed, it is like a birth, like labor pains, when you can finally give out some information. When you feel that it has entered a person, he understands it, and all the information has smoothly jumped out of you like an embryo jumps out along with waters during a successful childbirth, then it certainly gives a lot of pleasure. You are amazed about the extent of it that came from above.
I clearly understand that everything is given from above because with my qualities that I also received from above, I am not capable of expressing my thoughts easily. There are even more problems here. Even if I had this ability, Kabbalistic information is still clothed in more or less convenient forms depending on how much the student needs it.
After all, there are circumstances when there is a need to confuse a student a little, give him an opportunity to unravel the tangle by himself. Then he will start using his brain and will sense that he still lacks his own efforts. Therefore, I not only make my presentation dependent on the lack of an opportunity to present the material normally, but also on the fact that the student does not need a more explicit presentation, he must figure it out himself.
Let’s take The Book of Zohar. It is written in a very confusing language, although it in principle it is close to our style. This is amazing! The book was written 2,000 years ago, but it talks about things that are very easy for us to communicate today. It is interesting. Although it is incomprehensible, its style is close to us.
When I was working on it, adapting it to the modern reader, I practically did not have to do anything special. I translated it from Aramaic to Hebrew, removed various additions, clarifications, references to other sources, outside commentaries, etc. in order to make the text more readable.
Practically, the whole task in Kabbalah is to adapt the spiritual material for the consumers, for the students.
[330065]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mindflow” 3/13/10
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Question: What can be done to make the ninth of Av not a day of mourning? What state must we reach for it to become a holiday?
Answer: Change yourselves from those who receive to those who give, from those who hate others to those who love them, and this day will become a holiday.
[333320]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Cast Their Seed Among the Nations”
Question: According to Baal HaSulam, humanity is divided into the enterprising and the laggards who make up the majority. Regardless of the social system, a small part of the enterprising will always exploit the laggards.
Why is there such a division? How can this be related to the purpose of creation?
Answer: Such inequality is based on the correspondence of a person with those periods that he must go through in his development in order to achieve the goal of creation. It depends on generations, on the degree of connection between people, and is a process of correction.
That is, we must be in different states in order to gain some kind of life experience.
Question: Does it have to be imprinted in every soul?
Answer: Yes, and it needs to be able to be directed correctly.
[332208]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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Many zeros imagine themselves to be the orbit around which the world revolves (Stanisław Jerzy Lec).
Question: Today is a time when it seems that many zeros are sure that they are the orbit in which the world revolves. Why is a person given this feeling of “I am the orbit in which the world revolves. Am I building the world”?
Answer: Yes, I build the world. Why is it given? So that a person realizes what a low creature they are.
Question: That this is not exactly so?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What, in your opinion, should be the feeling of a true leader?
Answer: He should feel that he does everything to set a correct example for his people.
Question: What is the correct example?
Answer: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Question: Should he live like this in relation to his people?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Have you seen such leaders? Were there ever such leaders?
Answer: I hope so. It is not noticeable from the outside. I think there were such leaders.
Comment: Our kings, who were in their time…
My Response: Maybe.
Question: Maybe Solomon and David?
Answer: I do not know.
Question: I see. But is this a true leader?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Will the future leader also be like this?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Will then the world change immediately?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Will the world also become loving?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Does the Creator instill such leadership in a person?
Answer: Of course. Who else?
[332633]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/24
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The Creator created only one thing—something that does not exist in Him and can ostensibly exist outside of His essence.
This something is called creation; it is the desire to receive and be filled and is opposite to the Creator. This is our embryo called “Adam,” from the word “like the Creator” (Edomeh), which is similar to Him in that it comes from the Creator. It is opposite to Him in properties, but similar in expression.
Adam is the property of receiving that exists only as a bestower. The Creator created the desire to receive, but this desire manifests as completely annulled relative to the Creator—an embryo, a point of Bina in the upper light.
And then it divided into many parts and each particle of this property Bina became opposite to the Creator and the light that created it.
As the property of bestowal is divided, it is distanced from the Creator since many different properties that are similar to the Creator in their original form, begin to separate in their similarity and differ from each other. Everyone wants to give to the Creator as He wants to give to them, but everyone is different from the others.
It is how what is called the 600,000 basic parts arise since the system called Zeir Anpin consists of six parts each of which or all together are at the level of 10,000; this is the level of Keter of the world of Atzilut. Thus it is considered that there are 600,000 of them.
In Kabbalah, there is no concept of parts. Spirituality is not divided into parts, but differs from each other in its power. Therefore, when we say that the soul was divided into 600,000 parts, we do not mean quantitatively, but qualitatively, i.e., the level of that spiritual object that the Creator created at the level of “Keter of the world of Atzilut.” It is to this state that we must reach in our correction.
[332426]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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You lack nothing but to go out to a field that the Lord has blessed, and collect all those flaccid organs that have drooped from your soul, and join them into a single body (Baal HaSulam, Letter 4).
When our collective soul shattered, it fell to the very bottom—the level of our world. When we are engaged in correction we do not look at male and female bodies, we mean the correction of people.
The inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature does not concern us in our spiritual work. We use it because we need to live, and this justifies its existence. But in the future, we will see on spiritual levels how everything that exists can be used—all atoms of the cosmos and everything created in the universe—because it all belongs to the collective soul.
For now, we must understand that our work in correcting the only desire created by the Creator is at the lowest, most primitive level where we initially found ourselves.
Therefore, we must unite to help each other attain increasingly higher states with greater qualitative and quantitative connection, mainly in the quality of our connections. This is the meaning of being at the lowest egoistic level, the level of the world we perceive.
As soon as we begin forming more complex structures from ourselves, interconnected by good forces, we will perceive, not the egoistic form of this world, but its more altruistic form, called the spiritual world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can we properly feel proud of our involvement in the spiritual path and the same time not fear falling into pride, which is hateful to the Creator? What is the way out?
Answer: You should simply continue to study constantly and not fear falling into pride. People should feel that they are moving closer to the Creator, and the Creator will always support and help them. You have the right to do this. So move forward without fear.
Comment: We are created with an evil inclination, and even in this, we feel His infinite love. That is, we have both pride and fear.
My Response: Try to discover all your positive and negative qualities through love for the Creator.
[332605]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “The Path of Truth”
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Question: The path of truth differs from the path of lies precisely in intention. It is human nature to deceive oneself. How can one check one’s intentions at every moment?
Answer: You can check your intentions together with your friends and also when you turn to the Creator. You see how you draw closer or move away, how much you understand the Creator and He understands you. It all depends only on your intentions.
Question: When a person feels shame because they cannot create the right intention, what helps to move from this state to a corrected one?
Answer: It is only by uniting with friends. We have nothing else.
[332609]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “The Path of Truth”
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Question: If a Kabbalist expects some special event in the future, how does he combine the two approaches: liberation from egoism now and waiting for a special opportunity after some time?
Answer: This comes from the surrounding light (Ohr Makif), from his vision of the future.
Question: Sometimes you tell very impatient students: “Calm down, this is a long path; it isn’t quick.” How should they combine these two approaches?
Answer: One must be very impatient while simultaneously developing patience within oneself.
Question: At every meeting of the tens, should we check the inherent extremes?
Answer: Yes. From here comes revelation and understanding. As it is said: love will cover all transgressions.
[332495]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 13
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Question: What does it mean to draw mercy in order to bring salvation closer for everyone?
Answer: It means that I do not think about myself at all and ask the Creator to reveal His mercy in the world so that the world will feel Him more and unite into one single group.
I strive to channel through myself to all people in the world the inner desire of the Creator—universal unity.
Question: The Creator is a great miracle worker, and He gives us such gifts that just gratitude is not enough. How else can you thank the Creator?
Answer: By spreading the method of connection between all people in the world and with the Creator through yourself.
[332707]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/24, Writings of Rabash “Affliction Precedes Mercy”
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Question: I am suffering more and more from my faults, but this is how the concealed light affects me. How can we feel the suffering from the absence of the light of the Torah if we do not know what it is?
Answer: It does not matter whether you studied the Torah or not. Your desire to get closer to the Creator is felt as a deficiency for the revelation of the Creator. Therefore, even if you have not studied anything, the desire for this is still the most important thing.
Question: We often hear that we must proceed with faith above reason. It is written: “He can believe above reason that he does not understand. Nevertheless, above reason we do not feel the lack.” What is this state “above reason”? We do not feel lack there.
Answer: Ordinary faith is philistine faith. We must try to enter the state of faith above reason. Let’s say that now you read something and decided that you will definitely follow some rule that is written in the text.
It does not matter how much you understand it or not, whether you like it or not, but you accept it upon yourself, and this means that in relation to this position you are in faith above reason, which obliges you to move forward even if you do not know, do not see, and do not feel what you read.
Question: But if some understanding has come to a person and he does not feel the lack anymore, how does this work?
Answer: You will feel it.
[332747]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/31/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Is Acquired through Suffering”
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Question: Do I understand correctly that a person should accept concealment as equivalent to revelation, and this can only be done with the intention for the Creator?
Answer: Not quite. There is still a difference between concealment and revelation. We should strive for revelation while ensuring that concealment does not discourage us.
Question: Can our illnesses and various corporeal problems be considered components of the process of purification from egoistic love?
Answer: No, illnesses and other issues may help in some way but not in a direct sense.
Question: What is the greatest harm I can cause to my ten?
Answer: The greatest harm you can cause to your ten is to try to tear your friends away from unity and movement toward the goal of creation.
Question: If my desires seem unrealistic to me, but they are directed toward goodness and love, should I let them go or continue to strive for them?
Answer: Continue to strive for them, and you will see that at least some of them will turn into real actions.
[332657]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/24, Writings of Rabash “Affliction Precedes Mercy”
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I asked God to give me happiness, and God said no.
He said He gives a blessing, and whether I will be happy or not depends on me.(“I Asked God,” a Russian parable)
My Response: Indeed.
Comment: The Creator blesses us with happiness, but for some reason we are unhappy.
My Response: We do not accept the blessing.
Question: Why?
Answer: We do not want to be happy.
Question: So all this comes from us?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Do we understand that He blesses us with happiness? Or do we curse everything He gives by saying: “You gave the wrong thing…”?
Answer: No, we do not understand. All of nature, all life, all of this is given to us for happiness.
Question: What kind of creatures are we? We are given happiness, but we run from it. We say: “It is not there.” We are looking for it all the time. We say: “We are looking for happiness,” but happiness is what it is. Is this how it works?
Answer: Yes. That is us.
Question: What can you do to make a person happy?
Answer: Nothing. A person must learn to be happy.
Question: In principle, I must agree that only happiness comes from the Creator, that happiness is all around and I just have to feel it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And what should I do?
Answer: Remember my book about the wizard?
Comment: Yes, it says that He is always waiting for someone to become his friend.
My Response: Basically this is a story about whether happiness can be achieved.
Comment: This book is even available as an audiobook. It is called Together Forever: The story about the magician who didn’t want to be alone. It is an amazing book!
[332430]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/24
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We call a situation hopeless when we don’t like the way out (Jerzy Stanisław Lec).
Question: So Jerzy Stanisław Lec is saying there is always a solution. We just do not go there because we do not like it. Are there really no hopeless situations?
Answer: I think not. There is always a solution. In principle, a person always has a solution. The fact that the situation seems hopeless is because his egoism traps him within itself.
Question: So it blocks the way out, and a person must somehow trick their egoism, do something. Tell me, please, is there a universal solution?
Answer: Only love.
[332530]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/24
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Humanity is moving toward realizing how vicious its egoistic nature is.
Therefore, nothing but problems await us in which people will feel the evil of their nature. And since it is impossible to get rid of it, it is imperative to correct it; otherwise, our lives will become worse than death. This is what awaits all of humanity.
We must explain to humanity what the way out of this is, why these states that come from nature (the Creator Himself) are correct, and that this is how nature moves us forward. It created egoism in us, but gave us feelings, reason, and the ability to reprogram ourselves like a computer.
We have one program embedded in us: receiving for ourselves with maximum benefit at every moment of time in any situation. This program works in us automatically. We need to reinstall and run a second program in ourselves instead; we don‘t have it and must get it from the outside.
The previous program will gradually be replaced by a new one in levels; it starts with the lowest, then more and more, and so on until it completely fills all our egoism and all our desire, which will gradually begin to work differently thanks to the new program being installed. That is all, nothing more.
Then we will understand that the work according to the previous program was given to us from above. We did not even understand that existence in another program was possible. And now, when we see that a new program begins to work in us, it is a discovery for us! And we begin to help it so that it works and reigns in us.
There is a very small difference between these programs. Only one parameter changes. If before I thought only about my own benefit, now I think about the benefit of others. This is the parameter in our consciousness that is called intention.
The rest of the program remains the same: the maximum use of desires, properties, everything that is in us, only now we begin to learn again how to work with a different intention: for the sake of others and not for ourselves. Only this vector changes, and everything else remains the same. Egoism works to receive in order to bestow and before it worked to receive for itself.
All this is very conditional because we imagine ourselves not connected with what is outside of us due to the shattering of the common soul. And when this soul begins to be revealed as a single whole, I begin to strive to bestow to others, just like to my child, more than to myself.
The question arises: am I working egoistically or altruistically? It is not clear at all. Before I thought that I was bestowing to strangers, but now it turns out that it was all for myself. It turns out that we were deceiving ourselves.
In general, all this must be understood. The main thing is to understand that we are only installing a new program. Our properties do not change. Everything that is created in us is necessary. A person should not refuse anything. One should only try to install a new intention—ostensibly for the sake of others and not for oneself. And gradually one will see that this is not for the sake of others, but for myself, that I am using enormous egoism in this—620 times more. The concept of 620 times is conditional; it is billions of billions of times more than before.
[332512]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that education will not help to teach 90% of the egoists to take care only of the most necessary things for themselves and spend the rest of their time taking care of others, since education does not change the egoistic nature of a person.
What will help to do this if not education, not the opinion of society?
Answer: Disseminating the idea itself will. Show all of humanity its historical path, its foundation, its roots, and the goal that it must achieve.
Thus, it will be clear to everyone in what state they are, in what nature they exist. This will help humanity to begin climbing out of the egoistic pit in which it finds itself.
[332162]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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All the worlds, upper and lower and everything within them, were created only for man. … In the beginning, they were restricted and hung down degree by degree and world after world, down to our material world (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 9).
Our world is at the very end of the spiritual degrees. All this is built in order to enable souls to ascend these degrees from the bottom up. Only then will people be able to give everything and receive nothing; that is, they will be in the opposite state compared to today.
In the meantime, a person, being completely receiving, i.e. being in the most remote state from the Creator, becomes the opposite of the Creator.
Later, thanks to the soul clothed in him, he constantly engages in the Torah and the commandments. Then one begins to attain higher degrees from the bottom up and thus climb the spiritual ladder.
This is how a person changes his or her qualities until one attains the qualities of bestowal and is liberated from the desire to receive. And then one completes one’s perfection in true adhesion with the Creator, for this is the only reason a person was created.
[332422]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/20, “Connecting into One Soul”
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We do not know what the Creator is because we ourselves cannot define Him. We can only define something relative to our feelings.
Therefore we call Him the Creator because we begin to become aware and define Him only from the state when He gives birth to us and defines Himself as our Creator, only from this moment but not before.
We differentiate these states into one that is not given to us in sensations, Atzmuto, which means existing by Himself, and the state when we begin to feel Him, that is, we give Him some of our own definitions, designations, and descriptions. And these descriptions, i.e., what enters into my properties that I can work with, I can remember and pass on to others.
From what we know and can determine, we can say that the Creator has created one soul in His likeness, meaning equal to Him but opposite of Him. Therefore, we can talk about it as “creation.”
Creation is that which is not in the Creator. In itself, this is an incomprehensible action, but it is precisely what is called creation. And the one who performs this action is called the Creator.
[332395]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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By being together with my friends, in a group where there is love of friends, I will be able to rise to the house of the Creator. That trail is called “a path of bestowal,” and it is against our nature. In order to be able to reach the house of the Creator, there is no other way but love of friends (Rabash, “Love of Friends – 1”).
Love is the overcoming of mutually repulsive egoistic forces between us when we try to overcome their mutual rejection.
Moreover, those who experience a stronger rejection from others have stronger souls. As it is written: “Everyone whose attainment is greater, his ego is greater.” Therefore, in fact, Kabbalists are huge egoists on the inside!
For those who enter into the attainment of the upper worlds, this work is with such great egoistic desires that I have no words to convey it. There are no such repulsive forces in our world to imagine the forces Kabbalists overcome. How much they hate everyone! How much they repel everyone!
But all this is to the extent they can overcome such forces. They form a huge Aviut, the thickness of desire, and above it a restriction (Tzimtzum), a screen, and everything else.
As it is written in The Book of Zohar, the students of Rabbi Shimon, who wrote this greatest book on Kabbalah, were ready to kill each other! Can you imagine what kind of rejections arise between everyone?!
Love cannot be without hate; in nature everything is balanced. Therefore, if we talk about love, we mean that it arises above the rejection of each other. We feel this rejection and build closeness and unification over it up to adhesion and love, while there is hatred and rejection inside. This dichotomy we achieve holds the whole system of the worlds.
Therefore, do not be naive and try to be like a state of an angel: everything is fine, we love each other, we unite. If I do not feel rejection from another, I cannot feel attraction to him, or spiritual love. If these are spiritual feelings, they always consist of two properties: an egoistic property and an altruistic one above it.
This road is called the path of bestowal, and it goes against our nature. To come to the house of the Creator, that is, to a state where we unite in love, there is no other advice than love for our friends, which we reveal above hatred for them.
Thus we look very realistically at all of nature, at all states, both hatred and love at the same time. Only then does it exist forever and support one another since between them there is a restriction, screen, and reflected light, a desire to work with egoism in the property opposite to it. There is no love and bestowal in us; it happens when we work against our ego. This is called correction.
[332505]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention
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Question: To save something, you need to acquire it. Where can I get a great desire to run toward general unification, toward you, and receive everything you want to convey? Where can we get true Hisaron (deficiency) to make His desire ours and accept everything He wants to give us for the sake of bestowal?
Answer: From the Creator, the Creator is the source of everything we need; therefore, with any desire, we must turn to Him and ask.
Question: Do we ask for ourselves, our friends, or the entire world Kli?
Answer: As you wish.
Question: Is it necessary to protect the unification achieved in the ten?
Answer: Certainly, if you always think you want to increase unity, you will definitely not lose it.
Question: Is it possible to influence the Hisaron of the ten?
Answer: You can influence each other with your actions and words.
[332564]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Good Taste in Small, Corporeal Things.”
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Question: Adam HaRishon had one program and the Creation had another. Are we starting to follow a third program?
Answer: No, there is only one program called the plan of creation (Machshevet haBriya), and it is constantly working. Depending on what level the souls (desires) are at, more or less broken, this program behaves one way or another. It is just like in a computer, there is nothing complicated here.
Question: Then why do we say that we are returning to the state of Adam? He did not have any egoism, did he?
Answer: There was, but it was hidden, which is why it shattered. Adam had everything. There is nothing new; there is only revealing data.
Question: Will we still have this egoism after the final correction (Gmar Tikun)?
Answer: Billions and billions of times more. Otherwise, how will we achieve a vast corrected state without a huge ego?
[332628]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is it right to remember good impressions from previous connections in the ten and use them to reveal new connections in a new ten, or should we start from scratch and not take anything from the past?
Answer: You do not need to start from scratch. Start with the good connection you already have with the upper and wish to strengthen it.
Question: You say, “Open your heart.” Who opens the heart first: the person or the Creator?
Answer: The Creator always opens a person’s heart, but this is already a response to a person’s prayer.
Question: Love should come from above when we feel friends closer than ourselves. How can we hasten this?
Answer: Try to relate this way to the Creator.
Question: What comes first: love for the Creator or love for friends? Do we come to love the Creator through the love of friends or vice versa?
Answer: You can do it both ways. Generally, we come to love for the Creator from the love of friends. We still do not know what love is, and we can mistake almost any good feeling for it.
[332554]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/20, “The Spiritual Power of a Physical Gathering”
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Question: The nature of egoism contains the spirit of foolishness. Can it be avoided through internal work?
Answer: No, you cannot avoid it. The Creator specifically develops it in order to give you the opportunity to grow more and overcome egoism.
Question: Why does a person lose the importance of what the Creator gives over time? Why does the value of what is received decrease?
Answer: Because a person must constantly exalt the Creator in their eyes. If they forget about it, the Creator immediately falls in their eyes, and they have no one to turn to.
[332661]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Good Taste in Small, Corporeal Things”
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Wherever I mention My name, meaning that you will give me the possibility to attribute My name to your actions (Rabash, “The Path of Truth“).
Question: How can we incorporate this into our lives so that we always give the Creator this possibility?
Answer: By desiring for the Creator to start working with you, addressing Him from all states, and always trying to engage Him in a dialogue, meaning, attempting to speak with the Creator and waiting for His response.
Question: In what form does a Kabbalist receive the Creator’s answer?
Answer: Most often in the form of what happens to him.
Question: Does it mean that we feel something as a reaction of the Creator in events and sensations?
Answer: Yes, the correct reaction is that we accept everything from the Creator: both good and seemingly bad. We only want to come closer to Him through our appeal to the Creator.
[332676]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “The Path of Truth”
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Question: Can we say that our action of bestowal consists of active connection; for example, during a lesson, preparing for a lesson, studying and working in the ten are the desire, the passive vessel for work in active connection, and the work is the request for correction of the vessel, its fulfillment, and transmitting the light to the entire world?
Answer: Yes, this should be our intention. Therefore, before we open the computer and connect with our friends, we need to think about why we are doing this: to be connected together in one single vessel, to direct it to the Creator, and to reveal the Creator within it.
If we direct ourselves toward connection with friends, toward reading articles, and each time overcome various obstacles with an effort, we naturally receive much greater benefit from this.
[332665]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/24, Writings of Rabash “Affliction Precedes Mercy”
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Question: How can we be rewarded with going by faith above reason?
Answer: Mainly through turning to the Creator through prayer.
Question: Can we help friends in the ten to go with faith above reason?
Answer: Of course, if you connect, you will help each other.
[332668]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/24, Writings of Rabash “Affliction Precedes Mercy”
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Question: UNESCO plans to send information about the cultural heritage of humanity to the Moon. They are translating it into 275 languages and significantly investing in this. The capsule will be sent aboard a Japanese automated module. This decision was explained as a necessity to preserve some information about the human race in case of a global catastrophe on Earth.
Do you think anyone will need the experience of humanity that managed to destroy itself?
Answer: No, but that is just what we are accustomed to do.
Question: Do you think no one will need it after all?
Answer: I think humanity is still in such an embryonic state that any possible other civilizations are several levels higher.
Question: So are we some kind of children?
Answer: Yes, therefore it is very easy to scan us.
Question: Are we, as you said, petty egoists on the surface of this Earth and that is it?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: And all the experience, all culture, all the science, all the millennia of development—all of that…
My Response: What about science? Science exists in nature and is open to all. Art is also very relative as it depends on the organs of perception.
I believe that no one needs this. But humanity wants to cheer itself up a bit, to uplift itself, as if to say: “Look at what we are doing, we are declaring to everyone who we are and what we are.”
Question: What do you think if we received a message now that once there were people who created a civilization here, some living beings, and then they killed each other and disappeared, would that study teach us anything?
Answer: No, that is how it was, but it did not teach us anything.
Question: Do we even know why they destroyed each other?
Answer: It is the usual human egoistic nature.
Question: Did this knowledge not lead us anywhere?
Answer: Nowhere, of course.
Question: Why does experience not teach us?
Answer: It is not even in our genes to be afraid of this. There is nothing at all.
Question: Why did the Creator exclude this possibility in us?
Answer: So that we would be independent from our nature.
Question: So if we are dependent on our nature, we learn nothing?
Answer: No.
Question: And if we become independent of it, then who do we learn from?
Answer: That is impossible!
Question: Is it a catch-22?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How can we navigate through this?
Answer: We need to reach the level of anti-egoistic interaction with each other.
Question: What is that?
Answer: As it is said in Kabbalah—faith above reason.
Question: So is all our interaction egoistic?
Answer: It is absolutely egoistic. And we have no possibility to exist if we do not rise above this nature.
Question: On the other hand you say that it is also not easy to rise above nature.
Answer: It is not easy, but it is possible.
Question: Do we need to have a proof of this—that there were people who rose above? We come back again to the fact that people who rose above have some experience?
Answer: No. In principle, we did not have such examples in the past.
Question: Where does your confidence come from that this is possible?
Answer: Because the Torah states so, and it was given for this purpose. We need to use the Torah to rise above our nature.
Comment: Please tell me, you just used the phrase “faith above reason.” This is actually the basis of Kabbalah.
My Response: Yes.
Question: Can you explain it simply to ordinary people? What is “faith above reason”? I live according to reason, right?
Answer: Yes, we live entirely according to reason. But we need to rise to the next degree, the degree of faith above reason.
Question: Does this mean that I just believe?
Answer: No, it does not mean just believing. It means governing yourself from the degree above our egoistic nature.
Question: Should I imagine myself being on this degree?
Answer: It is impossible to imagine. So it is a problem, but it is solvable. I think that ultimately humanity will solve it.
Question: Basically, we understand what faith below reason is. It means that we are told: “Believe.” Is that below reason?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Faith at the level of reason is also more or less understandable. This is science, which says: “I have proven it.” This can be so. But faith above reason, you say, is a degree above reason that we need to reach?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Essentially, is the Creator on this degree?
Answer: I think the Creator is beyond this degree. But to rise to this degree, we need the Creator.
Question: Does He want us to do this?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What does He do to help us rise to this degree?
Answer: He responds to our prayers. If we truly want this, desire it, and ask Him, He will do it.
Question: If I truly rise to the level of faith above reason, if we rise to this level, what does my state become?
Answer: You begin to feel the force of the Creator who fills all of nature, and you are in contact with Him.
Question: What is your definition of the Creator whom I begin to feel?
Answer: The upper force in which we exist.
Question: What is it like?
Answer: The force of goodness, the force of care.
Question: Do I begin to flow in this state?
Answer: Yes, it becomes your natural state.
[332354]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/1/24
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Question: What is the first point of contact with the Creator in the ten?
Answer: The first point of contact with the Creator occurs when the Keter of the lower connects with the Malchut of the upper.
The Keter of the lower, that is, the Keter of the ten, is the force of your bestowal. It rises and reaches the Malchut of the upper.
Question: Let’s say that we have gathered with the friends and formed the force of bestowal, Keter between us. How can we now connect with the Malchut of the upper?
Answer: With each other you form your common Keter, and all that remains for you is to connect to the Malchut of the upper. To do this, you must connect all your desires for bestowal, i.e., all your Keters, and raise them to what the upper one desires from you.
Question: How can we feel the Creator in our feelings in order to connect our Keters with Him?
Answer: By forming a connection between yourselves, you will be able to feel what the Malchut of the upper one is, rise to it, group together, and grasp it. This is what we need to do.
[332561]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/20, “The Spiritual Power of a Physical Gathering”
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Question: The Creator corrects our souls slowly and in portions. Is it possible to speed up the stages of spiritual growth, and what does it depend on?
Answer: It depends on your connection in the ten. If you turn to the Creator on your own, this is one thing. But if several friends ask together with you, and even better the whole ten, the Creator answers immediately and as directly as possible.
In spirituality, we can only strive for ever greater connection. In this way, we protect ourselves from losing important elements of our path along the way.
[332570]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Good Taste in Small, Corporeal Things”
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In order to create a relationship between us, which is called the spiritual world, we need support. Therefore, Kabbalists say that since one person alone is insufficient in the entire scope of the universe, 600,000 souls were created, i.e., the main vessel (Kli) in a shattered state.
Subsequently, this main vessel further divided into millions, even billions of particles.
As egoism manifests more and more, the number of these particles increases so that each one, like an individual atom, can correct itself and connect with other particles based on correction, on the basis of the qualities of bestowal.
Initially, these particles were connected to each other by the Creator’s force in the quality of His bestowal. Then this quality of the Creator disappeared, ascended. Now, we must begin to once again attract the upper light into the connections between us so that it reassembles us into the structure called “Adam.”
Thus, as stated in Baal HaSulam’s Letter 4: You lack nothing but to go out to a field that the Lord has blessed, and collect all those flaccid organs that have drooped from your soul, and join them into a single body – into a single desire. This is what we must engage in. This is our only task. We should have nothing else before our eyes.
In this world, I act automatically: I work, take care of my body, my family, and everything else. But why do I do all this while living as if in a dream? It is in order to connect with other souls and reveal the Creator to the extent of our connection. The Creator manifests as the light that connects the separate shattered parts.
If this is so, then it is natural that the Kabbalists, who began to attain these states individually, immediately realized that this must be done together, formed a group in which people mutually help each other and create such combinations of desires and aspirations that helps their connection.
[332483]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How do we determine what we need to stay on the spiritual path, what we should discard and what else to develop?
Answer: We must constantly develop and increase the connection between us and the Creator.
To increase the connection in the ten means to need each other more and more. I look at my friends and see that I cannot do something without a particular friend or something else without another one. This one sets an example for me, this one annoys me, but all of this pushes me to work on myself. That is, every person in the ten is necessary; that is what the Creator does.
Question: If I have a negative impression of a friend, is it still very valuable? Is this some kind of important signal from the Creator?
Answer: Sure. Least of all I expect positive feelings from them, on the contrary, negative feelings are more suitable for my work on myself.
[332567]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Good Taste in Small, Corporeal Things”
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Question: How can we constantly check that we have not strayed from the spiritual path?
Answer: It is only in a group when you unite and feel that you are all at a single point, in a single desire, everyone leaves his “I,” unites with others, and comes to merge with the Creator.
[332557]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 17
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Question: Why is everything that students receive from their great teacher not called bread of shame?
Answer: Were you ashamed of what you received from your parents?
Comment: No.
My Response: See, this is natural. I understand it, feel it, am proud of it, satisfied, and happy.
[332616]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “ The Path of Truth”
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Question: How is the confidence of a Kabbalist expressed? How is it conveyed to the outer world?
Answer: The confidence of a Kabbalist comes solely from their connection with the Creator. To the extent of their union with the Creator, they are confident that they will not make mistakes, that they will convey to people what they need, and thereby help them.
[332601]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “ The Path of Truth”
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that there are two paths to realizing the idea of Kabbalah. The first is the natural path of development, a path of suffering. The second one is the path when people, after some educational process, will be able to advance to altruistic properties consciously. How can this take place?
Answer: The preliminary stage of the second path of development is realizing the evil of our egoistic nature. I think it is already happening.
In other words, all current confrontations, crises, and wars between Russia and the Western World have to change humanity gradually and show that no one wins anything in a war and there are no victors.
We are practically going through this state. We means all of humanity. That is because at the end of the days, meaning at the end of human development, we will not be dividing ourselves into countries, not even into continents, but instead, we will begin to aspire to rise above our nature. That is much bigger than mutual agreements between people, countries, etc.
Even though we do not realize it yet, I hope we are already starting to learn the laws that will bring us to complete correction.
[332046]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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Question: In our world, we know what it means to love parents, children, men, women, and friends. How is the love for people similar or different from the love we develop within ourselves?
Answer: We want the love we can channel from the Creator to pass through us to all people so that everyone feels they are receiving love from Him.
Question: I see in the external world how people are closed in themselves and don’t see others. Within our society, I understand everything: there is prayer and personal example. But what should we do in the external world?
Answer: Gradually, people will develop and also desire to have the quality of bestowal. Wait a little bit; we are just beginning our work. We need to write and speak more about this.
[332335]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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Question: It is said that when a person goes to the market to earn money, they should push away thoughts of private providence and act as if he is doing the work without the Creator. Can we not combine everyday actions with thoughts of the Creator? Why should we push these thoughts away?
Answer: No, you should not push away thoughts of the Creator. However, we should still not distance ourselves from global providence.
[332498]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 16
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Question: How can we distinguish between the two impacts of the Creator on us to choose which to say first: “There is none else besides Him” or “If I am not for myself, who is for me”?
Answer: You need to cleanse your heart a little, and then you will understand the attitude of the Creator toward you.
Question: In which case will I have the opportunity to say: “If I am not for myself, who is for me”? Because it is always convenient for me to say: “There is none else besides Him.”
Answer: Of course, that is always better.
[332502]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 16
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that we need to increase love for our friends because this is enough to compensate for all your deficiencies. How can we practically implement this advice?
Answer: This is something that friends must decide among themselves. When you start to reveal the faults in your unity, everything will work out accordingly.
Question: But love for friends seems like some kind of ephemeral feeling. How can we increase it among ourselves?
Answer: As it is said: “Love covers all transgressions.” Everyone in the group checks themselves and their attitude toward each friend, and then they see what needs to be corrected. This is your work for today.
[332491]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 13
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Question: The sages say that a fool loses what is given to him. How can we not lose what is given from above in spirituality?
Answer: If you hold on to this together and not separately, then you will be able to hold on to everything that the Creator sends to you. He will give you important things as He sees you striving to lay hold of spiritual things together.
Question: How can we not be afraid of falling and how can we enlist the support of the Creator?
Answer: Be together in one ten and hold on to each other. Then you will not have these problems. You should feel like you are with your friends.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/24, Writings of Rabash “Good Taste in Small, Corporeal Things.”
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Question: Should a person feel ashamed that he cannot pray? He feels that his heart is not opening and experiences some kind of shame.
Answer: The person should still try to pray and read from the prayer book. Gradually, it will become clear to him what is written in these texts and how to turn to the Creator to learn something from such correct treatment.
Question: Should everyone pray according to the prayer book, or can they do it on their own if they feel that the Creator hears them?
Answer: You can do it on your own, but you still need to read the prayer book.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/24, Writings of Rabash “The Path of Truth”
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Question: What is everyone’s spiritual uniqueness? How can we reveal it to unite not in desires, but in intentions where we are equal and everyone adds their own color to infinity?
Answer: You should try to rise above your ego and imagine that you already have the right qualities: love, desire to please others, and so on. If you act like this, you will succeed.
One’s spiritual uniqueness lies in the fact that he wants to fulfill another, although he does not understand how he does it in a way that no one else can in his place.
That is what the law of “love your neighbor as yourself” is about—investing in relations with friends.
Ninety percent of the followers can reveal their individuality and its realization only through the leaders. However, for the leaders to help them, the followers must exert the proper measurable effort. They need to try to be with such people who pull the group forward and thus act to correct everyone.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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All of the souls extend from the soul of Adam HaRishon, for after he sinned in the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, his soul divided into 600,000 souls.
This means that the one light that Adam HaRishon had, which The Zohar called Zihara Ila’a [upper brightness], which he had in the Garden of Eden at once, spreads into numerous pieces (Rabash, Article 10 (1984) “To What Degree One must Attain In Order To Not Reincarnate”).
The Creator created a desire opposite Himself, seemingly separated from Him. The Creator is the attribute of bestowal. Desire is a property of reception. But in the state in which it was created, desire does not experience opposition to the Creator. Therefore, it undergoes division into 600,000 parts.
Six hundred thousand is a conditional concept. In spirituality, there is no division into parts or stages. We divide it this way for ourselves to grade, label, weigh, and determine spiritual states. In reality, spirituality is a continuous field without any distinctions.
Only when we try to feel and understand it and we need to somehow grasp it in our feelings and thoughts, do we divide it relative to ourselves into gradations and facets, although it is indivisible.
For example, consider air. Suppose we are trying to define what air is; we must divide it relative to ourselves into some quantities, values, and qualities. By itself, it may not have them at all, but otherwise, we cannot grasp or define it.
Therefore, for us to comprehend the Creator, He specifically created within Himself the desire to bestow and give pleasure. However, He does not represent the desire to bestow, to fill, a good or evil desire—all these manifest only in relation to the creations.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How is giving a bribe to the Sitra Achra different from the conditions when a person stands before the Creator in order to learn?
Answer: If I feel that I am standing before the Creator, I make very clear calculations: for myself or for the Creator.
In this way, I determine how much I can keep for myself and how much I should give. By clarifying what can be given for the sake of the Creator, I make a restriction on everything else.
I figure out how to divide the pleasure from my action. Therefore, everything here is based only on the correct calculations that come only with experience.
We must learn to work with the Sitra Achra because it will accompany us until the final correction (Gmar Tikkun).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Bribing the Sitra Achra”
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Question: If I have some illness, does that mean I have the wrong intention because I am not in joy?
Answer: No, it is much more complicated than that. Do not think that illness is a consequence of your wrong intentions.
Question: How should we react when we feel that the Creator does not seem good to us?
Answer: Ask Him to reveal Himself to you in the correct form.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Bribing the Sitra Achra”
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Question: When we correctly raise MAN, the response from the Creator comes to us in the form of MAD. Is it possible to understand whether our MAN was accepted or not?
Answer: Of course, this can be understood through the attitude of the Creator toward me: I am for the Creator and the Creator is for me.
Question: We act in the center of the connection of the ten. How can we discern the attitude of the Creator toward us through our prayer?
Answer: Treat Him as correctly as possible, and after that begin to read His response in the relationships between you.
Question: What changes? Is it some level of unity between us?
Answer: Everything changes. Absolutely everything.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 8
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Question: You said that everyone has their own Creator. When we unite and perceive each other’s Creator, what happens to Him? Does anything change?
Answer: The Creator combines all His images into one larger image.
Question: How does this affect our further interaction with Him?
Answer: If the unity is maintained, then you cling to Him even more, and if it is not maintained, then it is bad.
It is okay; you will gradually come to unity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/24/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 8
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Question: Can all the desires of the Sitra Achra be forwarded to the Creator?
Answer: Of course.
Question: What is this state when I start arguing with the Creator that I do not want to do something?
Answer: This is your egoism.
Question: What is the difference between Klipa and Sitra Achra?
Answer: There is no difference.
Question: A person should calculate passions, habits, and so on. Should he also calculate what he does not even want for himself but asks the Creator for strength and does what he does not want to do?
Answer: Correct, a person should act this way by calculating what he would like to do but cannot, and ask the Creator for this. That is a very correct prayer.
Question: Working for the Creator should be done with joy. How can one distinguish joy from pleasure in spiritual work?
Answer: Try to distinguish it; this is an internal feeling of a person.
Question: If we, in the ten, receive pleasure from working for the Creator, is this Sitra Achra or not?
Answer: You need to check if you are working for the sake of pleasure or not. That is not easy.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Bribing the Sitra Achra”
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Question: How does Kabbalah relate to the feeling of guilt that arises in me for not dedicating enough time to its study today?
Answer: You should not engage in self-reproach. It is not good. You just need to make peace with the Creator. That is, thank Him for what He gives you, for uplifting you, correcting you, and leading you forward. That is all.
More positive thoughts. Complaining to the Creator will not help you. Later, you will see that you were wrong.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/20, “Connecting into One Soul”
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Question: It is easy for us to love people who are close to us in their qualities. But how can we make ourselves love people who are not like us?
Answer: I do not think you should do this. You should strive for what is revealed in the ten and try to establish friendly relations in it.
Question: What is hatred of others?
Answer: Hatred of others is dislike, a desire to move away from them, to distance oneself.
Question: How can we love our neighbor as ourselves? Do we need to see ourselves in him and love him?
Answer: You can imagine it this way, or you can imagine that your neighbor, whom you want to love, is connected with the Creator, and through him you will love the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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Question: What is the Creator teaching us?
Answer: The Creator wants for you not to forget Him, about the connection with Him, in any state, and to ask Him to raise you to the level of understanding and revelation of these problems.
Question: What is the expression of the love of the Creator for us?
Answer: It is in Him moving us toward the goal of creation.
Question: We always want to please the Creator, but He is constantly moving away.
I am starting to feel disappointed in myself, but there are no answers. And then comes emptiness. What should I fill it with?
Answer: The emptiness is filled with the desire to connect with the Creator. There is no other way.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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Question: Does paying Maaser (tithing) help in advancing toward holiness?
Answer: Paying Maaser is necessary; otherwise, you will not have entry into the spiritual realm. My teacher Rabash did not allow those who were late in paying Maaser to attend classes.
Maaser is a very serious thing: a tenth of our income. It is this that helps us climb up the spiritual ladder. So take this into account.
Question: If I start paying Maaser now, do I have to pay Maaser for the years that I was in Bnei Baruch and did not pay?
Answer: You will have to do this. Maaser is the most important thing in our connection because this money represents a spiritual tithe. Very often people ask me if it is possible to pay more. No, you must pay exactly ten percent, as it says in the Torah: a tenth and no more.
Question: Do I need to know if my friends in the ten are paying Maaser, or should I be sure by faith above reason that they are?
Answer: Everyone in the ten should know this because you are advancing both personally and in the ten. Therefore, your advancement depends on the general payment of Maaser.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Bribing the Sitra Achra”
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Question: When fulfilling another person, how can I avoid overfilling them so as not to harm them or provoke hatred in return?
Answer: We do not actually fulfill someone else, but rather connect with them. They are fulfilled through us.
Question: How can I avoid provoking hatred in return?
Answer: If your intentions and actions are correct, he cannot hate you for this. He cannot.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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We should understand the difference between Yenika [suction/nursing] to the Klipa [shell/peel] and Kedusha [holiness], which is the prohibition between the part that is given to the Sitra Achra [other side], which is permitted,… (Rabash, Notes 232 “Bribing the Sitra Achra”)
The Sitra Achra is the desire to receive and enjoy something material, which is opposite to the desire to give everything to others and the Creator. All our desires are not yet spiritual.
Question: What is the role of the Sitra Achra in spiritual work? You cannot live without it, but you must give something away so it does not interfere.
Answer: Yes, that is how it should be. When we have no choice and we have to give some of what we have to the Sitra Achra, then it does that, and we can do the work of moving toward holiness.
Question: How do we determine what can be given away and what cannot?
Answer: It depends on the person. One must decide which part he takes for himself and which part he leaves for the Sitra Ahra. He must know where he can think about the Creator. And the part that he cannot take for himself since he is sure that it is included in his receiving Kelim, he gives to the Sitra Achra.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Bribing the Sitra Achra.”
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Question: In the generally accepted understanding, love means indulging. How can we talk about loving one’s neighbor if I, in essence, am asking you to stop loving yourself, and this looks more like hatred? How do we get out of this paradox?
Answer: You do not have to stop loving yourself.
Question: But Rabash says that a person must come to self-hatred.
Answer: It will come gradually. After loving not only ten, but generally all people, you will find that you treat yourself with indifference.
Question: That is, you should not strive for hate?
Answer: Under no circumstances can there be any hatred at all.
Question: Some people initially dislike themselves. How should we approach them because they are right about something?
Answer: No, they are wrong. A person must love himself and love everyone else, compare his attitude toward himself with his attitude toward others, and try to make them similar.
Question: There is an approach that to love your neighbor as yourself, you must first love yourself. Is this right?
Answer: True, but the fact is that if you now reveal love for yourself, you will not have the strength to love your neighbor. Therefore, it is better to love your neighbor as yourself and then compare love for yourself with love for your neighbor.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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Question: How can I understand that a soul has clothed itself in me?
Answer: Your current desire to understand why you exist is called the soul. You live to fulfill this desire and satisfy it.
Question: With the concept of “600,000 souls,” the number does not reflect the number of people or bodies, right? Is it a qualitative level related to the position of each spark relative to the worlds?
Answer: No, it is not. Each person carries a piece of the collective soul. Therefore, it is said that the collective soul is divided into parts, each of which is within us, and this is how we correct them.
Question: How should one work on oneself to avoid succumbing to the temptation of receiving for oneself? How can one feel this temptation?
Answer: This is a long process of correction. One must study and engage in this. It is a spiritual training mainly described in Rabash’s articles.
Question: Will moving to Israel affect spiritual advancement?
Answer: Undoubtedly.
Question: Why does spirituality not divide and separate into parts?
Answer: There are no different intentions and actions there because it is whole. Everything is aimed only at integration, to become similar to the Creator. Just as He is one, so must we be one single whole in our souls.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/20, “Connecting into One Soul”
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Question: Should we love creatures for being creations or for their qualities?
Answer: I love creations because I am commanded to love them for no other reason.
Question: Should I hate the hatred within myself?
Answer: Toward others yes if you have hatred toward them.
Question: How can I request this, as I see that I do not have this desire within me?
Answer: Try acting automatically.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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Question: I no longer derive pleasure from anything, and I even feel that I cannot bring pleasure to anyone else because I no longer remember what it is like. How, then, can I bring contentment to the Creator, and what action should I take for this?
Answer: There are such concepts as commandments. Do whatever you want for the sake of the Creator, and everything will be fine.
Question: But the Creator is an abstract system. How can I do something for it?
Answer: This system is connected to your mind, your nerves, your desires, and your intentions. So perform actions for its sake, then you will quickly see how it responds to you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/24, Writings of Rabash “Action and Thought”
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There must be many separate people in the world, each of whom carries an elementary piece of common egoism. We are the consequences of our previous changes. As Baal HaSulam writes, there are no new souls in our world that are just beginning their development from the most elementary states.
Each of us carries very important information, and without it, there will be no complete correction, no perfect states of the soul—the creation. Everyone should understand their responsibility for the opportunity to advance the whole creation to the Creator by their own efforts, because without him it is unattainable.
Each person is not just a small particle striving toward the Creator and advancing the collective soul by a tiny millimeter, no! In spirituality, this is a much more complex and comprehensive movement. When a person works on uniting with others, they completely become that single soul created by the Creator.
Spirituality does not divide into parts, does not dissolve, and does not multiply. It gradually reveals itself to a person as an eternal, perfect, and unified state. Everything happens only to the extent that our perceptions are corrected.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What is the meaning of true pleasure in life?
Answer: The meaning of life is to attain the Creator because this is the highest pleasure we can achieve.
We are made in such a way that the light we absorb from the Creator, called His revelation, is the greatest fulfillment; there is no other.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/20, “Connecting into One Soul”
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Question: How can we live without coming back to the question about the meaning of life?
Answer: This question will be repeated every day and even several times a day. We cannot advance without it. Therefore, the Creator sends it to us.
But when we answer this question, we feel it differently every time: deeper, more exalted, and so on. So, we must ask ourselves what the meaning of life is and make attempts to rise.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/20, “Connecting into One Soul”
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Question: If we receive blessings in intention, does it mean that the specific action we perform does not matter?
Answer: If this action leads to the dissemination of Kabbalah and correction of the world, then this action is of course desirable and higher than others. We work on the intention for the action. Intention alone, without action, has no right to exist.
Question: There is the intention we create before the action. And there is the true intention that we receive as a result of our efforts in the actions. How can I understand if I am feeling the true intention or if I am deceiving myself?
Answer: Deceive yourself, it does not matter. The main thing is that you are engaged in the work.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/24, Writings of Rabash “Action and Thought”
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The Creator is everywhere. This is the common, united, single, constantly operating force of the entire universe. Everything that exists besides Him is called a creation, specially created by Him and existing in Him.
We are inside the Creator—inside this common light. Our task is to reveal Him, to unite with Him, to achieve absolutely complete dissolution, unification, similarity, and adhesion with Him.
This is the meaning or reason for creating created beings that are opposite to the Creator. Our work, our goal is to understand what the qualities of the Creator are and how we can change ourselves to come closer to Him.
This is the essence of human existence in our world in the state in which we find ourselves—in a state that is created by the upper light, working on our egoistic desire to receive, enjoy, maintain ourselves at every moment of life only for ourselves.
This desire automatically works in us, and we must realize it and understand it—whether we agree with it or not—and then rise above it in order to achieve coupling, connection, and agreement with the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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How it rains and how snowflakes melt …
(Omar Khayyam)
Comment: Even at the moment I was reading, a sudden calm came over me.
My Response: Of course.
Question: Is this understanding life? Just observing?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What does it mean to just observe life? After all, I am living it.
Answer: It means seeing how everything in it passes, moves, develops, fades, and dies.
Question: So, I just observe? But I am a participant in all of this. These are my loved ones.
Answer: You can be a participant depending on how you perceive it.
Question: What does observing mean to you? You still perceive things, that there are problems and everything.
Answer: I would say that I perceive life as a slowly flowing river. Only our absurd actions disturb its state of smooth, good balance.
Question: How can a person become the observer of their own life?
Answer: Look from the side, and most importantly, do not accept everything that is about you and for you.
Question: How?
Answer: Understand that it flows next to you, then everything will be simpler and more accurate. I do not think life should be perceived as if it always wants to tell you something personally. This will cause such internal disturbances that a person will not be able to relate to life correctly.
Question: It is said that everything exists for man. What does that mean in this context?
Answer: It is for them to see themselves in this stream of life. Just as we attend the funerals of others so others will attend ours. And so on. There is nothing unnatural about it; everything flows.
Question: So is that how I should live?
Answer: Yes, this is not indifference; it is just a way of perceiving life.
Question: Is this the right way to perceive life?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But we are always looking for the meaning of life. It would be good to find a higher meaning of life to strive toward. Where does this simple observation you talk about fit in? Does it disappear and some kind of drive begins?
Answer: No. What can drive achieve? On the contrary, if we want to see meaning in life, we must immerse ourselves in it and flow along with it.
Question: When it is said that everything is within a person, what does it mean that everything is within me?
Answer: It means that both the correct and the harmful attitude toward the world, people, and oneself are within a person. A person should still attune himself to the fact that everything in the world is indeed flowing. This is a vast river. And if they want to throw themselves into it, I do not think that is right. It is better to observe.
Question: Where does this river flow? It is known that rivers flow somewhere.
Answer: This river, yes. As written in the Torah: Gihon, Pishon, these rivers flow into the system of the upper world, to paradise, to hell, and so on.
Question: But one would still like to flow into paradise. Or does a person have no such thoughts?
Answer: Throw yourself into this river, close your eyes, and let it carry you. And do not think. Because the one who created all this determines everything.
Comment: I remember a simple example. When I eat, I eat quickly. And I eat an apple the same way. But you once described how Rabash would sit down, peel an apple, and eat it slowly. I remember this somehow gave the impression of a certain attitude toward life.
My Response: He had a very serious attitude. He took every minute very seriously. Very seriously!
Comment: For some reason, that example stayed with me. I would like to live like that.
My Response: Take an apple, a plate, a knife, sit down, start peeling it, and cut off pieces.
Question: And live like that?
Answer: And live.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24
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When I studied with Rabash, I went through very different states, just like my students do now, and they were even worse because I was alone with the teacher.
Now three hundred people share my attitude toward them, but I was alone. It was very difficult for me; I often had breakdowns and neglected my studies. A person must go through everything. Rabash, of course, understood this.
Question: Did you miss lessons?
Answer: No, never. Never! Only one day could I not leave the house. He called me demanding that I come immediately. But I answered that I could not, I was being held back by such a force that I could not get out. Then he said: “Yes, now I feel what this force is.”
It was a very interesting state when you cannot do anything; there is no calculation here, you just cannot. I cried into the phone that something was not letting me in, I could not move, absolutely! Like a man whose body has been taken away.
Question: And what should you do in this state?
Answer: Nothing. It teaches you who you are, what kind of “hero” you are.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalist’s Supersenses” 3/11/10
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Question: Kabbalistic books describe two tendencies that exist in nature: Igulim and Yosher—circles and a straight line.
Therefore, we see a tendency toward globalization to completely erase a person’s personality so that everything would be one whole.
On the contrary, there is also a tendency toward nationalization, some kind of national values, individualism, and so on. How can both these trends be linked?
Answer: We still have to realize and go through this, but in principle, by no means should we sacrifice the individuality of each of us, but rather we need to allow it to develop.
We must understand that the future of humanity lies only in the complete unity of everyone with each other, but not in the sense that it pressures a person and forces them to be like others. That is, there must be a combination of these two tendencies.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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Question: If we observe the desires of ordinary people, many of them are balanced by the laws of nature and are rewarded with pleasures of the material world.
This does not seem to contradict the highest law to delight His creation at their level.
Answer: When necessary, He pulls them up.
Question: What is the role of this part of creation?
Answer: They are waiting for their turn.
Question: At the level of desires, should we also be balanced, that is, be in harmony with the general governance? Or are the desires of Kabbalists balanced only by the study of Kabbalah?
Answer: Only by studying Kabbalah.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/24, Writings of Rabash “Concealed and Revealed in His Providence”
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Question: A Kabbalistic book becomes the carrier of the light of correction, when we work with it correctly. When each of us goes to work every day, is he a carrier of light?
Answer: If we do not have the intention, then we are not carriers.
It is necessary to have the intention to bestow, to love, and to infect others with the attitude of love for everyone.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Anyone with Whom the Spirit of the People Is Pleased – 2”
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Comment: You often say that it is worth focusing not on the teacher, but on the Creator.
My Response: Of course; otherwise, you are idol worshiping.
Comment: But I do not know what the Creator is.
My Response: Yes, but the moment you start idolizing some person, kissing his hands, giving him gifts—that’s it! You are already focused on him. Subconsciously, you lock yourself onto him, depend on him, and believe he will secure your future, instead of you yourself.
It already deprives you of choice, freedom of will, and freedom of action. You rely on him, become small, and stop growing. Therefore, Kabbalah forbids this.
Question: But how can we focus on the Creator if we do not feel spirituality?
Answer: You must create Him precisely from disparate manifestations, accidents, and everything that arises in you, from all your friends, and unite all this into one single, maximally possible spiritual force.
Try to gather everything you feel into one force—there is none else besides Him, the good that does good.
Aim all your inner feelings, understanding, what is in your heart and mind, absolutely everything that you see, seem to see, think, only toward one single force—the good who does good; there is none else besides Him. Through His numerous manifestations, He gives you an enormous amount of different information, impressions, sensations, and thoughts so you can gather everything together into one whole.
And then you will reveal Him, for as you make efforts, your soul forms a single vessel within you, an instrument similar to the Creator.
[330959]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Recognize the Creator!“ 4/10/10
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Question: What does a negative attitude toward Kabbalists lead to?
Answer: A Kabbalist is a person who fulfills the program of creation and wants to harmoniously and integrally connect with nature.
If I hate him, it means that I hate not him, but in general the philosophy of his existence, the purpose of his life. That is, I am the opposite of nature, opposed to it, and I put myself in opposition to the forces of nature.
Naturally, such an attitude will cause the strongest suffering in me. If not now, it will be revealed later anyway. It may seem that I am somehow benefiting from this, but in the end, I will have to pay a very heavy price for everything.
We will see all these calculations that will be presented to people who have hindered the spiritual development of mankind. These are the most terrible corrections that they will have to go through.
Comment: You said a negative attitude is also good. That is, the person is still included in the process and is influenced by the light.
Answer: Indifference is the worst, yes. A negative attitude, assuming it is rational, that makes people look for the reasons why they are against it, is helpful. I know many people who, due to their desire to criticize me, became my students.
[330081]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Hidden Influence of The Zohar” 3/7/10
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Question: There is no time in the spiritual, i.e., we enjoy the present, past, and future as a a whole. Could my purpose in our world be to see it all as one whole?
Answer: It depends on the person, to what extent one feels one’s state, to what extent one can divide it into past, present, and future, and to what extent one is with one’s friends, and through them, can pass his sensations.
Question: What will help a person who seems to have lost the ability to dream and imagine the state of bestowing to the Creator?
Answer: Relax a little by reading Kabbalistic books and participate in what you can. There are ascents and descents; everything goes in a sine wave.
[332090]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Receiving Pleasure from Three Kelim [Vessels]”
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Question: A knight was walking. Along the way, he lost his horse and armor and only his sword remained. The knight was hungry and thirsty.
Suddenly, in the distance, he saw a lake. But right by the lake sat a three-headed dragon. The knight drew his sword and with his last strength began to fight.
He fought for a day and for a second day. He cut off two of the dragon’s heads. On the third day, the dragon fell, exhausted. Next to him fell the exhausted knight. And then, with his last strength, the dragon asks: “Knight, what did you want?” The knight replied: “To drink some water.” The dragon said, “Well, you could have drunk.”
I want to ask you. We are constantly in a struggle: for honor, for freedom, for our homeland, for whatever we want. I have a feeling that all these enemies we fight to the death are all made up. Is that so or not?
Answer: Yes, all of this is the product of our empty egoism.
Question: So you can simply drink the water? Why are you fighting?
Answer: Of course.
Question: And tell me, what is not made up? What struggle is not made up? They always say: “The struggle for life.” Is a person born for struggle or not?
Answer: A person is born to find work and peace in it, as well as to provide for himself, his loved ones, and family, naturally. And in this he should see his primary purpose.
Question: And after that? Should there be something more?
Answer: After that, he should develop.
Question: What do you mean by develop?
Answer: Develop his egoism, which pulls him forward, and thus gradually delve into nature.
Question: To what end?
Answer: To the meaning of life.
Question: So in any case, a person must move toward the meaning of life?
Answer: It will always be there in a person. It will always stand before him as an unresolved task.
Question: And why will it always be unresolved, unresolved, and unresolved?
Answer: To pull him out of this world.
Question: “Pull him out of this world,” what does that mean to you?
Answer: To pull him out of this petty egoism, to understand where the goal ends that nature or the Creator wishes to lead him to, to let a person master it and find peace.
Question: And we, in principle, exist at the level of petty egoism?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Does the Earth exist at this level?
Answer: Of course, yes.
Question: And great egoism, is it the desire to get out of this state?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But you still say it is egoism?
Answer: Of course.
Question: And there is still this three-headed dragon. If you say that a person must always develop egoism, you do not need to constantly chop off its heads or do you?
Answer: Egoism—the more you chop at it, the faster it grows.
Question: So more and more heads grow in its place?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Should you still chop it off or not?
Answer: You should.
Question: And the heads will keep growing?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: And chop again.
My Response: But each time they will be more complex, higher.
Question: And you will need to develop in order to chop off the heads again?
Answer: Yes.
Question: I see. And at what point will the dragon say, like in the parable: “Well, you could have drunk. Why are you fighting with me?” Will such a moment come?
Answer: No, we will not have that.
Question: We will not? We will have to keep fighting?
Answer: Yes.
[331373]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/17/24
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Question: You said that there is a lack of connection between the tens. We mostly focus on connection within the ten. What is connection between tens?
Answer: The connection between tens should be like the connection between all people: each one shall help his friend. But for one ten to help another, we need the upper force, the Creator, to whom we pray to take care of the other ten. This is what we can do, as it is said: “He who prays for his friend receives first.” Therefore, by turning to the Creator with a request to take care of a certain ten, we will feel how this works on us.
Question: How do we build this work correctly? For example, which ten should my ten take care of?
Answer: Tens that are close to you both linguistically and geographically.
Question: So should each ten take care of another ten?
Answer: No, it is not about taking care of them in a way that helps them rise. On the contrary, by helping them, you yourself ascend and become more similar to the Creator.
[332137]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter No. 2
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When a person does some corporeal lust, the lust is not regarded as a construction because it is only temporary. When the lust passes away, nothing is left of it, such as eating and drinking, and so forth. But when one learns or prays, this exists after the action, too (Rabash, Notes 690 “This World and the Future”).
Question: What remains after our spiritual action, study, and prayer?
Answer: The overall impact on our relationship system remains. After all, the fact that we were in prayer for unification and uplift is all the impact on the system.
Question: How can we build the right intention so that the system really changes and we correct something in our prayer, in our studies?
Answer: This is what Rabash writes about. If a person means that through his actions and prayers he wants to rise, then gradually this affects the system, and it lifts him up.
[331879]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/24, Writings of Rabash “This World and the Future”
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Question: Is the perception of all the Creator’s actions as rewards one of the spiritual goals?
Answer: In general, yes. The Creator does only good and treats us as His children.
Just as we punish children when we want them to be better and remember some things cannot be done, so does He.
Question: I really don’t want to get punished. What main corrections should I make so as not to suffer?
Answer: Treat everyone around you kindly and pray to the Creator that you want to be closer to Him.
[332070]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/24, Writings of Rabash “Concealed and Revealed in His Providence”
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Entering any world, the period of adaptation to it, the accumulation of initial knowledge with which we further develop, is the same in our and in the spiritual world. It is the same nature.
There is nothing unnatural about it. On the contrary, it is as natural as the development of infants to the level of little people. We are just the same. We have no other way but to learn from them.
Here he lies, just born: people start cooing to him, and he responds; they try to stir him up somehow, and he gradually responds; the adult smiles, he smiles.
He learns literally everything. And in this way, he programs himself from the adult, because in fact he is an empty desire in which there is nothing yet. He needs to be filled with knowledge, skills, impressions, and to create some connections inside. You can make anything out of him.
Similarly, with our desire for spirituality, we free up a certain area for ourselves and say: “This is the area I want to program now and fill with spiritual impressions, not of our world.” And if you want this, you have to act like a newborn baby who hasn’t become a little human being yet.
This is precisely what Kabbalah offers us. And we can do this because you don’t need to be smart here! You just need to understand that in this way you will enter the upper world.
Therefore, it is necessary to consciously go through the stage again that you went through in this world unconsciously when you were born. Nature pushed you there. And now nature demands that you consciously do so, consciously place yourself as a newborn relative to the upper world, and want to adopt all the impressions and properties from it.
[329944]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. We Are Thinking About Our Friend!” 3/11/10
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Question: What does it mean to inform the Creator about an action I do for bestowal?
Answer: You can inform Him about any action you did for His sake. It does not matter that the Creator knows, understands, and accepts your thoughts; when you also inform Him, it stays with you for a long time.
Question: How should I inform Him about my actions?
Answer: Like a friend.
Question: What does a good deed mean in general?
Answer: If you want to bring contentment to the Creator as a result of your action, that action is good.
[332144]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/24, Writings of Rabash “Action and Thought”
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Question: Why are Reshimot called “the past”? In my perception, Reshimot are what is being revealed to me now. For me, it is kind of the future.
Answer: Reshimot are impressions and records of my past states. They may currently determine my tastes, actions, and choices, but they originate from the past.
Question: I am unaware of the many Reshimot I have yet to discover. So does it mean that I always return and encounter the past?
Answer: Reshimot are the light that was in us and disappeared. Its impressions are called informational, spiritual records.
Question: These are Kelim (vessels) for me. But right now, I cannot use, for example, the Kelim that I do not feel. Am I, as if, expanding my perception to enjoy these Kelim? Is this what I still need to do?
Answer: You still have much to do.
[332122]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Receiving Pleasure from Three Kelim [Vessels]”
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Question: We learn that when my Kelim (Vessels) are corrected, I will see my friends as corrected, right?
Answer: Yes. Everything negative you perceive in the world—people, the group, yourself, or anything else—is yours. These are all your negative qualities.
Question: When my Kelim are corrected, will the light pass through these corrections further, and will something outside also change? Should I see that this is happening?
Answer: Not necessarily, not immediately, and not according to what you want to be corrected. Otherwise, you will be working for a reward.
Question: There is another point; it is said that one who prays for the collective receives correction first. Is there a catch here? Every time I encounter this, it does not sit well with me. I want the correction to be outside.
Answer: Then pray for that.
[332114]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: What do the future world and this world mean?
Answer: The future world is the one you do not feel right now, but it will soon reveal itself within you. This world is what you experience at the moment.
Question: It says that the masses can only receive rewards in the world to come, while those who work individually can receive rewards even in this world. What does it mean to work individually, and how can one receive in this world?
Answer: By studying the wisdom of Kabbalah in a group and trying to address the Creator, you do individual work.
With the help of the group, you elevate yourself and address Him. Then, in this world, you receive the reward—the revelation of the Creator.
[332082]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: We know that approximately 10% of the world’s population are altruists. Among them, there are effective altruists who aim to track the results of each donation, every dollar spent, and make it as effective as possible.
How do you feel about this approach to altruism and donations?
Answer: It is good. Naturally, I welcome it. Humanity, at the very least, will know that it is investing in its future, and this future is real. The result is what matters here.
Question: Unlike other types of philanthropic activities, how important is connection to the result when giving? Let’s say I donated money to charity and do not know what happens to it. But my ego is at peace, I have no moral dilemmas about whether what I did is right or wrong.
In this case, however, I constantly have to think: was it effective, was it not effective, did it bring benefits, or did it not? Is this attachment to the result normal?
Answer: Yes, it is necessary. To achieve some more or less positive result, we need to calculate its possibility.
Question: If we talk, not about achieving a result, but about the act of giving, about charity from the point of view of human egoism, is it still normal?
Are additional formulas or calculations needed? Or is it like a regular business?
Answer: I think it is enough to use the principles of regular business. Although, many additional tools will appear to determine the effectiveness of the contribution.
It is still unknown how much investing in science and culture gives a positive result. Here it is necessary to clearly think through how the right answer will come.
Question: In what direction should we at least direct our thoughts?
Answer: In the direction of what we desire from our investment, what the gain should be: in resources, in money, in increasing connections, and so on. We need to clearly define what we consider a positive result.
[331568]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: In his articles, Baal HaSulam writes about narrow egoism. He says that there is a difference between the fact that a person just wants to enjoy, which is really our nature, and narrow egoism in which a person wants to enjoy at the expense of others, using them. What is the problem here?
Answer: The problem is in enjoying at the expense of someone else. Generally I feel good when I enjoy myself and maybe even better when I compare myself to others and see that I am better off, luckier, and so on.
This is growing egoism, which depends on the ego of society and the people.
Comment: So this is different from animal egoism, because animals do not have this.
My Response: No, in animals, everything is only focused on themselves.
Question: But in relation to the goal of creation, the development of humanity, what is the problem with narrow egoism? Suppose a person uses another, that is natural?
Answer: The problem is that he does not want to let the other grow and reach certain heights in profession, society, family, but wants to be above him.
Comment: So what is the problem here? We have been developing this way for tens of thousands of years. And what have we achieved? In principle, a normal society—look at the progress. We live tens, hundreds, of times better than a hundred years ago.
My Response: Undoubtedly. But this happens not by decreasing egoism, but by increasing it. There is nothing good about it. Because if I look to the future, it turns out that by being more egoistic, I win compared to the others. I want them to be less egoistic so that I have the opportunity to dominate them.
This discrepancy practically makes people unhappy.
[331490]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: You often say that spiritual sensations cannot be conveyed and can only be felt. In our world, we understand everything only in relation to its opposite, but in the spiritual world a completely different logic includes everything and all opposites are united.
The problem is that it is impossible to understand or talk about. What should we do with it?
Answer: Just do what you can and ask the Creator to open your heart.
Question: If I have some sense of what truth is, how can this influence my friends to get closer to it too?
Answer: You should pray for everyone, at least for your friends.
Question: If I do this, it would still correct me; then when I am corrected, would I be able to influence my friends correctly?
Answer: Yes, the whole world.
Question: Can there be influence coming from me, even without words, just through my prayer? How does this happen?
Answer: I cannot say how it happens, but it happens even without words, only by virtue of your desire. But it is best with words. We are made so that the more we express our feelings, the more effective they are.
Question: When I express my feelings, they often seem corrupt and impure and bring only harm. I do not know what to do about it. Should I stay quiet?
Answer: Do not worry; the Creator knows what is happening to us and who we are. So do what works best for you.
[332671]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/24, Writings of Rabash “Affliction Precedes Mercy”
Sergey writes:
Is communism bad or is it good? I see how my parents yearn for the old times. And I, looking at today, am not very joyful either. Why couldn’t we build communism? We really wanted it!
Answer: Communism cannot exist without the prior education of society as a whole. Therefore, it is just an illusion, a dream, but quite achievable if people want it.
Question: What was the mistake?
Answer: The mistake was that people were forced to live as if under communism.
Question: How should it have been? What is preliminary education?
Answer: People need to be educated first. And when people want it, then it can be gradually introduced.
Question: How many people need to want it so that it would not be a bloody revolution?
Answer: It does not have to be a revolution at all. It could be a small group of people, like a Kibbutz, that shows it is possible to live this way.
Question: And if they start living this way and suddenly it works, what happens next? Does it start spreading across the world?
Answer: It depends on those in the group.
Question: But do they want it to spread across the world?
Answer: Yes and no. They might want it, but they understand that on a large scale it is still impossible.
Question: So it is not time yet?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What determines if the time has come for equality to spread across the world?
Answer: It is the moral level of society. How society itself desires to bring all its members to unity, to a common level, and so on.
Question: So, here you say, not by force? Everything should be by consensus?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Someone who lives well, earns well, and lives well under capitalism, for example, will he really want to come to this society of equals and so on? What do you think?
Answer: It depends on education.
Question: So he might have such consciousness?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So in conclusion: first education, then non-revolutionary transition?
Answer: Of course. Absolutely!
Question: You have already answered a bit, but still Sergey asks this question: “Still, will communism happen, or is it utopia?”
Answer: I think it will happen, let’s call it communism, but it will not be what we think. It will be a special, wise society where everyone will understand that in such a state it is better for them.
Question: And still, will it be a society of equals, or is it not correct to call it that?
Answer: Equals, yes. But in what?
Question: Yes, that is the question. And what is true equality?
Answer: True equality is that each person is given the opportunity to achieve their dream.
Question: So, you move toward your dream.
Answer: Yes. And what dream he wants to fulfill depends on the education.
Question: That is beautiful! So, you move toward your dream, everyone does that, and then you are kind of equal with them?
Answer: You hold onto it and move forward.
Question: Sergey also asks you: “Dear Michael, what would you say to elderly people who really believed in the ideals of equality, fraternity? Was that correct?”
Answer: It was correct. It was such a time. So there is no need to worry that you were forced or taught some nonsense and you believed in it, and life went on. No. We will still come to this gradually. I think people will come to it.
But communism must be based on education, mutual respect, love, and connection with each other. That is what is said in the Torah: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And all problems are solved by this.
Comment: Just come to this point, and then everything will roll on.
Answer: Yes.
[331524]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/13/24
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Question: An elder was asked: “What is sadness?” “Being sad means always thinking about yourself,” the elder replied.
How simple it really is, and how complicated it is at the same time. Can a person not be sad?
Answer: I do not know; I keep myself occupied.
Question: You keep yourself occupied, but not to avoid sadness, right? Not for that?
Answer: No. Even if I did nothing, I would not be sad.
Question: Do you ever feel sadness at all?
Answer: No.
Question: Why? Everyone feels it, but you do not.
Answer: I do not let this feeling develop within me. That is the first thing.
Second, I find more information about development than I can absorb or encompass. Because of that, I do not feel sad.
Comment: So you always have horizons—more and more.
My Response: Yes, you could say that.
Question: The opposite of sadness is joy. Can one be joyful all the time?
Answer: No.
Question: So one way or another, should such a movement be there?
Answer: Yes, it is natural for a person.
Question: To reach joy, do you need to feel sad?
Answer: To reach joy, you need to realize that what you have is just ordinary life. Therefore, you cannot be in constant joy or some kind of euphoria. But, in principle, you cannot be sad either. You can be in a neutral state and thus feel that you are floating.
Question: And then there will be joy, and then all these states? Joy will come, and then you float again, and so on?
Answer: Yes, in small doses.
Question: Why does the Creator give us these states, including joy and sadness? Why does He give us all this?
Answer: Without this, we would not be able to notice time at all. Only through these opposing feelings: from joy to sadness, from fear to happiness…
Question: Is that why we feel that time is passing?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So what is time?
Answer: It is the alternation of such feelings.
Question: So is time the alternation of these states?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is that all?
Answer: What else could there be for a person?
[331414]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/17/24
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This is the great revelation that will be revealed in full only in the days of the Messiah (Baal Hasulam, The Writings of the Last Generation).
Question: What revelation is Baal HaSulam talking about? What period of time is this, the days of Messiah?
Answer: The time in which we will be able to suppress, annul, our egoistic properties and replace them with the properties of bestowal and love in order to be like the Creator is called the time of Messiah.
This is not a specific time with a date that can now be named, but a period when humanity begins to strive to change itself from the properties of reception to the property of bestowal.
Question: Should a certain mass of people come to this or is it just a few people?
Answer: There must be a certain mass of people who understand that this is necessary.
Naturally, in accordance with this, some external forces will act to push humanity forward, but not those that are influencing us today. We will have to continue teaching Kabbalah so that it will help people get closer to the Creator by means of similarity of properties.
That is, the idea is, in principle, simple. The Creator, who is altruistic by nature, created us as egoists, and we ourselves must want to acquire His altruistic properties.
[332003]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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Question: In the article “The Last Generation,” Baal HaSulam writes that the purpose of creation is to adhere to the Creator in terms of qualities from a state opposite to Him. This is why our world and everything that happens here exists.
What does it mean to adhere to the Creator in terms of qualities? How can this happen?
Answer: First and foremost, it means that the qualities opposite to the Creator, which He does not have but we do, we must annul within ourselves, wish not to use them, and make sure they do not manifest. This is the most important thing.
To the extent that a person makes their qualities similar to the Creator’s, they feel Him.
Comment: But the Creator is concealed; we do not have such a model to observe and check ourselves against.
My Response: The Creator is the quality of bestowal and love. If we can change our egoistic qualities, which are opposite to the Creator to qualities similar to His, then in them we will feel what the Creator feels. Practically, we will feel Him Himself.
[331951]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 7/11/24
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Question: Can we attribute anything to the Creator one hundred percent if the Creator is hidden from us?
Answer: You can attribute everything that happens to you to the Creator.
Question: Is the concealment only for the desire for oneself?
Answer: The concealment can be for any desire, even the highest.
Question: There is such a desire to open up to the Creator, to dissolve in Him, to cleave to Him, but there is not enough strength to push off and rise. Where can one find this strength?
Answer: In prayer.
Question: With our egoism, we constantly disagree with the will of the Creator. How can we agree and thank Him?
Answer: In principle, a person must agree with the Creator, regardless of their situation. Whatever the Creator gives them, they must still show love and connection to Him.
Question: You said that each time we reveal a new Creator. What does that mean?
Answer: It means that He indeed appears as something new in our feelings.
[332021]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/24, Writings of Rabash “Concealed and Revealed in His Providence”
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Question: There are two opposites in Israeli society. On one hand, we are a stiff-necked people with rigid walls separating us. On the other hand, we feel that we are one nation, and this has been preserved for thousands of years. The sense of community is strongly manifested in times of danger and tragedy.
What type of altruism, the most genuine mutual assistance, is needed for Israeli society? What should we strive for in order to direct a part of our lives toward altruism?
Answer: Throughout thousands of years we have experienced many twists and turns in our history. The most important thing for us is to be ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the overall connection of the entire society, the entire nation. This is what Kabbalah calls for, and I believe this is correct.
[331999]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: Suppose a person is ill or has lost their income, these are different levels of suffering. Does the strength of prayer depend on the level of suffering?
Answer: Of course. Every person must determine this for themselves.
Question: Is it possible to say that, according to the root of a person’s soul, the Creator pricks each of us with specific circumstances throughout our lives until the very last day?
Answer: Yes, each of us feels some sort of suffering every second. We do not even realize we are experiencing it because we have become accustomed to it.
Question: Indeed, we get used to suffering, but suddenly, some blow comes and drenches us like a cold shower. How can one cushion it so as not to suffer so much at that moment?
Answer: Do not cut ties with your friends.
[332043]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: Where is the line between annulment before the Creator and inaction?
Answer: The line is in each of your actions. If you wish to work for the Creator, you elevate your actions toward Him; if not, they are directed, as usual, from above downward toward you.
You can bestow only to the extent that you are connected in the ten and directing your desire from the ten upward to the Creator.
Question: What does it mean that my actions of bestowal to the Creator should precede the Creator’s attitude toward me?
Answer: It means that you do not wait for any actions from Him, but you turn to Him first and always act this way.
[331979]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: How can we feel that the Creator is receiving pleasure?
Answer: We cannot feel this yet. If we have a clear intention to bring the Creator pleasure, then in this intention, we will begin to feel the pleasure that we give Him.
Question: Can we see this through the ten?
Answer: Yes, but not yet. You must have intentions for bestowal and connection between you. If you want to do something for the Creator and get closer to Him, then strive to find the strength within you to bestow to the Creator; ask Him for it, and you will receive this force.
[331982]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: How can we recognize when to act and when to annul ourselves and accept?
Answer: It depends on you. Discuss these topics among yourselves, decide, and pray.
The most important thing is to ask for the force of connection from the Creator. Then everything should work out for you.
Ask the Creator how to use your desires correctly and whether you can direct your feelings and intentions to Him in these desires.
When you think about this together and want to relate everything to the Creator, that is the prayer.
[331984]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: If I have a specific intention and effort in my work to bring contentment to the Creator and no other desires, is this a mistake? Am I deluded or on the right path?
Answer: I think these are still your small egoistic definitions. Does the Creator feel good because you are in this state?
Comment: I do not know. All my work is only for Him, so I hope He feels good.
My Response: Does He want to see you in this state?
Comment: No, He wants me to work even more.
My Response: What do you need for this?
Comment: To study the sources, unite in a group, and correct my desires towards bestowal.
My Response: Exactly. All this needs to be expressed in prayer, and try to convey this prayer to the Creator. I feel that you will succeed.
[332036]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: How should I deal with my egoistic calculations regarding my contribution to the group when I feel indifferent to this contribution?
After all, egoism is like fuel for work. What if it is not there, what should I do?
Answer: If there is no egoism, that is very bad!
The worst thing is indifference. If you feel empty, if your eyes see nothing, your heart feels nothing, and the “gears” in your brain area not turning at all, that is very, very bad!
Nothing will help you until you come to the group, make a small meal for them, and say: “Friends, I am dead, you are now sitting at my memorial service. Let’s drink in memory of me.” You will see how much this will help you. It will help!
[332039]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Mishpat (law) establishes attainment, and it is forbidden to subtract from it but only add the opinion of the Torah.
And Chok (statute) is the level of concealment, which is faith above reason, and it is forbidden to add reasoning to it (Rabash, “And You, Israel“).
Question: What should we conceal in our work and what should we attain? What is considered law, and what is considered statute for us?
Answer: We must attain everything possible and conceal everything that hinders us, that impedes our spiritual advancement. As a result, we will see what yesterday or in the past concealed the path from us, today, on the contrary, becomes part of our path.
And so, we will gradually reveal all the paths of the Torah for ourselves.
[331606]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”
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Question: What do we actually bestow to the Creator?
Answer: Our desires and aspirations to get closer to Him, to become like Him, this is what we can bestow to Him.
We can use the desire to receive for the sake of bestowal only after restriction, when we can again open ourselves and say: “I want to receive this from You because it gives You pleasure.” Then the Creator bestows.
Question: How then can we receive correctly in the ten?
Answer: First you need to prepare the correct intention so that you can turn to the Creator. You must have the desire to do something for Him just as the Creator does for us.
When you position yourself against the Creator in this way and wish to receive from Him with the intention of bringing Him pleasure rather than yourself, then He gives, and you feel that He is filling you. From there, you will understand how to act.
[331988]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: We go through certain states, but we do not understand at all what is happening to us. How do we know who we are talking to? In which Kli? How should we articulate our actions?
Answer: Suppose you are given some problem. Talk to your friends and describe this problem.
How do you establish a connection between each other and with the Creator? What desires do you include in the conversation between each other and with the Creator? What do you want to happen with these desires so that you can feel the Creator as you feel each other? Then everything will work out.
[332086]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Man and His Role”
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Question: How should we properly work with the impressions that the Creator sometimes gives in a dynamic way so that something becomes clearer to us? It seems that some fragment of His governance is revealed, but then everything is erased, and it is clear that it was just another stage, and a new degree is ahead.
Answer: So what? You need to work with what you receive and what is revealed to you.
Question: So should we trust such a state? Or should we somehow restrict it, doubt it?
Answer: No, in no case should you doubt it. Accept it from the Creator wholeheartedly and move forward to the new level.
[332078]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/24, Writings of Rabash “Concealed and Revealed in His Providence”
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Question: What are the stages of recognizing the evil of our egoistic nature? Is it a cumulative process and recognition comes suddenly? Or is it happening gradually?
Answer: The recognition of our egoism occurs gradually. It is not present in newborn children. As they grow, we gradually teach children in kindergarten, at school, and further in life that egoism harms them both when in contact with other people, in mastering skills for some kind of work, and so on.
It turns out that on the other hand, egoism helps us. It corrects us and forces us to be better than we really are so that we do not show ourselves as complete egoists in relation to other people. After all, in that case they will treat us the same way.
Question: How does the recognition of the harmfulness of our egoism occur? Look how many wars, how much suffering is there. Where is this recognition? Do we see how the ego harms us?
Answer: We see it and slowly abandon it. People have no other choice. I cannot go out on the street and rob others.
Question: In principle, yes. For this reason, society has created such laws.
Answer: Society must continue to create all kinds of restrictions on human behavior. We see that each generation assumes other obligations—new, better ones. In this way, we gradually rise above our egoistic nature.
[331718]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 55”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”
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Selected Highlights
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that there is a law that the branch is close to its root. He hints that we are the consequence of some upper force, which is the root cause. If the Creator is one, unique, and unified, then the urgent need for individualism manifests in us. So what is the problem?
Answer: On one hand, we are given egoistic properties and we inevitably fulfill them. On the other hand, we must rise above our egoism to altruism. And we cannot do it.
Moreover, our ego drives us into a corner as we are eager to fight with each other and make our lives miserable.
Question: We see that egoism constantly develops and narrows. Is there a limit to its development or is it endless?
Answer: No, we are gradually beginning to understand the narrowness and baseness of egoism. It does not allow us to exist in joy, correct communication with each other, in mutual assisstance. Egoism manifests itself in a negative form.
Question: Let’s say that in 200 years, it will stop developing. Can we say that egoism will stop growing at some point?
Answer: I cannot say that in 200 years it will stop. Egoism develops along with us and forces us to be more egoistic each time. When this stage of egoism in us ends is not written anywhere and it may not end. It will be eternal to the extent that we must limit it.
If over time we understand how much it brings us down and does not allow us to create the right society, family, ourselves, and children, then to the extent that we begin to comprehend its harm, the terrible, narrow, vile life into which it plunges, we can act against it.
[331620]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: What is the process of realizing evil? Let’s say the first stage is when I begin to separate: there is me and there is my ego that I have received from above. I no longer associate myself with it. The second stage is when I start feeling ashamed by it and feel its evil. The third stage is when I want to get rid of it. Is this correct?
Answer: Yes, but these are long processes. There are many more steps here and we have to go through them.
Question: Is it possible to learn the realization of evil or does it happen naturally within a person?
Answer: It is possible and necessary. If we do not study it, then we will be going through all of this by the forces of nature. It will start forcing us, pushing us, and beating us, and we will still have to change
Question: Where in society can one get an example of ideal relations?
Answer: There is nowhere in society that one can get such examples. We have to start from zero. After all, there are four types of egoism in every person. We gradually have to correct each type from zero to the fifth level.
[331792]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: It is said to buy the truth and not sell it. How can one internally attune themselves to properly transmit divine truth through themselves without losing it?
Answer: This happens when you understand everything you feel and receive from the Creator, and you wish to correct it to return it to Him, to respond to Him. Moreover, the response must be correct and very heartfelt, as you want to cling to the Creator with all your heart and soul.
Question: Is the truth an all-encompassing global love, and can we only feel it through the heart by letting go of everything else?
Answer: Yes, but much effort and scrutiny are necessary to reach such a state. However, once this is all attained, no further scrutiny is required.
Question: Where does the desire to buy the truth come from?
Answer: From the connection with friends when you lack the opportunity to cling to the Creator, to the states you are going through, to understand them more deeply.
[331822]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Greatness Is According to His Work”
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Question: Can people realize the evil of their egoistic nature without knowing about the upper force that created this evil?
Answer: Of course. This information is not necessary for some people. They can simply receive a proper upbringing under which influence they will change.
Comment: But it is said that the Creator created evil and the Torah as a means of correction. It turns out that one cannot manage without the Torah.
My Response: The Torah is the upper light, the highest altruistic force, which we must draw to ourselves. Then it will correct us. Without this, it is very difficult.
Comment: So without the Creator, it is impossible to recognize evil.
My Response: Generally, yes.
[331829]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: If we only have the desire to receive, where does the impulse of the desire to give to the Creator and nullify come from? Due to what forces? And how can we capture and use these forces?
Answer: We have these forces in the required quantities. Don’t think about where they come from. Or you can ask the Creator or even without asking, tell Him that you want to do this and that for Him.
Comment: My desire is very selfish.
My Response: So what? It is ok. The main thing is to calmly and freely turn to Him.
[332027]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Question: When does bestowing to the Creator come from inner resistance and when out of gratitude? What is the difference in these forms for the Creator and for a person?
Answer: The difference is very significant. Bestowing can come from internal resistance or above internal resistance, meaning, without it, or out of gratitude. These are three different states of a person in relation to the Creator.
What is preferable? It is preferable if a person feels that as if he has no connection with the Creator at all.
He needs to overcome himself in order to start feeling a connection with the Creator, and then draw closer to Him, check, think about what he can do for the Creator. And then ask the Creator to help him pull himself out of this state, lift himself up in order to turn to the Creator with a request, and thus move forward.
[332033]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
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Comment: We conducted a workshop on the topic “Why do prayers fail?” But if my prayer is for my friends to reveal the Creator, I won’t know if they have revealed Him or not.
My Response: You’ll be the first to know about it. That is what it says in Rabash’s article: “The one who prays for his friend is the first to receive.”
You should know the first twenty articles of Rabash by heart! There are also other articles.
Question: I know that. The question is something else. You said I should forcibly think about the good of the friends, imagine the most ideal state, and ask the Creator for it for my friends. If I pray for the Creator to unite all my friends constantly and return to this thought many times during the day, what is wrong with my prayer?
Answer: Who said it is wrong?
Comment: If it is not answered, it is incorrect.
My Response: That is what is wrong, you are waiting for an answer to it. So you are working for a reward.
If you repeat the same prayer all the time and clarify what else you can add or remove from it so it comes as much as possible from the depths of your heart, this is your reward.
Question: So the reward is that the Creator gives me the opportunity to ask and constantly returning to this request during the day?
Answer: That is why it is said: “Schar HaMitzvah–Mitzvah“—”The reward for good deed is a good deed.”
[331991]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: If you look at the process that is happening now in the development of humanity with slightly different eyes, is it correct? We see how people’s lives have become easier. Society limits egoism. If earlier you could go out and do whatever you want with impunity, today the individual is very much protected. In principle, this is correct, is this progress?
Answer: This is progress, but of course it is still not enough.
Question: Yes, this still does not lead to the recognition of the evil of human nature. From the point of view of what Baal HaSulam writes and what we study in Kabbalistic sources, recognition can only exist when there is some kind of standard. What could this standard be? What should we look up to?
Answer: Kabbalists describe this as an example of the last generation, as an example of human society reaching some new milestones so that we climb them like degrees of a ladder, and at each degree we master new rules, new obligations, new types of connections between us.
We cannot yet implement the principles set forth in Baal HaSulam’s article “The Last Generation,” but we can compare our current state and relationships in society with the way it should be.
Question: In other works, Baal HaSulam writes that the Creator Himself is the standard. But we cannot take Him as an example since He is concealed and everyone deciphers the Creator as they wish.
Therefore, I ask: How can a person come to the recognition of evil if he has no standard, no society with correct ideas from which to take an example?
Answer: No, we will gradually build such a society, starting with nurseries, kindergartens, schools, and ending with higher educational institutions and society. We are trying to introduce an educational image, an educational force into all these institutions, to give them the right leadership. Still, the world is changing.
[331762]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: Effective altruists believe that the lives of future generations have the same value as the lives of people currently living. Therefore, they focus their activities on reducing future risks to human development.
That is, I can equally invest in improving life now or, say, in two generations. Is this the right approach?
Answer: No, we must strive for greater productivity from our investments. So, I do not think it should be like that.
Comment: If we expand this question from a business point of view. There are local goals and global, strategic goals that businessmen try to calculate for a long period of time. That is, strategically, I want to calculate something that will take a long time and will bear fruit perhaps in a generation or two.
Answer: I believe that it is impossible for us to calculate this now. Maybe this will be possible with the development of artificial intelligence. But even this is just the beginning of a new movement.
I think that so far, we have no serious grounds for this. We are unable to assess the future in a generation or two.
Question: Is it better to really invest in what you have now rather than make illusory plans for the distant future?
Answer: Yes, we see that in our time, no matter what we invest in, there is a certain percentage that is not fulfilled and do not provide profit in any form.
[331665]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: In principle, the usual investment of funds in some projects is usually a big problem because the money often just disappears, and we see no results.
However, effective altruists want to see results. Their approach is criticized because it is extremely difficult or almost impossible to predict the results on several levels.
We have many examples of this. Suppose anti-mosquito nets are donated to overcome malaria, and the effectiveness of their use can be calculated. But they are also used for other purposes; for example, fishing in Africa, which pollutes the environment. That is, there are unforeseen consequences that could not be calculated.
Usually, people can calculate the consequences on one or at most two levels. If we are talking about more distant consequences, these must either be wise decisions or it all turns into hypotheses.
How important is it to move toward more advanced calculations: the second level of consequences, the third, the fourth?
Answer: I do not think it is necessary at all. After all, if we had vast resources and invested them for a long time, such plans would obviously be very helpful.
But we see that all our plans evaporate very quickly, and we have to look for something new. Or, on the contrary, there are such changes in science and technology that what we had high hopes for is completely ineffective today and we need other levels of development. I think this is not the way to approach the development process.
The strategy should be like running in spurts: once we have a small achievement, we make the next calculation; another small achievement, another calculation.
[331714]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: Effective altruists deny the view that some lives are inherently more valuable than others. For them, all lives are equally valuable. It makes no difference whether I help a person survive in Africa or Latin America, a small person or a big one, of any race, nationality, or religion.
Is this correct? Do all people on Earth equally deserve help?
Answer: I believe that no, they do not. There are people who can bring enormous benefits to others, and there are those who no matter how hard they try, they will not succeed. We need to identify such people in advance as positive or negative for the development of humanity and somehow take their future into account.
Question: What are the criteria for this assessment? Should we start from the goal?
Answer: First, start from the goal. Second, we need to clearly understand how much we can invest in these people, and what they represent as a valuable resource for humanity.
This cannot simply be about making donations. There must be a clear definition of what we wish to achieve from our investment. I think we still have a lot of work to do in this regard.
[331617]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: Let’s assume that there is not just blind nature, but the upper force, the upper mind, that develops us. What is the problem with our narrow egoism in relation to the upper force?
Answer: The fact is that we are not trying to break out of it. We wish to use it every moment to solve every issue and dominate others.
Comment: But the Creator Himself placed this narrow egoism in us.
My Response: Yes, but precisely so that by correcting it we would thus attain the nature of the Creator in relation to the nature of egoism and rise above ourselves.
That is, the egoistic nature was placed within us so that we would feel it for ourselves, realize it, and want to change it. This is the purpose of creation.
Question: Should all of humanity realize the evil of egoistic nature or only special people who should lead humanity?
Answer: In the end, absolutely everyone.
[331573]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: The effective altruists movement has websites that allow a person to build their future life. They advise young people who have graduated from high school what occupation to get, how to build a career, and how to plan their lives on the basis that part of their actions will be aimed at bestowal. Is this the right approach?
Answer: This may be the right approach, but it must be proven in action. Then it will be possible to rely on its requirements and descriptions; otherwise, it will float in the air without any basis.
You still need to prove the value of your approach, which must be accepted by the majority.
Question: It seems to me that the idea of effective altruism will be accepted by a person from an early age. Even when the majority accepts it, should there still be a test of viability? Or are the opinions of people who can serve as an example for others enough to make such a judgment?
Answer: Here we must take into account what the majority means, who creates it, who controls it. After all, we can talk about huge amounts. I think that only a wide circle of completely different people can evaluate and recommend this or that direction in supporting some special actions.
Question: As I understand it, the general public includes people who are outstanding in some areas. Do you think that they can reach a consensus on some issues? We see that this is not happening much in the world.
Answer: This is a problem. The fact is that we do not yet have a firm assessment of what real, good altruism means, how to evaluate it, weigh it, measure it, and what we can do with it in the future.
Altruism and the future, these states develop in a person and in society in such a way that society cannot really judge it.
Therefore, I do not think that we are already approaching a point where it is desirable for us to evaluate our actions based on the principle of altruism.
[331835]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Comment: Not all people feel the evil of their original nature and say: “Why should I correct something? I am a normal person with work, home, and children.”
My Response: The fact is that they compare themselves with others like them and do not see any flaws in themselves. In fact, if we take into account our nature, the nature of those around us, and human society, then of course, we still need to correct a lot in ourselves and around us.
Question: What can you say to a person who does not yet feel the evil of an egoistic nature in them at all? Moreover, it does not really stand out in them. They seem to be normal citizens, they do not really harm anyone.
Answer: Our nature needs to be explained to people. It is evil because we think only about ourselves, we feel only ourselves; it seems to us that we are all normal—“I am like everyone else.” There seem to be no problems here except for one—in the end, we still suffer. What can we do to stop suffering? To do this, we need to build a new society.
Question: So do I understand correctly that narrow egoism does not mean that a person must rob or kill someone?
Answer: No, we are talking about egoism that exists in every normal person.
Question: In principle, is it bad enough that, while in my narrow egoism, I may not harm society but think only about myself?
Answer: In order to understand this, we need to know the true laws of nature, how it sees our connection with each other, and what we must change in ourselves in order to become similar to the correct connection.
[331888]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: How can you feel another person’s suffering and at the same time see the great love and care of the Creator behind it?
How can you not be callous to another person’s pain?
Answer: If you think about it, it will gradually come.
Question: What is more important now: to see the love of the Creator or to enter the Hisaron of another person and feel his pain? What should we look at first?
Answer: You need to look at how close you are to others and try to help them in all their actions.
[331995]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: Effective altruists believe that giving is as relevant to those who do not have billions of dollars as to those who do. That is, anyone can donate to charity. And if he does not evaluate how effective it was, he is doing his job wrong.
They say directly: “Giving is work.” Do you agree with this?
Answer: Indeed, this is a big job, and we must weigh it correctly.
Question: Although you said it is too early to discuss the criteria for such work, what are they?
Answer: Working for bestowal should be understandable to as wide a circle of society as possible, even to the point of broad, open voting for specific steps. Then we can be more or less sure we are acting correctly.
That is, for each person voting the result is not directly related to him, so some kind of assessment in the right direction is possible on his part.
[331948]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: You said that the Creator is displeased with us and as a result, with you. Does the Creator also evaluate us, your students, based on the success of our children, meaning those to whom we spread the teachings and those we care for?
Answer: The Creator evaluates you based on the extent to which each of you can annul yourself to come together as one group. His evaluation is derived from this.
[331921]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Can a person identify his spiritual problem if the Creator sends him an illness in some specific organs? For example, if his throat, hip, arm, and so on start to hurt?
Answer: He can. What difference does it make what hurts? If the Creator simultaneously gives him the opportunity and strength to turn to Him, it does mean suffering but suffering of love.
Question: How can one move from corporeal suffering to suffering of love?
Answer: You must constantly think about this: in what way are you distant from the Creator, why do you not feel Him near you or inside you, or yourself inside Him?
[331942]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: If a friend reveals his desire, does that give me something to work on to fulfill it?
Answer: That is incorrect. That is not how it works. The fulfillment of a friend’s desire is the work of the Creator.
Question: Then how should we work? For example, we have a great friend. We met with him before the gathering of friends, exchanged opinions, and united. He somehow drew me closer to himself, and I felt his desire. During the gathering of friends, I felt him as I did not feel myself; I was like him.
Answer: This is not a good action, because in this way he attaches you to himself and deprives you of freewill.
Question: Then I am sure that this problem exists for everyone. It exists in families and couples. In families, usually the stronger one kind of attaches the other to themselves. Should it be the same with a friend?
Answer: No, family is a completely different matter. Leave earthly sensations aside. This is incorrect.
There are people who can give another person a sense of a small upper illumination and thus attach him to themselves. This is wrong. By doing this, they deprive the person of freedom, the realization of action. This should not be done.
For a while, I had a teacher who liked to play with this. But when I moved to Rabash, this completely stopped. Rabash never used this.
Showing a person upper actions, the quality of bestowal, the spiritual world, before he can perceive and exist in it himself is not allowed because you deprive a person of the freedom of development. It is like giving a child the solutions to the tasks set before him, which harms him.
[331925]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can the Creator help me see my friends more connected?
Answer: It is very simple! Ask for it and that is all.
With everything you have, turn only to the Creator. Not to me, not to your friends—only to Him. This is the most reliable way. You will see that the answers, salvation, everything comes to you from there.
[331929]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What is concealed in the action in which we relate any thought in any pleasure to the Creator? Why do we need to perform such an action?
Answer: It is in order to attract the influence of the Creator upon us. It heals us physically and spiritually, elevates us to the next level of closeness with the Creator, and helps us correctly perceive our world in our feelings and our mind.
Question: If we already truly feel that there is no taste in the pleasures of the past and the present day, what method should we choose to add taste to life?
Answer: The simplest method. When you enjoy life, think of the Creator. Whatever you enjoy—color, music, children, women, food, or smells—you should relate it to the Creator and thank Him for influencing you in this way.
[331936]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/24, Writings of Rabash “This World and the Future”
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Question: When the greatness of the goal disappears in the group, does it mean that we are not doing enough?
Answer: Yes, you need to fight against this. The most dangerous thing is when the greatness disappears, and then everything else follows.
Question: What will protect us from losing the greatness of the goal?
Answer: Nothing will protect you if you do not protect yourself.
[331939]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/24, Writings of Rabash “This World and the Future”
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Question: When we begin to feel shame and disgust for false pleasures, is this a gift from the Creator or is it the result of our efforts, a sign of some progress?
Answer: In general, this is the result of our bad actions. Therefore, we need to be filled with such pleasure that we can address to the Creator.
Question: But if we see that these are false pleasures; for example enjoying praise; if we feel shame and disgust at the same time, how should we relate to it?
Answer: Maybe this is not true. I must check my feelings in connection with the Creator: I receive pleasure and at the same time I feel distanced from the Creator, or I receive pleasure and feel closer to Him.
[331875]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Man and His Role”
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Question: The income strategy for effective altruists involves a high-paying job.
Modern philosophers have developed the idea that there is no need to consider the possible unethical actions of a person while earning money since the benefits of what a person earns and donates will be much greater than the unethical actions while working. What do you think about this approach?
Answer: I do not think that is an excuse. No way! We must act as it is said: “A wise man has only what his eyes see.” What he sees, he can take into account, evaluate, and make a decision about; this is the most important thing.
Question: What should people do in border areas when they need to know whether it is ethical or not to take a step left or right?
Answer: We must act as ethically as possible and, in no case, succumb to the general flight into fantasy. A person must have a system of values that cannot be crossed.
[331795]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: Suppose a friend is “drilling a hole in the boat.” Everyone woke and perked up. And then, when he was gone, everyone fell asleep again and formed a sleepy swamp. How can we determine when it is necessary to intervene in the work of a ten and when not?
Answer: It is good that a friend awakens you with negative antics at some particular stage, but this is not how you should be awakened. It is not a method of promotion.
We must awaken from the fact that we are looking for and not finding, or looking for and finding means for an even greater rapprochement between us.
We need to identify more missing Kelim among us. They will manifest themselves from our desire for even greater rapprochement. Start getting closer, and you will see how discord, bad relationships, and similar issues appear between you.
These things must be aroused gradually, intelligently. By trying to get closer, we see that we again encounter problems. We start off, it seems to be easier. But as we are getting closer it gets worse. This is what happens in everyday life. We see how we live with our neighbors, near and far.
Therefore, in a group, we must constantly awaken ourselves to a greater rapprochement with each other and clarify how negative qualities, properties, and rejections arise in us. Then we have something to move forward with.
That is not what is called “drilling the boat.” On the contrary, we check the boat, strengthen it, and see where it might leak.
[331011]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: What should one do if there is a fear of destroying what is already built and that someone will be buried under the ruins, unable to rise by himself?
Answer: There must be a stronger connection with the Creator than any destruction.
Question: It turns out that elders are those not afraid of destruction or descents. On the contrary, do they draw strength from this breakage?
Answer: That is absolutely correct. We need to learn not to fear falls, i.e., to beware of them. When they happen, we should start asking for their correction.
Question: What do I need to destroy in myself?
Answer: It is necessary to destroy your egoism concerning others. And your love for everyone, if it exists, must be expanded and elevated.
[331882]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: You are asked about shame: “You always say that shame is the most powerful means.” Is that true?
Answer: Yes.
Question: The writer asks: “In what way? To convince a person that they are wrong? To shame them?”
Answer: Shame is an assessment of a person much lower than he considers himself to be, and this is an assessment with which he cannot agree.
Question: Someone else evaluates them that way, right?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: It is such a blow to a person’s “self.”
My Response: Of course!
Question: What are they ashamed of?
Answer: The fact that they receive this message from their surroundings.
Question: What if they come to this conclusion themselves? Does it change anything?
Answer: Then they usually forget about it. If it is not under the power of others, then it is forgotten.
Question: So when I am shamed, that is a very heavy state. Does it bring something? Do I change because of it?
Answer: A person must change. Either he’s hiding or hiding himself, or he has to do something about it.
Question: And why does he get this? It is all one way or another from above, through someone obviously, but why are they shamed?
Answer: It is to change them.
Question: And when a person understands this, then?
Answer: Then it is a correction.
Question: Why do we blush when we are shamed?
Answer: It is the sort of animals we are; we blush when we are ashamed.
Comment: Animals do not blush especially. True, they have all sorts of movements showing shame.
My Response: We do.
Question: Why do I later hate the person who shamed me?
Answer: Not only do I hate them later, there were times when such people were killed, and so on. That is, the one who brings me some negative feelings, I am ready to annihilate.
Question: Shame and humiliation are they similar forms?
Answer: Yes.
Question: If a person has no shame, what does that say? There is probably not such a person. But suppose.
Answer: Usually it means they do not understand what it is about.
Question: This person?
Answer: Yes, they are undeveloped.
Question: So developed people live with shame?
Answer: Of course. There is a certain threshold. If you push them beyond this threshold with your statements, they cannot agree with it.
Question: So every person has this threshold. What does it mean that a person covers their shame?
Answer: Every person. Their main concern is to cover themselves from shame.
Question: In principle, that is how a person lives. Then there is another question. In the Bible it said that “they covered their shame with clothes.” What does that mean? They ask: was it normal for them to walk naked and exposed?
It was all normal until a certain point. And suddenly, as you say, some threshold happened. What was this threshold for them, for these first people? According to the Bible, and if possible, even the Kabbalistic meaning?
Answer: When the feeling of shame appeared. The feeling of shame is when a person feels naked before others, uncovered. And that is very difficult.
Question: And if we touch on your constant theme of egoism, we are one way or another covering it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What happened with Adam and Eve that they suddenly became ashamed?
Answer: I do not think it is a problem of Adam and Eve; it was the first social problem manifesting that they had such inclinations they could not be proud of, but rather they were ashamed of. And they covered themselves. And when you cover yourself, that is it, no one knows or understands what you represent, what you are hiding from, and whatnot.
Question: Suppose they covered themselves even materially, with clothes. Over time, these clothes from covering shifted to an element of pride. They adorned them with gold, couturiers appeared. Clothes became not just a cover of shame but on the contrary, a demonstration of wealth. What is that? Can you explain?
Answer: It is a natural inversion, because what needs to be covered, if you cover it with something that hits the other’s eyes, it is clear that it is not covering you, but on the contrary—revealing.
Question: So, in principle, what does it say about a person when they look at clothes like that? Not seeing clothes as simple covering, but when they view them as “I am beautiful, I am this…”—what is it? Why do they do that?
Answer: To eliminate any possibilities for the other to somehow belittle them and so on.
[331839]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/17/24
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Question: Does spiritual advancement come from internal work not only in the ten, but also in the group?
Answer: Of course it does. Each person, as they say, is like a small penny that joins with others to form a great amount. Therefore, nothing should be neglected.
Question: Where do we find the willpower to attend the meetings of the ten and the lessons?
Answer: You do not need to find it anywhere. You should make a deal with your friends to lift you up, take you by the hand, and bring you to the meeting place.
Question: More than six months ago, there was a virtual connection between the women’s tens of Sochi and Germany. Both had a long experience of physical meetings and physical connections. How can we now establish such a close connection without the possibility of physical meetings? Can we add concern for the corporeal affairs of friends to the virtual connection?
Answer: No, one cannot replace the other. It cannot.
Question: How do we in the ten enter the singular authority?
Answer: Only through the desire to unite and become one desire inside the Creator.
Question: How should I work with inactive friends in the ten?
Answer: Set an example for them, talk to them.
[331861]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/24, “Equals, As One: No friend is strong, the Society is strong”
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Question: You say everything depends on us. Where is the point we can press that will make it work?
Answer: The point to press is the point of realizing that we have no other way out.
We are at a turning point in the world. The world has exhausted its egoistic paradigm of existence and reached its final state. It cannot continue to exist this way.
Therefore, we are in a general crisis of all our behavior in the world. This is specifically a crisis of human relationships, between us and between us and nature. We must change this. How? By becoming an integral part of nature, which we are but we do not wish to acknowledge.
Nature forces us, one way or another, to recognize this fact and change ourselves to become integrally connected with each other and with nature so that the entire universe becomes integrated, closed, harmonious, and unified, and for that, we need to rise above our egoism.
In Kabbalah, there is a force that can correct us and transform us from egoists into altruists so that we are harmoniously connected into one single whole.
We, the people who have a point in the heart, a desire for unity, must first reveal this method within ourselves. Furthermore, the people of Israel, who were once in a spiritual state, must do this because they have spiritual genes. They are obligated to revive and realize them.
When we do this, we will lead the rest of the world. This can be done very quickly, in a very short time!
We do not have to wait until humanity plunges into immense suffering, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, and who knows what else.
[329990]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Everything Depends on Us” 3/7/10
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Question: It is said that a person must use his strength to make a choice, after which the Creator gives him everything that was in the Creator’s plan.
What is this human strength, and what kind of choice does one make?
Answer: The Creator gives man an anti-egoistic force with which he rises, becomes closer to the Creator, even reaches adhesion with Him, and thus masters this degree the Creator turned to him with.
Then the Creator gives him another task, an even greater degree. Again, one must turn to the Creator, ask Him for the desire to bestow, and with the help of this desire, rise to the next stage where he will balance a new manifestation of the Creator.
It turns out that the Creator is constantly developing egoism in us, gradually, step by step, and we ask Him for strength so the new egoistic desires that arise in us do not confuse us, do not throw us from side to side, but allow us to advance. This way every desire given to us is to let us get closer to the Creator.
[331868]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Greatness Is According to His Work”
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 11”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: How can one be satisfied with bestowal if the desire to receive requires fulfillment and prevents one from being in an intention for the sake of the Creator? How should we treat the fulfillment of desires to receive?
Answer: Treat it positively. Increasing the desire to receive is also good because you will build your desire to bestow on it.
Question: What if the desires to receive displace the desires to bestow?
Answer: It will pass. Overcome such periods. They come in waves: a wave of ascent, a wave of descent, a wave of ascent, a wave of descent. Therefore, try to bear them calmly because you are in the power of the Creator. Good luck.
[331547]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/24, Writings of Rabash “Wholeness and Deficiency – 2”
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Question: How can we promote knowledge about the Creator to the masses?
Answer: By disseminating information that there is a place where people study how to reveal the Creator.
Question: What is this strong group that promotes knowledge about the Creator and in what should its flexibility be manifested?
Answer: A strong group is a group that studies and works in dissemination. Its flexibility is manifested in its readiness to work with any member of the group and to adapt to them.
[331864]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/24, “Equals, As One: No friend is strong, the Society is strong”
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Question: How can we receive a reward in the Kelim of bestowal? Let us say the pleasure of minimal unification is also a reward. Can we receive it in the Kelim of bestowal?
Answer: Yes, but we want to be rewarded for every action we take. If this is an act of bestowal, if we rise through it and can influence others and the Creator even more, this is the reward.
Question: How can we relate correctly to the fact that some put in a lot of effort that causes admiration, while others, as it seems to us, put in much less?
Answer: We cannot say exactly how much effort a person puts in. But we must respect anyone who does so.
[331809]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/24, Writings of Rabash “This World and the Future”
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Question: Some of your students transmit spiritual information, while disseminating, without realizing it themselves. How can you recognize within yourself whether you are doing it correctly or not?
Answer: It does not matter. Let everyone try to disseminate, it does not matter with what motives. Even the most negative, the most foolish, and the most conceited, those who seek power, fame, money—let them try! This leads to a quick analysis.
When everything is revealed, it immediately becomes clear where evil stands in comparison to good. Conversely, it is worse when it is hidden. If the time for disclosure has come, let everything be disclosed.
For example, if you are a doctor and you advertise yourself, it is quickly possible to determine whether you are a good doctor or a bad one. If you do not advertise yourself, you can work with patients all your life quietly at some level, and that is it. But as soon as you reveal yourself more, there is a danger that you will be figured out and no one will come to you at all.
That is why I am in favor of everything being revealed as much as possible. All opinions, knowledge, and judgments about Kabbalah, all its followers, and conversely, all sorts of “anti”—let everything be revealed. And then, there will be a very quick analysis and correct conclusions.
People do not know what it is. They do not understand that now the real nature of the world is opening up to them, which helps them change, become normal, happy, and to navigate our world correctly and build the correct society.
[330135]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Dissemination Wizard” 3/13/10
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Question: When I think about my friends or we think about something together, how do we build our artificial actions correctly?
Answer: Our artificial, even semi-false actions eventually add up to one serious request, a demand that the light really change us.
But this happens only if we insert ourselves into its device, into its matrix, even if we do not want to but still trying to make it work, together, although in fact we are not together with our hearts yet, studying Kabbalah, although we do not know what we are studying and what we need from it. We sort of hide these unspoken conditions from ourselves and lie to ourselves.
But it does not matter. As a result, everything develops into conditions that are required for the system to start acting on us like on small children. This is the same system, the same technique by which babies develop.
As a child, they explained to us: “Look, this is this and this is that. This is added. This is subtracted.” That is, we are already beginning to perceive reality with our minds and feelings.
When I show my mind and feelings for our world, it is considered that I am already a small person. And then I can start accumulating information, adding it up, synthesizing it, analyzing it, but only from the moment when I am already a human being, let’s say from the age of five to six.
And before that, I am developing completely unconsciously. I look at adults and do the same thing, repeat what they say, do what they advise. We are also acting in relation to the spiritual world in the same way.
[329940]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. We are Thinking about our Friend!“ 3/11/10
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Question: I clothe myself with the desires of my friends in the ten until the Creator clothes these desires. What does it mean? How does this happen?
Answer: I cancel myself and put on the desires of my friends because I want them to be realized. It is when I clothe their desires with my desire so that they come true, then I reveal the Creator in them.
By this, I achieve the property of bestowal in the form it exists in a friend, and thus I comprehend the Creator. A friend gives me a Kli and I give him Aviut, and the Creator dresses in it.
Question: What kind of clothing do I expect in the desires of my friends? Should they have some sort of additional strength or filling? How can I check that I did my job well?
Answer: According to the result. And the result should be the revelation of the Creator! If I adhere to my friend correctly so that everything he wants comes true and I want him to succeed, I reveal the Creator in him.
I want to fulfill his desire using the property of bestowal. He gave me the format of this property he wanted, and I expanded it. A friend is like a screen on which the Creator is revealed to me.
My quality of bestowal operates in my friend because I want to help him, and the Creator reveals himself to me in his desire.
Think about it. It is a spiritual action! I cancel myself before my friend. I want to lead him to the Creator completely, to spirituality. And therefore, in his desires, when I work with my Aviut and give him Ohr Hozer, the Creator dresses in them, Ohr Yashar.
[331652]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Man receives pleasure from three Kelim called “future,” “present,” and “past” (Rabash, Notes 200, “Receiving Pleasure from Three Kelim [Vessels]”).
Pleasure comes from the past, present, and future. It all depends on how I feel about it.
The most significant content comes from the future because it has yet to be dressed in any form. I imagine it as superb, which is currently impossible to receive in my Kelim and enjoy, but in the future, yes.
Therefore, although the past, present, and future depend on each other, the future can shine for me for a long time, and the present, which I now feel, will gradually fade away. As for the past, I generally need a mood and an exact connection with it.
So, the greatest pleasure comes from the future. It can be stretched out as much as you like until it comes and turns into the past.
[331738]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Receiving Pleasure from Three Kelim [Vessels]”
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Question: Let’s say there is a certain amount of egoism that is distributed among all of humanity. Everyone is given several decades to somehow recognize this egoism.
As Baal HaSulam writes, everything depends on human development. Some people directly use their egoism without hesitation. Some people use it but more secretly. And some are already aware and do not want to use the ego at all; they want to be altruists, although by nature they are egoists.
The question arises: at some stage will humanity realize that this certain amount of egoism should not develop to the end, and will it begin to change?
Answer: As egoism grows, a person begins to feel increasingly bad. He sees what egoism forces him to do, how the ego is his own enemy, and as a result, he rebels against egoism.
But the question is, when will he start doing this? What tools does a person have to limit his egoism?
Here we must understand that not always, not everywhere, not in every society, not in every historical example, especially in our time, can we get out from under the ego, although we understand the essence of egoism and can give it a critical assessment.
[331669]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: Effective altruists, on average, donate significantly more money than is accepted in society. Some of them feel they have a moral duty to alleviate the suffering of others through donations unless those donations would bring a comparable level of suffering to themselves. This is their formula.
How much do you think a person should donate? Is there any criterion?
Answer: No, there are no criteria. I think some reasonable limit is necessary so that a person does not suddenly begin to get carried away by absurd ideas and sacrifice for such things that will show their inconsistency, if not today, then tomorrow.
Question: Should we give everything that comes to us so that we simply level ourselves out?
Answer: No, not in any case! If we begin to give away what we have earned and deserve, we will turn into the same beggars with an outstretched hand as those who expect alms from us. Therefore, I think this approach is wrong.
[331759]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 6/30/24
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Question: You say that when reading The Book of Zohar, we do not feel how spiritual forces influence us or how many corrections occur during its study. If a person does not feel anything, does it mean that nothing is happening?
Answer: Certainly! Do we feel what is happening in our bodies? We feel only a millionth part of what is happening, and everything else passes by our senses and thoughts. We do not catch anything, and we do not have time to process anything.
Question: I can usually judge something when I feel something. You say if I do not feel, then is nothing happening. So does studying The Book of Zohar influence people?
Answer: The fact is that, on one hand, the integral world in which I actually find myself is vital to me and not the one that seems to me. I want to know the complete picture of the world and how it affects me. And what I do not feel today, I can feel tomorrow. Therefore, first of all, I need to experience this world. Second, I work in the part of the world that I feel.
There are two worlds: revealed and hidden. I must uncover everything around me and connect with the universe entirely.
This is what Kabbalah is for. That is why it is called the science of receiving. Receiving, that is, the disclosure of the universal complete universe, so I feel myself not within the framework of our world, not within the framework of my body, but in perfection, in eternity, in complete harmony with all of nature, I feel as an integral part of it, as eternal as it is.
Question: Let’s say an ordinary person begins to study The Book of Zohar. Does even just reading a passage affect him?
Answer: It does even if he just hears and does not understand. All the same, he is in contact because everything that happens in our world is some kind of contact through the matter of our world, which is desire.
[330030]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Hidden Influence of The Book of Zohar” 3/7/10
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Question: It is said that when you are given an awakening from above, you cannot comprehend the spiritual degree. And it is only through the effort of accepting the burden of heavenly Malchut by choice that one merits rising to the level of truth.
Why is it impossible to attain spirituality through an awakening from above? How can you make the right choice?
Answer: It will not work right away. First you have to draw closer to the Creator.
And in order to make the right choice in accepting the burden of heavenly Malchut, first it is necessary to open the primary sources or collection of prayers, and this will help you attune to the Creator. Otherwise, your thoughts will be scattered in different directions, and you will never achieve anything this way.
You need to direct yourself precisely, as in shooting: you direct, aim, and know exactly with what force you need to strike for the projectile to hit the target. Everything must be weighed here; that is why it takes time and habit.
[331813]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Greatness Is According to His Work”
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Question: I often notice that you close your eyes when you want to convey a specific spiritual picture. Why do you do this?
Answer: To focus. In principle, whether my eyes are closed or open has nothing to do with the sensation of the higher world.
Concentrating on the students and conveying information to them is necessary because it is challenging to bring it out from the inside and clothe it in some earthly form. You need to concentrate so you are not disturbed by images, sounds, or smells. Everything gets in the way!
I remember when an ambulance passed near the place where we were studying with Rabash, he got switched off. If a tractor was working quietly somewhere, emitting a distant, monotonous sound, it was difficult for him to concentrate.
And I have an even bigger problem. First of all, I am not him. He was huge on the one hand. On the other hand, 300 students are in front of me. I must feel them, but feelings still include earthly sensations too.
It turns out that the slightest sound, some kind of knock, someone said something, someone misunderstood something, and I already start to lose my intention, my concentration. Therefore, I need it to be quiet. Even the smell of something is distracting.
It seems to us that the Kabbalist withdraws into himself and plunges inside like a yogi. No. His immersion coincides with the intensification of all earthly senses, I can’t even tell you how much!
For example, while we are walking and talking with Rabash, a small pebble the size of a pea suddenly got into his shoe and prevented him from concentrating. This doesn’t fit at all with how we are used to thinking about the upper world.
To the Kabbalist, all this appears as one whole, and he becomes sensitive to everything. He does not leave, does not float away somewhere; on the contrary, every particle, every connection in the world becomes very important to him. He sees this unity and mutual influence. This whole world is what he needs.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalist’s Super Senses” 3/11/10
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Question: Why don’t you periodically shout “Attack!” at a convention so that the entire convention would instantly unite in one intention?
Answer: The fact is that I cannot be the commander-in-chief. This is not a spiritual approach.
The only thing I can say is that it is useful and good if you do this from time to time. Not to overuse it, but to unite in an attack during critical moments when you feel the spirit of unity fading or, on the contrary, at the peak of feelings and aspirations.
But it is not about shouting. It should be a quiet, but very sharp internal surge. So I will not shout anything.
I can shout, swear, and get upset when we deal with corporeal problems. But in the spiritual realm, different laws operate.
Question: What if you mentally command us to attack?
Answer: Then you will rise and follow me into battle. I will command you. I promise.
[331517]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: It is said that we should not receive any support from yesterday. But we cannot forget and erase everything indiscriminately. We have the experience of past states. How do we properly use it in our work?
Answer: Continue, what was yesterday, you continue today.
Question: What if we realize that some experience weighs us down, and we do not know how to make it better and the tension remains?
Answer: You need to learn to erase it and start the next day anew because you do not want to carry all the various burdens that have remained in your heart from yesterday or from past times with you.
[331613]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”
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Comment: You said that if a friend joins the group, he thereby obligates himself to follow its laws, and we can judge him by the group’s laws.
On the other hand, you say we should not pressure him, he should do as much as he can, and you advised us to show him an effective example.
My Response: From the friend’s side there is an obligation to completely annul himself before the group, gradually, not from the first day. And from the group’s side, there should be an understanding that this is done gradually, not immediately. And in this way it influences everyone.
[331595]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/24, “Equal as one: There is no strong friend, there is a strong society”
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Question: How can a ten come under the rule of one?
Answer: First and foremost you need to unite among yourselves and become like one person with one heart. Then you will be able to approach the Creator and see how similar or different you are.
Question: We gather together, seem to unite, work together, and raise a prayer. What does it mean that we come under the authority of one?
Answer: By annulling yourselves before each other, you become equal with the Creator and cling to Him. By nullifying your desire to receive, your egoism, in relation to Him, you become one.
[331600]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/24, “Equal as one: There is no strong friend, there is a strong society”
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Question: When you hear yourself on a recording, for example, speaking during a lesson, do you clearly see how the upper force transmits information through you?
Answer: Of course, I feel it. Is there anything of my own in me? Possibly, but only when I am alone. When I am with others, I am not myself; I am merely a conduit through which something is transmitted from above. In this state, I try to adapt the information, convey it, and make myself the most suitable instrument for perception by external vessels, souls, that is, people. I try to find examples and diagrams, while simultaneously integrating with what descends to me, with what I contact from above.
I am entirely focused on being this buffer, this adapter, between the degree I can currently reveal for myself and my recipients, lowering it to the level they are at, and conveying it in the most accessible form for them.
Comment: For example, when someone is engaged in creative work, they often do not understand how it happens. They feel that it is not their achievement, but rather that information comes to them somehow. I see that you often say, “Ask a question, and you will receive an answer.”
My Response: It is not mysticism. It is actually internal work. Creative people also partially feel this way. Why do you need to ask a question? Because when I hear a question, I feel the student asking it, and I understand at what level I need to give the answer. I need to receive the question first; it is not possible otherwise.
These were the dynamics between me and Rabash, where I compelled him to descend in his answer to my level and much lower as much as possible. This prepared him for conducting lessons with other students.
[330073]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Representative of God!“ 3/13/10
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Question: I try to love my friends and see their good qualities. And when I cannot, I try to ask the Creator to cover it. Should I expect any results from this work? Or is it enough for me to sit and wait for the Creator to answer me? What conclusion can I draw from this if I do not get an answer?
Answer: First of all, even though you are asking the Creator a question, don’t wait for the answer. Keep asking more new questions, because unlike you and me, the Creator does not need time to understand what you said to Him, to think of an answer, and somehow react to it. This only happens on the material level.
With the Creator none of this is needed! He is within you. As soon as you ask, the answer is immediately given to you. Whether you feel it or not is a different question. Therefore, you can keep asking without waiting for the answer, as the moment you ask, the answer is already there.
Don’t wait for the answer. Remember at least this.
Question: Okay. Should there be some kind of result?
Answer: No result, if there is one, there is one, if not, not. But you continue.
[331171]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the convention”
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Question: Should we adopt a law so that we no longer take offense at a friend, no longer are angry with a friend, but see in him or her as a manifestation of the Creator?
Answer: If this applies to friends and not to dissemination, to the work of the organization itself, then it is worth it.
Question: Maybe we should formulate ten laws based on the articles of Rabash?
Answer: Do this, please. Do you know how many notebooks I have in which I wrote, drew, and took notes all the time? Work with this.
But most importantly, after the lesson, read the articles and choose the most significant sentences from there. It is very important. Choose from the lesson materials and maybe from what I said.
In principle, if I speak, I already focus my attention on this. So this is already clearer.
[331436]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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The recognition of the evil in our nature is the first stage of a person’s development; it is when they begin to understand and grasp the essence of their nature, and where they start their earthly life from. It begins with being a small egoist, with an increasing desire to consume the entire world.
Question: There has always been a debate in society: is a person born an egoist or does the environment make them that way?
Answer: A person is born an egoist. Baal HaSulam says that a person is born as a small egoist. Then nature and the egoistic society in which we live, until now, develop this egoism and leave no other path for development. It is the growth of egoism alone that drives a person’s development.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 6/27/24
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Question: In Rabash’s Letter 77, it is written that every moment clarified, analyzed, and added to holiness enters the domain of holiness. How can we correctly identify, analyze, and connect each moment to holiness?
Answer: To do this, you need to be in constant prayer, in connection with your friends, and in understanding that your entire existence consists of moments your friends go through. In this way, you protect yourself so as not to fall.
Question: What is this constant prayer?
Answer: It is to hold on to your friends.
Question: How can I be sensitive enough and direct myself to exactly what my friends are going through and not myself?
Answer: You are going through the same thing they are going through. In addition, you have your moments, but the most important thing is that you are connected with them and go through all states together. You just need to feel dependent on them.
[331735]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: When we were singing one of Baal HaSulam’s melodies during the convention, I cried and saw that you also shed tears. Your inner pain seems to have blocked all the passages of my ego. I even lost all of my questions. What does this give me?
Answer: It corrects the heart, not specifically, but in general.
Question: So is it good? Is it possible to strive to feel your pain? It seems to me that there is nothing more powerful and stronger than this.
Answer: I feel like parents who have invested so much in their children, and the children are not very successful. I am sorry to say that about you. But in my eyes, you are still like that. Naturally, because of you, I am considered the same loser. Therefore, if I turn to the Creator regarding my children, which is you, this is what happens.
We must pray for each other and try to support each other. I think we are actually not in a bad state at all.
What we receive from above, we receive beyond all expectations. And then we will see what happens. It all depends on us.
Of course I would like to rejoice more and be proud of both you and myself, that is, to bring more contentment to the Creator.
[331360]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for Convention”
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Question: If there are many descents, confusion, and even not enough time to understand my state, how can I check that I am progressing correctly?
Answer: It does not matter that there are confusion and descents. The most important thing is that in your thoughts you are constantly striving toward the Creator. This is a sign that you are on the spiritual path.
Question: Until we include the Creator in our relationships, are we unable to ask Him to show us the way?
Answer: No, we can. We can ask the Creator to show us the way and to help us check if we are moving in the right direction.
Question: But our scrutinies constantly confuse us. Can we ask the Creator to take away these scrutinies and advance in faith above reason without them?
Answer: And how will you do this without scrutinies?
We need to clearly understand where the connection with the Creator is. Through which point of sensations does it come? This is what we are waiting for, asking for, and drawing closer to Him with. In the end, He reveals it to us.
[331711]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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Question: Is there a difference for the Creator when we pass on the light and fulfill the desires of external people or our friends from Bnei Baruch?
Answer: If we fulfill the desires of our friends who are with us in the same Kli (vessel), then we are building a spiritual ladder. We are as if climbing its degrees toward the Creator.
Question: If we fulfill the desires of external people, are we not climbing this ladder?
Answer: No, we are merely creating an external environment, but it is not purposeful.
[331704]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Man and His Role”
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 16”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 857 “The Need for a Kli without Light”
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Comment: We, the students of MAK Israel [KabU, Kabbalah classes for Russian speakers] would like to hear words of guidance and wishes from you.
My Response: The most important thing for you is to stay together. Gather together and strive to be increasingly focused on your goal.
You are only at the beginning of your journey. And, of course, many more revelations await you. But you have good conditions, and you will succeed. We are always at your service.
[332300]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/20, “Connecting into One Soul”
Question: It is said that we are obliged to receive pleasure to be in the program of creation. If a person has already abandoned the receiving vessels (Kelim), but has not yet fully mastered the skill of maintaining true clothing, how can they be in the program of creation?
Answer: A person must receive pleasure either from the fulfillment from receiving or the fulfillment from bestowing; this is his life. He cannot exist without desire.
He is created with the desire to receive. Therefore, we need to thoroughly understand ourselves: to whom is our desire directed and how we can use it.
[331708]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Man and His Role”
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Question: When I am clothing in the desire of a friend, it means I want to fulfill it.
If I take this desire and turn to the Creator with it, where exactly does the revelation of the Creator occur?
Answer: It occurs in the reflected light. The reflected light (Ohr Hozer) is the light we direct to the Creator because we want to feel the Creator through the quality of bestowal to Him.
To the extent that our qualities of bestowal align with His, we begin to feel the reflected light and the direct light (Ohr Yashar) clothed in it within our desire.
In this way, the light enters the body of the Partzuf, which means into our desire, and we reveal the Creator.
[331686]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is it possible to make an agreement with the body to work for the sake of bestowal? What arguments can we provide to the body so that it supports our intentions for the sake of Heaven?
Answer: You can come to an agreement with it if you constantly think about bestowal.
By desiring to work through your intentions, you should imagine that they are within you, and by directing them to the Creator, you connect with Him. In this way, the Creator receives all your desires.
Question: Will the body help us then?
Answer: The body has nothing to do with it. The body is a desire.
[331641]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”
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We can and must ask the Creator to reveal Himself in order for us to feel that He alone exists and fills the whole world.
Question: The concealment of the Creator was made specifically to give us the opportunity for correction. What does it mean to be ready for this revelation?
Answer: The point is that I should not feel His revelation as something that can fill me. I need to be ready to reject the revelation of the Creator in order to be like Him and to understand that He reveals Himself only so that I can conceal Him, and only after that can I very carefully and gradually prepare myself for His revelation.
That is, first we need to conceal Him. And to the extent that we can really do this, the Creator will begin to reveal himself.
Question: What does it mean to conceal myself?
Answer: It means I should not reveal my egoistic desires. If I do not reveal them, then no one knows them. I should reveal only my altruistic desires and wait for them to be fulfilled.
[331476]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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Question: How can we work so that all our actions and feelings become spiritual? How can we transform material pleasures into spiritual enjoyment?
Answer: Transforming material pleasures into spiritual ones is possible only if you think about what to do with the pleasure you receive. Suppose you experience some pleasure. First, consider from whom, why, and for what purpose.
In this way, you can somehow direct it, focus on something, and then you will understand what you are doing with that pleasure. It is not about the pleasure itself, but how we use it.
Question: How can we transition from enjoying false things to true, genuine fulfillment?
Answer: It is by connecting with our friends and helping each other understand what true enjoyment is, which we can receive from the Creator and then give back to Him.
Every moment we can examine ourselves and sharpen our focus on the Creator.
[331701]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Man and His Role”
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Question: It is said connection with the Creator as a result of prayer due to suffering is a greater correction than suffering itself, which is also a correction. What kind of connection should there be with the Creator to overcome suffering?
Answer: You should feel this, attract the Creator to yourself, unite with your friends, and do everything possible to be in the same desire, in the same connection with your friends and with the Creator.
Thus, you gradually form an instrument of influence upon the Creator and draw closer to Him.
Question: The whole world is suffering. We see this as a patent giving us a remedy for suffering. Is it possible to explain to people, including beginners, that they can overcome suffering by connecting with the Creator?
Answer: Of course, you can if only they would listen. There are no secrets here.
[331752]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help
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Question: We want to reveal the Creator in the degree that we can bestow to Him. What does this degree depend on? How can I know that I gave Him everything that I have received?
Answer: How can I measure it? We ask the Creator to reveal Himself to us in the degree that we can raise His greatness and bestow to Him. Then we will be able to do that.
Question: What is this desire that we have to present to Him so He would be revealed within it?
Answer: This is our desire to receive everything that He wishes to give us with the intention to give contentment to Him.
For now, we have to be ready to reveal the Creator in the degree of our understanding of how to do that. Gradually we will learn how to receive not for my own sake, but only for Him.
[331483]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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Question: How can we create the importance of mutual guarantee, concern, and the need to implement it between us?
Answer: In fact, the mutual guarantee is the connection between us. Without it, there will be no spiritual Kli (vessel) or Partzuf. Then, naturally, each of us will gain nothing. We will remain as shattered fragments of a single soul.
Therefore, the only thing we need to do is to ask for our unity. But this is only possible to the extent that we desire to rise above our egoism and unite with the friends. This is our work.
We just need to rise above our egoism, make a restriction (Tzimtzum) on it, create a screen (Masach) and reflected light (Ohr Hozer), and work with it, as with Aviut (coarseness), for the sake of bestowal. To this extent, we connect with others, form one common Kli, and act in bestowal together with the Creator.
He is above us as the general light, and to the extent of our equivalence of qualities, we contact Him and thus gain the ability to receive Him into ourselves. In this way, the creation and the Creator become one common whole.
[331693]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can we find the correct prayer if this requires a very large Hisaron? Should I ask for my friend to have a larger Hisaron or for me to?
Answer: It is a difficult question. First of all, I must ask for Hisaron for myself and for the fulfillment of my friends, because by asking for their fulfillment, I again turn to the Creator with my Hisaron.
When can we ask Him to give more Hisaron to our friends? In practice, we do not ask for it. We only want to join them and give them all our Hisaron, because if we pass it on, it immediately turns into reflected light (Or Hozer) to help. This is how we bring our friends closer to the Creator.
[331690]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What determines that we are playing with false pleasures in the ten?
Answer: It is the fact that instead of engaging in bestowal to the Creator from your unity, you engage in reception.
To replace these pleasures with real ones, find out how to begin connecting with the Creator in the Kli of bestowal.
Question: How important is it to come out of false pleasures? How important is reaching complete unity in the ten?
Answer: It is very important. How do you achieve this? Think about it and strive for it. Try to connect with each other and create a common Kli together.
[331785]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Man and His Role”
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Question: How should we correctly use two sources of pleasure the past and the future for current correction in the present?
Answer: We must feel all our past and future enjoyments in the present and strive to always be in this state. From this, we should thank the Creator and seek connection with Him.
Question: The more I try to cling to the Creator, the more my past and future enjoyments unite in the present. The problem is that I cannot sustain this enjoyment, which causes me immense shame before the Creator and my friends. Hence, my prayer to the Creator for help arises. Is this the correct prayer?
Answer: I think the state is generally good, but it can stop you and lead you in the wrong direction. You should always consider the love of the Creator and your desire for love of friends, and based on this build the present and the future.
[331748]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Receiving Pleasure from Three Kelim [Vessels]”
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Question: Is fear a desire?
Answer: No, fear is a state.
Question: What should we do with the fear of moving toward the Creator?
Answer: The fear of moving toward the Creator is the absence of movement, an unwillingness to approach Him, to feel Him, to talk to Him.
In this case, you should take some prayers, in any language, read them, and turn them to the Creator.
[331648]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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Question: It is written, “I will bless you in everything you do.” How can we perform every action with the blessing of the Creator?
Answer: I think we need to act directly here. If there is an opportunity to do something for the sake of the Creator, you should do it immediately and inform Him about it. This is called making an action (Ma’ase) and receiving a blessing (Bracha).
Question: How can we inform the Creator that we did something with the intention for Him?
Answer: Talk to Him. The Creator understands your thoughts, words, feelings, what you write on paper, and what you say into a microphone. The Creator is open to all your thoughts.
Question: But in my mind it seems like this goes back into the vessels of reception. If I, like a child, boast to the Creator to get more praise, how can I avoid stealing for myself again?
Answer: You will not steal. Keep using this approach; it is fine. Sometimes a person thinks and thinks for a long time, but they could have spoken with the Creator a thousand times by now.
[332141]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/24, Writings of Rabash “Action and Thought”
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Question: It is written that when a person remembers the goal, which is mind and heart, the world darkens for him because it is against the body, which is called self-love.
In our work, should we understand what our goal is?
Answer: Of course. How else can you turn to the Creator without a goal? Aimlessly?
Question: I used to have a clear understanding of the goal. But now it feels like all goals have collapsed. Should I search for a new goal or just follow the group?
Answer: Follow the group, this is a must. Integrate into the group. But at the same time, you need to identify a specific goal for yourself, what you want. You need to answer this question for yourself.
[331644]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”
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Question: You asked us: “How can we reveal the evil inclination each time without touching it?” What does it mean “not to touch the evil inclination”?
Answer: Not touching the evil inclination means not demanding any reception from it, but only to bestow. We have many different egoistic desires, through which we wish to participate only in bestowal.
[331656]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: When a person feels suffering, should they accept this state as it is and connect with the Creator from it, or should they strive to rise above this state?
Answer: A person should definitely strive to rise above it. Otherwise, how will they turn to the Creator? One cannot cry and ask the Creator at the same time. It will not work.
Question: What exactly is the correction during suffering when a person connects with the Creator through their request?
Answer: The Creator, by influencing the person with His light, corrects their desires, their soul.
[331661]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: All nations have their own traditions. But we say that the world Kli is Israel, the people of Israel. I would like to understand if we will gradually come to know these concepts and traditions more deeply and accept them. What is stopping us? It seems to me that this is quite a good, positive aspiration.
Answer: I do not think so. This is a huge mass of laws that a person belonging to the Jewish mass must study. But others have absolutely no use for it. It will just confuse you.
You need to study Kabbalah. The Jews, in addition to this, also need to know their laws, which they are obliged to follow, since without this they will not be close to the Creator.
Question: Won’t this become a kind of stumbling block that will distinguish us from the central group and everyone else?
Answer: I do not think such a state is possible. We do not force anyone to pray or follow any commandments. All this is done voluntarily. If a person is ready for this, regardless of whether one is a Jew or not, this is one’s personal matter. There is no need to pay attention to this. Everyone does what they want.
[331550]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”
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Question: When the Creator gives us something good, we enjoy it. How do I abandon this desire to receive for myself?
Answer: In order for this desire not to work in you on its own, you need to invest a lot of effort. Therefore, you should feel how much the desire “for your own sake” belittles you and puts you in the farthest state from the Creator.
Therefore, the intention “for oneself” must be changed to the intention “for the sake of the Creator.”
[331816]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Greatness Is According to His Work”
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Question: Our ten has entered a period when we no longer want to play with toys, we do not want to receive false pleasures. Where should we start to turn all the pleasures into the right ones?
Answer: Start by checking yourself: How do you treat your time, which is given to you by the Creator at every moment, what do you do with it? That is where you start.
Question: Can we say the responsibilities we take on in the ten for the sake of unification are a great help from egoism?
Answer: No, this is a great help from the Creator who made it so we could unite in the ten and thus move forward with the help of friends.
Question: Are we able to enjoy loving each other? Or is this not a goal, but an intermediary stage in attaining the Creator?
Answer: We will be able to love each other only if we see the manifestation of the Creator in the friend. This is the only way we achieve love.
Question: Should we satisfy the material, egoistic desires of the friends in the ten, or only those related to spiritual goals?
Answer: In general, if I relate to my friends in the property of bestowal and want to give to them, then any of their desires are my opportunity to give.
Question: When you receive fulfillment from the Creator and feel that He is giving it to you, how do you return this pleasure to Him?
Answer: There is no need to return anything. When you do something, always think that you want to please the Creator with it. Do what is good in His eyes.
[331697]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Man and His Role”
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The Creator has purposely created the evil inclination in us, where we think only of ourselves and are unable to think about others.
In every egoistic desire, there is a possibility of suffering. I keep suffering without understanding why or how. And then, for some people, the so-called point in the heart awakens, meaning contact with the property of bestowal, with the Creator. Through this point, they begin to realize that the problem is thinking only of themselves and they begin to look for a way out of it.
The Creator places them in a group, indicating that with its help, they will gradually change. And so, they begin to ask the Creator to change their nature so that they can feel others or the Creator instead of themselves, which is the same thing.
Such a request, which they repeatedly try to raise to the Creator, helps them begin to feel changes in themselves.
Initially, of course, we think only about ourselves, but after correction, we think only of others and, through others, of the Creator.
Why through others? Because there is nothing to think about the Creator, it is the property of bestowal. To think about Him is to give Him the opportunity to give. How can this be done? If I take the whole world and bring it to Him so He would fill it, I will benefit the whole world and the Creator. I need nothing for myself except to perform this action.
[331610]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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We can increase and decrease pleasure, but in principle, it depends on our Kelim (vessels). If I think for a long time about my desires, try to connect them, and direct them toward a specific goal, toward a specific fulfillment, then by developing them in this way, I will feel greater fulfillment than what comes to me.
Question: Can each moment between the past and the future, which is life, be more clear, more pronounced, and tangible?
Answer: It can if we combine the present, past, and future, and relate them all to the Creator by understanding that all of it comes from Him. This fulfillment is limitless in time, in the intensity of sensation, as well as in the strength of our connection.
[331782]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Receiving Pleasure from Three Kelim [Vessels]”
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Question: What should we do when we lack a feeling of the Creator? Should we suffer or calm ourselves?
Answer: The main thing is to keep moving forward, always try to advance yourself and the group.
To take a step forward, you need to understand the source of the divergence between you and the Creator more deeply. This way, you can quickly recognize your state and correct it.
[332119]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reward for Work in Spirituality”
Question: What is the surrounding light that influences our feelings of the future?
Answer: It is Ohr Makif (surrounding light), which surrounds us and shines from that future where we have already completed some part of our spiritual work.
Question: How can we increase it?
Answer: It depends on our vessels (Kelim). They depend on the respect for the future pleasure. If I, being the source of this pleasure that shines to me from the future into the present increase it, then my feeling of fulfillment will increase.
Question: Can we attract future pleasures through our spiritual work?
Answer: If we clearly imagine these states, we can attract them to us in advance and feel something similar now based on our past experience and our confidence that this future will definitely clothe within us.
[331745]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Receiving Pleasure from Three Kelim [Vessels]”
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Question: On one hand we all want to unite and follow you. On the other hand we understand that there are many great friends who have already done so much before us. How can we accept these internal contradictions where the bitter taste of vanity is felt alongside gratitude to the Creator for this path?
Answer: You need to understand that all contradictions come from the Creator, and they are all given to you mixed together intentionally so that you can sort each one out, separate it from the others, and direct it toward a better direction—toward complete connection with the Creator. Try to do this. Strive with all your heart to adhere to the Creator.
Question: As our desires grow, not only does receiving increase, but also the inner anger. How can we work with it so as not to express it outwardly? Even if we have learned to restrain it, what should we do at the moment we feel it?
Answer: Work with your intentions. Make them more and more similar to the Creator. This is our task.
[331826]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Greatness Is According to His Work”
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Everything that is attained in the upper world is the middle line.
Two lines descend from above from the Creator: light and desire. Their correct combination forms the middle line, which we perceive as comprehension of the Creator, as attainment of a single root.
In other words, there is one single root, from it two lines descend to us: on one hand desire, on the other hand light, the quality of bestowal.
We must combine them correctly within ourselves, like the Creator. He is one, from Him these two desires descend. We also must be one here; we must combine these two desires correctly in ourselves, like Him.
What does “like” mean? It means rising back up through these two desires higher and higher to His very level. That is all.
Therefore, any Kabbalistic, so-called “holy books” are written in the quality of bestowal, in the middle line. But in this middle line there is a slight inclination to the left or to the right.
Question: Is The Book of Zohar written in the middle line?
Answer: Yes, it guides you and helps you create a line from these two components. But there are books that are still written with an inclination in the other direction. For example, the Psalms are written with an inclination to the right, Ecclesiastes with an inclination to the left, and so on.
Question: Let us say I read The Book of Zohar or The Sulam Commentary on The Book of Zohar and do not understand them. What is their advantage?
Answer: You are given The Book of Zohar, already prepared and processed for you. You listen to it translated to Russian. I think this is normal.
The only thing you need to do is continue to listen to it patiently, for hours! I think you will still say that it has some effect on you.
Comment: It really works!
My Response: This is the special attribute of this Book. Gradually you will begin to feel it, understand it, and contact it.
And The Sulam Commentary adds a middle line to us that is suitable specifically for our souls, which is not found in The Book of Zohar itself. It adapts us to it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pure Zohar” 3/7/10
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Question: The basis of the spiritual world is the importance we attach to it. The sources say that there is only a gram of light and a gram of desire, and everything else is determined by how we treat it, what importance we give to this or that phenomenon. How does this happen?
Answer: We are used to the fact that in our world desires and fillings have some kind of metric proportionality: meters, cubic meters, parsecs, distances, tons, etc.
And in the spiritual world there are no earthly dimensions. Everything there is measured only by feelings, by the relationship of one to the other. Therefore, if I am concerned about a gram of some material, which for me may be more valuable than the entire universe and all life, since, let’s say, this gram is the birth of a new life, then I treat it as something that fills the entire universe. It is more to me than anything else. This is how the spiritual magnitude of an object is measured.
In other words, a spiritual object has neither geometric nor metric dimensions and is determined only by the magnitude of my attitude, my attention, and the greatness of the object in my eyes. These are purely subjective measurements.
Question: In principle, does a person who attains spirituality, a Kabbalist, enjoy not what the Creator gives him, but how important the Creator is in his eyes?
Answer: He does not feel what the Creator gives him. He feels only in the measure of the greatness of what the Creator gives him.
Question: Take an example from our world. Let’s say a cup of coffee is also from this single force. I can just have a coffee. But if some important person made it for me, I would naturally be filled not only with a drink, but also with the importance of this person, how great he is in my eyes, in the eyes of the whole society. Is that how it works?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: But still, there must be some kind of material…
My Response: There must be material in our world. That is why we start with the material world, which is created so that we can move from it to other, more abstract categories.
Question: So I have to treat all the pleasures of this world in the following way: it is given to me by the Creator, and I only lack the importance of the one who gives it to me?
Answer: Yes, but when I begin to develop importance to the one from whom I receive, and it is in me more than the importance of the received object, then I move on to other dimensions.
That is, the object itself no longer matters in my eyes. What matters is the importance of the one who gave it to me. And then I move from the sensations of our material world to the dimensions and sensations of the upper world: I received this from the Creator.
[282624]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States. The Significance of the Spiritual” 5/21/19
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Question: You often say that now we will cross through the Machsom. And many, especially beginners who really want it, get disappointed.
I remember how in my first congress I thought: now, now, now. And the older ones said: “Yes, he says that every congress.” And so every time a person loses the importance of the goal.
How can we rise above it? After all, the longer a person studies, the more each congress becomes routine for him.
Answer: No, this is the wrong attitude because everything adds up to one strong attack. Therefore, the accumulation of disappointments, efforts, hopes, dreams, and their non–fulfillment, unreality, their distance or apparent proximity, elusive hope—all this accumulates in us and eventually leads to a state where we still become worthy for the spiritual world to open up to us.
There is nothing in our world that can replace this work in terms of its importance, necessity, eternity and perfection, and aspiration for something higher. Everything else is an animal existence.
So if a person denies it or says: “Come on, whatever,” he should just be thrown overboard the ship. He is ballast and has no right to stay.
Every beginner hopes that now he will slip into the spiritual world. However, we know that it is very difficult, and at the same time we still have to believe that it can happen at any minute. That is what it says: “The salvation of the Creator is instantaneous and unexpected, like the exodus from Egypt.”
So, if you’ve been told: “That’s it, in a moment!”, and immediately it happens. This is really the only way. At the most inopportune moment! At night, when it’s dark, when there is no hope and no prerequisites for this, suddenly “bam,” and that is it. It is given the opportunity to urgently rise up and escape from egoism, get rid of it. In a hurry!
Now they give you such an aspiration, such pressure, such a kick from behind that you fly away from it in the dark, not knowing where. And you don’t need to know! And those who reason with their smart brains, will remain with them in the animal body and in the animal world.
So only the constant accumulation of efforts, the integration of all hopes and plans will lead to getting rid of egoism.
I do not know what those people who are ballast are striving for, what they think, what hope, goal, or deliverance they imagine. In Kabbalah, deliverance means getting rid of egoism—only.
Question: And if a person is completely desperate?
Answer: Let him go. If he stays in the group, but is in despair, does nothing, believes that everything is over, he ruins himself even more. He is a ballast in the hands of his friends, like a seriously ill man, like some kind of appendage. He’d better leave. I advise.
Question: So there is no other way for him except to leave?
Answer: Only if he silences his mind and heart and gives himself completely to the flow of the group, he will see how it takes him out into the wide open.
[329880]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Cross the Machsom” 11/14/10
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Question: Kabbalah studies take many years. Why do people break down and leave?
Answer: Many of my former students who left us still harbor bitterness, even hatred, toward me and a negative attitude toward our organization because they see how difficult it is to practice Kabbalah.
And it is true. A person feels it is challenging for him; therefore, as usual, he looks for an excuse in his instinct of self-preservation.
And to justify oneself means to humiliate and discredit me. Go online and see what they write. Why? It is from the instinct of self-preservation. A person must assert himself, which means destroying the other.
But I don’t care what is written there. Sometimes, I hear from my students that someone wrote such and such. Well, So they wrote… Of course, this interferes with dissemination. However, this doesn’t bother me personally. I still do my job, and whoever comes comes.
A person has a clear instinct—to put down someone else for his self-aggrandizement. If he cannot rise, then by suppressing someone, he supposedly rises relative to others.
I don’t measure myself relative to others. We must measure ourselves against the Creator! Therefore, in Kabbalah, the more exalted there are the better!
In our world, you want only to be the richest and the rest poor so that you are the strongest and the rest are the weakest. In spirituality, this is impossible! Only together with like-minded people can you achieve something! And the more people there are with you, the higher you rise since everything is built on a combination, unity, and mutual guarantee, a common vessel.
But in our world, on the contrary, everything is built on suppression and disregard for others. Therefore, you can immediately see where people are. Sometimes, I hear what this or that person is saying and immediately understand where he is.
I don’t even want to check him through the grid of my properties and powers in a spiritual state. Just hearing it is enough. If a person responds well, he moves upward toward correction, and if he reacts poorly, he descends into egoism.
Question: What do you mean when you say that you test a person through the grid of your spiritual properties?
Answer: It is impossible to explain it to others. What is the point? It still won’t help.
The properties of each person are in a common Kli, in a common vessel, in a common soul. But why should I feel it there if it is at the very bottom? It is as if in our world, you went to the slums where he lives, to the dirt in which he exists, to the environment in which he is located.
Do you need to plunge into all this?! For what? I don’t even want to think about such people, let alone contact them. It is not worth it. Contacting them gets you dirty. That is why Kabbalists don’t do this.
[328850]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12
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Question: We say that we are moving toward spiritual conception (Ibur). Where are we headed now? How do you assess our current state?
Answer: We are moving toward such a unity where we will truly feel ourselves connected together like a small body. This is the state of Ibur where we have nothing but a common point formed from the connection of many points.
Question: Can this be felt in your own group of ten or in any random group of ten?
Answer: It makes no difference. In spirituality, there is no difference at all. We say a group of ten because there is nothing but that. And if there are thousands or millions of groups of ten, it is still one group of ten. It depends on the scale at which you measure it. You can increase the scale tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a millionfold, and then narrow it back down to the minimal, rational one-to-one scale.
In spirituality, one to one is the ten Sefirot, the group of ten. It contains practically everything created by the Creator. In order to unite and correctly envision this group of ten, we sort of break it down into its components and then try to reassemble it, explore how we can connect, achieve some kind of conjunction with each other, and so on.
What does Kabbalah fundamentally deal with? It addresses the laws of communication between egoistic individuals guiding them to organize into a single integral altruistic system known as the ten Sefirot.
The scale, whether larger or smaller, does not matter. It is the same system. We do not need to correct the whole world, all ten billion people; we need to correct ten people.
[331183]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Usually a lot of people who just show interest in Kabbalah come to the congresses. You said that we have to reach such power that it is sufficient for everyone. This is an unbearable feeling of responsibility. Do we need to include a request for these people in our prayer for our friends?
Answer: We are obliged to consider everyone as our friends, everyone in the world who is with us in any form of unification: via the Internet, by telephone, it does not matter. They are all, in general, our friends, they all participate in some way in our striving forward, no matter what level each is at.
We have to think about them. We are pioneers, the forward-looking group. Therefore, we have to act this way.
Comment: When I pray for my friends, I periodically forget to include everyone else in my prayer, then it seems that my prayer is incomplete.
My Response: All this, of course, is formal. We do not need to pay individual attention to new people, we should automatically include them within ourselves and continue our spiritual work. For now, you cannot yet care for these friends to be with you. But it is necessary to be reminded about this.
Habit is second nature, you will gradually get used to thinking about them. And not only thinking, but genuinely empathizing and raising MAN together with them. You will feel that they are inside you.
Question: And what should we do with the feeling of responsibility that presses on us that we will not have enough power for everyone?
Answer: It is very good that you feel such pressure. It is wonderful! Be afraid! This is the best thing I can wish for you.
Be afraid, worry, suffer. All these are necessary feelings that push you to think about unity and to direct it correctly to the Creator.
Question: So, be afraid and pray?
Answer: Certainly. Without fear, there is nothing at all. Fear is the most correct, natural feeling of our empty desire. I am very glad that you feel this way. I wish this feeling for everyone.
[331211]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the convention”
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Question: What is the desire to receive I can use for the sake of bestowal to others?
Answer: Anything that the other person wants. If you wish them success, you must use your desire to receive to pass it on to them.
Question: A person has 613 selfish desires. Are they first corrected to bestowing for the sake of bestowal, and then to receiving for bestowal?
Answer: Not all and not necessarily in a specific order. It varies for each person, but generally bestowing for the sake of bestowal is corrected first, followed by receiving for bestowal, from small pleasure to great.
Question: What does it mean that the Torah fills desires?
Answer: The Torah is the quality of bestowal, love, closeness, and peace. You must feel that these feelings fill your desires. Ask for it. Ask for yourself, your friends, for your group, for everyone.
Question: As a child, I saw how tefillin affected my parents when my father put it on. It strengthened their bond and created an even greater desire. How can we increase our desire in a way that we relate to it like tefillin?
Answer: We have a stronger influence—our connection. If we unite with each other and together turn to the Creator, there is nothing greater and higher than this.
[331553]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 9”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 557 “Concerning Ohr Hozer [Reflected Light]
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3rd part of the Lesson – Lesson on the Topic of “The Spiritual Power of a Physical Gathering”
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For this reason, they were not ready to receive the Torah at the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but only when they came out of Egypt and became a complete nation. Only then was there a possibility to guarantee everyone’s needs without any care or concern (Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”)
After leaving Babylon, the children of Israel went through three spiritual periods known as “Abraham,” “Isaac,” and “Jacob.” These are the right, left, and middle lines interacting with each other.
While in Babylon, people suddenly felt a massive surge of egoism tearing them apart. Therefore, Abraham’s group left Babylon and began to draw closer to each other. This was the ascent to the spiritual level of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
However, while uniting, they again found themselves under the control of egoism. This period is called the Egyptian exile.
The constant growth of egoism is necessary for our further advancement, otherwise we would have nothing to rise above and no basis for working with each other. Therefore, periods of spiritual development always follow this pattern: ascents and descents, ascents and descents.
But the descents are not entirely new states. From the state of a shattered soul, negative relationships and negative qualities continuously arise within each of us and between us, which we perceive as descents.
This is how we move forward. If a person stocks up on the correct energy, has a group, engages in systematic studies, and needs to progress, they will inevitably experience descents and various unpleasant states. But it is precisely by overcoming these states that they will advance.
[330924]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: What is the truth?
Answer: There is only one truth—the Creator. Everything else is false, relatively, of course, based on what is closer to the Creator or farther from the Creator. But in principle, all of it is false.
Question: But we still receive from the Creator. We do not perceive Him directly, but reveal Him in some form of clothing. What here is the truth if it is not clothed in the desire to receive?
Answer: The extent to which the Creator is clothed in what we feel is how we should evaluate these things. Truth is revealed in the similarity of the Kli to the light that fills it. If there is a small difference between them, then the Kli will appear spiritually more powerful to us. And vice versa.
Question: Does a Kabbalist discern the difference? For example, does he feel falsehood in material Kelim, and then switch and feel the truth in spiritual Kelim? How can one make the switch?
Answer: Begin to direct yourself to the truth through spiritual possibilities, not material ones. Strive to see in the manifestation of people their higher human essence, how much they can rise above the material world and evaluate actions, objects, and forces as far from egoism as possible.
You need to switch to the sensation of truth, i.e., tune yourself only to the truth, pray for it, and receive only the truth.
[331201]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Therefore, the Tana described the Arvut as two people who were on a boat, and one of them began to drill a hole in the boat. His friend said, “Why are you drilling?” He replied, “Why should you mind? I am drilling under me, not under you.” So he replied, “Fool! We will both drown together in the boat!”
Meaning, as we said, since those rebels wallow in self-love, by their actions, they build an iron wall that prevents the observers of the Torah from even beginning to fully observe the Torah and Mitzvot in the measure of words “Love your friend as yourself,” which is the ladder for achieving Dvekut [adhesion] with Him. Indeed, how right were the words of the proverb that said, “Fool, we will both drown together in the boat!” (Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” [Mutual Guarantee])
We are drowning along with our world. Therefore, our generation needs to break out of this as soon as possible; that is, it needs to understand how to correct ourselves.
Therefore, Rabbi Elazar, son of Rashbi, who wrote The Book of Zohar, clarifies the matter of Arvut even further. It is not enough for him that all of Israel, not only this group, which received the system of Abraham, be responsible for one another, but the whole world is included in the Arvut*.*
It follows that all the peoples of the world must also follow the laws of Arvut (mutual guarantee). Therefore, we must explain this to everyone and involve everyone in it.
[331019]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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Question: What is the state when you feel indifferent to everything in the corporeal world you constantly want to read the sources, and you only derive pleasure from them? Is this an egoistic fulfillment?
Answer: It is an egoistic fulfillment, but it leads to spiritual fulfillment. So continue.
Question: How should one correctly think about the Creator?
Answer: Think intentionally that He is the source of all the fulfillments we desire. Unite with other friends and understand that in doing so, you create a path to the light that will pass from the Creator through all of you and into the collective Kli.
Question: Does it turn out that all a person’s efforts come down to is building a Kli for reception, expanding it as much as possible, and transforming it into a Kli for bestowal?
Answer: Of course, that is our task. When you are already within this system, you can regulate the process through the connection between yourself, your friends, and the Creator.
Question: When a friend has a deficiency and cannot direct it toward the Creator, can the group help him by uniting with Him?
Answer: Yes, it can. This is called descending to a friend, lifting him with yourselves, and turning to the Creator from this state.
[331498]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/24, Writings of Rabash “Wholeness and Deficiency – 2”
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Question: We are a creation, but within each of us, there is a point in the heart, a particle of the Creator’s nature.
Is it possible to ever attain the essence of the Creator, the nature of the Creator, and in a way become the Creator?
Answer: You cannot have the desire to attain the essence of the Creator. You can only have the desire to be similar to Him. We cannot jump above our nature.
Some degrees are revealed to us as degrees of higher attainment than just the qualities of bestowal. But we are not there yet.
We need to think about how to become similar to the Creator. From this similarity, we will understand Him.
[331399]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: As we progress, why, instead of the expected strengthening and revealing of spiritual desire, do new facets of material desires emerge?
Answer: It is to expand the desire within you and for your spiritual striving to be even more complete and extensive. This way you will later be able to receive fulfillment.
In ordinary desires, we cannot sense spiritual fulfillment, taste it, or open ourselves to even greater spiritual enjoyment. This only happens when the Creator works with us. Therefore, when we reveal ourselves, we should only think about bestowal.
[331562]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/24, Writings of Rabash “Wholeness and Deficiency – 2”
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Question: If the light of the Creator is in the Torah and everything around us, what is the difference in looking for the Creator in the texts of the Torah or a dialogue with the world?
Answer: It depends on the essence of the soul, in how much it desires this or that in connection with the Creator, and what state it is in.
Question: I have friends who studied at Bnei Baruch who said that if the Creator fills the whole world, what difference does it make where to attain Him? And they left.
Answer: This is the usual path that millions take. They think everything is clear to them, that there is nothing new, and that they can attain spirituality on their own, or come up with some other excuses and leave.
There is nothing we can do about it. Of course, everyone has obligations toward others, support, and so on, but in general, this is all we can offer.
A person must constantly increase his desire to reveal the Creator and feel that without this, he simply dies. Because every day of your life, in which you have not advanced even a millimeter on the path to the Creator, is a missed day.
[331565]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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Question: Should we strive for the day of the Creator, for His revelation?
Answer: Of course we should. The Creator desires this and we should want to.
Question: How can we make the day of the Creator so it is not night for us? We are still like a bat, in an egoistic desire.
Answer: It does not depend on your experience in Kabbalah, but only on your attitude. If in a certain state you want to turn night into day, then you should simply try to imagine the Creator is before you, that He is revealing Himself to you, and wants you to feel Him with all your senses and get closer to Him.
Question: Let’s say I feel a problem, something unpleasant in my life. How do I turn this state of night into day?
Answer: To do this, you need to switch to the Creator and try to feel Him as if what you are feeling now comes from Him. In this case, the question is how do we begin to feel the Creator instead of the night?
Try to do this, and you will see it is not that difficult.
[331364]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/24, Writings of Rabash “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 8”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 323 “Discernments in a Spiritual Kli [Vessel]
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Selected Highlights
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Question: You often tell us that we should strive to embrace our friends with our hearts. What does this concept entail?
Answer: Embracing a friend’s heart means striving to feel their true needs and questions. For this, you must unite with them in some common desire and raise this desire to the Creator. After you have united even a little, take some text of a prayer and begin reading it together in unison. And so it will be revealed that at the same time you rise.
Question: First you said that we need to seek our friend’s aspirations and then rise to the Creator with a common desire. So is this a path that needs to be followed to come to the single desire?
Answer: Yes, think less and act more so that your impressions lead you to a new state.
[331259]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/24, Writings of Rabash “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord”
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Question: During the day, we have time when we form a prayer. How can we use this time to feel that we are turning to the Creator together?
Answer: Gather together in sensation, as if you are in one place, in one desire, and from it you turn to the Creator, you want to connect to Him and to fill Him with your attitude. Nothing else is needed.
Question: There are different ideas about prayer. Is what is in our hearts already a prayer?
Answer: That is also correct.
Question: On the other hand, you say that first we form an appeal to the Creator, and then, as it were, must enter Him, raise the general MAN right here and now. But some friends believe that, in principle, that this is not necessary.
Answer: Let everyone participate as they see fit. It doesn’t matter. And then you will analyze your actions and correct them with prayer.
[331603]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/24, Writings of Rabash “And You, Israel”
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Question: What does it mean that we are beginning to reveal the open control of the Creator in our unification?
Answer: If you genuinely unite with each other, then the Creator reveals Himself between you, you feel how He guides you, and change the distance between you relative to each other: now closer, now further, in a circle, and so on.
This is how you understand the Creator’s governance and learn how to relate to the world from Him.
[332024]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/24, Writings of Rabash “Concealed and Revealed in His Providence”
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Question: How do we learn to let go of previous perceptions in order to undergo rapid changes? Could it be useful to find articles of Rabash where he talks about reward? Are there any such articles?
Answer: Of course, there are many articles. But it is not about them; it is about the way you perceive them.
Therefore, I advise you to get together, try to unite with each other, and read one article. It is better than reading ten articles alone.
You will feel others and get ten opinions at once.
[331403]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: What does it mean to keep oneself in the right state during a descent?
Answer: In a state of descent we must still keep ourselves connected to the Creator. After all, a descent is not truly a descent; we simply stop feeling closeness to the Creator, but this does not mean we are distancing from Him.
On the contrary, these are the states when we need to draw Him even closer to us. Thus, it is from this state of relative descent that we will begin to rise higher and higher.
Question: Elders develop a certain technique for going through states of descent, and they patiently go through everything. This patience, as a habit, does it neutralize the descent and moving through the degrees?
Answer: Not at all; each time it is new work and new effort.
[331406]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: You said that we need to advance toward the Creator every day even if it is just by a millimeter. It feels like we are not advancing toward Him, but rather are moving away. Can this feeling of moving away be considered progress?
Answer: Distancing can be somewhat deceptive because the closer you get to the Creator, the more it seems that you are getting worse.
Question: Why does the Creator do this?
Answer: He does not do it. It happens because you are close to the ideal of bestowal and love. In spirituality, there are different requirements.
[331506]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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Question: If we destroy the experience of youth, how do we accumulate what is necessary for building the soul?
Answer: It is done gradually. We must constantly try to ask the Creator to help us connect and ascend.
Question: What exactly is the mistake of youth? If young people want to build, it seems right.
Answer: What they want to build will not stand because youth ruins everything.
Young people still do not have a clear understanding of how to build correctly.
[331520]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: How does a Kabbalist define suffering? What is suffering for him?
Answer: The suffering of a Kabbalist is the inability to please the Creator. To reach such a state, you need to think, reason, be connected with your friends, and try to unite even more with each other.
Question: Without regrets, there are no corrections. Does the Kabbalist wait for regrets to come alone, or does he somehow cause them?
Answer: He does not call them. They come.
[331343]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: You said that only in connection with the upper force is the work of correction possible, and this is the prayer of the ten.
What should our request be so that we truly connect with the upper force and have the opportunity to be corrected?
Answer: Your appeal should be to a single Creator from a single ten.
To receive something from the Creator, you must be like the Creator—united in one system.
A sign of your connection with this force and the ability to work with it is that you receive support, correction, and a certain impact from the Creator.
[331502]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 66
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Question: Why is talking to the ten about your personal feelings, experiences, and sensations not allowed? How can I harm myself and my ten with this?
Answer: When you reveal your personal feelings, you harm yourself and everyone else. We can only talk about our common aspirations. Period! That’s it!
I see that this is not clear to you yet. Therefore, accept it as a law. There are many laws that we follow and live by until we understand their necessity. If you do not do this, you will harm yourself, specifically yourself.
[331396]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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By uniting with my friends, I try to receive the upper light, not for myself, but for them, in order to impart it to them.
I do this precisely because I connect with them, have some understanding of their desires and needs, and thus I raise their desires to the Creator, to the light, to fulfillment from the Creator.
Question: Should they feel fulfilled?
Answer: Not necessarily.
Question: What helps a person strengthen his faith?
Answer: Only connection with the friends where everyone supports each other.
[331479]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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Question: Is it possible to call Bnei Baruch elders?
Answer: Bnei Baruch is neither old nor young. It is just a gathering of people who want to reach a connection with the Creator.
Question: Is destruction always the experience of a state of “death” for egoism?
Answer: No, not that much. The damage can be insignificant. For example, your hopes and expectations in connection with your friends may also be destroyed.
Question: The Creator does all the actions. What is the proper participation in the construction of the Temple? How do I become involved in the activities He conducts with us?
Answer: To do that, you must feel what He is doing and follow the same paths.
Question: How do you tune in to hear the truth and not what our desire to receive wants?
Answer: Read Rabash’s articles about this, and you will hear the voice of the Creator.
Question: How can we help the Creator build a solid foundation for the Temple and the Temple itself?
Answer: Ask Him for it, try to draw closer to Him, give Him the strength we have.
[331430]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: Why is the concealment of the Creator called a contradiction? Does it mean we will live increasingly in contradictions if we do nothing?
Answer: Yes that is correct. Therefore, as soon as we feel that we are in a state of descent, distanced from the Creator, we must make efforts, climb out of the descent, and approach the Creator to draw closer to Him.
Question: How can we always move from destruction to creation within the group of ten? In other words, is annulment before friends the right path to creation?
Answer: Yes, annulling oneself before friends is one of the correct actions.
Question: How can we measure our approach and faith in the Creator during contradictions?
Answer: We cannot do this yet. The most we can determine is whether we are turning to the Creator or not. Later, all this will take concrete forms.
Question: How can one make an effort toward faith above reason during a descent when a person wavers and does not feel the light?
Answer: Only by holding on to friends, the group, and the articles we study.
[331349]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: Is there a difference in the impact on the Creator when we pray out of suffering or joy and gratitude?
Answer: Of course there is. When we thank the Creator, we are closer to Him, and if we ask to cancel the suffering, we are far from Him.
We must not be grateful for suffering. It is unnatural. We must correct ourselves and be thankful for the correction.
[331440]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: It is said that the contradiction by elders is when they believe that the Creator is tending to them, and from this they derive vitality. How can we derive vitality the way the elders do?
Answer: The contradiction by elders is like a connection. The connection among the young is like rejection. To derive vitality like the elders, we must be in a state of connection with friends and with the Creator and constantly think about strengthening this connection. Nothing else.
Question: Can we find both elders and young within ourselves?
Answer: Yes, these are our desires. Gradually you will begin to understand who is against, who is in favor, and so on.
Question: How can we determine that a desire has reached the level of an “elder”?
Answer: This does not happen immediately. Gradually you will see it.
[331370]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: Should a person regret that they cannot delight the Creator as much as He wants to delight everyone?
Answer: Yes, one should think about this and ask the Creator to give us such vessels of bestowal (Kelim de Hashpa’a) when we can gather everything we reveal and receive, collect it together, and pass it on to the Creator.
Question: Is there a difference between prayer and a request to the Creator?
Answer: No, essentially it is the same thing.
Question: We should ask the Creator to awaken love for others in all of humanity. To achieve this, should we make calculations based on the quality or the quantity of our unity?
Answer: Both quantity and quality. Ideally, there should be ten friends aiming for the highest quality of connection between them.
[331298]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Question: At conventions we usually gather in random tens. What is the path that I should I take with it? What should I strive for?
Answer: To annul yourself in order to connect with the ten in one integral, small system where each of us practically disappears and we feel something common: integrality, mutual complementing of everyone in everything.
Sometimes we go from the perspective that we need to bestow to the Creator, and for this, we must connect. Or we can take another path: first think about the friends, not to mention the fact that this is necessary for establishing contact with the Creator. Both ways are valid. This is called “commandments between people and the Creator.”
[331139]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for convention”
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Question: How can we develop the habit of mind that everything comes from the Creator and everything is the Creator in our senses?
Answer: Forcibly keep yourself in it all the time.
Question: Do habits of mind have to go through a certain cycle?
Answer: Yes, but it is all close to us. We must understand that what seems spiritual to us—the Creator, and so on—is much, much closer than we think.
[331352]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: Does our joy and gratitude from playing spirituality depend on how well we fulfill the Torah and commandments?
Answer: It depends on how you strive for connection with the Creator.
Question: It is said that the Creator wishes to delight creation not because of a lack (Hisaron). Does this mean that we too should act without Hisaron?
Answer: The Creator has a great Hisaron in drawing us to Him. We need Hisaron for the connection of friends and then for the collective ascent to the Creator.
Question: Does the fire of shame draw us closer to Him or repel us?
Answer: The fire of shame only brings you closer to the Creator.
[331262]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/24, Writings of Rabash “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord”
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Question: When I sit in a lesson with my ten, a lot of unrelated thoughts run through my head. I understand that during the lesson I should pray for my friends to be able to bestow to them. How can I succeed in this?
Answer: First of all, during the lesson, we should initially think about how to help everyone unite. I was brought here by various egoistic goals and rewards. But now that I am here, I should think about how to do what will benefit others, and I do not need any personal gain. My benefit will be only in bestowing to others. Then I will truly exist in the spiritual space.
Question: But what is the process itself? I understand that I need to ask the Creator for my friends. How do I do this? How can I check whether I have asked or not?
Answer: This will manifest in gestures, words, thoughts—in everything within you. If you do it only for others and not for yourself, it is felt. A person kind of floats in the air; at this time, he is considered an angel. An angel is a natural altruistic force.
Question: What should I do with the resistance that increases?
Answer: Work on it. This is how you acquire the screen, meaning you ask the Creator to give you the ability to act correctly.
Comment: But the resistance stops me.
My Response: No, you must ask. Ask and act. Act and ask.
Question: Is it enough to just remember this?
Answer: Try not to leave this state. If you do, return immediately! Meanwhile, ask the Creator not to throw you out of it again. After all, it was He who made you forget and leave the thought about your friends.
Start working, and you will see how a different order of thoughts will gradually form within you; you will begin to exist outside yourself. This will slowly allow you to distance yourself from your “I,” from your egoism.
[331248]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for Convention”
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Question: Are the souls that are here today the same souls from past generations or are they, as it were, new awakenings?
Answer: A soul is a desire aimed at attaining the quality of bestowal, at connecting with others. Each time it is new because it goes through all sorts of changes. So it cannot be said that it is the same soul as before. There is no such thing.
You can rise to the same level that Abraham was on, and then you will literally feel everything that he felt as if you dwell in him. It is not the same soul, but what is called Ibur Neshamot—the impregnation of souls.
Question: When people awaken spiritually, must they necessarily have a Reshimo from a previous state, or is it a new awakening?
Answer: There is nothing new. The Creator created one unified soul called Adam from the word “Domeh (similar), that is, similar to the Creator. Then it shattered into many parts, each of which is a private soul that is in each of us and in general in all people in all generations.
[330883]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: How can you combine exerting effort and working in joy?
Answer: Why can’t there be joy when you make an effort?
Question: It seems that effort is a feeling of some kind of lack, an evil inclination, and you need to work on it.
Answer: You should ask to feel joy too.
Question: So joy should not precede effort?
Answer: As you ask, so it will be.
[331089]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: What should prayer be like? After all, we must ask the Creator not only to take away suffering and, through this, to better connect with Him, but also to correct the shortcomings that caused this suffering.
Answer: No, we only need to think about how to change our relationship toward suffering and where it comes from.
Question: If we pray for help for a suffering friend, is the entire ten undergoing a general correction of our connections?
Answer: Yes, you must join as if immersed in it. Then everyone can give a little strength to reduce the friend’s suffering.
Question: With thoughts and feelings that you are in sadness, trouble, pain, and grief, do we show dissatisfaction with the Creator?
Answer: In general, this is true. You just need to figure out why you are dissatisfied and why the Creator wants to give you such a state. What can you do about it? How do you get out of this state? It is your job.
Question: What is the factor that influences the feeling of the Creator’s answer to prayer?
Answer: It is as much as I am connected am I with my friends and I can connect myself with them to have one united Kli.
[331290]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 5″
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 64”
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Question: I have a feeling that getting closer to the Creator is dangerous because it results in a fear of deep disappointment. At first, the Creator draws you near and you feel close to your friends and to the Creator, but then it becomes very painful when He seemingly pushes you away from Himself. And then you do not want to get close to Him at all. How can this path be evened out?
Answer: Don’t think about yourself; think about pleasing the Creator with your actions.
Question: But that seems unrealistic. If I feel rejected by Him, how can I even think about Him? Should I do it artificially?
Answer: No, not artificially but naturally. Try, and one day it will work out.
[331307]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/24, Writings of Rabash “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord”
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Question: Is the Temple our properly built relationship?
Answer: It is our correct common soul that we reveal among ourselves.
Question: What is the basis of this common soul? After all, a building collapses if the foundation is unstable.
Answer: Yes, the same is true in our case. The basis of the common soul is our egoism that we glue and hold in connection with each other because each of us annuls himself before the other.
[331443]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/24, Writings of Rabash “Ruin by Elders—Construction; Construction by Youths—Ruin”
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Question: A person who works in our world group or simply often comes to meetings and days of unity sees more images that are closer to the truth than someone who bothers more about corporeality and sees more false images. Does it turn out that someone who connects more often with friends has an easier path to determining the truth for himself?
Answer: No, in no way is his path easier or faster. In order to reach the spiritual level, one needs to go all out, to do some work. Only in this case will you gain access to some spiritual level, and then to the next one, and so on.
So, it does not matter where you live or who you are connected with. All that matters is your inner need for the sense of truth. You need to constantly direct yourself to ensure that the truth lives in you.
Therefore, you should constantly monitor yourself.
Question: Who can help in a situation when a person cares about corporeality more than he needs and loses this facet of truth?
Answer: No, he will not be allowed to immediately escape from spiritual advancement. There are such “guards” on the path that keep us in spirituality.
[331245]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Question: What is the difference in the perception of the Creator’s light between various people? Does it depend only on efforts or on some properties the Creator gives?
It seems that some people feel the light without making an effort and some, on the contrary, cannot come to feel it through their efforts.
Answer: The Creator reveals Himself in both ways. Therefore, we need to make efforts, and how the Creator advances us toward Himself is His business. The main thing is to ask Him to draw us toward Himself.
Question: Does the Creator hear our desires or the strength and effort in our desires?
Answer: The Creator hears everything, all our nuances, what we want to receive, what we turn to Him with, etc.
[331486]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/24, Writings of Rabash “The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory”
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On the negative side, if a part of the nation does not want to keep the Arvut, but to wallow in self-love, they cause the rest of the nation to remain immersed in their filth and lowliness without finding a way out of their filth. Baal HaSulam, Article “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]” .
We exist with one another in integral connection, and it creates both positive and negative problems.
The positive component is that we help one another and complement one another. The negative one is that if someone lacks something in the integral group, then everyone suffers.
Therefore, the fact that nature made us integrally connected is good and bad. It is good in the sense that each of us adds to the common Kli, while the bad thing is that when we do not give, we steal from this Kli.
One has to understand that the integral spiritual Kli is very sensitive and reacts to changes of everyone whether positive or negative.
[331022]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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After the Kabbalistic group left Egypt, its serious development began. Before this, there was practically no spiritual development since the most essential thing that manifested during this period that we all go through is the growth of egoism.
After that, we can start talking about corrections. That is, we have acquired egoism and begin to feel that it is not easy for us to connect with our friends. We are not ready to be in the same harness with them.
Therefore, we need an upper force that will unite us over egoism. This higher power can be called “Creator,” “Pharaoh,” or “Egypt”; it does not matter what. And here our work begins.
Baal HaSulam, in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”, writes that, However, while they were still mingled with the Egyptians, a portion of their needs was necessarily given into the hands of these savages, permeated with self-love.
What is he trying to say? While we are in egoism we cannot achieve complete connection because between us are our egoistic desires—the Egyptians.
[330954]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: What efforts should we make to feel no difference between faith and knowledge?
Answer: Try to be aimed toward the sensation of the Creator constantly.
Question: How can we not miss moments of revelation of the Creator and be in constant interplay with Him?
Answer: It depends on you. The Creator is always ready. You should check what is better or worse when you can turn to the Creator, unite, and strive toward Him.
Question: What is this state when the shadow of the Creator is revealed to us?
Answer: It is the opposite state of the Creator. That is not a descent but doubt, a lack of faith, i.e., still some connection.
Question: How can we help a friend who separates from us?
Answer: Only by praying for him, and you will see how quickly he feels it.
Question: How can we judge light and darkness by the criteria of the Creator?
Answer: You have to learn this. We need to study the meaning of light as defined by the Creator, the meaning of darkness as defined by the Creator, and the difference between them.
[331238]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/24, Writings of Rabash “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord”
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Questions about Spiritual Work—144
Question: Is annulment a skill?
Answer: Annulment is when you have no personal involvement in the future. You are like a slave who is obliged to do everything your master tells you. But at the same time, you do not expect any reward. You fulfill his desire not involuntarily, but consciously, of your own freewill.
Question: Is revealing the friend’s Hisaron my goal?
Answer: You cannot reveal his Hisaron and you never will. You strive with all your desire to help him. You do not reveal it for yourself, but wish to fully participate in it. In this, you are his slave.
[331433]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is light something necessary for our correction or something we earn and become worthy of receiving?
Answer: Initially, only one quality exists: the quality of bestowal. It creates the opposite quality of reception. The quality of bestowal is called light, altruism; the quality of reception is called darkness, egoism. Both qualities coexist; the quality of bestowal is primary and the quality of reception is secondary.
The task of the Creator (the property of bestowal) is to bring the property of reception to similarity with Him so that it is on the same degree as the Creator. In this way, the Creator reveals His greatness—how He can create something opposite, yet equal to Himself.
This is the principle of the origin of creation, and we must reach this state. Since we were created from the quality of reception, we must create an intention on this property to use receiving for the sake of giving, because receiving is our nature, and it does not change.
And then the greater the egoism I work with in my property of receiving, with zero, first, second, third, fourth, the more I ascend. That is how it works.
So the quality of reception is not harmful; it is nature. Nature can be neither bad nor good. The only thing we need is to work with the quality of reception revealed in us with the intention to bestow.
If I receive for the sake of bestowal, then everything is fine; by this I bestow, although in principle my action is an action of reception. Only the intention changes. Thus, everything is determined by intention and not by mechanical action.
[331149]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is it correct to use physical examples to aid in developing a spiritual community?
Answer: We should take examples only from the books of Baal HaSulam and Rabash and use them to evaluate every action.
Question: What seems beautiful to us is not always true; we can be influenced by trends or education. What is a “true” spiritual work?
Answer: True spiritual work is when I connect with my ten, hold them together through my efforts, and attract them to come closer to the Creator.
Question: Rabash writes that only the person himself must believe in the immense importance of being worthy of the king’s presence. What does this action “must believe” mean?
Answer: A person must believe that the upper force is guiding him toward the spiritual goal.
Question: Does our soul already know the truth? How can we make a “true” choice through the soul, even in worldly matters?
Answer: You do not know this yet, but ultimately, we will come to this, and you will receive notification of the truth from there.
Question: How can we keep ourselves above egoism if two friends are making remarks to each other in front of the entire group about how each should change?
Answer: You should talk first with one, then with the other. Ideally, the entire group should take it upon themselves to embrace them with warmth.
[331192]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Questions about Spiritual Work—144
Questions about Spiritual Work—143
Question: The value of corporeal things depends on advertising. There is a prohibition against sharing one’s spiritual states and experiences in spirituality. How can we correctly advertise spirituality to friends?
Answer: We need to support friends who yearn to come closer to the Creator and then gradually we will come to feel what the Creator feels. By striving to be closer to Him, we will begin to see the world as the Creator does.
Question: So I say that a particular friend in the group is probably close to the Creator; therefore I envy him. Is that right?
Answer: Suppose you think so and are confident about it. You must be responsible for your words, especially when you speak about someone else.
Question: Then how do I advertise spirituality correctly?
Answer: You do not need to advertise it.
Question: I cannot speak about myself, but I can about a friend. How can I be sure that he is close to the Creator? Today he is close and tomorrow, God forbid, he might show a different side.
Answer: That is why you should not advertise. If a person constantly strives for the truth and desires to move toward it with friends from within their connection, this gives us confidence that he is on the right path toward the right goal.
[331197]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Question: We learn that the Creator brings us out of a state of merging with Him by exposing a new layer of evil. What kind of situation is it when the person has to look where to make efforts in a state of merging with Him?
Answer: A person must look for where he can add more effort for connection with the Creator to manifest there.
Question: The state of merging with the Creator has several stages. There is my merging with the Creator and then the merging of all humanity with Him. Is that why additional effort is required?
Answer: Not only that, even your merging with the Creator divides into many stages.
Question: What if what seemed like effort now seems like a mistake? How do I return to these states?
Answer: Continue to work on correction.
[331107]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: If you cannot talk about your sensations and feelings in the ten, what should you talk about?
Answer: It is not customary to talk about personal internal feelings in the ten since you can harm yourself and your friends by doing this.
What do we usually talk about? About the greatness of the group, the greatness of the Creator, and what we should strive for, not me personally but all of us together.
You cannot talk about what you are experiencing, how you feel, your emotions, and personal aspirations.
Basically we discuss what is written in the articles.
[331142]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: During workshops, there is warmth and good connection between us. Is there any spirituality in this or is it egoism?
Answer: We should feel the warmth coming from our friends because we are in such a close-knit society. This is very good.
Anyone who does not feel this should work on feeling this. Everyone should suffer with their friends, worry with them, and rejoice with them, we should be working in unison and harmony.
[331136]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: If a lie is wrapped in sweetness and truth in bitterness, why can’t we advance based on these feelings?
Answer: How will you advance? What will pull you forward? You cannot move toward bitterness with your own properties and feelings.
Question: But I cannot move toward sweetness either. Does this mean that through feelings we cannot accurately distinguish truth from lie?
Answer: Yes we can. If you feel that truth is sweet, then you can move toward it. But nothing will help you move toward truth if it is bitter, you will not be able to advance.
[331321]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Question: Why is it so difficult for us to support each other?
Answer: We do not feel connected to each other. Kabbalah explains that we are interconnected, integral, and in the same system.
Look at the ways in which all misfortunes that befall humanity teach us about integral interconnectedness.
What are people missing today? We have science, technology, everything you could want. The only thing we lack is a good connection between ourselves. It is so obvious! After all, if you look at humanity, what are people occupied with? They have everything except the awareness of how to make their lives normal. Yes, it is just to suffer less, not to mention that we can achieve anything!
The same applies to us in our tens. But why? We know what needs to be done to be correctly interconnected so that I can reveal the upper world in the ten so that my ten transforms into ten Sefirot and I begin to attain all 125 degrees within it.
To leave this world like that, to ascend to any degree as on a spaceship and simply look at this nature as nothing, why don’t we do it? It seems that we have everything, we know everything, we understand everything, there is a place, there is time, there is strength, there is everything.
[331015]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: All day I have been intensely working on the thought of how to ask for my friends in order to bring them closer to the state of Ibur (conception). How can I exert more effort in order to create a real state of attack to reach this level?
Answer: I see no other way than to act on my own, to ask for myself, and to ask for others so that we can all annul ourselves and become one common spiritual body that only thinks about annulling its egoism at the very first stage.
To annul oneself means to fully integrate into each other, to think only about others and not about oneself. In this way, we perform the most productive spiritual action that we are capable of today.
And further, based on the fact that we will go “out of ourselves” and as if entering others, a completely new state will arise—altruistic egoism, which we will apply for the sake of others, not for ourselves. This is what we need to do.
But right now, we really need an attack on our egoistic thoughts and calculations so that all of them are only for the purpose of getting included in others and working as if in the body of our friends, helping them. Therefore, it is said: “Let each one help his friend.” After all, each one cannot ask and pray for himself; only for others.
Question: When we turn to the Creator for our friends, how do we annul our own participation in this?
Answer: When I ask for my friends, I try to make it so that I do not think about myself, as if I do not exist, but only they do. And where is my personal involvement? My personal involvement is only in that I ask for them, that I extend my request on their behalf, but no more than that.
[331311]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for The convention”
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Question: The Creator has no desire to receive; He created it out of nothing. How can the Creator feel the creation that is only in the desire to receive? How can a creature invite Him into its desire to receive?
Answer: We start from the axiom and then discover: everything a person does concerning the Creator is revealed in relation to Him. There is nothing to hide here.
Question: So does the Creator feel the creation both in reception and in bestowal 100%?
Answer: Of course, because we exist in Him.
[331098]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1”
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Question: I am about to get married soon and I am in such joy that I constantly thank the Creator for this gift. What else can I do to bring Him contentment?
Answer: Ask Him. I am not His secretary or someone especially close to Him. Find out from Him what you can do to bring Him joy and pleasure. Just ask Him that.
Question: You mean establish a direct connection with Him?
Answer: Yes, of course.
[331101]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1”
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Question: Is truth feeling what the Creator feels and seeing the world as the Creator sees it?
Answer: Of course.
Question: How can one bring oneself closer to such sensitivity?
Answer: This is why we study. What we have been reading all this time we need to somehow absorb within ourselves and try to tune in to perceive reality above our egoism, against it, so that the truth is always more valuable than lies.
You need to constantly monitor that the ego does not rise above you. There is nothing more important than controlling how much you are above it.
[331204]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Comment: You told a friend that if he feels fear, he should come to the group and the fear will pass. I know this from my own experience. But when I leave the group, the fear returns with new strength.
My Response: Come back to the group again.
Comment: I cannot be in the group 24 hours a day.
My Response: Try to stay connected with them non-physically. Spend some time with your friends, and afterward, you will be able to imagine that you are among them.
Question: Are the states I go through and those the group goes through the same?
Answer: It does not matter. The main thing is that you want to be with them.
[331318]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 1″
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 57”
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Question: What is the right way to resolve disagreements in the group? Where should we start?
Answer: Start with wanting to replace your current relationship with love.
Question: What is the importance of turning to the group for support?
Answer: By turning to the group you develop your connection with it, and it begins to act on you through the Creator.
This is very important.
[331294]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/24, Writings of Rabash “A Request for Help”
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Question: In Rabash’s article, “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord,” it is written that the Creator has no lack, and therefore no desire—only a game. But isn’t the purpose of creation to delight His creatures, isn’t that the Creator’s desire?
Answer: For the Creator, this is considered a game, but a game does not mean it is not serious. It is said that the Creator sits and plays with the Leviathan. For the Creator, it is a game, but for a person, it should be the game of life.
[331223]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/24, Writings of Rabash “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord”
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To feel the heart of a friend means that I feel not my own heart but his. I live with his thoughts, aspirations, and intentions so that only they speak within me.
And I have nothing of my own. I have only one desire—to feel theirs.
This is the quality of Malchut, which is called the main Sefira because it receives everything from the first nine Sefirot. Each of us in relation to our friends is Malchut.
[331355]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for The Convention”
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Question: If a person perceives pleasure egoistically, like a harmful habit he can’t get rid of, and he suffers from the need to enjoy for himself and wants to get rid of this suffering, is this still aimed at his own benefit in order to ease his own suffering?
Answer: It all depends on the intention. Why do I want to get rid of receiving? Is it to make me feel nicer, pleasant, warmer, or more comfortable? Or do I want to stop receiving to be closer to the Creator?
And here, too, there are several questions. How egoistic is your desire to get closer to the Creator? Maybe you genuinely want to pay attention to Him and at the same time a favor.
[331127]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1”
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Question: Rabash writes that when there is no place for work and effort, one should strive for effort and take awe from the past. Where does one get this awe from?
Answer: From one’s past states that have already been worked on and corrected; one can revive them in oneself again. Then a person will have another opportunity to rise above himself and get closer to the Creator.
Question: How does he revive these states in himself?
Answer: He feels the states he had before and those he has now, and thus advances with them.
Question: When I return to the state that should help me make an effort now, do I end up repeating exactly what I did in the past?
Answer: No, there are many different components and all of them are now included in the equation of connection, let’s say, between you and me. This connection corrects the overall system.
[331063]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: Does making an effort always involve nervous tension and emotional upheaval, or can this be done in a calm state?
Answer: No, it is impossible to do anything in a calm state because all that is required of us is to move forward toward the Creator. In this advancement, we gather ourselves, our feelings, our sensations. Therefore, it always involves the tension of our efforts.
Question: So, striving for inner peace means going in the wrong direction?
Answer: No, if the striving for inner peace is connected with the upper, then it is correct. But if it is detached from connection with the upper, then it is a wrong aspiration. Peace can only be achieved when we are included in an upper degree.
[331174]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: What should one do when fear paralyzes them and they cannot do anything?
Answer: I believe the best thing to do is to engage mechanically with your friends. Sit next to them, read something, sing songs, maybe even have a little drink and a bite to eat, and everything will pass.
If you do this in a group of ten, it will definitely be beneficial. Eventually, it will pass on its own. The Creator gives states that gradually dissipate. Using them correctly means realizing them in the group.
This is the best approach. By no means should you sit and worry. It is said that a fool sits and eats his own flesh. So, immediately immerse yourself in the group.
Do not think that if you sit and engage in self-criticism, it is good. No. Any state we have is for the good if it leads us to greater unity in the group.
[331179]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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The group that Abraham organized in ancient Babylon was founded on the single principle that everyone was ready to achieve the state where he can be connected with another and to “love his neighbor as himself.” In the Torah and other sources this is noted as the most important commandment.
In general, it should be a commandment for all of humanity, but we see that people of that time could not implement it. Today we are facing this question once again.
Therefore, as Kabbalists have said, we exist in the state of the last generation that must bring this idea to life. We have all the means to do that. The same system that Abraham attained some time ago is becoming revealed for the entire humanity, and we have to realize this idea.
The essence of this system is that we have once again to gather into one single whole through our thoughts and feelings rather than with our bodies. The corporeal world has nothing to do with this. The main thing is the person’s aspiration that directs him or her toward becoming closer with others. Only in this case will we come to the state of loving the other as yourself.
As soon as we reach the smallest level, the minimal connection between us, then right away we will begin to sense the upper world through it, a different state, a different nature.
Our nature is felt in five corporeal senses, but in addition, we will also start sensing the upper nature through the connection between us. To the extent we are able to connect between us, we will experience a completely different universe, different world, and different nature that is built on the property of bestowal rather than the property of receiving.
Let’s say our earthy nature is considered as “minus” because it is constantly attracting others in a negative way, while the upper, spiritual nature is built on the principle of bestowal, “plus,” and we will begin to feel it.
The sensation of the positive nature is completely unlike what we see today. After all, we will start sensing the upper forces, life beyond the boundaries of time, space, and movement. We will start sensing eternal states.
Our correct use of egoism, meaning our ascent above it, will bring us to this state.
[330862]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: When working on a mutual guarantee, how can one avoid approaching the precipice to which Rabbi Akiva’s disciples approached?
Answer: The question is valid, but don’t worry, you won’t get any closer to it.
The spiritual system works according to a specific plan, according to which the construction and destruction of the First Temple should have occurred. The First Temple is a spiritual level called Mochin de Haya.
Then the descent from this level began with the destruction of the First Temple. The people of Israel remained in this state until the construction of the Second Temple (Mochin de Neshama). All this was planned and clear from the initial state when Abraham’s group was forming in Ancient Babylon. They had to go through this.
Our generation has only one task: to rise to the third state, the Third Temple (Mochin de Yechida), when the light of the level of Yechida fills the final corrected creation to realize the connection between all souls.
Let us hope we can achieve this. At least we have the opportunity.
Question: Why can’t we implement this practically, like say with building a kibbutz?
Answer: We do not have such a spiritual opportunity. The point is not to build some buildings. We should not do this. We do not need to create, destroy, or rebuild anything in this world. We need to rebuild ourselves, rebuild our relationship, and based on this everything will change.
[330917]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: The human body is an integral system of nature’s creation where each cell works to give and care for the entire organism. How is the interconnection between the human body and its soul expressed as an integral system of nature?
Answer: There is no connection and no need to invent this connection. It simply does not exist! Not to confuse you, but even the body does not exist. We should leave this alone.
We have the perception of a reflection of our soul to start understanding what we are dealing with. But we do not deal with the body at all! If there is a problem with the body, go to a doctor. But the soul is by itself.
[330921]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: We learn that from love for creatures one comes to love for the Creator. It is impossible to unite without the help of the Creator. Does it mean that we first need to contact the Creator?
Answer: We must ask the Creator to unite us.
Question: Should we ask the Creator to build some kind of image?
Answer: You do not need any image! You need to ask the Creator to unite you. Then, as you begin to unite, you can ask Him to unite you even more. Then you will begin to work with Him, study Him, and connect with Him.
The first action is our unification. But for this, we need the Creator. We set the task of unification between us, and the Creator is an auxiliary force that we ask to help us in this. We then turn to Him to connect with Him even more. But until we unite with each other, we have nothing to turn to the Creator with because we do not yet exist at His level.
Question: To whom then do we turn?
Answer: We turn to nature, to the upper force, for help.
Question: What is this nature made of?
Answer: This should not interest you. You just need to get the force of connection.
First, we use the Creator to connect with each other. When we succeed in this, we turn to the Creator in order to begin to unite with Him.
[331167]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for Convention”
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Comment: I understand that spiritual work helps us go through all our states with acceleration. If we linger for a second in some state, it is simply a waste of time.
My Response: There is no need to think about it. You better act. Otherwise, you will always regret the seconds you lived and why you didn’t do what you needed.
There is no need to focus on this. Think about the future, not the past.
[331252]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/23/20, “Preparation for Convention”
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Question: If, in working with friends, my truth differs from the truth of my friend, should I replace my truth with the truth of my friend or combine them into a single whole?
Answer: You must clarify these issues among yourself, sharpen your actions, knowledge, and thoughts so that they come closer to each other, and then you will see what you should do with them next.
Therefore, you should always check your friend’s knowledge and actions.
Question: When we justify our friend and agree on everything with the Creator, is this coming to the truth?
Answer: This is a step forward toward the truth. You must do it every minute.
[331241]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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At congresses, we get together with all our might and renew our spiritual movement toward each other. We try to find out how we can get closer, feel another, completely incomprehensible, unknown person, and establish a contact with him that will be influenced by the upper force.
We can achieve much more at a congress than in my regular ten. I can be very connected to my own ten, but when I join a random ten, we have no past. I sit with people I have never worked with spiritually. That makes it easier for me.
I can wholeheartedly open myself to connection with them without any past superficial impressions. We must try to do this. In spiritual things this is how it should be, and even with your old ten, you can be completely open.
In such cases, it is our egoism that allows us to be more open and closer to each other. I will not have that ten tomorrow, nor did I have it yesterday, so I am in such an open state with them.
Think about it. Overall there are many opportunities at congresses. You can do it if you look for ways to feel your soul merge with a random ten.
If you have no complaints about them, no memories, no promises for the future, this is what always happens in spirituality. Every minute in spirituality you are in a completely new state. Every person is new at every moment. So you owe absolutely nothing to anyone except instant unification with each other and the Creator.
[331057]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: When I become a conduit between the Creator and creation, what do I receive from the Creator and what do I pass on to others?
Answer: From the Creator, you receive fulfillment and pass it on to others. Fulfillment is the fulfillment of the desires of others to the extent they wish to be interconnected.
In Kabbalah, we speak only of fulfilling desires to bestow, where you want to bestow to another and in doing so, you are fulfilled. That makes you similar to the Creator.
[330973]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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You therefore see that all of Israel are responsible for one another, both on the positive side and on the negative side. On the positive side, if they keep the Arvut to the point that each one cares and satisfies the needs of his friends, they can fully observe the Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], meaning to bring contentment to their Maker (Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”).
The law of complete interconnection in the integral system obliges us to receive from everyone and to bestow to everyone. Integral dependence on both reception and bestowal applies to each of us. We evoke the Creator’s pleasure with these actions, which we feel in the light He immediately fills us with.
Question: What does bestowing to friends mean?
Answer: Bestowal is helping friends to support them within the ten in an integral connection with everyone. I must take care of this, embrace them like the mother of small children, and hold them together so that in any condition they connect.
Question: How do I know that I am fulfilling the desire of the Creator and not the fantasies of my egoism?
Answer: To do this, first of all, you must fulfill not your desires, but the desires of others. Secondly, you must only do what a friend needs to support him in the group. That is all.
[330977]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: Can we bring contentment to the Creator through intention alone or through actions?
Answer: Only through intention. Actions do not matter. They can be actions of receiving or bestowing. The main thing is the intention.
Question: How can I understand if my inner work is on the right track?
Answer: Your inner work is on the right track if you constantly feel the Creator and through Him the whole world.
Question: When we work with the sources, we increase concentration on intention, but do not allow the light to enter us. We need to strengthen our intention to learn to control this process. What determines when I will feel this? Is it purity or the efforts themselves?
Answer: It depends on the purity of efforts.
Question: Can we strive to identify whether the Creator receives contentment from our actions?
Answer: We can determine this. Gradually, we will master it.
[331086]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1”
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Question: What else can be included in the daily work in the ten besides connection, intention, and desire? How can we reveal the inner vision of the ten?
Answer: Simply talk about this topic among yourselves, gradually reveal yourselves and your friends within your circle. In this way you will reach a state where everything becomes clear to you.
Question: When you strive to awaken the ten and clarify the intention behind your actions, you often see that there is no intention for the sake of bestowal. Then you reach a dead end and have no strength to continue. Where can you find the strength to awaken the ten from truth and not from falsehood?
Answer: Think about what you need to do. Constantly practice actions for the sake of your friends, and ask the Creator for them.
This is called “habit becomes second nature.” Then you will be able to be closer to them in this way.
[331207]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is Truth?”
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Question: At night, the preparation of the vessels for the day occurs. What is the proper preparation for them to resemble the light?
Answer: To resemble the light we must study and accept it as if it always shines both at night and during the day.
Question: If a person did not complete their work on the previous degree, how can they achieve a state of faith above reason where they have a clear feeling and understanding that the Creator governs creation as good that does good during the current night?
Answer: A person prays, asks, and receives strength, knowledge, and the sensation that the Creator shines for him.
Question: We perform external actions: study, work in a group of ten, disseminate, and this can be done out of habit and even increased. But what does the inner, constantly increasing tuning to the Creator consist of?
Answer: Inner attunement to the Creator is aimed at bringing Him contentment. What is bringing Him contentment? Try to find out and do that.
Question: How is the intensity of love for the Creator measured and how can it be increased?
Answer: The intensity of the love for the Creator is measured by the number of attempts to draw closer to the Creator and by the quantity and quality of giving to Him. As a result, a person begins to truly give to the Creator. The proof of your giving and love for Him is that you constantly think about Him, do not forget, do not distance yourself, and do not hide from Him, but always maintain a connection with Him.
[331219]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/24, Writings of Rabash “Woe unto You Who Await the Day of the Lord”
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Question: How can past efforts be revived? If a person is in a different state now, returning to the same effort he once made is impossible.
Answer: No, if a person climbs the steps of one’s attainment, that is, the steps of the spiritual ladder, then all one’s efforts are also on it, and a person rises precisely thanks to them.
It is as if the person solves problems, like in school during lessons: one solves a problem, goes up to the next level, solves another one, and goes up another level. This is how it happens.
[331066]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: What builds a screen in us that can receive pleasure from the Creator? Is it the experience of previous states in which we received from Him, losing connection with Him, or a discipline of the mind?
Answer: The screen builds the right connection in me between my desire and the desire of the Creator. It is said about this: “Make your desire like His so He would make His desire like yours.” It is based on reason.
Question: Is the desire of the soul the same desire or different?
Answer: No, these are the same desires. When you peel all the husks from them, they combine, and you will feel that this is your spiritual Kli. The light that enters it will be the appearance of the Creator to you.
Question: How can we understand how the desire of the soul differs from the desire of the Creator?
Answer: The desire of the soul is your desire to merge with Him. And the Creator’s desire is the same toward you.
[331110]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1”
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Question: Pleasure comes from the Creator. How can I strengthen my connection with the Creator at this point so that I bestow to Him rather than receive for myself?
Answer: If you restrict your connection with the Creator, meaning you do not sever the connection, but simply do not receive pleasure and stop yourself in order to establish your relationship, you will not receive anything until you have established it.
But once you do the calculation and see that you can create a condition for the Creator to receive contentment from your action, you start implementing it.
Question: How can I properly establish our relationship so that the Creator receives contentment from my action now?
Answer: To do this, you need to stop receiving from the Creator what He wants to give, pause, and feel in what state you are with the Creator. You make a restriction (Tzimtzum) on your desire to receive and see how you can be connected with the Creator without breaking the conditions of the restriction.
Question: Will He give me the understanding of how to stay connected with Him without breaking this connection if I make a restriction on myself?
Answer: You have to twist it this way and that. This is called “flirting” or “dancing” with the Creator. There are various terms describing the movement of creation relative to the Creator and vice versa. Overall, it is like a dance.
Question: How does this flirting manifest? Is it in a request and in a prayer?
Answer: Yes, essentially, the Creator feels it.
[331092]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1”
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Question: What does spiritual screen (Masach) mean? What is this setting within me that allows me to make the right choice?
Answer: A screen means that I proceed not according to my own opinion, but above it. It is based on this principle that I judge, measure, and weigh the possibilities of receiving and bestowing. This is called working with a screen.
Question: Can we say that the screen is what we study in Kabbalah when building a Partzuf?
Answer: When we place a screen against the light, it is much larger than we can imagine. The desire that is revealed under the screen is also immense.
We reject the upper light, we do not want to receive it. Only after shielding ourselves with the screen can we decide how to receive the light, how much, for what purpose, and why.
Question: Does this mean that in any case we must choose to work above reason?
Answer: Of course, on all spiritual degrees we are obliged to work with faith above reason.
[331001]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Striking of Thoughts upon Man”
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Comment: There are different souls, i.e., those who are awakened by the Creator and there are those who must awaken through us. It seems like this group coincides with those who came to Abraham in Ancient Babylon and became the people of Israel.
My Response: You do not need to elaborate on this because you will not understand anything anyway since you do not attain these souls at the level at which they were. It is useless to assume anything. You will only confuse yourself with incorrect conclusions.
It has nothing to do with those souls. They have done their job and continue their correction at other levels. After all, souls are at all levels of the spiritual world and our world. There are only those who have never been subject to correction.
Once we were all in the common soul of Adam, then we fell to the level of our world, and today we begin our ascent. We should not be confused with the souls of Abraham’s time or others. Someday, you will reveal this in practice, not based on your imagination.
When receiving an awakening from above, you need to know what to do with it: unite with each other, attract the upper light, etc. The closer you become to each other, the more actively you will realize your new properties.
In these properties, you will attain new states up to those upper ones in which the souls used to be or are now, for example, Abraham, Terah, and others. These are high levels.
[330886]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: Is the scheme of our relationships with the Creator a chain of states toward bestowal? How can we hold onto all these states?
Answer: There is no need to hold onto anything. Take one of these states and try to correct it. Then the next one, then another, and another. That is all.
Question: If a person is in a state of righteousness, united with the Creator, and needs nothing more, can the Creator leave him alone and not demand more effort?
Answer: This is the worst punishment from the Creator. Do not stay in these states.
Question: On one hand, we learn that a person must come to the knowledge of their insignificance, that they are an egoist. On the other hand, it writes that we are created in the likeness of the Creator. The question is: when can a person stop revealing this evil and start seeking good in themselves and others? How can one get out of this point of misery?
Answer: When a person finishes exploring and correcting oneself and achieves final correction, he sees who he was when he started the work of correction and what he has achieved now.
Question: It writes that one must love the Creator with both inclinations. In the good inclination, we resemble the Creator’s attributes and it is easy for us to love the Creator. But how can one love the Creator with the evil inclination?
Answer: It will come, do not worry. First correct what you have.
[331053]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: Essentially, do I have to absorb absolutely the entire world?
Answer: It is already in you. Let us say you are sitting in front of your computer right now. In it you can see the whole world. If you see it on the screen, it means it is in your computer system; otherwise, you would not see it.
But the problem is whether anything is outside of you at all. Maybe not. I see what arises in my feelings. But what is behind these feelings? I do not know. Maybe I am in some kind of matrix that projects some images and sensations to me, and makes some suggestions to me. I have nothing but my feelings.
Where do they come from? Maybe now I am in an unconscious state, and this whole world manifests itself in my sick imagination: I am talking to you, I exist, and so on.
But in fact, you are missing one more state in relation to which you could measure this.
Comment: You once gave an example that there is a computer system that includes the processor itself and a screen on which all the processes occurring in the computer are projected. It seems to us we see something. In fact, we do not feel the processes themselves.
My Response: This is why we need to get to this processor, to all its internal parts. They are our system, only they are hidden from us.
When I get to them, I will find out why it all exists, and at the same time I will discover that it was created for my sake. There I will find my eternal, perfect state, I will be able to control myself and not be controlled.
Today I automatically react when someone evokes certain feelings and thoughts in me. I myself am this screen, this guidance, and I have no opportunity to enter an objective state. After all, the fact that I am now talking and in contact with you is all some kind of reaction to what is in front of me.
Where do I really separately and objectively exist?
We do not have this. This is what we need to achieve.
[330928]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Swallow the Whole World” 4/10/10
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This means that each and every one in Israel would take upon himself to care and work for each member of the nation, to satisfy all their needs, no less than the measure imprinted in him to care for his own needs (Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”).
We must always compare taking care of ourselves to caring for others: how much does striving for oneself differ from striving for others, what is the difference between them, and can we somehow equalize the desire to care for others with the care for oneself. That is a specific and uncomplicated task. Defining it is very simple, but carrying it out is almost impossible.
Mutual guarantee (Arvut), described by Baal HaSulam is like a fantasy. We understand that it is practically unattainable and beyond human capability. I cannot think about others, not even those close to me, in the way I do about myself. It is impossible. The task set before us is, in fact, not achievable. So, what are we discussing here?
Once the whole nation unanimously agreed and said, “We will do and we will hear,” each member of Israel became responsible that no member of the nation will lack anything. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah
It is enough if we understand that we have no other way out. And we do not need another way out because, in reality, this is the highest goal that can be in our lowly, insignificant world. Therefore, if we agree to live in mutual guarantee, we will begin to draw upon ourselves special upper forces that will lead us to this state.
However, no one says we must become altruists and kind, love everyone, and connect with everyone. That is not serious. It says we must realize our current nature and the state we must reach that nature pushes us to.
Look at what is happening in the world. Nature pushes us toward complete unification. We may not understand this, but in principle, this is what lies ahead of us. If we want to live on our small Earth, we must become one unified whole. Otherwise, we cannot survive.
By realizing this, we will become suitable for receiving the Torah and for receiving the upper light that will change our nature and drive us toward collective unification.
The world is experiencing more division, fragmentation, and distancing every day, and accordingly, more confusion about where it exists, why, and how. Humanity feels the egoism that seems to play with it from within and acts accordingly.
[330889]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: How does the Masach (screen) relate to one’s willingness to bestow?
Answer: The screen is a person’s connection with the Creator for the sake of bestowal.
Question: What thoughts can we allow for comparison so it would help our spiritual advancement and not confuse us?
Answer: Thoughts on how to be connected with each other and in this connection receive light in order to guide it together to the Creator.
Question: How do you get out of sadness into joy?
Answer: Ask your friends to help you. Nothing else would work. You must look for such techniques by yourself and with this help you can rise from egoism and correct it.
Question: Even in the preparatory period you can feel the strength of the screen, which can manifest in us. Does the Masach work when you transition from the left line to the right?
Answer: It is unknown to me where your right or left lines are. But I know the transition from egoism to altruism and back is by using the screen.
[330998]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Striking of Thoughts upon Man”
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All of Israel became responsible for one another. Because the Torah was not given to them before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the Mitzva *[commandment] of loving others in the full measure expressed in the words “Love your friend as yourself” (Baal HaSulam, Article “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”).*
Question: What does it mean “each one was asked”? Or is this an inappropriate question for us?
Answer: This question is always within you, in your soul. Every day you must answer it: Are you ready to move forward?
With this question, a person progresses: “Who am I? For what purpose am I here? Why? What goal am I heading to? With what means? What exactly must I do? What is the essence of each of my steps?” This is what organizes a person in the movement toward the quality of giving, toward the spiritual quality.
For us, the most important thing is to acquire the first spiritual quality. This means that we will begin to perceive the spiritual world.
[330951]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: Why does the Creator put a person in a situation where they must feel powerless? What does it achieve?
Answer: The powerlessness is of your ego, which cannot manage, cope, understand, or realize anything. It cannot grasp the true structure of the soul.
Question: It seems like the Creator causes problems for me to prevent me from becoming a link between creation and Him. Why does He do this? What does He want from me?
Answer: He wants you to desire to break away from your ego.
Question: Is my ego what prevents me from entering this process?
Answer: No, the ego does not prevent us. We should not destroy or annul it. We must learn to work with it properly. If you use the ego to receive everything from the Creator and pass it on to other created beings, it will help you.
How else will you contact other created beings? How else will you receive from the Creator? That is why the ego was created. Think about how to use it, and you will see that it is essential.
That is why the Creator created the ego; it is to bring creation to its normal form.
[330969]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: How can we justify the Creator when the past falls on us like we have not accomplished something? How do we work with the fact that we must justify the Creator?
Answer: At every moment of our existence, we must feel the Creator as the one determining our state and we must justify these states.
Justifying means recognizing that each state brings us, through our friends, to connection with the Creator and raises us to the next level.
[331146]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: What should we do to clarify the pleasure and joy that the Creator has revealed between us? How do we determine whether they are from bestowal or from reception?
Answer: It is too early to make such distinctions. For now we should focus on revealing all possible relationships between us and bringing them into order.
Only after that can we consolidate what we bestow to the Creator in various situations and how He influences us differently. By combining these feelings, we can elevate them to the level of bestowal. This is how we come closer to the Creator.
[331130]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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The one who learns to tread the spiritual path must become as an empty cup in order that the wine of music and harmony may be poured down into his heart (Hazrat Inayat Khan).
My Response: Yes, he expresses it well. That is true. If a person’s heart, meaning his main egoistic vessel, is empty and can be filled with the world’s harmony, then it is good.
Question: Does one need to empty one’s heart?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But it is full right now. What is it full of, and how can it be emptied?
Answer: If it is, it is full of selfish desires. We can empty it only if we accept all our desires as empty and unable to fulfill us and lead us on the right path.
Question: Can I do this psychologically, or is it more about education?
Answer: It is much more complex. But people will come to this eventually because there is no other way.
Question: So is this the will from above one way or another?
Answer: Yes, the Creator holds us in a way so we gradually understand who we are, in what world we exist, and how we can bring ourselves to the proper state.
Question: Does the Creator have a concept of time: “I will hold them a little longer”?
Answer: Absolutely not.
Question: But what about the fact that we have been held for so long, gone through so many years, suffered so much?
Answer: If we did not feel we were dying, we would be different. The fact that we die drives us into various thoughts, into a dead end, and so on. But, in principle, we are moving toward understanding that there is no death.
Question: And then what?
Answer: Then we will start relating to ourselves, the world, and the Creator differently. It will all be different.
Question: How?
Answer: I do not know if I can express it. It will be all free and simple.
Comment: Let it be so.
[330659]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/13/24
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A person comes to receive pleasure from bestowal when the Creator desires it. To make Him want this, one must ask Him.
Question: How can I understand that my desire coincides with the Creator’s desire?
Answer: You will feel this by the way He relates to you.
Question: What is the Creator’s pleasure in this?
Answer: It depends on what the person desires.
[331133]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Will to Receive – 1
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Question: Where does the correction of transgression start from? Should we attribute everything to the Creator’s governance or should we recognize our personal flaws?
Answer: You should recognize your flaws.
Question: How do we connect these different points? Who is responsible for this? Did the Creator set me up or was there some flaw in me? What comes first?
Answer: Your initial egoism is the flaw.
Question: Suppose I accept that the root of the flaw is my egoism. What is the bridge to understanding that it was actually the Creator who did this, and that I should turn to Him rather than blame and torment myself?
Answer: Do not blame and torment yourself. You should only stay connected with us, with the books, the study, and the group, and from this, try to reveal the framework of our attitude to the Creator.
[331104]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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Question: You told me how you started working with a small group that could fit in one small room in 1995. Then you moved into a larger room and later bought the current building. Many years have passed since then. Should the building get even bigger?
Answer: I have not even thought about it.
Continue to study Kabbalah, and you will see that you have no questions on this topic because you are at the mercy of the Creator, the upper force. Whatever it gives you, take it and correct it within this framework. Nothing else.
If I have, say, 50 people left instead of thousands, I do not think I would worry because it comes from above. It is not my decision, not my choice. There are people who come and go, and I never take any steps to stop them. Are you leaving? Good luck! That is all.
Why are you worried about this? Worry about the whole world, when we will correct it.
Do not look for any flaws. On the contrary, look for the right way to connect with your friends, to give to them, to receive from them, and to be with them. Work only on unification. Apart from unification, nothing should bother you.
[330914]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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With this collective responsibility, which we need to reach and accept each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could observe the Mitzva*, “Love your friend as yourself” in the fullest measure and give all that he had to any needy person since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand [a Kabbalistic number] loyal lovers standing ready to provide for him (Baal HaSulam,“The Arvut* (Mutual Guarantee).”
In the state of mutual guarantee we are like cells in a healthy organism working entirely for the common body. No one works for themselves. This is the law of integral interconnection of parts.
Any integral, analog system is designed so that each of its elements works solely to keep the entire system in order and does everything within its capacity. As a result, the system is in absolute interconnection, mutual guarantee, and an absolutely stable state. No matter what happens, each element cares for maintaining the whole system and ensures it remains in constant equilibrium.
This equilibrium is dynamic, but it is never interrupted because each element includes the feelings of all others and cares only for their collective existence. No one thinks about themselves, and thus the whole system functions properly. All of nature is arranged and operates according to this principle except for us humans.
[330893]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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If there are ten people in that body, it has ten times more power than a single person does.
However, there is a condition: When they gather, each of them should think that he has now come for the purpose of annulling self-love. It means that he will not consider how to satisfy his will to receive now, but will think as much as possible only of the love of others. (Rabash, Articles “Love of Friends – 2”)
Although a person may not feel, understand, or want it, they must still try to think this way.
This is the only way to acquire the desire and the need to acquire a new quality, called “the will to bestow.” And from love of friends one can reach love of the Creator, meaning wanting to give contentment to the Creator.
In fact, this is a game. What does a game mean? We do not want to give anything or love anyone, but we understand that if we do not attain such a quality, we will remain animals in our world and die as such animals.
Nothing will work out in our life neither for ourselves nor for others. Therefore, if we gather in a ten, it is the only opportunity where we can combine our efforts, desires, and requests, and receive such a force that will lift us above our egoism.
This is the principle of the so-called love of friends; that is, there is no love, but if we connect even our small “agreements,” it is enough to begin rising spiritually.
[330835]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20,“The Ten”
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Question: In our dissemination we explain to people that the world is an integral system that functions like a human body. And they perceive it positively. They agree that we must become a unified system.
What is our next step? Do we need to tell them that they should study Kabbalah or something else?
Answer: We need to explain to them how we can become an integral system. After all, we cannot do this by ourselves, but only if we are affected by the special upper force that is able to unite us.
How can we evoke the influence of the upper force that can unite our egoistic desires so that we complement each other like the cells in the body?
We cannot do this by ourselves.
Each of us is a separate little egoist closed in himself. But there is a positive force outside of us that can do this. And the science of Kabbalah teaches us how to induce its influence on ourselves.
It explains how to get together, try to connect, what actions to take; i.e., how to do everything so that the upper force begins to affect us. This is our mission. We ourselves must learn to use this opportunity and show it to others.
[330911]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 63”
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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic: “Equal As One: There Is No Strong Friend, There Is a Strong Society”
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Question: How is the state of perfection more than just a merger with the Creator?
Answer: The state of perfection is the ultimate ascent above egoism and closeness to the Creator until complete connection with Him. Essentially it is the final correction where all of man’s egoism works toward not feeling separated from the Creator, but feeling that he desires to cling to the Creator with all his attributes.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Creator Observed Their Works”
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The truth is that each of us is in the perfect ten, and only one’s egoistic desires do not allow a person to see that he or she is in an ideal state among ideal people.
And the fact that one sees negative qualities in others, it is said, “One rejects in the measure of his flaw.”
Therefore, if a person sees something imperfect in one’s friends, let him look closely, but only in order to see this imperfection in himself and thus be able to correct himself. Let’s try to have such an attitude.
[330844]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20,“The Ten”
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Question: We are talking about the fact that I must clarify the desire to bestow within myself. If it is completely corrected, can we come to mutual guarantee (Arvut)?
Answer: Yes and no. You can come to mutual guarantee in the ten.
Question: Must the general desire be corrected in the ten?
Answer: Not 100%, but at the levels you are at.
The general Kli is millions, billions of people. And we are talking about fulfilling the guarantee condition in the ten. The ten itself enters spirituality and rises through spiritual levels, 125 steps. At each level there is conception (Ibur), nurturing (Yenika), and maturation (Mochin); that is, more and more levels.
It is so precisely graded that at every moment, by gathering together repeatedly, you can rise and feel how you are rising. As you draw closer, a qualitatively new spiritual state arises in you—the Kli. In it, you feel the increasing revelation of the Creator.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: Can you share your experience of how you lifted the spirit in the group when you friends felt tiredness from putting in efforts?
Answer: How can I tell you? First, any of our states are always movement forward. Always! As it is said: “One is elevated in sanctity and never lowered.” Therefore, even if it seems to you that you are falling and going backward, it only seems that way. It is designed that way, like a wheel that turns forward – backward, forward – backward, but moves forward.
Second, as soon as you feel that the awareness of the importance of the goal, the mood, the intention, and the prospect disappears, you should immediately, without delay, sit down to some serious work translating, processing texts, writing on Twitter, on Facebook, it does not matter where; that is, engage in either translations, writing, or disseminating—some kind of effective work. This helps a lot. And most importantly do joint activities in the group.
The states when a person falls are actually good states. The fact is that falling in your egoistic qualities adds egoism. Egoism was hidden, and now you have been given a bit more of it, which means you can start working over it and rise. You will fall again due to an addition of egoism and will start working over it and rise again. In this way, you will constantly be falling—rising, falling—rising.
Therefore, falling is actually moving forward, rising, but along the left line in the development of egoism. In the right line, you are given a sense of rising. But still, in both states you are moving forward.
Question: But if I see that a friend has lost heart, how can I lift his spirits?
Answer: There are many different ways to do this: talk to him, study together, sing together, have meals together, and so on. Try to do everything you can.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Each of us must be Malchut that does not receive anything but only gives. She cancels herself, reflects the light coming to her, and only in this way works for everyone else.
In other words, if I have a group, I must think only about them and how to push them forward. Each group member should think about the same thing and in no case about themself.
This is the work of the friends in the group. Then, the group forms ten Sefirot between them that are interconnected by the properties of bestowal. In them the Creator is reveals Himself.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: The only real adapter to the upper system that we can cling to is you, our teacher. How should we use the strength we receive from you?
Answer: I don’t even know what to tell you because my work is to shape you, gather you, and organize you. I feel how you should complement each other to form a certain structure.
It comes together like blocks or bricks, but there is no binding material like cement to hold them together yet. I help you assemble this structure and do it together with you, but it is up to you to ask the Creator to bind it together. That is how it works.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Today we are discussing the topic of conception (Ibur.) How should I care for the ten so that they won’t expel me from their circle and to avoid premature birth or rejection?
Answer: Rejection or what is commonly referred to as miscarriage is very rare. Throughout the nearly 6,000 years of Kabbalistic history such actions were observed only during the exodus from Egypt. It is a very unpleasant phenomenon when pregnancy is interrupted or there are complications during birth.
Such things occur, but are very rare; in practice almost all end well. So you have nothing to worry about or fear. If you are in the group and constantly care for it, there are no problems and everything will be fine.
Our entire work is built on self-annulment, i.e., the annulment of the quality of reception relative to the quality of bestowal. Therefore, only the group can become the womb in which you develop, the mother who cares for you, and you, in turn, care for it.
This is the kind of work where you support yourself in a state of embryo and gradually develop. But an embryo can only form in a state of self-annulment.
What does an embryo in the mother mean? It is a living being that originates from a drop of seed and then gradually develops. During this time, it is completely subordinate to the maternal organism, and this continues for nine months. In spiritual development it can last seven, nine, or twelve months. But that is not important; the main thing is that we must understand the system itself. Conception occurs in the group, and the group must be in the quality of bestowal, in the Creator.
Imagine that you are with the group within the Creator, in the quality of bestowal, love, and you must completely annul yourself along with the whole group before the Creator.
That is, your existence in the mother is the period of your inception. And the development of all your strengths, thoughts, desires, everything, is necessary only for you to unite and become similar to your upper mother, that is, the quality of bestowal, the quality of love, the Creator, in whom you develop. This is how it happens.
So imagine the state we must reach to achieve the degree of spiritual birth. It may seem fantastic, difficult, unattainable, and impossible. No, it is not. In fact, it can happen, and very quickly. Nine months of spiritual development are not the same as nine earthly months; they can pass in a short time.
Therefore, we need to think about how to make ourselves like an embryo. This means gathering in tens where each friend must annul themselves relative to the others, and all together they must annul themselves relative to the Creator.
[330524]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How necessary is it for a teacher to be physically present at unity activities in which students must independently perform actions?
Answer: There is not a single spiritual teaching that is not transmitted from teacher to students. In any circumstances, wherever you are, wherever you wander in your search, you will see that there is always a teacher and there are students.
We have a special relationship here. I hope to prepare you for a state where you will replace me with a group, when the group will act as a teacher, guide, instructor.
In addition to the teacher, administration is also needed. Everything should be organized as in our world. And instead of the teacher, there will be the group itself. You will correctly feel the unity, reveal the Creator in it, and this will lead you forward, this will be your teacher.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Why can’t we take, say, ten men, and put them in an “aquarium,” and everyone else will take care of them and fulfill the principle of mutual guarantee?
Answer: We do not need to take care of them! Let them take care of each other, that is a different matter! But if the Creator gives us, not ten, but ten thousand people today, what can we do?
Today, tens of thousands strive for unity as a solution to the world’s problems and to attain the upper world.
Wherever I go, people recognize me. In Greece, the hostess of the house we rented rooms from said, “I know you.” In Chișinău, the owner of a small hotel we stayed at exclaimed, “I did not know you booked our rooms!” It turns out many people know us. Millions!
In any country, people stop me on the street, greet me, ask questions, and talk. We are very well-known. Therefore, we cannot limit ourselves to ten people. It would not help in fact, it would be counterproductive. Why did the collective soul shatter into many parts? So it would be easier to correct them.
If we break large egoism into smaller parts, each part is easier to correct. In our world, we solve any problem by breaking it into smaller problems, solving each, and then combining them. It is the only way.
You cannot do anything beyond what is given from above. If these conditions are revealed to you, you must act within them. You are given a system of correction, and what to correct is revealed from above.
These are the conditions: this world, these problems, this crisis. Work with them. We must understand this is the best and most correct way.
Question: Is it necessary for one ten to succeed or all the tens?
Answer: Ideally, all should succeed, but even a part is possible. Everyone strives to give everyone what they need for correction, and after that, it is an individual effort for each.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: How do we engage with a friend’s question? And how do you work with these questions?
Answer: I try to feel every question within myself as if I am asking it. I must feel each question on your level, the way you present it, and feel it on my level, the way I would ask it.
I must feel the difference between these levels and figure out how I can understand your question at my level and answer it at your level. Try to do the same with each friend’s question. You cannot imagine how much you will enrich yourselves, each of you! Therefore, you need to try to enter into your friend.
Children usually ask the most challenging questions. A child’s question may seem naive, but it is very complex. We are not used to such questions.
Additionally, the questions you ask help me create a connection with the person asking. How else can I enter these questions and they, me? In the lessons with you, I gain much more than each of you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Consequently, as long as the individual is troubled with concerns for himself, he is unfit to begin observing the Mitzva “Love your friend as yourself.”
The spiritual structure is perfect. It cannot be that one part of it works and another does not because the integral inclusion of everyone in everyone determines the conditions that are both necessary and sufficient for everyone to be completely corrected. That means that each person must feel their inclusion in absolutely everyone and everyone in them.
Apart from the small particle Malchut, which is within me, everything else is from everyone else. Only one point of Malchut within me is mine. Therefore, it can only work to unite everyone within me. Your point of Malchut is intended only to unite everyone within you. And so on.
The integral system presupposes a simple combination of its parts where each part consists of only one point, which annuls itself and works entirely for the sake of bestowal. And what does it give? That which it receives from the Creator. And to whom does it give it? It gives it to all those points within it from all the other parts. It is all simple.
In principle, no person has anything except what they receive from the Creator and what they give to others. And who are they? Nobody, a zero. But they make themselves this way; they receive everything from the Creator on one side and give it all to others on the other while themselves are a conduit from the Creator to the others. That is the work of each element of the integral system. That is what we must achieve.
And then there is nothing to fear, think about, or discuss. One must simply be a transitional element from one to the others—from the Creator to the creations and from the creations to the Creator. That is the best state where everyone is free and perfect!
In this state, there is everything from all creation—one attains a complete sense of the Creator, the entire world, and all souls within themselves. On one hand they are equal to Adam, the collective soul; on the other hand they are within the filling of this soul. Thus, everyone includes both creation and the Creator within ourselves, even though we are merely one point.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: When you explain Kabbalistic material, you use a limited number of phrases and words, but simultaneously, you convey a whole bouquet of your feelings in different combinations. How is that possible?
Answer: In principle, as soon as you start reducing everything to ten parts of the soul, or the five worlds, or the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature, then everything becomes very concrete, very compact. Therefore, the explanation can be through a manageable number of words.
You reduce it all to some definitions, like, in chemistry to atoms, molecules, and valences. It is the same with us. It is the coarseness of the screen, the magnitude of desire and its thickness, the magnitude of light and its various states, that is five lights, five screens, five types of egoism thickness over it, the combination between them. All this is a small, specific vocabulary.
All the enormous impression and all the richness of conveying feelings and thoughts is in the combination of these few parameters.
But they evoke various opposite sensations in us. And therefore, by going through just a hundred words, you express absolutely everything you can in human existence, not only in our world, but all worlds. The main thing is for a person to feel what you are talking about. And then there will be a very concrete language between you.
In Kabbalah, the vocabulary is minimal, just like for chemists and physicists. They do not have many words and phrases either. The most important is the combination of parameters in all possible combinations and connections. They give the entire palette of sensations and thoughts.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalist’s Limitation” 4/17/10
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Once, we were all together in one desire, in what is known as ‘Adam’s soul,’ filled with light. Then that state fragmented and in each of us remained a spark of that light, which used to fill us with the qualities of bestowal, love, and mutual connection.
Now, it is just a spark without a course, without any direction. Therefore, we can say that there is something in us, but we do not know what.
The questions arise: what can we ask from our friends, and what can we absorb from them to fuel this spark and turn it into a light that fills my great desire, which will help us return to that same soul to immense desire and fulfillment?
From our past state, we retain Reshimot (spiritual informational records) that we have something to return to and something to start with.
So we must urge and prod each other to truly desire to find ourselves in that state again.
[330840]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: How can we work with thoughts that hit us?
Answer: First we need to consider where these thoughts come from. Of course, from the Creator.
What does He want from us? Should we receive or give? We must collect all these thoughts that collect in us and find out what is ultimately required of us and what we can do.
This analysis will lead us to correct actions, and we will receive the upper light for the sake of the Creator and pass it through us to Him.
Question: How can we learn to do this kind of work quickly so that these thoughts do not get stuck in us?
Answer: It depends on how much we work with them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Striking of Thoughts upon Man”
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Question: Some principles make it apparent to a person what he is annulling before the ten.
What should be considered a foundation in the ten if everyone follows his heart? After all, this irritates us: one heard the teacher one way and the other heard him differently.
Answer: It will continue for a long time until your impressions of the group and what we are going through begin to coincide. Therefore, the contradictions that arise regarding your friends are very useful.
After all, everything in each of us comes from the Creator. And everything that contradicts our friends in each of us also comes from Him.
See how the Creator stirs up all kinds of contradictions with one movement. And all this so that we can better understand His capabilities. So let’s move on and see what happens to us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/16/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 34
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 74”
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3rd part of the Lesson – “Teachings of the Fathers,” “Mishna, Pirkei Avot,” Chapter 6, Item 7
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4th part of the Lesson — “Equal As One: There Is No Strong Friend, There Is a Strong Society”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Now all the friends from my ten have been distributed between different tens. What should I focus on: my ten or the one I am placed in?
Answer: It does not matter. You do not have to stay in your ten. Instead, try connecting with strangers.
They are all similar to you. They have the same states, goals, and understanding that they must nullify themselves and be connected with others in agreement and mutual guarantee.
Therefore it makes no sense for you to be associated with those you know in this world purely physically, externally, or psychologically. You should enter into the same spiritual contact with strangers.
Let’s say I am sitting at the end of the table with five to six people around me. I will discuss some issues and have a workshop with them; that is a ten for me. If I connect with it now, I can already reach the Creator.
In the next lesson, I will be with another ten, a third, and a fourth. Thus, I always look for ways to connect to the Creator.
On the contrary, it is terrific if you act this way. It will teach you how to grasp any state to cling to the Creator through it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What is this force that will hold us and only strengthen us rather than weaken us?
Answer: It is the force of the Creator. There is nothing else!
There are only two forces in the world: the positive, bestowing and filling force of the Creator, and the negative, receiving and demanding force of creation.
We must exist between these two forces. That is, I must separate myself from the negative (receiving) force, position myself before the positive (bestowing) force, and create within myself a mechanism, a system, composed of the negative force, the desire to receive, and the positive force, the intention to bestow.
I take the negative force from my nature, but make a restriction on it and treat it as something completely external.
For example, I take 10 grams of the desire to receive from my nature and 10 grams of the intention to bestow from the Creator, combine them, and I get a spiritual component—receiving for the sake of bestowing. This is our embryo. And this is how we will develop.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Can we reach mutual guarantee (Arvut) before or after impregnation (Ibur)?
Answer: Arvut is a necessary condition for the conception of the embryo but specifically in conditions in which we currently find ourselves.
At every moment we are in different states and we must work on nullifying ourselves before our friends and connecting with others in mutual support. This state is called mutual guarantee (Arvut), meaning mutual guarantee and mutual support.
[330591]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: External influences often unsettle us. How can we keep from these hindrances and enter the lessons with even greater effort?
Answer: The fact is, there is nothing that would unsettle us. On the contrary, we need to look at these actions as extra help because we are given an additional measure of egoism. It seems that it pushes us further back, but in reality this is only so we would unite even more with each other and with the Creator above it.
Therefore, we cannot consider everything that happens to us as obstacles. These are the interferences we rise above. Just as at school we were given all kinds of tasks that needed to be solved, so it is here. Of course, we must make efforts to solve these problems, cling to what separates us, repels us, rejects us, and distances us, but still look at it positively.
Then, we will have a common aspiration forward. Then we will always be happy, no matter the problems.
Question: So the strengthening with which we must enter the lesson is to overcome the obstacles?
Answer: What else is there to rise above if not obstacles? Therefore, whoever the Creator wishes to bring closer faster is given greater obstacles.
Question: How can we keep holding on if we are being pushed away from each other more and more and need to make maximum effort?
Answer: It seems to you that you are holding on to an old place. You are rising all the time.
At the same time, you need to constantly make internal efforts, do not fall behind, do not distance yourself from your friends, from your tens, from the topic of the lesson. Always feel like you are together.
After all, our task is to reveal ourselves as being in the same connection, in the same field, in the same system called the soul.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with elevating a person from idol worshipping. It does not matter what or who is considered an idol. These idols can be more than just statues, amulets, or certain beliefs; they encompass our entire lives that we worship and consider important.
The revelation of the Creator—the single force of nature that governs everything—and connection with it, meaning attaining an upper level, is not deemed important.
Consider how television, radio, and media are filled with various soothsayers, and how the mass media operates, what people perceive, what they think, and even how we teach all sciences. Science today is becoming semi-mystical even though it is considered a science. Look at the hypotheses, theories, and conjectures presented by scholars!
We are returning to the same old circles, to these idols, because we have completely lost our orientation. Therefore, Kabbalah reveals itself and says: “We must return to the one nature.”
Our current crisis indicates that globalization and unity in nature are its main characteristics. One, unified, unique, and integrated—this is the core, the source of all existence.
Therefore, the more we strive for unification, for the understanding of unity, for understanding all the numerous manifestations in nature as merely one attribute, the Creator, the faster we will come to understand the truth and reach a better state.
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From KabTV’s “I got a call. Unity in doubt” 4/13/10
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Igal writes:
I wake up in cold sweat. I was 100% sure it was really happening to me, but it was a dream. If that is the case, maybe I am still dreaming? Maybe this whole life of mine is a dream? My wife, the children, my job, and the war—all a dream? If that is the case, I want to wake up. I am not happy with too many things in this dream.
My Response: His fears overwhelm him.
Question: His fears are overwhelming. He does not like this dream. Here he asks, “After all, is our life a dream or not?”
Answer: Our life is a dream but actually on a different level, meaning, not at the level of suffering or not-suffering, but at the level of existence in general. We do not understand or feel this world correctly.
Therefore you can call it some kind of dream. But, in general, we can get rid of this dream and wake up.
Question: So he asks: “How do I wake up?”
Answer: How? This is the method of Kabbalah.
Question: He continues: “When I wake up, will reality be better or worse?”
Answer: Reality itself may not change. You, your outlook, and your feelings will change, for the better.
Question: Does this mean I woke up?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So there could be the same war in reality, you say?
Answer: It does not matter.
Question: What does it mean if there is a war and I wake up? What are my feelings? The reality is that there is a war.
Answer: On one hand, you see a war going on, people are killing, dying, and so on. But on the other hand, in this you see the necessary action of armies, nations, and so on, which enter into such relationships with each other. And in the end, it leads to the best outcome.
Question: So, I see that no matter what happens, everything leads to the best outcome. Is this called waking up?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What is the best in this case?
Answer: The best is closeness with the Creator.
Comment: You are unshakeable in this.
My Response: Yes, there is nothing to add here.
Question: Another question from him: “Could it be that I am sure I woke up, but it turns out to be a dream again? And so on endlessly.”
Answer: Yes. So what? How do you know if you are awake or not?
Comment: This is the question: how will I know that I am awake?
My Response: There is no way to know.
Question: Is this how we are destined to live?
Answer: No, we are not destined to live like that at all. But there are states called reincarnations when we exist this way.
Question: From dream to dream, from dream to dream?
Answer: Yes, some such actions. But in fact, we come completely out of the boundaries of our world. And then we see it from the outside.
Question: So what do we see?
Answer: We see that everything is controlled by a single Creator, and we are around Him.
Question: What kind of force is the Creator?
Answer: It is a force that by gradually teaching us, leads us to a state of complete harmony.
Question: And the last question: “Is it better to wake up or not?”
Answer: We must wake up in order to achieve a more and more true state and so that all dreams, fantasies, and everything else would disappear from our world.
Then we would not fight, we would not exchange bad words, bad deeds, or bad actions.
Question: Do you mean in the relations between us?
Answer: Yes.
[330281]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/6/24
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Igor asks:
You once said that the hour of death is not the hour of death but a new birth. How should we take this? I do not believe in afterlife. So what is it about?
Answer: It does not depend on you whether you believe it or not. It is just the beginning of a new cycle.
Question: When you say “the hour of death,” what does it mean for Igor?
Answer: You part ways with this life, with what you have made of it, how you have lived it, and move on to the next cycle.
Question: Does that mean somewhere a child suddenly screams, some boy is born, and so on?
Answer: No.
Question: Then what does new birth mean to you?
Answer: A new birth is, of course, the act of a child being born. But generally, it is the beginning of attaining the upper world and the Creator by what is called man.
Question: Is the hour of death necessarily my physical death, or is it not necessarily so?
Answer: No, not necessarily. It means everything old dies, all that I’ve lived through, all that I considered important.
Question: Can something be born that I did not consider important?
Answer: Naturally, in the next stage.
Question: Can you tell me what I did not consider important in my past life?
Answer: Typically, it is connections with people, love, and relationship with the Creator.
Question: Even though I always talked about love?
Answer: Regardless.
Question: When you say that another love arises, what kind of “other” love is it?
Answer: It is more natural, closer, one that cannot be explained otherwise than simply by opening your heart.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24
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The Birth Of the Soul Of the Righteous
Life Beyond The Boundaries Of Birth And Death, Part 1
The State of Death in Spirituality
Arina asks:
Why are people not ashamed today to be wealthy and even flaunt it; they build palaces, villas, buy diamonds, cars, and do all this ostentatiously? How can people have a clear conscience when there is so much poverty and sorrow around?
Answer: It has always been this way, at all times. There are those who hide it. There are those who show it.
Question: So you do not think this is indicative of the present time?
Answer: Yes, today of course people are not ashamed of anything.
Question: Why did this happen? Why is one not concerned that someone has nothing to eat while he builds…?
Answer: It is a lack of upbringing, actually. Great people, though they may have immense wealth are not focused on that; what matters to them is inner wealth.
Question: Please tell me, what kind of upbringing should there be to address all this?
Answer: A person should be taught, first of all, to be content with their destiny, whatever it may be.
Second, to not consider themselves above others in wealth, knowledge, or anything else. Only in wisdom concerning the Creator, in modesty. That is the main thing.
Question: Can this be cultivated in someone?
Answer: It can.
Question: Is this not a natural quality?
Answer: No, this can be cultivated, and it must be cultivated.
Question: In principle, will a normal society, even let’s say the society of the future, follow such upbringing?
Answer: Yes. People will not flaunt their cars, houses, and wealth.
Question: So this will not be so valuable to a person?
Answer: It will say a lot, that perhaps he has earned something, but in principle, it will not be as important to a person.
Comment: You said that it is important for a person not to look at either the rich or the poor, but at his own destiny—this is my destiny.
Answer: He should focus on his connection with the Creator—that is what he should look at. A person will only delve deeper into himself: me and the Creator.
[330576]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/13/24
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If several individuals come together with the force that it is worthwhile to abandon self-love, but without the sufficient power and importance of bestowal to become independent, without outside help (Rabash, Article, “Love of Friends -2”).
That is how we feel in the ten: it seems that there are some desires and some motives, but there is no strength, conviction, or intention to annul ourselves before our friends.
All have at least the potential love of the Creator.
They are drawn to this and would like to acquire it. Not by any means, but they would still like to. In general, there is a desire, but it is weak.
Though they cannot keep it in practice, then by each joining the society and annulling oneself before it, they become one body.
That is the most important thing. Neither of us has the strength nor the desire to annul ourselves before the Creator. We cannot do this because we were created unable to do it.
Therefore, if the same ten gathers, and other tens around it—after all, we are not alone, there are many of us—and thus we unite, then each of us contributes his part, his little strength, a little desire to this union.
In this case, our desires add up together, and we become like one person with great force who can invoke the qualities of the Creator.
[330805]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: You said that a person has nothing of his own, only what he receives from the Creator and what he can give to others.
If everyone should feel the common soul, at what point does he begin to see it from beginning to end?
Answer: We will feel the common soul when we become a spiritual embryo. That is the first spiritual degree we aim to ascend to.
As soon as we reach the first degree of connection, we will immediately begin to feel ourselves as a single whole at the level of Aviut de Shoresh, that is, at 1/125th of the entire soul. Nevertheless, it will be a feeling for all of us together.
[330799]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: When we sit in different tens during workshops, is there some similarity that we can identify whenever we change the ten?
Answer: What difference does it make?! You exist in one organism. All of humanity is one ten that now is broken into multiple parts.
This way, it is not important who you will be with, just like it is not for the cells of one body. Therefore, the most important commandment of correction is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It means we must reach complete agreement, balance, and unity.
Thus, there is no difference with whom to sit, with these or those. On the contrary, each time you absorb from others some new aspects of connections and approaches—you toward them, and they toward you. In this way, you accumulate a great experience.
As for an entire year, you accumulate experience in one ten, while here at the congress, you can go through all these states within one week. Think about this opportunity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Sometimes during a lesson your students start walking or doing something. How do you have patience?
Answer: When a person gets up to get a cup of coffee or cold water, I understand that he is tired, he did not get enough sleep, he is having a hard time. But I treat my students with love and understanding.
These are the people for whom I do everything; they are more important to me than children. Essentially, these are my spiritual children.
What do I have beside them? Who else will I pass this information on to? Who do I want to train? Them, to give out as much as possible through them so that they continue dissemination in the right way.
Therefore, my attitude toward them slightly softens the interference that they create. Just like a mother cannot hear her child when he or she makes noise. For her, this is normal, but for a stranger, something flickering and noisy is unbearable.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalist’s Supersenses” 3/11/10
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All of Israel became responsible for one another. Because the Torah was not given to them before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the Mitzva [commandment] of loving others in the full measure expressed in the words “Love your friend as yourself” [Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee)].
First, there is no such nation as the people of Israel. They came into being out of people who wanted to rise above their egoism because they realized it was impossible to exist within it. That happened in ancient Babylon 3,500 years ago. People understood that if they continued to act egoistically, they would destroy themselves and each other. There was great turmoil, mutual hatred flared up, and the inhabitants of Babylon did not know what to do next.
Therefore, Abraham, the son of the high priest Terach, saw problems, internal strife, and various conflicts among the people, and began to study this phenomenon. He realized that it stemmed from the growth of egoism in each person and that the only solution was to rise above the ego and somehow balance it.
Abraham began to preach this idea among the ancient Babylonians and urged them to unite and rise above egoism to achieve proper mutual understanding, to stop killing each other, and to bring themselves to a normal state.
His father Terach also supported this, but the Babylonian king Nimrod was against it. Nimrod thought that he would lose his power because when people become closer to each other, less aggressive, and kinder, they generally do not care about authority. However, if they become hostile toward each other, a king can intervene and control them.
Therefore, Abraham had no choice but to call upon all those who agreed with his idea of unification and lead them out of Babylon to the so-called land of Canaan. Today, this is the State of Israel. Thus, they came to be called the people of Israel (Yisra-El) from the phrase “straight to the Creator” (Yashar El).
[330812]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: What is my internal perception when I am inside a friend?
Answer: You feel no difference between you as your desires merge. They do not just add up arithmetically, like 10 plus 10 or 20 plus 20, but in a different progression.
When you and your friend connect and can combine your desires and intentions, you get a Kli—a desire with intention, which increases, as it is said, 620 times and even much more.
[330792]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: During each lesson, it feels like your intention just covers the entire field, and it is so pleasant to sit, listen, and absorb everything. Is this a good sign? Or does it indicate that I am not doing some kind of work?
Answer: This is something you need to determine for yourself. Do you feel inner tension while processing what you hear from me? Are you in a state where you must absorb it, internalize it, connect with others, and somehow realize it all?
Comment: Yes, there is such tension, but it is not clear how to convey it further.
My Response: But this is a different matter.
I will tell you one thing: you have a serious preparation and serious potential. You can indeed succeed. Don’t relax!
We must present the Creator with such a collective desire with the right intention to compel Him to reveal Himself within us. That is what we must do.
[330795]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: I understand that women cannot directly connect with each other but men can. How will we feel our connection? Will it be through men and not directly with each other?
Answer: You will feel both your connection and connection with the men to the extent that you can draw closer with each other.
There is no difference between male connection and a female one. The women’s connection is even somewhat simpler. When women begin to think about the higher goal, their earthly egoism, in general, does not bother them so much.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/20, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]”
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Question: Are Abraham and Terah historical characters or spiritual qualities?
Answer: Both. Naturally these characters existed in our world as people. And from the point of view of the spiritual degree, Kabbalah, these are our inner qualities.
That is, by reaching certain spiritual degree, we will feel with our accomplishments and qualities that Abraham is in it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 67”
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3rd part of the Lesson – “Teachings of the Fathers,” “Mishna, Pirkei Avot,” Chapter 5, Item 12
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Selected Highlights
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Question: In Letter 40, Rabash writes that when one stone is rubbed against another, fire is ignited. What does it mean when our hearts touch?
Answer: When our hearts touch, all contradictions and inconsistencies manifest themselves between us.
And if despite them we still want to unite and rub our stony hearts, then we begin to feel warmth among us. Hence the physical law of our world.
Question: Is this warmth brought by the Creator or is it our work?
Answer: This is the work of the Creator. He brings warmth to our hearts when we want to erase the contradictions that arise between us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 40
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Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly. (Mishnah, Pirkei Avot, Chapter 1).
Question: The Mishnah has not only a corporeal, but also a Kabbalistic meaning.
Should we approach these texts with literal understanding or should we
seek the reforming light in them?
Answer: We in particular seek texts the force of connection in these so that the Creator can be revealed in us.
Question: Why does the Mishnah specifically mention the transmission of the Torah from Moses through Joshua to other sages?
Answer: At that time, the Torah was still transmitted verbally. Each sage received, what they passed on to their disciples.
Therefore, the Mishnah describes the sages passing on their spiritual attainments. Antigonus received certain teachings from Shimon the Righteous and passed them on. Yose ben Yoezer of Tzreida received from Yose ben Yochanan of Jerusalem and passed it on. Yose ben Yochanan of Jerusalem said something, meaning he taught his disciples a particular principle, and so on.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/22/24, “Mishna, Pirkei Avot”
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Question: When you studied with Rabash he surely told you: “Do not ask questions. The time will come and you will understand everything yourself.” At the time, did you believe that you could reach spiritual attainment?
Answer: There is a concept of “faith in the sages” where a person has no choice but to trust those who have attained the upper world. You may not believe it and you can go check with others or try to do something yourself; this is your choice.
In our world, you are in a suspended state. The question arises: how will you move forward? With your own intellect? Then you will spend your whole life inventing a perpetual motion machine, going from blow to blow, like everyone else or like various inventors, enthusiasts, and experimenters.
You have no other choice but to trust your heart: what does it suggest and to what should you attach yourself? The world is full of sages, all opposed to each other, and all of them are right and all of them are smarter than you. What can you do? You have only one thing—your heart. Your mind is filled with who knows what! Your heart is also confused!
Therefore, you need to try to feel with the most hidden corners of your heart, with all your inner self, where the truth is and what you need. But at the same time, try to cleanse yourself from all sorts of layers imposed by life and feel from within: where is mine?
Maybe you will find that you need meditation, Scientology, new psychosomatic inventions, or whatever. Or maybe you need to try yourself here in Kabbalah. It is the heart that should show a person his place. Nothing else.
Do not take anyone into account. Our world has already learned that there are no geniuses. You talk to any smart person and after a couple of days, if not the same day and in the same conversation, you begin to understand that all of it is limited, and derived from some sources built on semi-deception, semi-guesses, and and semi-beliefs.
Why trust someone or something that the human mind has invented? You should trust only your heart.
After all, beyond the heart, there are no Kabbalists, no philosophers, no Buddhists, no one; trust what lies in its very depth.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Believe a Kabbalist” 1/28/10
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The science of Kabbalah itself is very simple. It is difficult to implement it, but its idea is quite simple.
The Creator created one single desire that He broke into billions of parts. These parts, which are separated by egoism, must be reunited into the same system in spite of the ego.
At the same time, egoism should not interfere with them. On the contrary, it helps them connect. Then their connection, compared to the past, will be 620 times stronger, and these desires will not feel the state they were in initially before the shattering when they felt only themselves, but they will begin to feel themselves at the level of the Creator.
This is the movement of the shattering and its subsequent correction. Everything happens only according to the method of drawing closer and the connection of the broken parts, that is, between us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can I annul before my friends?
Answer: Try your best. Please them, serve them, smile, try to do everything you can.
Question: And how can you annul yourself in relation to the Creator?
Answer: There is no way. Only by annulling yourself before your friends will you begin to feel the special integral force that they all represent together. You will call it the Creator.
Question: Should I combine the annulment in front of the friends and the Creator together? Is this the integral force?
Answer: You do not have to fantasize about anything. The friends are in front of you. You can really, seriously engage in annulling yourself in front of them.
And as for the Creator, you do not have a job yet. It will appear only when the friends shape into one single whole in your feeling.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: When we in the ten become a single desire, do we attract other people or is there a rejection effect here?
Answer: Neither one nor the other. The fact is that we are not in a normal state. Everything we are doing is new; Kabbalists have never acted like this. They developed individually.
According to Baal HaSulam, when we reach the level of the last generation, then, based on what all Kabbalists have written at least for the last few centuries, we must create tens or a large group, and begin disseminating to all of humanity. Therefore, sometimes I cannot give you an exact answer to the question posed.
Kabbalah is a very practical science. What we are doing is what we see. So it is written: “A judge has only what his eyes see.” Only based on what we can explore, see, and record, it becomes clear to us that this is how it should be.
I do not know how future events in the world will happen. I can only guess and sometimes write about it. But in general, I try not to make predictions because in reality nothing is known for sure.
We must act according to the same principle of drawing closer to each other and to the Creator, and the result at each stage can sometimes be different. This is a natural phenomenon in nature. But it is always for the better even if it feels undesirable to us.
[330712]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: When you asked the question what we were lacking, a friend in the ten said that we are lacking audacity and decisiveness. It seemed to me that this could really be added. Should we think about this and press on this pedal?
Answer: I once gave such an example. We were sitting at Rabash in the Sukkah and everyone was in very good state. I asked Rabash: “What is preventing us from making a breakthrough now?”
He replied: “An attack! There must be an attack now!” But the attack is not about us jumping and shouting. It is an internal attack! It is inside oneself and in relation to your friends.
We were unable to carry out this attack then. I spoke with him about this topic later.
Moreover, there is a time when this can be done, when there is an appropriate moment for it, the so-called awakening from above. We have it now. I hope that we do not miss this opportunity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: It is very important for us to unite and create a women’s Kli. You said that our common goal is to clothe the female desire with the male intention. How can we achieve this? What should women do?
Should we not think about ourselves but only about the men? What do you advise us?
Answer: I feel your pain, as if you are powerless without men. But this is not true.
You must understand that if you gather among yourselves and try to rise above your feminine egoistic rejections, you will have a wonderful opportunity to create such a Kli that will not even need the male one.
Of course, later we will find that there is mutual complementing between male and female parts. But at the initial stage, there is absolutely no need to mix female and male attempts to connect. Each in their own circle. If you seriously connect with each other, you will not need men.
The Creator gives screens and intentions to both men and women. History knows great women prophets, Kabbalists, who were greater than men. So you have nothing to worry about.
Later, we will combine our male and female-specific qualities. But this is not the kind of work where we are together nearby, seeing and hearing each other. We will feel this as a desire in the air—here is the female part, here is the male part. We will even feel the female and male parts within the female part and the male and female parts within the male part. This is how we will interact.
That is, we need to develop and reveal who we are. Then we will see that we can work together.
But there is still a very long way until the very end. There are many months ahead until each can understand what a female and male ten is and how we can connect with each other in not a physical, but a spiritual contact.
[330640]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Suppose we now set a course for the conception of a spiritual embryo (Ibur). I feel the deficiencies (Hissaron) of my friends. What does it mean to annul myself before them? Does it mean having no thoughts or desires of my own and thinking only about them?
Answer: You have gathered together to perform some spiritual work; otherwise, all your efforts and time are wasted. Therefore, I advise you to simply take into account what we say about the embryo and try to implement it as much as possible, constantly think about it. That is it! Nothing more is needed.
Continuously imagine what you need to do to remain in this state, maintain it, and develop it so as not to fall. This should be everyone’s concern, and then you will feel that you are all in one stream, moving in one direction as all your thoughts intertwine. This direction will hold and develop you.
Question: I am sure that each friend cares about finding the embryo (Ibur) in the depth of our connection. But what does this search really entail? What does it mean to think about it correctly?
Answer: Thinking correctly about the embryo means thinking only about how I annul myself. I do not criticize my friends; I consider them absolutely perfect.
If I see any imperfection in them, I attribute it to myself, to my own qualities; my qualities are why I see them as imperfect. I need nothing else but to annul myself before them.
Ideally the gradual and constant annulment of yourself before others should be in actions, thoughts, and feelings. Then within a short period, I will feel that I truly reach such a state.
[330587]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: When we mutually integrate into each other, we will feel unity 620 times stronger than it was initially at the formation of the common soul. Does this state also include all levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human?
Answer: This refers to the spiritual dimension. Therefore, if you are talking about the common soul or about some particular attainment, then in spirituality the particular and the general are equal. A part is not a part of the whole, but the same whole.
The 620 parts are practically the entire spiritual Partzuf, attainment from Malchut to Bina. But in principle, these 620 are further divided into dozens of parts.
248 parts from Bina to Tifferet (RAMACH) and 365 from Tifferet to Malchut sum up to 613 parts (TARYAG) plus seven additional parts, which are a total of 620 parts (TAPACH). But 620 are the parts of the soul into which it is generally divided, and each of the parts also consists of 620. Thus, spirituality always consists of 620 parts.
Just as a person has all sorts of small and large organs, bones, and tendons so does the spiritual body.
When we perform some spiritual actions of bestowal, of approaching, we constantly renew and correct these desires. And how this happens, we do not yet feel and do not know, but we will later definitely see and attain it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: Congress is a state where we can really feel each friend, his spark and charge. What is missing in this state to feel it as ten Sefirot, as direct and reflected light?
Answer: Direct and reflected light express only the relationship between us.
As soon as a relationship of “I am to a friend and he is to me” arises between us and so between everyone in the ten, we immediately form a state where we feel bestowal from us toward the Creator and from the Creator toward us.
Then we enter a completely different level of creation and begin to understand what is happening in this world and in the upper world. This world will become an upper world. We will begin to feel that everything works differently there.
It should happen. From the way I speak, I can see how easily I can convey information to you. This is a sign that you are ready. So go ahead.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How is the concept of “ten” related to the Ten Sefirot? Can this information be used for internal clarifications?
Answer: If you have trouble connecting the spiritual ten with the physical ten, imagine each of us is a desire, ten separate egoistic desires that when interconnected allow you to build one complete altruistic intention.
We study the four stages of direct light: zero, one, two, three, and four. There are only five stages. But, as a rule, we talk about four because the zero stage does not count—it is the source.
The five stages of light are transformed into ten Sefirot because one of these Sefirot, Tifferet, consists, in turn, of six parts.
The path from light to desire goes exactly along ten parts. It cannot be less or more. Rabash writes about this in some of his articles, and Baal HaSulam in the book Study of the Ten Sefirot.
From light to the desire, which the light creates, there must be ten stages where the highest stage is the light itself and the lowest stage is the desire itself. Thus, the light as it gradually descends from above creates a desire within itself.
And then the opposite occurs where the desire begins to gradually become like the light. It turns out that the ten Sefirot of direct light occur when the light builds desire from Keter to Malchut and the reverse when Malchut wishes to resemble the light from Malchut to Keter.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: If it is important to include myself in the friends’ questions, should we hold a workshop where each person asks a question so that I can integrate with it?
When I do not understand how to respond mentally to a friend’s question, will I be able to raise a request to the Creator?
Answer: We can certainly become included in each other during workshops, but it is even better when we help each other.
You always have the opportunity to work together. Try to find such collective work that allows you to participate together in something, even if the actions are insignificant. Collective physical work is a pure gain. That is what I advise you.
Intellectual exercises, like questions, answers, and so on, hardly yield serious spiritual results.
[330737]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What is the correct intention for reaching connection?
Answer: The desire for connection is the correct intention. We must see adhesion with each other as an essential and necessary goal.
If we connect in our aspiration toward the Creator, through this aspiration, we create a vessel (Kli) to reveal Him within us. This is our work.
[330741]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
Question: I saw a documentary showing how prisoners participate in circles, like workshops, in which they connect. They reveal all sorts of childhood desires and often scream to release them.
Will similar things happen in our case? Or does the upper light smooth everything out and make our process gentler?
Answer: We are not dealing with psychology, but with Kabbalah, and we go through much more complex states. Simultaneously, our Kli (vessel) constantly expands, our sensations become more powerful, and we can contain more within ourselves. Therefore, we do not experience such psychological outbursts as in the groups you mentioned.
On the contrary, a person who advances in the study of Kabbalah appears much calmer externally. That is not because they are working on themselves to restrain emotions, but because, under their screen, there is an enormous capacity for desires, feelings, and sensations.
Thus, they can calmly endure states that would be difficult for an ordinary person to bear in our world.
Otherwise such a person might lose their sanity, as neither their nerves nor mind could handle it. But in Kabbalah it is possible precisely because we are constantly developing our Kli.
[330704]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
Question: How can we continue to work on connection so that a spiritual miscarriage does not occur?
Answer: Our main task is to achieve the state of Ibur (embryo) where we unite in the ten. There should be ten people, no more. Less is possible.
As this happens, we will go through the so-called “three days of the absorption of the seed.” The seed that has penetrated the uterus must attach to its inner wall.
It takes three days, which symbolizes the three lines. In our world all this happens as a consequence of the actions of the spiritual world.
We must go through this state and fully attach ourselves as a group to the Creator in three lines.
[330708]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
If the total ruin that they are destined to bring upon the world is still not evident to the world, they can wait for a third world war, or a fourth one. The bombs will do their thing (Baal HaSulam, The Writings of the Last Generation).
Question: The current situation in the world is such that Baal HaSulam’s words about third and fourth World Wars sound especially relevant. What should people hear every day to move away from this state?
Answer: In the words of Baal HaSulam, people should see precise instructions for the desired actions that will reveal the secret of creation to them, and then everything will be settled. We are working in this direction.
Question: Baal HaSulam writes that everyone should take only what is necessary for existence, and direct the rest of their efforts to benefit their neighbor and the Creator. How can those who want to use nuclear weapons today suddenly change and begin to take care of the welfare of their neighbor?
Answer: This will come to a person from above, “they will turn their swords into plowshares.” All this will come, but not in the way we think. The Creator will put other thoughts into a person’s head, and people will start acting that way. So much so that if you tell the person, “You thought differently yesterday,” they will not believe you.
Question: What kind of understanding should be conveyed to the public every day?
Answer: After consulting each other, we must test our conclusions on some group and then bring this knowledge to the world so that people do not reject what we present to them.
We must give them an understanding that our evil nature, egoism, pushes us away from each other and is the cause of all our suffering. That is the first one.
Second, we cannot correct egoism through any political, economic, or other decisions, but only with the help of our connection and the desire to reveal this point within ourselves that unites everyone with the others.
In this form, we will begin to get closer to each other, and to this extent, we will feel how drawing closer saves us and lifts us above all nature.
[330761]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Writings of the Last Generation”
There is indeed only one soul in the world… .That same soul exists in all the children of Israel, complete in each and every one, as in Adam HaRishon*, since the spiritual is indivisible and cannot be cut—which is rather a trait of corporeal things.*
Rather, saying that there are 600,000 souls and sparks of souls appears as though it is divided by the force of the body of each person (Baal HaSulam, Article “600,000 Souls”).
Every person has a soul, and this same soul is present in everyone. We cannot truly imagine this. It is like the theory of relativity—not everyone can grasp what it describes, and the spiritual world is even more challenging to comprehend.
There are several principles that we accept on faith because Kabbalists speak of them from their experience. Until we cross the Machsom, the barrier separating our perception of our world from the perception of the spiritual world, we cannot fully understand them.
In the spiritual world, there is only one soul that exists in each of us and in all of us together. It is not that if the soul is in each person, it is a small part of the collective soul, and if it is in everyone, it is one collective soul. No, it is one and the same soul.
Everything depends on how much a person reveals this soul. In other words, the extent to which he acquires the quality of bestowal, connection, and love determines how much he perceives the collective soul, whether in greater or lesser volume. But essentially, it is always one and constantly shines upon him.
In our perception of reality, we cannot imagine that the collective soul, being one for everyone, can reside in each person’s perception, or be felt as a part.
Our egoism prevents us from seeing it fully. For this reason, two discernments were made in the corporeal body, [meaning, in the egoistic perception]: In the first discernment, one feels one’s soul as a unique organ and does not understand that this is the whole of Israel. [This is the only thing created by the Creator.]
In the second discernment, the true light of the soul of Israel does not shine on him in all its power of illumination, but only partially, by the measure he has purified himself by returning to the collective.
The sign for the body’s complete correction is when one feels that one’s soul exists in the whole of Israel, in each and every one of them, for which he does not feel himself as an individual, for one depends on the other.
At that time, he is complete, flawless, and the soul truly shines on him in its fullest power, as it appeared in Adam HaRishon… . [That is, as it was in the state in which it was created by the Creator.]
[330748]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: Is your Hebrew based on a limited vocabulary?
Answer: Yes, indeed, but no more is needed.
In the last century, there were two great Kabbalistic sages: our great teacher Baal HaSulam and the great Kabbalist Rav Kook. Rav Kook always told Baal HaSulam that he envied his small vocabulary, with which he could convey huge layers of knowledge, sensations, and insights.
Rav Kook himself was, so to speak, the master of the spiritual word, the literary language. His language is very flowery, verbose, complex, and confusing. As long as you read one phrase, a page and a half long, like Leo Tolstoy, you can hardly understand anything. But that’s how he expressed himself. It also depends on the character of the person.
As for me, since at my core I am still a researcher, scientist, and systematiser, I do not tolerate anything superfluous. Therefore, in my speech, in my explanations, I try to make everything concrete.
I believe that this is the most important thing in human education. And feelings already depend on his inner work.
[330809]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalist’s Limitation” 4/17/10
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Comment: A person under the avatar “Truth-Seeker” asks, “Why does the whole world hate Jews, and I do too?”
My Response: Because the world is arranged in such a way that Jews have the only true point of this world. This is the feeling of the Creator. For this, everyone hates them.
Comment: But ideally, it should be the other way around.
My Response: No, the truth is attained only from the darkness. Therefore, we must constantly be on the transition between darkness and light.
Question: What does this indicate?
Answer: This indicates that the Jews, the people of Israel, have a tool. This tool can determine whether I am following the Creator or anything else.
Question: Does a Jew have such a tool?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Why hate them for it?
Answer: Because they have it.
Question: Is it like they have it and I do not? Is that the game?
Answer: Yes, it is even higher. It is because the Creator makes it so. If it were at the level of our world, it would be only half the trouble.
Question: So if it were just between us, you say it would be half the trouble. Does that mean the Creator directs this hatred toward us, the Jews?
Answer: Yes.
Question: The fact that Truth-Seeker admits as he writes at the end, “And I hate them too,” how do you interpret that?
Answer: That is how he feels inside. If he feels it, then that is how it is.
Question: Tell me, please, when he says, “And I hate Jews too,” is there pain in this, that “I hate you”? What do you think?
Answer: This is the pain of the Jews’ connection with the Creator. I can have anything, but if I do not have this point of connection with the Creator, then I am simply nobody.
Question: What should we do to be truly connected with the Creator?
Answer: We must justify that we are Israel. “Israel” translated means “straight to the Creator.” That is all.
Question: What do we need to do for this?
Answer: Leave everything aside except this yearning to the Creator; it is the most important thing.
Comment: So everything else is just toys, you say.
My Response: Yes.
Question: Should only this remain?
Answer: Yes.
[330433]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/6/24
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Question: Should we constantly return our attention to our friends in the ten?
Answer: What does returning attention mean? I must always work that my attention is solely on them and continuously growing. That is not something you can do once every five or fifteen minutes. It needs to be continuous.
I would compare it to a woman who has just given birth to a baby; she constantly thinks about the baby. No matter what happens, she thinks only about the baby. That is how we should think about the group. There is no other example in our world.
[330451]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can I act while accepting everything from my friends in the ten and at the same time giving them everything?
Answer: Rabash writes about this in articles about the group.
Let us say if I am in a relationship with my friend, I am for him and he is for me, then in this way we convey our feelings to each other. Does giving back to him prevent me from receiving from him? It turns out that bestowing to him and receiving from him are all equivalent to bestowal.
It is the same with him. Whether he receives from me or gives to me, it all happens only for the sake of giving to me. Therefore, there are no problems in action, since the intention is the same—for the sake of bestowal.
[330696]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: When you join the ten, what ways can you open your heart to your friends and in what areas should you always be reserved?
Answer: One should keep one’s personal feelings in humility.
Question: If the friends do not share their inner feelings but mostly make efforts, how does the building of a connection, a common Kli, take place?
Answer: The friends gradually begin to feel each other, i.e., their place and spiritual work.
Question: If there is a big difference between internal and external work on the love of friends, how do we combine all this?
Answer: Do not get confused and solve the problem, you will see how the Creator solves it from above.
Question: It happens that one friend wants to implement the principle of “make yourself a Rav” about another. How do we start implementing this principle in the ten?
Answer: You just need to exalt your friend, how great he is, and how different he is from others. In this way, you make yourself a Rav.
Question: Is it possible to ask the Creator to convey the feelings that you experienced to the friends, for example, at the congress?
Answer: Ask, you can ask for it.
Question: How can we keep humility in the ten? What is worth talking about, and what is not worth talking about?
Answer: You can talk about humility without any restrictions.
[330633]
From the 1~~st~~ part od tje Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 33
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Question: What does it mean to let the Creator work on me?
Answer: To avoid such questions, you must understand the language of Kabbalah. The absolute, positive, and only existing force of creation is called the Creator.
Besides this force, there are small negative forces specially created by the Creator, which include us. We are made this way solely to attain the positive state, the Creator, from our negative state.
The Creator is a constant positive force. There are no changes in Him. When we say that the Creator nears or distances from a person, does something, or creates something—none of this is true. This force does not change or it would not be perfect.
Apart from it, an evil force called Adam was brought into existence; it is opposite to the Creator and must do everything possible to become equal to Him, to resemble Him. Precisely because the force of creation is evil, it can perceive the Creator as opposite to itself.
But it cannot change its nature on its own. The only thing it can do is receive the opposite, positive force from the Creator and sort of dress it on itself as its intention. In doing so, it remains egoistic, receiving, unable to change anything within itself. However, if it receives the intention to bestow from the Creator, it can work in receiving for His sake. That is what must happen to us. That is what we strive for.
Then we will become similar to the Creator. But similarity lies not in the action itself since we cannot emanate or bestow something from ourselves. We can only receive, but we can do it to bestow.
In other words, if we stand before the Creator and He wants to bestow to us, we need to add only the intention to bestow to our quality of receiving so we receive for His sake. Then we become similar to Him, equivalent, because in spirituality, not the action itself matters, but its meaning.
Receiving the intention to bestow is our correction.
[330540]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What does it mean to create pressure in the ten?
Answer: We need to create such tension between us that it pushes us out of this world, out of egoism, out of shattering, out of the distances between us. It should compress us together, and we should find a state where we are connected.
As soon as we touch this state, we will immediately feel the Creator within it.
Question: How can these groups that are far from us help create pressure on us? After all, we are here, and they are there.
Answer: What do you mean by these groups? We are all participating together in the spiritual process! It is a great armada. But most important is to set the direction and the overall tension toward universal connection.
We must create such an effort, such cohesion within ourselves, that everyone can participate. That depends on us.
[330474]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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We wish to reach a true and serious connection. Therefore, we are working through all the conditions to feel the collective effort, leap, and internal pressure, the necessity for complete connection within which the Creator will appear.
The Creator is an absolute force, perfection. However, it weakens when this perfection descends to us through the entire system of worlds. Passing through 125 degrees becomes very tenuous, but we have yet to reach it from below upward.
We need to establish contact with this tenuous condition of perfection above us, connect with it, and become like it.
In other words, the connection between us should be similar to this small quality of the Creator—1/125th part of His state. That is what we must achieve.
I hope we will put in all our efforts to come together in one leap “as one man with one heart.”
[330492]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is spiritual pleasure not a form of longing or psychological pressure that you want to escape from, but the same kind of pleasure we get from something in everyday life?
Answer: It is the pleasure of unity with the entire universe. We are designed in such a way that a person feels the perfection of all creation in this state. This sense of perfection is the highest fulfillment, the highest pleasure!
Question: Is it not comparable to our earthly pleasures?
Answer: Not at all! Absolutely incomparable! Nothing else can replace it. It is our highest, greatest, and strongest desire, and it is filled with eternity, perfection, and harmony. You feel the interconnectedness of all opposing elements and how they complement each other and resonate.
This infinite, harmonious symphony fills you so completely that you almost have just enough capacity to think a little only to understand how vast and perfect it is.
Question: Do you perceive this even while sleeping?
Answer: Sometimes.
Comment: It is interesting to live in such a world.
My Response: Do not think that living in such a world means being in a constant state of nirvana. It is a world that you must constantly maintain within you, rise up, analyze, and elevate yourself. It is not an easy world, no. But, of course, it is an amazing pleasure from being connected with perfection.
Question: What is the result of all this?
Answer: The result is that you begin to feel your responsibility to everyone, the need to diligently study the wisdom of Kabbalah and do everything possible to ensure that everyone achieves this state! You cannot enjoy yourself if others are not enjoying it. You must descend to them and do something so that they can taste at least a small spoonful of this pleasure!
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From KabTV’s “I got a call. Infinite bliss“ 3/7/10
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Question: You wrote in your blog that the Coronavirus is nothing yet. There are more serious viruses in store for us, next-generation viruses that will affect our psyche, psychology, and bring chaos to the world.
Why? Won’t our work somewhat affect the positive outcome of events? Or are there things in the world that cannot be stopped in any way? We still keep moving forward, and you said that in the near future, at least one ten will break into spirituality.
Answer: If one ten breaks through—all of them will break through. This is first of all.
Secondly, we will, of course, be able to convert all future viruses into positive ones, and I am sure we will do this.
But we must understand that humanity’s development is the development of egoism. It goes on and sometimes gives positive results. However, all the positive results have run out, and there are only negative results in store for us. No matter how wonderful science or technology is, we no longer expect anything good from technological progress; humanity has finished this path.
Now it’s up to us. Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that we are in the last generation, that is, in the generation when egoism has reached such a state that it must be corrected. That is what we are doing.
I do not think that we will be able to completely stop viruses because humanity still needs a “whip” to push them, to somehow make them aware of the insignificance of their nature and state and the need to do something.
It must be understood that suffering itself, no matter how unpleasant it may be, purifies a person. This is an undesirable path, but when it happens, it is still a cleansing. It causes one to awaken and start thinking about what he should do.
That is, suffering is useful, only it should not be physical, but the suffering of love when I have a feeling that I can achieve a connection with the Creator, but for some reason, I have not yet achieved it. Such a suffering of love is very useful. Let us try to have only this suffering.
[330655]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that only in the measure of unity with other souls is the common soul attained. What is this measure of unity?
Answer: The measure of unity is determined by the fact that, despite the egoism that separates us, we try to unite, think the same way, imagine the same way, and strive for the same goal.
Alike does not mean that we have to be like soldiers. No! We must try to come to a common goal, to a common path, to common steps, but each based on his or her own nature. This is the connection.
[330753]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/20, “The Ten”
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Question: What is prayer for a friend?
Answer: What you feel in your heart, how much you need your friends to be together with you in one thought, in one desire, in one aspiration to the Creator, this is your prayer. Think this way all the time: from desire to intention to the Creator. You should be able to do it.
Basically, each of you knows the theory, you just have to try to put it into practice. After all, you have already gone through a lot, talked, and studied. It is time to implement this somehow.
[330744]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Comment: I have a great desire to enter the spiritual world as soon as possible in order to bestow to others. However, you say that for people with heavy egoism, it takes a long time to ascend into spirituality, but you rise to a higher degree.
How can I resolve this contradiction in feelings that on one hand, I want to hurry up, on the other hand, I want to rise high?
My Response: The fact is that you want it egoistically, which is why you have contradictions. And if you do it altruistically, then you will see that there are absolutely no obstacles in front of you.
You can already feel yourself in the spiritual world, but only to the extent of your bestowal.
I am not trying to confuse you with ambiguous hints, but I am speaking directly. Maybe it hurts a person’s ears when I say, “Do you want spirituality? Please bestow.” It sounds very harsh, but it’s true.
[330644]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is my task to serve the ten and create the conditions for all the nine friends to unite?
Answer: By doing this you are serving yourself, and not them. Your egoism seems to tell you that you are you, and they are them. In reality, they are the spiritual “you.”
Question: I understand that all my actions regarding the ten come from the mind, from pure calculation, and not from the heart. How can I learn to ask for strength from the ten to move on?
Answer: First of all, asking is good. On the other hand, you must understand that gradually from your efforts you will develop all kinds of feelings, thoughts, and connection with them. You will begin to understand how to quickly create contact with them, and you will become a master of your craft.
Suppose, when you start working with some kind of material or some unknown construct, you do not understand much. But gradually you get a feeling of what you are working with, what it really is.
In the same way, we do not yet have an understanding or feeling of what a ten is. And when you start working with one group, another one, and still another one, trying to gradually connect to them, a structure of this object will begin to get created inside you. In this way, you will begin to feel within yourself what a spiritual Kli is.
You will have a grasp, an understanding, of how the ten changes. Therefore, try to be in different tens all the time. The main thing is to begin to connect. Anyway, all of us, all of humanity are one big ten. So there is no problem being in different states.
[330601]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How do we find that point where we can interact among ourselves on the level of desires and aspiration toward the Creator rather than on the level of bodies and characters?
Answer: We do not speak at all about the animal body. It has no relation to spiritual work because it belongs to the level of our world. We do not speak about our characters because the Creator assembles us. This is His “problem.” He created us with these characters and gathered us together just the way we are, so that we understand that we can unite only with His help.
Moreover, He gathers very difficult people: nervous, angry, nit-picking ones that are inclined to criticize. Kabbalists in all times were the most dreadful people, the biggest egoists. Otherwise they would not demand knowledge of the meaning of life, its cause, its source. For this, a great egoistic desire is necessary.
These are people who cannot think about anyone but themselves. Not that they are rude or cruel, no. That is just how they are inside. And it is they who begin to reveal that they cannot unite but must do so.
Here arises a dilemma that humanity faces. If we do not unite, then eventually we will come to destruction. Look at what is happening today, what frictions between everyone, what calculations. Horror! So many sources of all sorts of conflicts!
The Creator deliberately awakens this among us so that we understand that there can be nothing better than unity. But we cannot unite. We do not even think about it because we understand that it is pointless, that every state cares only about itself. Moreover, within each state there are dozens of currents, parties, that tear it apart. Human society is tearing itself apart from within by its egoism.
And here we must demonstrate that against egoism there is a force that can unite us. In general, everyone agrees that revealing such a force is good. We just need to show through our own example that this is possible.
And then we will be able to convince humanity not theoretically and not with beautiful words, to aspire toward mutual guarantee too; we will show how it works. Otherwise, no one will take us seriously. This is what we must do.
[330378]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What does it mean to get together with another ten? There is some confusion here, and it is unclear where to move.
Answer: What’s the difference. The main thing is that this is a group of people to whom you want to nullify. You don’t need to know them much to do this. They also have the same intentions, movements, and plans as you. So try it.
Then you will begin to feel that you and they have movement toward unification, and you will start to unite your intentions, thoughts, and desires, which will collect in you. You will divide them into receiving, bestowing, intentions, and actions. And so everything will go further. You know, just like in relationships between people, you will have such connections.
And it doesn’t matter that the ten will be new every time. On the contrary, it is good. You can achieve a lot if you work hard on yourself.
Question: What conditions and forces are needed to achieve self-annulment?
Answer: No conditions except desire. Any person who feels such internal pressure within himself can achieve this, and he does not need anything for this, only those properties in it and the group in front of it.
[330570]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What should we do to reveal the Creator?
Answer: The same as we do now, there is nothing else.
If, by connecting with each other, we reach the first stage of unification, the light of the level of Nefesh arises in us; it is the first, the smallest, of the five lights we must attain.
Then we continue to work, and if we go through the embryo state, we are born into the spiritual world.
Then, we begin to feel the next level of our existence called “nursing,” as in our world. That is why such actions occur in our world as the consequences of spiritual actions.
Usually, the nursing period is called “two years.” But those are two years in a spiritual sense. Afterward, we reach the level of Ruach and grow further to the level of Neshama, Haya, Yechida de Nefesh, and so on.
We study all these steps in the Study of The Ten Sefirot. This is what should advance us.
The whole science of Kabbalah, in fact, is built only on giving a person the opportunity to enter the spiritual world and begin their equalization with the Creator.
[330608]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
Nazarbay asks: “When there is emptiness in the soul, what to do?”
My Response: Fill it. When there is emptiness in the soul, it is necessary to open this soul to the light, and it will fill it.
When you open your soul to the light, you expect this fulfillment from the Creator. You strive toward Him, as if you fly to Him and are ready to accept everything from Him. Then He corrects your soul and fills it with His light. And this is the revelation of the Creator to a person.
Question: Are you ready to accept everything from Him?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Absolutely everything?
Answer: At this point, nothing remains, no conditions.
Question: So you don’t divide: I accept this, but I don’t accept that?
Answer: Nothing.
Question: Everything, no matter what?
Answer: Everything! Because you are in front of the Creator. There are no reservations here.
Comment: But then all sorts of fears creep in: “And what if, God forbid, like that?”
My Response: It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is. Just headfirst into the abyss. That’s all. And you realize that this, it turns out, is the entrance to the upper world.
[330345]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/6/24
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Question: I don’t have the strength to annul myself. How can the ten help me with this?
Answer: First, by example, and on the other hand, by pressure, when the ten shows you that you must cancel yourself in front of them.
Second, you must help your friends with everything, i.e., fulfill all the work conditions Rabash writes about in the ten. By observing them, you become an embryo inside the ten, and the ten turns into your mother’s body.
And when you all finish this work and cancel yourselves before each other, you get ten mutually cancellable egoistic desires. At the same time, you become a full-fledged spiritual embryo. There will be no reverse movement; you will begin your intrauterine development.
Your development will occur in the Creator, in the quality of bestowal and love. As it is said, you will begin to feel the upper world: The embryo in the mother sees the whole world from edge to edge since it completely cancels itself. Therefore, it sees absolutely everything, even what it does not see after birth.
And then there are the days of its development. “Days,” changes, a constant, ever-increasing glow of light and an ever-increasing nullification of oneself in this light. It is the development of the embryo. On one hand, he develops egoistically, and his egoistic mass manifests increasingly in him. On the other hand, he cancels more and more of this mass growing in him and thus grows.
[330573]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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It therefore follows that each one should try to bring into the society a spirit of life and hopefulness, and infuse energy into the society. Thus, each of the friends will be able to tell himself, “Now I am starting a clean slate in the work.” In other words, before he came to the society, he was disappointed with the progress in the work of the Creator, but now the society has filled him with life and hopefulness.
Thus, through the society, he obtained the confidence and strength to overcome because now he feels that he can achieve wholeness (Rabash, Article 30 “What to Look for in the Assembly of Friends”).
There is an apparent principle in Kabbalah: There is Kabbalah, and there is material life. Separate this clearly with an iron wall.
In this life your personal aspects are your body, food, family, children, whatever you want. On the other hand, we need to comprehend the Creator, our activities, our group, and our friends without mixing.
Although we consist of two parts, male and female, we cannot mix them. However, the woman is given an opportunity to ask questions, listen, and participate.
Women have very powerful Hisaron, and you can feel how they pressure men; this is very good. And we must take their pure Hisaron, pure desire, and connect it to ourselves.
It is what we study from the structure of the spiritual Partzuf. Malchut, located below, is the female part. And the restriction (Tzimtzum), the screen (Masach), the reflected light (Ohr Hozer), this is all the male part, which is included in the first nine Sefirot where the upper light is obtained and the Creator is revealed.
That is, the Creator is revealed in a woman’s desire, formed with the help of a man’s intention.
[330454]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can one convince oneself that any actions for oneself are evil? Even some kind and positive group actions done for oneself are still evil.
Answer: Anything that hinders truth and devoted connection in one common desire is evil. It is impossible to give a clear definition of evil. Evil is opposed to connection in which the quality of the Creator is revealed.
Comment: I do some group actions, and they are beneficial, but at the same time, when I analyze them, I catch myself thinking that I did them for myself. But I do not feel bad about it at all. And I do not like that.
My Response: Why? Because you are giving yourself some incorrect definitions. Stop philosophizing!
Anything that leads to the connection with the friends into one single whole, into one thought, into one desire, into one action, into one intention, is good. The place where I dissolve into the group is good.
That is it! Do not consider any other theories.
[330427]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Should I work not for the sake of the reward, nor myself, should I not want to receive anything?
Answer: No, you work to get a reward. But which one? It is to be able to bestow to the Creator.
Question: But I understand that bestowing to the Creator means making efforts and enjoying His work.
Answer: No, you do not have to make your conclusions. You must read the sources, or your understanding will give you such a philosophy that you will not know where you are. Our reward is acquiring the property of bestowal, becoming similar to the Creator.
Question: Should I cry out for the sake of such a reward?
Answer: Yes, you should get a sense of importance and need for this reward through the group so much so that you can live only for this. And everything else is your purely earthly egoism.
[330517]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can we stop being afraid of the Creator?
Answer: I believe that we should only be afraid of ourselves since there is nothing else in nature besides man’s negative force of egoism and the positive force of the Creator
We have nothing to fear from the Creator. There is nothing better, kinder, more perfect. Therefore, be afraid of man, of yourself, because we are the only source of all problems.
[330534]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How does a person who wants to achieve the goal feel?
Answer: A person feels his main job is to constantly annul himself before the group and the Creator, nothing else.
Egoism is our reverse helper. It is specially given to us so we can annul it and thus become like the Creator. That is all you have to think about.
There are many thoughts, actions, and intentions around this, but, in general, this is the most important thing.
[330531]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Do we come to the group in order to reach common hopelessness and helplessness?
Answer: No. We come to the group to reveal the Creator within it. However, when we start working, we reveal the impossibility of connecting by our own efforts.
Similarly, humanity must convince itself at its lower level that it is incapable of reaching a normal earthly human life. Nothing works for them in family life, in raising children, technology, work, culture, or science; whatever they do, they only harm themselves. Gradually, humanity truly becomes convinced of this.
Then they are invited to correct this with the upper light, the positive energy that works within us. Kabbalah explains that this energy can only be drawn from common work on ourselves in order to reach some common denominator.
Suppose theoretically we are ready. A part of humanity, for example, Bnei Baruch, desires this. But when we start working on connection, we, like all of humanity, also feel the impossibility of it. Even if we want to yield to each other, care for each other, empathize, and suffer together, it does not work!
The Creator deliberately makes it so that we cannot correctly adjust ourselves and become masters of the world (we cannot be masters of the world because we are created beings), but He makes it so that we become disappointed in our own strength and feel the need for Him. This is when we appeal to Him, and He builds a system of correct integral connection between us called Arvut (mutual guarantee).
Only after this can we constantly work with this system of connection. Its revelation between us is called the entry into the upper world, because in that case, we begin to see the entire creation in connection among us through an organ of perception called “the group,” “the ten Sefirot.” Then we can move forward calmly, without error, while understanding what we must do.
[330420]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Comment: An ordinary person thinks that they do everything in this world themselves: “I am so amazing, so astonishing, so wonderful.” But in Kabbalah, a person realizes that they are influenced by a system. They start to feel this system and understand that it is not them. In this way, they begin to attain themselves.
This is the huge difference between the two layers: the external perception of the world and the inner perception, which is inherent to a person studying Kabbalah.
My Response: Yes that is true. But it is difficult for me to talk about this because I perceive the world a little differently than others. Sometimes it is hard for me to connect with a person who only feels what they perceive. I can no longer imagine such a state.
I try to get closer to them to explain my philosophy, worldview, and feelings. But, as a rule, I do not succeed very much in this. It is hard. We see this with all Kabbalists.
After all, a person in our world lacks a spiritual organ of perception. Therefore, we attract them like a child with “toys,” and “sweets,” until they start to engage in the process of their own development and begin to feel the upper world within themselves.
[330342]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Am I a Puppet?” 4/10/10
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From a letter:
I am a teacher with little experience and I am not Jewish. But I have always been interested in the fact that you teach your children to read from the age of three. I know that a lot of attention is paid to memorizing text.
“You” refers to Jews.
It is known that elementary school children could read the entire Torah fluently from memory. They could even tell how many times and on which page a particular word is mentioned.
I have many questions. Of course, we were taught a lot at university, but your answers are especially important to me. I take a lot from your programs. The first question is: What does starting education at three years old give?
Answer: It gives development.
Question: “What does such rigorous memorization of text give?” she asks.
Answer: It is also memory development.
Question: What is the purpose of this for the child?
Answer: So that they know the Torah well, can recall any part from memory, and quote it.
Question: Why specifically the Torah?
Answer: To develop abilities in a person that cannot be developed by anything else. By nothing else. I have talked with many people who studied the Torah this way, and they say it is impossible to convey this to those who have not studied it. The texts of the Torah “bind” a person’s mind into one harmonious whole.
Question: So in principle, is the goal to bring a person closer to this harmony?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How does a Kabbalist read the Torah?
Answer: A Kabbalist does not read the Torah, they see it. It evokes images within them. Not the ones illustrated in books. They see their own personal images behind the words.
Question: Are all these layers sort of removed?
Answer: This is impossible to explain.
Question: Another question from her: “Progress has brought us to the point where memorizing texts is unnecessary. Information can be obtained instantly. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this, in your opinion?”
Answer: The fact that we can juggle texts, books, and encyclopedias however we want, and find quotes in seconds, is natural, on one hand. But on the other hand, it extracts the soul from all this. It results in pure information.
Question: And is there a soul in learning the Torah this way?
Answer: In this way, yes. Of course!
Question: Her last question: “I have just started teaching. What is the most important thing to teach children?”
Answer: The most important thing to teach children is to have the right attitude toward the material you are teaching them. They must understand that the learning process itself develops them. Therefore, it doesn’t even matter what you study, but the process itself turns a small child into a person.
[330034]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24
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Question: Can women enter into mutual guarantee (Arvut)?
Answer: Of course they can. What is the problem? If the men enter, then you will enter. You must fully help men because the male part determines, and the female part gives its pressure—Aviut. Without proper interaction between us, we will not be able to achieve this.
Mutual guarantee is the birth of a spiritual state. It comes only from the correct correspondence of the male and female parts in the Kli.
[330479]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Can we say that we start entering into mutual guarantee egoistically?
Answer: Of course, only egotistically.
Question: How does this mutual guarantee advance us toward the Creator?
Answer: We cannot advance using only egoism. But for now, that is the only power we have. We do not have anything else yet! Do you want to immediately jump to the level of bestowal, love, and connection between each other? From where?
There is an entire ladder and by climbing it we gradually accumulate the desire for the right connection, for bestowing, when the general becomes higher than my personal “I.” This does not happen immediately but under the influence of the higher light.
Question: What is the result of the ten being in a state of mutual guarantee?
Answer: If you do not feel yourself but feel the ten, take it into consideration, think together, desire together as if you have no internal life of your own, only a common one, and when you suddenly separate from the ten you feel as if your oxygen supply has been cut off, then this is the state of mutual guarantee (Arvut).
[330430]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: What is mutual responsibility (Arvut)?
Answer: Mutual responsibility (Arvut) is when I am responsible for the whole world before the Creator.
Question: Can we, Bnei Baruch, be an example to humanity in our state and explain to them through our example about how we unite?
Answer: No, we cannot do that because we are not yet a group that can tell humanity, “You have to become like our group.” Although we are close to it, we are not in such a state yet.
Arvut is a state in which everyone connects by one force into one organism, and the Creator descends to us according to our desires. He settles in us, controls us, and fills us with His quality of bestowal. And we are connected in this quality of bestowal. That is a mutual guarantee. That is the ideal state of humanity.
But we are not there yet. We want to get closer to this state to set an example for humanity. As soon as we reach this state, humanity will begin to notice: “What is this? Why is this happening? How did they do it?” They will suddenly intuitively feel that in Arvut lies the salvation to all problems. But to do this, we must first achieve the quality of Arvut among us.
[330521]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: If a friend in our ten goes through a state of descent and we feel it, how can we help him?
Answer: If a friend is going through a bad spiritual state, we must support him.
Understand that each of us experiences a spiritual state for the group and not for ourselves. We go through descents, ascents, and changes in our states only because the whole group needs it, not just one person.
Therefore, if I look at a friend and see that he is in a descent, he is not in it. The whole group, through him, must study this descent and pick it up. And so through each of us. We must perceive ups and downs as being given to the whole group together. In spirituality, we strive to be one.
How can I look at a friend and say if he is on a descent or an ascent? That is where we are! He experiences this alone because we have not yet united. And to the extent that we unite, we will feel all the descents and ascents of everyone together.
[330514]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can remote groups be incorporated into a teacher, as Kabbalists once did?
I am afraid it is possible to miss the common ark and it will sail away, and in the next life, I will have to be born again in some unclear conditions.
Answer: First of all, the fact that you are afraid of missing something, losing, and being late—this is good. On the other hand, you must be sure that if you are in this place and trying to unite with your friends with all your might, you will definitely succeed. That is second.
Third, success does not consist of what you have attained, earned, felt, realized, and seen. Success consists of trying to think at every moment about bringing contentment to the Creator.
And then you will think less about yourself, about how to succeed, and whether you will have time or not have time, or whether you will be born in this world again. All these purely egoistic questions will not worry you because you will be above them in aspiration toward the Creator.
[330484]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Do Kabbalah lessons have a statute of limitations? Why do we keep recording and updating them?
Answer: Firstly, Kabbalah is being updated with each generation as new souls descend into our world and require a suitable exposition of Kabbalah.
Of course Kabbalah does not change. The structure of the universe is unchanging. But since we are changing, we must receive an updated methodological guide to the disclosure of the universe every time. Therefore, every Kabbalist in his generation felt responsible for this and added something to Kabbalah.
Thus, a huge number of Kabbalistic books appeared, which we do not even know, because now, by a happy coincidence, all of Kabbalah has been compiled, assembled, decomposed, analyzed and synthesized for us in the works of Baal HaSulam. Therefore, we do not need to be distracted by other sources.
By the way, I didn’t know about Baal HaSulam at first. They didn’t want to tell me about him. You can’t imagine how many books I went through, what a huge library I had! And now there are only our books left. However, there are also books by Ramhal, AGRA, such recognized Kabbalists. But, in general, apart from the books of Baal HaSulam, we practically do not need anything else.
After I went through all the other books on Kabbalah, especially RAMAK and the more ancient Kabbalists, I realized that there was nothing to do. I am very glad that I discovered Baal HaSulam at the time and settled on him. And to this day, I see that this is the only source for us, not the first among the others, but simply the only one.
And we for our part must also take care of the people who come to us, because they need to adapt the works of Baal HaSulam.
[329492]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Expiration Date of Kabbalah” 1/31/10
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Question: The spiritual world is the Creator’s system. How do we perceive this picture?
Answer: I perceive it in a systematic way, by means of forces. Why should I see pretty pictures before me?
Let’s say you see a picture on your monitor and it supposedly contains 18 million colors. So what? In reality, it is depicted by electrical vectors.
Why should I be at the level of external imagery if I can be at the level of vectors? They give me a stronger sense of inner brightness in comparing the feelings that arise in our world versus the spiritual world.
Comment: Let’s say you come up with a situation inside you and seemingly manifest it into the external…
My Response: Why? If I can transmit my perception to you without a modem and you can transmit yours to me, why do we need a technical connection with a microphone and speakers? What for, if at the spiritual level, we both feel the same picture directly inside ourselves?
You feel it your way and I feel it my way, but we feel the same thing—different perceptions sensing the same phenomenon.
Question: What is the mistake of our world when we go into an external form? Any person who feels something, has created something, he tries to embody it externally. But how can one embody it inside himself and pass it on to another?
Answer: Spiritual things can be transferred to another only if we share a common screen.
Comment: But in our world, people transmit information through art, songs, and other things.
Answer: Yes, this is how they convey their feelings to others. And others build their feelings on these sensations, perhaps completely erroneously compared to what the author wanted to express.
In our world, everyone feels their own way, as we cannot combine our feelings. While in the spiritual world, you can achieve this when you attain the same spiritual degree.
Let’s say I’m at the 15th spiritual degree. You reach the same level, and we meet there and get exactly the same information because we have achieved exactly the same correction.
Each of us perfectly fits these conditions (number 15), and we have no problems with the fact that you and I perceive them differently from the same source, each according to the root of his soul, but from the same source. Therefore, we describe the same phenomena in different ways, but at the same time we know they are the same at the source.
Question: How can we guide someone specifically through these feelings?
Answer: You cannot. You cannot guide a blind person through your feelings; he has no eyes. Of course you can tell him how you feel, but what could he imagine from this?
[329100]
From KabTV’s “I got a call. Human Inner World” 2/15/12
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letters 49”
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Question: You claim that the more a person is connected to the spiritual system, the more information he can transmit through himself to the outside. But is this formula even correct?
For example, there are people who can write beautifully and do something, but they do not carry the spirit of unity. Suppose, they have written something about Kabbalah, but there is nothing of internal connection there. Conversely, suppose there is an actor who has transferred enormous information through himself due to unification.
Answer: This can only be seen by a person himself (if it can really be seen): how he behaves, how he has been positioning himself over many years of spiritual work.
Firstly, whether he criticizes others or whether it does not matter to him at all; whether he pulls students to him or freely releases them, which means that you can come and go at any time; how he exists on his own, and what occupies a greater place in his life: he with his egoism or the teaching itself.
As for people who are not yet in spiritual attainment, there is a problem with them because anyone can speak beautifully. Depending on whether he is a good speaker, you will listen to him, but in the end, you may not take anything. But what difference does it make to us?
A person can understand and realize only what he has already gone through. Therefore, nothing can be said in advance anyway.
I give out a lot of information; some people begin to understand it earlier, and others later. A person somehow adapts himself to this, and suddenly it pops out from within: “Oh! This is actually so.” He heard this maybe a year ago or many years ago; such things do happen. Perhaps in 20 years you will suddenly hear a phrase that you heard today and understand it.
That is, it is useless to tell a person something in advance, to warn him, and to protect him. You just have to wait patiently until he goes through all his states. Until he experiences them, he will not understand what is being said.
Question: What happens if your student, who is engaged in dissemination, transmits something to the outside?
Answer: In this way he then transmits my phrases through himself, and you perceive them. In the same way, our translators and my students broadcast them in all corners of the world. And it does not matter to you whether you receive information through me or through them.
This is just fine. If people learn from me and are attached to me, then, in general, they convey the correct information without realizing it by themselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Dissemination Wizard” 3/13/10
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Question: Is it possible to connect hearts when some in the ten disagree that this is the only way to hear the voice of the Creator?
Answer: This is not good. We must reach a state where everyone desires and performs the same action and expects the same result.
Question: Sometimes friends say that they hear the voice of the Creator without connecting with the ten. How can that be?
Answer: I do not know. I do not believe that a person can do this without first connecting through acts of bestowal with other friends.
Question: Can the part of the group that agrees with this condition hear the voice of the Creator?
Answer: It is not likely that this can be achieved without the support of the entire ten.
[330466]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 41
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Question: As a rule evil forces us to turn to good. Against what background is evil revealed? Should the feeling of evil be constant as an indicator of our progress?
Answer: Evil is not revealed in us because we strive for good. When we come to study Kabbalah, we are not interested in good and evil or all these categories in general. We are interested in comprehending the Creator, revealing the upper world, revealing the source, the cause, and the purpose of the universe, that is, everything above our life that controls it.
When I study, they tell me that to reveal the control system, the higher power, the upper world, you must unite with your friends. They tell me about the system of Adam HaRishon, which needs revealing.
To reveal it, I have to be in a group. Therefore, they include me in a group of friends to unite and mutually care for each other, etc.
All this is repulsive to my ego, mind, and soul, but I can do nothing. They explain why this is important. Gradually, under the influence of the upper light, I begin to feel the importance of working in a group.
[330382]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: If everything that is outside is my “I,” then what is the point of pulling everything on myself?
Answer: Pull it on yourself and say that it is not all your egoism, but it is all you.
Feel that the other is you. What is the other one? It is a part of you that was cut off from you by a spiritual knife and seems foreign to you. You are given such an illusion.
Our qualities at the human level appear in our sensations as strangers. Our animate desire, which we feel as bodily, appears in the form of the animate world.
We also have a vegetative desire, just as our body has hair and nails. That is, the vegetative level of our desires is felt by us as the plant world. The inanimate world inside us is all the minerals, all the elements, stars, and galaxies that seemingly exist outside of us.
In fact, all I see around me is contained in four levels of desire. Those that exist partially inside me, I consider to be my “I,” and those that I see outside of myself, I do not consider to be my “I.”
Therefore, I need to realize, attach myself to everything that is outside of me, and understand that this is my immediate integral part, even more dear to me than the part that is inside of me. And when I integrate it, attach it, and stick it to myself through the love I develop for it, it is exactly within it that I will be able to feel the upper force, my higher life, and my eternal state.
And I myself am just a small dot relative to all this “I” that is outside. And what is inside me now? What does “I” mean? In fact, the animal body that we consider to exist is an illusion. And there is also a point— the beginning of the soul. And the whole soul is everything that is outside of me.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Whole World is Me” 2/4/10
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Question: How can we unite to feel the revelation of the Creator?
Answer: Our main progress is through ascents and descents. Let us say right now I feel completely stupid. I do not remember words or how to connect a couple of phrases. My head is empty and I am clumsy in my desires and aspirations. I am dead! Even worse.
And then everything passes, and a new state appears. It becomes more and more apparent and colorful. I strive forward to my friends; everything takes on meaning and taste. And then again, tastelessness, decline, detachment, stupidity, etc. And again, colors, tastes, desires!
That is how we move forward. The most important thing is to unite in both men’s and women’s tens so that you always receive common benefits from the falls of some and the rises of others. Our work is like that of a rectifier in a Wheatstone Bridge circuit. When it works in a positive phase, it goes to a plus; when it works in a negative phase, it also goes to a plus. Everything depends on our unification.
If we unite correctly, the Creator will ensure that we complement each other, and our common downfalls and ascents will always be only in our favor and will have a vast overall effect. So let us take care of this. After all, this is only possible through our unification.
[330274]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Can you distinguish a person with a point in the heart from others?
Answer: Yes of course. It does not depend on a person’s age. It does not even depend on whether they study Kabbalah or not. It is evident that they have this point.
I remember when I brought my seven-year-old son to Rabash he said, “He has a point in the heart.”
But that did not stop him from advising me to send my son far away from me. He believed the boy would hinder my development, and it would be better for me to be alone. And moving away would be beneficial for my son’s health. So, I sent him away.
It does not matter. My son is still connected to us, even though he had opportunities to become anything he wanted.
The point in the heart is something that determines a person’s entire life.
[330192]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Creator in Man…“ 3/20/10
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Question: You said to clarify what strength we reveal from our connection in the ten. How should we analyze this correctly?
Answer: In our attempts to connect we must try to see how those strengths and opportunities we lack are born from our unity.
In this way, we will understand what we can develop within ourselves. We must look for new states we have not felt before, i.e., new strength, new connections, and new opportunities.
In the habitual rhythm of our actions, we must see this new strength each time, how it is born each time we get closer to each other, and how a new opportunity emerges in the connection with each other.
[330469]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 59
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Lukas from Lithuania asks: “Today there are no leaders, no authorities. Who should we follow?”
Answer: That is true. But why do you need to follow someone? Follow yourself! Elevate your soul, fill it a little with the Creator’s light so that it illuminates the path you are on, and move forward. Move forward, you do not need anyone! You have a spark of the Creator within you, and it will lead you to Him.
Question: So are you saying, “Follow the Creator, He is your leader”?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is it possible to set myself up for that? People are usually inclined to follow some leader with a charismatic personality.
Answer: Only follow the Creator.
Question: Is it possible to make the Creator your leader and follow only Him? Is it possible to live like that?
Answer: I believe that it is the task of every person.
[330393]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/6/24
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Question: Suppose one watches recordings of your lessons. How do you differentiate between where you are present and where you are not, and when information is simply transferred through you?
Answer: I am always not present. Who am I after all?! I am an element of the system that does the work it needs to mediate between the upper and the lower levels, and I am in the middle.
That is a function, a position, and nothing more. Therefore, if a person can perform it without introducing any distortion or disturbance, then he is called a “faithful shepherd” (Rohe Ne’eman), like Moses. He was a faithful shepherd because he led his disciples (those who heard him), but in the way the Creator showed him to the next upper level.
The work is to annul yourself as much as possible and place yourself between two levels, upper and lower, to be the ideal connecting link between them. You must reduce and lower what is at the upper level, even at numerous upper levels, to the lower level to which you need to lower yourself.
Question: How can you precisely annul yourself?
Answer: A Kabbalist performs this natural action when he works in the spiritual world. After all, this is the first condition for existing in the spiritual world when you annul your “I,” and at that moment you have no other goal than to adhere to the upper level and fulfill its will.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Representative of God!“ 3/13/10
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Comment: A “Doomsday Clock” was started in 1947 by the creators of the first atomic bomb. This clock shows how much time is left until midnight, which marks a nuclear cataclysm. This decision about the remaining time is made by a board consisting of 18 Nobel laureates.
Today, they say, there are ninety seconds left until midnight. According to their calculations they warn that we are approaching catastrophe and everyone needs to react. They assert that we are facing the most dangerous moment in modern history. They urge us to bear in mind that it could very well happen.
My Response: Yes.
Question: Why do we completely not care about these statements?
Answer: These statements are actually completely unimportant to us.
Question: So they gather there, they talk, they determine how long until midnight, and we do not care about it. Why? Why are we not afraid of this?
Answer: That is our nature.
Question: Will this always be your answer?
Answer: What else can be done? That is how I see it.
Comment: But I have children, grandchildren. I have my own life.
My Response: So what. Do you really want them to carry on this miserable life?
Comment: I do not want them to have a miserable life.
My Response: Suffering endlessly, from century to century.
Question: So will there be no Doomsday Clock ticking away in me, making me tremble and worry: “It is going to happen any moment now”?
Answer: No!
Comment: I am trying; I want to stop all of this!
My Response: If it ends, what difference does it make to them whether it happens today or in ten years?
Question: So all these calls to action mean nothing?
Answer: No.
Question: Then why do they call for action, sign treaties, gather at the UN and hold Security Council meetings? Why?
Answer: Someone has to do something and get paid for it. Nothing will change. This world will remain doomed.
Question: So what should we be doing then? If not stopping these wars, not working on peace in the world or anything else, what should we be doing?
Answer: Actually, the best thing would be if we all went to sleep. Really. If we invented a little pill: right now, at, say midnight, we all take the pill and wake up in 100 years.
What would happen during that time? The world would heal.
Comment: You saw what happened during the Covid period. Animals came into the cities, the environment improved. We were told that springs, lakes, and rivers were getting cleaner. The world would cleanse itself from our pollution.
My Response: Yes, that would be good.
Question: Not bad, of course. At least no one is killing anyone. But in reality? There will be no pill, we can’t sleep it away.
These people have found a goal for themselves—to warn the world about nuclear catastrophe. Others, on the contrary, are building nuclear bombs. Still others want to live peacefully, but are not allowed to. Ultimately, what should we all, as humans, come to?
Answer: We should come to the question: “What is the purpose of human life?” And, of course, not just to sleep through life and do nothing, but to get an answer to this question: “Why am I living?”
We all need to ask this question and receive an answer.
Question: Do you personally see your task in getting people to ask this question?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What answer will they come to if they ask the question?
Answer: Why I live.
Question: And why is that?
Answer: Why? That is for each person to understand: the purpose of their life.
Question: So this is the engine of life?
Answer: Yes, to push people toward the Creator. I believe there is no higher task than to rise to the level of the Creator.
Question: Will an ordinary person also come to this question?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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Question: How can I convey the flame of striving for the Creator to my friends?
Answer: I don’t think it is possible, but probably through words anyway.
Question: Can we say that the Creator gives us a taste of His love, but then we can awaken it only through love for our friends, and this is a free action?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How do you constantly convince yourself to do this action, to love your friends?
Answer: Return to this action periodically until it is incorporated into your DNA.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 22
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Question: If Hisaron raises me to prayer, to merge with the Creator, this is good. Let it be so until the end of correction. Or should I still see the importance of my friends gathering in the lessons rises for me that my friends?
Answer: You have to collect and lift all this yourself.
Question: In letter 24 of Rabash, there is a phrase: “And may the Creator assist us in the corporeal and the spiritual.” I understand when we say that the Creator assists us in the corporeal. What does it mean to “assist” us spiritually? What kind of hope is this?
Answer: For Him to give us the correct desire.
Question: What does it mean to cherish the relationship of man to the Creator and the Creator to man?
Answer: So that the relationship between them is direct.
Question: We get a lot of blows and raise a lot of prayers. How can we move from the quantity of prayers to a qualitative prayer? I have a feeling that it is better to get one blow, but one that gets to us.
Answer: Quality will come with time.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 22
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Question: I have written down the conditions that should unite us: mutual guarantee, annulment, prayer for friends, “There is none else besides Him,” stay in one desire, and form a channel between the Creator and the ten.
That is what I just remembered. How do we observe all this at the same time?
Answer: There is nothing complicated about it. Nothing!
Question: But I can focus on a maximum of two conditions.
Answer: No, it is not on all of them together. All these conditions do not contradict each other. They only talk about your mutual relationship with the group. As much as you can glue into them, they can glue into you.
Proper interaction and communication between you are expressed in these conditions. You can stick a thousand different expressions on them. It does not matter. It is an open channel. That is all.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letters 48”
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Question: How can I reach the despair that I am weak and cannot connect with others to reveal the quality of bestowal between us called “the Creator”?
Answer: You do not need to aim for despair. If I am heading toward despair, I am already in despair! I have nowhere else to go. I should aim for victory!
My victory will be in reaching despair with my own strength, but when I reach despair with my own strength, I find the opportunity to turn to the Creator at that exact point.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
The upper light is acting upon us even now but very cautiously and in the opposite direction. It does not reveal itself to us; instead, it makes even greater darkness for us to feel a strong need for it. That is how it works.
When we begin to ascend the degrees of attaining the system of the upper connecting force, we will be able to speak to humanity in a completely different language. We will explain our methodology to them through our own experiences and demonstrate it in action.
We must reach this state because the nations will not strive toward the Creator and connection themselves. They are immersed in their egoistic desires and will suffer silently. If the point in their hearts, the desire to reveal the source of their lives, does not awaken in them, they will continue to live as they do. After all, desire determines the development of a person.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
Question: If a person excludes himself from the global spiritual process, does everything pass by for him?
Answer: It depends on luck, on the quality of the soul. Some souls develop slower, some quickly.
The man himself who has a soul does not know what kind of soul he has. He should just make every effort, and then whatever happens. Otherwise, he will not have freewill.
Question: So is it impossible to give a person a practical recommendation to get incorporated into the process?
Answer: Just get incorporated! He has a group and needs to glue himself into it, fall, dissolve into it, absorb as much as possible everything they do, think, say, absorb it into himself like a baby.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
Question: Let us say I have an exciting question that I cannot find an answer to. What do I need to do: write on a piece of paper, turn to the inner teacher, or tune in to the fact that I will hear the answer through my friends, through the sources, through the lesson, through you?
Answer: We need to write and talk to our friends. Then, our inner state will change, and we will be able to understand ourselves more.
Question: How can I strengthen myself in direct connection with the Creator?
Answer: Exactly the way you want it to be. Think so, do so, say so, and ask.
Question: We have two places where we get energy from. That is an ordinary place where we live, and energy comes to us from the environment, loved ones, and even partially from the group. And there is an upper place where we turn to the Creator, do some actions through the ten, and receive energy from the Creator. Does it mean that protecting ourselves from the influence of the environment is to empty the lower part and receive energy only from our actions of bestowal?
Answer: No, keep asking, and you will see from practice how much will be distributed to your desires.
Question: Is it possible to eventually come to a state where we independently keep the restriction and decide for ourselves what not to receive, even if the Creator wants to give it us, but we live only from the action of bestowal?
Answer: Yes, this is also possible.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/7/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 21
Question: You said that we need to aspire silently to be with everyone in one desire: “I want to be with everyone in one desire.” This “I” confuses me a lot. After all, it should eventually disappear, right?
Answer: But over whom are you the master if not yourself?
Comment: I am not really a master!
My Response: Exactly, you are not a master, and that is why you should do everything to become the master of your state. You can make it so that the upper light begins to act on you and connect you with others.
Question: Does the light act on me or on the friends? After all, I should think about the friends…
Answer: It does not matter what you think about the friends. By thinking about them, you change yourself.
Question: So is the correct direction that I want to unite the friends and bring them to unity, to the Creator?
Answer: But you have to perform these actions on yourself. Then the connection will happen.
Comment: I want our work to be immensely beneficial for everyone.
My Response: To achieve this, you need to bring the entire system into order.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
When we unite in groups at the level of our world, we usually evoke only negative forces, like a man and a woman who initially form a union but then encounter various problems because each of them is an egoist. Therefore, in striving to unite, we must understand that we are doing this to feel the need for the upper force. This is possible only when great egoism arises between us, a desire to distance ourselves from each other and dominate others. If a group truly aims for connection, very serious centrifugal forces can emerge that tear it apart.
This is the most important thing that can manifest in people. If they understand this, they rejoice at the evil forces revealed between them. Then it becomes simple arithmetic.
To the extent that they discover evil forces between them, they must constantly clarify that they are revealing them and are glad of it. They specifically engage in connection because, during the process of drawing closer, one increasingly reveals the evil forces that repel them from others. It is this very evil that forces us to turn to the good, to the upper force, to the Creator, who can balance and unite us. This is the method of revealing the Creator.
In reality, it is not that complicated. We just need to constantly monitor ourselves and manage what is happening with our mind and heart. We unite in a group as the Kabbalists advise us because it is in this style of unity, which we aim to achieve, that we will reveal the impossibility of uniting and thus understand the need for the upper force, the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
Question: When can a gathering of people be called a group that is working correctly?
Answer: A gathering of people is called a group when they have a common goal and understand how they should connect and according to what system. This means it is already a group studying Kabbalah. They have a leader and individuals responsible for ensuring that they meet, study, and participate in various activities.
In other words, a group is not just a bunch of people who got together in a bar or at a stadium. It is a serious assembly of people ready to connect to reveal the Creator between them despite their nature.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention
Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letters 38-2”
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Question: Every day for many years you have been awakening the hearts of your students. What do you feel when you see that the students you love do not have the importance of the lesson? What do you feel when you see they are absent?
Answer: I feel that I have not done enough.
Question: Does it hurt you?
Answer: On one hand, yes. But on the other hand, I understand that this is what is called the pain of raising children.
Question: What do you do with this pain?
Answer: I continue to work on you.
Question: In Letter 24, Rabash writes from the position of a teacher regarding students, not from the perspective of working between friends. How should we apply this? After all, friends do not see me as a teacher.
Answer: It does not matter. Act the same way.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 24
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Question: How can we properly connect to a common network of connections without harming the overall process?
Answer: A person cannot harm the general system because we are all under the influence of the upper governance. Therefore, although it may seem to one or others that he is bringing harm, in fact, it is not so. This is absolutely not true. No one can harm advancement.
In some groups in different countries and on different continents, all sorts of problems may arise in the spiritual growth of friends, but in general, they bring no harm. They help you figure out what is going on and to correct it.
If a person was in a group and then left, and even if the group breaks up as a result, it is okay. This means they are going through an internal maturation period.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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The law of mutual guarantee is the law of life, the law of existence, the law of development. At every level where nature wishes to create something that exists, it creates its individual parts and compels them to coexist according to the law of mutual guarantee, which originates from nature itself.
In our world, we observe this at the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels. Man is the connection of people with each other, not each of us, but all people above our natural egoism. When we, as individual particles, are ready to connect to create a correct society, we are called “Adam” meaning “similar to the Creator.”
Therefore, the system of mutual guarantee is crucial in our time. We see humanity becoming increasingly confused, unable to find itself, and practically writhing in convulsions. Although everyone understands that connection is necessary, they also understand that it is impossible due to our egoistic nature.
The wisdom of Kabbalah comes to our aid and explains that we have no choice but to unite; otherwise, things will only get worse. On one hand, we increasingly need each other and cannot escape this planet to distance ourselves from each other. On the other hand, we must connect. The method of connection is inherent in nature itself and is called the wisdom of Kabbalah, which teaches us how to correctly receive all kinds of fulfillment from each other.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: Is it possible to distinguish any stages from the moment a person first becomes acquainted with the science of Kabbalah to the moment when he decides for himself that he will correct his nature?
Answer: People consist of one egoistic desire, and nothing is unique about them. Although there are some combinations of certain qualities in each of them, they are all the same.
What could there be in them other than the usual animal desires to realize oneself, enjoy, and so on? In other words, calming one’s egoism at different levels is what a person desires at every moment.
With the same thoughts, he comes to study Kabbalah. He just wants to calm himself and his desires and reveal and fill them. But it is difficult here. First he enters a state of depression and despair and suffers from a lack of opportunity to attain the meaning of life. Without revealing this meaning, the whole world is unpleasant for him, and he does not know what to do with himself.
That is, a person is searching. He is led to understand that if he does not reveal the Creator, he will remain an animal and in general will exist in vain.
When does he start to learn it? Not right away. He must go through certain stages of accumulation of despair, aspiration, study, incorporation into others, and unconscious contact with the upper world because all this must somehow form in him. He realizes that there is no other way out. Not because he flies on some kind of wings—no, there is nothing else. A person comes to us out of despair and thus enters into the study of Kabbalah. Today, we see this across all of humanity.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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David asks:
Please explain the phrase that the Torah is given for sinners. And if I do not feel like a sinner, does that mean I cannot study the Torah?
Answer: You can study the Torah. But for the Torah to teach you, you need to feel a little bit like a sinner.
Question: And there is no way around this?
Answer: That is why it is given.
Question: So I should need it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What if I need it for knowledge? There is so much in it.
Answer: No, knowledge has nothing to do with it. The Torah is needed only for correction, for extracting the egoism from a person, and for making a person stand before the Creator one-on-one.
Question: So the path I take through the Torah is my path to the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Did He intentionally give the Torah specifically to sinners? Was it given precisely when we sinned?
Answer: Essentially we are born sinners. And then as we gradually recognize ourselves as sinners, we can appreciate the Torah, its depth, its power, and its ability to correct.
Question: What does studying the Torah mean to you? “I study the Torah…”. What does it mean?
Answer: I study the Torah, which means I act so that the Torah penetrates me and I can absorb its words, its strength, and its convictions. So that this becomes an unshakable part of me, and I think only about how to implement what is written in it. That is, essentially, what we must do.
Question: If you reduce it to something very simple and concise, can you say what is written in it?
Answer: About love, but not in our usual sense.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24
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Question: Translations do not give me anything. Even though I do not understand Hebrew, I try to feel the Hebrew letters. And this has an effect.
Can translations serve as a conduit for feelings? Should we still read, for example, The Book of Zohar in the original Hebrew and try to feel it?
Answer: Yes and no. It is not necessary. The Book of Zohar will start to appear before you as a network of forces and attributes within and around you, like an internal and external matrix, and you will begin to feel it.
Question: Do you feel this clearly when you read The Zohar?
Answer: Of course! It is such a power! I am simply astonished, in awe, trying to understand, accept, and interact with it in some way, somewhere, somehow. It is as if you are in some inner and outer space with which you interact.
You study it.
Question: But do you get some kind of satisfaction from this? Or is it a completely different sensation?
Answer: There is no satisfaction comparable to this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Unlimited Bliss“ 3/7/10
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Compared to other parts of nature, a human being is a creature that rises above its animalistic side and becomes a social element by creating society, state, and family, not just a temporary family for reproduction, like animals, but a long-term family. Then he develops industry, science, art, etc. Everything that exists within a person is the makings for one’s elevation to a spiritual level through the connection of one’s inner parts.
How does this happen? We exist in our world to push a person toward returning to the spiritual state where one was initially. First, we create various communication systems between us, such as trade, financial systems, etc. We engage in wars and alliances just to understand how we can progress.
After undergoing multiple splits and disappointment in the ability to unite properly, we turn to Kabbalah. The first to turn to it was Adam, 5,780 years ago. He was the first to reveal this system.
The system’s design is providing humanity with the means to connect correctly. This connection, known as a mutual guarantee or Arvut, can be achieved similarly to how inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels achieve connection within the systems existing in our world. If we study these systems, we will see that they operate according to mutual guarantee. For example, each part of the human body is responsible for the entire organism. Feeling its responsibility, it automatically acts as needed to maintain the physiological life of all other parts. That is why the body exists.
However, when the connection between parts of the organism fails, a person immediately becomes ill. And if the interconnection between cells and internal systems further fails, the person dies. The same applies to society. This law operates at all levels.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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All of us, all of humanity, originate from one common desire that shattered into tiny particles, and each of them represents one of us. Therefore, we must reconnect these particles.
To the extent that we can rise above each person’s egoism and start working on our desires toward a collective connection to become similar to the Creator, the Creator will be able to clothe in us as we get closer to each other.
That is what we need to achieve. Essentially, this is the subject of the wisdom of Kabbalah. It explains how we ended up in our current state, how we can connect into a single system, and how the Creator fills us as we unite into this system.
In this process, our egoism does not disappear; it develops even further, and we must connect above it despite its presence. Then, we will represent a single unified desire composed of many desires.
Our connection is always above egoism. As egoism grows, we must rise even higher to unite our aspirations. Thus, egoism is called “help against you” because it pushes us toward greater unity, and in this way, we can reveal the Creator even more between us.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: How can one become righteous in the family?
Answer: Make an agreement with your wife, and she will turn you into a righteous. I am speaking quite seriously. If the wife wants to, she will systematically influence her husband in every matter, in every action, and he will involuntarily correct himself.
Question: We learn that everyone goes through ascents and descents. Presumably, a woman does too. She may not always be able to influence her husband. What should be done during these moments of decline?
Answer: Of course, mutual effort is necessary here as both want to make their family correct and righteous so that their children become the same.
Therefore, go ahead and act, and you will succeed.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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People differ from animals in that in addition to desires for food, sex, shelter, and procreation, they also have so-called social desires for wealth, power, and knowledge, which can be satisfied at the expense of the surrounding society.
These additional social desires called the human desires of our world can be either directed toward subjugating society, suppressing it, being above it, or toward raising oneself, one’s development, in the likeness of nature, in adhesion with the environment, in connection with society for its benefit.
And here a paradox arises: when I act for the benefit of society, I begin to feel everything that is in it, inside me, and I enrich myself internally. And if I exploit people around me, then I do not rise above them, but on the contrary, being on my animal level, I suppress human qualities in them.
This is where the difference appears in what a man spends his additional desires on. He does it either to improve his corporeal life—create comfort for himself, supposedly take care of the environment, develop engineering, technology, and so on—or none of this simply matters to him.
For him, only internal development matters—how to realize himself. After all, how many years does he live on this earth? Anyway, his body will rot, his house will fall apart, etc. Why should he think about something that is transitory? He should think about the eternal! About what he can develop in himself and what he really can achieve the next stage, his eternal state, which is realized only in our world.
Precisely in contrast to his preferences: “What should I turn myself into: for the benefit of others or for their detriment? For the benefit of my animal or spiritual state? So that I reach the Creator and become similar to Him through love for my neighbor or so that I love myself and indulge myself in everything until the last moment of my life? This is the choice!
But the choice is precisely in relation to the desires that are beyond necessities. Nobody talks about how much I should eat or sleep. I should not live in a cave. I must have a family, normal food, and clothes. That is all. Nothing more is said about this. It is said: “Where are you heading other than this?”
Man’s freedom of will consists in preferring the choice of activities. This is what determines whether he is a spiritual or an earthly person.
People who strive for spirituality feel haunted by the question about the meaning of life. A person must answer it; otherwise, he feels no point in living. In other words, there is no point in using one’s qualities to become rich, powerful, or even smart. So what? I will die and that is it. Why waste my life on this?
And many do not want to. They either fall into depression, drugs, and even alcoholism, or they are still looking for a way out.
And here comes a kind of luck, a quality of fate that leads them to the method of revealing their correct realization.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dead-end Path of Human Development” 1/24/12
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Question: The Midrash Rabbah says: “She went and married a wicked man, and she turned him righteous.” Why can a woman make one righteous and another wicked?
Answer: This is not really a question for me. The point is that in the end, everything depends on the woman. If she wants, she will control her husband in such a way that he will become a righteous man.
Question: Does the woman decide for herself, or does the Creator direct her this way?
Answer: We do not know that. It is not important. The main thing is that the husband sees her instructions.
Question: What if he does not see her instructions?
Answer: This means that she does not act, does not put pressure on him. Every woman can influence her man. We believe that the man is the leader in the family, that he is in charge of everything, but this is only how it seems to us.
This can be compared to a very beautiful car the appearance of which everyone admires but no one looks at the engine inside. A woman is such an engine
Question: Can a man somehow influence a woman if he also wants to become a righteous person or if they want this together?
Answer: If they want it together, then maybe. There are many different tricks here. But basically, this is the prerogative of women.
Question: So you need to adapt to “her voice”?
Answer: You cannot say that you need to adapt. That is just how life works. But if they both decided to become righteous, then mutual work certainly takes place between them.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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And they had no sons. He said, “We do not bring any benefit to the Creator” (Midrash Rabbah, Bereshit 17).
Question: Is it possible that if there are no sons, then we do not benefit the Creator? For example, there are two daughters in our family. Why are daughters of no use to the Creator?
Answer: They are, but not completely. You are not considered to have fulfilled the commandment “be fruitful and multiply.” But you are still young, so go ahead!
Question: Still, I want to understand what the sons bring that pleases the Creator?
Answer: According to Kabbalah, a son means a special quality, power, and a daughter is something accompanying, less important than a son.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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Comment: You once said that old material is not worth listening to.
My Response: No, there are very good things in the archive. It is just that in subsequent explanations, the presentation of the material becomes more professional as more precise words are found. An accessible explanation is a profession after all.
For example, Baal HaSulam had a very good, unique language—academic, precise, and polished. But in the same era, there were many great Kabbalists, such as Rav Kook, whose works no one understands despite him having written an enormous number of books.
The greatest Kabbalist Baal Shem Tov did not write a single book at all. He deliberately did not want to write. And there were many like him who could or could not write and did so better or worse. For instance, Chaim Vital, who received spiritual heritage from the Ari, eventually collected and published these works at the end of his life, and his son and grandson continued his work.
All this is done gradually because the adaptation of materials to our world is carried out according to the souls that descend here. Can you compare the people who sat before me fifteen years ago and those today? They are completely different people.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Old stuff” 2/1/10
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Question: When I participate in workshops, a revelation of evil occurs in me. I see some flaws in every friend: this one says the wrong thing, that one speaks softly, this one falls asleep, etc. These are the pictures drawn in front of me. How do we act correctly in such cases?
Answer: The advice is simple: be like a small child who sits between the big ones. Open your eyes and mouth, and take it all in like that. That is the best thing to do.
Give yourself completely to the general flow. What the friends say is good. Do not criticize them, even if they speak incorrectly. Take their words as kind, good, and true: “I want the same, and I am with them.” You will see how you come out after the workshop.
Question: Is there a point in working with the evil inclination? Is the main thing to be together with everyone in the process?
Answer: Of course! What kind of evil?! The evil is only in you. And the fact that you see it in others and criticize it is how you shoot yourself in the foot.
The Creator holds these paintings in front of you so that to the contrary you will annul yourself even more and try to penetrate them. All that you see that is bad in them is all in you.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: When I see imperfection, I pray to the Creator and instantly feel perfection. This filling of perfection simply extinguishes all my questions and queries. How do I stay in prayer all the time?
Answer: This happens because all your actions are for yourself. If they were for filling others, you would not feel fulfilled.
You would act to fill them, and you would feel the perfection of the Creator in creation, and yourself—only so that this perfection is revealed to others.
And then this state would be permanent, eternal.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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The Creator created one desire, which underwent development and then broke into small parts. Starting with the shattering of the common desire into separate particles, egoism arose between them, a mutual rejection from each other, and they began to feel themselves placed in our world.
All the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human desires that we began to feel, we began to see outside of ourselves in the form of the surrounding world. Our desires for each other consist of four levels we call still, vegetative, animate, and human, or 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Our job is to get off the egoistic degree because by staying on it we do not even feel where we are.
Egoism initially closes us inside ourselves—each and every one. While in it we feel nothing but our world. That is the lowest, most insignificant, and most broken part of the Universe. Therefore, we do not know who we are, what we are, what we are for—absolutely nothing! Perhaps we feel overwhelmed. And then, even this truth we do not feel.
But we are given the power that develops us. Gradually, more and more upper light descends on us, the quality of bestowal, which allows us to feel the need to unite with each other.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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The Creator has made man unable to help himself. …The Creator has made the hardening of the heart, so that man will be unable to overcome the evil in him and will need the Creator. By this, man will need to be rewarded with the NRNHY of Neshama (Rabash, Article 1, 1989, “What Is the Extent of Teshuva [Repentance]?”).
The Creator did everything so that a person cannot reveal the upper world and the Creator, but one will feel a need for Him and turn to Him with a request that obliges the Creator to help him or her.
That is the “hook” that we must make. On the one hand, we yearn to attain the Creator, to reveal Him; it seems possible, and we rush forward headlong. On the other hand, we stumble, fall, make mistakes, and become increasingly convinced that we cannot do it on our own.
When a person reaches the greatest devastation, the greatest disappointment, and raises one’s hands because he realizes that one has no way to reveal the Creator, but on the other hand, a person still cannot leave it, he must comprehend Him—these are the two opposite forces, properties, sensations, and passions that begin to form in him and it is the vessel in which the Creator reveals Himself.
Thus, a desire to attain the Creator and a disappointment in the impossibility of doing it reveal within a person. Then, between these two forces, the Creator is revealed.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What is final correction?
Answer: Final correction is the attainment of being together with all souls in one common soul called Adam, from the word “Domeh,” “like the Creator.” We are like Him, and therefore He fills us.
We are like the Kli, and the Creator is like the light. That is the state when we are united together, and the Creator is in us. This condition is called Gmar Tikkun—final correction. We must achieve it.
It is attained in a ten by both men and women. There is no need to look for anything when everything is in one direction. You will see how many different states you will go through; it is simply incomprehensible to the mind, although it is only about desire and fulfillment. Filling affects desire, and desire reacts to filling. There is nothing else!
Look at what is happening in our world: millions of colors, sounds, billions of people, and a variety of inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. And all this comes from only two parameters: the desire to receive and the desire to fill, to give pleasure.
Therefore, there is no need to look for anything else. You will see that this gives you a lot of sensations along the way! You will be amazed at how many states we can gather from all this.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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This is similar to ten people standing and looking at an airplane flying from afar. To the onlookers, the plane seems like a tiny dot. But some of the people have binoculars that magnify the plane several times in size. However, each of them has a different set of binoculars—one has binoculars that magnify significantly, and for another, it magnifies less.
It follows that one sees the plane as four meters long, another says it is three, and yet another says it is only two meters long. They are all reporting what they are actually seeing, but still there are differences between them. Yet, the differences make no change in the plane itself, for all the changes are only in the eyes of the perceivers (Rabash, Letter No. 19).
Question: How can we discern the forms of spiritual connection between us through the “common binoculars” of the ten?
Answer: Because we are oriented in different directions, we cannot consider the common binoculars of the ten. In order to obtain “common binoculars,” we must combine our visions and hearts toward one goal. And then we will see the Creator.
Question: Rabash writes that names (Partzufim) appear only in relation to the person who attains. How can we see something spiritual together since this is a personal experience?
Answer: It will come.
Question: Is it right for us to discuss at least something elementary? For example, how do we feel the importance of the goal in the ten or the level of connection?
Answer: Sure, discuss it.
[330213]
From the 1st part of the the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 19
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Question: What is the correct intention that the light of the Creator will enter into?
Answer: The correct intention is to make an effort to do a good deed to bring souls closer to each other so that the Creator can reveal Himself in them and they can feel the pleasure that He can dwell within them.
The correct intention is to unite our desires so that the Creator can fulfill them.
[330264]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: I feel that I cannot cope with my ego! Should I tell my friends about it or keep it to myself?
Answer: That you cannot cope is clear. But don’t look to discuss these issues with your friends as they have their problems. Instead, seek connection with the Creator.
Be wholeheartedly connected with your friends and at the same time turn your heart toward the Creator.
There is no need to involve your friends because you are in one state and each of them is in a different one. The most important thing is to seek connection with the Creator, and based on your connection with the group.
Question: So should I pretend that I am in a good mood?
Answer: Of course, always keep your friends in good spirits. Especially when you are in a low state.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What is this state where my egoism desires the Creator? And even not just the Creator, but the quality of bestowal. How, while denying bestowal, can I want it? What is this state?
Answer: Gradually, under the influence of studying and working in a group, the importance of the quality of bestowal will arise within you.
You will feel how you begin to respect this quality; it becomes valuable to you because by possessing it, you can transcend time and space. There would be no difficulty or problem for you because the quality of bestowal is above our world.
Our world is the quality of reception, while the upper world is the quality of bestowal.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: When does the work in the ten begin and end?
Answer: Work in the ten begins when you feel that you have no other choice, you must be in a ten for the sake of attaining your soul, the Creator.
The end of the work in the ten occurs when the whole world is also connected to this ten and only one Partzuf of ten Sefirot is obtained.
This is the end of the correction of the whole creation.
That is all. That is, the whole work, in general, from beginning to end, is in the ten.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Are Kabbalistic materials from twenty years ago appropriate for our time?
Answer: We record everything. There are very good materials from those years.
I’m moving with the group. The group is moving forward and no longer needs to chew through the material as it was in those years. Twenty years ago, for the first time, I took the Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah with students: Sefirot, worlds, soul, structure. I chewed it all out for them in a way I can’t do today. I see people in front of me who don’t need to be told this.
Now I have to speak briefly. I express some new, more analytical internal data; synthesize the material from different sides, in different planes, and in a different way, and they already understand this.
That is, the material for beginners is no longer served in the simplicity that it was once taught. On the one hand, this is a big disadvantage. But, on the other hand, there is an archive.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Expiration Date of Kabbalah” 1/31/10
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Question: I feel my egoism has grown significantly. You said, “Either we annul egoism, or we elevate the importance of spirituality.” What should I do?
Answer: You should be glad that more and more egoism is revealed in you. You distance yourself from your friends; you do not want them, you do not want a group or any connection with others. These are all signs of growing egoism, and you should be glad about it.
That is, the left line develops in you, the growing ego, and the right line, correction, working with the ego despite it, must be aimed toward connection.
You must attract the upper light in order for it to create a second force in you, the force of attraction, so you will have two forces: the right and the left.
The fact that egoism is growing and you feel that you do not love your friends, do not want them, and push them away, are all signs of closeness.
[330217]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What is the Kabbalistic meaning of the holiday of Shavuot?
Answer: The meaning of the holiday of Shavuot is the receiving of the instruction for revealing the Creator to the people living in our world. This is the Torah, or more precisely, the science of Kabbalah.
Shavuot is unique among all holidays because we received from above, through certain people, the revelation of the method that provides the foundation for revealing the Creator to people in our world. This method is called the Torah, or Kabbalah, or the true Torah.
Essentially, this is the only thing we need to achieve in this world. It is the goal we should strive for. Everything else is transient. Therefore, I very much hope that people, year by year, especially in connection with this holiday, will increasingly understand its significance.
Question: If we delve a little deeper into the essence of this holiday, why was it necessary to bring people to a state of hatred? As it is said: the children of Israel stood around Mount Sinai.
Answer: It had to be this way; otherwise, we do not feel the need for the method of connection within us.
If we feel that we can reach the highest level of our development—on the level of the Creator—as if on the top of a mountain, which can only be climbed if we overcome Sinai (the state of hatred between us), then the method of overcoming mutual hatred, mutual rapprochement, which allegorically represents climbing the mountain, can only be achieved with our active participation, our serious work on ourselves. This is the entire method of implementing the Torah.
That is why we received it. To the extent that we implement this method, we attract the upper light upon ourselves, which changes us, brings us closer together, and binds us to one another. This is what we must achieve.
Question: Why is it called the holiday of Shavuot?
Answer: Because it precisely measures the time from the exodus from Egypt: 49 full days, seven weeks, which we precisely measure from the rejection of our egoism (Pesach) to the state where we can receive the instruction for rising above it, that is, the instruction for changing our egoistic nature.
Breaking away from egoism for 50 days, we begin to correct egoistic desires into intentions for giving and loving. And then we reveal within them the upper force, the upper state, the upper world.
Question: What do I do during these 49 steps?
Answer: I correct all my egoistic intentions corresponding to each of the 49 steps—seven weeks. Everything else needs to be studied.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/11/24
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It happened once that there was a certain pious man who was married to a pious woman, and they did not produce offspring together. They said: We are of no use to the Holy One blessed be He [if we remain childless]. They arose and divorced each other.
He went and married a wicked woman, and she turned him wicked. She went and married a wicked man, and she turned him righteous. Thus, everything comes from the woman (Midrash Rabbah, Bereshit Rabbah, 17).
Comment: We are talking about many disagreements here.
My Response: There are no disagreements. It all depends on the woman! With a good wife, the husband will be righteous and with a bad one, he will be wicked.
Question: What is the meaning of the term good wife?
Answer: One who obeys her husband.
Question: Then what should the husband know to correctly instruct her? After all, husbands can be different too.
Answer: Of course, it is not that simple. But, in general, much depends on the wife. She can turn a wicked husband into a righteous one and a righteous husband into wicked.
Question: What is meant by wicked? What does this mean?
Answer: It means that he sins against the Creator; he does not believe, does not pray, does not follow the commandments, and leads an immoral life.
A righteous man is one whose behavior is righteous. He follows the Creator’s commandments and loves his wife.
[329658]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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Question: One of the top five most popular words lately, especially now in Israel, is “Tehillim,” the Psalms of David. After all, is it written in the genetics of people that when I am anxious, when I feel bad, I should turn to the Psalms of David?
Answer: That is why he wrote them, in general. This is exactly the language, the form, in which we can turn to the Creator.
Comment: But it was he who turned to the Creator.
My Response: It does not matter.
Question: Then it turns out that he exists practically in everyone?
Answer: Of course. This is King David! He is the person closest to the Creator.
Question: And for us, if each of us turns to Tehillim, to the Psalms of David, does it mean that he is in us too, the closest to us?
Answer: He is partially inside us, of course, inside each of us.
Question: Are we talking about more than just the Jewish people? Are we talking about the whole world?
Answer: Yes, King David is universal to the whole world.
Question: Is there is a point called King David and Psalms every person in the world?
Answer: Yes, that is why they are so popular. That is why everyone sings them.
Comment: All religions…
My Response: Yes.
Question: Please tell me, does reading Psalms help psychologically?
Answer: Not only. This is a real help from above. They have strength; let us say, the power of protection.
David was strongly connected with the Creator, with the upper world. He was a king. That is, he paved this connection to the Creator. And therefore, his Psalms are the most important.
Question: Now, there is a question: Did King David really write them?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Was he thinking about writing them for us or was he simply spilling out what was inside him, the cry of his heart and soul?
Answer: I think he was simply describing what he felt.
Question: Why did he write them? He could have just said it all? Moreover, the feeling is that everything naturally comes out from the heart.
Answer: Of course, he said it too.
Question: What is happening when a person is writing?
Answer: He is pouring himself out. He is pouring himself onto paper.
Question: So, you advise working like this?
Answer: I recommend it! When a person reaches this state, he does not need advice.
Question: Will it work like this on its own?
Answer: Yes.
Question: It means that this connection of mine with my hand, with what I am writing, will not disappear?
Answer: No.
Question: Despite all the existing devices and recordings?
Answer: No. A person will reach out for a pen, paper, or a knife and stone.
Question: That is, civilization will not affect this in any way?
Answer: No.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24
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Question: You said that the ten is a device that can captures the spiritual field. How can we feel that we have become this device?
Answer: Just as a compass captures the magnetic field, so do we. By gathering together, we create an instrument for perceiving this field, and it orients us, moves us, and nurtures us.
As the compass needle starts to turn in the magnetic field, we work in the ten until we begin to feel the spiritual field between us, which shapes us and moves us forward.
This is an inner sensation for each person to the extent that one annuls oneself before the ten.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What does it mean to let the Creator into the mutual guarantee?
Answer: When we talk about mutual guarantee, we mean the right connection between people. That is, we ask ourselves how we should be united in order to represent a reliable earthly system of interconnected people.
There are people who understand that their egoistic desires play with them so much that they are unable to control themselves. If we look at humanity from the outside, what is happening to us simply defies any justification because we are trying to destroy, humiliate, kill, and suppress each other. We are motivated to do this by our inner desire, which does not allow us to exist in peace.
We need to neutralize the evil inclination in a person in some way. There is only one salvation for this—the force existing in nature that is able to balance our egoism. But we need to attract it to ourselves. This positive force is called the Creator.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”
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Question: When I receive the revelation of the perfection of the Creator, where should I move further in my intention?
Answer: If you feel that you receive everything from Him and you feel good this way, thank Him for it.
As soon as you begin to give thanks, your Kli (vessel) that is filled with this pleasure will be emptied.
Gratitude and prayer, gratitude and request, expand the Kli like nothing else.
[330270]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: How can one be ignited with such desires in which the Creator will be manifest? Sometimes you recall the past and feel like you’re not investing the way you did back then.
Answer: This is good because this is required so you would ask. All our desires, especially unrealistic desires and dreams, are necessary for us to ask the Creator. Only for this.
Collect them all, and nag Him all the time, keep asking. You will see that this is the only thing that helps—not your brains, not your memory, nothing. Just nag like a child who is always picking at an adult and demanding something from him. This is how you can succeed; there is no other way.
[330267]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Often a person comes to study Kabbalah out of despair and is searching for the meaning of life. When does a person need a group?
Answer: When a person, according to the state of his soul and according to internal preparation in this life or previous lives, is ready to begin the right advancement toward spirituality, then he is brought into the group.
But that does not mean anything. Some people come to the group and start getting used to it very quickly. They understand that it needs to be done like this: I am in a group and must fully connect myself with it, and then together, as a team in the army, we will attain the upper world, the Creator.
Some people come to the group, but internally disagree that they should be connected to the rest. For what?! How? What does connection have to do with it?! The Creator develops them in advance in arrogance, pride, etc. In general, it is hard for them.
They do not understand at all what it means to get closer to others, to connect, i.e., they go through a completely different development system, knocking about and twitching. However, if they stay on this path, they will eventually reach great heights, but after a longer time than the others.
[330182]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 39”
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Question: I remember about six years ago, I had such brief states, like gifts from the Creator, when I could feel something. It is clear that now I have to achieve these states myself, but the ego has strengthened and it is already hard to get it.
Now can I now focus on the sensations of past states and take them as a guide?
Answer: No way! I have known you for years. You are on a different degree now.
The feelings that will come to you are different. The states that you went through once will seem better and higher than the current ones. But that is because you are going into states that are more internal than those.
Once, let us say you were happy, like a five-year-old child playing ball with his friends. Today, you are already fifteen years old, and this is not the same game, not the same conditions, not the ease of joy from the game. Do not mix one thing with the other, live for today.
Comment: It is difficult to refuse past states that are constantly surfacing.
My Response: It does not matter. Do not refuse, but do not cling to the past either.
[330172]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/20, “Questions and Answers”
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Comment: There must have been dead ends in your life when you probably wanted to give up on everything.
My Response: If I have achieved anything in life, do you think I did not go through what you still have to experience? Do you really think that any stages were cancelled for me due to some kind of patronage that allowed me to bypass them? There is no such thing in spirituality. It exists only in our world, only in animal states.
Question: How critical was your condition? Did you feel terrible despair?
Answer: Yes, especially in Tiberias where we went with my teacher Rabash and stayed there together. I felt he was ready to give everything, and I could not take anything.
I understood that everything depended on me: I had to spread myself and desire spirituality like nothing else in the world. I used to sit on the balcony of our house at night, smoke two packs of cigarettes, and I couldn’t do anything. Nothing! I understood my absolutely hopeless state.
But what could I do? After all, it was hopeless; that is how this state revealed itself to me. But there must be a way out! There is a way out for every soul. What is the solution for me now?
Question: Did Rabash know about this?
Answer: Of course he knew. It could not be that he did not feel.
A person must go through these states! The teacher cannot do anything. You have to go through them, and he is waiting for you to go through them. That is all, just like the Creator is waiting for this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Leave Kabbalah” 1/29/10
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From a viewer:
Why can brothers hate each other so much? I see that the same thing happens with brotherly nations. It is the same with Israel and the Arabs. You are brothers, you have the same father—Abraham. And you hate each other so much! I have two sons, they are already adults, and I could not reconcile them. I know that they will kill each other when they meet. Why does God do this?
Answer: This is a consequence of our nature, the egoistic nature of our world and of us. In every atom, in every molecule, in every gathering of living particles, everything is built on the idea of suppressing others and being above them. This is nature—absolute egoism.
Question: Is our world like this?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Well, fine, this is my attitude toward others whether close or distant ones. But why brothers?
Answer: Brothers are even worse because inside them hatred for each other is constantly brewing as each subconsciously believes that the other has taken their parents away and lives at their expense. This feeling makes them fight constantly.
Question: But still they are brothers from the same parents. How can this be changed? Are there any methods, steps, or practices?
Answer: No, there are none because this goes back to the very depths of time, to the birth of our world. And so it will continue until we decide to change this world within ourselves!
Question: Now you are approaching the question that was asked at the end: “Why did God do this?”
Answer: So that we will change ourselves.
Question: Does it mean that until each of these brothers works on himself everything is doomed?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: You often say, and Baal HaSulam, the great Kabbalist, wrote that the future of humanity is to become one family. We talk about brotherhood. But we mean a different thing, we mean closeness.
My Response: When the Creator desires it, we will do so. But when we need to act, we see how much nature is against us.
Question: So, can we not do this with our own hands?
Answer: We cannot.
Question: Then what do we need to do so that the Creator would do this?
Answer: Beg Him to change our nature.
Question: Do I need to feel bad because of my hatred for my brother?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But it does feel bad when one hates one’s brother, right? Or not?
Answer: No.
Question: Is it He who makes it so that I feel bad from this hatred?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Are you putting everything on Him? Let Him deal with it?
Answer: On whom else?
Comment: If everything is on Him, it makes us feel disheartened. We cannot do anything. Let Him deal with everything, and that is it.
My Response: You can ask.
Question: Do we, in principle, have only one job—to ask?
Answer: To ask the Creator.
[329565]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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Question: You said that you need to ask the Creator to manifest Himself as kind and doing good.
But we are talking about working in faith above reason, i.e., not asking for some good attitude toward ourselves. Or is it still possible to ask?
Answer: You can ask, but as soon as you feel the Creator a little, after this you should look at what other corrections you need to make to reveal Him.
[330125]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/24, Writings of Rabash “Mind and Heart”
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Question: What does it mean that the ten should measure the result of their work in the Kli of bestowal?
Answer: The extent to which the ten progresses in the Kli of bestowal is the extent to which it measures its advancement in spirituality.
A sign of real bestowal in the ten is the revelation of the Creator within it.
Question: How can we determine our collective readiness to meet the face of Shechina?
Answer: The tighter you all feel together in the ten as one person with one heart, the closer you are to the face of Shechina.
[330118]
From the KabU Retreat in Holland 6/1/24, “The Creator Is in the Ten”
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Question: What is perfection?
Answer: Just as the Creator does not exist in our senses now, so the creation makes itself non-existent in creation. So together the Creator and creation discover themselves in each other, and perfection manifests itself.
You can see that a person takes up little space. You just feel it. He may take up a lot of space in his spiritual influence, but as a person in this world, he does not take up much space.
He does not push, does not rule, does not control life. If you want, you can make an example of him, if you want, you can be next to him, or not. He does not extend himself to you or put pressure on you. But if you want to be in contact with him, do so.
Comment: But at the same time, when you connect with him, he presses.
My Response: But that is already you who connected to him. Why did you do it? To reach a higher level through contact with him. So now you have to yield to him. But this is your will.
Question: Is this what choice is?
Answer: Sure, if you want it.
[330077]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Perfection“ 3/13/10
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Question: If women can influence men with their inner voice, if they are so omnipotent, why don’t they exert their influence to somehow ease the world’s suffering?
Answer: This is a common problem for both men and women. But if women wanted to, they could certainly change the world. They would turn their husbands around so much that they would inevitably become righteous and make the world different.
Question: But will this ever happen? What does it depend on? What is missing?
Answer: It depends on men and the Creator. We men need to ask urgently and constantly act in this direction.
A woman can also act. It is much easier for her to do this because she can ask through her husband.
[329926]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”
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Question: What does it mean that the ten reveals the face of Shechina? Is it some kind of sensation between the friends?
Answer: Yes, if there is no common sensation, how can the Creator be felt? A single person cannot feel the Creator. One must be connected with others, bestow, receive, and form a complete feeling, a complete Kli, together with them.
Question: How is this complete Kli different from the usual connection between friends in the ten?
Answer: It differs in the essence of connection when the friends connect to reveal the Creator, not for themselves, but for the entire world. That is the direction they act in.
Question: Suppose we, at our gathering, try to build the intention to reveal the Creator for the sake of the entire world. What should happen in our connection for the face of the Shechina to manifest there?
Answer: You should feel that you are gradually getting closer to the state where the Shechina reveals within you. When this happens, the ten will feel the manifestation of the Creator.
[330122]
From the KabU Retreat in Holland 6/1/24, “The Creator Is in the Ten”
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Comment: You said that desire is primary. This threw me into a stupor because desires arise in my brain.
My Response: No, the Creator initially created desires, and then they began to take on various magnitudes, meanings, and forms, which we see as inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human degrees. In general, there are only desires in nature, only desires.
Question: If these desires arose in my brain, how can I correctly convey them to my friends and society and try to prove that they are correct?
Answer: There is nothing to prove. Each person has one’s own desires and is occupied only with them.
Question: And how do we create a common desire to sail together and unite?
Answer: It depends on your goal, and if you have only one, the Creator, you will unite your desires in Him.
Question: According to my feelings, everyone has their own Creator. Everyone creates Him by himself even though we are together. How do we create a collective Creator correctly?
Answer: Strive for a common goal, and you will understand how to act among yourselves.
[330022]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/24, Writings of Rabash “Mind and Heart”
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If a person does not devote his life to pursuing any path, either he wastes himself on many different searches and ends his life with nothing, or he lives like an animal without any search for a purpose. All this is determined not by him, but by his desire.
I do not imagine myself pursuing wealth, power, or fame. After all, these things end along with my life. Why do this? I am already over seventy years old. Okay, let us say I will have another ten years. So what is next? Then nothing and that’s it, it’s over. So what should I do in these ten years?
Comment: Work in a garden, grow flowers, watch TV.
My Response: Yes, yes, also children, grandchildren… I’m not against it. Kabbalah obliges a person to take part in everyday life, but the purpose of life should still guide us forward.
Comment: There is a classic notion, I will have my children there to give me a glass of water in my old age.
My Response: What difference does this make in how I die? What is next if my children will bring water to me or not in old age? This is where everything ends. Let’s say I have a special five-star nursing home. Nurses and caretakers will be around me, pampering me like a small child. They will wipe and bottle-feed me until I happily fall asleep in their arms, soothed by eternal restful sleep. Is that it? Why did I live my life?
Today, a person only thinks about his life and its end, hoping to live out his last years more comfortably. There’s nothing to talk about here.
But the fact is that people who come to study Kabbalah understand that if they do not find the purpose of life, then this life is of no use to them; it would be better if it did not exist.
[329602]
From KabTV’s “I got a call, To Believe a Kabbalist” 1/28/10
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He went and married a sinner (Midrash Rabbah, Bereshit 17)
Question: Can a man know in advance whether a woman is a sinner or a righteous?
Answer: In general, yes. A man may know whether a woman is idle or not. Perhaps she is engaged in some unclean activities, and so on. When choosing a woman, one must look at how righteous she is.
Question: If we act this way, does it mean all sinners will remain lonely?
Answer: A few women will remain single, and the rest will follow the example of the righteous.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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Question: Kabbalists often say, “Let us think about our friends” or something similar. Does the concentration of thought change some material things in our lives?
Answer: Thought is the most important thing we have, even though our thoughts are not pure because in reality everyone thinks about themselves and not about others.
Although we think about others only when we want them to make us feel better, I could not even think about anything else because I am an absolute egoist, and this is my nature. Still, in this inner movement, in this impulse, there exists some small element of a different, unique attitude toward a friend in which I somehow realize inside myself that I cannot do without him.
I might not want this, but the Creator arranged everything this way. What can I do? I have to love him involuntarily, without knowing what loving means. Nevertheless, something like this should happen in the future. They say it is necessary.
In other words, there are many such artificial movements, but since they are in the general mechanism, they bring the light of correction upon us. I ask for my correction despite not wanting to change. It works like a child who does not know what he wants. Nevertheless, it works.
[329912]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. We are Thinking about our Friend!“ 3/11/10
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Question: What is this leap—love?
Answer: Love is a state where you treat others with a desire for complete bestowal and you strive to become like the Creator in action.
Comment: I still cannot grasp the difference. Suppose a person works like an organ in the body. He receives the most necessary things for himself and gives everything else for the sake of the entire organism. Thanks to this, the organism lives.
My Response: Yes, this is if we are talking about the internal system of the organism.
Question: So, can we say that our organs are altruistic? But we still do not say that they love each other. What is love, then?
Answer: Love, as Baal Sulam says, is a state where each organ feels all the other organs and helps them function properly.
Question: And on the human level?
Answer: There is no such state between people. It exists only at the level of the internal system of the organism.
Question: What did our sages mean when they wrote “Love your neighbor as yourself”? What is this stage when people reach such a state?
Answer: This is a stage of our internal development when we realize we must connect through good connections. That is, it is an emotional state when a person directly lives the life of society. Then we feel each other as if living in one organism.
Question: And is this organism the Creator or an upper force?
Answer: It is the Creator. Right!
[329612]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: The Creator gives one a place for faith and a place for work in the heart. How can we hold and expand this space? Is this our concern?
Answer: Yes, this is achieved by increasing the importance of the fact that the Creator is working on us.
Question: What advances us faster spiritually: when we humble ourselves or when others humiliate us?
Answer: It is when we humble ourselves, but we must be careful that it is done correctly and not artificially.
Question: Should I always build an intention when working with the mind and heart?
Answer: You should always try to find yourself in what you say and think.
Question: If I have many logical proofs that my friends are doing everything right, but in my heart, I feel unfounded hatred toward them, can my mind help me change this feeling?
Answer: This is very difficult. You should pray about this. I do not believe the mind can help. Only prayer can help you.
Question: How can one be joyful when I understand with my mind that the closer the Creator brings us, the more I move away from Him?
Answer: No, the Creator constantly brings us closer, and by this, we have the opportunity to more critically and soberly realize what we are going through.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/24, Writings of Rabash “Mind and Heart”
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Question: Rabash did not want to let his friends or students read Shamati because they did not have the left line. We study that Israel is the lightest, purest aspirations and desires. So why do you say that they are the roughest and the heaviest ones?
Answer: The vessels (Kelim) that need to be corrected are determined by the amount of egoistic impurities, and therefore, they are felt as particularly selfish and in need of correction first. In others it doesn’t feel that way; it seems as though nothing serious is happening with them.
Therefore, it is evident that the people of Israel stand out in their egoism relative to other nations of the world, but only because they have different demands made on them.
If these demands were the same for both the nations of the world and the Israelites, then the people of Israel would not be the most egoistic.
So it all depends on how we approach it initially and by what standards we measure.
[329860]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
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From a viewer:
I recently started studying Kabbalah because I was seriously ill. I was looking for any means to get out of this. Today, during the lesson, you said you could read The Book of Zohar to get well. I am very sick. The doctors gave up on me a long time ago. Should we read The Book of Zohar? What should you think about it? About your recovery?
Answer: Certainly. Read it and get better.
Question: You said The Book of Zohar is like a Segula (remedy)?
Answer: Yes, it is magical.
Question: What happens when you read it and want recovery?
Answer: You attract the upper light to yourself; it descends from top to below, passes through all the Sefirot, and reaches you. With this, you heal.
Question: Why The Book of Zohar, and why do you insist on it? There are many books.
Answer: This is the most potent remedy for our soul. Great Kabbalists wrote it at the highest levels of connection with the Creator. Therefore, this book carries a mighty charge of spiritual power.
Question: Does it matter what language you read in? It is in Aramaic and Hebrew.
Answer: It is in Aramaic. There is nothing you can do about that. But after Aramaic, of course, Hebrew, because they are practically parallel languages. And those who know Aramaic understand Hebrew. Anyone who understands Hebrew, in principle, understands Aramaic.
Question: What if it is in Russian? We also have translations into Russian.
Answer: Let him read in Russian.
Question: So basically in your language, in the language the reader understands?
Answer: Yes.
[329838]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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Question: Can each of the stages of spiritual development (revelation of evil, do no harm to others, love your neighbor as yourself) take decades?
Answer: Today it takes much less.
Question: How can this be; we are all so different? There are people who may still be at the first stage and there are those who are already at the third stage.
Answer: This is the same as in our society; there are different people: rich and poor, smart and not so smart, and so on. That is, they always complement each other.
Question: Baal HaSulam explains that when a person acquires the altruistic property, meaning, the ability to unite with others and not use them for one’s own benefit, he immediately begins to feel the upper force according to the law of equivalence of properties.
He writes that contact with the upper force is the most natural state for a person. How can you explain this?
Answer: It is a return to our root, the root we came from.
Question: Is it natural for a person to be in connection with the Creator? It is certainly natural for us to be egoistic.
Answer: But our egoism also comes from there. The Creator created everything. He created evil and gave us the opportunity to correct it. In this way we move toward good.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: Faith becomes reason after attainment. How can one convince oneself that faith is infinite?
Answer: You do not need to force yourself. Gradually you will come to realize this on your own.
Question: How can we perceive the attainment of friends, through faith or through reason? How do we attach this to ourselves?
Answer: Through connection.
Question: But if we see a friend’s attainment, do we take it as faith or as a fact?
Answer: We take it as a fact and include it in ourselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/24, Writings of Rabash “Mind and Heart”
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Question: It is said that Napoleon was passing through Paris with his retinue on the 9th of Av. This is the day when the First and Second Temples were destroyed and other tragedies of the Jewish people occurred. When Napoleon entered the Jewish quarter, he was surprised that the streets were empty. He entered the synagogue and saw it filled with people sitting on the floor. Napoleon asked the Rabbi: “What happened? Perhaps one of your leaders died or a pogrom occurred that I am unaware of?”
“Worse,” replied the Rabbi,” our Temple was destroyed, and we were expelled from our homeland.” “But that happened 1,800 years ago,” said Napoleon. “No,” said the Rabbi, “it happened just an hour ago.”
Could you please comment on such a response? It is as if history has not moved since the destruction of the Temple.
Answer: Yes. It is believed that time has stopped and we only live until it starts again and we begin to rebuild the Temple.
Question: So does this mean that all of this life is just waiting to return to the state of the Temple?
Answer: Yes, that is how it should be. The state of the Temple is the connection with the Creator. Every person could turn to the Creator and feel that he has connection, he could ask and receive answers. People were at that level. And then there was the destruction of the Temple, meaning the destruction of this connection, and that is it!
Question: Do we have a record that we were at this level?
Answer: Yes, there is a record. It is deeply hidden within us, but it manifests from time to time.
Question: So, we lost this direct connection with the Creator? And so, as it is said here, “lost life” as a result?
Answer: Yes, spiritual life.
Question: It is also said that Napoleon exclaimed: “If the Jews still mourn for their Temple and homeland, they will surely return to their land and rebuild the Temple.” What do you think of Napoleon’s response?
Answer: It is natural; the Temple must be rebuilt. The point is that people regain the connection with the Creator, a continuous, clear connection in their hearts.
Question: So then there is the question of what comes first starting to build the Temple or sensing this point within us?
Answer: Sensing it is most important. Gathering stones and building a structure with them is irrelevant.
Question: So everything will proceed automatically?
Answer: Even if it does not, it does not matter. People will start to feel that they are in unity with each other and are building a place for their upper force.
Question: Since we have touched on this question. Two Temples fell and we are talking about the Third Temple. It is said that the Third Temple will be built by the whole world. What does that mean?
Answer: The whole world will decide that it is necessary to achieve such a level among people—harmony, connection between them—when they are all united under the common force of the Creator.
Comment: Usually all unions happen after major tragedies.
My Response: Yes.
Question: Like the League of Nations after World War I, the UN after World War II. What needs to happen for people to suddenly come to this decision?
Answer: Apparently, the world must experience a serious shock. And after that, a desire for the revelation of the Creator will awaken in the nations. And it will end with the fact that indeed the Creator will be revealed in people, in the hearts of people. This will prompt them to connect with each other, and by being ready to connect with each other correctly, with kindness, in one heart, they will invoke the revelation of the Creator within them.
Question: And naturally, they will start to build the Third Temple?
Answer: That will be the Third Temple.
Question: Why is it said that the Third Temple must be built specifically in Jerusalem?
Answer: Because Jerusalem is such a place where all hopes, thoughts, and desires of people converge. So it is not a physical place.
Question: Then what will happen to the 9th of Av, on this day?
Answer: It will become a holiday.
Question: From a day of mourning it will become a holiday? Is this the right transition?
Answer: That is right. That is how it should be.
[329059]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24
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Question: It is more or less clear what it means to go against the mind. But what does it mean to go against the heart?
Answer: It means to go against one’s feelings. A person is guided by how much he can elevate himself above both the mind and the heart. This is what constitutes his spiritual state.
By rising above these two points: Mocha (mind) and Liba (heart), a person reaches a spiritual state.
This should be felt in a person’s feelings. The mind alone is worth nothing; feelings are what matter. Thoughts and reason are secondary to desire.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/24, Writings of Rabash “Mind and Heart”
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Question: Was it up to you that you became a famous Kabbalist, or did you just have to come to this?
Answer: This is very difficult to explain. On the one hand, everything depends on the Creator, but on the other hand a lot also depends on a person.
As a rule, when everything has already happened and remains in the past, we say that all this is from the Creator, and the next moment I must say that everything depends on me.
Question: You are the only known Kabbalist today who can convey certain spiritual information. Is this your mission?
Answer: Rabash knew that I would not leave him. It was out of the question. But I went through very difficult, terrible, sharp states of disobedience and objections. Sometimes, I was very uncontrollable. I could not have behaved differently.
Yet, even in those states, I tried to do everything possible for him. I loved my teacher very much, but on the other hand there were moments when I hated him. It is not that I hated him. I just did not understand: “How can this be?!” That is natural.
Question: Rabash knew that you had a different soul. You probably feel the souls of your students in the same way. Among them, are there people with such a soul that must do something in the future? Does this depend on them or…?
Answer: Of course it depends on them and no one else. It did not on Rabash; he gave everything he could. Everything! What I could take at that time, I took from him. What I could not take, he instilled in me potentially, and it manifested later.
He has not been with me for many years, and all these years, what he instilled in me continues to manifest. I feel it. It is only his light. That is how a Kabbalist works.
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From KabTV’s “I Cot a Call. How did You Become a Kabbalist? “ 2/4/10
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Question: When we say that there are phenomena that can destroy us, that is, the Creator gives some kind of exercise that I have to disagree with, how can I not get confused here?
How can we on one hand agree and accept, and on the other hand to disagree with something that destroys us. What kind of support and priorities can there be?
Answer: The most important thing is that there should be no mutual hatred. That is, work on what attracts you to each other.
And then gradually the negative qualities themselves will move away from you, and the positive ones will manifest themselves. That is the way to act.
[330026]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/24, Writings of Rabash “Mind and Heart”
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If it is said that “There is none else besides the Creator,” then how can a person act independently? The only action of a person is that from time to time he feels and attains more and more that there is no one else besides the Creator, there is no other force in the world that can give and do something—only Him.
You should not neglect any states, but rather, you need to connect them all together into a single desire, a special decision, into one collective Kli (vessel). Then we will see that this Kli has a unique form in which the Creator, the ultimate purpose of creation, is revealed, and we all become included in it.
The concept of time is important here. A person needs to try to always be connected to what is felt in the heart and to let this feeling lead him to the goal, to connection above reason, against the arguments of reason. But he still keeps going and gradually begins to understand what is required of him and how he should prepare himself to reach a state that is called spiritual, above reason.
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From International Kabbalah Convention 5/19/24, “Praying to Go Above Reason”
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A miracle happens, and a person begins to reveal their first connection with the Creator. They feel that they have now reached a special spiritual state where the contact with the upper force is revealed to them.
A person does not know in advance that this will happen, but one continues to strive toward the Creator for a long time and desires to reveal a connection with Him. It is called a miracle because it comes suddenly, without any apparent signs of approaching, and reveals itself suddenly like a gift.
A person is required to make efforts toward this revelation, but in doing so, they see no connection between their requests and what they receive in their understanding and feeling at the moment of the revelation of truth.
[329953]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/19/24, “Praying to Go Above Reason”
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Question: In an ancient Chinese parable, a married woman who could not bear the reproach of her mother-in-law decided to get rid of her. She went to an herb merchant who was an acquaintance of her father. She explained everything to him and told him: “I want you to sell me poison.”
The herbalist said: “Okay, I will help you. But first of all, you cannot poison your mother-in-law right away because people will guess what happened. Therefore, I will give you herbs that will gradually kill her.
Second, to avoid any suspicion, you must tame your anger, learn to respect her, love her, listen to her, and be patient. Then no one will suspect you when she dies.”
The girl agreed, took the herbs, and began to add them to her mother-in-law’s food. In addition, she learned to control herself, listen to her mother-in-law, and respect her. And so, six months later they were already as close as mother and daughter. And then the girl ran to the herbalist and begged: “For God’s sake, save my mother-in-law from the poison that I gave her! I love her!” The herbalist replied: “Don’t worry, I just gave you spices. The poison was only in your head, and you got rid of it yourself.”
I want to ask you: we kill each other with words all the time. And whoever is smarter kills gradually, not immediately. In order not to become the enemy, he acts through others, starts rumors about others, and so on. It is our nature to put another down.
Why it does not hurt me that I am quietly humiliating another, getting him out of my way, killing?
Answer: I believe that the other does not let me live, that he is my enemy who sees me standing in his way, and must destroy me.
Question: Why were we given this nature—to live like this?
Answer: This is all for the same reason—so that we correct our egoism. So that we can be convinced that “love your neighbor as yourself” is the main law of the world.
Comment: In that case, it should make me feel bad at some point that I am like this.
My Response: Yes, of course.
Question: Now I see all these wars, all these murders directly, not directly, and so on. And at what point comes the feeling of: “What am I doing? It is all in me. How can I get out of this?”
Answer: At the moment of enlightenment.
Question: When does this happen? Can it be accelerated or something be done? I understand that this is the main moment in life, really. That everything is in me, that everything is because of me, that I am the killer. Does it come to a person at all?
Answer: When a person becomes convinced that he is full of evil, then his true nature is revealed in him, and he can no longer tolerate it and turns to the Creator.
Question: Does this happen unexpectedly for a person? Or does he kind of want that already?
Answer: No, this enlightenment usually comes with such a serious push.
Question: So there is something before that, is there some kind of push, after all?
Answer: Yes.
Question: When this is revealed to a person, does prayer to the Creator become natural? That is, the understanding that everything depends on Him alone?
Answer: Yes, then a person turns to the Creator, judges himself, and by correcting himself, corrects the world around him.
[329338]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24
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Maxiver writes:
Please tell me, what is the Creator’s name? When I ask Him for something, it seems necessary to call Him by name. After all, when I ask someone for something, I address them by name. So how should I address the Creator?
My Response: Abba.
Question: Do you mean “Father”?
Answer: Father.
Question: Is that how we should perceive Him?
Answer: Yes.
Question: When you say the word “Abba,” “Father,” what do you mean by it?
Answer: That He is my root; I grow from Him.
Question: Can we tell Him absolutely everything, or are there some prohibitions?
Answer: No, there are no prohibitions. Avinu, Our Father.
Question: When it says, “Our Father in heaven,” what does that mean?
Answer: That He is above us and determining all our paths.
Question: Is that what is meant by “in heaven”?
Answer: Yes.
[329468]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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https://cdn.kabbalahmedia.info/RYmMyoUS.mp3
Question: I do not like myself, but you say: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Maybe it is necessary to love yourself first? But how?
Answer: Start loving others, and then you will see how much you love yourself. Only then does a person begin to understand that he is actually a terrible egoist!
Question: Usually this phrase is actually translated like this: “Let me love myself first, and then I will deal with others.” But you say it differently. Strive toward others, love others, and then you will see how much you love yourself.
So a person must forcibly make such an effort and start trying to love people. Will some bitterness appear in him then? What will appear in him?
Answer: He will see that he is divided into his external and internal parts, and in fact he loves only himself and only for this is he ready to exist.
And then if he understands that he has to remake himself, he will already need some kind of correction methodology.
Question: And these are the kind of people who find us?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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In the article “The Last Generation” Baal HaSulam described how the structures of the state will look when some people are at the stage of realizing evil, some at the stage of “do not harm others,” and someone is already in love for one’s neighbor.
He specifically describes how the social structures of society, the courts, and everything that exists in the state will look.
In the primary sources, it is said that this should first of all happen in the State of Israel, with the Jews, because this is the nation chosen for the purpose of unity and love for one’s neighbor back in ancient Babylon thousands of years ago. And this does not refer to nationality but to the aspiration of the soul.
That is, the last stage of spiritual development is the existence of the state of Israel for the whole world.
When we can create such a state structure and such emotional relationships between people here, then we will have some tools and we will be able to set an example to others.
And then the whole world will become a closed system that exists according to the rule “love your neighbor as yourself.”
[329665]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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In Kabbalah there is such a term: from “for my own sake” to “for the sake of the other” (“Mi Lo Lishma—Lishma”).
That is, correction begins with egoistic intentions: I want to get closer to a friend in order to reveal the Creator because I understand that in this system I will have eternal life, I will be able to justify everything.
This is the second stage after the recognition of evil, but it is still egoistic. And then, under the influence of the upper light, the force of the Creator, His emanation, His nature, we begin to change.
That is, a person acquires such an ability when he can already bestow and connect with another without any benefit for himself.
This is already the third stage, a real altruistic property because bestowal becomes a reward for us. As Baal HaSulam writes, everyone should work to the best of their ability and receive only what is necessary.
[329464]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that today, in a world where nuclear bombs exist, there is no other way to survive than to just start considering each other. We cannot openly use others anymore. Is this understanding not enough for us?
Answer: No, this requires consent and reshaping of each person and everyone together so that we all begin to move from an absolutely egoistic system of our world, our society, to an absolutely altruistic system.
In order for a person to begin to fight not with his own kind, but with his own ego, a great transformation must take place in him.
Question: Is it not enough for us to understand that our ego leads us nowhere?
Answer: No, that will not do anything. A person needs to realize the evil of his nature so much that he stops using it. Egoism must be revealed in him to such an extent that he sees that taking something from another is like death, thinking badly about another is like killing yourself.
Comment: But as I understand, nature itself or the upper mind cannot give us such a system; otherwise, we will not have freedom of choice and we will just be like robots.
My Response: Of course. Therefore, it will always be concealed.
[329335]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: When I hear what Kabbalists say, something inside me rebels: “But this is some kind of utopia! That is impossible! How can this be?”
Answer: Certainly, because if we compare the demand for unity and love with the egoistic laws of our nature, then, of course, it certainly seems impossible. But, on the other hand, we see that humanity has no other path. Either it will destroy itself in some terrible war or try to rise above its nature and start a better life.
It is necessary to look at everything, not with egoistic eyes, but to take into account the existence of an upper force that has a goal to which it leads us.
Question: The educational process is very long. Should a person see the ultimate goal from the beginning, or is it enough to focus on: “Let us realize that egoism is bad and try to limit it somehow”?
Answer: A person should study all the stages and understand that the most important thing for him now is to begin to feel his closeness to others. And so he will come to a vision of the whole process, which will gradually be realized.
Question: So even if I am now making some product that, as Baal HaSulam writes, will clearly show a person that, living in the world of atomic bombs, a person cannot exist, and it is time to recognize this evil, he still needs to see the final stage of development to reach the purpose of creation?
Answer: Naturally.
[329733]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: What does it mean to light a fire in the heart?
Answer: Kindling the heart means that it represents all the thoughts and aspirations you want to raise to the Creator, to heaven.
Question: Why does our corrected connection establish freedom from the angel of death?
Answer: Because we rise in the quality of bestowal. And the angel of death is a quality of reception. As he affects us, all the light disappears.
Question: What does it mean that the connection is shining for us?
Answer: This means that the light of Hochma comes to us in the dressing of the light of Hasadim.
Question: What is the best way to overcome some kind of calmness or indifference not directed to the Creator?
Answer: We must somehow pull ourselves out of this indifference.
Question: To come to the connection in the ten, should everyone have the same desires?
Answer: No, the desires can be different, and should all strive for the same action and be mutually connected.
[329812]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
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From a Viewer:
I have a wonderful baby girl. But she was born sick. My husband left us. And I am happy. Is this normal? I am asking because you keep saying that the child needs a father. And I do not want to look for any father for my Sveta yet.
My Response: Don’t, the daughter does not have to have a father.
Comment: Yes? This is news, actually.
My Response: No, that is how she lives; the daughter is with her mother and that is it.
Question: The fact that the father left when the sick child was born was, of course, a blow for the mother. And she does not want to start a family anymore. So she can go on like this?
Answer: Yes, she can.
Question: Two women live. Is there some kind of root in this—that a boy needs a father but a girl does not?
Answer: A boy will one day be attracted to his father, to an adult man, but a girl will not.
Question: But they say: “Our female destiny” means that we have some kind of divorces all the time in the female part. Will that not be a sequel?
Answer: No.
Question: Will mom not tell her that it is good to be alone?
Answer: I think she will not. What the girl lacks now with her father, maybe she will feel later when she starts dating guys; then she will correct this lack of communication.
Question: In general when a girl meets a guy, who does she want to see in him? Should he look like her father? Or does the girl have something else? You once said that when a man meets a woman, or a guy meets a girl, he looks for his mother in her.
Answer: That is for sure.
Question: And when a girl meets a guy, what is she looking for in him?
Answer: It is more complicated. Maybe she is thinking about her grandfather.
Question: So if she has not seen her father, let’s say, she remembers the man in her life that she wants her husband to look like?
Answer: Yes.
[329519]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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Question: How does annulment before the upper lead to bestowal?
Answer: As a rule, prayer for annulment before the Creator leads to the Creator giving us His quality of bestowal, and when we bestow, we become like Him.
Question: How do you hide yourself so that it is a pure bestowal?
Answer: It will come gradually.
Question: Each time we pray we compose a new prayer. Should we strive for some form of prayer, or does the fact that it is new every time indicate its imperfection?
Answer: It does not matter if it is new or old every time. The main thing is to pray. The main thing is to ask.
[329828]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Desire to Bestow – 1”
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Question: Who is more sensitive to fulfilling the Creator’s will, a woman or a man, a wife or a husband?
Answer: In general, a woman. Therefore, it says that a lot depends on her because she can convince her husband to act one way or the other. She is more sensitive to the “voice” of the Creator than a man. She was created this way by nature.
She feels more dependent both on her husband and on the Creator. She has an inner sense of faith that the Creator guides her.
[329693]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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Question: Midrash Rabba (The Great Commentary) says: “A pious man, a pious woman.” What exactly is meant by the term piety?
Answer: Piety is obedience to the Creator, the aspiration to fulfill His desire, that is, His commandments.
Question: There are so many disagreements about what the Creator commands. What is His primary commandment? Can His desire be expressed in some way?
Answer: The Creator desires a husband and wife to fulfill His commandments and continually check themselves against them. The primary commandment of the Creator is to love your neighbor as yourself.
Question: It turns out that in a couple, the closest people to each other are the husband and wife. Should they start fulfilling the commandment “love your neighbor” with their relationship to each other?
Answer: In general, yes.
Question: If I learn to love my husband as myself, will it be easier for me to treat other people the same way?
Answer: You will be righteous.
[329726]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 5/14/24
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Question: According to Kabbalistic sources 6,000 years are allotted for the complete world correction. According to the Jewish calendar, it is now 5785. So the correction stage should end somewhere in 2240.
Is this a firm date, or could the correction end sooner or take tens of thousands of years more?
Answer: No, there does not have to be an exact date. But by all indications, we are, as they say, at the end of days.
Question: What must we do to move on to at least the first stage of spiritual development—the awareness of evil?
Answer: Study and teach.
Question: In other words carry out the educational process?
Answer: Indeed! You do not need anything else! As soon as we are convinced that our most important task is to accept the laws of a correct relationship with each other, we will immediately begin to join the new system of relationships and thus accelerate our development.
[329700]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: Is there any difference in the presentation of Kabbalah for people in the past and for those who come now?
Answer: Of course! There is a big difference in the explanation, in the approach, in the specifics, and in the style of presentation. Once upon a time, 20 years ago, you could only speak to people in accordance to what was written in the original sources. For example, the Torah mentions a serpent, and you explained what a serpent is, and so on.
But today, people do not ask about this because they understand this is some kind of allegory. A person requires a specific explanation of what Kabbalah is talking about and what we can achieve with its help.
That did not happen before. Everything was figurative and descriptive. Six hundred years ago the great Kabbalist RAMHAL described Kabbalah as a dialogue between the soul and the body: the body said, the soul said, the body said, the soul said, and the whole book, two hundred pages, was like that. RAMBAM wrote in the form of all kinds of philosophical thoughts and sayings.
That is, each generation, even each society, imposes its own form of presentation.
[329599]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Old Stuff” 2/1/10
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Question: You said I can only use those desires I am sure I have a screen for. What does it using desires mean?
Answer: This means you can use every desire your way, but only for the sake of bestowal.
Question: Our goal is to get a correction for our intention. But I see that this is not my desire because it is directly opposite to the desire to receive pleasure. So what will lead my heart to correct the intention?
Answer: You will get a push first from the group and then from the Creator.
Question: What is the feeling of good and evil? How do we get to this state in the ten?
Answer: Actions aimed at connection and bestowal are called good. Therefore, we must learn to fulfill them among ourselves, and to this extent, we will receive the fulfillment of our desires.
[329764]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Turn Away from Evil and Do Good – 1”
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Question: How can we increase our connection if it lasts, say, only two hours according to the given measure of deficiency (Hisaron)?
Answer: You should reveal your common Hisaron (deficiency) in the ten and develop it. Then you will have an unlimited opportunity to remain connected.
Question: How should the connection with friends be expressed in feelings and in the mind?
Answer: Ask the Creator to help you unite, and in this unity, you will find even greater connection with your friends.
[329824]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
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Question: What quality of connection should be in the ten in each state so that it corresponds to the revelation of the Creator?
Answer: The most important and correct thing is to unite everyone with everyone and all together.
Question: How do you learn to connect your thoughts and desires with the ten in a strong bond so that there is only one goal: to bring contentment to the Creator?
Answer: To do this, you must get out of yourself, incorporate yourself into your friends, and strive toward the Creator.
That is when all your efforts will lead you to a common goal and common unity.
[329820]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
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Omer comes from the words “gathering sheaves,” which means connection.
The world is called “the six days of action and Shabbat [Sabbath],” which are seven Sefirot, and there is Hitkalelut [incorporation] of the Sefirot. Therefore, we must connect ourselves to the Creator on all the days of the years of our lives, which are seventy years, implying that each year comprises ten Sefirot. Rabash, Notes 938 “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
“Gathering sheaves” means to connect with each other so as to be in one bundle. Then we will be able to feel the attitude of the Creator toward us in this bundle (sheaf).
We all desire to reach one goal, and therefore we must strive only for it so that all our desires connect together. But it is the Creator who does this because we are not able to do it ourselves.
Question: How can we connect with the Creator in such a way as to acquire the quality of a certain Sefira from this sheaf?
Answer: It depends on the soul of each of us, on the desire of each person. For example, in striving to meet the Creator I attain Him in one way, and you follow your own path and attain Him in another way. But overall, each of us attains the root of our own soul.
Question: But the qualities in this sheaf, these Sefirot, are they still common?
Answer: Each person has their own.
Question: How can I reach a certain quality from the seven Sefirot as a result of connecting our different qualities?
Answer: You should only strive for connection, and what will result from it, what will be revealed to you from your connection with the Creator, you will see for yourself.
[329815]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
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Question: Why were the people of Israel granted the Torah by the Creator?
Answer: Initially, the people of Israel are the most egoistic of all the nations of the world. They may not feel this, but by their internal nature, they are exactly that.
Therefore, they needed the Torah to correct themselves. Without the Torah, this is impossible to achieve. Thus, the people of Israel must come to correction first and thereby show the way to the rest of the nations of the world.
[329857]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
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A letter from a viewer:
My wife is thrilled with your programs and keeps pushing them on me. I watch them, mostly out of respect. I like some of it, but sometimes you say things that I do not know how to take. For example, you said that everyone is responsible for the whole world. Why do you say that? It is clearly impossible. But what amazes me is that my wife is delighted.
My Response: The fact is that when everyone feels responsible for the entire world, we will indeed see a new world.
Question: From this letter, it is clear that he does not understand how this is possible, while his wife is delighted. So each of us has certain points that either accept this or do not accept.
He imagines the whole world as eight billion people. So when you say “the whole world,” he thinks you are saying we are responsible for all these eight billion people, for what is happening in Somalia, in starving Africa, and so on. Are we responsible for this?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: This phrase requires some further explanation.
My Response: The thing is, if every person suddenly, let’s say, by a magical command, wished to see everyone else as their friends, the world would change. Undoubtedly! But since we do not believe in this because it seems too unrealistic, we continue as we are.
Question: But we are real people. This husband is an absolutely real person. He would like to sort things out at home, with his friends, and you say: sort things out with the whole world, be responsible for it.
This thought, this action can only happen “by a magical command,” right? So, are you sending us back to the Creator again?
Answer: To the Creator.
Question: Constantly?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So, a person comes, with this pain inside. Many people write that they feel this empathy. What prayer should a person have to the Creator? Should they ask to change everything or what?
Answer: That the Creator changes at least this person.
Question: This person?
Answer: Yes, so that he can feel the pain of the entire world and, based on this, relate to the world differently.
Question: Can one not fall apart and feel this pain? Not explode, not die from it?
Answer: It is possible.
Question: We spoke about the fact that Kabbalists aspired to this, it was their goal to feel the world, the pain of the world.
If a person feels all the pain of the world, what should his actions be, can you say?
Answer: To ask the Creator to make the world better. That is all, nothing more. The one who made the world bad should make it good.
[329616]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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Question: How can we bind ourselves to the Creator so that we won’t break away from Him, at least for a long time?
Answer: When you are connected to each other and at the same time with the Creator, and you constantly monitor this connection so that it does not decrease in any case but only increases, then gradually you will form a permanent connection with the Creator.
Question: What does it mean to monitor this connection?
Answer: Make sure that it does not disappear anywhere.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Omer [Count]”
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“And it is time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved from it,” for all the salvations are regarded as Anochi (Rabash, Letter No. 3).
Question: What does it mean that all the salvations are regarded as Anochi? After all, we study that we must rise above the ego in order to reach the quality of bestowal, to some kind of salvation.
Answer: Salvation occurs when the creation is absolutely devoted to the Creator. This is the reason for salvation.
Absolute devotion to the Creator is the adhesion of creation with the Creator without any conditions.
Question: Can we come to this devotion from any state?
Answer: From the states that are given to you, you will come to it.
[329832]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 3
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Question: When attempting to implement bestowal to friends, sometimes we reveal a discrepancy. It turns out that we try to give the wrong thing, in the wrong way, or at the wrong time. How should we properly correct such situations?
Answer: When we intend to help someone or give something back to them, we focus only on our intentions.
Therefore, we cannot precisely measure who has a greater or lesser intention. We should try to do everything within our power.
Question: We try to work for the sake of bestowal, but when we make some decisions, not everyone immediately joins in. There are active friends and less active ones. Is it right to show initiative or should we wait until others join in?
Answer: You should show initiative and pull the less active ones along by your example, effort, and in any way possible.
[329778]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Desire to Bestow – 1”
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How can we feel deeply in our hearts that we need to ask the Creator to help us unite to come to love for our friends and reach the purpose of creation, to reveal the Creator?
To do this, we need to make room in our hearts, understand that this heart is empty and wants to be filled with such requests. Then we will awaken the heart, which will have only one request left: that it lacks the Creator. And we will very much want to feel how He fills our hearts.
I hope that we are approaching this state. Among us, there are people who already feel how the Creator is beginning to fill each person’s heart. We need to focus even more on this. The main thing is to just ask, to beg, as much as possible, and not stop, not despair. The Creator is ready to fill our hearts, and this will definitely happen.
Let’s go through this day all together in one heart, in a common hope that the Creator will come closer and fill our hearts.
First of all, we need to receive the light of faith from the Creator. It should fill all the space in a person’s heart and let us feel this light of faith coming to us from the Creator.
What is required on our part is the desire to attain faith. Then, to the extent of this desire, this feeling of lack, we will receive this light that will fill our hearts from the Creator. This is the very first action we need to take.
Then in the light of faith, which to some extent fills our hearts, we need to continue further. The more we lack the light of faith, the greater our ability to receive fulfillment that can turn into a new feeling of lack.
Faith can only be increased by strengthening our request, by striving for it, discussing, clarifying it more deeply, and then our desire grows.
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From International Kabbalah Convention 5/19/24, “Praying to Go Above Reason”
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Question: In order to achieve perfection in life, we must correct sins through connection. How can we keep the unity in connection so that the light of correction would work with us?
Answer: We just have to constantly think about how we can achieve greater unity between us and figure out how we can get even closer. You will see how it will work.
Question: Will the transition from a broken state to a corrected one be immediately felt?
Answer: Relatively quickly.
Question: How can we use the corrected state properly?
Answer: You will then see what grows out of it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Wholeness in Life”
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Comment: It is said that when Israel receives a hundred, it immediately wants two hundred.
My Response: One who wants a hundred, has two hundred opened up to him. This indicates that a person is developing. Everyone who is greater than one’s friend, his Hisaron (deficiency) is greater.
Question: What is perfection in spiritual life?
Answer: Perfection is achieved by the fact that from deficiencies that develop in me, I am constantly trying to form the quality of bestowal instead of reception. It is not that I seek to destroy the desire to receive, to level it. No!
Instead of all the desires that arise in me, I want to find only one great spiritual desire. And that is how I am going to move forward.
[329713]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Wholeness in Life”
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Comment: Generally, people who come to study Kabbalah are seasoned individuals who have experienced and tried many things or are ones referred to as the dregs of society, people who have not found their place in this world.
My Response: Of course, they are the dregs of this society. After all, what kind of people make up society? Energetic ones who know they should invest money in the bank; save in savings accounts, buy on time what television dictates to them, and participate in various demonstrations, elections, public works, and so on.
But those who come to study Kabbalah have one question about this: Why? They see that people in the world are doing things that are unnecessary, and therefore they ask, Why all this? If there is a purpose to life, then it is worth living and doing something; if life has no meaning, there is no need for anything.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Believe a Kabbalist” 1/28/10
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Question: You said that we collect the face of the Creator from the states we go through, which apparently include work with the group, the teacher, books, and so on. How can we consciously build this snowball more quickly?
Answer: It depends on the intensity of your work, how many times a day each of you turns to the Creator, how often you unite with each other and turn to Him, and so on.
Question: Does it mean that all our work consists of the desire to participate in something that cannot be changed?
Answer: No, we do not think that anything can be changed. We are interested in how we should change under the influence of the Creator. This is the main thing.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is a War Over Authority in the Work – 1”
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Question: When you work in faith above reason, help comes from the Creator, which is called illumination from above. Thus, a person attains the five levels of NRNHY. What is this help in the form of illumination?
Answer: It is what gives you the strength to rise above the levels of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida, each time overcoming your egoistic desire.
Question: In the place where there is illumination and reception of the lights of NRNHY, how does Malchut determine the level of the coarseness (Aviut) of the screen it can handle?
Answer: Malchut is in attainment of its Aviut and in attainment of the light descending to it. Therefore, it can determine what it can handle.
This is how you make a calculation in a store when you hold a wallet in your hands and see the price of the item. This is what Malchut does.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Turn Away from Evil and Do Good – 1”
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Question: If my perception paints an external picture of the world for me, and this external picture is actually me, then what is the point of transitioning to a state of bestowal to others if they are me?
Answer: You never actually bestow anything to anyone else. What you do in your life is develop your perception, engage in self-knowledge, self-understanding, and self-discovery. That’s it! Everything that appears to be outside of you are your own sensory organs, which are intentionally made to seem foreign and unrelated to you. This is done so that by attracting them to yourself, you develop the desire for bestowal and love instead of egoistic desire, and you discover that all of it is actually yours. These are your attributes, your desires.
There is nothing in the world that does not belong to you. By integrating these so-called external objects, which are actually forces, attributes, and desires, you form a vessel within yourself for perceiving the Creator, the upper world.
The idea that something exists outside of you that is seemingly not yours and foreign is an illusion. It is you!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Whole World is Me” 2/4/10
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Question: We studied the concepts of Sefirot in the four phases of direct light descending from above downward. What are Keter, Hochma, and Bina in the reflected light? How are they different when ascending from below upward?
Answer: The difference is that Malchut, which was created by the nine Sefirot and desires only to receive, in the reflected light wants only to bestow liker Keter of the direct light. Therefore, Malchut of the reflected light is called Keter of the reflected light because it acts in the same way as Keter of the direct light.
All the Sefirot of the reflected light are similar to the Sefirot of the direct light. The only difference is in their origin. The direct light comes from the Creator, while the reflected light comes from the creation.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”
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Question: When I nullify myself before the friends, trying to change my understanding that I control something in life to the understanding that the Creator controls everything, how can I integrate this into corporeal life? It seems that this desire is still egoistic because I am asking for myself.
Answer: Continue the spiritual work on yourself, and you will gradually see your thoughts change, how you can ask not for yourself, but precisely for your friends.
Ultimately, this will lead to you ceasing to be a receiver, and you will only bestow.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Desire to Bestow – 1”
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Question: Attainment in spirituality occurs only in reflected light. How can one construct the most elementary level of reflected light?
Answer: The level of reflected light must correspond to the direct light that descends from the Creator down. The reflected light must be the same as the direct light. Then they will be equivalent, and the creation that receives the direct light in the reflected light will fully understand all the definitions in the direct light.
Question: But I do not want to receive anything for myself. I only want to give something to the Creator. How do you do that?
Answer: You must understand how to make a screen for yourself and from this screen become like the Creator in the reflected light. Then, being like Him, you will understand His actions and state and merge with Him. This is the action of the screen.
Question: But how does this translate into intention? What should I be thinking about?
Answer: Your intention and focus should be about being in likeness with the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”
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Question: Does a gift from the Creator always feel like pleasure or sometimes like a blow to egoism?
Answer: Both ways.
Question: What kind of gift can the creation give to the Creator?
Answer: Receiving for the sake of bestowal. If a person prays to the Creator, asks Him for something, but not for himself, then it works.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Desire to Bestow – 1”
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After recognizing their egoistic nature, people come to the second stage: “That which you hate, do not do unto your friend.” This is already a qualitative change in a person when one understands that by harming another, one harms oneself.
Comment: We see that people in extreme situations, for example in war, can even give their lives for another let alone not do harm.
My Response: Yes, but these are still the first stages of getting out of egoism.
Question: Is it not enough to recognize the evil of our nature? Do we also need to understand that there must be some higher goal and higher values? What could they be? After all, there should always be two points.
Answer: The highest value lies in the absolute exit from egoism when everything a person does, he does for the sake of others and not for himself. This is one degree.
The second degree is his desire to become like the Creator. The Creator is an absolutely anti-egoistic system to which a person must rise, adhere, merge into it, and thus achieve his purpose: adhesion with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: After one of your lectures, as a rule, a person comes to study the wisdom of Kabbalah all fired up. He or she felt something unusual. This feeling lasts for a while, and then it cools down. Is this his problem or not?
Answer: No, this is how it should be!
Why should I keep him under my influence? Absolutely not! It is necessary for him to start understanding what I have told him and what I have suggested of his own freewill. Under no circumstances should he be left in a state of enthusiasm because then it will be like a drug for him.
He will no longer receive any sustenance from me. The next time he meets me, he will no longer have that initial admiration and perception. He will turn on the analysis, the requirement of the conceptual apparatus, because he needs to progress.
It is like with children: the first time we can entice a child, but after that, we want to involve them in actions.
Question: Usually, those people who initially admire everything become “seasoned wolves” later on. You look at them and their childlike innocence is gone. But how can a person avoid going into a kind of isolation?
Answer: I cannot say anything here. You do not need to think about what he should be like. He will be as he should be. We do not determine his future states. Whatever happens to him is how it should work out.
The main thing is to give him information about internal development, about external opportunities, what he should do, how he should study, read, work in a group, and disseminate—in short, how he should absorb all the material.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Light Narcotic” 1/21/12
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Question: It isn’t clear how the Creator helps us. I see that I receive everything for myself and ask Him to help. How do I receive this gift of gratuitous action from the Creator?
Answer: A person develops such desires and qualities that can work for bestowal.
Question: If I cannot do something, for example, wake up for a lesson and ask the Creator to help, will He help me wake up in the end?
Answer: If you ask, He will help.
Question: Can I ask for a friend to receive such strength?
Answer: Of course. Keep asking. Ask for your friend, for yourself, so that you know how to ask.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Desire to Bestow – 1”
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Question: How can we make a spiritual deficiency as tangible and intense as our corporeal deficiencies?
Answer: It depends only on you. If you want it, you will feel how immense your desire for spirituality is. You just need to reveal it.
Question: Can we create this “really wanting it” by inflating the importance of each other?
Answer: Yes, but only by being connected with your friends.
Question: How can we cultivate spiritual deficiencies (Hisaron) in the ten?
Answer: It is simple. Try to strengthen your desire for unity, the desire for spirituality so you will receive what you desire. You increase your desires for spirituality by discussing this with each other, as it says: “Each one shall help his friend.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Desire for Spirituality”
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That cause sometimes comes through inheritance of qualities from the forefathers, who revoked these pleasures either through morals or because they tasted the light of Torah and saw that it was not worthwhile to turn to the deficiency and desire for these pleasures (Rabash, Notes 809, “Wholeness in Life”).
Question: What is the difference between canceling pleasure through morality or through tasting the light?
Answer: If I encounter some problems and try to bring the upper light closer to correct them, then, of course, this is the right action.
With the help of the upper light, I rise above the problems that are revealed within me and move forward.
Question: Does morality help in revealing the light or, on the contrary, hinder it?
Answer: Morality do not help because the path we are following is a completely different one, not the common human one.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Wholeness in Life”
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Question: A big gap is growing between my mind and my heart. The more I strive for bestowal in my mind, the more I feel I do not have this desire, and this causes great suffering. I do not know how to move forward.
Answer: The Creator gives you this specifically so you can strive to Him with great zeal in prayer.
Question: What does it mean: Malchut expands to the border of light, and acquires and absorbs its qualities without any restrictions?
Answer: Since Malchut can carry the qualities of light through itself, it causes such an expansion in itself that it takes in all the light of infinity.
Question: Sometimes you want to pray for the whole ten, and sometimes for each one individually. What pleases the Creator more?
Answer: When you pray for everyone, for the whole group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/24, Writings of Rabash “The Desire to Bestow – 1”
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Question: You described a state where sometimes you are so filled with the Creator that you cannot move. How can one reach this state?
Answer: This occurs when the Creator is satisfied with your basic request, and you do not have the strength to move, i.e., do any internal actions with the light to help you move forward. But when you receive the light, it becomes clear that you have received elevation from the Creator and now you must figure out how to realize this.
The realization of the light consists of receiving it to bestow, being filled with it, and using it to rise higher, and incorporating new Kelim (vessels). These other desires have yet to participate in receiving for the sake of the Creator. Thus one has a new level of ascent.
Question: How does one incorporate these additional Kelim?
Answer: He simply includes them within himself, and that is it. There are no special wise actions here.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Inclination”
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Question: Do I understand correctly that not receiving pleasure from the light means moving forward?
Answer: No, not receiving pleasure from the light does not yet mean moving forward.
Moving to the following degree means revealing the Creator and His light even more, preparing yourself more for this, and connecting with others to form a more collective Kli (vessel) so that you can absorb all of it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Inclination”
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Question: When the light comes, it fills us. How can we resist enjoying it? Where can we find the strength to resist the pleasure?
Answer: Imagine that you must direct the received light toward the Creator.
Even if joy and pleasure do not go away, you do not need to avoid them. You just need to use them correctly.
Question: How can one reach awe?
Answer: Reaching awe depends on how you relate to what you receive from the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Inclination”
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Question: How do Kabbalists protect themselves from the negative influences of detractors?
Answer: Not in any way! Why should I protect myself from them? At what level do they work? They run around, shout “cock-a-doodle-doo” like little roosters, and that is it. Nothing else. What can they do? They will not jump to my level, but let them cluck at their level.
This was the case in the time of all Kabbalists. I do not take it to heart. How many detractors did my teacher have with whom, among others, I fought! So what?
The Creator specifically does this to distance the Kabbalist from this rubbish, from this world, so that he does not even think to deal with them and does his inner work. It is a help when you are hated.
Question: Does this “rooster” rise?
Answer: He is gradually changing! He is becoming a man!
In that case, I am ready to hug him! It does not matter what happened before! We all used to be like this! But now he has changed! Now he is rising, trying to get closer to everyone, to unite, to study the program of creation, implement it, and help others. I will accept him with pleasure!
The past does not matter at all! We all get our diapers dirty in our early childhood. But now we are growing. Everyone who goes higher used to be worse, more harmful, nastier, more obnoxious than others. I understand that perfectly well.
I am ready to accept anyone, and it does not matter to me what happened before. Therefore, I do not pay attention to who has gone where, whether he returns or not, what he thought before he came to us. I am not interested in that. When you come back, you are welcome. The door is always open in and out.
Question: Does it harm that he brings thoughts from outside?
Answer: No, it is a clarification. It is a correction.
Comment: You have a category of students who are constantly in an unstable state: here and there.
My Response: Well what can we do? It is not me but the Creator who controls them. Such are the qualities of these students. I have to endure like any parent who suffers from the pranks of their youngsters.
Question: But you have so many students. How can you tolerate everyone? Where does the strength come from?
Answer: But I do not suffer. I know that is how it should be. My every day starts in a new way. I am not angry with anyone. I can scream, lose my temper, but this is just an outburst of energy, nothing else. Inside, I love them all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12
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Question: What saturation threshold in the material is characteristic of those people who come to Kabbalah? Is it low or high?
Answer: All people who study Kabbalah are different, but, as a rule, they are not very eager to fulfill the desires of our world.
Question: Do material needs decrease or increase in the process of spiritual advancement?
Answer: It is impossible to say for sure. Some people stumble on the small selfish desires of our world and must first overcome them and then grow. And some do not care: “Let the desires of this world remain next to me, and I will deal with spiritual desires.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Desire for Spirituality”
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Question: What will help a person feel the need for faith? As a result of what does it arise?
Answer: The need for faith is given to a person from above. And by virtue of feeling this lack in oneself, one goes further.
Question: How can I make room in my heart to accept the power of faith?
Answer: Where you used to have a place to feel the Creator, you now want to create a place for faith.
The place to feel the Creator is the place where your attitude to the ten, to the entire world Kli, manifests itself.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Inclination”
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Question: What kind of miracle can we ask the Creator for?
Answer: The miracle of obtaining the force of light above reason.
Question: You said that a person should give what comes to him from the Creator to everyone. Is my good intention alone enough to pass on what comes from the Creator to my friends? Or is it a prerequisite to include their desires in yourself?
Answer: The inclusion of friends is very important. This is the only way to unite in the ten.
Question: How can a person evoke the need for faith himself, so that there is a true prayer?
Answer: Ask the Creator for this.
Question: Can a person feel love for his neighbor only by being rewarded with complete faith?
Answer: No, not necessarily. Even at the very beginning, when one begins to climb the steps a little, a person can already ask for another and connect with him.
Question: How can you not enjoy bestowal? Where should this pleasure be directed?
Answer: You should not keep the pleasure of giving to yourself. At the same time, you work within your desires and see how your desires receive this energy and exist thanks to it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Inclination”
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I started studying Kabbalah in 1976 when I was 30 years old. Three years later, I came to Rabash. But even before coming to Rabash, I started to read The Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary, studied the Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah and other sources. I could not understand anything, but I was already trying to figure them out.
When I came to Rabash, then everything went along the same line. Before that, I sort of went through everything myself: science, philosophy, religion, and I saw that all that was just a delusion, absolutely everything, including science!
They lead a person astray from the right path to the goal of creation, to the meaning of life. So what if I find out how two solutions mix and what happens as a result? Nature around us is a huge sphere; I will scrape some properties, some knowledge, from it a little bit and study what I have scraped together. Am I going to do this all my life? Well, I will scrape together a little. And why? As Einstein said: “Like a little boy, I collect pebbles on the ocean shore.”
All great people have also asked these questions. And the most important thing that pushed them forward was the comprehension of the basis of the universe, its integral formula, that is, the connection between all its parts—what it is for. The whole connection: these X’s, Y’s, Z’s, and so on, what is inside the formula, equal to what? The meaning of life!
“What is it? Will I comprehend it or not?” Science will not give man an answer because he works with his brains and his properties like an animal that begins to scratch the ground with its hoof and sniff what it has found there. So much for science!
Moreover, I do not detract from its importance at all, but simply say that it is necessary to understand its limitations.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12
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When …he sees that for himself he cannot receive the above-mentioned, then he makes a true prayer that the Creator will help him, and then the Creator makes a miracle for him and gives him the light of faith (Rabash, Notes 638 “Man’s Inclination”).
Question: How can one receive faith not for the sake of miracles, but for the sake of bestowal?
Answer: How can we share the light that descends to us in order to see what it comes for? Is it to give me the power of faith or just to lift me up so that I can see more of what is going on?
I think we need to have a better understanding of what it means to be in faith. We have no idea how great a force this is.
In our world, “faith,” “believer,” “believes” are all somehow lost. But in fact, the power of faith is the power that lifts a person above everything. And then one can control oneself.
Faith above reason does not belong to our earthly level; therefore, it is called a miracle. It is above the laws of nature.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Inclination”
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Question: When the Creator gives a person constant faith, do foreign thoughts no longer visit him, or do they, but he already knows how to turn them around?
Answer: They just visit and that is it. There is nothing to ask the Creator for what He does not give.
The Creator gradually gives you more and more opportunities to strengthen yourself, to push away obstacles. But it is still our daily job.
And then we will learn how to process these obstacles so that we can use them to understand the ascents. After all, interference is not just interference, but help.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/24, Writings of Rabash “Man’s Inclination”
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In order for an individual to want to get rid of his egoistic nature, he must, on the one hand, understand what evil it brings to him, that it is like a disease that does not allow him to live a high-quality life. On the other hand, he must have the desire to become like the upper force that gives him eternal life.
In other words, he needs to somehow see the benefit of fighting his egoism and understand what he loses by not being within the Creator’s system. Otherwise, the mere recognition of evil does not achieve anything.
After he stops himself based on the principle “do no harm to others,” the next stage is that he must open up and start emanating good, become its source. At this point, there is already some closeness to the Creator, with His quality, and to others, because the quality of the Creator is attained through closeness to others.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: What does the collective universal consciousness give?
Answer: The sensation of the Creator.
When one comprehends absolutely complete mutual penetration, a combination of all disassembled, distant souls, then their multiple embedding into one another and their connection, to the extent that they are all different, all opposite to each other in their multidimensional space and at the same time all united, connecting in the same multidimensional spaces, preserving their oppositeness, all this becomes such an intertwined, multidimensional receptacle of sensation that this is exactly how the primordial force that gave birth to everything, called the Creator, is attained. This way we can finally feel It, get to It! And He is there, inside. He is not hiding, but it is there, inside, that we begin to feel Him.
In such a way we can finally feel Him, reach Him! And He is there, inside. He does not hide, but it is precisely there, inside, that we begin to feel Him.
Question: And who gave birth to this original force, the Creator?
Answer: We do not know that. We do not ask such a question because we need to reach the Creator. We don’t even understand how we do it.
And when we begin to attain Him, then He already takes us, united together with Him, because we have reached His state, His external quality, His external manifestation toward us, and we go somewhere with Him. He takes us out of this state to somewhere further away where it is unknown. Into some subsequent attainments that are called the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth millennia.
Our maximum unification is called “6,000 years.” Then comes the “Sabbath.” the so-called “seventh millennium,” when we are fully united together and reveal the upper force that created this state. And then, after already being united during the seventh millennium state, we go together with this force to an unknown place and transition to the next state.
Baal HaSulam even writes about the tenth millennium, but it is completely incomprehensible to us. It is impossible to imagine, because such unification is beyond our senses or analysis in the mind.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Feeling of the Creator” 2/2/12
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Question: Usually a person is born and goes through a certain path in life. Most often, by the age of thirty, one enters into a stupor when all one’s plans begin to shake a little, and then he begins to think about the meaning of life.
You came to the wisdom of Kabbalah at the age of 30, and before that was there, so to say, a period of preparation?
Answer: Maybe, although I would not say that about myself. I wanted to come to the study of Kabbalah, it seems to me, at the age of six or seven.
Question: Does the current generation have such an opportunity?
Answer: It does not really depend on the generation. Of course, the current generation has it. But it also depends on how a person feels. As far as I can remember, I always felt that I needed it.
I am not an exceptional person. I just have such an attitude toward life, toward the world, that does not tolerate anything superfluous, everything must be neatly arranged; otherwise, this world is such a big mess that I simply do not want to exist in it. Not because “my head is small,” but because I do not want to tolerate disorder; I must put everything into a system.
In principle, the most important aspiration of such a person is to bring everything they feel in the world into a coherent structure, into a cohesive picture. Only then does the world make sense to them, and the person enjoys perfection, harmony, the interconnection of all things, and their mutual definition, what we on the human level call mutual guarantee.
For him, the system is something that encompasses our universe as its integral part. He must understand the structure of interaction, functioning, management, movement, and development. Without this feeling, he feels bad, he does not feel okay. He feels his connection to the entire system, to the entire cosmos (although it is more than the cosmos) that he cannot help but come to the perception of universal harmony.
That is the inner need I began to feel at four to five-years-old, and when I was twelve to thirteen years old, it became absolutely clear. Searches for the source of creation led me to study paleontology one moment, then astronomy the next.
It is very difficult for a person to navigate in our world where there is no flexibility. This compels him to seek inner harmony because it begins to help him perceive the world in its external rigidity as harmonious.
The lack of flexibility in the world leads a person to enter into the system of creation, to find integrity there, so that everything can be perceived well from the outside, and then he will be able to live. Otherwise it is very difficult for people seeking internal harmony in our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Childhood” 2/14/12
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The science of Kabbalah reveals the possibility of expanding one’s senses and awareness into an area opposite to the material one, to a new level, into a new dimension. Therefore, I completely surrendered to it, but with strict control over myself.
Kabbalah gives us great opportunities because you must constantly move against your egoism. Do you want to move? That is egoism for you. Try to use it to see how right or wrong it is, whether you need it or not, and how much you are just busying yourself with it. Some other properties, desires, and values in you push you toward this.
And we start working against your ego! We make any comprehension, any movement, not because you are carried forward, but on the contrary, with difficulty, with a tremendous force of opposition.
A scientist is driven forward by egoism, which pushes him to research. But here, it is the other way around. Therefore, there is a considerable opportunity for self-control and analysis: “Am I doing this right or not? For what? Why? Do I need this at all?!”
Question: A scientist is drawn in by egoism, but a Kabbalist is repulsed from his work. What makes a Kabbalist do this?
Answer: It is the importance of understanding the meaning of creation, comprehending the Creator, but not from a scientific point of view like a scientist, even though it is also importance for a scientist.
In principle, all scientists want to grasp the Creator. Subconsciously, any person in our world who lives only to feed himself still has the thought: “I want to understand the Creator,” otherwise he would not exist. Every atom and every molecule exist only for this purpose because in the end everything will come together in this comprehension.
But unlike scientists, you go against your desires and properties. And it is precisely because of this that you have a vast opportunity for self-control.
Therefore, I do not study anything extraneous because I very clearly see, precisely from the analysis of what other sciences do, how much this is work within egoism, and therefore, does not rise above our world, no matter how scientists think they are above it.
[328750]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference Between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12
Question: Will faith above reason always contradict reason? Or can we reach a state where this contradiction disappears?
Answer: Faith will always contradict reason. But it is through it that we can rise higher and higher, while reason will receive only what we attain.
Question: In Rabash’s articles, does the term “Adam” refer to an individual or the ten as one man?
Answer: No, it simply refers to an individual, one person.
[329536]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/19/24, “Praying to Go Above Reason”
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Bores can be divided into two classes; those who have their own particular subject, and those who do not need a subject (A.A. Milne).
Question: Alan Alexander Milne wrote many things, but he is mostly remembered for Winnie the Pooh. In one of his writings he noted, “One never knows exactly when one person becomes bored with another. A stranger’s golf success story is intolerable, but how interesting one’s own seems. A person cannot view their own story with the impatience of an outsider.”
Can you please tell us how to see that we are boring?
Answer: I do not know if we need to see that. We just need to be silent. I am in favor of silence. It is normal for people to sit and be silent, or think about something in common, or even each something of their own. Why talk?
Comment: And they must agree: “Let’s sit quietly.” So, let’s sit quietly, think.
My Response: It should be clear without saying it.
Question: So we should not engage others?
Answer: We should not do anything! There is noise from all sides: information, music, who knows what and how. But, in principle, none of it is necessary.
Question: And we are not boring then? We just sit, silent.
Answer: Yes, we can sit and be silent.
Comment: But this is only if there are good or warm relationships between people.
My Response: Yes, understanding.
Question: So, is it necessary for us to have such relationships that we can sit quietly together?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: It is not that simple; it is already intimacy.
My Response: All conversations lead to arguments, to some troubles. Sit, be silent, and everything will be fine. When you start talking, inconsistencies arise.
Question: This principle definitely works among close people. But for this, we still need to be close.
Please tell us about being boring. There are directorial authors who said: “It does not matter to me how many people watch my film. Let them grow up to my film.” How do you feel about this: not “I am boring,” but simply “They have developed up to my level yet”?
Answer: It is indispensable. Every person who creates something has that pride of a creative person.
Question: And they cannot get rid of it?
Answer: Absolutely not!
Question: So this idea that people should mature to my work, do you accept it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But there is another approach—Hollywood style. What I feed them, I know they will consume. And I deliberately feed them in a way that is low-grade or follows a known formula. How do you feel about this? I am not boring, millions watch me.
Answer: I do not know. I also do not really understand a person who creates something for the masses. It does not leave an internal, moral impression, does not touch the heart, but people need it.
Question: So, are all these approaches correct in your opinion?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Then here is a question. We return to the Creator one way or another, we never leave Him in all our roles. We have nowhere to go.
So what kind of director should He be, in your opinion? A director who is understood or one you have to develop to? What does His direction do to us?
Answer: He wants us to think, find solutions, and try to implement them.
Comment: Still He regards us as thinking beings.
My Response: Yes absolutely!
Comment: That is a lofty position.
My Response: Otherwise, our lives would have no meaning. He sets a certain level of our development for each moment for every person.
Question: So, with all His directing—and He is a great director, a great scriptwriter—we already see this, where is He leading us?
Answer: Toward realizing the need to rise above our nature.
Question: And this whole movie we are watching, is this practically its end?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is that considered a good ending? After going through wars, suffering, catastrophes?
Answer: It is a good ending, of course! Because we agree with what we have achieved, and we hope for the final moment when I reveal Him in my nature.
[327163]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/24
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Question: Toward what thought or feeling should we all strive simultaneously to move from a dead point? Can you give us some advice?
Answer: I constantly give you advice and hope you listen to it. You need to keep getting closer to each other, more and more. I do not see any problems. The fact is that it takes time.
You can read in the writings of Baal HaSulam or Rabash that this path takes ten, even twenty years. When I first heard this, I was ready to grab Rabash and demand he accelerate my spiritual progress.
But it is designed this way so that our efforts extend throughout the duration of our attempts, and in this way, we perform the complete work of connection.
[329485]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/19/24, “Praying to Go Above Reason”
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Having little faith means that he does not want only to bestow. “He who makes his voice heard during his prayer is of those of little faith” (Rabash, Notes 606, “Those of Little Faith”).
Question: Does this mean we must suppress the desire to receive so that it does not sound in our voice?
Answer: No, this is not required at all. You can shout or speak to yourself, the Creator will still understand, hear, and take note of everything.
Question: What is the difference between praying aloud and praying silently?
Answer: Whispered prayer can be more effective because a person formulates it inside himself and tries to connect with the Creator.
Question: When I ask for help from the Creator, this prayer comes from my lack of faith, meaning I lack belief and I ask the Creator to help me. What does my prayer consist of when I ask for the ability to bestow?
Answer: Bestowal is a property of the Creator. When you ask for the ability to bestow, you ask Him to give you that ability. In this way, you are trying to come closer to Him, to become like Him.
[329325]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Those of Little Faith”
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Question: What is the state of death in spirituality?
Answer: It is parting with the Creator.
Question: Is spiritual death inevitable at every stage or can we avoid it?
Answer: At each stage of one’s spiritual ascent, a person must momentarily experience the state of death. Then, the next step opens before one, and one enters it. That is necessary for our development.
Question: What does it mean “in the state of death” to take upon oneself the work of faith above reason? How is it done?
Answer: In the state of death, we do not find ourselves. But what we consider disconnection from the path, from the Creator, we say that it is similar to death. We must accustom ourselves to such states and realize that our spiritual life is much higher than this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Question: The spiritual development of the State of Israel and the connection of the country of Israel with the whole world can be divided into five stages.
One of them is the awareness of the evil of our selfish nature. Do you think this is the first stage for further development?
Answer: Yes selfishness is our primordial nature, and we we cannot get out of it by ourselves. The only thing we can realize is its depravity, its doom for us, but nothing more.
Question: Baal HaSulam writes that our natural selfishness is the essence of every human being and it gives us a sense of self. As each develops their abilities, they are ready to enslave others, take over the whole world, and control it. Why did the Creator create mankind like this?
Answer: The Creator specially created humans this way so that in the end we would reveal our egoistic essence, want to change it, and start developing from selfishness to altruism consciously.
Therefore, our egoistic essence is the foundation from which we begin to grow. Thanks to it, we see who we are and do everything only for ourselves in our narrow animal egoism. From this point, we begin to rise.
There are several means by which we can rise a little above selfishness, explore it, and then change it.
We have been given the worst foundation, the worst condition on purpose, and we must rise to the opposite.
[329233]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: Before clearly realizing that everything I see outside of myself is in me, can I feel something as part of myself?
Answer: Maybe in a movie. In The Matrix and in other movies, perhaps they tried to somewhat portray this. I do not watch such movies, they are very primitive.
But in order to somehow hint to people what the perception of reality is, we need to come up with something. The correct perception of reality is explained in the Introduction to The Book of Zohar and by many Kabbalists in general. They wrote about this long before Einstein and other scientists because they discovered from their own experience that everything we see from the outside is actually in us, and there is no world outside.
There is nothing outside at all—everything is inside! There is no such thing as “outside of me.” I am everything! And you? And you are in me!
Comment: But often people say that all this is a fantasy.
My Response: Of course, it is a fantasy! Until we have clearly revealed it, it is a fantasy.
I am telling you about this fantasy now so you can start to grope it a bit even though you do not have any properties for it yet. But with your mind, you can push yourself toward it. Once you have even tiny buds of new properties, then you will be able to develop them using your mind and thereby accelerate your development.
If we did not have a mind and only had feelings, I would not tell anyone anything, because it would be impossible to hasten the path of development: it will come in its due time. But since we have a mind through which we can strive to comprehend this picture, draw closer to feeling it, we can direct our sensors to somehow feel it and compare various fragments; that is why I am speaking about it.
[328713]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World as We don’t Know it” 1/12/12
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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that a primitive person uses his egoistic nature without being ashamed of anything. A more developed person already feels some kind of shame and tries to use others in a veiled way.
But he gradually begins to realize that and is ashamed of his nature. He is looking for where he can somehow correct it until sparks of altruism appear in him.
Do you think that in our country, in Israel, we are already at a stage when people recognize the evil of their nature and understand that it separates us?
Answer: No way! This recognition can be reached only through the study of Kabbalistic sources and with their help a person can expose himself to the influence of the upper light located in them, i.e., under the influence of a special quality—the quality of bestowal, love, and connection with all humanity.
If a person works in order to attain these changes within him, then they occur in him. Then he begins to see that he cannot bear his present nature and is ready to rush into the future.
[329273]
From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: Man’s main job is to come to a sense of the Creator’s reality. Achieving It can only be through prayer. How can a person keep the prayer that he must come to this feeling within oneself?
Answer: Strive for the Creator always and keep the desire to attain Him in your heart.
Question: Reason prevents us from going in faith above reason. How do we use reason correctly so that it helps us rise above ourselves?
Answer: To do this you need to unite with each other so that everyone can help a friend rise a little bit. If you work together to influence everyone in the ten in this way, you will be able to rise.
Question: When there is a great desire to get closer to the Creator, it is a good state. But what if a person feels the Creator a little bit, then is it not very good anymore?
Answer: It is okay to keep developing this feeling and try to increase it.
[329440]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/18/24, “Working In Faith Above Reason”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 20”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 24
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (Giving of the Torah),” Item 13
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Selected Highlights
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Question: When we raise our prayer, should we strive to reveal the Creator or should we pray for the entire world Kli to reveal Him, or maybe even the whole world?
Answer: It is hard to say. It depends on who we are talking to.
In principle, it is important that a person who hears us feels how concerned we are about the internal state of the world. Through our dissemination, we want to convey our inner trepidation to humanity.
[329544]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/19/24, “Praying to Go Above Reason”
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Question: When we get together and do something, what element needs to be included in order for what we have in mind to work?
Answer: It is only striving for connection; nothing more. This connection is realized precisely within us because, in principle, there is no external world.
Comment: Every time we try to unite even more, we see that we are completely unable to do this.
My Response: Then you have the opportunity to ask. Ask for this from the common power that is hidden in this connection.
Initially, there is a connection between us, only it is hidden from us. And we have to dig deeper and uncover it, uncover it, uncover it.
Comment: However, the further a person moves, the more difficult it is for him to find connection.
My Response: But on the other hand, he has more opportunities. For example, if you are a great scientist, then your experiments and tasks are much more complex for you than for a laboratory assistant who mixes various substances in test tubes.
[329056]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Meaning of Kabbalah Dissemination” 2/12/12
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All thoughts, both good and bad, come to us from the Creator, and we must filter them through ourselves and decide which ones we can use to reach a good goal and which ones we cannot. This is necessary only to more precisely direct us toward the purpose of creation.
Question: Through which criteria should we determine which thoughts to restrict?
Answer: First and foremost, I must restrict thoughts that are directed only for my own sake. It is preferable not to use them. After that, it depends on the state of the group and the state of the friends.
Question: As soon as I restrict a thought for my own sake, do I immediately build an intention for the sake of the group?
Answer: Yes, that is best of all.
[329361]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: What does it mean to channel a thought through the ten and how is it implemented?
Answer: Channeling a thought through the ten means that I must be seriously, firmly, and constantly connected with my friends.
And everything that is in me: my thoughts, plans, and actions, I channel, not through myself, but through us. In this case, we unite and can act practically without any limitations.
Question: Should a student be concerned not to cause anger in the friends, not to provoke negative states in them, or is it only the concern of the one who reacts this way?
Answer: It is everyone’s concern because it hinders the entire group, the entire ten.
[329381]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: If I am constantly fulfilled from meetings with my friends, what will lead me to cry out with the true prayer that we must come to? It seems to me that this joy and fulfillment after meetings takes me away from the goal.
Answer: There is a prayer that leads to the Creator, and there is a prayer that distances one from the Creator, which depends on what a person wants. Therefore, at first, we just want to find out how to unite between ourselves and the Creator in order to make Him bring us closer to Himself. This is the most important thing. This is what we want to achieve first of all.
Question: And how can I compel the Creator?
Answer: Through words, through prayer.
Question: But the Creator does not hear our words.
Answer: He hears, not your words, but your heart. It does not matter what language we speak; the main thing is that we experience the right feelings.
Question: But my heart is busy with fulfillment and pleasure; there is no place in it for crying, for prayer.
Answer: That is what you need to think about and decide which is more important to you: to feel the fulfillment of your heart or its emptiness. As soon as you want to feel the true state of the heart, that is, its emptiness, it will tell you how to proceed.
Question: So after every meeting, I should feel dissatisfied like you did when you studied with Rabash and felt empty and annoyed that you did not understand anything?
Answer: We must feel both suffering and joy.
[329539]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/19/24, “Happy in Faith Above Reason”
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The Creator sends us anger and rage to test how we will behave.
But we must correct our impression of these qualities and transfer them to the path of good. When we are angry, we cut ourselves off from the qualities of the Creator, as these do not exist in Him. As a result, we remain separated from holiness.
If we try to keep holiness, bestowal, love, and connection from leaving us and try to keep ourselves in this state, then there is a gradual rapprochement with these properties, and so we correct ourselves.
Let us rise above anger, and we will see how it transforms and flows into holiness.
[329365]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: How can we perceive what constitutes reward and punishment for us and work with it correctly in the group?
Answer: Reward and punishment are opportunities to fulfill the conditions of the Creator. The lack of such an opportunity also belongs to the category “reward and punishment.”
Question: Do we have to imagine any forms of this area? Or, based on the fact that I do not think about it, faith above reason is born?
Answer: No, faith above reason cannot just appear in us. We must understand that we are under the influence of the Creator’s laws, the laws of higher nature, and therefore, must comply with them.
[329266]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: What does it mean that a person creates a thought? After all, everything is from the Creator.
Answer: Thoughts come from the Creator. But do we accept them or not? How do we treat them? Do we want to actualize them? That is the question.
Question: Can we or should we teach our evil inclination to love?
Answer: This is very high. That is a real correction.
Question: If I get a thought from the Creator that scares me, what does the Creator expect from me, to agree with everything or replace it with a kind thought?
Answer: I do not know. Ask the Creator.
Question: Can we consider thought as a gift from the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How does evil originate and manifest itself at the level of thought?
Answer: Evil thoughts, feelings, and relationships are born from evil inclinations. That is all a manifestation of ego.
[329354]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 19”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 21
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https://cdn.kabbalahmedia.info/IcQSwSiO.mp3
Question: It is said that we are a part of creation and must receive from other created beings. What do we receive from other created beings?
Answer: We are all completely interconnected as a single whole. Therefore, we need to imagine and feel that we are sending only positive influences to others and wish to receive the same from them.
[329357]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: What does it mean that regardless of my state, faith will compel me to action?
Answer: When you see that if you remain inactive, you will fall and drag others down with you, then this compels you to act and support others.
Question: How do you rise and fall to the degrees of friends to feel them while remaining on your degree?
Answer: For this, you must perform all actions and strive for your friends to rise with you, and you will unite on a common upper degree.
[329210]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith Is Called Action”
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Question: The Creator gives us the opportunity to think. Is thought our free choice or does the Creator dictate them?
Answer: All our thoughts come from the Creator. He wants us to examine them, choose the ones we want to implement, and thus turn to Him with this request.
Question: Should we realize what the Creator desires or what we desire in these thoughts?
Answer: We must realize what the Creator desires and what we desire as one united whole.
Think about this all the time, for it is said: make your desire like His.
[329389]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: What can be considered the greatest punishment in spirituality?
Answer: It is when a person loses the desire for spirituality.
Question: All corporeal punishments come from the Creator. What can be considered the greatest corporeal punishment?
Answer: The one that prevents a person from engaging in spiritual advancement.
[329461]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: If I became entangled in evil, how can I get out of this state and what should I ask my friends for?
Answer: The best thing is to approach a friend or, if you do not have direct contact, write to him honestly, expressing that you regret your behavior, embrace him, and await his response.
Question: What if he responds that everything is from the Creator?
Answer: Then you need to work within yourself.
[329409]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: Is my desire for more activity in the ten, more meetings, or some joint action egoistic?
Answer: It does not matter what kind of desire you have, this desire was given to you by the Creator to start with it.
Question: Can I bring this to the ten or should I restrain myself and not distract them?
Answer: You should bring only desires of bestowal, connection, and love to the ten.
[329296]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Those of Little Faith”
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Question: A person feels longing for the Creator in a private sensation and most often this happens through descents and blows. What is the right form of longing for the Creator?
Answer: The right form of longing for the Creator is what a person lacks. He lacks a sense of the Creator. This is a very good state. From it, a person comes to a rapprochement with the Creator.
Question: Should one strive to feel longing for the Creator in one’s friends?
Answer: No, it is none of his business.
[329458]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/18/24, “Working In Faith Above Reason”
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Question: What does “those of little faith” mean?
Answer: “Those of little faith” means a person who has little faith in the Creator.
Question: The Creator desires a sincere inner connection with Him from us. We also want this very much. But why does the Creator not allow us to do it?
Answer: He does allow you to do this, but He increases various obstacles so that you connect with Him even more strongly.
Question: Our thoughts are also prayers. Why is it considered better to whisper your thoughts?
Answer: Because then a person hears himself.
Question: What is the difference in the Creator’s response to a person’s prayer when one asks from a state of recognition of evil versus when one asks from a state that is not yet actualized?
Answer: If you turn to the Creator from an unrealized state, He practically does not respond or He responds with guiding states so you eventually understand what He wants from you.
Question: Do we have the right to change anything in the world, or only to bestow?
Answer: Only to bestow.
[329293]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Those of Little Faith”
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Question: What is the difference between the preparation stage and the state when a person is already in adhesion with the Creator? Is the stage of revealing evil behind us?
Answer: No, everything continues because the steps go up.
You rise’ there are problems, there is a solution, there is adhesion, and so on. And up again, and up again. Therefore, for us, this is only the beginning of the ladder of spiritual ascent.
[329451]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/18/24, “Working In Faith Above Reason”
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Question: Why is the desire to bestow called the power of purification?
Answer: It purifies our egoistic desire and completely orients it toward bestowal.
Question: Now we are praying out of selfishness. What will help us move on to true prayer so that it comes from the quality of bestowal?
Answer: The Creator gradually, imperceptibly to us, changes our desires and sensations so we move from one part of understanding our nature to another.
In the ten this transition is carried out individually for everyone: for one sooner, for another later, depending on one’s qualities and actions.
However, we do not need anything but an urgent request to the Creator, tenacity, and perseverance.
[329259]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Those of Little Faith”
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Question: How can a ten give everyone the strength to act above reason?
Answer: Personal example is the most effective.
Question: When a person overcomes the body and feels joy, doesn’t he come to some measure of the body’s consent to act above reason? How can we go even higher in this case?
Answer: In this case, try to bypass this condition and still go by faith above reason. If not this time, then next time. Or change the basis a bit.
Question: If everything comes from the Creator, what are alien thoughts?
Answer: All our thoughts are alien, except for moving toward a common goal.
Question: How can you share your Hisaron in the ten so your friends will gladly accept it?
Answer: That is why you communicate all the time. Your friends feel and understand you and are permeated with your actions.
Question: What is the active bestowal during workshops, tens’ meetings, and actions for connection?
Answer: It is to support the friends.
[329250]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith Is Called Action”
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Question: At one time was all of humanity in spiritual attainment?
Answer: No, it was not. Only the group of Abraham, who left Babylon, was in spiritual attainment for a brief period; upon exiting Egypt they all ascended to a new level, and then later during the construction of the First Temple. Of course that was not about a building with stones and wood, but about the inner construction of the soul, first, with the erection of the First Temple, then the Second Temple, and then the fall from the spiritual level 2,000 years ago. But together, as one unified nation, this group existed for only a very brief period.
As for all of humanity, it has never been in spiritual attainment because, while in Babylon, it did not want to master the methodology of revealing the Creator, of unity, and rising to His level, which is the highest level of bestowal and love in nature. Therefore, Abraham had to leave there.
Question: So it seems that people should come to this sensation soon. How realistic is it that everyone will feel the spiritual system?
Answer: It is absolutely realistic! Absolutely everyone and the entire scheme of creation. It is all within each of us. All together, we are in collective adhesion with each other in one unified soul called Adam, “Malchut of the world of infinity.” Call it whatever you want; there are many definitions for this state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. All People are in Spirituality” 1/24/12
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Question: I used to think that faith above reason leads to an ascent.
Answer: Of course, that is the way it is.
Question: Then how do you understand that faith above reason is only possible in ascents?
Answer: When you strive to ascend, you have faith above reason. First, there is an ascent, then faith, not the opposite.
Question: Does the ascent depend on us, or do we give only intention and effort, and then the Creator lifts us?
Answer: Yes.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: When we read the articles, I have a growing regret that I cannot go beyond the boundaries of egoism. The text pulls you up because there is a completely different quality of existence. Is regret the beginning of a correct prayer?
Answer: Yes, this is already the beginning. Therefore, one should not leave the smallest awakening, but try to develop it all the time.
Small articles can be read many times a day. And in this way you will not allow yourself to stray far from the goal.
[329256]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Those of Little Faith”
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Question: In prayer, should we ask for the level of faith and bestowal the Creator wants to give us?
Answer: Preferably. We do not know the level the Creator requires of us, but we can imagine it based on our feelings.
Question: What does this level depend on and how can we present it in order to give the Creator what we are asking?
Answer: It depends on devotion. If you sincerely intend to bestow through your actions, you will start to feel what you are doing concerning the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Those of Little Faith”
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Question: What is the essence of anger? What is this manifestation?
Answer: Anger is uncontrolled egoism. It absorbs many negative actions and emotions that result in a loss of self-control.
Question: Is there any point in sharing this state within the ten and asking for help in practical work?
Answer: Yes that is very beneficial.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: What does it mean to be in a natural connection with the Creator? What does this give a person?
Answer: This gives a person the opportunity to see the whole world as the Creator sees it, to influence others as the Creator, and so on.
When a person is in some kind of contact with the Creator, it gives him fuel for the next stage called “love your neighbor.” A person receives such an ability and can already love by being in connection with Him.
Question: What is the difference between the altruistic quality of bestowing to one’s neighbor and loving one’s neighbor?
Answer: The altruistic property of bestowing to one’s neighbor is not based on universal laws. It is just that society, as a result of its development, concludes that this is better, more convenient, and safer. Therefore, it accepts this condition or agrees that it is good. But in fact, this property is opposite to our nature.
After all, if we want to come to absolute unity among us, to “love your neighbor as yourself,” we must change our nature. It is not enough for us to say that the law of the Creator is an altruistic attitude toward each other. Everyone needs to be internally convinced that our current nature is absolute evil and that that the similarity to the Creator offered to us is absolute good.
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From KabTV’s “Era of the Last Generation” 5/9/24
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Question: When should we pray for our correction and when for a friend?
Answer: First pray for your friends and then for yourself.
Question: Besides asking the Creator for a friend, can I help him with the power of my thought?
Answer: Of course you can. It will be better than asking the Creator for him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: Why did the Creator let us be born in a physical body without a soul? After all, if there were no body, there would be no evil inclination.
Answer: No, the evil inclination is not related to our body, to our flesh. The evil inclination is our egoistic desires.
Question: What does it mean: “I thank You for returning my soul with compassion”?
Answer: It means thanking the Creator for wanting to advance you under any circumstances.
Question: How can we not lose the work that the Creator gives us?
Answer: Engage in it all the time and try to move forward.
Question: If the Creator gave me a chance and a gift to do an action of bestowal and then emptiness comes, what should my work be?
Answer: Ask the Creator to give you more such states.
Question: Can automatic gratitude to the Creator become heartfelt, and how does this happen?
Answer: How this happens, I do not know, but it can happen.
[329207]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Question: Can we say that at some point in history humanity took the wrong path?
Answer: Of course! Since the time of Aristotle and Plato.
At one point they shouted: “Under no circumstances give science away to the ignorant! They will misuse it, they will sell it to the rich, they will put it at the service of progress!
But we need spiritual progress, not technological progress! We cannot open universities to everyone!
Science should be pursued only by people who with its help want to understand the meaning of life, the lofty matters that lie beyond the boundaries of our world!”
Science should develop only in the form in which it raises a person above our world! Anyone who might use it for evil purposes has no right to engage in it!
Even the invention of, say, a special meat grinder is also evil. You do not need it, and you can live without it! After all, in the end, it is by adapting science to our world that you begin its development.
There is no other way, either external development or internal. The world followed the external path of development. Historically, this happened 3,000 years ago.
Question: But was there another option for development? Or did we still have to go through this stage?
Answer: It is hard to say because in order to understand the answer to this question, you need to be in two worlds, in the duality that we are talking about.
Everything comes from the Creator, and at the same time depends on our freewill, on our choice.
We are not able to compare these two free functions; our mind is not adapted to this. To understand this, you need to be in both worlds: the spiritual one and ours at the same time. Then you will not have contradictions; you can perceive absolutely opposite facts and information as complementary and not mutually exclusive.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dead-End Path of Human Development” 1/24/12
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Question: Is it possible to call your powerlessness in front of the evil inclination a punishment?
Answer: It is possible, but it is not necessarily a punishment because the Creator helps you through this.
Question: Which is better to do right now: to ask the Creator for mercy or to be grateful and be glad that He is working with me?
Answer: It is always good to give thanks, but sometimes you have to ask.
[329403]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: How can we reveal the force of thought above reason in the ten?
Answer: By acting in faith above reason, we grasp the higher degree with this faith.
Reason comes later and is clothed in the faith that we have achieved in this way.
[329385]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Power of Thought”
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Question: When we try to annul ourselves in front of our friends, criticism immediately arises about what we see in them. How can we work with it?
Answer: We have a desire to criticize everyone and not leave any actions we see without criticism.
This quality is inherent in us initially in the form of desire. But if we do not want to agree with it, then we gradually eradicate this desire from ourselves.
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From International Kabbalah Convention 5/18/24, “Receiving from the Friends the Force of Faith Above Reason”
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Question: For thousands of years all religions have been saying that there is no knowledge, there is only faith. Many of us came to Kabbalah to comprehend the Creator, that is, to gain knowledge. It seems there is some contradiction here.
Should we have both knowledge and faith or is faith only above knowledge?
Answer: The point is that the faith we practice in the wisdom of Kabbalah is not an ordinary faith, but faith in the fact that the Creator is the upper force of nature.
It is precisely Him that we attain in our mind and feelings by becoming like Him in the measure of bestowal. In this way, we begin to understand the Creator and the world He created.
[329446]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/18/24, “Working In Faith Above Reason”
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Question: What does it mean to be in the properties of bestowal, in the properties of faith based on reason, above reason?
Answer: This means that you do not take into account reason, knowledge, but only faith above reason and act in this property.
You need to clearly understand what your egoism requires of you, limit it, and include only those properties that are higher than the ego.
Question: Does the ten receive faith first and then each receives private faith from it? Or do we add up our private faiths into the ten and get the faith of the ten on a different level?
Answer: We receive a common faith, and we share it among us according to our efforts.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Comment: You say that dissemination depends on our internal unity. In theory, we want to convey some information. We gather together to do this.
My Response: We gather together for dissemination in order to unite and to find between us precisely the properties that connect us: mutual bestowal, mutual support, mutual guarantee, flexibility, connection, common bonding, even love.
We wish to clarify these properties. Why do we need all this? In order to then reveal the same properties in the rest of the world because the rest of the entire world (inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature), the entire mass represents the huge desire that must be completely, organically connected into one whole.
Then in this unified desire that is connected through common efforts, we will feel the property of bestowal and love, which we implement together. And this property of bestowal and love implemented jointly by us is called the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Meaning of Kabbalah Dissemination” 2/12/12
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Question: Based on our discussions, it seems important for us to reveal the Creator because we were chosen for this.
We should simply accept this as a fact and from this state form a prayer. What is special about such a prayer?
Answer: The fact that you want to find contact with the Creator and only through this contact, connection with Him.
Question: If I send a prayer to the Creator every morning after having united the hearts of all my friends by name into one heart, does this prayer have the power of the ten? How strong is this prayer even though I do it alone?
Answer: Ideally you should try to feel the response of the Creator in your common connection in the ten. If you persistently try to do this, you will start to feel it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Those of Little Faith”
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Question: When we listen to an article together, it goes through our feelings like music. But when we read it independently, we want to stop. Why?
Answer: Because you lose the support of your friends as you step out of that state.
Therefore, you need to persistently increase the state of unity within the ten.
[329131]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Question: What is the difference in work in faith above reason during descents and during ascents?
Answer: In descents, I do not have much faith above reason; it is hard for me to fulfill these conditions. That is why this state is called a descent. In an ascent, I am ready to do everything because I have strength, enthusiasm, and joy.
Question: How can we correctly add to the greatness of the Creator, and what is the practice that contributes to the growth of faith?
Answer: We must add the greatness of the Creator correctly in any state. We need to always strive for this.
If you act together with your friends, it increases and strengthens your faith in the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: What does disseminating Kabbalah give a person?
Answer: The real dissemination is attracting souls and desires detached from you to unity and further working with them to achieve unity.
A person disseminates the idea of global unity to those desires that feel as if they were outside of him.
As soon as they begin to perceive it, he engages with them in studying, in unification, and then does everything to come together with them to one whole.
In principle, dissemination itself goes according to the inner desire to unite with everyone. But, beside this, external work is also necessary because you otherwise cannot approach a person at all.
Therefore, you need to give him something external because we live in a corporeal world, that is, in such desires that manifest between us in the form of projections of bodies, objects, books, computers, and so on.
We must use these projections of desires in our imagination, that is, tangible objects and matter. We should use it the way it is perceived by us, although in reality it does not exist; it is simply depicted to us by our desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Meaning of Kabbalah Dissemination” 2/12/12
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Question: Faith is like another planet. The importance of the Creator and awe of Him are understandable states. But what do we build faith out of? Out of what is close to us: patience, consistency, or something else?
Answer: This question cannot be answered briefly. Chazon Ish writes in the book Faith and Confidence that faith is called the subtle aspiration of the soul.
Question: Can we say that the quality of faith chooses itself when a person is ready and is transmitted to him in full? It is not me who attracts it, but it chooses me?
Answer: Yes, it descends on you. Correct.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Question: When we nullify ourselves toward the teacher, it is as if we are included in his screen. There is a feeling that this happens outside of matter, that even the pain of the physical body is not as significant as this construction.
The spiritual we are building is a force without matter, right?
Answer: This is the force of your connection with the teacher, with the next degree in general.
By connecting to the teacher, you are connecting to his knowledge and faith. That is, you connect to him in faith above reason, like a small one to a big one.
Question: You are our teacher. But there is also Rabash, Baal HaSulam, the Creator, in this case, do we mean our direct teacher?
Answer: You connect, for example, to me, meaning that I connect to Rabash, Baal HaSulam, and the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith and Reason”
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Dina writes:
What should I do with my hatred for this world? Many people feel this way today. People hate this world! They hate it! And many even ask: “Why was I born? Why bring a child into this world?”
My Response: But it is true. The time is coming when a person will be utterly disappointed with this world. Human egoism is growing and it cannot be filled. People do not know what to fill it with. So every day they live feels forced and unsatisfactory.
Question: What can be done about it?
Answer: Nothing!
Question: Just sit doing nothing?
Answer: Do nothing.
Comment: But still living in this state all the time, I don’t know about that.
My Response: I understand this state. Especially in my younger years, I had many such states: what to live for, why live?
Question: Is the basis of this hatred toward this world, which you do not understand?
Answer: No, it is hatred for the emptiness that this world evokes in you.
Question: But still, first is there a reason for this happening in one way or another?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Today you are certainly relaying and understanding that something is happening to people. And people hate this world for a reason. Why?
Answer: It is to make this world better for you and for others.
Question: Is that what we need to come to?
Answer: The solution exists, but everyone must find it for themselves.
Question: So you are saying that that is why people are brought to such a state?
Answer: Yes.
Question: You also say that this world was given to us by the Creator. We see it this way because He wants us to see it like this?
Answer: Yes, the Creator desires our sound decision about how I perceive the world and how I want to see and feel it.
So that during my lifetime in this world I would make myself into such a being who approaches the Creator with my thoughts, aspirations, and so on. The Creator, having created this world, gave me the opportunity to reveal Him in order to rise above it.
Question: And what do I see? What am I revealing? For now, I am revealing this world that I hate.
Answer: To reveal the hated world in order to rise above it, from a doomed, dreadful, egoistic world to a kind, beautiful world.
Question: So, will I see it like that then?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So, if my aspiration is to turn this hatred into another state, to see this world differently, if I constantly, mechanically repeat this, will it work even mechanically?
Answer: It will work even mechanically. For this, I must radically change my attitude toward the world, toward people, toward everything.
Question: By force?
Answer: By force. It is not easy. This is the self-improvement work described by Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24
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Question: You have a student, and I have a very close friend, Gilad Shadmon, who has been with us for 30 years.
His father was in Auschwitz and at the age of 15 he was evacuated as part of the Death March from Auschwitz in 1945. The remaining living prisoners were marched to other camps across Poland. People died of hunger and exhaustion during the forced march and many were shot along the way.
His father recounted that he was with 12 teenagers, 15-year-olds. They were terribly hungry, but when they got hold of a piece of bread, they decided that each would take a small piece and pass it on to the next.
He was one of the first, almost a whole piece of bread was passed to him. At that moment when he was biting into it, he felt: “I cannot hold back, I will eat the whole piece.” But he restrained himself, and everyone else did too. Each took a small piece and passed it on.
This story impressed me a lot. Why do you think he restrained himself, this absolutely ravenous teenager?
Answer: Because he was connected to his friends. What else could have restrained him? And so he held back.
Question: So this is real connection?
Answer: Yes, it does not allow a person—to the point where they would just die on the spot.
Question: So this state of connection you just mentioned, it is higher than everything, right? Higher than hunger, higher than death.
Answer: Probably. I do not know, I have not experienced it. I cannot say.
Question: But you still have confidence that this happened precisely because of that? He saw these guys standing next to him and felt it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Although it is known that starving people—and there are many examples in history—forget everything, even their closest relatives. It is an instinct, they start eating. They are not to blame maybe, those people?
Answer: No.
Question: But here, these are teenagers. Is there still something in this?
Answer: At that age, people can neglect themselves. Adults, not anymore. And younger than that age, children of course, no. But teenagers, yes.
Question: So, something in adults still dies out? And teenagers still feel that there is a future in this connection?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Another question. These were starving people, and we are well-fed today. We do not think about others, that is, those who are hungry, and so on. And even teenagers today who are well-fed do not think about other hungry people.
Why? What happened? Do we need to see it for ourselves, or what? What is needed?
Answer: No, these are completely different circumstances, different areas of consciousness are activated in us, the well-fed. And therefore, we cannot be compared with them.
Comment: So you cannot say: “There was such nobility there…”
Answer: No! You cannot mechanically transfer that.
Question: You cannot compare?
Answer: No.
Question: Can this be called nobility? In the Russian language, there is such a lofty word as “nobility.”
Answer: I do not know if it is nobility. Life just does it like that.
Question: So at that moment comes the realization that connection is everything, above life and death, above everything—connection?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Sooner or later will humanity, the world, come to feel that that is everything?
Answer: It will come.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24
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Question: The more I immerse in the primary sources, the more I realize I am a quality or a detail set for general correction. How can I stop being afraid that the Creator will tell me I am not qualified?
Answer: He will not say that. While a person works, while a person wants to rise even closer to the Creator, the Creator does not throw him off.
Question: It is said that the Creator made Him feared. I disagree with that. I feel He is waiting for us to fill the emptiness with love, benevolence, and gratitude for being here, right?
Answer: Yes, this is not the fear of this world, but awe.
Question: Is faith above reason built by our mind, or is it an action against what the mind shows?
Answer: Faith above reason means that in your appeal or your imagination, bestowal, love, and connection are higher than their opposite properties.
Question: You said that there are sins, big and small. Does a sin that cannot be corrected exist?
Answer: There may be sins that cannot be corrected. But I cannot even imagine what kind of sins they might be because the Creator can do everything.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Pomegranate”
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Alexander writes:
I am not married, and I have never really had true friends. A year ago, I started watching your programs and realized why this is happening to me. I demanded too much from others when I should have demanded it from myself. But it seems too late to change now. I meet someone, things seem good, and then suddenly I feel intense irritation and I cannot control myself. I say something harsh or just disappear, avoiding meetings. I cannot overcome myself. And it all ends. I have been to psychologists, even to a psychiatrist and a fortune-teller, but it keeps repeating. I do not know what to do.”
Question: What advice can you give him?
Answer: The only advice one can give is to find a group that would support and involve him in connection between them, between all the group members and with the Creator. He should see examples of connection between people and how they rise toward connection with the Creator, and this will set him on the right path.
Comment: You are already moving toward connection with the Creator, such a group that seeks connection with the Creator.
My Response: Absolutely, yes. He must understand that this is exactly what he needs.
Comment: That is, at the level of our world: make friends here, be together here, and here…
My Response: No, that is no longer relevant.
Comment: To live normally, to meet someone, to finally get married.
My Response: Let him connect with those who are given to him from above and realize the correct connection.
Comment: So you are saying his connection should be with those who want to rise to the degree of the Creator, to rise above this world, and not with those who want to settle in this world.
My Response: Exactly.
Question: Will all this continue to expand further? Should we specifically seek such groups? There are sciences in this world, psychology…
Answer: We have to finish up everything in this world. Complete as much as possible and leave nothing for later.
To complete in this world means striving for connection between us and with the Creator and for all this to come into its correct form.
[328980]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 12-1, 12-2”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 14
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (Giving of the Torah,” Item 8
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Is recognition of evil a necessary part of faith above reason?
Answer: It is necessary because we are all evil.
Question: Where do the right intentions come from? From reason or faith above reason?
Answer: From the light of the Creator.
Question: How can I stop myself from criticizing the seemingly unworthy behavior of a neighbor?
Answer: You just need to stop yourself to criticize others. It is unacceptable.
Question: In the ten we unite, support each other, and feel great pleasure, but do not associate it with the Creator. It is hard to keep Him in focus all the time. How do we return this pleasure to Him?
Answer: You must connect yourself, the Creator, pleasure, and all other elements of this connection. You will see that everything will be easy to do this way, easy.
Question: What helps us rise above evil so that the Creator honors us with goodness?
Answer: We must desire sincerely to rise above evil, and the Creator will help.
Question: What is this force that reveals evil? Am I revealing evil or the Creator?
Answer: The Creator. The Light of the Creator.
[329123]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Order of the Work”
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Question: It is said that the food for the soul is faith. What else can fill the soul besides faith?
Answer: Any impulse to bestow is between you and between you and the Creator. It fills the soul.
Question: We always have food for the soul: we have a teacher, primary sources, and friends. How can we increase the desire for the reward to receive vessels of bestowal?
Answer: It depends on how you are connected. You must constantly show each other how important it is.
Question: If the Creator takes away the connection that nourished your soul, then does one need to look for another connection or try to awaken what He took away?
Answer: Perhaps what He took away is no longer usable and we need to look for something new. Try it. Do not delay; you must immediately respond to such conditions.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: You said that I should try to return to the Creator my reaction to what I see in the world and what I discover in life. What does it mean?
Answer: This can be said differently: respond to the Creator to what He awakens in your mind and heart.
Question: And how should I respond to this?
Answer: I do not know how you feel. After all, everything that happens to you and in the world is by the Creator.
Question: What is the correct response to the Creator for everything He does with a person?
Answer: Thank the Creator. But you have to feel this within yourself.
[329178]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Question: How does one avoid confusing faith above reason with faith below reason?
Answer: Faith above reason is faith despite reason. Faith below reason is when you invent faith, which does not require any work.
Question: Do we need to confirm that a righteous person is righteous?
Answer: No, it is absolutely not necessary. Faith above reason can arise without any connection between a person and his teacher.
Question: How do we find the righteous man we follow in the ten?
Answer: You need to turn to the teacher teaching you and do actions that help you adhere to him so that you can follow his words as truth.
[329053]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith and Reason”
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Question: Is our ultimate task to feel the correct reality within ourselves, that is, to move from the external picture of the world to the internal one?
Answer: Of course! Undoubtedly. We must arrive at the correct picture of the universe without any distortions. After all, it is precisely egoism, which deliberately acts as an obstacle for us, that projects our inner reality outward and shows it to us as if it exists outside.
At present, within myself, I only feel my inanimate, vegetative, and animate states. But my human state I sense outside of myself because I am an absolute egoist.
To the extent that I become connected to external objects, accept them as my own, with participation, with sacrifice, even with love, to that extent, I feel them within me, as a mother feels the fetus within her, and to that extent, the entire universe seems to enter me.
Question: Is this already the end when I feel the entire universe completely?
Answer: Yes, of course, the end! Because this is the culmination of my unity with all of nature. When all of nature enters me, and I feel it within me and become an integral part of this nature, then the sum of all these impressions, parts, is felt within me as my adhesion with the Creator, with the highest common thought of nature.
[328757]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World as We don’t Know it” 1/12/12
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Question: At one time, while giving lectures, you mentioned the New Age movement but stopped doing it. Why?
Answer: I do not remember why I touched upon that movement. I have always taught pure Kabbalah based on the sources of Baal HaSulam. All the years of my life after the age of 30, I have been doing only this and do not hide that I do not know all the other sources well.
I do not engage in comparative analysis between Kabbalah and, say, Sufism, religions, or philosophies. Not at all! I am a specialist specifically in the field of Kabbalistic methodology.
And every time, I am convinced of how pure, strict, and sharply directed toward the goal of creation it is and how much it is the goal of our evolution. That is why I have no desire to be engaged in anything else! I am not interested in any New Age! There is no need to talk about that at all.
I am not interested in anything other than a deep internal understanding of the upper world through the methodology of Kabbalah because I see how it works.
It takes a person many years to study it, but it fully, tangibly introduces him to a new world that reveals itself to him in his attainment, sensation, in all his states, past, and future. He understands, feels, and comprehends everything within himself!
When you see this, you recognize it when it forms in you and no longer have any questions about other methods that people have invented. You remain only with this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12
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Question: Why do we feel that there are some good and evil people and deeds outside of us?
Answer: This is our internal and external perception of reality since everything inside is depicted to us as kind, our own, and everything outside is harmful, evil, alien.
Question: As a rule, a person, no matter what he does can always justify himself. And how can we justify those “scoundrels” that we see outside?
Answer: You should reveal that it is you. Through understanding, reflection, and then through correcting yourself with the help of the surrounding society, to the point that you begin to perceive the world that way.
Question: You often talk about the world as a part of yourself, but at the same time sometimes you say: “They, they, they…”. What do you mean by “they”?
Answer: They are my thoughts, qualities, and feelings that I perceive as existing outside of me. That is, these are my thoughts, but I do not agree with them.
Question: Do you treat them as external factors?
Answer: Of course! How else?
Question: In this case, what is your task? To change these qualities?
Answer: By working on yourself make these qualities feel positive, and then to this extent they will become mine, in my explicit feeling. And to the extent that they do not clearly feel like mine, they will seem external to me.
Being in the spiritual world means that I feel both bad and good qualities, and in general, the whole world exists in me and at the same time outside of me. This duality helps me to correct myself faster and feel the whole world as my personal inner whole, like the ten Sefirot of my soul. And there is nothing but this soul, and all that I perceive is all its parts.
Question: How often do you see progress in your change of perception?
Answer: This progress is start-stop, impulsive, which can be compared to a tiger before a jump: first it sways, and then jumps, then sways and jumps again. And every time you jump, attainment is achieved, the inclusion of some additional, supposedly former external, area.
We study in Kabbalah that the soul was divided into internal and external parts: Galgalta veEynaim–AHAP. Or to the root-soul-body (Shoresh-Neshama-Guf), which a person feels in himself, and to the garments and structures, that is, buildings and the world (Levush-Heichal), which he feels outside himself.
[328870]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World as We don’t Now It” 1/12/12
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Question: How can we feel that faith above reason influences us now and that it is leading us out of low states?
Answer: You do have knowledge, but go against it in the power of faith, contrary to your knowing. That is how you move forward.
If you are trying to unite hearts, it means that there is faith in them. Whenever there is a chance, you must re-choose the point of faith above reason and move from there.
Question: How can we act correctly above knowledge regarding the material world, and is it necessary to seek balance?
Answer: There is no need. Just cut yourself off from the material world whenever you can. Engage in spiritual things, and if necessary, return to the material.
[329213]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith Is Called “Action”
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Question: If the Creator shows some miracles coming from our unification, should I believe there is something even higher? How should I work with it? Should I give thanks for everything or not settle for little and ask for a bigger miracle?
Answer: No, we have no right to disagree with the Creator since, by doing so, we break the connection between us and Him.
There are no miracles; it just seems so to us. We must ask the Creator to allow us to treat our friends the way we imagine our relationship with Him. The whole system will balance itself this way.
[329128]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Pomegranate”
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Question: The more a person puts in internal and external efforts to please others, the more he feels rejection. What kind of punishment is this, and how can one get out of it?
Answer: We must always strive for love and look for opportunities to show love to our friends and from them to the Creator.
Question: And what if such a search turns a person in the opposite direction—the more one searches for ways to show love, the more obstacles one gets in response?
Answer: Well, that is good. That is given to us so that we can show even more love.
[329216]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: How do you raise the importance of dissemination?
Answer: According to the importance, what is determining, the cause or the effect.
Since any of our actions can only be performed under the influence of the light, we must first take care about the source of the light, how to awaken it and how to direct it correctly. To do this, we need to place the object which needs to be influenced by the light before the light.
Through what should it be directed toward the light? Through the world, through the group, then it will be aimed at the action of bestowal and the light will come to it from the opposite side.
The thing is that everything here works not as it seems to us in our world (it only seems), that we are the cause and then comes the effect. On the contrary, when you become the right cause, the effect comes to you from above, the light, and you see that in fact, it by itself was the cause.
It is the same as if we correctly perceive events, we begin to switch the cause and effect between them.
Let’s say, a bullet is flying toward a window. Before the bullet has even reached it, the glass is already breaking. Since the glass must break, such an action occurs in our world that causes it to break.
Question: How do you constantly perform this analysis? After all, it is constantly changing.
Answer: I live in it. I constantly have a double reality because I work in it and see how it depends on my properties (there is nothing objective here) until I transfer everything from my actions, from my properties, to the side of the Creator who works with me at the beginning and at the end.
That is, the beginning of the action is in Him. The process of the action depends on how it will proceed in me, on how much I am connected with the Creator. The end of the action is also in Him. So, the beginning and the end are clearly defined. I can only feel the intermediate state either closer to the Creator or closer to creation.
[328684]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change the World for the Better?” 1/23/12
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Question: If I know that the Creator is good and does good, what does it mean to rise in faith above reason?
Answer: It means to believe that the Creator is good and does good in all life circumstances in everything that happens to you, even in the most terrifying states.
When you go through such states, you still believe that the Creator truly loves you and treats you with love, even though you may not feel it on your flesh.
[329091]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith and Reason”
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Question: Within us lies tremendous spiritual force. How can we unlock this force in which creations are to unite with the Creator? Is it only through the screen?
Answer: Only through the Creator. The Creator will do everything necessary, both the screen and the connection.
Question: What should I internally ask the Creator for?
Answer: It is up to you what you ask for. It all depends on your relationship with Him, what desire the Creator evokes in you, and with what desire you approach Him. Ask to understand this desire and ask to fulfill it so that He can help you with this.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Order of the Work”
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Question: When you focus on dissemination, how do you calculate which is better?
Answer: You just have to feel it; words can’t convey it to people anyway. When they start to feel it, then they will see. Just like every day we become more and more agile and adapt to new sensations and new opportunities.
If a man from the middle of nowhere hears us, he will say: “What’s the matter? I don’t understand.”
And if you tell an advanced person about this who understands, say, computers, he will say: “Yes, I saw something like that. You’re saying the same thing as there and there.”
Meaning, people will increasingly agree with you. Therefore, we need to advance humanity, and then it will understand us.
We shouldn’t dig into this, there is no special mystery here. In fact, this is the attainment of reality, which is part of my specialty, ontology. Anyone can go in and study it, take the “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” and read what Kabbalists write about it.
Comment: But this is a completely different perception of reality.
My Response: People started talking about it 5,000 years ago. But they were Kabbalists who began to discover a new reality.
Rambam writes that the world we feel is under the speed of light. How could he talk about the speed of light in the 12th century? And he’s not the first. We see what Kabbalists wrote back in the days of Aristotle, Plato, and other philosophers.
Reaching the next degree does not depend on time. You can dress according to your time, use the tools, instruments, and everyday life appropriate for that time, and inside yourself, at the level of “Man,” be at the degree of the Creator and attain all actuality, all reality.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change the World for the Better?” 1/23/12
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Comment: When you explain something, everyone understands you in their own way. That is, everyone’s filter refracts your energy in its own way. It reaches a certain part of the layer of desires that stand behind every person, be it a musician, or an artist, or a machine operator.
My Response: Yes, each of them understands in the way that is best for him. People are still grouped according to some characteristics. They are all different, but in principle each of them is special.
If you treat them with increased sensitivity for research, you will see that none of them is like the others.
Not with anything! They have such a specific internal combinatorics between all desires, properties, thoughts, and initial data, especially after they developed in different societies under the influence of different environments, that it is simply incredible to compare them with each other.
Question: But with all our characteristics, even if we are close to each other, how can we overcome this threshold of differences?
Answer: Unite not by common properties, since they practically do not exist, but with a common goal and complement of each other’s properties. That is, it does not matter to me who you are. It is important to me that you and I have the same goal and the same path to it.
Question: It happens that people gather based on some common characteristics: some like this, others like that. But internally they are completely different. Is it good when people group according to similar inclinations?
Answer: It is not us who are grouping, but it is happening from above. The Creator, the upper force, groups us because in this way we can complement each other.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. One Word – A Million Meanings” 1/8/12
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Question: It is written in the sources that one must believe above reason that the Creator wanted to do good to His creations. How does this differ from the common understanding that everything happens for the best, hope for the best and everything will be good?
Answer: It may seem very similar. But the point is that faith above reason obliges you to perceive everything happening in the world as an action of the Creator, which is always positive.
Question: Can it be said that part of humanity still lives by this principle?
Answer: Yes, but they accept it through reason, not through faith above reason. The difference is that you are connected to the Creator if you operate on faith above reason. But if it is through reason, it does not bind you to anything.
Question: What does it mean to adhere to the Creator in faith above reason?
Answer: It means to connect with Him and feel Him in all your desires and thoughts.
[329085]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Order of the Work”
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Question: You said we must perform actions to cling to the teacher. What other actions can we perform in the ten? We pray, attend lessons, and try to fulfill…
Answer: If you unite with each other and want to gain strength in the connection, with the help of which you can go against your decision, against your ideas, then you can already rise to the degree of faith above reason and thus move forward.
[329078]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith and Reason”
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Question: How can we overcome the distance between the calculation of the mind that the Creator is kind and loving and our true feelings in the heart if they are different?
Answer: It will come to you. In the meantime, make calculations above the heart.
Question: Is faith a goal or a means?
Answer: Faith is a means of attainment, of feeling, the Creator.
Question: Not believing your feelings and your knowledge, but seeing and feeling everything through the perception of your friends is faith above reason. What happens to us if we succeed?
Answer: You will form a Kli with which you can ascend to the Creator.
Question: What does the force of faith depend on?
Answer: On your desire for unity in which you strive together toward the Creator.
Question: Who is the righteous of the generation, and how does he manage to receive knowledge directly from the light of Hochma?
Answer: A righteous person is one who reaches such a connection with the Creator when he receives light directly from the Creator, and we all connect to him together.
Question: How do you learn to turn off the first egoistic reaction of the heart?
Answer: Only by prayer. With any words, turn to the Creator to correct your heart.
Question: You often advise the whole ten, but we do not know how everyone heard you. Is the desired state of the ten when everyone has an opinion as we figure out how to implement Rav’s words?
Answer: It does not matter if the opinions are different or the same. The main thing is that you learn to work together.
[329074]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith and Reason”
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Question: When we follow you, we periodically receive the light of knowledge. How can the ten achieve such a state without interruption? What do we have to do?
Answer: Friends in the ten must follow the teacher’s instructions as if they know, understand, and see that this is how we do everything.
Together they support each other and thus follow their leader. Then gradually they begin to understand what they are lacking and how to obtain knowledge within faith so that faith will bring them knowledge.
Question: What should I demand from myself?
Answer: You must demand only one thing from yourselves and the friends: that all of you connect with the group in the center of our circle. From the center of the circle, you would look at the Creator.
[329045]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith and Reason”
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Question: If the Creator is good and does good, then does punishment exist at all in spirituality?
Answer: Of course everything exists in spirituality, both help and punishment. It may not exist in this world, but it definitely exists in the spiritual realm.
Punishment is intended to make us realize that we are obliged to fulfill spiritual conditions for our own good.
For example, if you now lack spiritual importance, then this is a punishment. You should not accept such a situation. If you do not agree with such a thing, you will be able to justify it and rise higher.
[329223]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
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Question: In the articles of Kabbalists it is written that there is complete and partial faith. What is the difference between them?
Answer: You do not know what will be revealed to you at the next level, but what has now been revealed in all your Kelim, when they are all filled with the light of Hassadim it means that you are in complete faith.
Partial faith manifests itself when not all of your Kelim are filled with Ohr Hassadim.
[329170]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Question: Any object that is perceived by a person as external consists of combinatorics: inanimate, vegetative, animate. All these objects are simply drawn to us like this, but they consist of 613 pixels. And what is the difference between them and the person I see?
Answer: Each person has a different set of desires. That is, there are 613 desires in each one, but in a different arrangement, in a different combination.
Question: But if I see a person outside of myself?
Answer: What do you mean you see him outside of you? In fact, you see him within yourself, you depict him in your feelings. It seems to you that he is outside of you; we have such an idea that supposedly all this exists outside of us. I can touch it and feel it that these objects can affect me positively or negatively from the outside, and all this is inside me. That is the illusion.
Question: Where is the boundary between the fact that I need to perceive the world as a part of myself and as a world that exists separately?
Answer: When you work on yourself and try to get “out of yourself,” this boundary constantly expands. You work on expanding this boundary. You see where the feeling of the world inside you ends and the world that you perceive outside of you begins.
By working on your qualities, on getting out of yourself, on developing ever broader altruistic qualities, fields, you increasingly include in yourself what seemed to you before to be outside of you, clearly feeling it.
It becomes your world. You see everything outside of yourself, and you clearly feel that it is yours, it is within you. And you play with this duality.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World as We Don’t Know It” 1/12/12
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Question: What is good and evil? Everyone talks about goodness, friendship, and unity. And you say the same things, but how can you tell the difference?
Answer: I speak about these categories only as means that help one discover one’s faulty state, come to a corrected state, and achieve complete unity with nature.
I am not against what others say, and in no way am I trying to check them, compare them, or engage in some kind of comparative analysis. For what?
If they talk about good, great. But for what is this good? How correct is this, how real is it? There are so many opportunities in the world to do something good. Is this really good or not?
Who checks, who feels, who measures? Are they the same egoists as you? They can tell you what is good based on their egoistic qualities. And so can you. So you will understand each other perfectly. But in fact?
Therefore, there must be the emergence of some standard of good that is independent of us. If it does not exist, then thousands of beliefs, religions, philosophies, and opinions arise, and each one is right. Then you cannot do anything until some dimension is achieved.
All techniques and technologies start with some measure: meter, kilogram, and so on. Without this, people would not understand each other and could not do anything.
But in our feelings, there are no such measurements, so everyone is right.
You can talk to anyone, from Nazis to pacifists, from anarchists to communists, and they can convince you of anything. In our development, we have already gone through all possible options, except the very last ones. After all, there was once cannibalism, but it can still repeat itself in our “bright” future. And we always felt that yes, this is true or this has a place.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Good and Evil” 1/22/12
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Question: It is written in the sources that we fill the void between us with the greatness of the Creator. What is this empty space?
Answer: We fill such voids in our hearts where we previously felt nothing and never thought that there was something there with the greatness of the Creator.
The Creator grants us the opportunity to fill the empty space by the property of bestowal.
Question: Is it necessary to maintain material emptiness, that is, the desire to be content with only what is necessary in order to correctly realize spiritual emptiness?
Answer: You need to be in balance. A person must have both. One must calmly work with all one’s desires.
[329181]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Pomegranate”
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Question: We must learn how to use our receiving Kelim for bestowal, but in fact we are the ones who get corrected. In this case, how should we deal with shame?
Answer: Shame is a good quality. It corrects us and gradually turns us in a way that we stop receiving for our own sake.
Question: For me, the Creator is so great that for His sake I am ready to bestow to everyone. But at the same time, I no longer want His revelation.
On the contrary, I am ashamed if He reveals Himself. I want to hide before Him because He is so great in my eyes. What is this faith called?
Answer: It is called simple faith; when you do not desire anything other than all the opportunities that the Creator gives you to help others, to support and encourage them.
[329166]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/11/24, Writings of Rabash “The Reason for the Faith”
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Question: Among your students, there are certain layers: the so-called “light cavalry” and the “core.” Each occupies their own place, and no one should replace anyone else. But how can a person determine their place?
Answer: They determine it themselves. In the process of studying, everyone finds their place.
It is like, for example, balls floating in a thick layer of liquid, where each ball occupies a certain place according to its specific gravity, density, and the density of the liquid. One floats on the surface, another closer to the bottom, and so on. Similarly, the students are distributed according to the properties, qualities of their desire, and intention.
And none of them interfere with each other. They are all in a relatively suspended state: above is the Creator, below is our world, and they are in between these two boundaries. Therefore, it depends on each individual at what level they will hang in this thickness. Just as when a hot air balloon is heated, it rises, and when it cools down, it descends.
Comment: But every person by nature wants to be the best.
My Response: Yes, that’s true. But the thing is, they must work against their egoism, and that’s not so simple. Not everyone can be the best. To achieve that, one must apply a lot of effort directed against oneself.
Question: Still, everyone wants to become a great Kabbalist. But does it depend not on the person, but on their properties?
Answer: Yes and no. Even throughout history, there have been Kabbalists who initially had very few abilities for this.
We’re not talking about such great Kabbalists as the Ari. They are special souls placed from above as cornerstones on the common path of humanity.
But if we’re talking simply about a person, here there are absolutely no limitations for anyone.
[328675]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Find Yourself?” 1/27/12
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Happy is he who, amid torments,
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Like a rose that blooms thoughtlessly,
And lighter than a shadow running on water (Anna Akhmatova).
Question: Do you agree that we walk amid torments and anxieties? Is life like that?
Answer: Probably. Yes.
Comment: Second, she says that happy is he who like a rose blooms thoughtlessly.
My Response: In general, yes. Just as the laws of nature push it to develop, so it grows.
Question: Just as a rose grows according to nature, should a person also grow?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Similar to what should we grow?
Answer: Similar to nature. This means that by studying nature, we should discover capabilities within ourselves to mimic it.
Question: But everything in nature is built on instincts, and we are rational beings.
Answer: And we should do this rationally. It is very, very difficult. But that is exactly what we should do.
Question: So, we see how nature submits to universal harmony, and we with our reason should submit to it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What do I need to do with my mind that tells me that I have my “self,” my opinions, and so on?
Answer: Nullify all of that as much as possible.
Question: And is this the path to happiness if I can nullify it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Anna Akhmatova says that one should live lightly. She writes: “To live like a shadow running on water.” That is, you do not turn the water back; you are like a shadow running on water. In your opinion, is it by nature?
Answer: A person should resemble a shadow running on water, but at the same time, they must understand that it requires working on oneself.
Question: And again, we come back to the same thing—to annulment?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What is this rule that is so difficult for us to fulfill?
Answer: Egoism must be annulled!
Comment: It is so hard! So hard to take this step!
My Response: The main thing is not to forget.
Question: Then what is the purpose of my “self”?
Answer: Precisely to annul it.
Question: I am talented in something, I am successful, I know that my opinion is correct. What should I do about it?
Answer: You need to dig all of that out. Like using a knife to dig out the rotten part from an apple and discard it.
Question: Is my protruding “self” the rotten part?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What will remain then?
Answer: Something good, fit for life.
Question: What about my opinion? What should I do with it?
Answer: If it remains after such a transformation, then you will live with it.
Question: What is my “self” given to me for? It turns out it is given to me precisely so that I can…
Answer: So that you can annul it and instead find in the surrounding world, in nature, such forces that together would enable you to create yourself similar to nature, similar to the Creator. That is the main thing.
Question: In which case can a person consider their life happy?
Answer: I think a person can consider himself happy if he takes a step forward toward the universal, unified nature, and integrates into it as an integral whole.
Question: How do you personally evaluate your life? As happy?
Answer: I evaluate my life, overall, as happy. I have searched a lot and spent a lot of time testing myself—what and how. I have not reached the highest category of my searches. But I am happy that I still found out where the truth is and how to approach it. We will continue with the rest.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/18/24
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Question: From the egoistic point of view, it seems wrong that building a connection with the Creator and afterward with our friends is easier than the other way around. How do you really build connection?
Answer: Building connection correctly means constantly inspiring your friends to reach a higher state together with them.
Question: So the connection is built with the Creator first?
Answer: There is no need to build anything with the Creator. With the Creator, everything will work out for you anyway. The main thing is to connect with the friends.
Question: The primary sources state that one needs to ask for the Creator’s help. If I ask for help from my friends, does it replace appealing to the Creator?
Answer: Those are not the same thing, but one does not interfere with the other.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Pomegranate”
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Question: Although we speak the same language, your words carry a whole new layer when you explain things. That is, your explanation in no way matches my understanding. There is a barrier: you are trying to convey—I am trying to understand.
There is a concrete layer between us. How can I understand why we have such a difference in perception?
Answer: Because we work on different frequencies. Definitions I exist in, you do not. There is no need to talk about it, complain, or suffer from it.
At your level, you will not understand me like a child and his parents. So what? The child will grow up and understand. He should try to grasp what they are showing him according to his level. And that is enough!
There is nothing you can do. I do not suffer because many people do not understand what I want to convey. Everyone has their own goal and guiding light; therefore, everyone will grasp it in due time. I teach and give general education. Later, each person seeks and develops himself further based on the characteristics of his soul.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. One Word – a Million Meanings” 1/8/12
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Question: When people get intoxicated from the “wine of Torah,” can they lose the desire to purify themselves?
Answer: No. It is a special kind of intoxication. It elevates degree by degree.
Question: In the article “Who Comes to Purify,” Baal HaSulam talks about two states: the state of coming and the state of coming and going. What is the difference?
Answer: The difference is that a person comes with a problem and leaves with a gift.
Question: How does a constant prayer correctly combine with joy?
Answer: Joy in prayer, prayer in joy. There are no contradictions between them.
Question: How can one reach the attribute of “the one who came to purify” and stand before the Creator?
Answer: The most important thing is to study the sources, try to feel each article, and then you will be able to present yourself to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Who Comes to Purify”
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Everyone should examine himself and see how much effort he is giving to the society (Rabash, Article No. 17, Part 2, 1984, “The Agenda of the Assembly”).
Question: How can we check for this? You can see on the outside that everyone is doing some work that depends on their character qualities, abilities, and free time. But how can you check one’s inner work, one’s thoughts?
Answer: Yes, you can still check the level of care one has before the gathering. One is ready to spend time, effort, and intention for friends to feel like a necessary condition that rightly influences him and helps everyone come into one unified whole.
Question: But how can he check this?
Answer: Only based on his feelings.
Comment: But this is not objective, feelings are subjective.
Answer: What can he do? That is all he and each of his friends have. As a result, when they gather together, they should talk about it, see how much they strive to connect, and how important each person is to everyone.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/4/24
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Comment: According to Kabbalah, everything consists of 613 desires. Every element that I see consists of different combinatorics of 613 desires.
My Response: Not just any object, but a person! Every human consists of a combination of 613 desires. We don’t talk about anyone besides him because all the inanimate, vegetative, and animal elements that seem to exist outside of us are also our desires.
Question: How, for example, can a stone be viewed in relation to our desires?
Answer: Very simply, my desire of the inanimate level draws such an object to me, and evokes in me the feeling of this object.
Question: That is, a stone is, in principle, one desire?
Answer: No, it is the sum of my 613 desires, which are currently at the inanimate level of development and appear to me in this form. The combination of various partial vectors adds up to a vector of such a level designated as a stone in me.
For example, behind the image on your computer screen, there are also vectors.
Now you see me on the monitor and then in your head. In the same way, the picture of the world is drawn by vectors in our heads. What about the monitor? The monitor (screen) is inside us, but we don’t feel it; it seems as if everything happens outside.
And why was this done, this “outside” orientation? Mainly so that we can work with our egoism until this supposedly external vision becomes our internal one.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World as We Don’t Know It” 1/12/12
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Question: Why do true and false relate only to my scrutiny, while sweet and bitter relate to my corrections? How does this happen?
Answer: When we approach true corrections, it turns out this way for us—true and false, bitter and sweet.
Question: How does the scrutiny of true and false relate to faith above reason?
Answer: Faith above reason helps us identify those egoistic desires we can correct with an intention for the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”
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Question: Should each person take care of his own desire for the Creator, or should we ignite desire for spirituality in the ten?
Answer: Do not wait for igniting the desire. If you have no need for spirituality, then there is no point in studying Kabbalah at all.
When you start to cool down, you must integrate with your friends, obey them, and then they will pull you along with them.
Question: What desires can be taken from the world and attributed to the Creator?
Answer: Any, because it is all His work.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Order of the Work”
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Question: What is the perfect fulfillment from the upper that grows faith and bestowal in us?
Answer: When we open up to the Creator and wish to receive what He gives us, we gradually begin to feel all kinds of influences from Him.
That is how faith (Emuna) and reason (Daat) form in us, and then faith is higher than reason (Emuna lemala mi haDaat).
Question: The upper conceals himself so that the lower can appreciate him. How can we cultivate the greatness of the upper to acquire new Kelim?
Answer: Nurturing the greatness of the upper is a separate job. But you should at least tune yourself to what the upper says is holy and you want to follow it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith and Reason”
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Question: Is it possible to simplify the Kabbalistic methodology even more?
Answer: I am sure that it is possible. However, I am not able to lower it below today’s level.
But I think that my students will eventually be able to do this, and on the other hand, the world will come closer to understanding the methodology. The world will approach from below and rise to the Kabbalists, and they will descend to the world. And as a result, a greater understanding will come.
Question: How can we avoid all kinds of misconceptions? After all, a huge number of currents can develop.
Answer: It does not matter. You cannot do anything. We see that after Rabash several branches were also formed, but life still takes its toll, especially in our time when everything is accelerating so much.
Everything quickly comes out, and the world sorts out the schemes it needs. And then the revelation of evil happens very quickly.
Therefore, although I am sure that some of the students will follow completely wrong paths, the bulk will still stick together. They will become the group that will follow this path further.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Will Remain after Laitman?” 1/26/12
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Question: The more I progress, the more my imperfection is revealed. Is this the Creator’s help?
Answer: Yes. The fact that the Creator reveals more and more imperfections to you is His help to you. Thank Him for that.
Question: What is this point that feels shame at the difference in qualities with the Creator?
If our qualities are opposite to Him, where does shame come from?
Answer: Shame comes from above. The Creator sends it in a form and portion that you need to feel to rise to the next level.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Who Comes to Purify”
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Question: The more we become involved in studying and with the ten, the more we feel our lack. We move on only by understanding that we are still far from the Creator. Is that correct?
Answer: No, it is wrong. Advancement consists of revealing evil in each of you and the entire ten, and to the extent it is revealed, you are getting closer to the Creator and not moving away.
The fact that you feel more and more opposite to the Creator speaks precisely about your approach to the Creator.
Question: How can we raise prayers to the Creator for correction if egoism conceals the necessity to correct ourselves? Where can we get strength and depth?
Answer: Through friends, through the connection between you; you have to get it from each other.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Who Comes to Purify”
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Question: How does the mind accept a different perception of reality? You often say that mind is harmful. But on the other hand, it helps.
Answer: The mind serves desires. If desires are aimed at striving toward the goal of creation, toward balance with nature, with the Creator, then this mind is beneficial. It should be activated, developed, stimulated.
But if the mind is directed toward harming others, then of course it needs to be somehow tamed because it leads us backward.
That is, if a person is overwhelmed by any animalistic passions, it does not matter. The main thing is for the mind, which belongs to the human level, to be directed toward achieving unity with creatures and merging with nature, with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World as We don’t Know it” 1/12/12
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Question: How does the scrutiny in the mind affect our heart when we attain some truth transmitted to us by the sages? Conversely, how does it affect the mind if the heart figures out what is sweet and bitter?
Answer: This is how it happens because a person feels bitter and sweet in parallel with truth and false.
Question: How can the Creator hate if He is kind and loving? Where does the hatred come from?
Answer: We say in human language that the Creator hates or loves so we can better understand each other.
Question: The light came and left, and the memory remained. Are we working with this memory when we figure out the categories of true-false or bitter-sweet?
Answer: Yes, this memory is called a Reshimo (an information, spiritual record).
Question: Is there a difference between bringing contentment to the Creator and taking care of the Creator? And how do you find your sincere concern for the Creator and not for yourself?
Answer: True work for the sake of the Creator can only happen after correcting our common Kli. Therefore, it is good that you are thinking, worrying, and caring about it now.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”
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“And then pray” means that everyone should examine himself and see how much effort he is giving to the society. Then, when he sees that he is powerless to do anything for society, there is room for prayer to the Creator to help him and give him strength and desire to engage in love of others (Rabash, Article 17, Part Two, “The Agenda of the Assembly”).
Question: In the article “The Agenda of the Assembly,” Rabash writes that after a person has checked himself, realizes he has no strength, and turns to the Creator, he must think that his prayer has been accepted.
What does it mean? Is it that you don’t receive an obvious answer, but must think your prayer is accepted?
Answer: Nobody receives an explicit answer from above. It is just that when we put a lot of effort into getting closer to each other and clinging to each other, all together in this circle of friends trying to achieve some kind of joint effort, we begin to understand how important it is for us, how necessary it is, and, in general, how real it is.
Question: It seems to you that you turn to the Creator but do not receive an answer. That is, the friends do not become important in your eyes. Is it different from how it works when what you ask is what you get?
Answer: No, they become important. There is no such thing as “asked and received.” Gradually, the friends become closer and begin to feel that there is truly a connection between them. And then they can test it in their sensations.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/4/24
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Question: Did Kabbalists like Baal HaSulam and Rabash seek to spread Kabbalah to the world to reduce the pressure on it?
Answer: No, not for that reason. Kabbalists seek to present Kabbalah to the world so that it quickly comes to adhesion with the Creator in a good way because that is the best state for the world. But most importantly, because it is desirable to the Creator.
And although you feel very sorry for the world, this is not out of love for it, but primarily out of love for the Creator, because you must work more from the desire to give Him pleasure.
The same self-centered struggle is happening here: for what? Certainly not for oneself anymore. For the sake of the world or the sake of the Creator? And here arises such duality. After all, it is impossible to build a coherent action without all the components—me, world, Creator—being put together in the right packaging, since only then will they yield results. Therefore, it is necessary to work on their correct combination.
It is like aiming; you must align all axes so that your eye, the front sight, and the object are all on the same line. Then you hit the target. It is the same here.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change the World for the Better?” 1/23/12
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To achieve Dvekut, they must achieve equivalence of form, meaning “As He is merciful, you, too, are merciful (Rabash, Article No. 16, 1984, “Concerning Bestowal”).
Question: What does it mean, “as He is merciful”? It is not like I have the Creator before my eyes, and I understand what He does and take His example.
Answer: This is not necessary. The Creator’s actions do not matter to you. You must do them yourself rather than study what the Creator does. If you want to do something good for Him that pleases in feeling and action, then you must do it.
The essence of actions for the sake of the Creator is that if the Creator is great in your eyes, doing something for Him will bring you enjoyment because this is the purpose of creation.
Therefore, man’s task is to make the Creator great in his eyes. Since he does not know who the Creator is but knows His main property is bestowal, he must magnify this property.
It turns out that if the property of bestowal is essential in a person’s life, he can perform actions for the sake of bestowal and even enjoy them.
Question: Does the desire to become like the Creator lead me to pleasure?
Answer: If you desire it, then of course it leads to pleasure. You are happy, you enjoy it, you are proud of it.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 3/28/24
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Question: What does it mean to seek the truth? After all, we know that a person always receives a desire from the Creator and through this desire seeks the path to the Creator.
Answer: When a person actively engages in the work of correction, it accelerates their correction process and indicates that the person has matured.
Question: But does it matter that the desire itself is not yet corrected?
Answer: It will be corrected.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”
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Question: Should a person necessarily learn through mistakes?
Answer: There is no other way since comprehension is possible only when you understand two opposites in combination.
You must simultaneously perform analysis, separation, synthesis, and combination. It is only when you do all that you get an understanding of what is going on.
Otherwise, there are no feelings. The fact is that I want to feel something I do not have. It is not in me, and I have a negative attitude toward it. When I receive it, then I feel it in me.
But, it is in me. There is me with my desire and something that fills this desire. Then, two opposite objects know what one without the other and one with the other mean. It is what comprehension consists of.
It is the same in our world, everywhere, in everything. That is why we always give children a variety of exercises and present them with all sorts of difficulties so that they collect, build, and develop.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mistakes Develop” 2/7/12
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Question: How can you explain what the upper world is to a person?
Answer: It is impossible to explain. I can only say one thing: what you are feeling right now, you are feeling in your desires. Your current desires are very, very small.
You can feel the upper world only by expanding your desires through connecting them with others. That is, you unite all the hearts and all the minds of the world next to the desires within yourself to realize these desires. And so does everyone.
Then every one, having gathered the whole world within, connects with others. And then, representing the union squared, each one connects with everyone once again. That is already the third spiritual degree. And there are 125 such degrees. In other words, it is the multiple incorporation of souls embedded into each other.
Imagine what a powerful feeling one achieves when you simply absorb everything that the world can absorb, all hearts and all minds. And then it all increases by the square power, fourth power, and so on.
Thus, a collective consciousness forms—the common soul, Adam. And its power has no quantitative expression.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Feeling of the Creator” 2/2/12
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“He who comes to purify is aided.” This means that one should always be in a state of “coming” (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 131 “Who Comes to Purify”).
A person should always check whether he has something to turn to the Creator with.
The Creator is only waiting for a request for correction. This is a pleasure for Him, this is the best state for Him.
Therefore, as soon as we find out what needs to be corrected, we need to check ourselves and turn to the Creator.
Question: What does it mean: I have been aided to get purified?
Answer: You are helped from above by being pulled up.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Who Comes to Purify”
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Question: How can you verify the authenticity of bestowal when habit becoming second nature brings it to automatism?
Answer: Bestowal cannot be brought to automatism because to perform the act of bestowal one must halt the automatic act of receiving and reorient oneself.
Question: If bestowal seems very sweet to me while the egoism in which I exist seems bitter, what is my work in the heart?
Answer: The work is in making egoism appear so bitter to you that you no longer wish to be in it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”
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Question: How can you open up to the Creator if shame for your imperfection does not allow you to do this?
Answer: These are your corrections. The Creator already knows everything. You cannot hide anything from Him, only from yourself.
Therefore, relax and imagine yourself naked in front of the Creator. You do not have to be ashamed of him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Who Comes to Purify”
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Question: Why is there such a complex system in our spiritual work: men’s tens, women’s tens, and a lot of different books that need to be studied?
Answer: This is only necessary in order to correct the heart.
We need so many books and courses because we are too entangled in ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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Question: Is your function to provide information to your students?
Answer: It is not just information. I give out the energy that builds you, each one in his own personal form.
This energy is not formed in any way because you form it, each one for yourself.
It is like manna from heaven: one wants barbecue, the second wants porridge with milk, the third wants compote, and so on. And everyone feels in this manna from heaven what they want. Everything depends on one’s vessels, i.e., on his desires.
I feed you this manna, and you digest it within yourself and create your own cognition, comprehension, sensation, and research tools.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. One Word—a Million Meanings” 1/8/12
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Question: Is it necessary for everyone to dine together in the family?
Answer: No, it is not necessary. Usually, the wife and children eat separately and the husband eats separately. But once a week on Shabbat, they all dine together.
We are naturally designed in such a way that the wife is the home, and the husband works and earns. This comes from spiritual roots. We did not invent this, and it is not for us to change it. We just have to continue on this path.
Question: Why does this seem primitive to many people today?
Answer: I do not think it is primitive. I believe it preserves the family when the mother cooks for everyone, and if the daughters are already grown up, they help her, and everyone sits at the same table and dines together. This strengthens the family.
Question: But still, if I now tell myself that your place is in the kitchen, that is your job: both spiritually and physically, it is like… There are days when I spend most of my time at home doing household chores, but at some point, I feel that it dulls me. Are these some new qualities in women?
Answer: Perhaps. But the most important thing is simply to understand how we can be closer to each other. And the meal is certainly a very important, shared property. After all, while preparing it, we think about each other: what he likes, what I like, and how we can enjoy the prepared food together. It is a whole process.
Comment: When I cook for the family, I really love listening to your lessons. If I do not turn on a lesson, I feel like something is missing. Then I turn it on, and it feels completely different.
Answer: Correct, spiritual nourishment goes along with regular food.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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In a family of Kabbalists, the wife fills her husband not only with food calories but also with her desires, and he must fill her with his spiritual work.
Desire is transmitted through food. Rabash was amazingly developed: he could tell by the food what was happening in the family.
Question: Can a woman tie a man to her by what she cooks for him?
Answer: Of course. It is not in vain that it is said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Question: And what is the way to a woman’s heart?
Answer: Only through one’s attitude. Nothing else. Show her love and affection. Spouses should not just exist in the same area but should be connected spiritually and physically.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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Rabash writes in the article “Partnership” that a man must work. Just as he used to go hunting animals, today he goes to earn money and brings his earnings home.
Question: Is it in the nature of men to work hard or do they like to earn and bring money to the family?
Answer: It depends on the wife: how she sets him up, how she sees him off, and how she greets him once he is back. This is very important and can even affect earnings.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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Comment: We often come across the fact that we understand you, we want to pass it on to others, but we cannot.
My Response: The process of transmitting spiritual information can be explained in the language of Kabbalah.
The highest attainment takes place inside the vessel (Kli), which is called Ohr Hozer (reflected light). I get a certain upper feeling in the form of Ohr Hozer, and then I pass it on to you.
Basically, I should only give you the coordinates so that you, by yourself, can receive the same higher attainment. I could just tell you what I am thinking right now, meaning give you a direction where to go.
Instead, I myself am passing on to you what I felt and received along with my package of Ohr Hozer. That is, what let’s say cost me 15 years of work, I am passing on to you so that you can somehow perceive it.
This is a microdose of the feeling that I was experiencing at the time when I was explaining it to you, but you still got something and understood precisely because I gave you a complete set, a complete package. And you cannot pass it on because you get direct light in the reflected light and in the desire—all three are packed together. I am passing it to you with the desire, with the light, and with packaging.
All that is needed on your part is some kind of common desire, as it happens during the lectures. This is how I give people some information. In general, not even information, but a feeling, because a person cannot understand the information. He catches certain logic between this and that, some fragments. But in general, we understand that a person perceives with his feelings, and then if he wants to continue, then with logic.
Only when this information ignites him, only then will he turn on the logic, come to us for a series of integral education talks, and start working on his first feeling.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Feelings that Cannot be Conveyed” 2/14/12
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Question: We have many aspirations: unity, adhesion with the Creator, bestowal, and love. What should be the unified desire in which we will unite? Why are we missing the same point?
Answer: Everything you listed is one point, the point of our connection with each other and with the Creator.
Question: If a friend temporarily leaves the group due to disagreements so as not to disturb the others, how should we interpret the Creator’s actions in this event?
Answer: There is no such thing as someone leaving the group to avoid disturbing friends. It means that collectively the quality of connection is insufficient between you.
Question: What does it mean to be like the Creator?
Answer: To be like Him means to be connected with each other and the Creator in one knot.
Question: Can we say that markers of revealing the private governance are my strong feelings in the past, for example, envy that I experienced? Can we use the deficiency from the past, or only to the extent of revealing it in the present?
Answer: Only in the present.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, Writings of Rabash “The Lord Has Chosen Jacob for Himself”
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Question: There is a well-known story of Rabbi Akiva, the great teacher of generations, when he and three sages stood amidst the ruins of the Second Temple, and suddenly a fox ran through the place where the Holy of Holies stood. All the sages wept, but Rabbi Akiva suddenly laughed. They asked him, “Why are you laughing?! Wild animals are already running where the Holy of Holies stood!”
He said, “One prophecy has been fulfilled, the prophecy of the prophet Uriah, that the Temple would be destroyed, and this means that another prophecy will also be fulfilled, the prophecy of Zechariah, which says that Jerusalem will be rebuilt.” And so on. In response, the sages said, “Akiva, you have comforted us!”
Rabbi Akiva understood that the prophecy of the future Jerusalem and the Land of Israel would be fulfilled.
How would you comment on the words of Zechariah in his prophecy?
His prophecy relates to the period of the final redemption, which is called “the end of times.” He lived 350 years before our era.
Zechariah predicted, “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of staggering unto all the peoples round about. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a stone of burden for all the peoples; all that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it“ (Zechariah 12: 2-3).
What is the “end of times”?
Answer: The end of times is when the time has come to hold righteous judgment over all people.
Question: How can we Jews become a “cup of staggering” for all nations?
Answer: Because the nations will see that in our hands lies the ability to correct ourselves and thus correct the world, yet we fail to do so.
Question: Is this what it means to become a “cup of staggering”? It feels like this time is approaching. I see how people are beginning to treat us.
Answer: Yes, it will come in waves, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, and it will reach a point where the entire world will want to destroy us.
Question: So will it truly become a cup of staggering?
Answer: Yes, but our actions must be the opposite. We must show the world that only by uniting among us can we save the world and then a force called “Messiah” will emerge within us.
It will pull all of humanity out of egoism and elevate them to a spiritual level. “Messiah” comes from the word “to pull out.”
Question: Further, Zechariah writes: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem“ (Zechariah 12:9).
So far, today armies and diplomacies are fighting. In what case does the Creator engage in battle? It is written here that He, the Creator, fights for Israel.
Answer: He does not fight for Israel as it exists today. He fights for the manifestation of faith in the Creator in the world and the need for Him to teach all humanity how we truly should live.
Question: Here it says, “I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” What does it mean?
Answer: Jerusalem represents the fear of God. It is Ira Shlema, complete fear, before the Creator.
Question: Then it continues: “And there shall be no more extermination; but Jerusalem shall dwell safely” (Zechariah 14:11). How do you understand this?
Answer: I understand that from then on, people will no longer attack each other. They will try to live in peace and fully follow, as much as they can each time, the laws of the Creator.
Question: Are you referring to all people in the world in this case?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: Although it is said that “Jerusalem shall dwell safely.”
My Response: Jerusalem represents the whole world.
Question: Moving on. Zechariah predicts: “Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls” (Zechariah 2:8). When there is no need to build walls anymore, what kind of state is this?
Answer: This is already the common redemption of people from their egoism, from all prejudices, beliefs, and so on, and the revelation of the Creator to all nations.
Question: Are you again talking about the world?
Answer: Yes.
Question: “Yea many peoples and mighty nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favour of the LORD (Zechariah 8:22). …in that day shall the LORD be One, and His name one “(Zechariah 14:9).
What does it mean “mighty nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem”?
Answer: Because He must be revealed in this city, in this place. But Jerusalem is in the heart of each person, the most central, secret place. They will strive to feel Him there: “Is there a Creator in me, at the center, in the depths of my heart?” And everyone will seek like this.
Question: Do I have this point of fear before the Creator?
Answer: You do. Every person does.
Question: Will they find precisely this point? Then what does “shall the LORD be One, and His name” one mean?
Answer: Then they will connect all these points in the heart, and God will be one and His name will be one.
Comment: This is very beautiful! If we say, “the LORD is one,” then all religions, all beliefs…
My Response: All of that will be abolished. There will be one aspiration.
Question: When we say “The LORD is one,” are we talking about the quality of the Lord? Love, bestowal, is that what we mean?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Moving on: “Thus saith the LORD: I return unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth” (Zechariah 8:3).
This phrase I return unto Zion always goes after the Jews, after the people. Poets and Psalms talk about this. What does the return to Zion mean for the world, if we are already talking about the world?
Answer: Zion, or rather, Tzion, comes from the word “Etzia,” exit and distancing. That is, through distancing from Jerusalem and coming as if to Jerusalem, through these small steps, the Creator creates a real desire in us to reveal Him.
Question: If you said that this is the point of fear before the Creator within us, then we lose it, find it, lose it, and find it again. Does it become stronger as a result?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So, by doing so, do we come closer and closer to it?
Answer: Yes, in this way it is revealed more and more in us each time.
Question: Should there always be these entrances and exits in us?
Answer: Yes.
Question: They do exist. You lose, then you find… All the time either in disbelief or in faith, that’s how you are.
My question is: Jerusalem as the “city of truth.” “Truth” what does it mean here?
Answer: Truth is when it will be revealed that there is truth in the world.
Question: Does this relate to the fear before the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is this what truth is?
Answer: Truth is to know the Creator.
Question: We constantly say, “We seek the truth. We seek the truth.” Is this what we are seeking? Are we constantly seeking the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: But He hides behind all the clothing, and so on.
Further, there is a very beautiful phrase, just the song of songs!
It says: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts: There shall yet old men and old women sit in the broad places of Jerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand for every age. And the broad places of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the broad places thereof” (Zechariah 8:4-5).
My Response: Beautiful!
Comment: Very beautiful!
My Response: This is tranquility, this is wisdom that descends upon the city, which represents all the aspirations of humanity, and which will receive all this wisdom and distribute it to all the nations.
Question: It is very interesting here. Why does it speak specifically about the elderly who will sit in peace “with his staff in his hand for every age” and then it immediately talks about boys and girls playing?
There is not some kind of middle, just old age and youth.
Answer: This is because the more a person strives for wisdom, the younger he becomes. The wisest and the youngest in each person will find each other, understand each other, and coexist in joy.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/18/24
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We should know what vessels of bestowal mean.
There are three discernments that we find in an act of bestowal:
1) He engages in bestowal upon others…in order to be rewarded for it. But if he weren’t confident that he would receive honor in return for it, he wouldn’t do what he does for others.
2) He engages in bestowal upon others and does not wish to be given any reward for his work, meaning another thing, something else. Rather, he settles for performing acts of bestowal. It is in his nature to enjoy doing good to others and this is his whole pleasure.
3) He is working in order to not receive any reward (Rabash, “Concerning Bestowal“).
Question: Is a person capable of the third form of bestowal where they do not receive anything at all for it? How is that possible?
Answer: We need to understand that this is indeed a form of receiving pleasure. This is what bestowal is. I respect the person for whom I perform selfless actions so much, I love and value him so much, and he is so great in my eyes that I am ready to do everything for him without any compensation.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 3/28/24
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Question: Is it possible to work directly with the Creator, for His sake, without regard for others?
Answer: No, first, a person must learn to work correctly with the environment, with others, not with just one, but with many, and only then can they achieve similarity to the Creator by receiving or bestowing only for the sake of others.
Question: What does the patent itself consist of? Suppose I wake up in the morning and start figuring out what I need to bestow to others. Do I walk around with these thoughts and just consider what to bestow to them?
Answer: No, you are simply thinking about what actions of yours can bring contentment to the Creator, how you can please Him, and what He would like to feel from you. If these actions are clear to you, then start gradually approaching them.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 3/28/24
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letters 1 – 3”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: If punishment and reward are concealed from us in the spiritual work, how can we work with them and focus on them?
Answer: You must correctly understand the difference between punishment and reward and constantly determine what the level of reward needed to be in order to move forward.
We cannot precisely measure this level, but we must imagine that it is above everything else. The reward in our work is partial or complete revelation of the Creator.
Question: How does the ten help with this?
Answer: It helps with everything because your friends also want to exist in this state, to feel spirituality, and to provide mutual help. Depending on this, you collectively engage in the work.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Knowledge and Faith”
Question: The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam told a parable about a man who committed a serious crime against the king and was sentenced to 20 years and was exiled to a remote island where there were other exiles.
Once there, the disease of amnesia struck him. He forgot that he had a wife, children, friends, and acquaintances. He began to think that the whole world was nothing more than what he saw, this distant place with people, and he thought that he was born there. That is, all this became true for him.
The question is, can we say that we are exiled to this Earth?
Answer: Indeed, it is not our place of birth and development. That is, we are aliens on this Earth. We have not yet been given the opportunity to know from where and how. But we are strangers here on this Earth.
We are not suitable either in our development or in our nature for what is here. We exist this way because this is how the Creator wishes it for now.
Question: Why do we not treat this Earth as a mother?
Answer: We have no connection with it.
Question: Why are we being punished?
Answer: We are not punished. We are going through a developmental stage. There is no punishment in this.
Question: So did we need to be here to develop? To the point where our connection reaches the level of a higher power?
Answer: Yes, I do not think we will feel it here, in earthly life, but we are moving toward it.
Question: One may ask, what is the true reality? We take our existence as truth. But it is not true, as you say. Is it not so?
Answer: Correct.
Question: What is it—actual reality, truth?
Answer: The actual reality is that we can move away from our usual ideas about nature, ourselves, and the Creator, and realize our cosmic nature.
Question: But what is it like?
Answer: It is entirely unearthly and has nothing to do with our body, thoughts, or anything. We must rise above all of this. The actual world is what is out there somewhere…
Question: Above all the senses, above everything?
Answer: Above everything! It is what we will comprehend later in our completely new sensations.
Question: And this, in principle, cannot be described to a person? It is impossible. Only one who has comprehended this can feel the actual reality.
Answer: Yes.
Question: Please tell me what we still need to do to be returned from here to there.
Answer: We just need to want to unite.
Question: As I understand it, humanity now wants to wake up more and more because this dream is becoming more and more terrible. Almost everyone has a powerful feeling that something has changed. Is this a search for the truth, or is it just an escape from suffering?
Answer: It is not even an escape from suffering.
Question: What is it? Is a person simply looking for where he will feel good?
Answer: A person is looking for something to adhere to. Otherwise, every second becomes more prolonged and it makes no sense. It is hard for a person and nothing more.
Question: And nothing more? Are there no higher thoughts?
Answer: No! Nothing and nowhere.
Question: Will they, sooner or later, introduce us to the understanding that we must, as you say, take all these steps toward eternity, toward truth, toward our homeland?
Answer: We will get there. I hope we will somehow wake up from a terrible noise, rumble, and see the sky exploding. What will happen to us? That is when we’ll start thinking.
Question: So the whole task is to come to the question one way or another?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Have we not come to this question yet?
Answer: No! Let us come to the egoistic question: “What will happen to us?” At least get close to it, and then these wheels will slowly begin to move.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/25/24
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Judging a friend to the scale of merit means exalting each of them and putting them much higher than yourself. In this way we will be able to lift the whole group literally to the heavens. That is, everyone in the group will be able to be a great mediator between all its members and the Creator.
A person who is in a group of like-minded people should always elevate his friends, even if he sees some flaws in them. He must tell himself that he judges them as uncorrected because he himself has such an uncorrected vision. As it is said, everyone judges according to the measure of their depravity.
Question: But the group exists according to some rules. If I and others also see specifically that a person violates the rules of the spiritual work, should I still weigh him on the scale of merit?
Answer: It is necessary to understand this, but in general, yes. It depends on who we are talking about. If this is just an ordinary friend or someone who has recently started studying, then what can be done?
Maybe he does not understand it yet or is in the process of working on himself internally, but we do not see it.
In general, we must move forward. Over time, all members of the group will begin to understand how they should be interconnected and mutually oblige each other, and this will move them forward.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/11/24
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In order to acquire the quality of bestowal of the Creator, which in principle is hidden from us, there is a laboratory in our world consisting of like-minded people. A person must perform three actions in it.
First he needs to initially accept his friends as the greatest. Otherwise, they will not be able to influence him; this is according to the law that spiritual influence can only be obtained from someone who is greater than you.
Second, he must buy them with his attention, with some actions, in order to acquire their spiritual desires and the quality of bestowal of the Creator.
Third, in any case it does not matter what a person sees and how he feels it in his feelings; he must judge his friends to the scale of merit. That is, they are always right.
Performing all three actions will help us to acquire the attribute of the Creator. Therefore, if you have such a group and you are mutually connected with them, then you have already acquired the most important thing.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/11/24
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Question: In the article “The Agenda of the Assembly,” Rabash writes that when friends gather together, they should talk about each other’s importance.
It seems unnatural to me. I have never heard of people invited to a meeting talking about the importance of each other, the benefits they can gain from the meeting, and how significant those benefits are compared to not attending. Why does Rabash give such unnatural advice?
Answer: In principle, there is nothing unnatural here because we are talking about friends gathering in a group. The purpose of this group is to perform spiritual work that can only be realized together.
Additionally, they understand that their spiritual development depends on how well they connect with each other. Therefore, the article discusses what such a group should be like, how friends should interact with each other, and their attitudes toward one another. All these are very important elements of the spiritual work of each member of the group.
Comment: You agree that when a person goes to a meeting, he does not think, “How great these friends are!” If he is interested in being with them, he goes. If he sees them as ordinary, he simply does not attend the meeting. But here we come and have to artificially elevate the importance of the friends.
My Response: Yes, that is correct. Moreover, this may be, as they say, “out of the blue” when a person has no such thoughts or intentions at all. But he begins to seriously contemplate this and gradually develops a desire for the gathering, for his friends, understands how important they are, and realizes that achieving the highest condition of spiritual ascent from the level of our world to the spiritual world depends solely on how the friends unite and aim upward together.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/4/24
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Question: What actually brings a person pleasure? Is it the act of bestowal to a great person or to the Creator, which in principle are the same thing, or is it the equivalence of qualities when I feel that I am like Him?
Answer: It is the equivalence of qualities. Being similar to the Creator is a very high level. By achieving this, you completely adhere to Him and become absolutely like Him! Therefore, there is no higher state than a person coming closer to the Creator.
Comment: In all sources it is written that the Creator does not think about Himself. He does not have such thoughts. He is like an energy station that only emanates, gives, creates, and unites all of nature, starting from inanimate substances and ending with humans. So in principle, I want at least to have such inclinations.
My Response: To achieve that, you really need to ask the Creator to give you such a nature. This cannot be manifested in a person in a natural way without asking!
Question: What gives a person the guarantee that they will not remain in their egoistic nature for the rest of their life and will be able to reach equivalence of qualities with the Creator?
Answer: There is no guarantee. We understand that we are governed by the upper force and it is interested in us getting closer to it, uniting with it, and working together with it to correct ourselves and the world.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 3/28/24
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Question: When a person receives a question from the ego, it immediately responds with reason. If a person refuses this egoistic response, then he falls into a state of weightlessness, a kind of emptiness. What is the response from faith to this state of emptiness?
Answer: Uncorrected egoism constantly asks a person all sorts of questions so that he, in search of an answer to them, agrees with them.
Therefore, first of all, a person must unearth the answer to the question: what does he really want? And if he realizes that this answer is still selfish, he will know that he is still in selfishness.
Question: If such questions practically do not arise now, is it worth awakening them?
Answer: No, you should not artificially arouse any questions in yourself. You only need to awaken the desire to connect with your friends. And there you will find the answers to all your questions.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Two Labors”
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Our entire work is as “a ladder set on the earth with its top reaching the heaven” (Rabash, Article 10, “Jacob Went Out”).
Question: It says that the ladder stands on the ground; it is clear that this is our desire with which we have a constant connection. How do we build the top of the ladder going up into the heaven, the Rosh?
Answer: First a person faces difficulties, and if he copes with them, he rises. Second, in order to rise, he must solve all the problems that arise with his friends.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Jacob Went Out”
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Question: How can we come to a common desire to liberate ourselves from egoism if everyone is not ready? After all, it is impossible to transfer the experience that a person has gained.
Answer: It cannot be that everyone is on the same level and similar. Only the desire to become like each other will make you a ten.
In the ten there may be different people with different qualities; the Creator will unite everyone and everything.
The main thing is to start working and pray to the Creator so that He reveals Himself as much as possible and shows you your true state. From here, you will begin to advance.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/24, Writings of Rabash Letter 72
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Question: On one hand you say that we develop a value for the desired state, and this causes fear and suffering in the current one.
On the other hand you advised us to check what is stopping us and, on this side, to develop the fear of remaining in our current state. In which direction do you need to work more?
Answer: Try to reason not from your egoism, which is afraid of losing something, but from the perspective of how much closer you can get to the goal of creation.
All the states we go through lead us to the goal. There is nothing that is really against it.
Therefore, there is no need to think about any low states, only about high ones, and pull everyone toward them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/24, Writings of Rabash “But the More They Afflicted Them”
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That the merciful one had mercy on us and showed us our true state, which is bitter, and then we can be awarded salvation and redemption (Rabash, Letter 72)
Comment: After we left Egypt and entered the Land of Israel, we were still adapt to the people surrounding us. We did not try to escape from Egypt and preferred someone else’s work to work for the Creator.
My Response: You prefer foreign work because you stayed in Egypt.
First, you must feel you are in exile and that this buries you in the sand. Then, gradually, by helping one another, you should begin to pull yourself out of the sand, i.e., from Egypt.
Question: What does it mean that the ten agree to go without any conditions, and this is what leads them to real prayer, which the Creator will hear?
Answer: No matter what happens, the ten agree to be together and rise above your egoism together.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/24, Writings of Rabash Letter 72
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Question: When we talk about the shattering of Adam HaRishon‘s soul into 600 thousand souls, do we mean those souls who came out of Egypt and those who are now going to be corrected and are going to the final correction?
Answer: A constant number of souls exist in the world, which need to be corrected. They are broken into parts, corrected, and reconnected into one common part. And so it continues like a puzzle assembling itself.
Therefore, we want to be attracted to a common goal, rise, and together raise several thousand more people related to us. There are more than a few thousand, more like hundreds of thousands. We will soon see that this is what will happen.
Then by uniting more and more, we will be able to get information about our connections. So let us move forward and increasingly feel the movement toward complete correction.
We will reveal what Adam, Hava, angels (Malachim) and so on are because we will begin to reveal the entire system of governance of the universe in the highest form.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/24, Writings of Rabash “When Pharaoh Sent the People”
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The Romemut [exaltedness, sublimity] of the Creator means that one should ask the Creator for the strength to go above reason. This means that there are two interpretations to the Romemut *of the Creator:*
To not be filled with knowledge, which is intellect with which one can answer one’s questions. Rather, he wants the Crea*tortoanswerhisquestions. It is called Romemut* because all the wisdom comes from above and not from man, meaning that man can answer his own questions (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 14, “What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator?”).
When you turn to the Creator to answer the questions arising within you, you learn the correct responses.
Question: What does it mean to receive an answer in faith above reason? The answer would be what you perceive within reason.
Answer: A person can understand the Creator’s answers only at the same, even minimal level, at which the Creator speaks to him, and this is faith above reason.
The Creator responds to their questions, meaning His excitations within them, in any form. There is no condition that He answers only in one particular way. Essentially, the answers come in the form of the upper light. Then we assimilate them in a way we can perceive them both in breadth and depth.
Question: I am doing my best to rise above myself, unite with my friends, and ask the Creator a question from this state, for example, how to act in a particular situation. What does it mean that He answers me? In what form can this be?
Answer: If you tune yourself to the Creator, you will hear His response in the form you can perceive.
Question: Does this mean I have received an answer in faith above reason?
Answer: Yes, depending on how you reveal it for yourself.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator?”
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Question: You have dedicated your life to disseminating information to the world. What is this dissemination for you?
Answer: It is the dissemination of the methodology for raising individuals and humanity to the level of their highest potential development called the Creator. My creed, my goal, is to tell the whole of humanity about this possibility and explain as simply as possible how to achieve it.
I follow the footsteps of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. The purpose of my life is to create a certain system in which this would be implemented—an international, universal system detached from religions, from everything that can limit a person.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What will Remain after Laitman?” 1/26/12
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This is so because when discussing the thought, the filth of the serpent will be corrected through the offering that atones for the thought (Baal HaSulam, Letter 10).
Question: What does it mean that offering atones for the thought?
Answer: Offering is the absolute neutralization of what prevents one from taking a step forward toward the Creator.
Question: How can I avoid these thoughts?
Answer: You cannot. Whatever a person goes through, he must go through.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 10
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Inna writes:
I cannot stand being disliked; I have been this way since childhood. I always do my best to be loved: I give gifts; I do everything I’m told. And here I see how my people are disliked. I have been living here for 30 years and I feel ready to give up everything just to be loved. But on the other hand, I understand perfectly well that you can’t buy love that way. So what should I do?
Answer: Look for ways to get closer to other people.
Question: They don’t want us to be here. What kind of heart do you want to open to them? They say, “Maybe we will love you, just so you are not here.”
Answer: No, we are not talking about that. We received this from the Creator, and we cannot give in.
Question: Then what actions can we make to be loved? If you and I both have that desire, what should we do?
Answer: Show them our love, and if they do not agree, we are ready for war.
Question: What does it mean to show them love without giving in?
Answer: That we love them in our hearts. But if they do not agree to reciprocate, then we will be forced to fight.
Comment: Hamas is still nearby, here next to us. There is Hezbollah.
My Response: We can show that we want peace, we want friendship. If you are strong, you can say that.
Question: Is this the law of the East?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So, we must be strong for this?
Answer: Yes! This comes first!
Question: Do we have to show them this strength, that we are strong?
Answer: Yes, we must.
Question: Once Jabotinsky wrote an article: “The Iron Wall.” He said then that they will not back down from getting us out of here unless we create an “iron wall.” They must understand that this is impossible.
Does this enter into a state of love for us? Is this the construction of an “iron wall” that makes it impossible to throw us out of here?
Answer: Yes, that is the priority. We need to understand that, on one hand, we must come to peace with them, to mutual understanding. And on the other hand, we must always think about our security and not giving them the opportunity to capture us, conquer us, and so on.
That is the psychology of our neighbors, and there is nothing difficult to figure out here. Whoever they are, if they are our neighbors, especially our neighbors, then they are always against us.
Question: And we must show our strength?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And at the same time show that we are ready for peace, for communication, and so on?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Are these two states even possible, that you show strength and the second, that you are ready for peace?
Answer: Of course.
Question: So what is our miscalculation? We even sent them money, supplied them with gas, and more.
Answer: None of that does anything.
Question: What will?
Answer: Only strength.
Question: And what about what you always say that we must internally love our neighbor as ourselves, and so on? Where do you attribute this: to strength or to some other part?
Answer: To strength.
Question: Is that strength?
Answer: Yes.
[328928]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24
Then, when he sees that he is powerless to do anything for society, there is room for prayer to the Creator to help him and give him strength and desire to engage in love of others (Rabash, Article 17, “The Agenda of the Assembly”).
As a rule, a person does not have the strength to do something for the sake of others because it is against his nature. We are egoists, inherently focused only on ourselves. And here you must incorporate into your friends, think about them, and envision yourself merging with them.
Therefore Rabash says you must exert efforts, then you will see that you do not have the strength to get closer to them, and then you will turn to the upper force.
Question: It turns out that all this is just to appeal to the upper force?
Answer: Yes, this is important because only from there can you get help.
Question: And why is it arranged in such a way that a person cannot, through his own efforts, achieve the importance of his friends for himself?
Answer: Because we can only exert efforts in egoistic actions. But here, it means rising above egoistic forces into the realm where only altruism, bestowal, and the importance of others reign. All these qualities must develop among us and prevail.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/4/24
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Question: What should I consider the point of no return, that this is my friend and I am going with him to the end until I fully realize my love for him?
Answer: The point of no return is your ultimate goal.
Question: In the process of spiritual work will I always find out if this is the friend with whom I should build love?
Answer: Yes, you can agree with each other that you will go to the end together.
[328702]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love of God and the Love of Man“
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Question: What does it mean to connect with the Creator in a supernatural way?
Answer: It means that you use everything you have at your disposal, in all your senses.
To strengthen a stable connection with the Creator, first and foremost you must be in a strong connection that leads to unity. To the extent that you are united with each other, the Creator will listen to you; otherwise, He will not.
[328729]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is the Exaltedness of the Creator?”
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Question: How does a person determine whether their pain stems from distancing from the Creator or from lacking fulfillment of desires? After all, there is confusion that occurs in the descent.
Answer: Everyone should integrate with their ten and reveal their reaction to what the Creator does. Then all the friends will have a clearer picture of what is happening to them.
Question: If someone in the ten experiences suffering from a lack of fulfillment, can we build a true spiritual deficiency above this? Or is it the individual work of each?
Answer: No, this can be a group effort.
Question: What should our prayer be about?
Answer: Prayer should always be about coming closer to the Creator. Then suffering will disappear.
[328530]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/24, Writings of Rabash “But the More They Afflicted Them”
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Question: In the article “Jacob Went Out,” Rabash writes that when a person rises to a higher degree and feels it, this feeling violates the principle of faith above reason. And through violation of this principle, a person is thrown back down.
Is it possible to feel the upper degree without violating the principle of faith above reason?
Answer: Yes, that is how we rise. When we receive information from an upper degree, we try to ascend to it, hold ourselves in faith above reason, and simultaneously receive whatever is possible within reason. And so we continue.
Question: Am I working with a sense of the upper degree but with a sense of where I want to go in the next moment?
Answer: One must feel this since one can understand everything only in action.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Jacob Went Out”
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Question: How can we consciously go through all the states as corrections that bring us closer to the Creator?
Answer: If we relate everything to the Creator, want to understand what is happening to us, and ask Him to bring us closer to Him, then we act correctly.
Question: If we begin to translate all negative states into the idea that He is sending them to us, then is this a correction and not a punishment?
Answer: There are no punishments at all. Correction is not a punishment. The Creator always straightens us up.
The correction of Kelim is a state when, after the work done, in those places where we have experienced troubles, suffering and blows, we feel gratitude and love.
[328558]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/24, Writings of Rabash “It Is All Corrections”
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In spirituality, there are no letters, as I have already elaborated on before. All the multiplication in spirituality relies on the letters derived from the materiality of this world (Baal HaSulam, Letter 14).
Letters are a record of the forces that a person must evoke when reading Kabbalistic texts. That is why Kabbalists when they work on texts, relate their feelings to words and letters and at the same time, can change their powers and impact the environment.
Question: What letters do we need?
Answer: We need practically all letters. And there are only a few of them in Hebrew, only twenty-two. It is said that it is the shortest alphabet of all.
Some alphabets include forty-seven letters and close to sixty, but here are only twenty-two.
Therefore, we need to understand what each letter suggests, what it implies, and what combinations of forces are in it. This is very serious.
When a person begins to approach the meaning of the letters, he feels how they are playing in him. And then he reads them differently. He is no longer in a hurry because each letter evokes a resonance, a reaction in him. In such a way, he gradually begins to feel what the text wants to convey to him.
It is said: there is no renewal in the light, but there is creation, that is, when it is necessary to convey movement over the letters, and the form of the higher ones is revealed.
The form of the higher ones is the following degree. And movement atop the letters means that a person, desiring to reach the next degree, forms an intention above his interests, i.e., not for himself.
In principle, we need to connect with letters in our feelings. Then we can understand what the Kabbalists want to convey to us.
[328516]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 14
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Is the Meaning of Lighting the Menorah in the Work?”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man
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Selected Highlights
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Dear Michael Laitman,
I am 92 years old. I have been living in Israel for 34 years. I love this country, I love my people. My children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, all are here, no one has left.
Tell me, we have been celebrating Independence Day in Israel for 76 years. We have defended Israel in six wars. Today, we are at war again, and I see that beasts are against us. Hamas are beasts. In the north, there are Hezbollah terrorists. Iran will not leave us alone. There is such antisemitism all over the world! It is scary for a Jew to walk the streets. So many people want our country not to exist, and this worries me greatly.
Michael, tell me, will we be able to celebrate our independence in a year or in ten years? I am not thinking about myself when I ask you this question.
My Response: I understand you, and am very touched by your words. I think that we will still celebrate Israel Independence Day in such a way that it will be a holiday for the whole world. For the whole world!
We will achieve the point where the idea outlined in the Torah becomes the fundamental idea of the existence of humanity “love your neighbor as yourself” first and foremost.
Question: So are you saying that if the country lives by this law we will celebrate these holidays all the time?
Answer: Absolutely.
Comment: But tell me, is it possible that we could be expelled from here by force?
My Response: I do not think that we can be expelled from here. I do not think that difficult times lie ahead. Now we need to think not only about ourselves but also about the world: what we say to the world, what we need to show it, what we need to lead it to. This is how we will defend our independence.
Question: Should we also defend it militarily today?
Answer: Of course! Of course, we must.
Question: Have you no doubts about that?
Answer: No. For Israel, peace is a means to spread the idea of “love your neighbor as yourself” to humanity. We must not forget this and always behave in accordance with this principle.
[329189]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/6/24
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Memorial Day and Independence Day follow right after each other because Memorial Day speaks about who we are and where these special people came from. It is said that the people of Israel do not belong to all other nations that arose naturally, but were created from a group that was gathered by one person, Abraham, the forefather.
These are people who have no other connection between them except their willingness to unite together for the sake of a common spiritual idea.
This idea is abstract, not material, and does not belong to this world, but we see that it holds the people of Israel together and does not allow them to dissolve among other nations. On the other hand, it opposes all the nations of the world and holds it more strongly than any other nation.
This idea is so strong that it gives the whole of humanity the foundations of culture, enlightenment, spirituality, and morality; it is such a strong influence that none of the most numerous nations could exert.
The influence of the nation of Israel continues to this day, and who knows how much more important it will become in the future. This phenomenon seems very strange and unique. And in fact, the people of Israel themselves and even more so the nations of the world do not know what they are really dealing with.
Memorial Day is not only in the memory of the people who gave their lives for the establishment of the State of Israel in our days. It is also dedicated to where these people and the state originated from, what the basis of its independence is, and why it is called a nation although it does not have the usual biological basis like all other nations.
We need to explore our roots based on their knowledge, realize our entire history, and honor the memory of the entire path we have gone through. We may understand what is happening to us today and where we are going.
Rambam writes in the book Yad Khazaka: “At the age of forty, Abraham knew the Creator and began to proclaim publicly to all the people that there is one Creator for the whole world, and in His name it is worth working. And he went and gathered people from city to city, from state to state, until he came to Eretz Canaan…
“And he informed each of them until they returned to the path of truth, and tens of thousands gathered around him. And these are the people of the house of Abraham. And he put this great principle into their hearts, and wrote books about it… And a people was formed in the world who knew the Creator.”
We see that a very special event happened: one man, forty years old, revealed the spiritual message and continued to spread it, and urged everyone who wanted to join him regardless of gender, race, nationality. Everyone who heard and accepted this idea joined Abraham’s group, and so “a nation was formed in the world who knew the Creator.”
This is the whole point of this idea: to bring together people who have a desire to know the Creator of the world. From this, we should understand our roots, our purpose, and the force that holds us together. It is on this basis that we unite as a nation.
Without attaining the Creator as the purpose of our existence, there is no need for the nation of Israel. In this case, we will not receive any opportunity from below in the material world nor permission and strength from above for existence, and we will not find any reason to be together.
Initially, the nation of Israel was formed on a spiritual basis, not on a biological commonality like all other nations who came from the same ancestral clan, one village, one territory. The nation of Israel unites completely different, opposite people. This has always been the case, and it will be so at the end of generations when everyone joins in this one goal of revealing the Creator.
These strange, unusual conditions relating to the nation of Israel are not like those under which any other nation exists. It is obvious that our history, laws, fate, and the forces acting on us must be completely different from all other nations. From this, we can understand what the reason for the emergence of the nation of Israel is, what its mission is, its basis, what forces are acting on us, and what our fate is.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/18, “Memorial Day & Independence Day”
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Why is Memorial Day observed right before Independence Day? Everything emanates from the upper roots, and in the spiritual work, it is impossible to come to unity, to good spiritual force without rising above the force of evil, overcoming difficulties, problems, and the burdening of the heart.
The advantage of light is only attained from darkness. If we want to advance toward truth, then we must be prepared for the revelation of darkness. Then “there will be evening,” there will be night, and after “there will be morning—one day.”
Evening, night, darkness with all its inherent attributes are inseparable parts of the day. Therefore, Memorial Day is traditionally observed right before Israel Independence Day.
Independence Day symbolizes the coming of the light and the great correction. But before that, we have to uncover in what darkness we exist amidst evil and war, and we are obligated to fight and win this battle in order to come to Independence Day.
“Love covers all crimes.” Since we as created beings attain everything only from the opposite, there must be Memorial Day before Independence Day. Everything we have been through was intentionally sent from above, and all sufferings have a purpose and explanation; therefore, we must perceive them as necessary.
But if through our unity we reveal this necessity in a positive way, then we do not even need to suffer from darkness, misfortunes, and woes. If we are ready for darkness, we accelerate it and can pass through the darkness as a necessary part of our development so that evening and morning become one day, meaning night and darkness are included in the day, in the light.
Kabbalists understand that everything that happens is a part of the development process and therefore justify it as sent by the one upper force that brings us good in every state.
If we try, we will discover that there is only good and no evil. The Angel of Death will turn into a holy angel. With correct preparation, we can go through all difficulties with understanding and agree with them because in both darkness and light we will reveal the Creator’s good attitude toward us.
There are no days of mourning or states of sorrow because everything comes together at the end of correction: all the darkness, misfortunes, and woes, along with the emerging light above them in common unity and love.
If we ourselves seek deficiencies, broken desires, as necessary tools for revealing the Creator in order to bring Him contentment even before problems and woes are revealed, then we rejoice in the revealed sinners.
After all, concealed sinners certainly exist as a result of complete shattering, and we therefore rejoice in all identified shortcomings and regret that we have not yet revealed them all.
If we uncover evil in the light of day, then “darkness shines as light.” Therefore, there is no darkness; everything depends on my attitude.
If I uncover discrepancies between myself and my friend in order to eliminate this discrepancy by uniting above it and covering it with love, then I rejoice in the manifestation of shortcomings no less than in their correction. All work depends on the correct preparation in the group.
Memorial Day is a mournful day. But from the bitter experiences of the past, we need to understand that we can prepare ourselves for the revelation of evil in such a way that we will not see evil! Evil will only be revealed internally as a deficiency in our connection, and not as evil in this world, war, and the hatred of enemies. As it is said: “Cast your eye on them, they become a pile of bones.”
We need to understand that our enemies have power, and they can cause us a lot of trouble. After all, through them, the Creator acts and pushes us toward correction. We will have to seek the path of correction, and it lies only in our unity within the people of Israel through whom the light will flow into the world.
Let’s try, even if just for a month, let’s declare a “truce” within the state of Israel: let’s not quarrel with each other, let’s not hate one another, let’s try to become closer to each other. The love of Israel will protect us from enemies.
Let’s try to establish this love among us, let’s remember what our mothers told us: “Be good children, stop quarreling, be friends with each other!”
Let’s see what happens after a month of such an experiment. Then it will be easier for us to continue because habit will become second nature. Let’s try and see how the world’s attitude toward Israel changes, how our stocks rise on the stock exchange, how our army strengthens, how our children become better, how the number of accidents on the roads decreases and the number of divorces decreases—everything will start to improve.
Let’s declare a month of unity and then check the statistics: what happens to the people of Israel when they are not in internal discord.
[245813]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/19, “Memorial Day & Independence Day”
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Mark writes:
I want to ask about Israel Independence Day. Today, there is so much negativity said about Israel, and there is so much pessimism, doubt, bitterness, and tragedy in the country. Dear Michael, say something encouraging, something uplifting on our Independence Day. People will listen to you, many listen to you.
My Response: I hope that those who listen to me and hear me, hear my approval of our celebration of Independence Day. It does not matter how it was established even though there are many questions here.
I believe it is a necessary holiday. No one can cancel it. There are many who do not welcome it because it is not a religious holiday.
Comment: But it is known that your teacher, Baal HaSulam, the teacher of teachers, a great Kabbalist, celebrated this day. He even raised the “holy” knife on Shabbat that he used to cut the Shabbat Challah, and on it was written: Medinat Yisrael, which means the State of Israel. This was a challenge for Orthodox Jews. He did it. So, did he recognize and fully support this holiday?
My Response: Yes.
Question: How should it be preserved?
Answer: We do not need to preserve it. We just need to constantly restore it. Because as long as we exist, we are obliged to fight to celebrate this day once a year precisely because the people decided that this is their independence and it must be marked.
Question: You said the word “fight.” Does that mean we have to fight for it? Can it be that we finally reach a point where this day…?
Answer: No, that cannot be.
Question: Will it always be through a struggle?
Answer: As long as our world is opposed to the spiritual world.
Question: In your opinion, what does Israel Independence Day mean for the world? For us, it is like our security, our freedom. But for the world, what is it?
Answer: For the world, Israel’s independence is a fundamental date marking the transformation of the world from the ancient world to the modern world, and from a world where Jews existed as oppressed, persecuted, and pressured people to a world where we can exist proudly in our own country.
Question: You just said that this is supposed to be for the Jews. Or did you actually say that it is a holiday for the world too?
Answer: It means a lot to the world too because it is precisely thanks to the Jews, thanks to Israel, and thanks to our independence that we can continue our existence in a way that allows the world to exist.
Question: So do we give something to the world?
Answer: It is not that we give something; we hold the world upon us.
Question: Does this tiny dot that is barely visible, like a pinhole, hold the world on itself and is the center of the world?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Why do you say this so confidently?
Answer: Because it symbolizes that piece of the world that strives to strengthen this world, to make everyone equal and worthy.
Question: And is this Israel?
Answer: This is Israel, of course. Its goal is to make the world for everyone.
Question: The existence of Israel is intended specifically for the world?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Then will this be accepted by the world?
Answer: Then the world will accept this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/6/24
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All the sicknesses that I have visited upon Egypt I will not visit upon you” (Exodus 15:26).
Question: In Egypt we feel that we are suffering from illnesses. What do we feel and what do we ask for after leaving Egypt?
Answer: We ask the Creator first of all to heal us from egoism, and everything else is secondary.
Question: But at the moment of illness when it consumes me, how can I see the Creator and direct myself toward love?
Answer: Only with the help of the friends. If they support you, then you will be able to rise above your state to love, to adhesion with the Creator, and to feel the same attitude from Him.
Therefore, the entire group must be in a common intention, directed at the fact that such states are given in order to come closer to the Creator. Then, even if someone goes beyond the intention, they still do not let him stray far.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/27/24, Writings of Rabash “And God Spoke to Moses”
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Question: A husband and wife ran a hotel for ordinary people. One day, a wealthy merchant came there. The wife saw his rich belongings and told her husband: “I have a powder called “forget everything.” I will add it to his rice, and he will forget some of his beautiful possessions.” So she did.
The guest had dinner, praised the hostess, and set off at dawn. The husband and wife rushed to his room to search for valuable things that had been forgotten. Suddenly, the husband shouted: “He forgot, he forgot!” “Forgot what?” his wife exclaimed joyfully. “He forgot to pay for the night.”
The question is this. We always want to let down one’s trust, which is our condition—a smile, good actions, deeds, and so on. A person can sit with an aging father or relative knowing his property will become his. Women marry millionaires, and so on. All soap operas are built on this. A person is not punished for that; this is how he receives. It is our world. In the parable, they are punished—the merchant forgot to pay.
Please tell me whether a person is still punished for this because he is trying to put another to sleep and take something from him.
Answer: Naturally, he is punished.
Question: Even though he maybe does not feel it?
Answer: Nature does not care that he does not feel it. In nature, all this is perfectly balanced.
Question: But all of humanity is this way. We smile the same way to get some position and befriend people to get something out of it. Is this human nature?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Question: And we are still punished for it. By what? By having this world?
Answer: Yes. It is our punishment. This world is a punishment.
Question: So, is everything that happens, including wars and all this suffering, caused by our attitude?
Answer: Yes. We do not wish happiness and kindness to anyone, or anything of this sort.
Question: Simply to wish. But it is not our fault, is it?
Answer: Go to the one who created you and tell Him: “Look how You created me! What can I do? I only scatter seeds of hatred around me. And it was You who made me this way.”
Question: And He expects us to go to Him with that?
Answer: He is waiting for us to reveal it and say it to Him, and then He will fix it.
Question: How do you feel about the proverb, “Don’t dig a hole for someone else; you’ll end up in it yourself”?
Answer: I do not particularly believe in this proverb.
Comment: Although you just said that we are being punished.
My Response: Yes, but it is all relative. How many holes have we dug for others and then not noticed that they are coming to us? If they came, it would be good. We would learn quickly.
Question: How does this match? You first said that we are being punished in some way. So, are we still being punished?
Answer: Yes, but we do not know what for, why, or how. It is a problem.
Question: If we did something wrong and got it right away, we would understand it was terrible. So we do not get it?
Answer: No.
Question: But it is good like this: what if I did something terrible and got it right away? Is it good or bad?
Answer: No, this is bad. It would not educate us. We would be like soldiers.
Comment: But a person would realize: I do something terrible and get punished.
My Response: He would do this because he realizes his actions were wrong.
Question: But in reality, how should it be?
Answer: Not to want to do evil in the first place.
Question: Not to want to hate? Should this be our main request?
Answer: Yes.
Question: I must feel that I want to do evil and hate?
Answer: Yes! Necessarily! I feel bad that I discovered this and asked the Creator to change this property in me.
Question: Will we ever get there?
Answer: Necessarily!
Question: So, is this the ending one way or another?
Answer: Yes.
Replica: If I can now somehow pull myself together and feel that I…
Answer: You cannot.
Question: When that hour comes, what can I do? You say that they are taking us there.
Answer: This is called the “last generation.” We are at the beginning, still only at the beginning.
Question: What is the last generation?
Answer: It is when humanity reveals its evil nature, opposite to the Creator, and passionately desires change.
[327301]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/24
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Question: You mentioned that if the Creator did not send troubles, a person would not need to seek Him correctly. How do you properly contact the Creator over troubles to use them effectively?
Answer: To do this we must rise above all troubles, be independent of them, arouse them one by one, and through this build our states.
Question: What does it mean to rise above and then arouse them?
Answer: You rise above troubles so they do not seem to touch you, and then you awaken them from your spiritual state.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Jacob Dwelled in the Land Where His Father Had Lived”
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We have reason to rejoice! It lies in the fact that we are approaching the point where we can rise above egoistic desire and connect with the desire for bestowal, that is, with the Creator. Then we will receive all the upper light that will bring us joy.
That is how we are designed. Therefore, anyone who wants to attain true joy must connect himself with friends and with the Creator, and from there he will receive the light of joy that will fill him. Joy can be a material matter, and it can be spiritual. It all depends on what desires we fill. With material joy, we fill our desires to receive pleasure. But with spiritual joy, we reveal and fill the desires to bestow. And the difference between these two types of desires is like between heaven and earth.
By receiving spiritual pleasure, we feel ourselves above time, space, and movement. There is no time, no place, no movement, no changes.
We simply rise above matter, above our material world, even above our material selves, and this gives us tremendous strength to continue our journey further toward the Creator.
Let us hope that we all succeed in attaining such spiritual joy.
[328663]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/24, Unity Day for Purim, Lesson 1, “The Joy of Unity“
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Question: What should we feel ashamed of before the Creator?
Answer: That He expects one thing from you, but you bring Him another.
Question: How can we feel exactly what He needs?
Answer: Kabbalists write that the Creator desires nothing but for us to love one another. Try to love each other in a way that allows you to feel the state of the Creator.
Currently, He is concealed from you because He does not want to upset you, He does not want to show you how dissatisfied He is with you. But you should behave in a way that your actions could bring Him contentment. Then He will not need to conceal Himself from you, and you will not need to conceal yourself from Him.
[328523]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/27/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is, If He Swallows the Bitter Herb, He Will Not Come Out, in the Work?”
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Every moment when I am in the ten, I feel how our connection is strengthening more and more in one form or another. I feel I am moving toward a state where we all will be in the same heart.
And the closer I get to this one heart, the more joyful I feel. I feel the Creator and the whole global soul above our world. That is the feeling we must try to achieve as soon as possible.
We are in constant motion, from the current point to the next, until the end of correction. Kabbalists promise us that we will achieve it.
Therefore, you need to be happy that you are on the path and have a goal in life that is above everything that lifts you to the top of the universe. The state of final correction is prepared for us and awaits us.
We should realize yet how lucky we are. But in fact, everyone has a record in the soul that distinguishes them from millions and billions of people who do not have this in their lives. They will start and end this life without achieving anything. And we, during this life, climb the spiritual ladder from degree to degree.
Therefore, we need to be joyful on this holiday of Purim, which symbolizes all our ascents. I am thrilled that more and more people are joining us daily, and the understanding is growing that we have a lucky ticket.
[328667]
From the Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/24, Unity Day for Purim, Lesson 1, “The Joy of Unity“
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Question: In the war against egoism, there are situations where my strength is taken from me. I give more strength, but even more is taken from me. Where can I find strength?
Answer: Indeed, you are lying there and cannot do anything. Only friends can come to your aid, lift you up, and revive you.
They can feel you because you interact with them in some form. This means they are connected to you by receiving some signals from the Creator through you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Connection between Passover, Matza, and Maror”
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1st part of the Lesson — International Kabbalah Convention “Praying to Go Above Reason,” Lesson 3
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2nd part of the Lesson — International Kabbalah Convention “Happy in Faith Above Reason,” Lesson 4
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Question: You said that the importance of loving one’s friends can be divided into 620 steps. What kind of gradation is this?
Answer: From zero to complete love we have 620 positive steps, and from hatred to zero, we respectively have 620 negative steps.
So in our correction, we must go through the entire spiritual ladder.
Question: Sometimes you seem to love your friend and think about him. How can we increase the sensitivity and resolution of this love?
Answer: The Creator does this. He raises us to the stage of unity and love, and He makes changes in us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love of God and the Love of Man“
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The unification we want to achieve is a unique state in which a person feels that he is canceling himself to zero, dissolving into his friends, and disappearing in them.
As he loses himself, he feels that he is leaving the material world and entering the spiritual world, and receives a new desire and a new sensation there that is already all spiritual.
He feels that at the center of all this sensation a higher force, the Creator, is waiting and desires him.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/24, Unity Day for Purim, Lesson 1 “The Joy of Unity“
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You will thoroughly keep the Achoraim [posterior, back] for Me, for My name, then the abundance will do her thing and fill the letters. The qualities will become Sefirot, since before the filling they are called “qualities,” and upon their fulfillment for the best, they are called Sefirot, sapphire, illuminating the world from one end to the other (Baal HaSulam. Letter 14).
Achoraim are receiving vessels. If we use them for the sake of the Creator, if we want to bestow with their help, then the filling that comes through the receiving Kelim lifts us to the Panim (vessels of bestowal).
And so we begin to see what secrets, what lights, are in letters and words.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 14
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Question: When I feel the fear of death, I close my eyes and pray. What else can I add?
Answer: By overcoming the fear of death a little, you can choose the way to deal with it and get out of it to a state of spiritual ascent. This is what Nahshon demonstrated to everyone.
Nahshon realized that only by setting an example to all the people would he be able to force them to throw themselves into the sea and cross it.
Question: If we, like Nahshon, depend on the people, then maybe the nation has not yet reached the state of “it is better to die than to live like this.” Can it wait?
Answer: You do not have to wait, you have to try to get closer to it.
When we unite our souls, everyone gets strength from everyone. And this helps us all to get out of the Final Sea, i.e., from the completion (Sof, the end) to come to the beginning (Rosh).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/24, “Nachshon’s Jump and the Tearing of the Red Sea”
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1st part of the Lesson — International Kabbalah Convention “Working In Faith Above Reason,” Lesson 1
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2nd part of the Lesson — International Kabbalah Convention “Receiving from the Friends the Force of Faith Above Reason,” Lesson 2
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Question: What is the function of the nations of the world when the people of Israel fulfill their correction?
Answer: In relation to the nations of the world, the people of Israel are like the first nine Sefirot in relation to Malchut.
That is, they work with each other, connect, and internally correct themselves, but their main task is to prepare everything for working with the last Sefira Malchut. The nations of the world at this time are practically not correcting anything.
I am not talking about our movement, about those who join it. There were people who came from the Greeks, from the Macedonians, from nations very distant from Judaism and Kabbalah. They made a huge contribution to the dissemination and study of Kabbalah.
There are even people who lived two or three thousand years ago mentioned in our sources as great Kabbalists.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: How does the desire for the Creator appear in us?
Answer: Directly from the Creator Himself.
Question: Does it turn out that it emerges selectively?
Answer: Of course it is selectively. The person in whom the desire for the Creator arises is called Israel. Isra—straight, El—to the Creator.
These people come to the science of Kabbalah. They do not know how it happens. There are millions of different cases.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: Every ten makes efforts, but one goes in the right direction and another has long lost its way, although it seems we were all following the teacher. Does it mean that the Creator has favorites?
Answer: The Creator has favorites, it is true. Some strictly follow the Creator, and others do not put much effort into it.
Question: If you do see that someone has lost their way, can you correct him and help him?
Answer: This is someone’s personal work. The teacher is not there to point out his mistakes. If the student himself does not see them, the teacher cannot do anything.
Question: How can we anticipate these mistakes and become the Creator’s favorite?
Answer: I will start from the end: I would not recommend being the Creator’s favorite. It is very difficult because it requires a lot of effort. So we will continue as much as we know, and then the Creator will help us.
Ultimately, everyone will achieve complete correction and the end of all creation, but we want to reveal the unique attitude of the Creator. Therefore, we need to make sure we do what the Creator wants.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Environment”
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This is the meaning of the “remembering,” such as when one tells the one he loves, “Here is a bag full of gems, to show my love.”
In this way, the loved one strains to accurately count the sum of gems in order to reveal the love in his own heart, too (Baal HaSulam, “Remembering”).
Gems are concentrated grains of love emanating from the friends, and we feel it. Then, thanks to the fact that we unite, in this unity, we also feel the presence of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Remembering”
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Thus, clearly, they did not know Joseph. In other words, they attained him only to the extent that they valued him in their hearts.
Therefore, they depicted the image of Joseph as they themselves were. Because of it, they did not know Joseph and the enslavement began. Otherwise, the righteous would certainly protect them and exile or enslavement would not be depicted to them at all (Baal HaSulam, Letter 10).
The sons of Israel were at a developmental level controlled by egoism, and they could not yet rise above it and approach Joseph.
Joseph is a very high-quality bestowal that could connect them. Since they did not achieve such a connection, they remained in exile.
Moreover, their acquaintance with Joseph did not give them any advantage. They were unable to use his power to leave Egypt.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 10
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Question: Who is a “neighbor”?
Answer: A neighbor, in principle, is any person with whom according to the plan of creation you must unite.
Question: How does this relate to a friend?
Answer: The fact is that you and your friend are, as it were, training on each other, practicing the basic principles of Kabbalah.
Any relationship can be expressed here.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love of God and the Love of Man“
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Question: What should the quality of our prayer be?
Answer: The quality is very simple; it is from the heart. Open your hearts and the Creator will feel what is in them. Everything is attained only by the power of prayer to unite, to rise, and to kill egoism in us.
Question: How can we literally wrap everyone in one blanket of love and how can we connect everyone with one prayer?
Answer: You should discuss this among yourselves and ask the Creator to join in your request, your prayer. Then everything will work out.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Two Labors”
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Question: How can the sufferings of love for others and for the Creator help us shorten the time of our advancement?
Answer: Through suffering we do not shorten anything. Suffering is not a means for acceleration and correction. Happiness, joy, and unity are the means for accelerating correction.
Question: Even the sufferings of love can help us?
Answer: The suffering of love is very personal. Therefore, it all depends on how a person experiences it and how he correctly perceives it.
Question: You say that happiness and joy are means for accelerating correction. What is happiness for a Kabbalist?
Answer: It is hastening the movement toward the Creator. Being happy means feeling that you are getting closer to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love of God and the Love of Man“
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Question: Today, people are suffering and experiencing a lack of light.
Is there any hope of receiving this light and correcting what is happening?
Answer: Undoubtedly, eventually everyone will get the light. There will not be a single soul, not a single person, even with the most disgusting desires, with the most disgusting inclinations, who would not receive correction and fulfillment.
Question: How can people without any connection with the light get it in case of despair, war, and hopelessness?
Answer: They do not feel hopelessness the way you do. The time will come and they will receive the light of correction.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: It is said that the Creator is the first and the last. He awakens a point in the heart, and we lead the students like little children by the hand. What else is our role in dissemination?
Answer: Firstly, we study all the materials together with them once again and thus teach them. And then they begin to climb and reach heights.
Question: How can you convey to people, especially in a Christian country, that the Torah also has an inner essence?
Answer: You do not need to disseminate anything except “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That is enough to correct all souls.
Question: Do we have such souls who can work publicly with an audience and at the same time will not fall?
Answer: Of course there are. Do not be afraid to fall. The one who does not fall does not rise. So go ahead, and do not even go but jump from degree to degree.
Question: What is the minimum feeling we lead people to with our dissemination message? What are we talking about?
Answer: We lead people to do actions that reveal the Creator to them.
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From the 2nd part of the DailyKabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: How do we add faith? Do we do this ourselves?
Answer: The Creator does it, but thanks to the fact that we all together want to increase faith. Each in their our way, but, in principle, together. We want to be in perfect faith.
It is a perfect faith that completely replaces knowledge, sensation, and everything we can receive from the Creator.
Question: How can we help each other achieve a permanent lack of faith that will ultimately replace our knowledge and feelings?
Answer: Friends can show an example and support, and then you will see what you lack to gain complete faith.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”
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Question: Can we in the ten unknowingly become workers of Pharaoh? Or by being involved in Bnei Baruch, do we have some protection, some guarantee that we will not stray away?
Answer: You have no guarantees. None whatsoever. Even though Bnei Baruch is a unique organization, everyone must constantly examine themselves, examine where they are heading and what they want to achieve.
It is only about each individual’s work. Each one separately.
Question: Can a ten deviate from the path? Have some tens in the world group already deviated, but are unaware themselves?
Answer: Of course such a risk always exists. But at the same time, tens can examine and correct themselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Environment”
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Question: What kind of fuel allows us to rise above reason?
Answer: It is the fact that we begin to feel a state above reason—an altruistic state without any connection with egoism—as the most important thing, and thus we rise.
Question: As a rule we burn leavened bread before Passover. What is spiritual leaven?
Answer: Leaven is that evil inclination, our uncorrected egoism, which we cannot use correctly.
Question: Why does an egoistic question asked by a sinner kill him? And how does faith appear in this place?
Answer: If a person wants to defeat his egoism, instead of that, he begins to feel the power of faith that develops in him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Two Labors”
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Question: After Passover, we plan to hold a congress in Uzbekistan. Many friends will come to elevate this region.
What do you recommend for us in preparation for this?
Answer: The only thing I recommend to you is the unity of hearts. Not in words, but in your heart to feel you have friends with you, that you want to connect your hearts together, and that this common heart will already be filled by the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/24, Writings of Rabash “When Pharaoh Sent the People”
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Question: When a person hears the same constant question of the sinner in himself, what should he do to advance from this repeated question?
Answer: Turn to the Creator so that He can help him rise above egoism and see his condition from this height. Then he will advance correctly.
Question: It turns out that he constantly fails to reach the measure of this request.
Answer: There is a saying: God, grant that a person prays day and night.
Question: Can we help a friend kill the sinner within himself? Or is this an independent work for everyone?
Answer: Everyone must do this independently, but with the help of the environment. You can help a person, but he must act independently.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Two Labors”
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That is, while the Klipa of Pharaoh has dominion, and a mouth and speech in the exile, still, if they believed in the faithful shepherd properly, the children of Israel would be able to listen to Moses, who is above the mouth and speech.
To be in exile means to be under the rule of Pharaoh, i.e., under the control of universal egoism (Baal HaSulam, Letter 10).
The article discusses a transformation that occurs with the children of Israel when they can break free from this rule and become free from the power of Pharaoh. Practically only connection into one single desire can help one get out of Egypt and draw closer to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 10
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We should interpret that the order of one’s work in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] when he wants to work for the sake of the Creator is that one must fight and defeat the evil inclination.
That is, it is human nature to toil when there is self-benefit. But when he sees that no self-benefit will emerge from this work, he cannot work. Instead, he complains and asks, “What is this work for you?” meaning what will you gain from exerting? …
Thus, through the question he asks, he takes upon himself the commandment of faith above reason (Rabash, Notes 572 “Two Labors”).
To work for the sake of heaven, you need to accept feelings and understanding in the light of faith. This means that we must reach a state where we will rely on faith and not on the reason that we rely on now.
To get an answer to your question in faith above reason and not in reason means to get a direction of thoughts, movements, and actions that will depend not on the ego, but on the quality of bestowal.
Thus a person must rise to a degree above reason and get an answer there to the question that is asked out of egoism, because the answer always comes from a degree above reason.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Two Labors”
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Question: Should we learn to differentiate between the people of Israel and all other peoples in the world?
Answer: There is a much easier path to correcting their souls for the peoples of the world than for the people of Israel. Therefore we do not need to separate these categories. To the extent that we feel the need for correction in our movement toward the Creator, in drawing closer to Him, that is how we will act.
Comment: But we still must awaken this need for adhesion with the Creator.
My Response: If you have a predisposition to this, then you can join and help in the general correction of the nations of the world. Gradually you will begin to feel their souls and will be able to elevate them.
That is a great responsibility that falls on the people of Israel or on those who join in the correction so that they can spread the methodology of correcting souls and unite.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: There are people among us who long for the Creator as for a beloved; they want to adhere with Him. And some want to fulfill His will, to take their place in the common system regardless of their state. What should the desire really be?
Answer: Everything is good. A person will still come to their original desire. But in the beginning, let them go the way that attracts them the most.
The main thing is not to stop studying and to constantly communicate with the friends. After all, it is through them that one receives the general direction toward the purpose of creation. Otherwise, nothing else can help here.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: Pharaoh can dress in beautiful clothes, and to us it seems that he is the Creator, but in the end, all the work was for Pharaoh. How do we check our intention to bestow, and how do we develop it?
Answer: Through the friends, then we will avoid mistakes.
Question: What is the root of repentance from love?
Answer: It means that we turn to the Creator, not out of what we lack, but out of our desire to express love for Him.
Question: What does it mean to grab the serpent by its tail?
Answer: Grabbing the serpent by the head or tail signifies the right and wrong attitude toward what the Creator does with us.
Question: What is the blood of Passover and the circumcision blood, and what is the difference between them?
Answer: The blood of Passover and the circumcision blood are the final manifestations of egoism. If a person overcomes them, they help him break free from the rule of egoism.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 10
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If I had a son, I would tell him that the world presents a playful change of scenes, and one should not seek in it either a wise plan or a lofty goal.
If he learns to accept the turns of fate, to love the variability of life, and not to resist it with all the strength of his soul, then he will become the person God intended him to be (Milán Füst)
Question: What did God intend for us?
Answer: We cannot say that immediately. It will only come as a result of our great work on ourselves. Then we will come to a position where we will be fulfilled with God’s attitude toward us.
Question: Will it be important to us?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Do you agree with the statement that “It is not worth seeking in life neither a wise plan nor a lofty goal”?
Answer: It is because an ordinary person cannot do it anyway.
Question: Cannot find them?
Answer: Yes, it is better if he does not seek either meaning or purpose.
Question: How will he live then?
Answer: He will live just to live. Then he will understand the meaning of precisely such an attitude of the Creator toward him even earlier.
Question: So in this simple way, just living, will he still come to an understanding?
Answer: He will come to it faster.
Question: Faster than if he philosophizes, lives, seeks meaning, and so on?
Answer: Yes, undoubtedly.
Question: How do we learn to accept all turns of fate? Here it is said: “Accept all turns of fate. This is a playful change of scenes,” and so on. How do we learn? Today fate turns sharply.
Answer: You have to perceive all this with some excitement, like a game. When, for example, the opponent makes a move on the chessboard or slams a new card on the table, and you have a vision of your next move. Then you should be happy that you are in connection with such a person. You want to reveal the Creator in connection with him.
Question: Is every step I take in response an adventure? My own, internal one? And all my thoughts are: “How? What?”
Answer: Yes.
Question: Then you said the phrase: “You find yourself in connection with the Creator.” Is this thought, even if I do not have it, exactly what leads to such a journey through life?
Answer: Yes, this is what you want to reach.
Question: Is this the final destination of my journey?
Answer: Yes.
Question: They say it is infinite.
Answer: Yes, it is infinite.
Question: So what does that mean?
Answer: Nothing. Live and rejoice in your infinity.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/28/23
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Question: Two chipmunks sit under the warm September sun and one asks the other: “Tell me, what is the meaning of life?”
The second chipmunk thought and said: “Remember last year? There was a drought, the forest was burning, there was nothing to eat, hungry foxes were looking for us, and we were hungry. We had to run around to survive. We were not looking for this meaning. It turns out that there was one then. Look now that we are safe, foxes and people do not bother us, there is a lot of food, life is okay, but we are looking for this meaning. Does that mean we lost it?”
The chipmunk’s logic is ironclad. Why don’t we look for the meaning of life when we feel good.
Answer: What for? There are no desires; there is enough of everything. Therefore, we are not looking for any meaning in life. Life is right there. Is it fulfilled? Yes. Does it give us all sorts of pleasures? Yes.
Question: So, does life have meaning?
Answer: No, there is no meaning to life, but there is no suffering.
Question: Does this mean the Creator must do some kind of trick to make us look for the meaning of life?
Answer: Certainly.
Question: Is this necessary?
Answer: Yes, how else could it be? What about a child? If you do not force him, he will not grow.
Question: So I have to push all the time. Your conclusion is that a person must experience suffering.
Answer: Yes, but people do not understand. They think: “Let’s remove suffering from the world, and it will be a good world. Why didn’t the Creator create it like that?” It is because otherwise, humanity would not advance.
Question: If there were sunshine, we would go outside, feel good, smile at each other, and live, live, live. Are you saying that the world would stagnate in that case?
Answer: Yes, you would see the whole world, how it just lies there, people dying, everything is fine and rotting away.
Question: That is if there is no suffering?
Answer: Yes.
Question: People will never understand this. A person does not want to suffer, isn’t that right?
Answer: Yes, but in principle, we must raise our mental level and our requirements and look at ourselves from the outside.
Question: One way or another, does suffering lead to something?
Answer: Suffering leads to awareness of its cause. When we suffer, we want to know why and how to overcome it.
Question: What is the main cause of suffering? It must lead to something someday.
Answer: Gradually, suffering leads humanity to the realization that man is the whole cause of suffering.
Comment: I start with the fact that my neighbor, or neighbors, or the neighboring country…
My Response: We have gone through this a long, long time ago. If we really wanted to know the cause of suffering, we would quickly understand that it is in our egoism.
Question: Is it in us? Is this the main thing that drives us?
Answer: Yes.
Question: The moment I understand that the whole cause of suffering is in us, in our egoism, what happens? Does suffering stop? Is there no need to drive us away?
Answer: Certainly.
Comment: If we say that the Creator pushes humanity through suffering, then He calms down when we understand that the whole trouble is in us.
My Response: He does not calm down. The Creator does not need to change Himself. If we change, suffering disappears.
Question: The whole problem is in me. I finally understand it. What next? What are my next steps?
Answer: If I strive to eliminate suffering, I look for its cause. If my hatred of everything around me causes my suffering, I change my attitude toward everything.
Question: Do I always have to tune in my hatred?
Answer: Yes, gradually, gradually by changing it, I begin to feel that this is leading me to a good life. That is all. As soon as I rise above this hatred or replace it with love and a warm attitude, the suffering stops.
Question: What is this life called? This is no longer earthly life because our lives are different.
Answer: It doesn’t matter. Let’s call it earthly.
Question: Is this how man and humanity start living?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is this possible? Do you believe in it? It sounds logical.
Answer: I do not believe in it. But if we wanted, we could realize how we can force the Creator to change us so that we do this.
Comment: Meaning, we would feel that the whole reason…
My Response: The whole reason is hatred.
Question: And we should ask Him?
Answer: Yes, we must ask Him. That is all.
Comment: This is a different psychology, the “I can change” psychology. You say that I cannot change.
My Response: I cannot change in any way. The only thing I can do is to ask the Creator to change me. And then the sun will shine.
Question: We do not feel or see the Creator. We pronounce the word “Creator,” and despite this, is my appeal to that which I do not see and do not know or understand at all effective?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So are you in favor of a person who does not understand anything and still turns to the Creator? You say it will work.
Answer: Yes, it will work. We see small children and newborns crying. What they are crying about is unclear, but it is a sign of their bad feelings.
Question: They cry: “Make me feel good!” Should a person do the same?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But in principle, his cry should be, as you say: “Turn my hatred around, make me loving”?
Answer: But this is already conscious, and there are other states.
Question: This is a high state. This is what we must come to, exactly?
Answer: Yes.
[327112]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/24
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It is like a partnership, where if each one does his job, everyone is happy, as it is written, “which God has created to do,” for there is nothing without labor.
Hence, the husband toils and brings money, and his wife takes the money and toils with it, buying groceries and cooking, and seeing that the food is tasty, and then both are happy.
If the woman cooks well, her husband will have good appetite and will then have strength to go to work and bring in money.
Likewise, if the feet walk and the hands buy and give the food to the brain, the brain has the strength to think (Rabash, Notes 503, Partnership).
That is a simple and very correct explanation of marital relationships. The partnership starts from the beginning, from the basics of our lives, and extends to high and lofty matters.
If a married couple wants to reach a higher quality of connection between them, it will lead them to spiritual work.
Question: Do they need to have in mind that they are striving for something more spiritual?
Answer: Of course, certainly! They must coordinate this with each other and understand that they may need to sacrifice something to reach a spiritual goal. Then they will attain a higher connection than the ordinary connection between husband and wife.
To have a spiritual connection, they must understand what they can achieve with its help, whether they are ready for it, and where it will lead them.
Comment: It sounds like some serious sacrifices are required here.
My Response: It does not require sacrifices, but it does require effort.
[328179]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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Question: What do we need to keep in the center of the ten in order to pass through the darkness when exiting Egypt?
Answer: The most important thing is to go by faith above reason paying no attention to any obstacles, taking one more step, and another step, and another. Thus, gradually, we will exit Egypt.
Question: If a person truly reaches a state where all his thoughts, desires, and aspirations are directed toward the Creator, then a second before and a second after exiting Egypt, how does his attitude toward the Creator change?
Answer: Before exiting Egypt, a person is in a state of pleading, begging the Creator to help him escape from there, to rise above egoistic problems.
And literally the next moment, he feels gratitude for what the Creator has done for him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Rabash “Two Labors”
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Question: On the seventh day of creation the Creator rests. In principle, work is prohibited on this day. What does this mean?
Answer: A person should understand that the world was not created for the purpose of working and producing something. There is simply a certain period when he must create (that is why it is called creation), and then the Creator acts Himself.
That is, for six days a person performs certain work on himself, and on the seventh day he is filled. This is already the work of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 3/21/24
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Comment: There is always a layer of internal feelings behind your words. I understand what you are saying when you are explaining it, but I cannot convey it to others. There is always something lacking.
My Response: You will not succeed because my spiritual perception is on the opposition of two systems: egoistic and altruistic. And I somehow project this onto you. But you so far have only one system, i.e., you perceive what I say, but cannot convey it to another person.
Question: And if I were to manage to convey information to a person, would he be able to perceive it?
Answer: Every person can perceive it to some extent because you convey it to them in your instruments.
Question: When you speak in public, you have an internal exchange of information. People understand you, but when they leave a lecture and are asked, “How was it?”, they can’t really answer.
Answer: Nevertheless, they were able to feel something within themselves. They saw truth, logic, feelings, and verbal transmission of information and accepted my message. But they cannot convey and accurately define it. That usually happens the first time we perceive something new. But then you have to work hard to begin to recognize all this.
[328816]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Feelings that Cannot be Conveyed” 2/14/12
Israel were made by the Creator, the heart of the whole world. And so are Israel among the nations, like a heart among the organs. And as the organs of the body cannot exist in the world even a minute without the heart, all the other nations cannot exist in the world without Israel (Zohar for All, Vol. 7, “Pinchas”).
Some nations live so far away from the people of Israel that they have no connection with them, yet they exist. It is not just about mere existence, but about a deeper meaning, about connection with the center of the world, with the Creator, which for other nations can only be through Israel.
And since people subconsciously seek this connection through Israel and do not find it, this leads them to hatred toward the people of Israel. Thus antisemitism arises. People do not understand where their hatred comes from. But in reality, the internal reason lies in the feeling that they cannot find the center of the world through Israel, from which they could fill themselves and their souls.
Therefore, they blame the people of Israel and think that if they could eliminate them, they could somehow arrange their own existence. But it will not work out that way.
Israel must be the heart of the entire world, the center of unity through which all the world’s nations unite with each other and the Creator. The connection of the world with the Creator goes through Israel. It turns out that Israel must raise a prayer for all the nations of the world and feel their desire as its own.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: You said that we are connected to the nations of the world through Malchut. How do we work with this? What should we do with this common desire?
Answer: The nations of the world mostly stem from Malchut de Malchut, while the souls of Israel come from the first nine Sefirot within Malchut. Therefore, the souls of Israel can begin to attract light upon themselves and then channel it through themselves to all the nations of the world.
Although Israel goes first, when the nations of the world come to master the correction of nature, they will do much more than Israel as they comprise the main part of Malchut.
Question: How can I associate myself more with the first nine Sefirot than with Malchut de Malchut?
Answer: The first nine Sefirot represent the quality of bestowal. If you align yourself with the qualities of bestowal as much as possible in every movement you make, you will join them. No one will be able to take this from you; you will be in charge of your own destiny.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
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Question: Could it be that a ten that fulfills the condition of Bnei Baruch, the love of friends, is at the level of Lo Lishma (for oneself)?
Answer: Yes, because Lo Lishma (for oneself) or Lishma (for one’s neighbor) is manifested in their intention, but it is not visible from the outside.
Friends can do whatever is necessary and in their intention be completely elsewhere, that is, not advancing toward uniting hearts and not seeking mutual assistance. And this is the main thing.
[328500]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Environment”
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In his article “Partnership,” Rabash writes about an ideal relationship where the husband works and brings home money and the wife’s work is to cook tasty meals, and everyone is happy.
That is a simple life example of correct relations. The husband brings earnings, which is his task, and the wife assures everyone is satisfied. That is the way it should be in every family.
Of course, we understand that Rabash lived in the previous century when a woman stayed home with children and pots and pans. She had enough work around the house. Nothing was closed for her, but she was not obligated to develop.
Through her labor and attachment to her man, she received from him whatever he had without making any mental effort. She received it only through her mere attachment and exertion of caring for her family.
Question: Does it mean that development does not depend on mental efforts?
Answer: No, at least for women that is true.
[328214]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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Question: It is said that every friend is obliged to fulfill his neighbor’s needs and leave oneself lacking. What do we sacrifice in the ten for the sake of our friends?
Answer: In the ten we must sacrifice ourselves to get closer to our friends and merge with them.
In principle, we do not sacrifice anything because, after all, we begin to understand that what previously seemed to us as an acquisition is, in fact, now like a prison. Therefore, we only gain by sacrificing for the sake of our unity.
[328489]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love of God and the Love of Man“
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However, we should know that one cannot achieve this on his own. Rather, it is said about that (Kidushin, 30), “Man’s inclination overcomes him each day and seeks to kill him” (Rabash, Article 16, 1984, “Concerning Bestowal”).
Question: Where can I get the energy to act for the sake of bestowal?
Answer: Ask the Creator. If the Creator wants you to have such an opportunity, He will give it to you.
Question: Why is it so arranged that I have to ask the Creator for fuel for the action of bestowal? After all, the Creator wants a person to be independent and free. Why can’t I reach this state myself?
Answer: Because you should feel what you get, what it gives you, what you achieve.
The Creator wants us not to be just independent, but independent in our egoism; otherwise, He would have created us differently. We are created to think only of ourselves. For example, when you think about someone else, you involuntarily begin to feel that you are thinking about yourself. This desire to think about ourselves and not about others is our nature, egoism. Therefore, we must come closer to the Creator and try to bring Him contentment by thinking about Him.
Question: Is it possible to bring contentment to the Creator directly without bringing contentment to the other?
Answer: The Creator is also the other.
Question: Does it mean that doing something for the sake of the other or for the sake of the Creator is the same thing?
Answer: It is not exactly the same thing. The difference is in scale. This is not easy, but in principle, it lies within the same boundaries.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 3/28/24
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Question: The Creator led the people out of Egypt by a long path. Does this mean that after exiting Egypt we must also go through a long path?
Answer: After leaving Egypt, we are still wandering all over the world.
Question: It turns out that if we are still wandering, then each of us has already been engaged in attaining the Creator and studying His laws in the past?
Answer: Yes. Today, there are no new souls in the world at all. We must understand that everything is prepared for us to enter the last, final stage of correction.
We just need to connect with the spiritual root to which we belong. This is enough to enter a state called the Final Correction (Gmar Tikkun).
[328383]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/24, Writings of Rabash “When Pharaoh Sent the People”
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Likewise, if the feet walk and the hands buy and give the food to the brain, the brain has the strength to think (Rabash, Notes 503, “Partnership“).
Just as the body with all its organs depends on the command from the brain, so in a family, the husband and wife complement each other, create a family, and everything else moves according to their mutual work.
Question: Who in the family is the brain, who are the hands, and who are the legs?
Answer: In the family, the woman does more work. And the husband brings her his salary.
Question: What kind of spiritual salary could a husband have?
Answer: The spiritual salary is what they create as a family; they give birth to children, raise them, and build a home. In general, everything they do, they share between them. To the extent that a woman desires to know what her husband studies, she gradually learns.
Question: And is this related to everyday life, to simple things?
Answer: Precisely to simple things in everyday life. If the wife does everything necessary for the husband so that he has food, health, and strength for work and study, then, from that she receives her share, not only in preparing and maintaining the home, but also somehow belonging to spiritual attributes.
[328266]
From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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Question: On the sixth day of creation, man was created. It is interesting what the Creator said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” What does this mean?
Answer: After all inanimate and living creations, man is created in the image and likeness of the Creator. This means that man is created in such a way that he can literally grow from scratch to become like the Creator Himself.
Question: We usually say that the Creator has no image at all. What is meant by being in the image and likeness of Him? Let’s say it is about similarity in qualities; this somehow could be understood.
Answer: Of course, when a person forms a likeness of the Creator within himself, he takes upon the influence of the upper Sefirot, the forces of the Creator, and thus builds out of himself all the emanations, all the actions, of the Creator so that ultimately he acquires the quality of similarity.
In principle, it is not about the creation of man, but about the fact that on the sixth stage of spiritual correction, a person discovers within himself the strength to take all inanimate, vegetative, and animate desires, direct them toward the Creator, and thus become like Him.
[327608]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 3/21/24
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The entire system through which light passes into the world to all nations depends on Israel.
Therefore the people of Israel are created so stubborn and unyielding, stiff-necked, as they say. After all, the stronger the resistance is at first, the greater the path is for light to open up later.
Antisemitism has existed in the world throughout all ages. Today it is simply exploding and bursting forth because the egoistic desire in the world is becoming increasingly aggressive and demanding. Therefore, the nations of the world demand fulfillment from the people of Israel. They believe that Israel is stealing this fulfillment from the nations of the world; all complaints arise from this.
We see that hatred of Israel is growing more and more. At the same time, it is not evident that Israel seeks to compensate for it, provide fulfillment to the nations of the world, and become the center of universal unity and connection with the Creator.
Ultimately, under pressure from the nations of the world and from above, the people of Israel will feel that they simply must unite with the Creator and that there is no salvation otherwise.
Therefore, the people of Israel should preempt the blows with the remedy: study the system, learn what passing the light to all creations depends on, and how to begin and end this work to try to fulfill their mission.
The nations of the world see Israel as a source of evil and therefore seek to destroy it. After all, if Israel does not fulfill its role of serving as a source of goodness, it turns into a source of problems. Therefore, the nations of the world accuse Israel because they feel that fulfillment does not come from it to them.
The people of Israel do not understand their mission and do not want to know about their obligations to the nations of the world and the Creator because this imposes obligations on us.
The unity of the whole world depends on the Jews whose entire Torah speaks of love for one’s neighbor as oneself. This method, this rule, we must pass on to all nations, and then the whole world will be corrected.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
Question: Rabash said that one can only correct oneself and that it takes much practice to gain control over one’s egoism. Why would we correct others if they will automatically correct themselves when we do?
Answer: Our correction depends on the connection between us. Therefore, dissemination is a very important action.
We do not take any obstacles into account but only wish to disseminate Kabbalah as a teaching about the correction of humanity and its elevation to the highest level—the level of the Creator.
[328953]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/24, “The Holocaust Remembrance Day“
Question: What will help us reach unity in mind and heart so that the Creator will elevate us to the next degree?
Answer: Fighting for unity in mind and feelings means that we must in any circumstance think only about unity because only based on that can we influence the Creator, our state, and move toward the upper purpose.
[328443]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 10
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The one who seeks the truth is the one who needs the light of faith. (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 41, “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”).
Faith is a condition when I act as if I am in front of the Creator in absolute attainment, connection, love, and mutual understanding with Him.
Then, I am in complete faith.
Question: Can the light of faith be felt as something I can share?
Answer: The light of faith is a feeling of connection with the Creator. Of course, it is always lacking, so we must constantly ask for it.
[328305]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”
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Question: What is the path of truth?
Answer: The path of truth is when we constantly turn to the Creator with a request to cure us of egoism. A person who seeks the truth is called a righteous person.
Question: And what is it to see with all your heart?
Answer: It means to feel.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”
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Question: What can we do to delve deeper into the sources and reveal them more internally?
Answer: You have a group where you should reproduce what you read in desires until they are ready for spiritual use.
Reproducing means reading and desiring to feel how gradually you immerse in all these conditions, and you begin to see how you change by them. Then you will form a more serious attitude toward your desires.
[328374]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Connection between Passover, Matza, and Maror”
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Question: There is an Arabic proverb: “Before telling someone the bitter truth, anoint the tip of your tongue with honey.”
Should you tell a person the bitter truth or not? It is said: “Before telling a person the bitter truth.” Should we or not?
Answer: We must calculate whether this truth, although bitter, is necessary for him. If it is truly necessary.
Question: This is quite a task you are asking of us: to think of another at this moment?
Answer: Of course. The one who tells the bitter truth to another must experience this bitter truth on himself although it does not apply to him.
Question: So he should walk in his shoes, as they say, then he can tell the bitter truth?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And if not, if he did not test it on himself?
Answer: If he has not tested what he wants to tell the other, where he wants to lead the other with his statement, then it is better not to say it.
Question: So, who is this bitter truth for?
Answer: This is a bitter truth for another.
Question: But tested on the one who says it?
Answer: If it is tested on him, then he can speak.
Question: What does it mean if we go according to this Arabic proverb, “You must first anoint the tip of your tongue with honey?”
Answer: So that it is clothed in something sweet and comforts a person, in hope, in faith, and perhaps in some benefit.
Comment: That is, you cannot throw it at him…
My Response: No! You should not say anything bad at all.
Comment: You are in favor of a medicine that…
My Response: That heals.
Question: And that may be covered in some sweet syrup or some sweet wrapper?
Answer: Yes, maybe.
Question: Have you told the bitter truth to any person or to people in general? You do know it. Do you tell the truth?
Answer: No.
Question: Why not?
Answer: What for? This can be said to a person only when he has the strength, the ability to understand, realize, accept, and solve this problem in himself. And if he does not have such training, why tell him?
Question: So, you think that man or humanity is not yet ready for the bitter truth?
Answer: It is not ready! Whatever wrapper you use, it is not ready.
Question: When will we be ready to hear the bitter truth?
Answer: I do not know.
Question: But should we? One way or another, will we have to go through this stage?
Answer: I do not think we need to say anything. We need to act in such a way that the Creator tells people all this.
Question: So our task is to bring the Creator to people?
Answer: Yes.
Question: To do so, do we have to attain the bitter truth ourselves or not?
Answer: Of course! Or you will not pray for the Creator to do it.
Question: For Him to come to the people?
Answer: Right.
[327209]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/4/24
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Question: Egyptians are desires and thoughts that lead me away from spiritual work. What does it mean to kill an Egyptian?
Answer: To kill the negative intention within oneself.
Question: How can we soften our path since it is challenging?
Answer: Through love for our friends. By increasing love among yourselves in the group, you can do whatever you want with your path and spiritual development.
Question: Every day I complain to the Creator. Why do people fight, why do earthquakes and floods occur? How can we help the planet Earth avoid these sufferings?
Answer: Change yourself so that you relate to all earthlings as good human beings and explain to everyone that love is the highest quality we can receive from the Creator, and it will correct everything.
Question: I feel indifferent to what is happening in the world. Should I emotionally engage in what is happening? What is the right attitude?
Answer: Indifference arises when you cut yourself off from the group, from the masses, and interest in getting closer arises from the fact that you are getting closer to your friends and want to create some common desire together.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Connection between Passover, Matza, and Maror”
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Question: Often in work teams there are cases where you have to either listen to or take part in criticizing an employee for his actions. Where is the borderline between slander and simply seeing a person doing something wrong?
Answer: This is not called slander. There is no need to criticize anything. You just need to draw a conclusion and make a decision accordingly. If someone talks about someone in a certain way, then you may need to physically react to it.
Question: This is a work situation in which we identify some actions of the employee?
Answer: Yes, and we need more clarifications of this kind.
Question: It is written that slander kills three people: the one who speaks, the one who believes the speaker, and the one who is talked about. This is written in the Talmud. What advice can be given here?
Answer: From time to time, we should create such platforms within the team where you can discuss someone’s protest against someone so that people learn from this.
Question: So if we are talking about a person in his presence and telling him to his face what we think is the truth, this is not called slander?
Answer: No, but all this needs to be thought through and not revealed point blank, in front of everyone, so that all participants understand that this is being done for their benefit.
[327250]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/7/24
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Question: On the fifth day of creation, God created animals and birds, i.e., animate desires. What is the difference between vegetative desires and animate desires?
Answer: There is a huge difference! Imagine what would happen if only vegetative desires existed in our world.
How does the Creator approach the creation of man? Through the creation of vegetative and then animate desires. And then man appears.
Question: It is said: be fruitful and multiply. What does it mean that a person discovers this commandment within himself?
Answer: He must think about how to put the commandments of the Creator into action and take care that his Kelim (desires) constantly grow because the greater his desires, the greater the connection with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/21/24
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Question: How do you keep a balance between good and evil?
Answer: We cannot maintain such a balance. We do not need this at all since these calculations are inherently egoistic. We must try to surrender fully to the Creator.
Live in a state where you feel completely open to the Creator. Gradually, these feelings will settle in you and take their place.
[328380]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”
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Question: The exodus from Egypt is the last material frontier of the egoistic world. Beyond it there is a conditional line, where after crossing it, a person begins to feel love and bestowal of the Creator.
What is this transformation that we are undergoing?
Answer: This is the last correction, which is called the final correction (Gmar Tikkun).
It occurred when a group of Kabbalists led by Moses exited Egypt, united with the Creator, received the Torah on Mount Sinai, and thus attained their final correction.
In other words, all this has already happened. Today, we, under no circumstances, need to go to Mount Sinai and climb it. The only thing we have to do is to be internally and spiritually ready for unity in the movement from heart to heart.
Then, we will feel the state called one nation in one heart. That is where history leads us. Everything that happens in the world is only necessary for us to complete it. We live in the happiest time.
[328346]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/24, Writings of Rabash “When Pharaoh Sent the People”
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Question: It is written, “And the children of Israel sighed from the work, and they cried out, and their cry rose up to God.” Where does this cry come from?
Answer: It comes from a sense of helplessness that people want to unite to succeed and receive fulfillment from the Creator through their efforts, but they see they are unable.
From this, their cry arises, like a drowning person who can do nothing in the sea except cry out for help.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/24, Writings of Rabash “The Connection between Passover, Matza, and Maror”
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Question: It is written that a person can discover love in a good way or with harsh judgments. How is this related to the feeling that I stand before the King and can reveal this love in two ways?
Answer: This is an emotion; therefore, I cannot convey it to you. Either you desire to increase good within yourself and thus come closer to the Creator, or you demand something to come closer to the Creator.
That is what we do in life. You can ask, cry, and thus draw closer, or make a demand.
In principle, a person should reach such love for the Creator with which the Creator loves him. But this is practically an unattainable degree. That is the end of all corrections.
[328310]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”
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All spiritual states that a person must go through are inherent within him in potential.
In principle, the Torah and Kabbalah first describe the process of creating creation from top to bottom. But when a person begins to spiritually ascend on their own, from bottom to top, they enter into these same states through which they descended, only now they are revealing the forces that already exist within them.
After being filled with the upper light, one restricts oneself because a person feels shame. Then the process of concealing the Creator begins, followed by the subsequent attainment, where a person reveals the Creator to the extent of one’s similarity to Him.
Question: What is the difference between the similarity to the Creator when a person ascends from bottom to top, and the one that was on the sixth day of creation?
Answer: The difference is significant. In one case, it is done by the Creator, and in the other case, creation is given the opportunity to create a likeness to the Creator from within itself.
On the sixth day, this happened under the influence of the forces inherent in potential. But when we ascend from bottom to top, we take these forces and realize them ourselves and create a human out of ourselves, Adam – from the word “Domeh” (similar).
This means that everyone must write the Torah in their own heart, in their own desire.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/21/24
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Question: How can we check if we are ready to work in self-annulment with all our hearts?
Answer: The evidence is how much a person can dedicate himself to the goal.
Question: The connection with the Creator has degrees. What kind of work helps you see a new degree and not just have a connection?
Answer: Connect with your friends and try to reach the Creator through them, that will be your building of the degrees.
Question: Is the revelation of evil a state or a degree?
Answer: This is a state where I feel how opposite I am to the Creator. At different degrees it comes and goes.
Question: Why does the Creator give man the power of faith?
Answer: Because a person is very eager to do this.
Question: If the Creator gives harsh judgments to someone in the ten, how is it right to react internally and externally to show this reaction?
Answer: Help a friend in any way and quietly pray for him.
[328302]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”
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Question: Why, if women did not work and only cared for the house before, should they study in our time?
Answer: It is an entirely different time now. Over the past hundred years almost all women acquire a specialty, go to work, and, together with their husbands, provide for their families.
Question: Speaking of your students, can women advance spiritually simply by serving their husbands, your students, without studying themselves?
Answer: Without a doubt.
Question: Is it so simple?
Answer: It is complex. Suppose a woman is attached to her man and does everything he needs for life, and they live together and provide for each other spiritually and materially. In that case, the woman receives some of his spiritual baggage. In this union, they are partners.
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From KabTV’s “Man and Women” 4/2/24
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On the fourth day of creation, the Almighty creates two great luminaries: the sun and the moon. In the science of Kabbalah, they are called Zeir Anpin and Malchut.
We are talking about the connection of man with the Creator. The moon is a small connection with the Creator and the sun is a big connection with Him. That is, life comes from the sun, and where its light does not reach, there is no life.
In other words, a small connection is the correction of lighter desires for connection with the Creator. And the big connection is the correction of the most egoistic desires.
[327517]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/21/24
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Comment: It is interesting that in Japan, instead of “I love you,” they sometimes say, “You are my silence.”
My Response: Beautiful
Question: How would you comment on that?
Answer: It is clear that they appreciate silence, and that is why they say it that way.
Question: Do you also appreciate silence?
Answer: Yes.
Question: To sit like this and be silent, is that it?
Answer: I can be in silence for eternity.
Question: There are a lot of comments on your videos that it is better to remain silent. Silence is golden, as it is said. And so people ask, “When to keep silent, when to speak?”
Answer: Always keep silent!
Question: But before that, we agree that we will remain silent?
Answer: There is no need to agree, just react that way.
Question: And is this how this chain will continue, you start and then?
Answer: Yes, and everyone will gradually understand that.
Question: Will the state that it is good to be silent come?
Answer: Yes, silence is loud and filled with a great amount of information.
Question: And is that why there is no need for unnecessary information?
Answer: There is no need for unnecessary movement or words.
Question: But what about the good words we express?
Answer: It is all empty.
Question: What about saying “I love you,” for example?
Answer: That is because a woman wants it.
Question: And can the same thing be said silently?
Answer: I would not say anything, but say it if necessary.
Question: “They love with their ears,” they say. Is this correct in your opinion?
Answer: Of course.
Question: So should it be said to a woman?
Answer: Yes.
[328244]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/1/24
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Comment: In principle, I should judge not only the friends in the ten, but all of humanity to the scale of merit. But this will come gradually. Naturally, it is much harder.
My Response: Yes, you cannot explain to humanity that you are doing this in order to have the right foundation for ascending to the Creator. They may have no desire for this at all, but there is such a desire in the group.
“Make yourself a Rav” means to accept, as a basis, the upper governance, the laws of the Creator, whose purpose is to lead us to ultimate correction. You simply accept this and act upon it.
Secondly, you buy a friend. Thirdly, you judge all of humanity to the scale of merit. In other words, regardless of what happens, you understand that all of this also comes from the Creator.
But initially, all of these actions must be carried out in a small group. Let’s try to create such a group, such a society.
[328292]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/11/24
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Question: What needs to happen within us and between us for our prayer to become correct? I would like to know what state we are in when our prayer does not reach the Creator.
Answer: It lacks caring for each other. This is not an easy action because we need to replace our own hearts with those of others.
Suppose there is a friend who involuntarily thinks only of himself. And there is you, who also involuntarily thinks of yourself. How can you exchange desires so that each one thinks in his heart, not of himself, but of the other? You need to think about this carefully. Perhaps you will find a solution.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 48
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You find that for Him, faith is not regarded as being of inferior importance. On the contrary, specifically, this path has many merits, but it appears lowly in the eyes of the creatures.
If the rod is thrown to the ground and one wants to work with a higher discernment, meaning within reason, degrading the above reason, and this work seems low, one’s Torah and work immediately become a serpent (Baal HaSulam, Article 59 “Concerning the Rod and the Serpent”).
The serpent is all our vile reasoning. This snake hides inside us, but at the right moment, it shows itself and humiliates a person, inciting pride in him and providing justification for his egoistic actions.
Therefore, one must be careful not to fall into this serpentine state. The environment should create such an illumination around a person that will protect him from this fall into primordial egoism.
One must hold faith above reason as the highest value to prevent the rod from becoming a snake. That is what proper work in the ten should be like.
[328330]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Concerning the Staff and the Serpent”
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The mind given to man must be used correctly in order to extract from all Kabbalistic articles principles of bestowal and faith above reason and build one’s intention accordingly.
Above reason does not mean I throw away my mind altogether. Above reason means to rise above the egoistic understanding I used to have and transition to a higher level.
Faith above reason is the ability to relate to the whole reality not from the egoistic point of view, but from the desire to bestow.
[328334]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Concerning the Staff and the Serpent”
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Question: What does it mean to treat what the Creator has sent me correctly in the same way He treats it?
Answer: The Creator always gives us a step forward toward Him and helps us move forward.
Therefore, we must try to use each state, realize that it comes to us from the Creator, not leave it without any reaction, and take another step forward.
Question: How do you begin to clothe yourself in the Creator and see reality as He sees it?
Answer: We need to get to this gradually, and then we will see how we are progressing. In the meantime, we need to convince ourselves all the time that we should ask the Creator to bring us closer to Him.
[327719]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/24, Writings of Rabash “The Meaning of Exile”
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Alyona writes:
Dear Michael Laitman,
Parenting is one of my greatest concerns today.
I found this quote from Korney Chukovsky: “Hearing a fairy tale, a child usually sides with the kind, courageous, or unfairly treated. Our whole task is to awaken, foster, and strengthen, in the pliable mind of a child, this precious ability to empathize, sympathize, and share other’s joy, without which a human is not really a human.
In your opinion, which books should be available to a child? A battle of good and evil so the child can choose a good force or books that describe this world as completely good without any evil?
Answer: At first, completely kind books for elementary school children if I may say so. And then in a more natural way books where evil is present on a par with good: Good wins, evil retreats, and so on until a child matures and begins to read books and novels where evil prevails.
Comment: Such is a person’s preparation.
My Response: To bring him out of fairy tales and introduce him to real life.
Question: And in real life where evil wins?
Answer: Of course. So a child must learn not to oppose evil because he will only bring problems on himself. He must learn that evil wins, but he should remain on the sidelines; at no point does he engage in a fight against evil.
Comment: I understand this progression. At first, he is just a small, gentle child; we don’t want to scare him. The first stage is clear. Second, gradually evil appears, yet good still wins. This too is clear, so he would be on the side of good. Then you made a drastic turnaround, you said our world is all evil.
My Response: Meaning, we explain to a child that although there is good and evil in our world, we need to dodge evil.
Question: Is this what we explain to the child?
Answer: Yes, to a child, but only at the third stage.
Question: So you don’t accept evil after all? One should avoid it, as you said. This is the third stage.
When does he understand that our world is built on evil?
Answer: He will understand this when he is in the third stage. He will turn away, step back, and distance himself from it. Then comes quite an interesting stage when he gets involved with evil and uses it for his own selfish needs, career advancement and so on.
Question: So our little protagonist, who started out so pure, suddenly climbs the career ladder, stepping on others and so on?
Answer: Yes
Question: And then the fifth stage, should he understand he is like that?
Answer: We have not yet reached this in our world, so we have no clear examples. That is why I don’t want to talk about it.
Question: But should he at least come to the conclusion that this is bad?
Answer: He must come to the conclusion that he cannot live in such a world, that indeed in our world of egoism everything is distorted. So he has no choice but to simply distance himself from this world as much as possible, because he still has to exist, provide for his children, and so on. But in general it is a problem.
Comment: It’s a problem to isolate yourself from this world. Especially now when social media is everywhere.
My Response: Yes, but if he knows this basic principle, he distances himself from the world.
Question: The principle that it’s all a lie, that everything he’s being fed is paid for and that he needs to distance himself?
Answer: Right.
Question: Then just tell us the right way to distance oneself. What should one surround oneself with? No wonder, Alyona asks: “What to make available to a child?” And now I’m asking you about adults: what should one surround oneself with, how can one distance oneself from the world?
Answer: Surround yourself with self-care. Find something you love besides work or home. I remember I had a neighbor who was into woodwork. That’s all. That was his activity. He searched for all sorts of wood, logs, and everything else and then worked on them. Made birdhouses, all that kind of stuff. He liked it.
Question: So you are gradually, gently bringing us to such a way of distancing yourself from the world by taking up a hobby? Collecting soldiers, I don’t know how to process woodworking?
Answer: It doesn’t matter, yes.
Question: And then? Still, how do we take care of the soul?
Answer: Well, I’m talking about ordinary people.
Comment: But let’s take it a step further.
My Response: This will bring him closer to his soul.
Question: So we have now gone from a small child to an adult. Where should a person come to as a result, having gone all this way, in the end?
Answer: To the fact the simplest handiwork softens the soul. In general, he will be satisfied with his existence.
Question: But will this question vex him, after all, such a small question about his soul?
Answer: Maybe, yes, and maybe that will be enough for the level of development of his soul.
[325128]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/21/23
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Question: Your teacher Rabash wrote an article, “Make yourself a Rav and buy yourself a friend.” For the title, he took a saying from the Mishnah, a book by our sages about 2,000 years ago.
It gives the following advice: to acquire the property of bestowal (the property of the Creator), three conditions must be met. The first is to make yourself a Rav (Rav comes from the word “great,” teacher). The second is to buy yourself a friend. The third is to judge every person to the scale of merit.
I would like you to explain all three actions. Why do we need to fulfill them?
Answer: The point is that although we are connected with the Creator, we do not have mutual feelings with Him. Therefore, we cannot be with Him directly in such a relationship as with a friend, a teacher, or other people.
A person wishing to connect with the Creator must first acquire a friend. People who come to study Kabbalah and whose goal is to reveal the Creator must be in a group of like-minded individuals and develop mutual connection among themselves. Moreover, this connection should be higher than anything else for them. That is the first condition for a person striving to attain the upper world.
Question: But why specifically “buy” a friend? What does this mean?
Answer: It means using all opportunities to bring a person like you who is striving for the same goal closer to you, and being able to unite with them like with no one else. After all, in this connection, you are considered as one whole.
[328138]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/11/24
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Question: It is said: first, make yourself a Rav. What does that mean?
Answer: Rav, from the word “great,” a teacher. “Make” means approaching him with gifts, participation, friendliness, etc.
Comment: I remember you explained that if we talk about the Creator, “make” means I must accept the upper governance. That is, I agree that He requires the quality of bestowal from me.
My Response: Yes, you will come to that eventually but not at the beginning of your relationship.
In principle, making yourself a Rav and buying a friend relates more to the friend. If you have a group of friends before you, you should “buy” them, meaning invest in them, “buy” their attention so they can respond to you similarly and there is a mutual guarantee between you. That is mutual work.
To make a Rav out of a friend, you must see him as great, and then you will acquire all spiritual qualities through him. It is precisely in connection with friends and rising above yourself that you can acquire spiritual qualities through them.
[328208]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/11/24
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Question: You wrote your book Attaining The Worlds Beyond 30 years ago if not more.
This book is also published in audio format. This means it will be even more accessible. This is the most accessible format today—people do not read. They prefer to listen in the subway or the car.
This book became book number one for many. Thanks to this book, many people came to Kabbalah and thought about the meaning of life.
Please tell me what you put into this book. What is the secret?
Answer: It seems to me that I simply tried to express my impressions of my encounter with Kabbalah there. Maybe it is because this book is so direct that people respond to it so much.
Comment: You also said that you wrote it in just about two weeks.
My Response: Correct.
Question: At what point does it happen that a person delivers it in such a way?
Answer: When it accumulates and pressures him from within, then that person just pours it all on paper.
Question: Did you feel like you were obligated to pour it out?
Answer: Yes; otherwise, it would weigh on me. It is like giving birth.
Question: Does this book sound like a child?
Answer: Yes.
Question: The audio version of this book is coming out now. People will listen. How is listening different from reading? What works more or less here?
Answer: Reading is still more intimate, and listening to someone is no substitute for reading.
Comment: Recently humanity has been listening to audiobooks more and more. But you still encourage reading in the old-fashioned way.
My Response: I am for reading. It is very intimate. I would not replace one with the other.
Comment: But you can combine it somehow. Listen while driving when there is no opportunity to read. And then come home and read it.
My Response: If I listen to something like that internally, I cannot drive a car and listen. I am in it with all my senses.
[327780]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/25/24
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Question: In Rabash’s articles, it says that on one hand friends should be equal to me, then I can unite with them. On the other hand I must see the same friend as equal to myself, and another time higher than myself. When and how is this regulated?
Answer: To the extent a person can combine these two approaches within himself, he does that. It all balances out mutually. A friend relates to me as I relate to him, and we unite and move toward the Creator.
Comment: It is not clear where to find the energy for this. Your teacher Rabash writes that although we have no commandment to love our children, from nature there is a natural love for them; otherwise, there would be no continuation of the species. But here, it turns out that we must perform some unnatural actions.
My Response: Yes, these actions are not natural, and few people have the ability, impulse, and understanding to carry them out.
Question: So where do we get the energy to perform them?
Answer: From friends who initially have some inclination toward this. These are individuals who have this inclination. If they gather together under the guidance of an instructor or teacher who correctly directs them toward unity, they connect into one group and move forward in this way.
[328238]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/11/24
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Question: At the moment the Creator allows me to see the misuse of a desire given to me, what is my inner state?
Answer: It depends on the person. Either you are glad that the Creator has answered you or you see Him as bad.
In this case, everyone must weigh their condition.
If you were truly allowed to see the evil in you or the misuse of a desire, then you should thank the Creator for this.
If your friend reveals evil in himself, then you must help him by joining him and working with him to transform this evil into good.
[328204]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Spoke Regarding Four Sons”
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Implementing unity to the extent desired by the Creator means achieving unity without any limitations.
And in order to feel what He wants from us, we must ask Him, bother Him, and request from Him. And then we will understand the connection with Him and will develop in this connection.
Question: Since we are constantly striving to unite and our external actions always seem the same, how can we check our intention to bestow?
Answer: Look not at the actions, but at the intention. That is all you need to check: for what, for whom, in the name of what?
A sign of a correct intention is that it is directed toward the Creator.
[328226]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/24, Writings of Rabash “And he said, ‘When You Deliver the Hebrew Women’”
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Question: Light and Darkness met. “What do people find in you?”—exclaimed Darkness in surprise. “Neither beauty nor mystery—you just hurt one’s eyes!”
Light did not answer. It just politely stepped aside and silently illuminated the road because Darkness was heading toward an abyss without even seeing it.
Today everyone has the feeling that we are approaching an abyss and there is no one to light the way. What can light the way?
Answer: Mutual assistance and compassion. Only that.
Question: So if we manage to approach each other, we will be able to see that we are approaching the abyss?
Answer: Yes.
Question: In this parable, Light did not say anything to Darkness, it simply stepped aside and illuminated the path. It illuminated the path anyway. Why does light shines on everyone: criminals, haters, simply everyone!
Answer: This is its property, to shine on everyone.
Question: It seems to say: “Move away, you are interfering with me.” And Light moved aside and continued to shine. This is some kind of annulment. That is, someone sees this light, and someone does not. How can one see it? How can one feel that it is light?
Answer: This is the light of bestowal, the light of compassion, the light of rapprochement. This is the meaning of light.
Question: That is, light as such, as something extraneous, does not exist?
Answer: No, these are not photons that illuminate our retina.
Question: And not the light that is spoken about in spiritual practices, but namely the rapprochement between us?
Answer: Yes, it provides the condition where light spreads from itself and further on in all directions. And if this connection does not exist, then light cannot unite and conduct itself through all the matter.
Question: Suppose, people connect, do they begin to shine for everyone?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Or is this abyss visible only to them now?
Answer: No, this cannot happen. It shines for all.
Comment: That is, connection of even a handful of people brings light for everyone.
My Response: Yes. Initially they should realize what they connect for if they get connected. There must be an intention in advance to achieve light for everyone.
Question: Why should people connect?
Answer: To shine for everyone.
[327571]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/25/24
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Question: What is a higher request to the Creator?
Answer: A higher request to the Creator means that I include in my request all the higher desires of the group or, perhaps, of the entire world Kli.
Question: What happens is that you cannot formulate anything, and it feels like you are mooing like a cow, but cannot say anything. Is this also a form of prayer?
Answer: Yes, this is also a form of prayer. Do not worry. The Creator also responds to the mooing of a cow.
[328121]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 48
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Our sages said: Open for me one cleft in repentance, as the tip of a needle, and I will open for you gates for wagons and carts to enter. (Writings of Rabash, Letter No. 48).
That means that the Creator expands our vessel, i.e., expands our desires and gives us additional ones. These are the actions of the Creator, and we should only ask Him for them.
A desire the size of the tip of a needle is a small initial desire with which a person can turn to the Creator. That is sufficient. The Creator does everything else.
[328109]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 48
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Question: We realize the greatness of the Creator. How can one evoke love for Him?
Answer: This is a gift from the Creator. But we still need to invest more to show the Creator how much we desire a connection with Him. So we just need to keep going.
You must talk about this and ask that all your work will be spiritual, that is, for His sake. Desiring this, turn to Him so that He will help you rise above egoism so that you can think and ask for spiritual insight only for the sake of His contentment.
[328159]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith Within Reason”
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Question: What is the purpose of working on the intention during the lesson?
Answer: You want to reveal the Creator, cling to Him through your ten, and ask Him, along with the ten, to help you rise above your egoism, above your Egypt. This is your current job.
Question: How do the questions and answers of the world Kli help us in spiritual advancement?
Answer: They connect you more with each other and with the Creator.
Question: When you feel that you are completely in the pit of your ego and cannot pray for your friends, then should you ask the Creator to give you such an opportunity?
Answer: Yes, at least you have the opportunity to annul yourself in front of the ten and cling to it. And then you will sail with them wherever they go.
Question: How can we help lead our friends to prayer and request, especially those who cannot do it?
Answer: Try your best to involve them in your common intention so all of you will connect.
[328223]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/24, Writings of Rabash “A Real Prayer Is over a Real Deficiency”
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In the matter of the lower Hey in the Eynaim [eyes], it means that a Masach [screen] and a cover was placed over the eyes. Eyes mean seeing and Providence, when one sees hidden Providence (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 123).
Eyes and vision symbolize the spiritual level, the light of Hochma. The concealment placed over the eyes signifies the concealment of the light of Hochma by the screen.
The upper governance is concealed from us only to the extent that we cannot receive it for the sake of the Creator. By attaining the governance, we feel the Creator but only to the extent that we can performs acts of bestowing to Him.
[328083]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “His Divorce and His Hand Come as One”
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When one dies, one does not take with him silver, gold, or jewels, but only Torah and good deeds. (Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”).
Question: As a rule, it is unpleasant for a person to think about the day of his death. But this point gives the importance of choosing an environment and contributing to the group. How can you keep in focus the point that at the hour of death, nothing will help you but only the Torah and good deeds?
Answer: By death we do not mean the hour of death, but a new birth. That is how we need to understand death itself. Therefore, naturally, the Torah and good deeds are what accompany you and are what you enter a new life with.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”
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Question: What is faith?
Answer: Faith is confidence in something I cannot define in my thoughts and desires. That is, it is a desire to take on a higher degree of bestowal and connection although I know it is beyond my power.
Question: Are faith above reason and love two different things?
Answer: Yes, faith is a quality in which a person currently abides, and love is what is felt as a mutual integration of desires.
[328232]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/24, Writings of Rabash “And he said, ‘When You Deliver the Hebrew Women’”
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Question: Why do we have to exert efforts and beg the Creator to obtain the property of bestowal? Why can’t a person be given this ability right away?
Answer: The reason is that a person has to pay for it. Then he will consider that this is his property, he earned it, made it from his own self. In this case, he has legitimate pride and ownership of this property and for these actions.
Let’s say, in our world if a person is great in my eyes and I have done something for him, I receive a huge pleasure from this. It happens automatically, I do not have to make any effort. It is the same with the Creator. If He is great in my eyes, then there is no problem whatsoever to do everything for Him that can please Him.
Question: But if I ask any person in the world if the Creator is great in his eyes, he will answer yes. Then why are we unable to do any actions for Him?
Answer: Ask yourself. As a matter of fact, you do not have any respect for the Creator, no reverence for Him, because you do not know anything about Him. You do not sense Him and do not see His greatness. Had you seen His height and His power, you would gladly do something for Him.
Comment: Certainly if I saw it, yes. However, He concealed Himself for a purpose; He does not allow His greatness to be seen.
Answer: It is made this way so we would first get rid of egoism and gradually, as we get rid of the ego, we would be able to become similar to the Creator and approach Him.
[327822]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 3/28/24
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Question: Should a meeting of friends be held once a week?
Answer: Yes, that is what Rabash established.
Question: And why did he write about the importance of raising the greatness of friends at such meetings, about the importance of prayer, but he did not write anything about reading primary sources?
Answer: The reading of primary sources takes place in the morning, afternoon, and evening lessons. And a meeting of friends is held once a week. It is what directs us to take stock of what we have achieved, what we are going to achieve, and what our plans are.
Thus, a group that wants to advance spiritually sets the time of the friends’ assembly (Yeshivat Haverim) in advance at which they raise the importance of both the meeting itself and the friends.
Then everyone checks how much they have invested in it, sees that they no longer have the strength, and turns to the Creator with a prayer. Then he imagines that the Creator gave him an answer, gave him strength and upon leaving the meeting, feels himself to be perfect. This is the order of the assembly of friends in Rabash.
Comment: Thanks a lot for the practical advice! It remains only to implement them.
My Response: Good luck in the implementation!
[327932]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/4/24
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This is like the source of the wheat: Although it changes a great deal by the three latter factors, it still retains the preliminary shape of wheat and will never take on the form of another species. (Baal Sulam, “The Freedom”).
Question: What lesson should we learn from the example of decomposing wheat in the work of the ten?
Answer: This example suggests that everything in a person changes except for one unchangeable parameter, which is his center, his basis. Therefore, we can change anything in ourselves, from very bad to very good, from death to a wonderful life.
All changes in these parameters depend on us, and what remains unchangeable in us is our primordial Reshimot (spiritual genes).
Question: Do we also need to change our form, decompose, and rot leaving only the original Reshimo in us?
Answer: Of course, this is what we do in connection with ourselves and with all of humanity.
Question: What should happen to each ten and to the world group? What does it mean that we will be reborn, rotted like wheat in order to sprout?
Answer: When you want to kill egoism in yourself, which practically exists under your pressure, or rather under your request to the Creator, then it will rot, and only its embryo will remain. And everything else will be replaced by the property of bestowal, love, and mutual connection. And then you will become a different person as if you are sprouting into a new world.
Question: Are the events that are happening now pushing us toward this rotting?
Answer: Of course, they push us to the point that we are convinced that we cannot live only with an egoistic quality and we need other forces—the forces of development.
[328087]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Wrtings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”
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Question: What does it mean to “buy a friend“?
Answer: Buying a friend means doing everything they desire in order to create the closest possible connection between you.
Question: So am I sacrificing, for example, my time, my attention, and so on?
Answer: As much as possible, of course. This is how you buy yourself a friend. Because if you have several such friends, together you can achieve a connection with the Creator.
Since we do not feel the Creator, it is possible to understand Him and communicate with Him only after you become closer to your friends, communicate with them, and unite with them.
Question: If I am practicing acquiring the quality of bestowal toward my friend, then essentially, there is no difference whether I am bestowing to my friend or bestowing to the Creator, right?
Answer: There is practically no difference, because you perceive both your friend and the Creator outside of yourself. Therefore it does not matter whether you are bestowing to one person, to all of humanity, or to the Creator. Moreover, you do not expect any compensation in return. This is called unconditional love, love without conditions.
[328176]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/11/24
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Question: Who teaches us to work not for the sake of reception? Is this a quality of the Creator? Or is it a quality of the group or teacher?
Answer: The soul. It is said, “Man’s soul will teach him.” By going through all the states, a person gradually learns how he should relate and to what.
Question: To manifest goodness, a person needs to spend a lot of energy. Where can I get this energy to correct the evil inclination?
Answer: Also in the goodness. There is no other source of energy except the Creator.
Question: How do we get to a state that we cannot accept, in which we cannot stay, and from which we can already rise?
Answer: These are three different states. If you have the strength, if you have reached this point and can scrutinize it, figure it out and succeed.
Question: How does a Kabbalist relate to the pleasures of the material world?
Answer: He does not feel like he is making them. Therefore when he receives them, he has no real fulfillment. He is above that.
[328156]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Spoke Regarding Four Sons”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “The Severity of Teaching Idol Worshippers the Torah”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic of “Rising Above Reason”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Should there be an atmosphere in the group where people feel they are not working for a reward, meaning they are not rewarded for their work?
Answer: Not quite. We need to understand and encourage each other as much as possible. This is how we will advance.
Question: If I feel unable to do something for the group and ask them to give me importance and strength, how should they react?
Answer: The group should react normally. After all, not just you, but all the friends ask the Creator to receive various anti-egoistic forces and want to correct themselves. So all is good.
Question: Sometimes a group refuses to give strength to a friend and argues that he wants to fill his egoism. That is, he wants to do something for the group while also receiving some kind of reward.
Answer: For now, this is our state. We are not out of egoism yet. Therefore, when I ask for strength, I want to do something that, among other things, will lift me up as well. That is, the group should still give strength to the friends, not sparing anyone, and help everyone.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Spoke Regarding Four Sons”
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Question: What is a naive prayer?
Answer: A naive prayer is an unfinished, vague desire. It differs from the prayer of the poor in that the poor have a very clearly expressed desire. The property of the highest Malchut is called “poor and needy” because it is empty and cannot fill itself or take a single step forward. It is Malchut’s nature.
It wants to correct its Kli and fill it. The naive still need to understand how to act.
Question: How can we all reach the state of the poor together so that our prayer is heard?
Answer: In general, it is not complicated. At least it is not difficult to understand what it is. We have no understanding and feeling of what a person or indeed all of humanity should achieve.
Therefore we must imagine ourselves as one person with one heart and desire—imagine ourselves and all the world’s people living together and feeling common desires that we all direct to the Creator. It is called “being in one heart.”
[328173]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Exodus from Egypt”
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Question: What are the initial steps to liberate faith from reason and raise it to the level of love?
Answer: Perform actions that do not gratify egoism; train yourself to do everything not in egoism, but in faith above reason. And then everything will start to work out for you. If you keep checking yourself like this, we can gradually emerge from egoism.
Question: Is hatred of unification the sensation of one’s evil nature?
Answer: Yes and no. If a person simply hates connection, then it is his nature. He loves only himself. But if he strives for connection against his nature, then this is already spiritual work.
[328162]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith Within Reason”
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Question: It is written that you can come to the Creator only by hating your body, but the body is a spiritual shell. What does the body have to do with it?
Answer: By “body” in Kabbalah, we mean egoism, not our flesh.
Question: How can the Creator hate what He created?
Answer: He hates egoism and wants us to get rid of it.
Comment: But we have no choice. In any case, He will lead us to the goal of creation, either by an accelerated path (Achishena) or the path of suffering (Beito). It turns out that He does not give us a choice.
My Response: No. He gives us a little blow, and if we rush toward the goal of not getting rid of the blows, but rising above egoism and becoming like the Creator, He helps us.
So we pray that He will change, lift, push, and support us.
[328197]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith Within Reason”
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Question: We must come to merging with the Creator through merging with the ten. And if the ten is female, but it has some masculine qualities—striving, achieving, or even jealousy—is everything correct here?
Answer: What difference does it make if you are a woman or a man? The main thing is that you want to be in connection, to reveal the Creator, to bestow to Him, and to feel yourself in this state because it will be similar to the Creator in you.
When I look at you all, I see more women here than men, and I hear their questions about how to move forward. And suddenly you tell me that these are not at all female desires. But they are indeed female.
It is said that thanks to righteous women the sons of Israel came out of Egypt. How can this be? But that is exactly what is said. So let us take this more seriously.
If you believe that women do not need these qualities, then you are cutting yourself off from revealing the upper world. You have received such a gift from the Creator; not to use it is a crime.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/24, Writings of Rabash ‘And He Said, “When You Deliver the Hebrew Women”‘
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The story of Moses and Pharaoh is about the people who accompany them. In inner work, they symbolize different desires, forces, and aspirations that help us advance to even greater bestowal.
We must gather all these desires and intentions and increase them as if extending them to the Creator. Gradually we will become convinced of how much the Creator helps us develop them.
Question: How can we be worthy of the properties of Moses, and what depends on us here?
Answer: It is up to us to keep the direction of bestowal at every moment.
We can achieve the quality of Moses if we understand that our mutual bestowal and mutual assistance should lead us to bestowal upon the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/24, Writings of Rabash “And He Said, ‘When You Deliver the Hebrew Women.’”
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Question: It is said that the order of exile and liberation must be maintained. What does it mean?
Answer: Gradually by alternating one action after another, we raise our egoism, scrutinize, check, and correct it. That is our job.
Question: Without the restriction of the body, it is impossible to leave Egypt. Are these restrictions lifted when clarity comes?
Answer: All restrictions go away when the Creator shines His light on us.
Question: In Rabash’s article “Concerning the Exodus from Egypt,” it is written, “I awaken the dawn, and the dawn does not awaken me.” How do we understand that the Creator guides us, and when do we awaken the dawn?
Answer: The problem is if you do not feel it. So you have to put more effort into feeling the Creator.
Question: If we do not come to the morning lesson, does that mean we do not awaken the dawn and influence what is happening in the world now?
Answer: Of course it does. Every person influences, and even more so, the group that does not come to the lesson and does not use the opportunity to unite and influence the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Exodus from Egypt”
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Question: Persians are an ancient people, Iranians. Why do they always want to destroy us? We have a long and varied history with them.
It started with King Cyrus, who released the people from captivity in Babylon and said, “Go to your homeland and build the Temple.” Everything was fine after that, but now we are constantly on the brink of a major war with them. Mostly, they instigate, but don’t especially take direct actions. Apart from these recent events: they launched drones, missiles at us. There was a lot, and mostly, thank God, they didn’t reach their target. Do they really want to destroy us or not?
Answer: What they want doesn’t really matter. Many want that. Everyone wants it! I don’t think they seriously hope to win a conflict with us. It’s more for show.
Question: Who wants it more, the ayatollahs or the people? If we can divide it like that.
Answer: I think the leadership.
Question: So you believe the people don’t have a deep, intense hatred?
Answer: No.
Question: What is your personal attitude toward Iranians? How do you feel about them?
Answer: Friendly.
Comment: In general, our relations with them have always developed differently, but in many ways they were very good in the 50s, 60s, even in the early 70s.
My Response: Yes.
Question: We built oil bases and cities there. They came here. Ben-Gurion went there, to Tehran. But at some point, almost eveyrones’ relationship with us starts deteriorating.
What is the turning point, this upheaval?
Answer: I believe it is from above, it is not our or their psychology’s fault. I believe it is from above. The Creator just needs to push us toward an upper goal.
Question: So He orchestrates these conflicts?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So you see it all as the Creator’s play?
Answer: Of course.
Question: In everything?
Answer: Absolutely!
Question: In everything that happens in the Middle East?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Toward us? His game?
Answer: Of course, to correct us, to make us correct ourselves. That is what we must do, and I think we are obligated and will do it.
Comment: It seems that until we come to the point of what we need to correct in ourselves, He won’t be satisfied. It will continue.
My Response: Naturally!
Question: So will it get stronger and stronger, more and more?
Answer: There is no need to even discuss that, it must happen.
Question: How are we not correct in His eyes? What makes us bad in His eyes?
Answer: In the eyes of the whole world we are not corrected, and we are not right, and everyone has some special claim against us.
In principle, if we speak at a higher level, we do not reach the level necessary for our development.
Comment: But we don’t know what that is. We’re like children it seems.
My Response: That does not matter. That does not absolve a person from duty, responsibility.
Question: So we need to first understand what we need to correct within ourselves. Right? And agree to it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Who will tell us about this?
Answer: The Creator.
Question: And how does He do that—by speaking? Right now He only sends enemies against us, so to speak.
Answer: He wants us to become His people.
Question: What does that mean?
Answer: It means doing what He desires.
Question: What does He desire?
Answer: He wants us to show an example to all nations of the world of how everyone should be.
Question: How should that be?
Answer: With open hearts, love, and embracing everyone. Show everyone what the Creator expects from us and from creation in general. We must do all this ourselves and now.
Question: Is this our task? The task of this nation?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Can others do this without us?
Answer: No, no one! This is all entrusted to us.
Question: Then will it start spreading along the chain to the world and so on?
Answer: Let’s see how it goes. Yes.
Question: What if we don’t hear this? Naturally our nature is egoistic after all. So if I have a bad relationship with someone, if I don’t love someone, I push someone away. And you say: “You must love them, open your heart to them.” What if I continue to fight with my neighbor? Then will the war continue?
Answer: Yes it will until I am convinced that I need to seek another way of interacting with others. We are guilty before the world for holding the secret of creation, the secret of correction, within us.
Question: Which is this connection with others, with neighbors?
Answer: Yes.
Question: This simple formula—my connection with my neighbor—is the secret of creation? Is that what you’re saying? Open your heart and love them, despite everything.
Answer: Yes.
Question: I see. And are we constantly being pushed toward this?
Answer: We ourselves say that this is what the Creator desires. So if He desires it, let’s do it. Well! It doesn’t work.
Question: Why doesn’t it work? In principle, it sounds very beautiful.
Answer: It doesn’t work because we don’t want to turn to Him to teach us, to help, to push.
Comment: Right now, our natural response to all our enemies is to strengthen our army, the country’s security, and so on. And you say we need to…
My Response: We need to strengthen the connection between us and show the world that this is the path to a good future. And then all these games won’t make sense at all.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24
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Question: Unusual pets are becoming popular in South Korea. They are not dogs, they are not cats, they are rocks.
There are many touching stories about how people are stressed, do not want to burden their loved ones with their experiences, do not want to take responsibility for dogs or cats, but they simply take stones, buy stones, start dressing them up and talking to them. For example, a woman described how her day went at work to a stone.
What kind of transition is this? Is it evolution or is it degradation? You won’t share your stress with a friend, you don’t talk to a dog or a cat, but you talk to a stone. What do you think it is?
Answer: First of all, we must understand that these are Koreans. Therefore, we do not need to pay special attention to this as some kind of worldwide change of man toward nature. It will all pass.
But in general, this is an interesting thing. This way they can heal themselves.
Question: And when a person talks to some inanimate nature, to stones? They even say that they dress them up, talk, do you think this is a natural state?
Answer: This is a natural state for them. It is kind of like a kid with a doll. It is still on a purely childish level.
Question: Then the question that arises from this is: is it necessary for us to communicate with someone?
Answer: We have the upper force; we have to communicate with it.
Question: Can you explain this communication: what you do not see or feel?
Answer: You can only imagine the Creator as it is written in books. Otherwise, you cannot think of anything else.
The sages describe it as a force of nature that we must follow. This is the same thing that Abraham and all the others said, all the prophets down to Baal HaSulam and Rabash.
Question: How can I make myself believe them?
Answer: I think this is a matter of the gradual inner development of a person. It is gradual in our time, which will soon show us what we really need to go after.
Question: So you think we will be pushed toward this communication one way or another?
Answer: Yes.
Question: In principle, does it turn out that all beliefs pass through the character of the nation?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Question: The message—is it just one?
Answer: There is one message. You need contact with the upper force that can guide you and bring you into contact with it.
Question: Can we say that this message exists, but every nation passes it through itself?
Answer: Yes, but this is a matter of thousands of years. Only for each nation, it is still at its own level.
Question: And when it says: “God will be one and one for all”?
Answer: It will happen, but we need to develop.
Question: So all these currents, all these religions will come to this peak?
Answer: Yes, there is no other way.
Question: Will there not be a mass of currents, a mass of religions?
Answer: No, on the contrary, they will see that they are in some kind of similarity to each other and will begin to connect.
[327520]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/25/24
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So it is that each “source” that had taken off the preliminary shape of the progenitor and had taken on a new shape as a result of the three factors that were added to it, and which change it significantly, the general shape of the progenitor still remains, and will never assume the shape of another person who resembles him, just as oat will never resemble wheat.
This is so because each and every source has its own long sequence of generations comprised of several hundred generations, and the source includes the conceptions of them all. However, they are not revealed in it in the same ways they appeared in the ancestors, that is, in the form of ideas, but only as abstract forms. Therefore, they exist in him in the form of abstract forces called “tendencies,” “nature,” and “instincts,” without knowing their reason or why he does what he does. Thus, there can never be two people with the same attribute (Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”).
Question: In order to mix with all the properties of the world, do we don’t have to decompose in the earth, like wheat, right?
Answer: To decompose means that I decompose myself and associate with all the people in the world.
Question: Do we just need to shift the focus from ourselves to the desires of the world in order to make a common Kli out of the world?
Answer: No, you need to not only change your focus, but also to throw your desire into the world and get the desire of the world instead. This is what is called “decomposing.” Nothing will work out until you can absorb all the desires of the world.
[328135]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”
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Question: When the Creator reveals the feeling of the quality of bestowal to us, the answer is that to preserve it, we need to ask only for connection or that He gives us the strength to pray for our neighbor. This is unclear. Why should we ask for anything other than this?
Answer: It is like asking for strength. Strength for what? This question remains open. Therefore, it is necessary to find out the ultimate goal.
Question: But we will never know it. We say that our goal is connection. Can we take this as the ultimate goal?
Answer: No, this is not an end, but a means. The goal is to attain the Creator—connection with Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 48
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Question: We have a strong desire in the ten to get out of Egypt, and prayer flows all day; we have the intention to give, the desire to unite, and the desire to merge all together. What else is needed to get out?
Answer: There is not enough connection between you. It is like you are standing in a square with thousands of people shouting, shouting to the Creator.
If you had joined forces at the same time, He would have immediately heard you and answered. You are still not connected. Therefore, alone, He cannot hear everyone.
Question: To unite, do we need to get out of egoism first?
Answer: Sure, one who is still in egoism cannot connect with anyone. And to get out of the quagmire of egoism, you need to lean on each other and grab hold of the Creator together.
Strive for contact with the Creator by addressing Him from the depths of your heart.
[328128]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Beginning of the Month”
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Question: What does it mean that person who studies Torah and Mitzvot for the sake of reward has an evil inclination that is concealed?
Answer: He does not feel that he is in a state of egoism, and his ego is constantly developing. At the same time, he does not move forward at all, not only positively, but also negatively.
Question: How can we turn evil into good in a correct way? How should we work with egoism?
Answer: If evil tells you that you are disconnected from the Creator, and you ask the Creator for strength and knowledge to correct it and to be closer to the Creator, then you will succeed in working with evil.
Question: Who reveals one’s evil inclination to a person?
Answer: The Creator does everything. The question is whether it is by the person’s request or contrary to it. Therefore, ask the Creator to reveal the evil inclination and give you the strength to correct it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Spoke Regarding Four Sons”
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Comment: Rabash writes that after a gathering of friends they should have a feeling of perfection. What if I do not have that feeling? I cannot control my feelings.
My Response: This means you did not complete the work, you asked incorrectly, made the wrong effort.
Question: So this is an indication of my feelings?
Answer: It happens that this is very difficult to implement. Getting close to friends can be very difficult for a person when he is in certain states.
But in general, if he makes an effort, and especially not alone but in a group, and if the whole group makes an effort to gather together in its center, in one core, as if hugging tightly, which does not mean that they really should hug, they just need to strive to ensure that everyone’s heart is connected with others, then a person begins to understand how this works.
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From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 4/4/24
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Question: How can I go with the Creator to Pharaoh if it is revealed to me that I hate Him?
Answer: Find a common language with Him.
Question: The Creator controls us by adding or decreasing evil so that we have a choice. Why does this work turn into pain?
Answer: Our work does not turn into any kind of pain. You have to understand that this is the formation of our Kli. It is the only way to rise into eternity; there is no other option.
Question: You said to focus on one negative action and correct it through prayer. How do we work in such a way as to correct one thought and then move on to another? What should we ask the Creator for?
Answer: Consult with your friends. What you accept together, the Creator will never push you away but will draw you closer to Himself.
Question: Ultimately, what outweighs the world on the scale of merit: prayer or action?
Answer: Prayer is also an action.
[328018]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Bo [Come]”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “The Lord Has Chosen Jacob for Himself”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: How can we, like Nachshon, jump into the sea so there is no shadow of doubt?
Answer: When a person looks within himself, he does not see the strength that would help him to do this.
Maybe this will come in due time, but right now, he does not find the strength to say: “All who go toward the Creator, follow me,” and to take such an action.
We need to grow this strength in each of us and in our connection in order to do this. Then, we can feel it. Let us hope that we will be worthy of Nachshon’s power.
We must act so that each one awakens others to unite. In this way, we will overcome our egos and come to unity. This is what is called crossing the Red Sea.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/24, “Nachshon’s Jump and the Tearing of the Red Sea”
Question: How can a person discover that he desires the force of bestowal if he was born with the desire to receive, and sees only that around him?
Where is an example of a permanent desire to bestow so that humanity could notice and appreciate it?
Answer: Of course we see that the whole world is in egoism, in the desire to receive rather than to bestow. But alongside this, we also see how egoism is constantly progressing in the world, and with it, so do pain, sorrow, and death.
In other words, egoistic desires manifest themselves as a source of all sorts of problems. Therefore people may not see a way out of them, but they understand that egoism alone is their enemy. Gradually, humanity is coming to realize that there is nothing to replace egoism, and therefore it sees no way out.
However, at the very least, it understands that our nature itself leads us to such unpleasant states.
[327906]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”
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Question: What is the difference between Haman, whom we must kill because we cannot correct him, and the property Lev HaEven (the stony heart), which we also cannot correct, but should not kill?
Answer: We must rise above this and above that, and ask the Creator to correct these properties in us. To kill means to stop using the desire to receive for your own sake.
Question: What does it mean that Israel does not suffer through Haman, but will come to their own correction through free choice?
Answer: The light that Israel can receive comes to them not through Haman, but directly from the Creator. They pass this light through themselves and through the great desire to receive, and then this light fulfills its purpose.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Haman from the Torah, from Where?”
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Question: How does prayer reveal the feeling of spiritual lack to us?
Answer: When we ask the Creator to draw us closer to Him and feel that He is doing so, we ask even more and see His actions even more.
We must enter a state with the Creator where we are constantly demanding and He is constantly working on us.
We must try to feel ourselves more and more in relation to the Creator, extract additional lack from this, and turn to the Creator with a request.
Our need must be expressed in such a way as to be able to gain closeness to the Creator.
[328116]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 48
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Question: Why does restriction occur after a person’s desires are all similar to the Creator’s and one is filled with the upper light?
Answer: Because the desire that receives the upper light feels as if it is complete, but it does not see the result of its actions.
The only thing left for him that arises in his desire is to somehow interrupt his development and make a restriction on his desire so that it no longer develops.
And now, from this desire, at the initiative of a person (Adam), another action arises, which is not a continuation of development, but in a sense is the opposite. In other words, a person wants to transform the desire in which he was created into a desire in which he will resemble the Creator. This is important for him.
Therefore, it turns out that on the seventh day creation does not stop. After all, then there is action on the part of the person.
[327697]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 3/21/24
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Question: If there is no patience in the ten, does it mean that the Hisaron (deficiency) will be born precisely here?
Answer: Yes, you must have such a great desire that you are not willing to wait, you need to reveal the Creator, the spiritual world, and yourself in it right now. Only then can you find peace.
There is no need to fear that the cup of patience may overflow. We should value those states when a great desire arises within us, remember them, and try to evoke them.
[328112]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 48
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Question: How do we work with egoism and help each other? Suppose I invite friends to a meal. If I prepare a delicious meal, there is a risk that they will enjoy not the unity for which we gather, but the taste of the meal itself.
Answer: We must create the most comfortable conditions to make it easier for us to come together and feel the desire to embrace each other. Therefore, the main thing is that even if you enjoy the meal, at the same time, you strive to connect with your friends.
You cannot always act from negative feelings. Suppose you are pushed and run to the Creator, and then another push comes from elsewhere, and you run to the Creator again. No, that is wrong. You should see where your negative qualities manifest and correct them without waiting for blows.
[327968]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days”
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Question: If a person has done a good deed and his cup of merits weighs on the side of peace, then to preserve his right to choose between good and evil, some evil is added to him. Does this mean that recognition of evil is an endless process?
Answer: No, there is an end. But before that, a little evil is added to each person because as it is said, “Anyone greater than his friend, his inclination is greater.”
That is necessary so that a person can decide which way to tip the scales.
If our ratio of good to evil is fifty-fifty, we can make the right decision and tip ourselves and the world toward the scale of merit. Otherwise, we have no choice.
We are plunged back into egoism so that there is something to work with. After all, initially, it is necessary to bring a person out of balance to see how deeply he is in evil, and then he will understand that Kabbalah recommends he correct this state.
[327971]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/24, Writings of Rabash “Bo [Come]”
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During the preparation period, all the work is in the no’s, that is, in the “no” (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 204, “The Purpose of the Work – 2”)
Question: What desires are we not allowed to use?
Answer: Check it out for yourself, see, and try to limit yourself from all sides so that you build your personal connection space with your friends.
In the articles there is a general direction, and then everyone, based on one’s feelings, decides how to get around some obstacles to push away the state of receiving for one’s own sake.
Question: If a person does not have the Kelim of bestowal, can he do the work of restriction?
Answer: Maybe. In any state a person can do what he needs to, give, and connect with his friends.
Comment: But his original nature is always strong and, in essence, does not change. A person invests in and still remains in reception.
My Response: This means that he has not yet done any good deeds.
[327929]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Purpose of the Work – 2”
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Question: How can we develop sensitivity to the constant influence of the Creator and cling to each Hisaron in a timely manner in order to develop an even greater need for bestowal and realize it through prayer?
Answer: It depends only on a person. If one is constantly focused on how much egoism prevents one from getting closer to the Creator, then he feels an urgent need to get out of the ego.
Then he cries out to the Creator, and He hears him. This is how a person reaches the Creator.
[328076]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/24, Writings of Rabash “The Torah Spoke Regarding Four Sons”
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Question: At what point does the state of Lishma begin?
Answer: Lishma (not for oneself) is a state where a person receives such reinforcement from above that he can already aim for a connection with the Creator and only this is his goal.
Question: In which quality can we bring contentment to the Creator more through our efforts: in Lishma (for the sake of others) or in Lo Lishma (for oneself)?
Answer: In both states. We should strive to be as kind, good, and bestowing as possible in the eyes of the Creator. Then we will see how precisely our desires are fulfilled.
[328032]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Three Prayers – 2”
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Question: What does it mean to implement connection correctly in a world group to be as one ten?
Answer: It means trying to help everyone, coming together around a single center, gathering together, uniting, turning to the Creator, and waiting for His help.
Question: What is striving to see the Creator before me?
Answer: It means seeing the force that pulls you forward, that guides you through Egypt, exiles, and various difficulties with your friends.
Question: Does Pharaoh die naturally or is he killed by the Creator when it is time to leave Egypt?
Answer: I do not think we can witness Pharaoh’s death yet. It means the death of all egoism existing in all people on Earth. Can you imagine what we will come to then? Complete correction.
[327965]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days”
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Question: What is happening in the world now, wars, earthquakes, natural disasters, are these the plagues that our collective egoism must experience before the common exit from Egypt?
Answer: Yes and no. Imagine that, to put it mildly, these troubles that we have received over all the past centuries are necessary to correct our egoism.
Therefore, the Creator delayed the tribe of Israelites and did not allow them to immediately approach complete correction; this is because they did not yet have a complete Kli, i.e. regret and atonement.
Now it seems that we already have this. I think that if today our people rose up as in those days, we would certainly reach the place of the holy Temple and quickly erect it.
Question: What prevents us from rising? Lack of unity?
Answer: We lack everything. Absolutely everything. The most important thing is the connections between us.
[328343]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/24, Writings of Rabash “When Pharaoh Sent the People”
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Question: On one hand there is a union of language, silence. On the other hand, there is a great desire to speak, to spread. How can we combine these two great desires?
Answer: First there should be a desire to unite in tens, then in hundreds, in thousands.
If people have such an opportunity, then they should expand the circle in which they are more and more, wider and wider, until this whole circle includes all of humanity.
[328029]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Three Prayers – 2”
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Question: How can you change an egoistic prayer into a correct one so the Creator begins to act?
Answer: The desires we feel in our impulses are neither egoistic nor altruistic. It is just a feeling of being created as I am, and this is my desire.
Afterward, through our development, we give the desire a vector when we direct it at the ten, the whole of humanity, and the Creator.
That is how we want to see the whole system: man, the ten, humanity, that is, the entire world Kli, and the Creator together. That is the main focus and goal of our efforts.
Therefore, we must imagine the picture we want to achieve during prayer.
[328021]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Three Prayers – 2”
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Question: The physical body does not let go of the desire to receive for its own sake. What can be effective here in order to still be able to get out of it?
Answer: Connect with your friends and perform this action together with them.
It will not work out if you are alone because everything is built so that a person learns to neglect himself for the sake of connection with others and can connect with them.
Question: Which is more important: the effort to find out the conditions or the effort to make them change faster?
Answer: Both are hard. But first you need to clarify the state itself, get disgusted with it, rise above it, contact the Creator, and ask Him from there to allow you to raise all your qualities to this degree.
[328035]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Haman from the Torah, from Where?”
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Question: What are gates in spiritual work?
Answer: The gates in spiritual work are the restrictions a person must go through when performing actions to unite with the ten and the Creator.
Question: How does our work with restrictions make something in us from which the quality of mercy comes?
Answer: The fact is that we are dealing with qualities in which the upper light is. And it sanctifies, corrects, and unites us.
Question: What is it to love spirituality and strive for it?
Answer: I cannot explain what it means to love. No one can do it. Try to understand from your own experience.
[327920]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Purpose of the Work – 2”
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Question: The main idea of Kabbalah is to bestow to the Creator. Can you give an example of what it means to bestow to the Creator? After all, it is not some object, but the whole of nature.
Answer: Bestowing to the Creator means fulfilling, for His sake, the conditions and the actions that He wishes to see, feel, and receive. Then these actions are called bestowing to the Creator.
Question: What are these conditions and actions?
Answer: If you knew the needs of the Creator, then you would start looking for what you can bestow to Him.
Question: Let’s say, I know that bestowing to the Creator means bestowing to my neighbor. If I act this way toward my neighbor, does it mean I am bestowing to the Creator? But where is the pleasure in this? I am not enjoying it.
Answer: No but you start to think: what can I do for the Creator? There are only two actions here, receiving or bestowing. Nothing else.
Let’s say I can give, since this is closer and clearer to me. If I give to others around me, I elevate them and welcome them; they appear bigger and higher in my eyes than others. This is bestowing.
Question: What can I give to my neighbor?
Answer: Anything. You need to find out what they desire.
Question: Let’s say I found out what my neighbors desire and I give it to them. As I do this, I imagine that I’m fulfilling the commandment of the Creator. Is that all?
Answer: Yes that is all. Is that not enough? Imagine if someone did that for you!
[327604]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 3/28/24
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Question: It feels like we overcome weaker desires only to uncover a new layer of stronger egoism. Is this how we reach the abyss?
Answer: Yes, it is said that whoever is greater than his friend, his evil inclination is greater.
Question: Must a person willingly agree to enter this abyss by being confident that the Creator will deliver him from there?
Answer: Of course, we receive all our desires from the Creator, so as we ascend to Him, we must ask for His help in overcoming them.
Turn to the Creator. You have someone to turn to. He will surely hear you, and you will see the actions that follow.
[327939]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Purpose of the Work – 2”
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Question: It is said that descents are given so that a person feels that they are in exile and asks for mercy. Why is it necessary to ask for mercy specifically?
Answer: Because it helps you when you turn to the Creator and draw His attention to you.
Mercy is when the Creator takes into account your descent and wishes to help you.
Question: But we know that the Creator always hears our prayers. What is special about the moment when He shows mercy?
Answer: When you show the same mercy to each other, then the Creator acts the same way toward you.
[327942]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/24, Writings of Rabash “The Meaning of Exile”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Jacob Dwelled in the Land Where His Father Had Lived”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: How can we imagine that our ten left Egypt? What is this state? Are there any external signs?
Answer: There cannot be any external signs. It is inner work.
Leaving Egypt means uniting with each other, and with the entire world group and a huge number of people as much as possible. We cannot even imagine how many of us there are: hundreds of thousands.
We must consider how to support all our friends so they do not fall and become disappointed with their chosen path. It is essential now, because the closer we are to the goal, the more difficult it is for us to take every step.
Question: Do individual people come out of Egypt first, and then the whole ten, or the whole ten at once?
Answer: The whole ten. Not just the whole ten, but the entire world, Kli, everyone who belongs and connects to our path.
Question: Some of our ten attend the lessons daily and some do not. Will we be able to leave Egypt only when everyone understands the added importance of lessons and our purpose?
Answer: Yes, it will be so. The importance of the goal, the realization, the sensation, and the desire for greater connection with each other will constantly grow until practically the whole world joins us.
[328337]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/24, Writings of Rabash “When Pharaoh Sent the People”
It says that the exodus from Egypt occurs suddenly, in haste. That means that we must feel together, in our common desire, how much we long for this redemption.
We strive to feel that we simply need to leave Egypt and come to the land of Israel, to the desire directed straight to the Creator (Yashar El). We leave one desire and enter another.
We can only exit Egypt (egoism) in haste; otherwise, it is impossible. We are waiting for a sign from the Creator to tell us that it is time to exit, and we are hurrying to escape.
The exile lasts many years, and suddenly, this escape occurs in haste. After all, we did not know how close we were to redemption during the exile. Now, having received permission from the Creator to exit, we run away.
The Creator gives this permission the moment we are ready to exit in the dark; that is, we do not demand anything other than the opportunity to escape from Egyptian slavery. The entire difference between Egypt and the land of Israel is coming closer to the Creator. A person runs in darkness toward the Creator, and in those desires that he still has, he feels darkness. This is how the exodus from Egypt occurs.
It is impossible to break free from slavery without feeling the darkness, pressure, and fear. These are necessary conditions for escape. It is necessary to feel a sharp need for freedom and a refusal to remain under the rule of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh compelled us to work for him, but provided great egoistic fulfillment in return. It was as if we were living in this world in complete abundance and suddenly realized it was time to escape such a life. We prepare for this escape gradually by agreeing to pay more and more for the opportunity to leave Egypt and come to bestowal.
We can pay with our readiness to adhere to the Creator above all conditions. Then we receive the strength to escape and permission to leave Egypt. The Creator gives us a sign to leave: pitch darkness comes, but we realize that the Creator is going ahead of us like a torch showing us the way.
[328369]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “This Is for Judah”
Question: Why is the place of Klipot called an empty place if there is also the upper light that animates them?
Answer: No, it is not the upper light. It is a very small dim light that supports the existence of the Klipot (the egoistic desires for oneself) until we correct them.
Rising above the Klipot is due to the fact that we do not want to use desires for our own sake, but we strive for all this to be for the sake of our friends and for the sake of the Creator.
Question: How can we make sure that this is more due to the greatness of the Creator and not to the awareness of the harm of the desire to receive?
Answer: If you think correctly, you will want to break away from your intentions for yourself and connect all your intentions to the Creator for His sake.
[327892]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/26/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “After the Tzimtzum”
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Question: How can we constantly develop a yearning for the Creator, a yearning to see Him in everything?
Answer: Do not forget Him. I must always be busy with something connected with the Creator and make notes for myself to always return to it.
In everyday life news is broadcast around the world at the top of every hour in different languages, like this we must make a habit of constantly returning to the Creator.
Question: What is this complete trepidation before the Creator, and how can the entire world group and through it, the whole world reach it?
Answer: A person obtains complete trepidation before the Creator when he feels absolute dependency on the Creator, a yearning for Him, and is ready to give himself to the service of the Creator. In this way, one achieves the adhesion with the Creator.
[327507]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue”
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Question: Rabash writes that if a person does not strive for truth, he cannot live. But we see different people around us living in different ways. What is living in pursuit of truth in this case?
Answer: By life, we mean life in connection with the Creator. It can only be if you live in truth. Therefore, the search for the Creator is an all-encompassing aspiration.
You must strive for Him in prayer and request, and you must search to reach Him. All of our articles should direct you to the Creator.
Question: As you know, everyone has their truth, thanks to our egoism. How can the genuine truth be determined?
Answer: To do this, you must first feel true egoism, and then move from it to the genuine truth.
[327715]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue”
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Question: In northern Kazakhstan, a natural disaster has left 75,000 families homeless. The peculiarity of this flood is that people are coming together and helping each other. But livestock and domestic animals are perishing and the water continues to rise. Is this akin to the Egyptian plague?
Answer: No, this is not akin to an Egyptian plague. But it is certainly a very distressing, unfortunate situation. Water can wash away absolutely everything.
Therefore, all people should pray that in the areas currently experiencing flooding, we can see the mercy of the Creator rather than such punishment.
Everything the Creator does is for our good. Even what we perceive as significant problems with nature, wars, and natural disasters, ultimately all will lead to the common good.
So there is no need to cry, no need to reproach the Creator, only ask Him to change His harsh attitude toward us to be merciful.
[327859]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Beginning of the Month”
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Question: What does it mean that the power of faith above reason cancels out all the forces that exist in the world?
Answer: Faith above reason is a special force that raises a person above his reason. It can only be increased with the help of actions above reason.
If a person is in such faith, then it indeed cancels out all forces that exist in the world that could influence him and turn differently.
By rising with the help of this force, we reach the level of Bina.
[327926]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/24, Writings of Rabash “He who Hardens His Heart”
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Question: If the effort is to not do something, how can we increase that?
Answer: There are efforts that must be made to not do something bad, even if you really want to.
Therefore, it is necessary to avoid such thoughts and actions.
We must constantly draw closer to each other and strive toward the Creator. But there are intentions and desires that are against it and pull us aside.
We must act against them, meaning not do something that does not benefit us and does not advance us toward the goal of creation.
So just close your eyes and advance toward each other, help your friends, open your hearts to them.
[327895]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “His Divorce and His Hand Come as One”
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Question: How do you prepare the hearts in the ten to feel the need for the Creator’s help if you feel that hearts are closed, that they are asleep?
It seems like you need help, but you cannot even ask.
Answer: Pray that all of you unite and ask.
Comment: I am praying, but it feels like it is getting worse.
Answer: No, it is not getting worse. It is just that you actually begin to see that the Creator is hidden from you.
[327902]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Looking in the Book Again”
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Question: What is the difference between a descent and exile?
Answer: It may be that a person does not feel the descent as an exile.
A descent is moving away from the Creator, and exile is the feeling that he had something, and now he has been expelled from it. Usually one can get out of exile only with the help of prayer.
Question: When we are in exile, we have a strong desire for the Creator. The need comes from the Creator. What else can I add besides gratitude?
Answer: Nothing, real gratitude replaces everything.
[327935]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/24, Writings of Rabash “The Meaning of Exile”
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Question: How does the Kabbalistic explanation of our world and the Passover holiday differ from the usual comments?
Answer: There are several levels of explanation of existence, its creation, development, goals, and tasks of a person in it. For example, you can talk about the Passover holiday about:
-
The historical period of slavery of the nation in Egypt,
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The “slavery” of man in his egoism—Egypt—Pharaoh,
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The development of creation—desire under the influence of the Creator’s light and its absence under the influence of darkness—Egypt—Pharaoh.
You can also speak at different levels about:
-
The mechanical performance of rituals, which are commonly called commandments,
-
The psychological fulfillment of the instruction “love thy neighbor as thyself,” as a general (Klal) instruction of the Creator, which includes all other instructions, as it is said in the Torah: “Love thy neighbor is the general law of the Torah,”
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The Kabbalistic influence of the upper light on the worlds and through them about souls that go through the stages of their spiritual development—correction.
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Question: “Pesach” (from the word “Pasach“) means to step over or jump over from egoistic qualities to altruistic ones, to the qualities of the Creator.
Kabbalists described the procedure for emerging from egoism allegorically in the order of the Passover meal. One of the symbols of Passover is the prohibition of eating leavened bread. What does leavened bread symbolize in our inner work?
Answer: The prohibition of eating leavened bread means that if you wish to leave Egypt, you cannot apply any intentions for yourself. If you want to exit from egoistic desire, you must rid yourself of all actions that keep you in this intention.
Question: What does Matzah, called the bread of poverty, symbolize?
Answer: Bread is what sustains a person. Exiting from the egoistic state means that one starts consuming food that does not feed the egoism, but only provides spiritual strength, the quality of bestowal. The custom of eating Matzah signifies that a person should receive just what is necessary to sustain the body and with everything else, work for the sake of bestowal.
Question: Another symbol of Passover is the pre-Passover cleaning. What is the significance of this?
Answer: It means that we must completely renounce egoistic desires. Thus, we leave Egypt, i.e., our collective egoistic intentions for “oneself.” Therefore, we must cleanse ourselves of leavened bread (Hametz), which symbolize these intentions and various actions on all levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, human, from everything around us and within us. It is written: “You shall remove leaven from your houses.”
[280433]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/28/21
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Question: What are the actions where there is no pleasure for the desire to receive and only for the desire to give through friends to the Creator?
Answer: These are acts of giving—actions opposite to egoism.
To translate this action into ever closer unity with our friends, we need to accept the obligation that instead of hatred between us, at least in the ten, we want to become close friends who help each other.
Question: What is a genuine spiritual action? How can we, by working in the ten and making efforts, invoke mutual pleasure in each other so that together we can enjoy mutual giving and thereby give to the Creator?
Answer: We cannot do this because we are born and raised in the quality of egoism. But gradually, by working on ourselves, we attain a negative attitude toward egoism and eventually acquire opposite qualities: love for others, love for the Creator, and altruism.
[327799]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”
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Question: When it is necessary to say “no” to the desire to receive where does one get an understanding of how to act correctly?
Answer: If a person is properly inclined to fulfill some kind of prohibition, then he receives knowledge and strength and implements the action.
Question: How can we constantly approach the Creator, the upper world, and not give in to what the desire to receive establishes?
Answer: Remember that the Creator gives us this. Such understanding will give us strength.
We should strive to maintain a constant connection with the group and with the Creator, the confidence that it is He who sets all the obstacles before us, and yet we must move toward Him.
[327923]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Purpose of the Work – 2”
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Question: What is the difference between truth and justice?
Answer: These are different spiritual categories. Justice is that we weigh one thing against the other.
And truth is something that we do not weigh, but understand that it is true in itself.
Question: When you discover a not-very-pleasant truth about yourself, it is tough to strive for it. I want to run away. How do I go through it?
Answer: Accept that rapprochement with the Creator is more important than your feeling in this state.
Question: Why do we need to ask for justice and not mercy?
Answer: Justice is equal for everyone. And mercy means that you have some special feelings for someone or something.
[327595]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue”
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And the man asked him, saying, ‘What are you seeking?’ And he said, ‘I seek my brothers… (Rabash, Article No. 3, (1984) “Love of Friends – 1”)
“I seek my brothers” is the beginning of working in a group. It is when a person tries to unite with his friends in the ten because there is no advancement without it. Therefore, first of all, we must work in a group: group study, mutual help, and mutual interconnection of every person with all the others.
The ten is the most important thing. A larger number is bad because we are made so that we cannot feel more than ten. And you do not need less than ten either. Ten is the optimal number.
Everyone needs to really understand the ten he is in, what he should do for it, what it should do for him, and how they interconnect. Depending on the common bond between a person and his ten, he will begin to attain the Creator. This is our main goal.
We have no other goal but to reveal the Creator. At the same time, we will begin to understand, attain, and feel everything. This is why the ten’s gatherings, the closeness we reach in it, the feeling of mutual belonging, and mutual assistance are very important.
Often people push themselves away from this considering it not so important. Therefore, I advise you to listen to my words, all Kabbalistic sources speak of it.
At first tens work on themselves, organize within themselves, and then form a larger group, and so on. Without this closeness, we will not achieve high spiritual goals. This is the law of the spiritual world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends – 1”
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Question: Can we start asking for correction without delving into the evil that our quality of Haman shows us? Or do we have to live through and feel all of it?
Answer: It can be both ways; it depends on the state we are in. But in principle, you can ask.
Question: Do I need to ask the Creator to correct the qualities of Haman within me without delving and digging within myself, or do I have to consciously recognize the root of evil in me and ask from there?
Answer: You must realize the root of evil in yourself and ask from there. The root of evil is the desire to receive for your own sake that the Creator has created.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Haman from the Torah, from Where?”
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Question: On one hand when I am on the path of bestowal, I pray for myself to exit Egypt.
On the other hand, I should pray for my friends to feel their deficiency and be directed toward them. How can I combine these different approaches?
Answer: The point is that we must feel our state in different parameters. For example, one state is when I sit in my egoism and do not want to get out of it.
Another state is when I want to break free from my ego but cannot ask for it; I lack the strength. A third state is when I am ready for anything just to rise from egoism to the quality of bestowal and love.
Generally, there can be many such states.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Beginning of the Month”
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Question: I often hear that not noticing flaws is faith above reason. Is that so?
Answer: No, faith above reason is a state where a person, despite what he feels, sees, and explores, goes above it.
First, we must scrutinize our attitude toward the Creator and our friends and understand whether we are in plus or in minus. Accordingly, we should treat them in a way that makes us the corrected group and always care about it.
Comment: But this scrutiny can stumble upon someone and tell you: “Sorry, this is just how you see it; it is your flaw.”
My Response: No one has the right to interfere in another’s work. A person acts according to the way he determines.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Is a Certain People”
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Question: What is special about the concealment called “wings,” and how does it differ from restriction and other concealments?
Answer: The concealment called “wings” creates the feeling that everything is concealed from us from above. Therefore, to come closer to the Creator, we must overcome them.
Then these wings will lift us into the air, transport us to another place, and we will see the world from above, like birds.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Written Torah and the Oral Torah – 1”
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Our states at different degrees have measures of exile—depth and length. This is necessary for a person to realize what state they were before in, what state they are in now, and to which state they must rise.
Question: Is it possible that a person can go through a state for a long time without working it out because they do not delve into its depth, do not realize its essence, and spend a long time in a suspended state?
Answer: Yes, it is entirely possible. But when a person asks the Creator to help him come out of exile and makes every effort, grasps at them like a drowning person clutching at a straw, then the Creator helps him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/24, Writings of Rabash “The Meaning of Exile”
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Question: We are currently in exile. What does it mean to get out of it?
Answer: Try to think like the Creator, i.e., be connected with each other, help each other so that together you can rise above the egoism that pulls you down.
Question: But throughout the day, my mind is filled with various thoughts related to my egoistic desires. I constantly want something. What happens when we get out of Egypt? What is added?
Answer: A force that propels you upward is added, and you can do something with its help. It works in your mind and in your feelings. This is how it works.
Question: Rabash gives an example that one person desires bread, while another desires a beautiful house. Is this related to spiritual desires?
Answer: No, it does not matter what desires a person has. The Creator chooses what is necessary for him so that through them a person will come closer to his redemption from egoism.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/24, Writings of Rabash “The Time of Redemption”
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Question: In Rabash’s article, “The Need for an Act from Below,” in some places it is said that when there is more hatred, more love is built above it. And sometimes it is said that there is less hatred and more love, like on a scale. How is that correct?
Answer: Both are true. You cannot tell from one step where you are going relative to a past or future state.
You must constantly ensure that your attitude toward selfishness becomes more and more negative and your attitude toward your friends becomes more and more positive. These basic parameters should always be in front of you.
Question: How can I understand that I have less hatred and more love for my friends and that I have not become more indifferent to them? Before I hated, suffered from it, and prayed, but now I feel less suffering and don’t quite understand whether I have more love or more indifference to them.
Answer: You must imagine a future in close unity with your friends. That is, every step means greater unity with them. And so, you go forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”
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Question: How can we convey to the Creator the pleasures we receive in the material world?
Answer: The Creator does not need the pleasures you receive in our world that you wish to transfer to Him.
The Creator wants us first to unite as one person with one heart, and from this heart that we would ask Him to correct our common heart for bestowal.
Question: The fact that Israel could not bestow in Egypt and they had to go out to another land suggests that we need to separate ourselves from the desires of the society where we find ourselves and work only with spiritual desires, right?
Answer: In principle, yes. We must internally isolate ourselves from the whole world and constantly think about how to master the property of bestowal and love. In this way, we will gradually desire this, and the Creator will help us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “One’s Greatness Depends on the Measure of One’s Faith in the Future”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Does It Mean that One Who Was On a Far Off Way Is Postponed to a Second Passover, in the Work?”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 584 “The Face of the Lord Is in Evildoers”
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 915 “I and Not A Messenger”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: How do we come to the timely understanding of the wickedness of the evil inclination both in actions and intentions in order to ask the Creator for correction and to be worthy of His love?
Answer: Regarding this, you should agree within your ten to constantly think that you are in exile from the desire to bestow and you need to exit the desire to receive, which is called Egypt. Then you will see and receive everything there is, except exile.
Question: What should be done to show the Creator our desire to build a connection with Him and be rewarded with true love for Him?
Answer: To do this, first of all, it is necessary to unite with your friends in the ten. And then turn to the Creator and ask Him to raise you from this state to Him.
Question: Does it need to be done more internally or externally, at meetings and common events?
Answer: The most important is internally, but externally is also necessary.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/24, Writings of Rabash “Faith Within Reason”
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Question: We always feel like there is a struggle within us between the Egyptians and Israel. The “Egyptian” point within us is very active and wants to receive light for itself; the “Israel” point is passive and lacks a strong desire to break free from this.
Does Israel receive any part of this energy from the Egyptians as an impulse, or is it given to them only by the Creator?
Answer: Why does Israel seem passive compared to others? Because all the others work from egoistic desire, but it is their desire. Israel does not work from its own desire; therefore, they are so small and weak compared to other nations. Each nation stands on its own and has its roots and its convictions, but Israel has neither.
Only its future destiny gives it the strength to break free from where it is. But, fundamentally, Israel has no strength of its own, nothing to hope for in this world, and nothing to be sure of. Before other nations, it is weak and cannot show that this is its world, its land, like it is tethered to heaven by a thread.
Question: Where does this thread come from? How do we not lose and keep it before us all the time?
Answer: The thread by which the people of Israel are tied to heaven is very strong and is held by the Creator. It is based solely on the desire to bestow and love and leads directly to the Creator.
But in the eyes of our world, it is nothing. Therefore, the nations of the world think about how to destroy Israel. After all, what does it have in this world? Nothing. In every generation, someone among the ill-wishers wakes up and calls for the eradication of the people of Israel from the world. That is how they act.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends – 1”
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Question: How are the small daily exits from exile connected to one big exit into spiritual space?
Answer: After many small exiles, if you succeed in overcoming them, long exiles come. You need to overcome them as well. Eventually, you will quickly come to a state of high ascent, which will give you a feeling of the spiritual world.
Question: What determines one person’s sensitivity to another? How can we help each other awaken this sensitivity?
Answer: Sensitivity surfaces in how important each person is to others. The feeling of importance lies in the fact that you cannot reach the purpose of creation without others. No matter how much effort you put in, you will not reach spirituality.
Question: We have already realized that we are in slavery in Egypt and are trying to break free. Where are we now?
Answer: Each of you must answer this question for yourselves.
Question: When a friend leaves the life of the ten and at the same time does not exit the chat, but also does not return, does this indicate that we are not praying enough for him, or is it the Creator’s plan?
Answer: It does not matter. You must continue your work, unite, ask the Creator, and ascend to Him so the friend feels his place among you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/24, Writings of Rabash “The Meaning of Exile”
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There are four types of service to the Creator. The most important of them is what the Torah requires of us: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. In all other types of service, there is an addition of the desire to receive; it is when a person agrees to work for the Creator but not in every state. That is, his actions, like in our world, depend on how much he receives.
Question: What does it mean that I am move from the intention to receive to the intention for selfless service? What kind of state is this for the sake of bestowal?
Answer: You begin to feel to whom you are giving, why you are giving, and for what. This gives you the strength to continue your spiritual work.
Question: How can I get out of the constant intention to receive for myself and join the Creator in order to give to Him?
Answer: As the Creator gives you thoughts “for one’s own sake,” you must ask Him to save you from them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends – 1”
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Question: A knight stood at a crossroads, looked at three ominous signs, and went home to learn to read. First the question arises: how many roads do we actually have before us? Each one has something written on it. Can you tell me what is written on them that we do not understand? We, who have finished school, are PhDs, Doctors of Science, we do not understand what is written. We need to go back and somehow learn to read. What is written there?
Answer: It says: “Do not seek happiness, but uncover it within yourself.”
Question: And somehow we cannot read it. What is it about it that I do not want to agree with and go down this path? Or even read it.
Answer: Because there is no road actually. There is no road. It is just a stone that stops you. And now you have to learn how to achieve that inner freedom where you stand. In principle, you do not need to go anywhere. Standing before this stone now, you must find the truth. That is, a person must go inside himself. And then it will work out for him.
Question: What will I find there within myself?
Answer: You will find yourself: who I am, what I am, what for, why, and what I want to find. You will find all that only within yourself.
Question: We say that the nature of a person is largely understood. It is the desire to receive—egoism. What will I find there besides that?
Answer: Everything starts with egoism.
Question: So the starting point will somehow be there. I will understand that this is my nature; is that it?
Answer: Yes, and how I can control it, this nature of mine.
Comment: So, I feel that it does not lead me to great happiness.
My Response: It does not lead me to happiness. It has led me onto this road, and I must continue along it. Where? What? Nothing is known, and there is no point. And I will search for it during all my miserable remaining years until I return to the same stone, at the same crossroads, only now tired, gray-haired, like Don Quixote on a dead horse. And that is it.
Question: And that is it? And is it my nature that has spun this for me?
Answer: Yes.
Question: This contemplation, is it better to happen sooner rather than later?
Answer: Of course!
Question: Is this the road that I must scrutinize?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is it every person’s destiny to come to the “stone” and stand before it like this?
Answer: Everyone has such an opportunity. But to what extent one is willing to be content with this, to stop at this, I do not know.
Question: So, you think that many of those who set out on those roads, go down those roads, it is all wrong?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: Our ego leads us, demands, and we run along the roads? But we should stop, not rush anywhere.
My Response: We should stop, think, and turn back.
Question: And turn back home?
Answer: Yes.
Question: It says here: “Return home, learn literacy.” Learn literacy. What does it mean to learn literacy?
Answer: To learn literacy means to correctly decipher the questions that arise in your heart. These are actually the questions. And literacy, I would say it is like what your heart tells you. Learn to listen to it, to talk to it, and to be satisfied with what your heart suggests to you.
Question: The heart, what is it?
Answer: The heart is my “self.”
Question: It is not the mind?
Answer:: No, the heart is me. And I want to feel myself, know myself, uncover myself as if I am speaking to myself and standing before myself. It means to speak with your heart.
Question: So I need to truly stand before myself? And all this time I am running away from this “self” of mine?
Answer: Yes, we are running away from ourselves. I always stand before myself, and I run away from it.
Comment: There must be something there that we do not want to know.
My Response: I do not want to talk to it.
Question: Is that literacy? To learn literacy is it to speak directly with myself?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/15/24
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Question: There were two books on the bookshelf, one was expensive with beautiful binding and the other in a cheap, poor binding. The owner read the expensive, pretty book and said: “This is neither for the mind nor for the heart.” He read the inexpensive one, cried, and said: “I have never read anything more useful for the soul.”
He still left both books on the shelf, one for the soul and the other, beautiful one, for people.
Why, after the owner found the truth, does he think so poorly of others?
Answer: He does not think poorly. First, he has no right to take away their freedom of choice or impose anything.
Second, only in this way, when you have two sides of the same coin can you show a person which path leads him where. Therefore, we must leave both books.
Comment: He found the truth. He wants others to slowly get closer to it too.
My Response: Certainly.
Question: Still, can one live only through inner work, only through this unsightly book that contains the truth?
Answer: No, this work must be combined with practice. Practice is a struggle. It is a physical fight with those who oppose it. That is why we returned to this country, to this land, and why the Creator prepared what for us to do in advance, these trials.
Question: If we reach the truth, will these trials seem to dissipate? Isn’t that why they exist, to push us?
Answer: Certainly, trials exist so that we can build ourselves and this truth to enter us.
Question: Do we still meet a person based on our soul or appearance?
Answer: I do not know. It depends.
Question: I will ask it even more simply: Is love at first sight based on one’s soul or appearance?
Answer: At first sight, something that is brighter catches your eye.
Question: What about love at first sight when, for example, one can no longer live and walks around thinking only about it?
Answer: If this is already becoming awareness, the first glance will not help.
Question: So the look is still external?
Answer: Yes, it is simply blinding. And then, when you begin to look closer, it is no longer love and not the first glance. It is already a feeling of similarity, closeness, understanding, devotion, etc.
Question: Does the similarity of properties allow people who live 50 and 60 years together to continue like this?
Answer: Certainly, those people who have lived together for more than 10 years, even just 10 years, already live on what they have acquired—those common feelings, properties, understandings, and so on.
Question: Grigory Perelman, a famous mathematician, refused a million-dollar prize and did not want to move anywhere. He lives, or lived, with his mother, alone, and so on. He has nothing external; he is always dressed the same. He lives internally. What is it? Or is this a natural state for scientists?
Answer: This is the natural state of life for people like him who live to understand creation. Feeling the image of creation within himself is the most important thing for him. He is disconnected from everything.
He is not interested in politics, war, or anything else, only in his cerebral uneasiness, which does not give him peace.
Question: What kind of world do such scientists live in? It isn’t in this one, is it?
Answer: No, not in this one of course, not the world of today. Most of the scientists live in some kind of interstellar space.
Question: Is this world enough for him? What is enough for him? Sandals, trousers, shirt, and off you go?
Answer: Yes, that is how he appears.
Question: His world is different. Is it a rich world?
Answer: It is a world in which he feels rich and sufficient. There is nothing else.
Question: I will ask you as a scientist, how does he perceive all of us, everyone around him who make films about him, talk about him, and so on?
Answer: Indifferent.
Question: As if we do not exist?
Answer: Yes, for him, it does not exist.
Question: Great scientists, were they like that?
Answer: There are very few of them. Each of them has its little devil inside.
Question: Kabbalah is the science of inner experiences and desires. Even though we are disseminating Kabbalah, are we still making it external to people and gradually attracting them? Or what are we doing?
Answer: We want to attract people to the inner state of Kabbalah that speaks about the revelation of the Creator to man in our world.
Question: Do we make it attractive to them for this? Is this right?
Answer: How else will you do it?
Question: So, do we have to spruce it up for them?
Answer: Of course, all people are like children. When we approach something or someone, we approach from afar, gradually.
Question: Is it possible to take complex texts and popularize them gradually?
Answer: Of course, yes. Baal HaSulam did what the Ari and other great Kabbalists before him did. They devoted a lot of time and attention to this.
Question: To bring this science to people?
Answer: Yes, it is very challenging. Although their highest texts are high for us. And for them, it was descending to people like us.
Question: So this is the correct process: do not rise to me, I will go down to you and raise you?
Answer: What else can you do? Otherwise, we will never have contact with those souls who have reached the Creator and are at that level.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/26/24
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Question: A computer program has been launched in Denmark that quite accurately calculates the approximate year of a person’s death. There is no mysticism here, the creators of artificial intelligence say. It processes a huge amount of database data on each of the six million inhabitants of the country.
The life story of any person is a chain of events that happen to him, which includes education, chronic diseases, and genetics. And it is calculates it all out, calculates, and calculates. This machine is trusted because it has made pretty accurate predictions.
Do you think we need all these calculations, these machines? They will show with some accuracy when a person will die.
Answer: But before that, I probably also want to know something about myself: when I will become rich and healthy? When will I get married for the third, fourth, or fifth time? And so on.
Comment: That is, how I will live, not when will I die.
My Response: When I will die, everyone can say that.
Question: But it calculates for you when, by what date you need to prepare everything, hand over all your work, and so on. Do we need this?
Answer: I do not need it.
Question: You do not need it. And people do not seem to really need it either?
Answer: I do not know. There are people who care very much about leaving everything in order for after their death, putting all their affairs in order, and so on.
Question: The creation of such machines does not mean that we are as if putting our hands into the plans of the Creator?
Answer: No, a person just wants to end his life in a normal way without entering into any conflicts with anyone, and that is why he wants to know the day of his death.
Question: That is, he wants to prepare all the papers?
Answer: Yes, many people are doing this.
Comment: You once told me that when you came to Canada to bury your father and wanted to support your mother at that hour, you saw that your mother was more or less calm. Then you asked her: “What is the matter?” And she told you that she met a man who accurately told her the day of your father’s death.
Answer: Yes.
Question: She also asked you to call this person, and you talked to him. When a person is given such abilities as this psychic to predict the day of death, does this obligate him to something? Does it mean something, or is it just some kind of animalistic ability?
Answer: I did not see anything special in him; although, in principle, not everyone can predict such dates either.
Question: Did he predict exactly?
Answer: Yes, and when I called him, he said, “Oh, it is the son of so-and-so calling me.” Just by my voice alone.
Question: So you did not introduce yourself?
Answer: I did not introduce myself, not at all. And he immediately told me who and what, and how, when, and that I can come to him.
Question: When and why are such abilities given to a person?
Answer: He himself does not know. He does not know, and others do not know.
Question: So, basically, this artificial intelligence, there is nothing special about it either except for all these earthly things of ours?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Now about the Creator, who knows the root of the human soul and what guides it from the beginning to the end. Isn’t He supposed to guide a person from something to something?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Question: From what to what does the Creator guide a person?
Answer: From a small selfish desire to a larger, corrected one, maybe not final. Well, on and on and on.
Question: So one way or another, a person’s path is a feeling that I am an egoist and toward correction. Is this the whole human journey?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And it is not given to us to know the day of the death of egoism, shall we say?
Answer: No.
Question: We cannot create such a machine or meet such a psychic: when can I end this path with the death of my egoism?
Answer: No. You have to yearn until the last minute of your life for this egoism to disappear from you.
Question: And I would be corrected. And what do I gain then?
Answer: Then you will feel the Creator with all your heart and with all your feelings one to one.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/15/24
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Question: Once a man found an eagle’s egg and placed it with some chickens. The eaglet grew up together with the chicks. Like them it clucked and scratched the ground, searched for worms, flapped its wings, and tried to fly. And one day, the grown eagle saw a proud bird in the sky. The bird was soaring, flapping its large wings.
Enchanted, the eagle asked, “Who is that?” “That’s an eagle, the king of all birds,” a fellow bird replied. “It belongs to the sky. But we chickens belong to the earth.” So, the eagle lived like a chicken and died like a chicken because it believed in its chicken origin.
Please tell me, who are we, humans? Are we eaglets tossed among chickens, or are we truly chickens who cannot fly?
Answer: In principle, we are indeed eagles. Not just eaglets, but eagles. However, we cannot play this role, even though we are clucked at from all sides.
Question: So are we eagles placed among chickens after all? Or do you believe that all of humanity can be eagles?
Answer: For now, it is still just chickens.
Question: What does whether I’m a chicken or an eagle depend on?
Answer: It depends on self-awareness.
Question: So, I must realize that I am an eagle. Who should tell me this or whisper it to me?
Answer: The higher purpose. You must feel it within yourself and understand that otherwise, it is not life.
Comment: So life is not being a chicken, but being an eagle.
My Response: For you, yes.
Question: What does it mean that I am an eagle?
Answer: To be an eagle means to strive for order in the world because otherwise it would not be life, but just a mere chicken coop.
Therefore, we have no other choice. We, generation after generation of failures, must, no matter how inferior, insignificant, small, or tangled we feel, still lift ourselves up and try to soar.
Question: So, basically, someday, one way or another, it will show that I am an eagle?
Answer: Yes, then it will show.
Question: Here it says that a man took an eagle’s egg and placed it with chickens. Similarly, the Creator took and placed us on this earth, as if saying you cannot fly, you can only walk on the earth. And you say we can still fly. Did the Creator instill in us that we can fly? Is it placed from above?
Answer: Yes, this feeling arises in us. And this question arises within us. And most importantly, all people on earth drive us toward this. Although, of course, they don’t encourage us explicitly to take such a place, such a role, but overall, it is so.
Question: So, we have this eagle’s point within us?
Answer: Yes. Look, although, throughout history, we were suppressed, burned, and whatnot, still, in the end, in each generation there are individuals, albeit few, who rise and move forward.
Question: Does the choice of environment depend on me or not?
Answer: It depends on you.
Question: So I choose the environment?
Answer: Yes. Having received spiritual inheritance, written sources from our great teachers, we can clearly and loudly say to everyone that we have it in our hands, and we must realize it.
Question: And can we fly?
Answer: Yes.
Question: At the level of the mundane, sometimes we hear one is told, “Sit and don’t make noise, you’re a chicken.” And another would be told, “You’re the king of the jungle, you’re an eagle, the king of birds.” When someone is put down in this way and someone is uplifted, what does it say?
Answer: It says that each person must choose for himself what destiny he chooses.
Comment: And the fact that they say so is…
My Response: And who’s saying it? “Who are the judges?”
Question: So in any case, it’s the individual’s decision?
Answer: Only!
Question: Despite being oppressed and so on, you must still make this decision?
Answer: It does not matter, yes.
[326610]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/12/24
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Question: Is it possible to reveal the Creator in the desire to reach perfection?
Answer: No, we cannot aspire to see that perfection already exists. We must ourselves reveal what is lacking in us to reach it. Then we need to ask the Creator to correct this imperfection so that it is added to perfection. That is when we will see the final correction (Gmar Tikun).
Question: To reach final correction, we need to bring the whole world to the Creator and raise a request for correction of the entire creation. We see that the whole world is constantly pulling us back. How do we correctly engage in prayer?
Answer: First of all, we need to understand that the correction of the world depends on us. Therefore, the fact that the whole world is against us is the case when we are responsible for the entire world.
Question: What is your opinion about how we are progressing toward the exalted purpose?
Answer: I believe that we are approaching it and will be able to achieve it, perhaps even this year, from this Purim to the next Purim. It is quite possible the upper Kli and upper fulfillment, that is, the upper world, will at least begin to open up for us.
[327691]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Haman Pockets”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Why the Festival of Matzot Is Called Passover”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 832 “Dead Fish”
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 518 “He Who Comes to Defile”
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Selected Highlights
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We are the source of joy and sorrow mine.
We are a repository of filth, and pure spring.
People, as in a mirror, the world is multifaceted.
He is insignificant and he is infinitely great! (Omar Khayyam)
Question: We are a repository of what? Are we a repository of filth or purity? Or both?
Answer: Both.
Question: What do you mean by that? What is it within us?
Answer: We were cast away from the Creator to the opposite side. We do not feel the Creator; we do not feel close to Him; we do not feel the need to get closer to Him. We simply absorbed within ourselves the very worst, the most egoistic things.
Question: Is this what you call filth?
Answer: Filth is the fact that we deny the world with the Creator altogether. What is important to us is not a connection with the Creator, but rather, a weapon in our hands.
Question: But you said there is also purity within us. What is that?
Answer: It is because we cannot understand our state. This is what saves us. Even the fact that we are so far from the Creator and do not accept His decisions, is all still forgiven and strengthens us because we truly are a lost generation.
Question: So where is the purity in all this?
Answer: The purity lies in the fact that nothing sticks to us. We do not become soiled by being in filth because we also do not feel it, it is also not with us.
Question: Do we not feel that we are filthy, that we are so bad? Do you call this a drop of purity within us?
Answer: Yes, this is purity. It will help us, and it does help.
Question: But should we feel that we are in filth in order to rise out of it, to want to cleanse ourselves?
Answer: We do not need that to such an extent. The extent we are in it is enough. We need to work on this. It will manifest in us to the extent it should manifest.
Comment: You have become more benevolent toward people.
My Response: I just belong to the generation I live in, and I see how they react to everything, to the extent that the Creator allows them to feel who they are and what they are.
Question: Is this enough? Should we not strive for more?
Answer: I believe it is. Everything else will come.
Comment: To be honest, I am surprised!
My Response: But how to do it?
Comment: To somehow make it so that a person feels that, as you said, he has a weapon in his hands, not the Creator and that this is bad, that he should somehow strive for connection with Him.
My Response: But that has no positive solution. We must necessarily understand that we are alone with the Creator.
Question: There is us and the Creator. Is this what we should come to?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Will this be enough?
Answer: Yes! This will be enough.
Question: What conclusion will come from this? Let’s say, God willing, we come to the state of “there is us and the Creator.” What next? You say, “This is high.” What is it? “There is us and the Creator,” we have reached that. What are my actions next? Is it always to be in accordance with Him?
Answer: Yes. Next, my actions are only with the Creator!
Question: Do I then feel the filth, do I already understand how to get out of it, and so on?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So do we just need this little first contact?
Answer: Yes, do not rely on anyone else, only on the Creator.
Question: I see. Does it come from the Creator or still from my efforts?
Answer: It comes from the Creator, but to the extent of our efforts.
Question: So do we still have to make efforts?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Further, from this quatrain of Omar Khayyam: What does it mean that a person is multifaceted?
Answer: Yes, it means that we are always trying to turn and look for something better, something closer, and so on.
Question: Are these our many faces?
Answer: Yes, but we do not find ourselves anywhere. Yet, we need only one direction and one solution.
Question: It is also said here that we are insignificant and at the same time great. In what way are we great after all?
Answer: We are great in that the Creator is with us and insignificant in that we do not pay attention to Him.
Question: So do we have both in us?
Answer: Yes, something needs to be done!
Question: Do we need to somehow come to one of these two?
Answer: To what?! How do you propose to bring that about?! It does not depend on just one person. It depends on a collective decision, on the spirit within the people!
Comment: But you have been involved in this your whole life.
My Response: So what? I see that in the end nothing really works.
Gradually, of course, we will still come to it, we cannot escape from that. But it is impossible, absolutely impossible, to reach a state where the entire nation rises up as one and says, “This is mine, this is ours, and we are together.”
Question: I see. But still, the whole nation as one I understand, but a group leads the people, they stand up and speak. And the people sort of join them willingly. It is still like that, right?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: You once told a story about going to some store to make a duplicate key a long time ago. And you had the book Tree of Life with you. You put it on the counter, and the religious shopkeeper suddenly said, “Take it away, take it away. Get rid of it!” No one even wanted to come close to Kabbalah, even to the great Ari.
Today it is simple, just go on the Internet. And we have accomplished so much more. You say you are feeling like giving up. Why? It happened! Look how many students we have now!
My Response: But on the other hand, it does not resonate with the people, with the masses. Not yet.
Nevertheless, we have broken through some barrier between Kabbalah and the people, which collapsed and opened Kabbalah to everyone.
Question: Do you think people are still driven by suffering to move forward?
Answer: I do not know. It depends on the path we have to take. Constantly proving to the people that salvation lies in unity between us and the Creator is our task.
Question: Is it our constant, specific task?
Answer: Yes. There cannot be any other way here!
Question: Do you reduce everything to one formula: unity among us is unity with the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is this the main formula?
Answer: It encompasses everything.
Question: Is all the wisdom directed toward this, everything toward this?
Answer: Yes.
Question: As Baal HaSulam said, the unity of humanity and connection with the Creator. Is this what it means for the Creator to be revealed to the entire world?
Answer: Yes. Exactly!
[326912]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/26/24
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Question: How do I hold the intention to bestow when there is no way to determine where exactly I am, whether for the sake of receiving or in bestowal?
Answer: Connect with your friends, decide what to do, and you will not go wrong. An indicator of bestowal is your thoughts about how to raise others.
Question: To attract the light of faith into the ten, one must see everyone else as corrected except oneself. That feels like a trembling in the heart, right?
Answer: No, this is wrong. It is not a necessary condition. To come together in one unified heart, in one unified desire, and attract the upper light that will connect you correctly, you do not need to be corrected; you just need to desire that state.
It all depends on your collective desire that embraces and envelops all of you.
Question: It is said that to land on a table you need to jump higher than the table. In that context of moving from for the sake of receiving to for the sake of bestowal, what does higher mean, and what do we need to achieve?
Answer: To give everything to rise above your egoism.
Question: What should I do when there is a clear realization that I do not have complete faith and no strength to take action toward unity or prayer?
Answer: Try to get closer to your friends, and with them, you will be able to participate in the correction.
[327675]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/6/24, Writings of Rabash Letter No. 66
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Question: What is the “inheritance of the land of Israel”?
Answer: Israel, from the words “Isra-El,” means directly to the Creator: Isra—directly, El—the Creator.
To inherit the land of Israel means to unite with desires directed toward the Creator. These desires are passed through inheritance. Therefore, all the sons of Israel are heirs to the land of Israel. This refers to spiritual substance, not corporeal land.
Question: Does it mean there are heirs and those who will not inherit these desires?
Answer: Yes, it depends only on whether a person yearns to unite with the Creator. Being born a Jew is not enough; it means absolutely nothing. Any person can develop the desire to connect with the Creator.
[327683]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Three Lines”
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Question: Is it correct to say that in a conflict between two friends, they should try to see each other through the eyes of the Creator?
Answer: There is no point to even try. You will just get confused. But if you look at your friend like a loving mother looks at her child, this is good.
You must learn to forgive. The most important for the ten is forgiving and beginning immediately with renewed relationships.
Question: How can I express this correctly so my friend understands that I am approaching him with an open heart and not with other intentions?
Answer: If you study the same material and listen to the same teachers, you will naturally become similar to each other and begin to perceive the material in the same way. There cannot be anything else here.
Therefore, continue actively to build relationships within the ten that will tie you together in a strong bond.
[327632]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends – 1”
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Question: What are the “vessels of the Egyptians?”
Answer: They are egoistic desires in their purest form. The golden vessels symbolize the degree of Behina Dalet, the silver ones symbolize Behina Gimel.
Question: We are learning that I should rise above my egoistic desires as much as possible, not use them, and unite with my friends. What does it mean that I borrow these desires from the Egyptians?
Answer: You ask the Egyptians for desires and intentions to bestow, and you use the little light they have.
You use it in your egoistic desires that go through the stage of recognition of evil, your oppositeness to the Creator. Thus, you begin to rise above egoism by gradually rejecting it. This is when your exit from Egypt begins.
Question: The vessels the children of Israel borrow from the Egyptians, do they bring them along into the desert, or do they later bring them into the land of Israel?
Answer: These are very good Kelim (vessels); they keep them. Later, at each stage, we can delve into what happens to them.
[328200]
From the 1st part of the the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/24, Writings of Rabash “What Is the Need to Borrow Vessels from the Egyptians?”
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Question: The symbol of the Exodus from Egypt is Matza. Why is it necessary to consume Matza during Passover?
Answer: Matza is unleavened bread that is made in a special way with minimal water needed to make leaven. Then it is baked simply over coals or on a hot pan; it does not matter what it is baked on.
Matza is baked in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt and symbolizes our swift transition from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow. It happens unexpectedly, suddenly, in what seems like the most inappropriate place and time for a person.
There is an accumulating process, accumulation, and a person breaks free from the grip of egoism. This is called the Exodus from Egypt.
Question: So, does a person not expect this exodus?
Answer: They are always expecting it, but they do not know that it is approaching. When it really happens to them, they do not understand how it suddenly came about. But someday, it will happen to everyone.
[297628]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/20/22
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Question: Passover lasts for seven days. Why is that?
Answer: Seven days represent the seven Sefirot, all the levels of our soul. On the first day of Passover, a person exits the intention for oneself and continues to get rid of his egoistic intentions on the second day, the third day, and so on, until he completely detaches from them.
In this way, one approaches a state called Yam Suf—the Red Sea. He is ready to plunge into it to fully detach himself from Egypt (from egoism).
Question: Exiting Egypt is the final frontier of the corporeal, egoistic world beyond which lies an arbitrary line called Machsom. By crossing it, a person begins to feel love, bestowal, and the spiritual world. What happens to him? What transformation occurs beyond this line?
Answer: Beyond this line, a person only thinks about how through others he can increasingly realize in himself the quality of bestowal and love. As a result, he begins to feel in this quality that he is filled with the highest light—the Creator.
[280437]
From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/28/21
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Question: How do we collectively find the true, correct Hisaron (deficiency) during the night time?
Answer: At night we cannot find anything; there is no light. During this time, a person is under the influence of egoism, under the influence of uncorrected or even evil forces.
Therefore, at night we do nothing, and we act only when morning begins, i.e., from midnight.
In this, we take an example from King David who always woke up at midnight and began writing Psalms.
Question: On Passover night, the body is limited both in thoughts and desires. What is this state?
Answer: It is a state of feeling the exile in Egypt.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Exodus from Egypt”
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Question: Which is more important: to be happy with the revelation of evil or to ask for a way out of Egypt?
Answer: The joy of revealing evil is not yet a finished action. And the request to leave Egypt is already a more conscious state.
The children of Israel cried out to the Creator to bring them out of Egypt. At the same time their similarity to Him was that they wanted to get out of their state and achieve the opposite: liberation from egoism.
Question: If we feel bad and we try to escape from this place, does it also come from the ego?
Answer: A place is a desire. We try to escape from egoistic desire, to make efforts, and to ask the Creator to help us do this. To our weak efforts, like those of a small child, the Creator gives His help, and then our efforts turn into action. This is how we ascend the steps of the spiritual ladder to the Creator.
[327981]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days”
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Question: Is it necessary to pursue justice to come to equivalence of form with the Creator? What does it mean?
Answer: To pursue justice means that in any degree you have to look for the basis of what justice is, which means to search for the Creator constantly because that is when you will find Him.
It is said: “Strive for the truth.” That is, because you adhere to justice (Tzedek), you will come to the Creator, who is that quality.
Therefore, in any place, any decision, we must find that justice is the basis of everything.
Justice is one of the types of revelation of the Creator. By pursuing justice, you, by following this path, achieve the inheritance of the land.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue”
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Question: We are required to awaken from below. Is there anything special about Purim that we still need to do?
Answer: We do not need anything other than connection. The Creator created the desire to receive and shattered it into many parts. And we need to gather them so that they become like one person with one desire.
All these parts are in us. We are broken parts, so our desire to unite leads us to a state of correction.
We must constantly turn to the Creator with a request that He unite us into one common whole.
And when He does, we will have the opportunity to ask Him to fill our common desire with the upper light. This state will be called Purim.
[327643]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Haman Pockets”
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Question: Is there a difference between annulling yourself before the Creator and opening yourself to the Creator?
Answer: These are different things. Annulling oneself before the Creator means absolutely nullifying oneself. For example, you can imagine yourself as a tube through which light passes from one place to another and you are only the walls of this tube.
Comment: It seems to me that opening yourself is also being a tube, not a cork.
My Response: No, there is still a difference. These are very complex states; we will study them later. I cannot even describe them right away.
Question: During the lessons, I feel pleasure coming over me, and I have a fear that I am beginning to receive it, to absorb it. What kind of inner work should be done here in order not to agree to accept pleasure for my own sake?
Answer: No, you agree to accept, just make yourself a tube through which you will pass all the good things you receive from above to the group and to the whole world.
Question: What trace does light leave in me when it passes through me, as if through a tube?
Answer: A feeling of fulfillment, joy, gladness, and connection.
[327592]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/24, Writings of Rabash “Justice, Justice You Shall Pursue”
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Question: How can we feel the love of the Creator and the love of the Creator for us through love of friends?
Answer: We cannot feel the love of the Creator so easily and quickly come to states of coming closer or moving away from Him. This is all attained gradually. Just like in our world when we get to know someone, it is only after we get used to each other that states of closer or more distant arise between us, and so on.
Therefore, first we need to study Kabbalistic articles that talk about connection between the friends in the group, and then about the connection of the group with the Creator. These are the two most necessary steps for everyone, both women and men. Without this we will not begin to feel the upper world that is above us and controls us without our feeling it.
And in order to feel it, to feel the Creator who controls us through it, we need to be in good, kind connection with each other. This is our main task.
Question: We have come, we have made efforts, and each of us wants to fulfill some kind of spiritual desire. How can we still feel any fulfillment through these small efforts? And what can they manifest themselves in right now?
Answer: It takes time, a lot of time, but gradually, more and more, we will begin to understand what forces we are dealing with, what the form of our connection is, and begin to feel it. This will lead us to our friends and to the Creator, and everything will connect together.
[327625]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends – 1”
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Natasha writes:
Dear Michael Laitman,
Please tell me, why does this happen? All of us, without exception, so eagerly want to meet our soul mate and live with them in love and harmony, but in life, this remains only in our dreams. Or we find a partner and seem to live in harmony, but suddenly everything ends, and we part as enemies.
Today, the divorce rate reaches 70%. What is this? Just a moment ago, people were sure they would be together forever. Why does this happen?
Answer: Egoism! What can you do? Our nature is pure egoism that cannot tolerate another.
Comment: But just a moment ago…
My Response: It does not matter. They did not understand that they love others, meaning they could tolerate them nearby because they received great fulfillment from it.
Question: Is it only for that reason?
Answer: Of course, what else do we need from others? So as soon as a person feels they are not receiving that fulfillment from another, they want to cast them away.
Question: So the old idea that we meet and this feeling will be eternal and we will do everything for it does not work anymore?
Answer: No, that is childish babble.
Question: So we face an enemy stronger than us in the end?
Answer: Absolutely!
Question: Our nature is stronger than us?
Answer: Yes! It was created by the Creator.
Question: If we realize this, then we would stop making vows and we would be cautious?
Answer: What is the point in stopping to make vows? That will not change anything. Here, we need to teach a person how to control himself, how to arrange life with someone like himself, with another. This requires significant preparation.
Question: Does my understanding of myself as an animal help in this?
Answer: Yes, of course. It is a part of this realization.
Question: So, is such a statement correct: “It will be difficult with you, but we will try to stick together, and go through all the ups and downs together”? Is this kind of marriage agreement better?
Answer: Perhaps.
Question: They say we kind of bring the Creator upon ourselves when we promise something unconditionally. Maybe we should not promise?
Answer: There is no need to promise, that is for sure! We must know each other very well and understand that both egoists are coming together. How should we behave with each other so that our egoistic desires to use each other coincide rather than oppose each other in confrontation? And this is very important for us.
Question: Tell me, what practical steps should we take to advance together in this dance, as you say?
Answer: Consistently, with small steps. Take a little step forward, something goes wrong—take half a step back. Step forward again—half a step back. That is, one step forward and half a step back.
Question: What is this step forward? I feel rejection now, the time has come. I used to love all the time and now there is rejection. What do I do?
Answer: Now there is rejection, I reconsider my life, my current state, my partner, and I gradually come to the conclusion that I can continue to exist with this partner and I just need to establish some connection between us so that we understand each other more positively.
Question: Is this through conversation?
Answer: You can clarify this in conversation. You should not even talk about it but somehow show that now I am not capable of closer connection.
Comment: So, I kind of show this, and then her step is not to get closer…
My Response: More calmly, yes.
Comment: And from her side, when I feel irritation toward myself, I should also…
My Response: Yes.
Question: So, do we always have to maintain some distance?
Answer: Step aside.
Question: What about love, closeness?
Answer: You can only achieve that if you act in the way I just described. Then you will have normal mutual understanding, which will aim to foster love. That is, you will love another person for being a good partner.
Question: What do you mean by partner?
Answer: A partner is someone who understands you and builds a path from heart to heart next to you.
Question: In that specific state: two steps forward, one step back?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So we have to be vigilant all the time?
Answer: No, not to that extent, I don’t think. The most important thing is to forgive, and not only forgive, but also yield.
Question: For almost the entire time?
Answer: Throughout life.
Question: Even throughout life? So you know that you are entering into connection and specifically making concessions? Do I need to know this in advance?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Are we talking about both sides?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: When children come into the picture…
My Response: When children come along, men need to make more concessions because women already have additional, even greater responsibilities.
Question: So the golden rule that you always talk about is about making concessions?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Since we are constantly returning to the Creator, can we say that we and the Creator are like a couple?
Answer: To the extent that you yield in your earthly life, to that extent you can hope that the Creator will yield to you in your spiritual life.
Question: When I take a step back in family life, does the Creator also make His concession? Is He kind and good to me?
Answer: Yes, because it is evident from your actions that you are yielding in order to maintain or even progress in the relationship. Therefore, the Creator can do the same with you.
Question: In which case do we say that between us there is the Creator, between husband and wife is the Creator? Is it in this case?
Answer: Constantly.
Question: Is the idea that between us there is always the Creator and we must constantly strive toward Him and hold onto this for His sake, is this idea correct?
Answer: Yes.
Question: For His sake, is that correct?
Answer: For His sake, yes.
Question: So, He actually established that this couple should exist and should come together?
Answer: Yes.
Question: If we meet, who brought us together? Him?
Answer: In essence, the Creator.
Question: If we keep this in mind, is this a good path?
Answer: Yes.
[327259]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/18/24
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Question: We know that a righteous is one who fully justifies the Creator and sees everything as perfect. But the righteous Mordechai saw a flaw in the people, he saw the division. So was he a sinner at that moment?
Answer: No, the righteous see the picture as it is. It is not about eyes being closed. The righteous sees a clear picture of the entire universe.
We constantly check what state we are in, each relative to himself and each other.
When there is connection, unity, and love between us, we have spiritual power. We can do something. If we do not, we are powerless.
We must get closer to each other to be like one man, Adam, similar to the Creator. That is the kind of unity we should have between us.
[327554]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “There Is a Certain People”
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Question: When we walk together on the path, what is our roadmap to stay on it without deviating?
Answer: Your roadmap is your increasingly warm attitude toward your friends and their increasingly warm attitude toward the Creator. You just need to open your heart, warm it from within more and more, and get used to living like this.
Question: What form of our connection can provide nourishment to the world?
Answer: By uniting as one person with one heart, we fully connect to the Creator and can receive everything we need from Him.
Question: How can we avoid being stubborn donkeys in the field?
Answer: Hold onto your friends and ask the Creator. It seems simple, but it is difficult to implement.
Question: If the ten connects correctly, the next state should be better than the previous one. How can we evaluate this correctly?
Answer: The state may be higher, but whether it is negative or positive depends on the individual, on what level they should be, and how they should realize this degree.
[327617]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/24, Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends – 1”
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On the second day of creation, a space was created in the middle of the water, separating the upper and lower waters, and this space is called the firmament.
The upper and lower waters differ between the forces that rush toward the Creator and those that rush in the opposite direction.
Question: On the third day, the Creator created dry land, and greenery began to grow. Can this be correlated with a person’s vegetative level of desire?
Answer: Yes, sure. Creatures display new data and opportunities to see more deeply and clearly what the Creator has done. But in principle, all this development begins on the first day.
Question: Do you mean spiritual desires and not the egoistic desires of our world?
Answer: No, there is a parallel between this and this; when two opposing forces manifest themselves in matter within the framework of time, space, and movement, it turns out to be a cause-and-effect relationship.
The Torah describes the creation of all kinds of forces or the principles on which these forces are based.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 3/21/24
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “But the More They Afflicted Them”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man
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Selected Highlights
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Question: How can we influence all people from within ourselves without going out to the people?
Answer: We can achieve this only if we can raise our prayer to the Creator.
Question: What kind of prayer?
Answer: That is what we need to figure out so that our prayer is so unified that it can ascend to the Creator. In this way, we implore Him to fulfill our desire.
What do we turn to the Creator with? To reveal among us what we need. And this is not just a matter of words, but it is an urgent need.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”
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Question: What is the true deficiency (Hisaron) born in the struggle of exile and redemption that leads to true prayer?
Answer: The true Hisaron, or deficiency, arises in a person through the process of studying what exile is, why we ended up there, and how to escape from it.
This is the essence of Passover. Passover, from the word Pesach (Pe-Sach), means a transition from one state to another, from a state of exile to a state of redemption from egoism.
Passover night symbolizes the feeling of being exiled into egoism.
Therefore, for hundreds of years until the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), the exodus from Egypt represents the final night of Passover, when we finally exit egoism and become free people.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/24, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Exodus from Egypt”
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Question: How can you understand the extent of your evil and ask for the measure of its correction; how can you get out of this state?
Answer: To the extent that we can reveal egoism in ourselves, we can ask the Creator to correct it. Otherwise, it will be a request for something empty.
Therefore, we must work on ourselves, our desires, and our relationship with our friends to feel how much we are at the mercy of egoism. And then ask the Creator to take us out from under the power of the ego. That is called the way out of the Egyptian exile.
Question: Is there a point of no return to the ego? I do not want to return to egoism again.
Answer: There is no point of no return. Together, we must ask the Creator for one thing: to rise from egoism to Him. It is only through our prayers that He will give us more strength so we can resist our ego.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/24, Writings of Rabash “The Time of Redemption”
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Question: How does the feeling of exile arise in a person?
Answer: As a person desires to exit egoism, to distance from it, the feeling of being in exile is born within him.
It turns out that one is in egoism and hates it at the same time.
Question: Pharaoh rules over us through egoistic pleasures, and it seems that we cannot enter holiness until we rid ourselves of them. Is that correct?
Answer: No, do not think about it. We just should not be slaves to pleasures. This is something to think about.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”
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Question: If I am aware of my egoism and lowliness and want to connect with my friends, is this enough to get out of Egypt?
Answer: No, you must feel that you are in Egypt, in egoism, and cannot break free from it.
Question: What should you do when you find yourself in selfish pleasure and realize you have no aversion to it?
Answer: You need to keep working. You already have an awareness of being in egoism, but have no aversion to it yet. Recognition of evil is when you feel you are in it, but you still agree to it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/24, Writings of Rabash “The Need for an Act from Below”
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Question: When the sons of Israel felt a great emptiness, they cried out to the Creator. This cry came out of them automatically. What was their freedom of choice?
Answer: They had freedom of choice before when they were in Egypt. Now, the Creator has gathered them and pulled them to Him. Therefore, they are under the full power of the Creator.
We must understand that we do not yet feel like we are in the desert. We do not feel that we have nothing to eat. Therefore, we cannot cry out to the Creator asking where the food we ate in Egypt is. We do not yet feel Egypt.
Question: What is the difference between Israel and the nations of the world? Is it that the people of the world in this situation would not turn to the Creator?
Answer: No, the nations of the world are those who do not feel related to the Creator at all.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “And It Came to Pass in the Course of Those Many Days”
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Question: How can the entire world group come out of exile correctly?
Answer: According to your desire, to the extent that you unite with your friends and together want to eliminate the force of evil, the Pharaoh, who always draws you back to Egypt, to your egoism, to the desire to receive, to that extent you can gradually, over some time, reach a state where the force of the Pharaoh disappears.
Question: Does staying in exile necessarily have to be a prolonged process? Can we make it fast or even instantaneous?
Answer: One cannot predict how quickly or slowly the exit from the egoistic state will be. It depends on your reaction.
Everything that happens to us is done by the Creator. You must react and work together on your response to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/24, Writings of Rabash “The Meaning of Exile”
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Currently our main dissemination lies in the fact that by connecting with each other in the system of correct interaction and mutual guarantee, we create a prototype of the humanity of the future, within ourselves. And since we are inside today’s humanity, we are like a leavening agent that is placed in dough and begins […]
Getting in and out of exile is a constant process. We take a step and get rejection from the Creator. We do not know how to advance further. We ask the Creator to help until we find a way to be drawn to Him and so we are attracted to the Creator again. In other […]
Question: How can I understand that I am going backward relative to the group? Answer: You have to look at your friends, see their actions and properties, and then you will discover how far behind you are. Checking whether you are going forward or backward can be only relative to the group. Hold on to […]
“What is repentance like? When He who knows the mysteries will testify that he will not return to folly.” … In other words, when will one be certain that he has been granted complete repentance? For this, one is given a clear sign: “When He Who knows the mysteries testifies that he will not return […]
Question: There is a feeling that we run away from our work all the time. How do we not run away from disturbances? How can we rise above the necessary, and how can we raise the necessity? And what is the difference between them? Answer: The main thing is to be in connection with your […]
Question: Is it true that all our failures are new Kelim (vessels)? Answer: Both successes and failures are all new. We must treat both equally. The most important thing is to gather them together, to understand that they all come from the Creator, and to wish to connect them with your future correct state. Question: […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I overcome my gambling addiction?“ The attraction to gambling stems from a strong feeling of lacking connection with fate. What is a lack of connection with fate? It is a lack of a harmonious connection between people and nature, or to a pathway to such a goal. At the […]
Question: What does the concept of kindness without any additions mean? Answer: It is an absolute, pure good without any egoistic additions to the extent that we can isolate it and hold only on to it. Question: How can we move from egoistic to pure love in the ten? Do we do it ourselves, or […]
Everyone in the group has various temptations that distract them from the spiritual path. In order not to stray from the correct path you need to rely on your friends; otherwise, you will not be able to sustain and go straight to the goal. Although they have the same temptation, if you hold on to […]
Hasidism is a trend built on the exaltation of the teacher, the exaltation of the Creator. And a Kabbalist, besides this, also has a critical attitude toward a teacher because a person who studies Kabbalah consists of two properties: egoism and a point in the heart directed against the ego. The fact is that the […]
Explain to me please, how can intelligent, thinking, educated people agree that a woman is made of a man’s rib, that snakes can speak, that there are magical apples in a paradise and you can eat them and know the truth, and many, many other things like that on every page of the Bible. Where […]
Question: For many years we have been going through unconscious development during which our desire to be filled, to receive pleasure, has constantly evolved. And what is conscious development? Answer: Conscious development is when we begin to understand that we cannot live with just the desire to enjoy, to be filled. In addition to the […]
Comment: Nowadays many people in the world speak practically with your words; they basically say the same thing. My Response: Humanity is slowly coming to the same conclusions that were written in Kabbalah thousands of years ago, because such is evolution. When Kabbalah tells people about this, they begin to move along with this wisdom: […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does one discover their true self?“ We discover our true self from within what Kabbalah calls the “point in the heart,” a tiny desire within us that attracts us upward to another realm beyond this world. Today, we live in an era where people despair more and more from living […]
Question: How can we understand whether we have reached a new degree of connection or have simply forgotten the conflict we had? For example, in ordinary life, we fight and after a while we calm down as if nothing had happened. How does it work in the ten? Answer: This is not how it works […]
By studying Kabbalah, a person gradually begins to feel how the quality of exiting oneself arises in him or her. This is the birth of a new quality in a person; it is the quality of bestowal, which, in general, does not exist in our world.
It creates a certain area in a person, called a Partzuf. A Partzuf is conscious work with pleasure. The fact is that when a person wants to become similar to the spiritual quality, he must master the quality of love, the quality of bestowal to others. Therefore, by expressing his positive attitude toward others, he begins to formalize it in the form of a desire for coming closer to others, in the form of connection, bestowal. If he acts like that, then he becomes a Kabbalist.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/27/23
If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world (Nikola Tesla).
Question: In Tesla’s time there was not so much hatred, but today we would burn the world. He thinks like a scientist, he sees hatred as energy. What is your attitude to the fact that hatred is energy?
Answer: Of course. Our hatred is above all other kinds of energy in the world.
Question: Would there be enough electricity here?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How can this energy of huge hatred be converted into some kind of positive charge today? Can hatred be turned into love?
Answer: Yes. To do this, we need to change man, force a person to change, to move from hatred to love.
This is possible only with the help of what the science of Kabbalah explains about how we can turn hatred into love.
Question: How?
Answer: With the help of the upper light! There must be an even higher level that will affect and change us.
Question: And how can we draw it on us?
Answer: Only by our desire. That is, I must change.
Question: Then it turns out that hatred should fill everything?
Answer: This is what we are moving toward. But in principle, as we understand, we are already prepared for this.
Question: So, do you think man already understands that he is overwhelmed by this?
Answer: Yes. Otherwise, we may burn out. There simply would be nothing left to redo.
Question: Do you see that a person is already coming to the point that he understands what he is, what he hates?
Answer: Yes. Enclosed in himself, absolute egoism, I hate everyone else.
Question: And I will not be able to live with this after a while?
Answer: Not only will I not be able to live, I will not be able to die, and I will not be able to live. Then the decision will come that we must shift inversely to another level.
Question: So it is quite a science that you are talking about? There is bad energy inside me and I want to convert it into good energy.
Answer: Yes. Tesla talked about energy, and we too are talking about energy.
Comment: So, we proved that Kabbalah is a science.
My Response: There is no doubt about it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/20/23
Comment: Throughout the entire history of humanity, a series of crises happened when it seemed that everything was about to collapse.
My Response: Were these true crises?! That was the usual dirty political struggle and nothing more!
But now, nature is forcing us to change. Nature! Where can you go if nature is causing the current crisis?! We did not cause this.
When I talked about this many years ago, everyone laughed. I met Nobel Prize winners in economics who were surprised: “What crisis? Everything is fine. There can be no crises at all, just progress. There are ups and downs, there is a smooth road, and then it gets a little bumpy because this is how humanity develops. But it is going in the same direction all the time. Everything will be fine.”
Then I answered them: “How can you say this ?! Look what is happening in the world!” “What is happening in the world? These are normal states. Sometimes it gets worse, sometimes it gets better, just like in ordinary life,” and that is all. It continued until the crisis ripened and exploded in their faces.
Therefore, humanity moves only through blows, by being pushed toward happiness with a stick because people hardly hear us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Crisis as a Natural Process” 9/3/11
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Comment: In the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” we seem to study the most interesting thing that can ever be: the structure of our desires and the method of receiving pleasure. However, this does not arouse much interest in people.
My Response: We do not feel that this is inside us. But over time it will come, and we will begin to feel everything. Then we will see to what extent what is written in this article is realized in us and leads us to the highest point of existence.
Question: Suppose, I have a headache; I take a pill and the headache goes away. I was not interested in the composition of the pill, its formula, who developed it, and how it came to this. Here, too, someone developed this method. The question arises: Does everyone need to study it?
Answer: If one has a desire, if not, then nothing will help. We cannot force a person to desire it.
Question: But does nature provide for the universal study of this method?
Answer: Nature provides for the fact that as a result of our earthly development, we will reveal the need to get in touch with the upper light. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah talks about.
But we will study this method on ourselves, through a practical feeling in us. We will clearly feel the screen, the connection with the Creator, and how much we can use the light for our sake or for His sake.
Question: Can we practice on ourselves now instead of the Creator whom we do not feel yet?
Answer: By all means. Take something tasty, put it in your mouth, and try to feel that you do not want to feel, suppose, the taste of a pie, but instead, you want to feel how you want to transfer this pleasure to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/13/23
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It is all one, for He and His name are one, as it is written, “That they may know that You alone, Your name is ‘the Lord’” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” “Two Points“).
This is about the fact that even through opposing qualities, egoistic ones that are seemingly unpleasant, the uniqueness of the Creator and His greatness is still attained.
Question: What does “He and His name are one” mean?
Answer: He is the Creator, and His name is His manifestation in all creations. Everything we see is merely a manifestation of the Creator within us.
Ultimately, through everything that exists within us, no matter how negative and opposing our qualities may be, we attain the Creator and reveal that His manifestation is an expression of love and bestowal.
Question: In the end, all of humanity and each one of us in every moment in time—in the past, in the future, and in all the states that humanity has gone through—will discover that even in His most negative actions, there was a manifestation of love and bestowal?
Answer: Absolutely! Complete, singular, and unified! And what seemed negative to us was because our qualities were opposite to His.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 8/6/23
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Question: What does it mean to revive the dead in spiritual work?
Answer: The revival of the dead is the revival of dead bodies. The body refers to the desire that does not want to do anything in any case and is content to simply remain as it is. This desire is called dead.
We need to be concerned with bringing dead bodies to life, i.e., helping each other revive our dead desires and raising them above ourselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/23, “All my Bones Shall Say”
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Question: How can we come together to a common attack from the very depths of our hearts in order to get out of the state of faithlessness?
Answer: You should talk among yourselves about the fact that the success of the entire operation depends on your attack now. When everyone tries to defeat their enemy inside them, then in the end you will feel that you are facing a common enemy.
In order to fight against egoism and not against each other, you must connect with each other and, as a result of the connection, fight with the ego.
Question: The external salvation of the Creator is the importance of connection, and the internal salvation is the war in man?
Answer: No, war is not salvation. We must see the help of the Creator in all our states, He pushes us forward to unity and to the feeling of one heart, one desire.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/23, “The Need for the Creator’s Salvation”
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In the News (BBC News): “‘Kerala lottery: Indian women sanitation workers hit jackpot’
“In June, 11 women sanitation workers from the southern Indian state of Kerala pooled money to buy a lottery ticket. Last week, they were overjoyed to find out they had hit the jackpot of 100m rupees ($1.2m; £946,685).“The women are part of a group that collects non-biodegradable waste from households in Parappanangadi town in Kerala’s Malappuram district. They usually get around 250 rupees a day…
“The money, they say candidly, is not enough to make ends meet. Most of the women have borrowed money and taken loans for their children’s education and other expenses.
“That’s why they would occasionally join forces to buy a lottery ticket. …
“Kuttimalu, 72, says she was initially sad when Radha was collecting funds because she didn’t have enough money.
“‘Then Cherumannil Baby (another member of the group) told me she had 25 rupees and was willing to lend me half of it for the ticket,’ she tells the BBC.
“So the two women put in 12.5 rupees each for their share of the ticket while the other nine women paid 25 rupees each.
“‘We agreed we would get an equal share if we won anything,’ Ms Kuttimalu says. ‘We didn’t expect to win such a huge amount of money!’ …
“On Friday, a day after their life-changing win, the 11 women reached the agency’s office like always to resume their work.
“‘We decided one thing,’ Ms Leela says. ‘We will not leave this job because it was this collective that brought us prosperity.'”
Question: We have been talking with you all the time, and it is true according to statistics that there are no particularly lucky cases when winning the lottery. And here, it seems these women were lucky.
Tell me, please, do you still insist that the lottery is not the best thing?
Answer: I think it is better when a person does not do this, does not play the lottery.
Question: Despite what I just told you, and you were even surprised, and it was interesting?
Answer: This is, of course, interesting. I do not know what they will actually gain from this.
Question: They will pay their debts. And then, do you think they will make new ones?
Answer: Of course! It does not solve anything.
Question: So, the moment you plug one hole, it appears again and again?
Answer: Yes. You will not buy happiness that way. Winning in this way will not bring good luck.
Question: What will bring good luck? Which “lottery ticket” should we buy? What do we have to buy to win in this life? Really win!
Answer: Winning is a feeling of confidence in what I am doing. Is that not enough?
Question: I have chosen the path, and I am sure of it, is this called that I drew the lucky lottery ticket?
Answer: Yes. When it disappears, a person is ready for death.
Comment: Thanks! We will live.
My Response: Yes!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/3/23
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Question: If it weren’t for your explanation of Kabbalah, I would never even want to hear what it is. But when faced with your explanations, I felt that there is truth behind it. Usually, this feeling holds you for a while, and then gradually goes away. And you are left alone with a lot of criticism. What should a person do in this case?
Answer: I do not care about lulling a person, appeasing, calming, or giving him the strength to resist those criticisms that begin to brainwash him as if sympathizing with where he, the unfortunate, has ended up, and so on. I am not interested in that! This is the fate of man, he must cope with it himself or he will not become a Man!
I am not going to come to anyone’s aid! I am being completely serious. Not because I am indifferent to the fate of a person but because he will otherwise not survive! It is necessary to push the little chick so that it flies. There must be a push! There is no escape from this.
This will only make you stronger! Only in the fight! In no case should this opportunity be taken away from a person. That is why I never help anyone! I watch with compassion how one suffers and how he cannot find himself!
I remember how once, emotionally I said to my teacher with pain: “Well, help me!” And he grinned right in my face. I was ready to tear him to pieces! I was in such a terrible inner state that I could not see day and night. I was tormented, boiling, smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, I could not see anyone, I ate myself up. I had such inner experiences, searches, misunderstandings, malfunctions, that death is better than such a life!
And my teacher, who, in principle, was to blame for the fact that I felt this way, grinned and did not even help! In anything! He only said: “It is okay. A little more, a little more. It will pass.” What “will pass”? And so on for months and months.
It is a very complex process when a person acquires the quality of another world and accommodates two worlds: the material world, acting under the egoistic force of reception, and the altruistic world, acting under the force of bestowal. These are completely different, opposite, contradictory worlds! At the beginning of the journey they are not connected to each other. A person is either in this or that half. And only then can he build a middle line.
It is in such a struggle, confusion, and clarification that a person consisting of two parts of the world is born.
But this is not an endless process. For each degree there are a certain number of states that we must go through. This is our evolution. This is the only way we can develop. In fact, this is a wonderful way of development!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Insurmountable Criticism” 9/3/11
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Comment: People who are not engaged in Kabbalah should see everything by example. When you tell them about the future, about connections, integrality, and globality, they can orient themselves only toward the society that contains it in itself, i.e., the society of Kabbalists. If there is no such example, it is difficult for them to absorb it.
My Response: Interconnection is what the nations demand. They demand a kind attitude toward them, they want social justice, social balance, and some kind of equality.
It is possible to really show that this is doable only when we all are like one family. Only if we get together at a common round table and start solving all the problems together, then we will succeed. We have already talked about this many times.
Our conversations show how difficult it is to push through the human desire to remain in their previous feelings and thoughts, and how much constant systematic explanation is required until all this somehow seeps through egoism. It is necessary to find a crack in it in order to constantly drip inside.
I have no complaints against anyone. I am dealing with a being called the man of our world who behaves according to his nature.
If I have any complaints to anyone, it is only to the one who created us, and not to the person himself.
Question: And who should I complain to?
Answer: If you feel inferior, then turn all your claims to Him too.
Comment: But 99.9% of people on Earth feel inferior in some way.
Me Response: It depends on what. When you get under the influence of the right environment, you begin to feel yourself relative to them, you compare them with yourself and yourself with them. That is when you already see which way you really would like to change. You get other values, the ones that they bring to you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. An example of a different reality” 9/3/11
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Comment: If we analyze the process of a person coming to Kabbalah when he develops the need for it, the first thing he feels here is power. And then the mind turns on. But at first, he still does not feel what you are talking about until he moves to a certain degree.
My Response: Of course not! He must constantly raise the level of cognition in himself, which depends on the change in his internal properties.
Let us say you listen and listen, do not understand anything, feel confused, and suddenly: “Tick!” something clicks inside, and you begin to understand and feel; everything becomes much clearer. And you already treat it as an existing fact. But before that, you listened and did not hear.
These are the steps we must pass, and there are many of them.
But what is interesting is that you change. Your properties change, expand, and become deeper, and then you have the opportunity to understand, feel, and accept all this.
Those people who are outside of this will not be able to do that. They will have to go through the path of searching and suffering, until they also come to the need to feel this world, our world, only in a deeper form, to the extent that it is being revealed to us today, but we cannot understand it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Attraction … Rejection …” 9/3/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the best way to make a wish come true?“
First, you should have a great desire for your wish to come true.
Also, you should examine whether your desire aligns with—or is in contradiction with—the developmental course of nature, which leads everyone and everything to higher states of connection.
After such an examination, you should find and surround yourself with people who also wish to achieve a state of positive connection. You will then gain an understanding of how to advance to your desired result of a harmonious and peaceful connection with others and nature.
Based on “Kabbalah in the Modern Turbulent World” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Finally in this dull, secluded village to find him gone. In the ramshackle hut by the fire sat true.
He had never seen a more old and ugly women.
– You – Really?
Old, wrinkled hag nodded solemnly.
– Tell me, I have to tell the world? What kind of message to convey?
Old woman spat into the fire and said:
– Tell them that I am young and beautiful! (In Search of Truth, Robert Tompkins)
Question: We are looking for the truth, and if it is the truth, it is often just such an old hag. And if it is a lie, then it is beautiful. So is it really necessary to seek the truth in this world?
Answer: Definitely. It is necessary to seek truth. And we must strive for truth. It does not matter what it looks like externally. It may indeed be a very ugly truth, but it is the truth. As a result, it is the only one, the upper one, above all, and it is unique.
Question: And when is it said, and it is often said, “beautiful truth”?
Answer: “Beautiful truth,” I do not know anything like that. The beautiful truth is the one that blurs your vision so much that you cannot see normally, and you simply sell yourself to it.
Question: Can you tell me when you feel the truth?
Answer: In order to feel the truth, I must rise above my earthly egoistic properties and disconnect from them. And then I can see the truth, discover it, get close to it, and it will be the real truth for me.
Question: That is, “rise above the Earth,” does this mean to rise above the concepts of beautiful, ugly, and so on?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Pleasant, unpleasant?
Answer: No, I will evaluate it in completely different values.
Question: How can you accept the truth then?
Answer: One must rise above himself and keep himself at some level in order to look at the world from this level. And then to understand what you are looking for, where you are, and where this truth that you are looking for should be.
Comment: It seems that a lot of courage is needed to get to the truth.
My Response: This must be really great courage. I would say that this is a forced state, because a man himself runs away from this.
And sometime almost near the end of his life, when he begins to look for the truth, he can still find it. If it is not too late.
Question: What is the person looking for? Tell me, please, what is it—the truth? What is a man looking for all the time? All the time, as it were, he is looking for the truth, and at the same time he is not looking for it.
Answer: Meaning. And he cannot find this meaning. As a result, he understands that he can find, achieve, reveal, understand, evaluate, and feel this meaning if he rises above himself.
Question: What is “to rise above oneself”?
Answer: To rise above oneself means not to evaluate anything in the world based on one’s tastes, understandings, all kinds of evaluative feelings, and systems.
Question: And how can I cut myself off from myself, from my “I”?
Answer: That is the problem. But if we do not cut ourselves off from ourselves, we will always be under the thumb of our egoistic desire. And this is always a lie; we will not find anything.
Comment: And yet we are looking for the truth. This is what amazes me!
My Response: Yes, we still are.
Question: But you have to be prepared for the fact that it is old, that it is terrible. Should we be ready for this?
Answer: You can agree to it precisely because it is like that.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/17/23
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Question: Nowadays many people are in a state of extreme confusion and turmoil. What is going on with them?
Answer: From a spiritual point of view, a new quality is beginning to emerge, grow, and manifest in a person—the quality of bestowal. Therefore, confusion arises within him and he does not know how to act.
While having only one egoistic force, when in any state a person sees the maximum profit for himself and absorbs only into himself, he is in clear internal self-organization, he knows how to relate to the world, he instinctively tries at every moment to receive the most out of it, and he acts in the way his internal system considers necessary and the most beneficial right now. Everyone is like that.
Each of us in these states knows how to work with others, how to push more or less, to receive, to take and give, pay and buy, and so on. We can all interact with each other in this way using all possible means: guile, deception, politics, and anything at all. In our world, we know how to act despite all its venality and lies we grow up with.
Now, however, another condition appears in our world, another force, another quality that did not exist before—the quality of bestowal. The Creator is coming closer to us! Suddenly we feel interconnected.
This is how His quality manifests itself in the corporeal world: in addition to the egoistic, there is also an altruistic interconnection. It is revealed between us in the form of common dependency, interconnectedness, integrality, and globality. And we do not know how to act.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Internal Work” 9/3/11
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Question: In the article “The Last Generation,” Baal HaSulam talks about a society that sets an example for everyone. After all, everything is learned from examples. Can you give us an example of a spiritual reality?
Answer: Do not be so naive. How can I give an example if you do not see the next reality, if you have completely different feelings and thoughts, and if you do not evaluate what is in your egoistic qualities?
Let’s say, I say: “In the spiritual realm, you are in a state of exiting yourself.” Exiting oneself in our earthly lexicon means to be out of oneself. Therefore, I do not know how to explain it to you. It is impossible!
Kabbalah states that you really need to attain the upper world. How? It is impossible to experience the next state until you have the corresponding sensory organs for it.
And how do you develop them? When you start playing with others as if you were in this state. Start trying to construct a bright future in the game.
“Why do I need this? I have already tried building it.” You were building it because the communist party wanted it. But now build it because nature compels you to do so, not because someone invented it, but because it is necessary for your survival.
To the extent you try to do this, you will suddenly start feeling that you are beginning to understand the surrounding world more and the tools return to you that allow you to manage banks, factories, international trade, relationships, and everything else.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. An Example of Another Reality” 9/3/11
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On one hand, the light constantly applies pressure on our desire, wanting to enter it because the purpose of creation, as Baal HaSulam writes, is to delight all creatures. On the other hand, with the help of the screen, the creation does not let the light enter because it does not want to feel shame. […]
Question: In an ordinary society, we are afraid that our egoism will be hurt and we try to pacify it. Why is it in the ten that egoism breaks through without restrictions; why is it so uncontrollable?
Answer: Because it is in the ten that we have to correct it. But we do not know what the level of initial egoism depends on. This is how our initial conditions and many other parameters with which we are born are set.
Question: What can I do if I understand in my mind what the recognition of evil is, but I cannot feel it in my heart?
Answer: Ask all the time without stopping like a child who wants something and you cannot get rid of him in any way. This is the way you should ask.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 8/17/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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Question: A person wants to be good and not just to pretend, but flaws are constantly being revealed in him. Can he build an intention that the Creator would change this in him for the sake of the friends?
Answer: He can ask the Creator for this.
Question: To what extent should the recognition of evil develop in us so that we can come to love of others?
Answer: The recognition of evil must be complete.
Question: Where can I find an example of an image of a person that I can follow and imitate?
Answer: These are your friends in the ten. Without this, you will not advance.
Question: When we work for the sake of bestowal and do not want anything in return, it is similar to the feeling of losing taste in a meal. What should we ask for in a place of this emptiness and lack of taste?
Answer: We must always ask the Creator to work with us.
Question: We should not wait for compensation for our egoism. But what if there are a lot of thoughts about this compensation in my head? How can I calm them down, how can I fight them off? It is impossible to find a foothold; there is confusion in my head.
Answer: Hold on to the Creator through the group. It only depends on Him to what extent you will be corrected.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 8/17/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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Question: You say we should feel the friend, connection, and merging into one heart. But I have never felt this. Although I feel the result of my friends becoming greater for me, and I see our commonality, I am glad that we are together, but nothing more. What effort should I make to make these feelings more accurate and more precise, or should I not strive for this?
Answer: You need to try to open your heart a little. Do various exercises to connect with your friends and you will be able to expand your heart gradually so that you will be closer to the Creator.
Question: No matter how hard I try, I do not feel the friends. Can I pray to the Creator to give me this sensitivity?
Answer: Of course you can. This is a very good request. The Creator will hear it with pleasure.
Question: How, without adding my egoism, can I pass a friend’s desire to the Creator in its purest form?
Answer: Do not worry about the Creator. To the extent of your exertion, desire, and yearning to pass to the friend, the Creator will feel it all perfectly.
[317177]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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In the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam describes a process known as “Hizdakchut of the Masach“—the weakening of the screen.
The point is that when the screen (the anti-egoistic force) begins to operate inside the egoistic desire, the desire and the screen gradually as if weaken each other. Therefore, there is a gradual thinning (weakening) of the screen and a decrease in the size of the Partzuf, that is, the desire that is capable of receiving the light for the sake of bestowal.
Thus, in a person, in any desire, there is a process of the disappearance or diminishment of all screens, Partzufim, Sefirot.
Comment: In principle, in our world, it turns out that if pleasure (light) enters a desire, it immediately extinguishes that desire.
But in the spiritual world, there is a screen that prevents the pleasure from extinguishing. But you said that there is still a process of weakening or disappearing of the screen.
My Response: This happens gradually, because the Light constantly presses and wants to enter fully the desires directly from the world of infinity. And when the screen weakens completely, then the expansion of the light in the Kli ends.
Just like in our world when you start to eat something, you gradually lose the desire, lose the appetite, the craving for food, and it comes to an end. But in spirituality, you consciously limit yourself so as not to receive in your egoistic Kli, and therefore, this restriction gradually reduces portions of the light.
The patent for infinite pleasure lies in the fact that since you cannot receive pleasure in the egoistic Kli, you use the screen to build a new Kli in which you can receive, but only for the sake of bestowal. And since the Creator is infinite, naturally, you can receive pleasure infinitely.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/13/23
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Question: There is the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies of late. This is not ordinary paper money, but some informational data, which today is increasingly capturing all areas of monetary relations. It can already be used to pay in stores and online.
What is this phenomenon? Previously, money was just gold and silver, which were accepted all over the world. Now, instead of money, some data appears. Why do people come more and more to this type of money?
Answer: Cryptocurrency is more convenient. I do not have to carry a bag of money anywhere, my pocket does not tear from gold coins, they cannot steal my checkbook, and so on. All this is much more reliable.
Of course, along with this, there are inconveniences of how to store it, how to write out checks, how to do something else, and so on, but in general this is progress. It will continue, we cannot do anything with this. I think that no one can interfere with the development of cryptocurrencies.
Question: But here countries are faced with a problem because they cannot regulate cryptocurrencies, since in this case, the money is sort of above the country. This is a kind of distributed value, which is managed from a huge number of devices that are not tied to the country. Why is money rising above state power?
Answer: Because countries as such should have been liquidated long ago, there is no point in their existence. People should be outside the countries and communicate freely with one single currency—a gold coin, or not even a gold, does not matter what it will be. That is how things should be.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23
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A spiritual Partzuf is a spiritual desire, meaning, a set of forces and vectors that want to work for bestowal, not for reception.
The place where the decision is made about how much light to receive for the sake of bestowal is called the Rosh (head). The part into which this light falls is called the Toch (torso). The part that cannot be used for the sake of the Creator or society is called Sof (lower limbs).
The place where the screen is located—an anti-egoistic quality that allows the creation to do all these calculations—is called the Peh (mouth).
It turns out that the spiritual world is a world of clear calculations. That is the only way it acts.
Question: Is it possible to say that all spiritual forces and vectors, as a cause-and-effect relationship, draw a person into our world? Is that why we see the body of a person who also has a head, mouth, and so on?
Answer: Of course. Our biological body is arranged exactly in accordance with how the upper spiritual body is arranged.
In principle, there is no connection between our biological body and spiritual vectors. It is just that the spiritual body has given certain powers and qualities to create a biological body.
In the spiritual world, there are certain relationships between the head, body, legs, arms, and so on, which are practically embodied in our animal body. This is how we are built. This is a purely causal similarity.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/13/23
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the difference between mind and thought?“
Thoughts are nonexistent in and of themselves. Rather, they occur in the mind.
The mind derives from desires.
Our desires derive from the desire that exists in nature.
The desire that exists in nature derives from the intention that exists in nature.
Such a chain manifests in us in order to create desires. Accordingly, desires surface thoughts, and thoughts weave together the mind.
When a certain network of thoughts forms within us, which we can own and operate, we can then evaluate our desires—the influences from nature—and try to connect our mind with nature’s mind, and our desires with nature’s desires.
Desires are primary, and the mind serves them. It turns out that the size and versatility of our desires corresponds to the size of our mind that tries to serve and satisfy them.
Based on a Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 15, 2017. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Anthony Tori on Unsplash.
Question: Should I feel the pleasure that a friend gives to the Creator in the heart?
Answer: Yes. We have to work hard to be strongly connected with the hearts of the friends, and we will be able to feel the Creator through their hearts.
Question: How much does a prayer contribute to the development of the feeling in the heart?
Answer: Prayer opens the heart. If you want to increase its sensitivity, then this is done through the prayer.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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Question: Can friends in the ten do and say what they want? After all, it is our custom to justify a friend. Or do we need to demonstrate a good attitude to the ten before we can feel the other?
Answer: This is not simple. The question is why are you doing this. Is it in order to look good in the eyes of others so that you do not get beaten up and scolded?
Why do you want to behave well? This is the problem, because as soon as you have no restrictions and others do not see you, you will immediately change your behavior and start doing whatever you want.
Therefore a person’s education should be such that he constantly feels himself standing before others. It is not a matter of fear that they will see that he is bad and can punish him, but he just wants to be a different person.
In the ten we cannot do whatever we want. We must behave such that everyone feels good with us.
[317269]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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It also feels others and can therefore care for them and complement them by feeling and regretting with the public, and being able to rejoice in the comfort of the public (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 115, “Still, Vegetative, Animate, and Speaking”).
Question: How can we work with this correctly in order to rejoice in the comfort of the public?
Answer: If a person tries to put all his strength into being together with the friends as one, then everything that happens to him he feels as the correct progress.
Question: Can we feel the spiritual sufferings of the world and try to fulfill them?
Answer: No. Either we feel only our own spiritual suffering or that of those people with whom we are connected, or the suffering of the Creator, which is called the suffering of the Shechina.
Question: Can a person suppress the animal instincts of self-preservation and procreation in order to serve the Creator and the friends?
Answer: He does not have to do this, not in anway.
Question: What is this action of raising a friend to the level of the Creator?
Answer: So that he is as important to you as the Creator.
Question: Which egoism is worse and more destructive: animalistic or spiritual?
Answer: Spiritual. It is the most difficult, heavy, and harmful egoism.
Question: Is it possible to come to an identical feeling of what a friend feels and merge with his inner feelings?
Answer: You will be feeling your feelings, and your friend will be feeling his.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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In item 18 of the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Baal HaSulam writes that two forces must always be distinguished in the screen: hardness and coarseness (Aviut).
Hardness is the reluctance of the screen to let the light pass through, i.e., the reflective force, the force of striking opposing the penetration of the light into itself.
Aviut is the ability of the screen to absorb the light and build systems inside itself similar to it. Thanks to this ability, the screen can calculate how much it can connect with the light, absorb it, and transform under the influence of the light.
The greater the coarseness of the screen—the reflectivity of not receiving the light—the more Aviut it can use to receive the light and transform it from bestowing to receiving.
Question: Can I give an example? If I can use several billion dollars for the sake of society, this means that I have a large Aviut, and naturally, a strong reflection, that is, hardness.
And if I use only a few million of these billions, it is only because I cannot use the rest since I will steal for myself.
Answer: Generally, yes.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/13/23
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Question: How can we harmoniously enter the symphony of hearts?
Answer: You should be connected with your friends in the ten and try to complement each other all the time so that you can feel and understand each other’s hearts. And then you will feel how mutually connected you are and that the Creator is playing on your common heart.
The Creator is like a bow of a violin, and we are like strings. Try to develop your connection so that the melody of the relationship between you and between you and the Creator is played all the time.
Question: If everyone’s heart is a musical instrument, do we play like an orchestra or are we all a single instrument?
Answer: We are either one instrument that includes absolutely everything or a multitude of instruments playing like an orchestra. But it does not matter. The main thing is that there should be consistency between us.
Over time, we will learn and feel how all nature plays—birds, animals, people, fish, no matter who and what—everyone is included in this game, and everyone eventually praises the Creator.
Question: How can we become a bow in the ten? Sometimes when I play, I feel that it causes rejection in others.
Answer: The main thing is to hold hands together and move forward. One word and another that you all understand together, and advance this way.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/23, “All my bones shall say”
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Question: How does our rational calculation around a gift turn into a feeling of love?
Answer: It is necessary to repeatedly give to a friend until you pierce his heart’s sac, in which the heart is located, and he will feel that you penetrate his inner feelings. By doing this, you will cause a reaction in your friend, even if he initially did not want it. And then you will see that he begins to treat you warmly.
This is the law, this is how we were created.
Question: There is a state when there is no strength to make a gift. Do we have to wait for the right moment, or can we make some effort?
Answer: Even if there are no such feelings, you need to try and give each other examples.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/23, “Giving a gift to the Creator”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What determines a good goal?“
A good goal is one that is set for the benefit of all people and not just for one person or a single group.
Secondly, a good goal needs to cause no irreparable harm to nature in the process.
These two rules are essentially complex and they encompass a lot.
Based on “Kabbalah Express” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 31, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: Can a person take a loan from the Creator, and how does this affect corporeal life?
Answer: It is said: “Turn to Me, and I will give it to you.” We can receive from the Creator everything that is possible from the Creator. He will give us everything we ask for. We do not have to worry about how to return it to Him, and in time we will be able to do that as well.
But to ask the Creator to give us the power of reason, physical strength, and the strength of feelings, so that we can work, advance, and overcome our nature, is what we must do. In this case, we should have no shame.
Question: What is the difference between asking for a loan or finding work for the Creator and earning?
Answer: The difference is how I feel about the Creator, either I ask Him to give me something that I do not deserve as a loan, but then I will return it to Him, or I ask for help, and then I do not need to return it. It depends on my relationship with the Creator, on my inner feelings, and where I am.
Question: How should I ask in order to receive a Kli of bestowal on credit?
Answer: Just ask. There is no special prayer here, you just have to ask in your own words.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/23, “All my bones shall say”
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Question: I really like to give gifts, but at the same time I know that somewhere subconsciously I expect a reaction. How can I do it without expecting a reward?
Answer: You do not need to do anything for free. You want to give gifts to everyone and to the Creator in order to achieve a common state of love and connection with everyone. At the same time, you really want to feel this state, and for everyone to participate in it.
Question: If a friend gives a gift unconsciously, then in addition to the feeling of love, there is also a shame for a friend. Why is this given?
Answer: This is an indicator that your hearts are not yet fully open to each other. It is necessary to open them more, and then you will not be ashamed of any relationship between you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on “Giving a gift to the Creator” 8/13/23
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Question: Can birth rates be regulated?
Answer: Birth rates can be controlled with the help of money and housing. If young couples are provided with conditions such as money and living space, then, I think, this can increase the birth rate. But these are huge public expenditures.
Question: You once said that there is a certain global plan in increasing or decreasing the birth rate with the help of which a correction is made. What is the meaning of this process from the point of view of Kabbalah, from the point of view of a common desire?
Answer: Of course, this refers to adopting a certain general plan for the movement of mankind to a certain limit.
But I do not think that we can talk about it now because we are still in an absolutely imperfect state. First, we need to solve a lot of problems, and only then, when we see what a family can be, what a person, children, and so on can be, will we be able to solve questions about the reproduction of generations.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23
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Dear Michael Laitman,
You have been a replacement for me for radio and TV for a long time. I have been with you for three years. I want to ask a question, Where do desires come from?
Moreover, such desires are shameful to admit. And sometimes you cannot get rid of them. They were not in me, generally, I have a completely different character. Please tell me how to deal with such desires that are not good?
Answer: I do not know what “bad desires” means.
Comment: A person is somehow uncomfortable with the desires that suddenly arise in him.
My Response: Well, desires arise. Man is a complex animal after all. He consists of an animal part, a human part, and possibly a spiritual part.
Question: Meaning, desires from all degrees come to him?
Answer: Yes. So there is nothing to worry about. All desires have the right to be revealed and to exist in a person.
Question: Any desire?
Answer: Absolutely any. And a person can have all kinds of relationships to this.
Question: What does one need to do if bad desires arise, even those that shake a person?
Answer: I see. What to do? Shake yourself, shake them off, and continue to exist. You need to engage in something else, and then the desire will change.
Comment: Please answer the question “where do they come from and why?”
My Response: From above! Why? In order for a person to develop. In order to develop him.
Question: When you say “develop,” what does it mean? So that some specific desires arise in him?
Answer: Desires, emotions, intentions, and so on, such that will match the more developed person that he will become.
Question: You said “from above.” Is there a bank of desires that one needs to go through?
Answer: Yes. There is a bank of desires that we have to go through, each of us and all of us together.
Question: And when this bank is emptied, desires pass, what happens next? When all the desires have already passed through me, what does it mean?
Answer: The end of the world. We have worked out all our desires and are at rest.
Question: The end of the world, what is that in your opinion?
Answer: The end of the world means that there is no one to live onward, there is no need, and there is no goal.
Question: So I will not be coming back here?
Answer: No.
Question: Where will I end up? This world has ended. Where do I end up?
Answer: In the next world.
Question: And what is there in the next world?
Answer: Happiness, peace, and all good things are waiting for you in the next world.
Question: I already like this. That is, in principle, this whole chain of desires should lead me to the world where there is happiness, peace, everything?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How should I work out these desires in order to come to this peace and happiness?
Answer: You will come to it anyway. So, do not worry. The only thing you need is to agree that you will be brought there. And therefore, in accordance with this, live calmly, breathe calmly, and be peaceful toward the upper force that will lead you there.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/20/23
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Question: What is the inner Kabbalistic meaning of common currency? Is it a human effort?
Answer: Yes, it is the universal equivalent of human effort. In Kabbalah, money is the expression of the screen, and the screen is everyone’s anti-egoistic effort.
Question: But this effort is built in relation to others. Can I somehow measure it or buy something with it?
Answer: Of course. In the same units. You can measure your anti-egoistic force in grams, in Newtons, in anything.
Question: What is a wealthy person from the standpoint of Kabbalah?
Answer: Someone who has many anti-egoistic forces, and can use them.
Question: Is there a direct relationship between one’s screen and material wealth?
Answer: No. Our world is not yet created to give us material manifestation.
Question: There have been very different Kabbalists throughout history in terms of their means. Baal HaSulam, for example, gave away all his money to have none the next day. They say the Ari was a very rich merchant. Is there any relationship or special mission of the Kabbalist here?
Answer: Everyone acts as he sees fit for his spiritual ascent.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23
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First, the world was created with the quality of judgment; He saw that the world could not exist, and associated it with the quality of mercy (Baal HaSulam, Introduction to The Book of Zohar, “Two Points“).
Our world exists in a combination of the attributes of judgment and mercy, but mostly within various constraints. We cannot simply enjoy things; we are constantly pursued by various sufferings. All of this is the attribute of judgment.
In Kabbalistic terms, the attribute of judgment is the desire to receive. However, the world could not exist if everyone only wanted to receive for themselves. There must still be some attribute of bestowal, and only then can interaction occur.
In other words, even if people give to each other with the intention of benefiting themselves, there is still some connection between them. We see from history that humanity developed only through collaboration, which is the fundamental attribute that transformed us from animals into humans. This is the manifestation of mercy in our world.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 8/6/23
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What was the happiest moment in your life?“
I think the happiest moment in my life was when I found my teacher, Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag (the Rabash).
I had been looking for a teacher for several years. I traveled to many different teachers, asked them many questions, but I received no answers.
Then one day, all of a sudden, by chance, I found my teacher.
Based on KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the Modern Turbulent World” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 3, 2023.
Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Does, ‘Everything that Comes to Be a Burnt Offering Is Male,’ Mean in the Work?”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “General Preface,” Item 4
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3rd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “Reforming the Heart”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: The Creator gives me different thoughts and I am afraid that my friends will find out about them. Who should be responsible for this? Where is He? Where am I? What am I responsible for? What should I pass to Him?
Answer: Until you reveal everything that is in you to the Creator and to your friends, you will not correct yourself. And so it is for each of us.
We are talking about spiritual thoughts. We are interested only in how we can connect and help each other. And the fact that each of us is a small animal does not interest us.
Question: What does it mean to “open myself completely to the Creator”? I am already in before Him as if in the palm of His hand.
Answer: Do not hide your love for Him from the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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Question: Is it true that the human degree is a degree where we are collectively one man, and not each a person individually?
Answer: Yes. Eventually, when we all unite as one man with one heart and fully feel each other, we will again come to the degree of “one man,” the degree at which the Creator originally created us. In the meantime we see each other separately. This is called the “wild donkey” degree.
We will move into the human degree when the feeling of giving to another is revealed in us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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There are two points, one concealed, (hidden), and one disclosed. And because they are not separated, they are called first, meaning only one and not two (Baal HaSulam, Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “Two Points”).
The two points represent the beginning and the end of the universe. Both points are connected to each other since the end of the world is laid at the very beginning and the beginning is laid at the end.
Question: It is said that the world was created by the letter “Bet – ״ב with which the Torah begins—Bereshit. In this letter, two lines are connected: the upper and lower. What do they mean?
Answer: The upper line is the line of Keter, which is completely bestowing. The lower line is Malchut, which only receives. Both lines interconnected symbolize the beginning and the end of creation. As a result, they must match their properties of receiving and bestowing so that everything turns into a circle.
Question: Baal HaSulam writes that the top point in the letter “Bet” is called mercy, and the bottom one is judgment. What is it about?
Answer: Mercy is a property of the Creator, the highest property, bestowal. Judgment is the property of receiving, the property of Malchut. That is, there is a connection between the upper and lower lines, which they should pass through themselves.
Therefore, our work is to understand the bottom line from the top line and to understand the top line from the bottom line and connect them together so that there are no contradictions between them, so that each property in them supports the opposite property in the other line, and thus the program of creation would be fulfilled in its entirety.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 8/6/23
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Dear Michael Laitman,
I live in Israel. You can see what’s going on here, right? Confusion and discord. I will not ask what to do, who to vote for, whether to be right or left. I want to ask only one thing: What should the prime minister of our country, namely Israel, be like? What qualities should he have? What laws should he adopt? How to rule our country wisely, where every Jew is the prime minister, everyone has their own opinion? If you can, describe your Prime Minister to me.
My Response: I don’t think it’s even possible nowadays. I believe that we are at a stage of development when there are no “sacred cows” and it is impossible to elect anyone. Nobody!
Only some minor internal squabbles occur and thus give us the opportunity to exist for one day, and then again for another day, and again for another day. And only in this way do we, in principle, exist.
We have no program of creation; we have no program of life. Each of us has nothing at all. Each of us lives only from what we can acquire, earn, calm ourselves, eat, relax, and that’s it.
Everything comes from us. I think that in this way, even at such a low stage of our development, we will still come to the point that we will need an intelligent person who will be accepted by almost all citizens.
And he will only care about giving us the opportunity not to tear each other apart. And we will understand that this is how he fulfills his most important task.
And what will happen next, I think the upper force will take care of it. I do not see the possibility of surviving in such a state as today, the state, the people.
The people of Israel have no base, they have no power, they have no truth. There is nothing to fight for.
There is just nowhere to go, and that is why he fights. And this is a very small incentive to defend your country, land, people, state.
I think this is a very bad state, and it can also get worse. But let’s hope that people will understand that they need to artificially raise themselves to some higher ideal. And the artificial highest ideal can only be that we rise above our egoism.
Question: So, we somehow come to this point?
Answer: Yes.
Question: My question is this. You said “smart leader.” And then it seems they said what the mind is so that we don’t tear each other apart. This is his main mind. That is, the one who will compromise and do everything so that there is no fight in the people. Is it the mind?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is there anything else you can add there?
Answer: Nothing is allowed because no one knows what the truth is. And the ultimate truth is that everyone should continue to exist.
Question: Are we talking about our country now?
Answer: Yes. So that tomorrow you can get up, as you got up today, and continue this life of yours, although it is full of mistakes and harm to others.
Question: So, you are saying that perhaps there will come a moment when you will not be able to get up and continue your life tomorrow, and therefore this smart leader is needed?
Answer: Yes.
Question: This is the first question. And the second one is very sharp, you said that we have no goals.
Answer: There is no goal.
Question: The protection of the land, the protection of children, the state – is this not the goal?
Answer: No, nothing! We do not have a divine goal, which many peoples in the world still have. Despite the fact that we live in such a terrible age.
Question: What should be the goal?
Answer: The goal should still be divine. That is, without accepting the upper force that governs us, and to which we must give some kind of account, without this, a person both lives meaninglessly and dies meaninglessly. Therefore, as it is said, “If there were no God, he would have to be created.”
Question: So, you’re saying it’s impossible to just live here in Israel? Just live, I just live.
Answer: No, it is impossible. This is such a country, this is such a land, this is such a part of the earth’s surface that does not tolerate the “godless,” as they say.
Question: Are we under supervision? It’s us.
Answer: Yes, everyone is.
Question: Who is an “atheist”? What do you mean?
Answer: That there is no higher power that would be above man.
Question: Just this thought: There is an upper force over me, and I have to live and work with it?
Answer: Yes. Somehow establish a connection and live in accordance with its plan and desires, and so on.
Question: What is its plan and what is its desire?
Answer: This you must understand yourself and reveal, and behave toward it.
Question: And if the people begin to exist like this, then there will be a leader, a ruler, and so on?
Answer: Yes. Then it will be for what. And the most important thing is that we don’t have it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/3/23
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Question: What do you mean by “a person”? An ordinary person performs some mental actions due to the fact that the networks of neurons somehow shift among themselves. A machine does the same. What is the difference here? What is so special about a person?
Answer: There is nothing special about a person, but no neural network can own him. To do this, you need to rise above the person, and this is a completely different area.
Rising above a person means understanding his tasks, methods for solving them, and how we can allow such a person to rule the world.
Question: Should a person rule the world?
Answer: No, he will never be able to do that.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the Modern Turbulent World” 8/3/23
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Baal HaSulam wrote the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” in the language of Partzufim and Sefirot. Before him, practically no one had described Kabbalah in such volume.
By this, he shows us how our desires and the connection between desires and light develop. These are senory states, which he tried to explain in mathematical language.
One needs to understand the material very deeply and feel it in order to be able to depict it in such a physical and mathematical language.
Question: It is interesting that scientists do not study the works of Baal HaSulam at all. The Torah has been studied inside and out for thousands of years but not his works. Is it because this is something new? After all, he wrote his articles only 100 years ago.
Answer: The Ari began to use the language of Kabbalah even earlier in the 16th century.
Question: But in the Ari’s work this is very veiled, and not as open as in the case of Baal HaSulam. Do you think the time will come when people will be exploring this or will it stay like that?
Answer: I think that people will be exploring this from being alive, since we are in the transition from the concealed world to the world of revelation. Therefore people will feel like it is actually happening.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/13/23
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New Life 83—A Talk on Emergency Situations, Part 1
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Why is the nation of Israel considered by the world to be a special nation? What does this mean about the responsibility it has? How through workshops and sessions can we speed up what the nation of Israel must realize as soon as possible?
We are in a special time where the entire world is against us. The nations of the world have grouped together against us and now we have nowhere to run. Jews have been expelled before, but always someone has been willing to take us in. It seems that is no longer true.
We need to examine why Israel is so special. We need to look at our roots from the times of Abraham until today. The wisdom of Kabbalah is our foundation. We must learn it and discover it. It is calling us and inviting us to finally begin to use it. The time has come to understand the system of this reality, the cause and the process and the purpose of the world, and what special role we are destined to play in these times.
We need to tell everyone how special this group of people is with its purpose to bring everyone into one unified whole so that we will all come together as one man with one heart, for all the evil to turn into good. If Israel fails to fulfill this role, then accordingly these same forces that need to be balanced will instead act against them.
What is the wisdom of Kabbalah telling us? Abraham discovered the wisdom and explained in Babylon how to solve the crisis through unity and connection. Nimrod persecuted him, so he left with his thousands of followers. Over time, this group of Kabbalists began to call itself the nation of Israel—Yashar-El, directed toward the Creator, toward bestowal, toward love of others.
We find ourselves today in the same crisis that existed in Babylon, and this plan demands to be fulfilled. All the nations are desperate and it is natural for them to blame us for everything that they are feeling.
We need to understand that the upper force is aiming us in this direction. We need to be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests. We need to aim toward the internal fulfillment of the connection between us. Once we ourselves have become connected and united, we can turn to the rest of the world to correct the human ego. We must not escape; instead we must fulfill our purpose.
We need to explain how we will be able to unite together in practice. We have experts who can take people through this process. We need to offer a series of practical actions in all kinds of forms for participants to feel how well it works. We read texts, talk about it, and try to put it into practice. Through film and theater skits, we can explain what a workshop is and show them how to behave. We can invite people to talk together in community centers where we present lots of different activities: short films, songs, games, activities for kids and the elderly—something for everyone. The important thing is the emotional participation. We explain the activities and then go out and do them.
In our unity we will experience a special advancement where we come away with a new viewpoint. We will learn together that unity and connection are truly in our nature. We will suddenly feel how close together we are and we will find this powerful internal force that is our salvation. This is the upper force, the force of love.
From KabTV’s “New Life 83 – A Talk on Emergency Situations” 10/15/12
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does karma only decide our fate or can we influence it by learning from our mistakes?“
We indeed have the ability to influence our fate, but karma plays no role in doing so. We can influence our fate solely by increasing our aspiration for unity.
Especially if we involve ourselves with others who share an aspiration for unity, we can then amplify such a longing and positively influence our fate.
If, however, we do not increase our aspiration for unity according to such opportunities that present themselves, then we enact a negative influence on our fate.
Nature is leading us all in the direction of greater and greater unity, and we thus have one way to influence our lives positively or negatively: whether or not we align ourselves with the unifying direction that nature guides us to.
Accordingly, we either become cut off from nature’s unifying forces and discover negative influences, losses and suffering across the board, or we make it possible for the unifying forces to pass through us and generate a positive influence.
Based on a Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on November 8, 2015. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: How at the animal level can one act against the desire of the master, that is, work in the quality of bestowal?
Answer: When we want to rise above the animal level within us, we rise from the level of “Chai” (animal) to the level of “Medaber” (human). When we do this, we reject the animalistic qualities in us and acquire new ones. This is how we grow.
If we constantly try to adhere to the group, we will be able to protect ourselves from the animalistic nature relatively quickly and easily and will maintain human qualities.
External actions in the group between friends should be aimed at helping each other to rise above the animalistic nature.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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Question: How does one feel a friend as a degree in attaining the Creator?
Answer: A friend is not me; it is something from the outside. If I get used to the fact that I strive to connect with him, then this is already a degree on the path to connection with the Creator.
The desire to feel a friend is different from the desire to feel the other. These are different feelings.
We should try to feel the friend as ourselves, so close as if he is inside me. By this we prepare the Kli (vessel) for the revelation of the Creator within us.
Question: What do I want to give to the friends, or what do I want the Creator to give them?
Answer: You must first feel what they want, and then try to be an intermediary so that they receive it from the Creator through you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 8/16/23, “To Come to Feel Others”
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Question: We are used to material gifts. How can we learn to give and receive gifts when we are connected virtually?
Answer: It does not matter. It is not about a material gift where you give me some kind of party favor or box tied with a ribbon. We talk about giving each other gifts in order to feel connected.
The point is that you want to give me something nice, and I feel that you are giving to me from the bottom of your heart and want me to feel it in my heart.
We need to soften our hearts a little so that they begin to feel each other. Start doing such internal massages, each on one’s own heart, so that we feel our attitude toward each other.
Try to do such exercises as if you are rubbing your hearts together. Try to feel each other through the heart so that everyone’s heart feels the hearts of others. It will work.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 8/13/23, “To Give the Creator a Gift”
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Question: How do you become included in the Creator in order to connect with everyone else there?
Answer: First we must connect with each other, from the love of friends to the love of the Creator. But sometimes we can also do the opposite because we are neither in this nor in that yet. Therefore, by wishing to connect with the Creator, we come closer to the friends. By becoming included in the Creator, we acquire strength and opportunity to connect with them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 8/13/23, “To give the Creator a Gift”
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Baal HaSulam gives an example of a guest and a host to illustrate the system of receiving for the sake of giving. The host offers the guest various dishes, but the guest first refuses, does not want to receive them, and makes a restriction.
This is a natural reaction, originally inherent in us. We do not like to be the receivers due to shame.
In that case, the first thing I have to do is have a screen. Then I still begin to receive, but this receiving will no longer be for my own sake but for the sake of the Creator, for the sake of the owner, for the sake of the giver.
Therefore, I can receive once I have pushed away the light; that is, I have demonstrated that I do not want to enjoy but only want to please the Creator. By pushing away the light, I begin to slowly accept it in a way that pleases the Creator.
If we consider this process in the example of a guest and a host, then first I am offered, say, water, and I consciously decide to accept it. Then, it could be salad and so on. And at the very end the meat dish. In other words, at first, I can accept only 20% for the sake of the Creator, then 40%, 60%, 80%, and in the end 100%. But all this is gradual.
The system gradually reveals to me more and more pleasures and checks if I can work with them.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 7/30/23
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The “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” says that there is no greater pleasure than resolving contradictions because each contradiction contains an amazing opportunity to reveal a special degree of attainment of the Creator.
This means that if, when revealing contradictions, a person wants to overcome them with his inner qualities, then he approaches the state where he sees the common in all the diversity and contradiction of objects and phenomena. It is the realization of unity that is perfection.
Question: Suppose a person sees some kind of catastrophe and contradictions arise in him regarding the way the Creator governs the world. He cannot justify the Creator. After some time, is it suddenly revealed to him that it was for his own good, that the Creator had good intentions because this moves him forward?
Answer: Yes. The removal of contradictions is the reason for attaining perfection. At the same time, the greater the contradiction, the greater the pleasure afterward.
The Kabbalist constantly lives in such contradictions. At first, he does not justify the Creator when seeing a paradox in what is happening, and then he understands that all this was for his own advancement.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 8/6/23
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Question: Is it possible to feel the spiritual reward so that I receive it not as a gift from above, but because I have actually earned it?
Answer: Of course. But what does it matter? The main thing is to yearn for the Creator all the time, to express our attachment to Him and our dependence on Him, and then we can advance. After all, no matter what we do, we can advance only with His force, with His mind, with what we receive from Him.
Therefore we do not need to make any calculations regarding what we should give Him. Ask and use everything you receive.
You ask the Creator like a favorite student asks for help from his teacher. Or the way a child feels that he cannot achieve something without his parents, and asks them for help. This is exactly what the teacher or the parents are waiting for and are happy to help with.
One must treat this with the heart. Nothing influences the Creator more than our heart.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/23, “All My Bones Shall Say”
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Question: I want to break through to the heart of every friend, but not everyone is ready to open their heart and accept you. How can one not lose the fire of love and continue to knock on his heart?
Answer: It is quite natural that a friend does not want to hear about it. This means he has healthy egoism.
You should try to reach him through other friends. Do not lose optimism because this is the purpose of creation. The “place” in the heart of a friend that you need to hit several times is your desire to be in his heart. In the end, everything will work out.
Question: I am sending “bullets” into the hearts of my friends, and they are sending “bullets” to me. The heart ignites, burns, and then it cools down a little. Is our task to turn the heart into an eternal flame? Can we survive it?
Answer: There are no problems. We can all burn together constantly with eternal fire, and the Creator will be inside it. He is the material that will burn within us.
[317067]
From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 8/13/23, “To Give the Creator a Gift”
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Question: Can there be love between the Creator and the friends? After all, there is only me and my neighbor. What is the difference between love for a friend and love for the Creator?
Answer: We want to love the Creator together, to unite in Him. We cannot connect with each other in any combination: neither man with man, nor man with woman, nor woman with woman. This is possible only if we are included in the Creator and unite in Him.
And then no one will be superfluous; we will all complement each other. This is what we should strive for.
The main thing is to achieve connection and love with the Creator. And the friends should take the same part in this as you do. Therefore you must be connected with them in order to come from love for your friends to love for the Creator. And if love for your friends already exists at least in some minimal form and it warms you, then you should turn to the Creator and ask Him to dwell in your common feeling.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/23, “Giving a Gift to the Creator”
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Question: What should I do to make a wish come true?
Answer: First, really, really want it and investigate whether your desire is in contradiction with the general course of humanity.
Second, find such people in your environment who would also like to achieve a state of connection, and rapprochement with each other. This way you will have an understanding of how to advance to the desired result.
Question: At what level of desire is the desire to be loved? And how can you rise above it?
Answer: Every person has a desire to be loved in a more or less expressed form. It is our natural desire that we feel at any age, at any time. The desire for love is the desire for compassion, connection, and feeling the other as yourself. It is inherent in everyone.
Question: Is the desire for mutual love, for whole life, an egoistic desire?
Answer: In general, yes. But can you give the same feeling to another? This is already a question.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23
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Question: There is a very famous story that is possibly from the oral Torah about when there was no rain and people came to a disciple of a great sage and asked him to pray for rain. He prayed for a day, two days, and three days, and there was no rain. Then they went to the sage. The sage prayed, and it immediately began to rain.
They said, “Now we see who the real sage is: you, not him.” The sage answered: “No, on the contrary. This disciple of mine is great because the Creator wants to stay connected with him. And with me: “Do you want? Please, receive.””
The question arises that when everyone is waiting for an instant response from the Creator, maybe it is precisely the fact that He does not answer means that He is taking care of this person?
Answer: We do not know. Nothing can be clear here. We just have to do what we have to do. And what we get, we must understand that this is exactly what we should get.
Question: Is the formula pray and immediately receive an answer or pray and the answer comes in a year comprehensible?
Answer: Yes, it is incomprehensible. Time interferes and upsets everything for us.
Question: It is the time, the year that is passing?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So we are absolutely entangled in this world. But all the same, when the answer is not coming, at that moment there comes, as it were, complete disbelief, disbelief in the upper force, disbelief in the Creator. Well, there is no answer, it is not coming! How can you hold on here? You have been in this request for years and years on.
Answer: You do not need any Creator. And you do not need any answers at all. Just love your neighbor as yourself. The Creator does not ask you to respect Him, to love Him, and to treat Him as something great. No.
On the contrary, He is telling you: “Pay attention to what is next to you. Start treating them well. And then everything will be fine.”
See what He requires of you. He requires just an attentive, kind, cordial attitude toward people from your side. This is the Creator. Is that not, right?
Comment: Now a person will hear this and soften. He feels good about it, really. He wants to say “Yes, I can.” But he will not be able to.
My Response: He will, slowly. He will be able to if all of us, in all our systems from which we affect a person, will constantly calm him down, tune him in, relieve him of tension, and only lead him to this.
Question: To have a warm attitude toward others? To “love your neighbor as yourself”?
Answer: Yes. Give him an example about everyone and everything, that this is exactly the law of life.
Question: You have also said a very interesting, sharp phrase here: “Do not look for any Creator.” Right? That is, look for this connection, and you will find the Creator because this is exactly what the Creator wants?
Answer: Yes.
Question: When I look for this connection with others, for a warm relationship and try to understand what “love your neighbor as yourself” means, I must keep inside myself that this is what nature, the Creator, wants?
Answer: You must keep yourself absolutely clean inside. And only from this point speak with yourself and with others.
Question: Then what is this purity you are talking about?
Answer: You do not deviate from this straight line in anything as much as you can.
Question: And if all kinds of thoughts and of desires come up, what do I do with them?
Answer: You keep yourself like a tightrope walker. You must guard yourself so that you do not deviate an inch in any direction. Just follow this path.
Comment: Thank you! God bless!
My Response: You will succeed in it!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/31/23
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In the News (ifstudies): “‘Fewer American High Schoolers Having Sex Than Ever Before’
“Fewer than 40% of American high schoolers have ever had sexual intercourse, a decline of over 15 percentage points since the early 1990s. …
“What this year’s report shows is yet another drop in that activity, consistent with the more or less continuous trend since 1991. Closer examination reveals that most teens are having less sex and delaying sex longer, and that sexually-active teens have fewer lifetime sexual partners.”
Question: This is an interesting phenomenon. Why do you think these basic human desires are decreasing so much?
Answer: On one hand we experienced the peak of sexuality when it was allowed and possible. Young people, boys and girls, even bragged about it to each other.
And now, it has become so common, mundane, that people are simultaneously or in parallel to it looking for some other activities. Therefore, interest in sex is gradually decreasing.
People are looking for some kind of inner satisfaction, which sex unfortunately cannot give. Along with sexual experience and everything else comes frustration and emptiness.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is lacking in AI?“
As advanced as AI becomes, it will always be just an auxiliary component existing beside the person. It will never be able to manage itself and to invent and implement laws.
We humans are made of different material. We have higher matter—the quality of bestowal—in addition to the quality of receiving. Accordingly, we have the possibility of rising above ourselves. We still do not know how to do that, but we possess such potential and given the method to do so, we can advance in that direction.
Artificial intelligence is not intelligence. It is just a calculating machine. It is the same zeros and ones, only with much faster calculations. The person does not just count zeros and ones, but also has emotions. While society is in a frenzy about AI at the moment, since it is lacking key human elements, the passion for it will eventually pass.
Based on KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 5, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash.
The Creator gives a point in the heart and brings a person to a ten where he falls into the hands of his or her friends and feels safe. In this calm state, one begins to “fall asleep.”
And what should you do? You must take on some work in your own or in the world group and do it with all your might; otherwise, you will drown and wither in your ten.
Question: How can one come to a state where one person is responsible for the whole group?
Answer: When we connect, we turn into one man. This is how we appear before the Creator, as one man with one heart, one desire and one man from all of us together.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/23, Writings of Rabash “The Importance of Faith that Is Always Present”
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Question: How can I recognize the qualities of Jacob and Esau in myself and work with them correctly?
Answer: Jacob is the quality for the benefit of the friends; Esau is only for his own benefit.
Question: Why does a person more often work only with the evil inclination?
Answer: Because it is our natural work. We consist of an egoistic desire to receive for our own sake. Therefore, in the beginning, the quality of Esau awakens in a person.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/23, Writings of Rabash “The Importance of Faith that Is Always Present”
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The Creator wants only one thing from us: that we try to come closer to Him. Although it is against our egoistic desires, in the end, we will receive absolute fulfillment.
The Creator wants us to be filled with Him because He exists only in the desire to bestow. Therefore, by yearning to be filled with the quality of bestowal, we are filled with Him, become like Him, and reach absolute adhesion.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson 8/11/23, “Habit becomes A Second Nature”
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Thus far, we have clarified the three foundations in the wisdom. The first is the light and the vessel, where the light is a direct extension of His self, and the vessel is the will to receive (Baal HaSulam, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 17).
The light comes from the Creator and cascades through the system of worlds, Partzufim, and Sefirot as it gradually weakens until it reaches the lowest degree where it is already completely concealed.
The Kli is a vessel that gradually reveals the light, and thus passes it from above from the Creator Himself to the lowest levels.
The second fundamental concept of the wisdom of Kabbalah according to Baal HaSulam is the ten Sefirot and the four worlds.
While cascading from the Creator to our world, the lowest of the worlds, the light passes through ten stages of weakening and concealment, called the degrees of cascading. We study them in order to be able to rise from the lowest degree, at which we emerge, to the highest, which we eventually have to reach. These are the degrees of concealment.
Many degrees of concealment, successively connect with each other, and form a ladder called worlds.
They connect to each other, each ten degrees into a greater degree, then ten by ten into even greater degrees, and so on until they reach the highest degree.
We measure them in different ways. There are dimensions where the whole ladder of attainment consists of 625 steps; there are others with more and less steps. In general, it depends on the way we measure them.
But the main thing is that the highest degree is the Creator, the lowest one is the lowest level of our world, concealment. All these degrees from above downward or from below upward indicate that on each of them there are created beings and the light that fills them.
In principle, there are five main types of concealment, i.e., five worlds, the degrees of which are divided into five, and five more, and so on.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 8/13/23
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Question: When you read a Kabbalistic text many times, let’s say ten, suddenly on the eleventh time you see a word that you did not notice before. What is the reason for this?
Answer: This relates to the correction of a person. He invests many efforts, so he begins to understand the text more deeply and see new words and meanings.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/23, Writing of Rabash “The Importance of Faith that Is Always Present”
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Question: If we are turning to you now so that you thank all the world’s tens from us for surrounding us, are we doing this as a gift to you personally?
Answer: Of course. The fact that you turn to each other and each time the connection between you becomes stronger and stronger, this is a great gift for me.
Question: Can we give gifts to the Creator if we ourselves feel a sense of lack and dissatisfaction?
Answer: You lack the love that you can give to your friends and receive from them. There will be no feeling of lack when you start developing this feeling within yourself.
Question: You said that before giving a gift, you need to find out from a friend what is important to him. Is it possible to do this in relation to the Creator, to scrutinize in the ten the Creator’s need for a gift from us?
Answer: Yes. Moreover, with the Creator you can behave in different ways: you can imagine the ten with the Creator in the center of the ten, or you can imagine the ten as one common whole inside the Creator. Try both ways.
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From the Daily Kabbalah lesson on “Giving a Gift to the Creator” 8/13/23
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Question: The orthogonality theory of intelligence states that intelligence and final goals are orthogonal axes along which possible agents can freely vary; that is, more or less any level of intelligence could in principle be combined with more or less any final goal. It has also been construed to mean that smart people can pursue stupid goals. Intelligence and goals are orthogonal, unrelated to each other. No matter how smart the intellect, it can safely pursue absolutely stupid or poor goals.
How can these two parameters be linked in order to actually use intelligence for high goals?
Answer: When you speak about the mechanism of the interaction of intellects, do you take into account whether they are purely intellectual or sensory?
Comment: At the moment, I consider them purely intellectual. That is, we are talking about intelligence divorced from sensations.
My Response: Then we are talking about mechanical devices and not about people or any sensory civilization.
Comment: But in fact, sensations are a person’s reception of information. It later gets evaluated, processed, and so on. And if we started the discussion with the isolation of human intellect from the field of sensations, then we in fact came to the conclusion that all this happens in conjunction with feelings.
My Response: It follows that we cannot take sensory parameters into account.
Question: But if a person feels something and is able to process these feelings, why can’t we take them into account? This is all the same information that comes to us in different forms. We feel something, analyze it, and act on it accordingly.
That is, this bundle is the high goal, methods of achieving it that are not related to goal, setting, and the sensory perception when receiving information—all this is completely shattered in a person.
It is unclear how it works. Maybe there is a point, a line through the center to connect it all? Or do we have no need for it?
Answer: The fact is that if we want to affect the workings of such systems, we must put at least a few conditions down that will not lead humanity to destruction, self-destruction. Then we will have a clear direction of where to set the limits in the system.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/31/23
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Question: If I have already attempted to accomplish a goal and have not achieved it, do I need to continue to work toward it?
Answer: If you feel that your goal is not achievable in the nearest future, you need to review your attitude to it.
Perhaps you will still not abandon it and will continue to realize it. It is also possible that you will decide that you have to leave it maybe for good or maybe for some time and start doing something different and more realistic.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah in the modern turbulent world” 8/3/23
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Question: How can we explain the advantage of sensory transmission of information from person to person?
Answer: There is no way to explain it because people will not be able to work with this anyway.
Now everyone remembers how in 1997 scientists received a Nobel Prize for developing a theory about the absence of the probability of an economic crisis, as a result of which a society of unlimited consumption can develop endlessly.
How can this be if natural resources are being exhausted, if pollution reaches such magnitudes that it buries us under garbage in this huge earth dump? How can one write that a society of unlimited consumption can develop endlessly and all people on earth, absolutely everyone, will be able to reach unlimited opportunities, and unlimited success? From where?
I was surprised by this view of the world when I visited Disney World’s Epcot Center for the first time 30 years ago. Epcot Center is a round building, which you enter by a little train and you are shown the entire history of humanity from the past, present, up to the future. The future is represented by the fact that everyone has a helicopter, walls of houses are covered with televisions, etc. That is, everything is so fancy. They placed a person in a state from which he cannot get out. What a future!
Egoism blinds us so much that we invent such theories and give Nobel Prizes for them, believing that there will be no end to our development, although long before that the Club of Rome and other scientists said that everything ends.
Why do we award such economists the Nobel Prize? Because we want it to be so. Can you imagine what a self-deception this is?! What can we come to? How can we explain to a person that there are other technologies if people cannot change themselves?
Comment: But you say that in the end, they have to come to it anyway.
My Response: I think that nowadays it is just getting to the point of personal and common internal correction in order to reveal inside ourselves the next level of the universe, the spiritual state. Then this world will involuntarily disappear from our perception. As soon as we begin to feel spiritual qualities, forces, and systems inside ourselves, we will stop seeing this world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Consumer Society” 6/27/11
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New Life 255—Relationships with Neighbors
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Why are there many conflicts between neighbors? Can we learn to live together by changing our attitude to one of goodwill?
My neighbor is basically “inside my house” with his noise, his smells, his music, etc.
When one makes good connections with neighbors, everyone benefits. It’s hard to tolerate neighbors because there is no buffer between us. They are as if “under my skin.” If my daughter makes noise, I may be fine with that. But next door ?! If we can break the walls of our heart and feel closer, there will be fewer problems with the neighbors.
In neighborly relations, there is no point in trying to determine who is right and who is not, but only to build good relationships. You can create a sense of paradise inside the building—a cloud of calm, confidence, and warmth.
A series of events to foster good relations between neighbors could be scheduled. Neighbors might start with a connection workshop to talk about the good things and the good people in our building. A shared sense of “home” can bring a person security and warmth that he will never achieve in his private apartment.
This could be followed with a good neighbors workshop: In a circle, each one expresses good things about the other, even if they don’t know each other. When I have a good thought about them, it already makes me feel better in the building. This workshop could include an exercise: During the week, write in a few sentences what you went through with the neighbors in the building. At the end of the week, everyone briefly describes what living in our shared home this week felt like.
From KabTV’s “New Life #255 – Relationships with Neighbors” 11/14/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the difference between learn and read Torah?“
“When a person learns Torah, he must intend that the Torah and Mitzvot he is doing will help him emerge from the control of the evil.” – Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag (Rabash), “What Is ‘The Earth Feared and Was Still,’ in the Work.”
Learning Torah requires applying an intention to change our egoistic nature, which makes us want to enjoy ourselves at the expense of others, to its opposite.
By intending to turn ourselves into altruists who connect positively to each other, it means that we use what is called “the light”—the upper light, the upper energy, the light of the Torah, or the Torah itself—in order to correct ourselves, i.e., to change ourselves from egoists to altruists.
Learning Torah thus means constantly feeling what is happening to us at the level of our desires, thoughts and actions. It is learning not with the mind, but with the heart.
By learning Torah, we conduct inner work on the path to life’s goal, and we use the Torah as the force that corrects us, i.e., which inverts our nature from egoistic to altruistic. Thanks to such a force, we can then identify the evil within us—our egoistic nature—to the extent that it eventually ceases to exist.
After such a diagnosis, the Torah turns the evil in us into goodness and we then resemble the Creator, the absolute good force of love, bestowal and connection. We then become filled with love and bestowal toward others and through them to the Creator, the force of love and bestowal itself. We then discover what is called “the whole world is filled with His glory.” In other words, we reveal the Creator—the force of love, bestowal and connection—as existing in everyone and everything.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 6, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash.
Question: It hurts me that the Creator does not love me the way I am. It seems to me that He wants to change me, break me. How can I feel love for Him from this state? Answer: But why should the Creator love you? Why do you demand that He love you the way […]
All pleasures have a specific image from which we receive pleasure. A person must understand precisely whether he is following them for the sake of connection with his friends and with the Creator or whether he is against these pleasures. In order to properly receive them and thank the Creator for them without the shame […]
Question: How should I relate to the pleasure from meetings of the ten? Answer: Enjoy; just make sure you understand that you receive pleasure from the connection with the friends. Question: What should one choose: a meeting with the ten or watching a lesson alone? Answer: Undoubtedly, a meeting with the ten. You can listen […]
This is why the forces of separation are called “locks,” since they block the gates of approaching and drive us away from the Creator (“Two Points,” Introduction to The Book of Zohar). Question: What are these properties that distance us from the Creator? Answer: Everything that we do not yet attain as the sum of all […]
Question: There is something called a goal setting problem. It applies both to humans and artificial intelligence. When a person sets a goal for himself he needs to evaluate whether it is good or bad in a global sense and whether it brings him closer to something or moves him away from it. This evaluation […]
Question: I heard about a country that paid citizens $7,000 for a newborn baby, newlyweds were given $64,000 to buy an apartment, and if you opened a personal business they gave you $20,000. Education and medicine were free, there was no rent, there was no electricity fee, loans were interest free. When buying a car, […]
New Life 231—Happiness and Health Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe What is the connection between the physical condition of a person and his or her spiritual condition and degree of happiness? How do you define the feeling of happiness? What is considered health? Certainly the condition of […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you connect with different people?“ It is hard for us to accept different people because we have no integral perspective on the world. If we had one, then we would see how we all complement each other, and that we each have our own special roles. We can perhaps […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I make a good future?“ To secure ourselves a good future, we need to make sure that everyone has a good future, and not that we each try to build a good future for ourselves at the expense of one another. We need to also know how to come […]
Question: Is the desire to receive approval and recognition egoism? Answer: It is not really egoism. Such a desire can be manifested in the best sense of the word when a person invents something, when he tries to do something in order to do good to people, and he needs support. Question: What advice would […]
Question: How can we reveal the uniqueness of a child? Answer: I think that as much time as possible should be devoted to self-education. Question: Is it necessary to bring up a boy in accordance with “men do not cry”? Answer: I think that in general this is true but, on the other hand, it […]
Question: On the corporeal level, the Creator gives us all kinds of pleasures from money, power, honor, and knowledge. What pleasures does He give us in spirituality? Answer: Spiritual pleasures are absolute. They practically do not end and are not limited by anything. To the extent that you have a desire, you can absorb these […]
Question: The Creator brings us closer to Him very unexpectedly. But what should we do at a time when we are far from Him? Is patience necessary? Answer: It depends on you. There is no queue to the Creator. Whoever wants to be closer to Him, adheres to Him and achieves it. So there is […]
Question: According to the law of the first restriction, light is forbidden to enter the desire if it is not ready to receive it correctly. This is how it was originally intended, That is, the first restriction is the prohibition to receive pleasure for yourself. Is it possible to see where this actually happens in […]
Comment: Mark writes: Dear Michael, how do you feel about Dostoevsky’s famous phrase “The happiness of the whole world is not worth one tear on the cheek of an innocent child”? We all learned this at school, we were brought up like that. And the result is that we do not care about children’s tears. […]
New Life 22—The Need for Family and Coping with Male Possessiveness Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and experts in the field The closest and most important relationship for a person is the relationship with their spouse. What is the impact of this relationship on a person? What is its impact on conflicts […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is world unity possible?“ The more we develop, the more problems and crises we encounter, and their purpose is to lead us to the realization that the only way out of a total collapse is through unity. World unity is not only possible, it is a nature-set condition to which we […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Heat Waves Are Becoming More Common and Intense – Why Is This Happening?” Indeed, this summer the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing record heat waves. July 2023 was the hottest month since we began temperature measurements, and there are also record temperatures in the oceans. The Mediterranean, for example, […]
Question: At some point, a person decides to stop receiving for his own sake. Whose decision is it: a person’s or the Creator’s? Answer: A person’s. Question: When a person understands the nature of his receiving, how can he find the lowest point from which he will push himself to the prayer and connection? Answer: […]
Question: Is it acceptable that a psychologist works with a patient and includes the basis of Kabbalah? Answer: I do not know the tasks of a psychologist, but I know that no psychologist can work with a person in the Kabbalistic field in his inner mental and spiritual scope. We do not offer ourselves to […]
What helps me feel the importance and greatness of a friend? The fact that I am getting closer to him and I want to be together with him, and thus there already are two of us, and then there will be three, four, and so on until there are countless people who will work together […]
Question: People get together and separate, get together and separate. They do not have the strength to mend their relationships and their connection. It is easier for them to start over. We know from Kabbalah that the whole of nature, generally speaking, is breakage. We are living in it and we need to correct it. […]
Question: The chapter “Two Points” in The Book of Zohar starts with “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” What does the beginning of wisdom mean? What kind of wisdom are we talking about? And why is fear considered wisdom? Answer: The point is that when a person awakens some attitude toward the […]
Comment: There is a prayer for rain that is said in the autumn after the Sukkot holiday; great importance is attributed to it. This request for rain is included in many other prayers. The prayer begins, “And answer us, Who created the world with the property of mercy.” Can you explain this first sentence? My […]
Comment: While studying chaos theory, scientists conducted many experiments and created what is called an intelligent mind. They made a computer programmed with certain algorithms. But scientists were not clear why in different situations the computer chose the best way to respond. It seems that these are artificial machines, but there is some element of […]
New Life 486—The Degree of Righteous Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz What is the degree of righteous in spirituality? Why do we experience awakening during a pilgrimage to the tombs of the righteous? How can we relate to their Torah and their spiritual level? There is nothing of holiness […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you tell me some questions which will help me introspect?“ Do I have love for humanity? If it seems too far-fetched to have love for humanity from the beginning, then you could start with love for people in your own country. How do you check if you have love for […]
Reception for the sake of bestowal is love. Bestowal for the sake of bestowal is mercy. The difference between them is that love is when you are ready to give everything, and mercy is when you as if do a favor to another. Question: Let’s say I have received pleasure from bestowal and I must […]
Question: In our work, we acquire habits. Every day we come to the lesson, meet with the ten, and perform many other actions according to the usual program. How does they all become Kelim (Vessels) for the quality of bestowal, for spiritual attainment? Answer: A person does not know how this happens. The light influences […]
Question: How do we rely on the Creator in our sensations? How can I understand that my actions really bring contentment to Him and not to my egoism? Answer: You must pass your actions through the group. If you bring contentment to the group, and your friends want to bring contentment to the Creator together […]
Question: When preparing a meal for a group event, is there a difference between everyone building an intention at home alone, or is it better to get together and cook a meal with a common intention? Answer: There is a big difference. If you prepare a meal together with a common intention, with common actions, […]
In the News (Inc.com): “‘64 Years of Data Proves That the Bigger Kids Dream, the More Successful They’ll Be, A new study shows that how big kids dream matters as much for future success as IQ or family background’ “A recently published study analyzes surveys of 17,000 children conducted 10 times from 1958 up to the present day and […]
New Life 297—Creativity Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe In nature and in humans, where does creativity come from? Is it possible to develop it? Why is there no unique creativity in our day like there was in the past? What kind of creativity will be required for […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What will make the world a better place you know in one sentence?“ We need to strive to connect in a way where humanity becomes “as one man with one heart,” meaning that each of us feels everyone and wishes for the benefit of all. Based on the video “What Does […]
Question: I believe that I love my friends. But do we know how to love correctly? Is it possible to learn this? Answer: You must strive to do everything possible for your friends to reveal the Creator. This is our main task. If a person thinks about this and roots for, that is, cares deeply, […]
Question: Each of us has different thoughts and desires. How do we add the right intention on each of them? Answer: Do not go so deep into every desire. We just want all the desires we work through that lead us forward to keep us in bestowal, in love, and in connection. This way we […]
Comment: Famous chemist Fritz Haber was a Jew and a German patriot. It is believed he saved at least a billion people. When the world’s population increased as harvests began to decline, in 1909, he came up with a way to produce ammonia fertilizers from nitrogen and hydrogen. It was considered one of the greatest […]
Question: I feel pain because of what is happening in my country. How can I make it so that I feel pain from the lack of adhesion with the Creator and yearning for Him? Answer: We must ask for both. On one hand, ask the Creator to connect us and give us the quality of […]
In order to bring contentment to the Creator, we must pursue the goal of coming closer to Him, to the property of bestowal, to all the people in the world in every action, in every word, and in every thought. While doing this work, we feel that we are gradually getting used to it. Although […]
The thought of creation is to delight His creations, and no pleasure is perceived by the created being while he must be separated from the Creator. Moreover, we learn that the Creator craves to dwell in the lower ones (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “Two Points”). Question: If the Creator desires so much to […]
New Life 294 – Group Emotion Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz How do we build a group in which its members feel as if they are a single body? What are the necessary conditions for its existence? What are the unique activities that are said to be implemented in […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What would you do if you have a lot of influence in the world?“ We each have a lot of influence in the world at every moment. It is not as some people think, that our influence is only every few years when we have the chance to vote for our […]
Question: Now, we are returning to physical interaction from interacting virtually. What is the point of striving for the new? What is our addition? What should we focus on? Answer: We want to be connected by the force of the Creator so He will manifest between us, so we can feel that we are holding […]
At the end of all the gates, He made a gate with several locks. This last gate is the first gate for the upper Hochma [wisdom] (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “Two Points”). Once a person has made the initial corrections, he comes to the gate where he reveals the essence of his connection […]
The thought cannot perceive Him whatsoever. Hence, He made many gates one atop the other, by which He made it possible to approach Him (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “Two Points”). Gates mean the gates of attainment through which we can approach the Creator as we begin to understand Him and interact with Him. […]
Question: When artificial intelligence is created, it is trained on trillions of parameters, literally on everything that humanity has created during its short existence by cosmic standards. There are no other options. But everything created by people did not really work for their benefit. Then how can the correct information be uploaded; how can we […]
Question: During the Coronavirus epidemic we were forced to switch to virtual interaction. We are now trying to get back to physical meetings and have a hard time meeting once a week. What do such meetings add to us, and is it worth striving for them? Answer: We start our path in our world and […]
Question: At the moment, we do not have external constraints that would force us to stay in a virtual connection. How do we get back to physical meetings? What is the difference whether we work in the ten or gather together with all the tens? There are no restrictions but they remained within us, and […]
Thus, when a person learns Torah, he must intend that the Torah and Mitzvot he is doing will help him emerge from the control of the evil (“What Is ‘The Earth Feared and Was Still,’ in the Work,” RABASH). When we try to connect and ask together to be changed from egoists to altruists that […]
In Kabbalistic sources there is a saying: “He is forced until he says, ‘I want!’” (Kidushin 50a) This means that a person makes every effort to be similar to the Creator, to follow His ways, that is, the path of coming closer to others and rising above his egoism. This is how the surrounding light […]
Question: Whenever I make a decision, it seems like I have weighed everything, all the pros and cons, but almost always, the opposite happens. If I want to save money, I lose it; If I want to save time, I lose it; If I want to please my wife, everything comes out backwards. I’m getting […]
Question: What does it mean to reveal The Creator? How can this be done? Answer: To reveal the Creator means to reveal the singular force that governs everything and leads us toward its goal. Numerous conclusions can be drawn from this: How we can reveal Him, how we can utilize our connection with Him, whether […]
New Life 259—Introduction to the Course for Parents of Adolescents Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz Today there is a disconnect between parents and their adolescent children. What is unique about the youth of today? What kind of change must parents make in order to connect with and communicate with […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there any purpose in life?“ The purpose of life is to rise above our inborn animal level of existence to the human one, where we realize our positive connection to each other and to nature, and where we can properly discern between good and evil, and exercise our free choice […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Is, “For I Have Hardened His Heart,” in the Work?” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Explanation of […]
Question: According to statistics, the level of cardiovascular diseases in single people is much higher than in those who are connected by some kind of good ties with others. The same goes for stress. There are a lot of psychosomatic diseases that are associated with loneliness. Why do people choose to live alone anyway? Answer: […]
But if one wants to learn the wisdom, to know how to crown the Creator and how to serve Him with intention and sanctify one’s 248 organs and make them a vehicle for the Kedusha [holiness], this is called “the glory of kings,” how to crown and serve Him. In that case, “delve in the […]
Question: In paragraph 14 of Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Baal HaSulam introduces a new term “screen” or “Masach.” What is a screen and what is its function? Answer: The screen is a condition that I attract the upper light and fill with it only to the extent that I enjoy it not for […]
Question: What is this inner human need a person has for someone else to live next to him? It is not just the satisfaction of some material needs, for example, food or laundry. What is there in this that a person may not notice? Answer: We are created like this. In principle, nature had some […]
Question: In the learning process of artificial intelligence, the mechanism of the black box is completely preserved in it. If before a person created computers, he clearly knew it was a microcircuit, an algorithm; there is a cause and effect, and everything goes along the chain and leads to some result. A person understood the […]
Comment: When you started teaching, you taught your students pure Kabbalah without any examples. But in recent years, it seems like you have moved in a direction that is pro-political. My Response: No, it has nothing to do with politics. To me talking to socialists, liberals, democrats, or anyone else is all the same. These […]
New Life 254—Stereotypes and Judgment Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe What is the mechanism that causes people to label others according to external appearance? What is the origin of the need to make comparisons between people? How is it possible to deal with this phenomenon? The tendency […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What should I do to be at peace?“ We can achieve peace by raising ourselves to become human in the fullest sense of the term. The word for “human” in Hebrew is “Adam,” and it stems from the same linguistic root as the word for “similar” (“Domeh”). It means that a […]
Question: Throughout the world today, especially in Western Europe, more and more apartments are being built that are designed for one person. People are less willing to burden themselves with a relationship with someone, and instead are planning their lives alone. Why is this happening? Answer: First, it is because we can afford to provide […]
Every day we must constantly pull ourselves up and thus overcome all problems. When there is a taste for something, it is easier to develop a habit. In order to feel the taste of bestowal, you need to cling to your friends, talk to them about it, discuss it, and then you will understand how […]
Question: How can we make it so that we do not constantly justify egoism but make it work for us? Answer: The best thing is to do it with love. When I try to develop love for friends, my egoism moves somewhere to the side. Question: How can I avoid justifying any of my actions […]
Question: When preparing for each meeting or lesson, I have to scrutinize the reason I want to feel the greatness of the Creator. If I have no such habit, does it mean the basis for spiritual work has not been built? Answer: It is desirable to have one or two questions prepared in advance on […]
Question: How can we always be in search of the Creator? We are constantly looking for something, and some things lead us away from the search for the main thing in life. How can we not make mistakes and look only for the Creator? Answer: I think it is necessary to talk more often with […]
Question: There are states in the ten when you feel ascent, joy, and love for friends. It seems that everything is fine. But suddenly friends leave with great criticism. Does it mean that we do not see the real state of the friends in the connection but only our egoism? Answer: It happens in different […]
New Life 253—Why We Help Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe Why are there differences in the tendency of people to help others? What are the factors that influence the behavior of people toward their environment? How is this connected to the development of the ego? All human […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do natural disasters help bring people together?“ We see people coming together and helping each other out more during crises. Nature sends such situations precisely in order for us to wake up to our connection, and to the idea that we need to consider the benefit of others as our own […]
Question: If we talk about intellect, then today there is no single definition of this concept. There are several directions according to which classical science defines intellect. First, intellect is a quality consisting of a person’s ability to recognize new situations, the ability to learn and remember based on experience, understand and apply abstract concepts, […]
Question: During life, a person acquires life experience and learns from examples and abstract concepts. This is similar to the training of an animal when we set some tasks for it, give examples, and some kind of reward for performing them. Based on the results of these actions, we evaluate whether the dog is smart […]
Question: In the Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah it is said that there are two systems: the system of holiness and the system of Klipot (Impure forces). What are they? Answer: The fact is that the desire originally created by the Creator as a desire to receive can be corrected to a desire to […]
Comment: From a letter: Dear Michael Laitman, I am asking for your advice. We raised our children, gave them everything, and they disappeared and do not even call. They are not in our life. My husband started developing dementia. I take care of him by myself, I literally fall down from exhaustion. I have no […]
Comment: I can quiet my evil inclination only when there is the light of connection in the group. And when it stops shining, the evil inclination immediately takes possession of me. My Response: Very good. This means that you must constantly ask to be influenced by the light of the Creator, the power of the […]
Question: Has the possibility of unity and mutual guarantee ever been realized? Answer: Yes, the possibility of realizing unity worldwide first emerged in ancient Babylon 3,700 years ago. Abraham attempted to accomplish this, but was able to take only a few thousand people with him out of Babylon who, under his leadership, were able to […]
New Life 252—The Influence of the Residential Environment on a Person, Part 2 Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz How does contact with the community affect our personal security? How can a person make good connections with his neighbors? Why is re-establishing contact with our environment especially important nowadays? Man […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do conspiracy theorists come up with new conspiracy theories?“ We come up with all kinds of conspiracy theories primarily because we do not know where we live, why we are alive, where we are headed, and what is good and bad for us. We are confused. We can think of […]
Question: If I see that a friend is suffering from not being annulled, how can we work with it, and where is the place of my correction? Answer: You have to give him an example of how to annul so that he sees what needs to be done and will do the same. Do not […]
Question: The Japanese art of Kintsugi means golden joinery. It is the restoration of ceramic vessels using adhesive sap of the lacquer tree. Masters repair a broken jar and glue it together. Moreover, they do not just glue, but reveal cracks with gold paint, thereby showing the need for gluing. Is it important to be […]
Question: The feeling of the Creator’s greatness is pleasure and joy. How do we accept this state correctly in order not to receive pleasure for our own sake, but to become a giver to bring contentment and delight to the Creator? Answer: We must be ready for this. We want to reveal the Creator only […]
Question: To the extent that we have a desire for the Creator and connection, material desires for this world are revealed in us. How do we work with them? Answer: Perform them sequentially. You cannot give up this world, but you must establish a correlation between it and the spiritual world. Try to see where […]
Question: Andrey writes: Michael, you say we are egoists; such is our nature, and we need to rise above it. You say we need to annul our “self,” that is, in simple language, lower ourselves before others. My question is: if I know someone to be wrong, to be lying, should I still not object, […]
Question: Baal HaSulam writes that when the upper light hits the screen, the screen rejects the light, so to say, meaning, a person acquires a force that gives him the opportunity to reject the pleasures coming from the Creator. This action is called Zivug de Hakaa, striking coupling. Where does the pleasure go when the […]
New Life 251—The Influence of the Residential Environment on a Person, Part 1 Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz What impact does the living environment have on shaping our personality? What has changed in community life during the development of humanity? Why is it important to bring back our connection […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is God angry at me?“ There is no such thing as God getting angry at you. Some writings in the Torah could be misinterpreted that way because it speaks in the language of human beings, but the upper force has no anger. It is above human emotions. It is more […]
Question: Is the request of the lower ones to bring us closer to the Creator from the bottom up or to attract the light to us from the top down? Answer: It is to lift us up to the Creator from the bottom up. Question: When feeling joy, each of us also feels and sees […]
Question: Which efforts are more important: to love and see the greatness of the friends or to focus on love for the Creator? Answer: The most important thing is to turn to the Creator and through Him try to solve all our problems, especially spiritual ones. Question: So what is better: to the friends and […]
Question: When we read the Psalms of David, we feel their special power. Can we read them as preparation for the lesson, and how will this help us open our hearts even more? Answer: Psalms in Hebrew are called Tehillim. You can read them; it is very beneficial because it attracts a person and brings […]
Question: There is a common expression: “A thought came to mind.” Where does the thought come from? Answer: We do not know this. Comment: A person does not really think about this much. My Response: Exactly, that is why a person does not think about it; a person does not know. A person cannot control […]
Question: If I can read Hebrew a little, but I make a mistake in pronunciation, can I read Psalms and the Torah? There is an opinion that if you pronounce words in Hebrew incorrectly, it can do harm. Answer: Neither you nor anyone else can harm themselves no matter how they read and distort the […]
Question: You often throw us from one end to the other. First you say we should be working on ourselves, then you say to work with people outside of our group, and then back to ourselves and round again. Is it done so that a person would not get stuck in one place? Answer: No […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there any benefit to introspection?“ If we undergo an introspection that aims at bettering our connection to each other in an integral manner, then there is indeed great benefit to introspection. For instance, if we think to ourselves, ”When will we be able to care about all people in the […]
Question: The greatness of the Creator has immeasurably huge dimension and power. If we imagine it, we can just crush ourselves. How can we come into contact with His greatness in the correct way? Answer: If we are moving toward the Creator together, and He has set us such a condition that we can approach […]
A person should feel how all times: past, present, and future are included in the present moment, which means that I should think what I am aiming for at this moment and how to attach all the reasons to the action that I am about to perform now. I connect the past and the future […]
To save the created beings from this titanic separation, the first restriction took place, separating phase four from the rest of the Partzufim [plural of Partzuf] of Kedusha [Holiness] so that that great measure of reception remained an empty space devoid of any light (Baal HaSulam, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, item 14). The […]
Comment: When you explain something, the same message always comes from you, but its presentation is different all the time. From the outside it looks like you are changing your mind and contradicting yourself. My Response: What can I do?! My teaching is designed for serious people, let’s say people who study physics, especially those […]
The difference between past, present, and future is only in the strength of our connection. If we connect, we compress time and jump into the future. In fact, there is no time! It is only according to our inner effort to unite that we reveal our more corrected states. This means that we exist in […]
Question: Do I understand correctly that if the upper Malchut is not revealed at least to some extent, we have no opportunity to serve the Creator? Answer: We have the opportunity to turn to the Creator and ask Him; this always works. The Creator is open to everyone and awaits for an appeal from each […]
Question: The Creator gives us gifts all the time. He created the evil inclination to shade Himself, gave us a method so that we would feel how to approach Him. Now He is ready to give us the quality of bestowal. How can we learn to appreciate these gifts, recognize them, learn from them, and […]
Question: There is a place called “the love of the friends for me” and there is a place called “my love for the friends.” Are these different things? Answer: Absolutely different. The love of the friends for me is manifested in their desire. “My love for my friends” is in my desire. But the Creator […]
Question: If Kabbalah is not transmitted genetically, but only through education, why is it believed that the Jews have a genetic spiritual code? Answer: Because they had already performed spiritual correction once, i.e., they were in these conditions. The Jews are the same ancient Babylonians who left together with the Babylonian priest Abraham, who brought […]
If I am engaged with a person and society, if I am talking about how society should change, and how a person should change, then of course I can always be attributed to politics. In the end, I’m not acting with political tools, but only educational ones. People go out into the street to demand […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there a specific way love should feel?“ Mutual, reciprocal and whole among all people in the world. It is because love is the force that binds us together in our whole and eternal state as a single soul, which we are all parts of. How can we feel this mutual […]
The feeling of the Creator’s greatness is a consequence of Him revealing Himself a little with respect to us. The question arises: how can one ask correctly for such a feeling for the friends? This is the result of our common work. You can ask alone as well, but it is very hard and long […]
Question: What is the Shechina (Divinity)? Answer: The feeling in a person that the Creator clothes into him and fills him is called the Shechina. The Creator or Shechina are one and the same. Question: How does the greatness of the Shechina in my eyes affect my friends and reality in general? Answer: In a […]
Question: You said that the taste of dust is a state of indifference when one does not feel anything. But there is a feeling of rejection when I just want to run away. With indifference, it is still possible to do something through the mind, but with rejection, there is absolutely no strength for anything. […]
Question: Ariel writes: Dear Michael Laitman, First, about myself. I am a loser. Failures haunt my whole life no matter what I do. And I look back, I have always been like that. A gray childhood, practically without friends, married unsuccessfully, my wife left me, graduated from college, but did not work a day in […]
Question: “What is unconditional love? How and why does it harm both parents and children?” Answer: It is because absolute love does not educate children. Children must understand that there are certain conditions for the manifestation of love. And parents should also feel some kind of reciprocity from their children: right-wrong, correct-incorrect, toward themselves-away from […]
Comment: Sometimes I look at you and get the impression that you are already tired of making constant appeals to humanity to follow the good path. My Response: I do not see an end to it. I see that only good blows will turn us into the right people. Sometimes they are internal, sometimes external, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the biggest problems in the world right now and how do we solve them?“ Our main problem is when we try to egoistically fulfill ourselves at the expense of others, when we enjoy by completely disregarding other people and the system of nature we exist in. We need to […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “The Whole of the Torah Is One Holy Name” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation” […]
Time is a feeling of lack. Lack stretches time for us; it multiplies seconds like a bargaining chip. Therefore, time can be reduced. As we unite, we increase the radiance of the surrounding light on us and thus attract the future to us. By influencing our connection, we can influence the light that will be […]
Question: What does it mean to work for the Creator? Is it when we work on overcoming rejection and disagreement, annul ourselves, and experience a state of lowliness from this? Answer: It is necessary to overcome rejection only in the connection between us and not individually. It will not do anything. It is only in […]
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said during a speech that he wished he had discovered the importance of work-life balance years ago. Speaking at a Northern Arizona University (NAU) commencement ceremony Saturday, Gates told the graduating class that during his early days at Microsoft, he didn’t believe in taking vacation days or having weekends off, noting that he […]
Sometimes I imagine the following scene: we come to heaven, and God comes to everyone and asks, “what did you think?”, and I answer: “What do I think about what? I am a sinner Lord, please have mercy on me.” But He will interrupt me and say: “Yes I already know that. How do you […]
Question: We separate spiritual studies and corporeal activities. What should we do if the confrontation between Kabbalists arises precisely on the corporeal level? Answer: If a confrontation occurs between people who are working together, when they are creating something new, then it is right. That is how it should be. If it happens at the […]
Question: Kabbalists of the past created a calendar for 6,000 years. How could they calculate this time? Answer: Everything that happens in our world is performed under the influence of the upper world. Zeir Anpin of the world of Atzilut, which influences us, consists of six parts: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. Each […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Which one do you think is the function of autistic people in the world we live in?“ The human soul is a diverse and multileveled phenomenon. I understand that there are autism classifications according to various external and internal signs, and the use of tests to determine the phenomenon. However, in […]
Now you can understand the real difference between spirituality and corporeality: Anything that contains a complete desire to receive, in all its aspects, which is phase four, is considered “corporeal.” This is what exists in all the elements of reality before us in this world. Conversely, anything above this great measure of desire to receive […]
Question: Our desires are the creation. The last phase of creation, Malchut, is a conscious desire to receive pleasure from the status of the Creator, that is, to connect with Him and use Him for one’s own sake. As soon as Malchut begins to use this connection for its own sake, a sense of shame […]
Kabbalah primarily shares to create the right environment for yourself and everything will be fine. Nothing else is needed, no other effort! Enter this environment. Be only among such people! Do not listen to others! They do not understand anything anyway. Why listen to them? Is it in order to allegedly object to them, to […]
Question: How, by changing oneself, can a person studying Kabbalah change his attitude toward others or toward the events that happen to him? Answer: Only by learning integrality and complete interconnection above all contradictions. Leave all the contradictions below and try to connect above them. Drop everything else! Otherwise, we become more and more opposed […]
Comment: There are two options for solving problems. Either a person decides something on the material level through some kind of connection or something else. Or, by changing himself internally, he changes the unfavorable situations that haunt him. My Response: We will have to come to an inner change. Today we already see how much […]
Question: I was very impressed by a story. A dying young man wrote a farewell letter because the doctors did not think he had even two months to live. Then his girlfriend came along and said she was pregnant. He said he literally felt the disease go away. He recounts that suddenly, confidence came and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do you like nature? Why?“ I really love nature, especially the inanimate and vegetative. I like to walk in the mountains, fields and forests. When I walk in such places, I feel a sense of goodness, pleasantness and calm. I perceive nature as divine harmony. In our world, however, we cripple […]
Question: We feel a great need for connection and a great desire to ask with all our might for our common correction and for freedom from egoism. How can we accelerate this movement? Answer: Imagine that now we have the opportunity to get closer to each other more than usual and to attract the Creator. […]
Comment: A person seems to become callous after studying Kabbalah. My Response: This is a natural process. A person must become stronger and stronger. You are not going anywhere! That is who we are. And we have to go against it with the help of the right environment that will affect us. And it affects […]
Question: It is unclear how a person can run away from the Creator since we know that the Creator is hiding, and we are chasing Him. Is this a very high degree? Answer: A person runs away from some signs of attention and privileges from the Creator. He feels that this fame can harm him, […]
Question: Baal HaSulam wrote the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” after the Second World War as one of the four prefaces to The Book of Zohar. Answer: Yes, this material is very difficult to present, especially in such an accessible way as he did. Question: Why don’t people study it? After all, he described […]
Question: If I carry a state of rejection to the ten, how do we work within the ten without falling into the left line and making it worse if the friends have a similar state? Answer: Add up your states with the rest and achieve a positive effect. Question: Why is it important to state […]
Question: Most people know some other language in addition to their native one. Why can a person never master a foreign language at the same level as his native language even if he is fluent at it? Answer: It is because the original information is written within us in the native language like for example […]
Comment: You once mentioned that truth is what is supported by a large number of people. My Response: Any lie that is supported by a multitude of people becomes the truth for them even though it has no real connection to the actual truth or what may be factual. Humanity has many such misconceptions. We […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Which is more important between praying and working?“ There is a parable about a fisherman who was transporting a passenger by boat. The passenger urged the fisherman, “Hurry up, I’m late for work!” Then the man noticed that one of his oars had the word “pray” written on it, while the […]
Question: In the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Baal HaSulam describes the four stages of the development of the desire. We understand that desire is the basis of man. How did the Creator create it in four stages? Answer: The fact is that initially, there was a source of light. Light is defined as […]
Question: When you say something, do you generally say it from the point of view of truth? Answer: Relatively concerning the person who receives it and no more than that. There is nothing absolute in our world nor in attainment of the upper world. But there it is clear. Question: Let’s say you explain something […]
Comment: Question from Ghenghis: “Thousands of years of wars, revolutions, famine, and poverty, right up to the troubles of today’s reality. If a man needs a piece of bread, what is the role of books in his life? Why are they needed?” My Response: It is written that, “If there is no flour, there is […]
Question: We want to bestow, but how can we avoid egoistic intentions in the group since they prevent us from revealing the glory of the Creator? Answer: Just continue. Forcibly continue to move toward the connection between each other and demand that the Creator reveals Himself between you. Question: How does a person feel the […]
It is as we say (In the Eighteen in the Supplementary Prayer of Rosh Hashanah), “Our Father, our King, reveal the glory of Your kingdom upon us,” namely that the kingdom of heaven will not be to us as dust, but rather glorified. It follows that what this kind of people demands of the Creator […]
Comment: Certain circles also study Kabbalah, and they are actually trembling after they read, for example, The Book of Zohar. They sit by candlelight and believe that something is happening to them there. My Response: There are many mystics everywhere. Question: What defines mysticism in general? Why is Kabbalah not mysticism? Answer: Kabbalah speaks about […]
Question: Is it possible to develop a sect from Kabbalistic teaching? Answer: A sect is a certain structure of a closed organization where there is an unquestioning submission of the members of the sect to the guru and the so-called truths they blindly bow down before. It is possible that sects have their own paraphernalia, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we live our lives with happiness?“ In our corporeal lives, we come into contact with various pleasures, but we remain unhappy because the moments of pleasure instantly disappear. They are temporary because the contact with a pleasure in order to receive it for self-benefit alone cannot sustain itself for […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letter 40” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 166 Video: Play […]
Question: People with a point in the heart want to reveal the Creator as good, as Who created and controls us. Will people without a point in the heart come to such a revelation? Answer: Yes. Everything we do within ourselves and between us is absorbed by a common desire. Therefore, all those living on […]
Humanity is at the point where nature is shaking us. And it will rattle us with wars, hurricanes, earthquakes, terror, anything possible, more and more. Humanity will eat itself up until the remaining small fraction of people rise to the next degree. But if everyone would want to rise voluntarily, here is a methodology for […]
Question: A little boy plucked two pears from a tree and brought them home. Mom asked, “May I try one pear?” The boy thought about it, then took a bite from both. Mom thought that her son was greedy and she needed to have a conversation with him about greed. But the boy suddenly handed […]
Comment: When a person is under pressure from problems, you say that this is a blessing. The main thing is to keep the correct intention in any situation. My Response: Of course. After all, everything that happens comes from the side of nature, which closes us, and surrounds us with its integral influence. If we […]
Question: In the group, we live inside different, dynamic states. What does make an effort to make a King over us mean? Answer: You must elevate the Creator in your eyes so much that He becomes in your mind the only one who controls absolutely all of nature, including, of course, yours. Then you will […]
Question: The Creator loves me, but at the same time He torments me. We feel the most painful and massive suffering at the level of our world. There is a great desire for them to become “sufferings of love” where I want to connect with the friends and feel them as myself, but I cannot. […]
Question: I feel that a burning evil is awakening in me toward my friends. And when I try to turn to the Creator through them, I eventually realize that this is evil in relation to the Creator. What am I doing wrong? How should I continue the journey? Answer: Just keep going on and on […]
Question: How can we help friends who do not accept connection with other tens that are experiencing hatred and negativity? Answer: You should say that any manifestations of hatred between you must be rejected. We need to rise above all calculations. “Love your neighbor as yourself” does not include any past or present calculations: “I […]
Question: You said that when you give your friends freedom of action, then you will be free yourself. How can we give friends the greatness of the Creator correctly, so as not to put pressure on them or take away their freedom? Answer: Open your heart to your friends and let the Creator influence them […]
Question: What is the truth, if according to Kabbalah, everyone lives in a delusion? Answer: The truth is what, in my current state, seems true to me today, because it coincides with my feeling, perception, understanding, and with what I am used to and what I know. At the moment, this clearly fits into my […]
Comment: Alexander writes: “You say that over time all evil will disappear. Then why has it not disappeared to this day? Many generations have changed over thousands of years; we should have been reborn into better people, but the evil has only increased. Somehow your formula does not work.” My Response: My formula can work […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What defines our current times?“ We are in a new transitional era. Over the generations, the human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—developed to a point where we can no longer satisfy ourselves, and we are reaching a state of helplessness in continuing to try and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “The 2023 NA Annual KabU Retreat“ Hello to all of you who find interest in the wisdom of Kabbalah and wish to know what this wisdom is really about, and what it guides a person to achieve. I highly recommend not to miss the upcoming opportunity at the 2023 NA Annual […]
Egoistic desire divides the times into the past, present, and future. After all, the desire to enjoy is not content with what it had in the past or will have in the future. It is tied to the present time in which it feels what benefit it has from the light that is clothed in […]
Question: What does it mean to feel the mutual and reciprocal love of a typical single soul? Answer: It is possible to feel mutual love when we all connect, feel a common connection between us, and try to fulfill each other through it. Question: How can we understand that we are ready to be born? […]
For this reason, a person begins to work not in order to receive reward, but because of the glory of the King (RABASH,”What Does It Mean that Oil Is Called ‘Good Deeds’ in the Work?”). Question: What does a person feel here? Does he not see a reward at all or does it still exist […]
Question: You said that a person should pray for Malchut of infinity. What does it mean? Answer: For the global Malchut, which includes absolutely everything. Question: I connect with my ten and ask for the ten. Where is the connection with the global Malchut here? Answer: The difference is only in scale. This cannot be […]
Question: When there is some kind of suffering, trial, or problem that comes from the Creator, I realize there is a very strong need for Him, which is a trigger for prayer and connection with Him and with the group. But when there are no sufferings and problems, it is very difficult to build a […]
Question: You said, “Either you give thanks, or you give the Creator a place to work.” If a person has been awarded with a state of gratitude, how can one give a place to the Creator? Answer: When you unite in one mutual desire to bestow, you open a place for the Creator. Question: And […]
Question: Let’s say that you raise the importance of some process, and a person listens to you and gets involved in it. Then you radically change the process, and he gets involved in what you say again. But after this happens several times, a person begins to wait, does not do any actions either in […]
Question: People who practice Kabbalah develop certain callousness after a while as a natural effect. How can this callousness be used correctly? Answer: They are like that because they are given freewill. This is how I behave with my students as well. Otherwise, will I be force them to be the way I want them […]
Question: From where do you absorb additional information? Is it from nature? From some place? Answer: I really love nature, especially the inanimate and vegetative. I like to walk in the mountains, fields, and forests. When I just walk there, I feel good and pleasant; I feel complete relaxation. I perceive nature as divine harmony. […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a spiritual experience?“ Say you woke up in the dark. You understand, know and feel nothing at all. You then slowly go about your morning routine, leave your home, and head out onto the street and into the world. You flip through the news, listen to the radio and […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Are Dirty Hands in the Work of the Creator?” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to […]
Every time we read one of RABASH’s articles, it seems to us as if we are seeing it for the first time. It is because we are changing and everything is changing. After all, each of RABASH’s articles is connected to the upper force, and therefore receives replenishment from it and it passes to us. […]
Question: What are the changes that happen to us as a result of our spiritual work? How do we feel them and how are they manifested? Answer: Changes happen in us to the extent that we come closer to each other. After all, it is in this case that we become similar to the Creator. […]
Question: What is a hallucination in your understanding? Answer: People have a lot of various brain disorders, including this one. Kabbalah is pure materialism. From the point of view of Kabbalah, only what we perceive in our desire in an absolutely clear, sober form exists. Everything else are stray currents that can cause all sorts […]
Question: Is egoism some common quality in the group? Answer: The distance between you in the group is your egoism. “Keep your distance”; you are here and I am there. Our group egoism does not allow us to connect. But as soon as we come closer to each other by some small percentage, then even […]
Question: How do you draw the line between a hallucination that seems very real and not a hallucination? Answer: In our world, we cannot accurately determine anything, since for this we need to have two parameters one relative to the other, and measure the difference between them. I cannot see only one, for example, one […]
Question: Can a person come to receive Kabbalistic information from different angles, not just through suffering? Answer: There is no need to suffer! If a person has a craving for knowledge, he will come without suffering. Although craving is also a kind of suffering. We come to Kabbalah due to a lack of something, disappointment, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does an atom contain every information in the universe?“ There is a principle in the wisdom of Kabbalah that the individual and general are equal. It means that the tiniest individual particle contains the information of the whole system of which it is a part. This principle of similarity of individual […]
Question: If one friend lacks the force of bestowal and the second one lacks the force of reception, then how can they balance each other? Answer: They need to work together. It does not matter what force prevails in whom: bestowal or reception. The main thing is that they are connected with each other and […]
Comment: According to Kabbalah, a person must change his nature. But it is not his fault that he developed in a completely different, egoistic way. My Response: Who is asking him at all? There are necessary and sufficient conditions, like in mathematics. That is all. After all, I am not asking: “Why was I born […]
Question: From a letter. “Here are some lines from a bushmen folk song: “The Way We Die” song of the Southern Bushmen The day we die the wind comes down to take away our footprints. The wind makes dust to cover up the marks we left while walking. for otherwise the thing would seem as […]
Hebrew and Aramaic are two spiritual languages that are spelled the same but pronounced a little differently. In ancient Babylon, both languages were spoken. But their origins go back to Adam. His first book, The Secret Angel (Raziel HaMalach), Adam wrote in Hebrew. “Angel” is a force of nature, and “secret” means that this force […]
How many things in our lives do we take on faith without having the facts? We do not even realize how much we rely on what is going on outside. It is done purposefully and comes naturally. Thus, previous stages are worked out in us before the real attainment. Nothing in the world should be […]
Question: After the Creator creates all the worlds (concealments), then in the very last, corporeal world, we do not feel Him at all. What does it mean that the Creator is not felt? What exactly do we not feel? Answer: In the corporeal world we feel ourselves as small desires that want to enjoy the […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I overcome stress quickly?“ The best way to overcome stress is to deal with it in a group setting. When we are parts of a supportive and encouraging group that immediately starts discussing the cause of the stress and how to work with it, offering empathy and advice, we […]
Question: In our ten, some friends believe that we can advance only through suffering and pain, but there are also other opinions. Which is more correct? Answer: Do not think that progress should be in suffering and pain. If you do, you say that the Creator has created this way for us. But this is […]
Question: I understand that you give us a lot and try to move us forward by answering questions from a great spiritual height. But I cannot feel and absorb all this depth. What should I do in this case? Answer: Move forward no matter what. Do not invent some answers for yourself and do not […]
Each time, he sees more of the truth: He is immersed in self-love and does not see any possibility in the horizon that can bring him out of this. (“What Is ‘According to the Sorrow, So Is the Reward’?“, RABASH). Question: Can we say the same about a group in which people are used to […]
Question: I am experiencing an uncertain state. On one hand, there is a great regret that no matter how hard I try, I cannot come closer to the friends. On the other hand, I am afraid that the Creator will fulfill my desire and give me the quality of bestowal, which is not very attractive […]
Question: Why are there things like cults and other similar elements in the common system? What are they created for? Answer: These are the delusions of man, which he must go through in the same way as all religions. Misconceptions help him and develop him until he comes to the truth. A person cannot immediately […]
Previously in nature and society, we acted according to an egoistic, impulsive, and linear program, when everyone earned as much as they worked. That is how I chose my job, family, and everything else, and due to my natural abilities and efforts, I achieved something. I know that there are objective conditions that exist around […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who led the Exodus from Egypt?“ The exodus from Egypt is the exit from our egoistic approach to each other to new relations of love and positive connection. Being in Egypt and under Pharaoh’s rule means that we are under our ego’s control, which pits us up against each other, making […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 11, “Concerning the Debate between Jacob and Laban” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the […]
Question: Sometimes I am in a state where death is better than such a life. The Creator as if highlights the evil within me. I feel very scared by the thoughts that appear. How can I work with this? Answer: You have a group. Through it, you must turn to the Creator and also through […]
Question: What does the expression “according to suffering so is the reward” mean? Answer: When a person regrets that he cannot yet be on the same level as the Creator, as the Creator gives to him, so he would give to the Creator. As it is said: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is […]
Question: There are moments when the Creator, through Rabash’s article, gives out a key that opens clarification in the form of sensations inside the heart. How not to lose it? How can we work onward from these feelings? Answer: One should not be afraid of losing them. And when it is necessary, you will find […]
There are all kinds of movements that sell various “holy” attributes under the flag of Kabbalah. Well, how can you sell red threads? If you think they bring good luck, then give them to all of mankind and do not sell them for $20 per string! Why do you demand payment for each of your […]
Question: When you touch objects, do you get additional information directly from the contact? You said that when you enter the sea you receive information. Answer: This is not information, these are sensations. These are feelings that cannot be described. They are not even related to Kabbalah. Suppose a person living in the forest feels […]
Question: Could you create one product that describes everything and send it around the world? Answer: No, I cannot. I know from myself that when I was advancing I needed to read Kabbalistic books. There are a lot of good books on Kabbalah in our time, but at the time I started studying there were […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it mean to truly be free?“ Being free means being free from our egoistic desires, which make us wish to benefit ourselves at the expense of others and nature. In other words, freedom means becoming free from our egoistic nature that rules over us, so that instead of constantly […]
Question: In article 117, “Labored and Did Not Find? Do Not Believe” from Baal HaSulam’s book Shamati, it says: “That is, the sorrow, called “labor,” makes the Kli [vessel], so one can be awarded the reward.” How can we understand that it is suffering that creates the Kli? What does suffering have to do with […]
Question: In the article “When the Creator Loves a Person,” Rabash writes that a person can experience a state where he feels he is worse than the rest of the people. Such feelings are a gift from the Creator. If I feel with respect to the group that I am the worst of all and […]
Question: How can I ask the Creator correctly for Kelim (Vessels) of bestowal? Should I completely annul myself and want them only for my friends? Answer: Desire that it will be good to all of you together and that from your connection you would be able to bestow to the Creator. Question: What should I […]
Question: At some point in your life you studied Kabbalah alone. How did you determine that you did not fall into some wrong current? Answer: After the death of Rabash, I locked myself at home, did not listen to anyone, did not see anyone, tried not to feel anything, and only worked on books. I […]
Question: How can we come to the feeling of real spiritual poverty through some material flaws so that it feels the same as our ego feels the flaws in this world? Answer: Practically one has nothing to do with the other. I can have everything I want and at the same time feel absolutely penniless. […]
Question: All suffering is from the desire to receive. But when we are in bestowal, is it a gift from the Creator? Answer: Yes. Question: You said that we can choose either the path of suffering or the path of love. But it often happens that one does everything to walk the path of love, […]
All people on Earth are divided into numerous different stages of attainment, development, and sensations. First of all, they are divided into five parts according to the basic principles of creation, which is divided into five levels. Each level into another five, and another five, and so on. This division occurs based on the intensity […]
Question: If Kabbalists work on a completely different plane, in bestowal, can it be that they really do not understand each other? Do you not have anyone to work with? Answer: Why not? I can work with whoever wants to. But if you are talking about Kabbalists, I do not see them. I do not […]
Comment: In principle, you always talk about one formula that can correct humanity. My Response: What if there is nothing else besides it?! What if there is nothing more than ten Sefirot? I am only talking about how to connect them correctly, discover the entire universe inside you, and finally understand that everything you see […]
Question: You told us how your teacher Rabash used to open Shamati on any page and begin to read a paragraph. By doing this he was as if manifesting his connection with the Creator. Does it mean that this is already given to a person, one just needs to engage in this process? Answer: Suppose […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the modern-day equivalents of Egypt, Pharaoh and Moses described in the Passover story?“ There is an increasing understanding that we can no longer live our lives the way that we do, i.e., that our consumerist culture of overproducing and over-consuming is destroying our planet, robbing it of its resources, […]
Question: You said that we implement our choice by transforming the desire to receive into a desire to bestow. How do we do this? Answer: The most important thing is the intention: what I do and why I do it. I do it only because this is the will of the Creator. Question: Is it […]
Question: As we develop, the Creator reveals new portions of evil to us. And if evil manifests itself in the group somehow cyclically, like previous stages, how can we properly enter a new stage and break this circle? Answer: Constantly pursue the same goal: I have to rise above my egoism and act in the […]
Question: If a person reads The Book of Zohar in Hebrew, do the Hebrew symbols influence him much more than when reading in his own language? Answer: If he sets his heart and his intentions in the right way, it affects him in exactly the same way. The fact is there is a lot of […]
Question: We admire all kinds of discoveries, but all of our human discoveries are imperfect. Meanwhile, nature creates absolutely perfect things. For example, a bird’s egg is considered one of nature’s most amazing creations. This structure protects new life from the surrounding world while allowing it to breathe. It is strong enough to withstand the […]
Comment: Let’s say ten people discuss an issue together, rise above their personal problems, and come up with a solution. They come up with it based on their egos, since they are not in attainment. My Response: They concede to each other for the sake of a common solution; everyone restrains themselves. That is enough. […]
Question: Why did Christianity rather than Islam receive greater initial development in the history of humanity? Answer: Islam is a younger religion. It has a different method of development. For many years it existed in isolation, but now it is starting its phase of spreading. At the time the same was happening with Christianity. Crusades […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Did the prophet Elijah do anything?“ Elijah announces that the Messiah is coming. What is the Messiah? The Messiah is a force that pulls us our of our egoistic desires. In Hebrew, the word for “Messiah” (“Moshiach”) comes from the same linguistic root as the word for “pulling” (“Moshech”). This force […]
Question: Do I understand correctly that if we do not increase love, then ordinary actions are not enough and in any case there will be destruction? Answer: I do not think there will be destruction. I hope we are going through everything in our intentions, and therefore we should see before us not the destruction, […]
Question: The sources speak about reward. Is it correct to say that according to the effort one makes so will be the reward? Answer: That is absolutely right. That is why it is said: “According to the sorrow, so is the reward.” Question: I did not understand this for a long time, but today I […]
The gradual descent of the upper world into our world, its approach to us, gives a feeling of crisis in our world. The fact is that the upper network is an integral, balanced system, full of love, compassion, and mutual interaction. As it approaches the material world, it awakens forces that are completely foreign to […]
Question: How did the history of Christianity develop? Answer: The development of Christianity historically was based on conquests so that Christianity would spread throughout the world. All wars were of religious nature because in this way humanity was preparing for the realization that there is a Creator and that it is necessary to somehow approach […]
Question: In the past, you and Rabash used to go to the sea every morning, and this habit has stayed with you until now. Is there any meaning to it, the water and sand? Why the sea specifically and not the forest? Answer: The sea is the most beneficial thing there can be. However, in […]
Question: How do you constantly make an accurate assessment of the correctness of actions? Answer: Let’s say you woke up in the dark, you do not understand, do not know, and do not feel anything. Slowly you go through your morning routine and go out into the street into the world. You buy a newspaper, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “When does having an ego become a problem?“ The ego is the desire to enjoy at the expense of others, and the problem with it is precisely in that it makes us think and act at the expense of others. It blocks us from seeing how we are one with all […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Dale Carnegie’s Quest for Happiness” Dale Carnegie was an American psychologist, speaker, and author. He made a significant impact on countless lives through his inspirational teachings and best-selling books. A staple in the realm of self-help literature, Carnegie’s most well-known book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, […]
Question: What is the difference between the first phase of Hochma, in which receiving the light of pleasure happens for the first time, and the last phase of Malchut, which is a pure desire to receive? Answer: There is a great difference between Hochma and Malchut. The fact is that the first phase of Hochma […]
This is why he who pleads mercy for his friend, they cannot both receive the granting of the prayer at once because only he needs that thing, meaning that salvation—to feel the greatness of Kedusha [holiness] called “raising the Shechina from the dust” (RABASH, “What Is, ‘Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing […]
For as many centuries as humanity has existed in the world, thousands and thousands of years, it has been mistaken. Read newspapers, magazines, go online—everyone is still waiting for some aliens from other planets. Humanity is barbaric. In fact, it has not yet come down from the trees. As when we were monkeys, so we […]
The first or zero phase of the development of desire is called Keter; it represents the source of light, the influence of the Creator. The second phase is called Hochma. It is the first phase filled with the light of the Creator. The third phase is Bina, which does not want to receive the light […]
Question: We see that the leaders of countries who gather at summits cannot agree among themselves and cannot reach any kind of decision. And if we take ten Kabbalists as an example, how would they conduct these discussions? Answer: They would conduct discussions as if they were one family! Gather 20 heads of state together […]
Evolution is built on the law of “negation of the negation” when in order to rise to the upper degree I must negate the degree on which I currently am. It should already seem bad to me, I can no longer stay in it, I must make a revolution, i.e., rise above it. Question: What […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who is God?“ God is the general integral force of nature that operates upon our planet and our universe, which is behind the existence of everything and everyone. God wants to teach humanity as His children, for us all to recognize His greatness, uniqueness and love for us, that He made […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Do You Think About the Evolution of Humans and How Far Can Humanity Go?” The evolutionary process we undergo is in order to adapt us to the upper world, i.e., to lead us to a state of harmonious connection “as one man with one heart,” one humanity […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Is Tisha B’Av?” Tisha B’Av is a very important and prominent state in the development of creation. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Tisha B’Av commemorates the ruin of the Holy Temple, i.e. the shattering of the vessels, the state when we lost consciousness (i.e. the shattering […]
Question: In order to look adequate for the general mass of people, do you have to assume an image of an ordinary, regular person? Is there another nature within you? Answer: The other nature that resides within me is an image parallel to me, which is in a state of love and connection with all […]
Question: Igor asks: “Dear Michael Laitman, I have a direct question to you: is it possible to lie, and if so, in what case?” Answer: You can lie in the case when you save a person’s life. Question: Is it definitely so? Answer: Definitely. [315624] From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/17/23
Question: Why is there a parallel between self-annulment in Kabbalah and totalitarian suppression of personality? After all, both paths are very similar. Answer: In totalitarian suppression of personality, you are not offered a different personality! You are being suppressed against your will. On the spiritual path, you have the freewill to annul yourself at each […]
Question: In the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Baal HaSulam describes how worlds emerge from the four phases of the development of desire. World (Olam) comes from the word “Olama,” that is, concealment. What should be concealed after the Creator has created a desire? Answer: Creating a desire is one thing, but making a […]
Question: People come to study Kabbalah not only because of the lack of meaning in life, but also because they are searching for answers to their problems, like for example, their children’s autism or something else. But you immediately dismiss these topics saying something like “Do not talk about this.” Maybe it is worth revealing […]
Question: How can one not turn from a person who bends himself before others, into one who simply believes in the power of the Creator and crushes himself? Answer: I do not understand this! I nullify my corporeal properties in order to find my spiritual appearance above them, to create my soul, to mold it […]
It is written: “Anyone who mourns for Jerusalem is rewarded with seeing its joy.” That is, to the extent that we recognize the full scale of the destruction that happened to us, to the entire people of Israel and to the whole world, to the Creator’s program of creation, and to the extent that it […]
Question: There is a parable about a fisherman transporting a person by boat. The passenger urged the fisherman: “Hurry up, I’m late for work!” Then the man spotted that on one oar was written “pray” and on the other “work.” “What is this for?” he asked. “To remember,” replied the fisherman, ” so as not […]
Question: If a person wants to go deeper into the study of Kabbalah, should he know Hebrew? Answer: No, not necessarily. A person should work on himself, this is the most important thing. He can even feel spirituality without any words and read books in any language. I have students who do not know Hebrew, […]
Question: Can a Kabbalist fall into an illusion of being in spiritual attainment? Answer: To prevent this from happening, we need a group, a teacher, and systematic lessons. After all, a person changes every day, so the daily portion he receives must also be properly directed and formed in him. This clear forward movement must […]
Materialistic psychology, which has developed during the past 100 to 150 years, is the study of human egoism: how individual egoism interacts with everyone else, what connections, thoughts, tastes it has, and how it develops and satisfies itself. Sigmund Freud, the founder of modern psychology, developed this system in practice, but today it does not […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What did Dale Carnegie do?“ Dale Carnegie was an American psychologist, speaker, and author. He made a significant impact on countless lives through his inspirational teachings and best-selling books. A staple in the realm of self-help literature, Carnegie’s most well-known book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, has sold millions […]
Comment: Sometimes you say something, and then catch yourself and say. “I shouldn’t have said it, it is too early, it was not worth it.” My Response: Don’t worry, I am not saying anything superfluous, and if I do, it is on purpose so that it stays in you. All the same, this information will […]
Question: Today seas and oceans are becoming more and more violent. What is water from a spiritual point of view? Answer: Water is the quality of Bina. Salty sea water is the union of Bina and Malchut, i.e., a union of the highest quality water and the lowest quality salt. Salt is the only element […]
Question: Does everything that happens in the world mean that I am shown what I am ready to see and I have to sort of take it and accept this picture for myself? Answer: You must understand that to the extent you, who are in an integral system, behave in a more integrated way with […]
Question: Did your teacher motivate you in any way to do spiritual work? Answer: Not really. All of that has to come from the person himself! Do not think that being next to a teacher like Rabash means a free ride to the upper world! No. It is a very difficult state. Personally, I would […]
Question: There is a saying: Human disputes are endless, not because it is impossible to find the truth but because those who argue are looking not for truth but for self-affirmation. Is this visible to the naked eye today? Answer: Of course. Question: Is it ever possible to find the truth in our world? Answer: […]
Question: How should a person conduct inner work to understand that there is no turning back and we need to break through into spirituality? Answer: Humanity must understand this partly from the blows of fate and partly from our explanations. Today, many scientists engaged in sociology, politics, and economics say that we have become closed […]
Question: How do we affect water? Through what? Answer: Through our thought! And our physical actions. We treat bodies of water as a landfill into which we can dump everything. Look at what is happening to the oceans! They already have areas that are garbage dumps. When the garbage settles to the depths, including plastics […]
Question: Can the teacher himself make mistakes on the spiritual path? Answer: He can, but certainly not at your level, only at his own level where he constantly makes mistakes and constantly corrects himself. Naturally! Absolutely correct! You cannot take a single right step without tripping and checking: “Why did I fall? What is the […]
Question: How can a person be initially protected from mistakes on the spiritual path? Answer: There is no way. He is like a child; until he bumps his head and breaks a couple of glasses, he will not succeed. This is how we live, only by recognizing our mistakes. However, we can create such an […]
Comment: We get new people in the world group all the time, some of them disappear somewhere, but there is always some kind of backbone that practically does not change. My Response: I do not control it, it does not depend on me. I give what I give. A person listens. If it is close […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is there still antisemitism and what can we do to stop it?“ Antisemitism will not end until humanity develops to its final harmonious and peaceful state of balance with nature. Why? It is because human egoistic nature, which makes us wish to enjoy at the expense of others, pits us […]
Question: You said that the Creator and I will be in the same connection as like talking to a person. How can such communication be imagined in the center of the ten where we unite? How does our interaction with this center with this connection happen? Answer: If you connect with each other in the […]
Comment: Suppose before going to bed a person is still quite alert and asks to be woken up at a specific time in the morning. But when he is being woken up in the morning, he simply cannot get up. Is there a similar state in the spiritual realm when a person cannot rise? My […]
Question: Is it possible to acquire a spiritual mind through actions? Answer: Of course! But only if we act purposefully. What kind of purposeful action is in our world through which we can acquire a spiritual mind? Just one—to group together. This is what nature is offering us now. It offers a not very good […]
Question: You once said that when you go against the Creator and disagree with Him, it actually builds a person. That is, the Creator arranges everything in such a way that it would be difficult for you to go along, and you just close your eyes and go forward. It turns out that you do […]
Comment: It often seems like you repeat the same things over and over. My Response: No, it is not the same. I am working through the material within myself and trying to give you a completely different kind of energy, to relate in a different cause and effect way what I am saying. I give […]
Question: You say that you feel a certain, even physical need to study Kabbalah every day. Is there a kind of physical dependence and craving for receiving material daily? Answer: Of course there is. I am sure that any scientist in any field feels this. When a person is intensively engaged in mental work, analysis, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where can we be free?“ We are controlled by laws of nature. There is a general force of nature, and two opposite forces—bestowal and reception—extend from it. We exist between these forces, and both of these qualities affect us. Then, the question arises: How do we develop under the influence of […]
Question: I saw a story on social media about an interview with an Indian billionaire. Once someone asked Ratan Tata Sir in a telephonic interview. “When did you feel the happiest in your life?” Ratan Tata Sir gave a thoughtful reply to the question., “I have encountered happiness in four situations in my life. First, […]
Comment: In H.G. Wells’ novel The Undying Fire, written in 1919, there is a dialogue with the Creator, with God. The writer seems to have read Baal HaSulam. They seem the same: “The world is at an impasse. Crisis.” My Response: Science fiction writers are special people, and they anticipate a lot of things. Look […]
Question: A master was teaching his student archery. The student took a bow, two arrows and prepared to shoot. Suddenly the master approached, took the second arrow from him, and threw it aside. “Why did you take the second arrow from me?”, the student asked. “I didn’t take the second arrow from you, but the […]
Question: What influences your opinion at certain periods of time? Students? Events? What makes you start saying certain things? Answer: My opinion about the world, about its governance, about the system of governance does not change. When this entire huge system, the upper world, and then our world change in their interaction, then I can […]
There are people in our world who understand that they can be confused by anything, but the main thing for them is to attain the upper world. I could be confused too. I remember the states I was in. From all sides I was told this and that. But some upper precognition or simply my […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What movies would you like to see made?“ I have not seen a movie like it before. It would be one that leads its viewers to serious inner changes. We would enter the movie as people who think solely about ourselves, who have no single thought about others. Or if we […]
Comment: A dream is in fact a hallucination, and for a certain period of time it is very realistic. My Response: I believe that it is not worth talking about this topic because a person who is not engaged in Kabbalah will not receive any correct information from it. How can you talk to a […]
Question: Do you see the same picture of the world that I see? Answer: No. I see the world in a completely different way—completely interconnected. In this rigid structure, there is a clear connection between me, you, and everyone else, like tubes that connect us together into one single system. Like balls and tubes between […]
Comment: There are people in our groups who have some positions in the world, but they do not want to reveal themselves because there is a certain image that they do not want to put on themselves. Sometimes I am ashamed of what they do. My Response: I am absolutely not ashamed because there is […]
At present, the preparation of all mankind for the final correction of all religions is taking place. Islam is the right line, Christianity is the left line, and Judaism is the middle line. In accordance with this, they make up their calendars. Islam has a lunar calendar, Christianity has a solar calendar, and the Jews […]
Question: You say that intelligence comes from actions. How important are actions? Answer: How can you do without actions? On the basis of what would you gain intelligence? I keep performing actions like a child who does not understand anything. After all, you cannot jump to the mind right away. There is a desire called […]
Question: Why are the three religions Christianity, Islam, and Judaism considered the main ones? Answer: Because they symbolize the three lines. All other beliefs accompany them and are included in them. They clearly do not come from the state where the soul was whole and then shattered into pieces. I do not even want to […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the future of money?“ Today, we need money to feel secure, and in principle, money acts as a connector: I give you money, you give me money, and we each earn from each other and win over one another at each other’s expense. It is a copy of our […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How would one go about studying the works of Isaac Luria?“ Like Moses brought us the Torah, the Ari brought us the wisdom of Kabbalah. The Torah and Kabbalah both discuss the revelation of the Creator—the quality of love and bestowal—to the created beings. At Moses’ time, the revelation was through […]
Question: You say that we should not feel sorry for a person when he receives blows; otherwise, he will not overcome them. How can we find the line between feeling sorry for him and pulling him out of the descent? Answer: You can pull a person out of a descent, but very carefully so as […]
All laws of Judaism come from Kabbalah, which has fallen into our world and somehow left its imprint in it especially in terms of social mutual support. In any country, anyone can be a street child, except for Jewish children. There is no such thing! The people are educated to take care of children so […]
Question: When a person feels suffering, discomfort, and pressure on himself, how can he change it? Answer: Only if he joins the right society; there is no other way out. Therefore, education should take place under the influence of the surrounding society. Question: And if he is already in such a society? Answer: If he […]
Question: Why hasn’t there been a deterioration of the traditions Kabbalists introduced many years ago? Answer: Because they are all based on the laws strictly prescribed in the Tanakh (Torah, Prophets, Scriptures), Talmud, and Mishnah. They were composed by people who were in clear attainment of the upper force, the upper world. Therefore, what is written […]
Question: One of your videos talked about the road to heaven lies through hell. Michael asks: “Does one not become cruel after going through hell?” Answer: If a person goes through very serious trials, I would even say oppression, of course, it could make him cruel sometimes. But I have met people who, after suffering […]
Question: Suppose you have an opponent who has certain qualities that you do not like. But when he becomes your ally, then, on the contrary, you start to appreciate his qualities. Is this acquiring the desires of others? Answer: Of course. If you turn any person into someone close to you, then everything he has […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do so many married people today have lovers on the side?“ Due to the growth of the human ego, today we live quite a long time. In the past, people lived 30 to 40 years, and even earlier, people died at the ages of 20 to 25. Our life span […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 19, “Concerning Joy” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction” Video: […]
It is through the shattering and its correction that we acquire the properties and mind of the Creator. Therefore, it is clear that the shattering must be revealed; otherwise, we will not be able to connect above it and reveal the Creator. But why is shattering manifested in such extreme forms nowadays? The fact is […]
Comment: You said that Rabbi Shimon and his disciples, who wrote The Book of Zohar, were together by force. My Response: When the students of Rashbi wrote The Book of Zohar, they felt hatred growing between them and built a bridge of love over it. As it is said: “Love will cover all crimes.” Because […]
Question: Why is pork considered forbidden meat for Jews and Muslims? Answer: A pig is no worse than any other animal; it just has a cloven hoof. What are the signs of animals being kosher? The fact that the animal has a Parsa, a division on the hoof. In spirituality Parsa means division between the […]
We have gone through the stages of evolution from inanimate, vegetative, and animate, and after the animate, from monkeys, we physically turned into what we call people. And now we must turn into people on another level, the spiritual level, because man (Adam) comes from the word “adomeh” – similar to nature, i.e., a huge […]
Question: If punishments are forbidden in Judaism, then how can it be avoided that a person might abuse the fact that he will not be punished? Answer: In Judaism, the most terrible punishment has always been public opinion, censure, excommunication from society, and expulsion from it. Children were specially brought up in love and respect […]
I hope that we will be able to tell everyone in the world about what they must do to make them feel good, and in such a way that they will not immediately reject it, but will try to understand, learn, and hear. If this happens, then it will be good, and we will smoothly […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can you motivate a team?“ The most effective team motivation is unity, when the team members each primarily value and consistently raise the importance of their unification up to a point where they have no need to even communicate verbally anymore. Based on KabTV’s “Management Skills” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael […]
And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what […]
Comment: You are talking about integrality, the global nature of the world, but you do not clarify when you are asked: “What solution can we give to the world?” My Response: You do not understand this, not because I leave my message unfinished, but because your mind is not yet working to the full depth […]
Question: Is there any symbolism in the fact that we have been surrounded by pets throughout time? Answer: Pets are an addition to man, an addition to his own nature. In general, the entire inanimate, plant, and animal world, everything that exists around us, except for man, is, as it were, different forms that have […]
Comment: You say that miracles do not exist. But some things are perceived as miracles at our level of understanding. My Response: Of course, I understand that. If I give a musical toy to a child and the toy suddenly starts playing, it is a miracle to him. Suddenly, a little box starts making a […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What is ‘Modeh Ani’ in Hebrew?” Modeh Ani is a short prayer, which is recited daily upon waking up in the morning. In this prayer, one thanks the Creator just as he opens his eyes by saying, “I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You […]
All bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its kingdoms, are not equal to the lowest mind; for it knows all these and itself; and these bodies do not know anything. All bodies together, and all minds together, and all their products, are not equal to the least feeling of love. This is of […]
Question: You told us that once when you and Rabash were driving somewhere, your car suddenly stalled. Then Rabash read TES and the car started. This, in principle, is perceived as a miracle. Did the Kabbalist somehow influence this? Answer: Yes he did. So what? He could in a particular form influence the engine, but […]
Question: Does it harm a person to be changed, for example, from left-handed to a right-handed? Answer: Of course, any intrusion in the natural inclinations of a person is harmful. We must give a person the right to freely develop his or her qualities and based on them participate in the general correction of all […]
Comment: This is story from the Internet. One evening, Winston Churchill and his wife decided to take a walk around London. When they were passing through one of the cozy courtyards, a janitor approached them. To the surprise of the Prime Minister, the janitor spoke not to him but to the First Lady. After this […]
Question: How did you manage to diminish your pride in front of others? Answer: This work continues until complete correction. We know that even RASHBI’s disciples, who began to study the upper worlds and write The Book of Zohar from their revelation, initially felt themselves hating each other. That is, it is constant work! Knead […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does spirituality benefit a person?“ When we attain spirituality, we attain eternity and perfection, the purpose of our lives. Reaching such a state requires developing positive human connections. We then discover true equality, security, happiness, confidence and friendship. When we start the spiritual journey, we can find ourselves overcoming problems […]
We must understand that the Creator’s script involves a lot of actors on both the left and right side. And we need to walk along the middle line quietly, calmly, heading for the goal in front of us, and thinking only about it. Therefore, it is not necessary to enter into any discussions and clarifications. […]
Comment: Sometimes you say that after you there will be extensive material in the archive, and then the group can go on by itself. My Response: No, it will not work! It will be the same as all over the world, the same farce. If a certain mass of people from among my students do […]
Question: What discussions did you have with your teacher? Answer: He repeated the same thing a hundred times. It entered me gradually, until eventually at least something got in. Therefore, today I understand why everything is happening in the world, I understand the situation. As long as I live, I want to pass on my […]
Question: Do you think anti-Semitism will change? Answer: No, it will not change until the complete correction of humanity because man’s natural egoistic nature makes him a hater of the Creator. If the point in the heart is present in a person, which is a part of the Creator from above, then he hates this […]
Question: According to Kabbalah should we treat mentally unstable people or is it better to leave them alone? Answer: In general Kabbalah does not have an objective to treat a person. If one wants to study Kabbalah, he has this opportunity. Nowadays the wisdom of Kabbalah is becoming open to all. It does not matter […]
Comment: You say that pride throws a person away from spirituality. Two or three times, he is given a chance, and then he is either discarded or enters. But pride is not under a person’s control. My Response: It means we need to work on it. How it will work out is another matter. When […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the story and lesson of Cain and Abel?“ Cain and Abel are two inner forces. One of them is our egoistic nature, a quality of receiving pleasure for oneself alone. The other is the Creator’s nature, a quality of bestowing pleasure, which descends into us, and which we develop […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why Are People Influenced by Ads” We are influenced by ads because companies study what we would like and create ads that pinpoint our desires, whetting our appetites with the use of various deception and concealment techniques. For instance, if we have an initial desire for an iPhone, […]
Today, scientists say almost the same thing as Kabbalists. Only they don’t have a recipe for how to fix humanity. But the fact that people should become global, integral, interconnected, and to unite according to the challenge of nature scientists are already exploring and revealing. When people begin to see, feel, and understand this, they […]
Question: One student asked his mentor, “Teacher, what would you say if you found out I fell?” “I would say: “Get up!” “And next time?” “Again: “Get up!” “How long can it go on, this constant falling and rising?” “Fall and rise as long as you live! After all, those who fell and did not […]
Comment: Throughout the history of mankind some people have tried to correct others, and there have always been penal colonies and prisons. My Response: Prison is an invention of Pharaoh. We know from the Torah how Pharaoh threw Joseph into prison where he sat together with the cupbearer’s minister. Judaism does not follow this because […]
In Judaism, there are certain laws regarding kosher plants. For the first three years, you have no right to eat fruit from a newly planted tree. After that, you must separate a special part from them, such as the tenth, which a person separates from his earnings because the tithe (maaser) symbolizes the tenth part […]
Comment: You said that when a person feels pain, he is deliberately hidden from the Creator so that he does not harm himself. My Response: If a person feels pain, it means that he is opposite from the Creator, nature, the quality of bestowal. Then, in order not to harm his attitude to the general […]
Question: What kind of movie would you like to make, one that would really work? What should it lead to? Answer: I have not seen a movie like that, that would change people and lead them to some serious internal changes. Question: But would you like for such a movie to exist? Answer: Of course! […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What comes before thought?“ The foundation for everything, the only matter that was created, is desire. Desire is thus primary, and thought is an upshot of the desire. However, in order to obtain what we desire, the mind develops alongside the desire, in correspondence with it. No matter how much we […]
All the laws of Judaism are based on corrections that occur in the soul because there are 613 desires in the soul that we must correct to altruistic ones, to love one’s neighbor. In our world, there are 613 actions called Mitzvot that you can perform automatically, without any intentions. But at the same time […]
Question: If the Creator completely governs everything and a person supposedly has freewill, then why does He lead us through violence and suffering? Answer: The Creator governs us by the laws of nature. The Creator is the general force of nature in which two forces emanating from Him are opposed: bestowal and reception. A person […]
Question: How do I stick to the feeling that everything I do not like about other people is actually positive? Answer: Only through your inner correction. This must be corrected internally. There is no other way. You cannot destroy qualities you do not like. Of course you can force people not to use them, to […]
Question: All professions have developed out of egoism; everyone earns from others. You offer a different way. What will humanity look like on a different plane? Answer: The fact is that eventually humanity will join us, and will want to learn and understand a little. We will organize an educational network: a virtual, global, world […]
Question: Two personal companions have been with us since ancient times: the cat and the dog. By their nature they cannot get along with each other, but living next to a person they do get along. What do they represent? Answer: I think that the dog belongs more to the right line, although in principle […]
Question: From a letter: “In Tarkovsky’s film The Sacrifice, there is a nuclear war. The main character, in order to save his family and the whole world, as if agrees to make a deal with the Creator. He makes a sacrifice: he burns down his beautiful house, renounces his family, refuses to communicate with people, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some lesser known facts about Alfred Nobel?“ After Alfred Nobel’s passing in San Remo on December 10, 1896, the unexpected establishment of a special peace prize under his name sparked immense interest. Alfred Nobel rewrote his will to donate more than 90 percent of his life earnings to create […]
Question: When in history did the persecution of Jews begin? Answer: Antagonism began when the Jews themselves fell from their spiritual level. By this, they caused their persecution. When the Jews are on a spiritual level, they are not even noticed or touched, or the opposite, they are approved, praised, and willing to learn from […]
In order to tease a person and lead him to read the authentic sources and understand why he needs it, I write my books about what Kabbalah offers us. But after that, a person has to read texts that give him or her the right direction, although this is also found in my books. Then […]
Question: Why is there such a phenomenon as right-handed and left-handed? Is there any explanation for this? Answer: Of course, everything has its own explanation, although we see some things in nature, and some things we don’t. The fact is that in our spiritual image, from where all the threads descend to our world and […]
Comment: In the past, people often adopted another religion, and this was considered normal. My Response: Because religions were decisive for man. This is all that humanity had. Comment: But in fact, the person did not change, just the name of the faith changed. My Response: No, at that time it was really believed that […]
I want the ideas of Kabbalah to become the property of the masses. These are not my ideas; they are taken from nature. Kabbalists, as scientists, reveal all kinds of relationships and offer humanity a way to get acquainted with them. If you get acquainted in advance, it will be easier. If you don’t get […]
Question: How can we follow the normal path of development? What is a person’s choice? Answer: A person’s choice is only to unite over all the forces that oppose this. There are two forces that affect us. We are given a left, evil, egoistic force, rejection from each other, and using each other. And we […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the basis of anti-Semitism?“ The basis of anti-Semitism is the Jewish people having yet to realize their true identity and role in humanity: that by uniting above their differences, they become a conduit for unity to spread throughout the world. The Jewish people received their name from attaining a […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 41, “What Should One Do If He Was Born With Bad Qualities?” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal […]
Comment: Usually people envy each other with standard egoistic envy. My Response: What do you want from people?! They need to be educated. Today, in the 21st century, they are at the same level of development as 10,000 years ago. At absolutely the same level! Their inner potential, their inner attitude to “I and the […]
Today, society itself is everything; it is becoming self-sufficient. Therefore, the question is how to form this society so as not to let it develop spontaneously. A lot of work has been done for a long time by special services and various organizations that sit in public networks and process an integral virtual community in […]
Comment: You say that the entire world is within a person, but I perceive myself as existing outside of you. My Response: Of course! I perceive you that way too, although I know with certainty that it is all within me. But I address you as someone existing outside of myself. But I have no […]
Question: Why don’t you want to create a more university-like, classical approach to our academy? Answer: Our studies take place through communication, uniting, a person’s experience, formation, and upbringing. A regular university does not educate. It provides education, general information, but not upbringing. We give information that shapes you from the inside. Therefore in the […]
Question: Among your students there is a certain understanding of going out to the masses. Ninety percent of Kabbalistic material is intended for inner development, but many people think that they are engaged in external dissemination. How can you protect yourself from this? Answer: All this will be formed simultaneously. A teacher cannot work without […]
Comment: When a person watches a movie, he becomes permeated with the desire of the main character, he worries, cries, and feels the pain that the character feels. How does this principle work? My Response: This is an attempt to get into a different character, connect with it, imagine yourself in his place, and put […]
Comment: In the current situation in the world, there is more and more depression and stress and people are becoming more and more closed. My Response: People are closed up to a certain point where they can no longer escape anywhere. They are still playing and trying to get away from problems; they are using […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there anything wrong with living for your own pleasure too much?“ We live within laws of nature, which develop us according to a certain plan in order to reach a destination where we will harmoniously connect with each other and discover the positive force of love, giving and connection that […]
Question: Why is it so difficult to feel or acquire other people’s desires? Answer: Because we are the opposite of them! We are egoists! I cannot feel you. I do not see you at all. I see your image the way I want to see it and immediately treat you that way because I perceive […]
Question: Kabbalah offers humanity to get rid of suffering by rising above egoism and ceasing to earn money for others. Does it mean that people will deprive themselves of the pleasure of receiving money, but will get rid of suffering? Answer: People need money in order to feel secure in their lives, while it is […]
Question: Given that Kabbalists cannot influence a person against his will, how do they create a spiritual field? Answer: When they create a field between themselves within this large, still-sick organism that is affected by all sorts of tumors and cancerous elements, an understanding emerges that there is a major positive healthy organ. Other cells […]
Question: Why do I easily accept the desires of advertising, but I cannot feel the inner desires of people? Answer: Because companies study what you would like to have and start creating ads that would exactly fit your desire using a bit of lies and leaving a little something unsaid. Let’s say you have an […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Is the Basis of Antisemitism?” The basis of antisemitism is the Jewish people having yet to realize their true identity and role in humanity: that by uniting above their differences, they become a conduit for unity to spread throughout the world. The Jewish people received their name […]
The three weeks preceding the 9th of Av called the days between the straits have begun. Everything that happens in this world is a consequence of the upper system. Actions and states in the upper world descend from the upper root to the corporeal branch and are embodied in this world in branches: in inanimate […]
Question: You say that it is harmful when a person is praised a lot. How can one find the right measure? Answer: It depends on how one praises and for what. I would like to be praised by everyone because this is an advertisement. Then everyone would listen to what I say. But I don’t […]
Question: The modern Internet is built on several principles: communication, networking, information exchange, and the opportunity to present oneself to others. By creating a new type of reality, are we using the same principles but under a different vector, a different depth, or do we want to offer something cardinally new? Answer: In principle, we […]
Question: There are hypnosis sessions where a person goes into his past lives. What does he feel during that? Answer: I have not done it and I do not know how true it is. But in principle, everything is possible. But I do not believe in such sessions. What past life? Animate? What is in […]
Question: Is there any danger that the backbone of the world group, which is used to certain rules, will not let others in? How difficult would it be for the group to welcome new people? Answer: I see that those people who want to join have the strength, hunger for knowledge, agility, and maturity; they […]
Question: How can couples generate constant flirting? Answer: There is an entire science called the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is the science of how to get pleasure from the same source and at the same time make sure that it is constantly renewed. It is the science of desire that we are trying to master. […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s your opinion of the controversy over proposed judicial reforms in Israel?“ They have ignited significant unrest in Israeli society. Israelis from all walks of life are either denouncing or supporting the reform. Its critics argue that it will destroy Israel’s democracy and make it vulnerable to the whims of politicians. […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it wrong to want to be rich?“ A lot of people think about money in a derogatory way, for instance, as the root of all evil. Others think of money simply as a means: that we work, earn and can then pay for what we need and want. The latter […]
Question: Dale Carnegie, American psychologist, speaker, and writer, wrote books that gave hope to people. Millions of copies of his books How to Win Friends and Influence People, How to Enjoy Your Life and Job, and How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking were sold. Carnegie was called a seller of happiness […]
Question: According to statistics, the Jews have a great predisposition for psychological abnormalities. Why? Answer: Frankly speaking, I do not know of such statistics. Maybe there is some predisposition to this, because on one hand the Jews have a great internal preparation for the perception of spiritual reality, which comes from the fact that it […]
A quick, correct, transition to a new world gives us the opportunity to get out of crises. A crisis is a clash with some obstacle whenever we have to climb to the next degree. The world, like a child who has come to a certain step, must climb it, but cannot since it is too […]
In an integral society, only those signals that support the correct functioning of the entire system will be perceived. Such signals include teaching how to work together correctly and the laws of the common system known to us from Kabbalah. Kabbalah is engaged in the correct organization of the common actions of people so that […]
Question: Does it make sense not to ask the Creator, but just to thank Him? Or is it a plea that is necessary? Answer: Our appeal to the Creator consists of two parts: a plea and gratitude. It is best to start with gratitude because it prepares us for the right relationship with the upper […]
Question: Why when a man and a woman connect, first the so-called spark of love flares up between them, and then gradually fades and turns into cooling or even hatred? Answer: This is a natural process, just like any other. It is like I sit down to eat and eventually I get full, and if […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does nature respond to human actions?“ Think of billions of cars driving with the Mobileye device, which alerts us if we come too close to another object. The system of nature we are in functions similarly: it alerts us when we do certain actions and gives us feedback on them. So […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 30, “What to Look for in the Assembly of Friends” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download Selected Highlights Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | […]
Question (from a letter): Why do you formulate the golden rule in the interpretation of Rabbi Akiva’s “love your neighbor as yourself”? Rabbi Akiva said that all the commandments of the Torah converge to this one, single commandment. But the sage Hillel said that the main commandment is “Do not do to another what you […]
Question: What is the selling point or advantage of spirituality, of raising a person to the next degree? Answer: It depends on which society you turn to because there are several civilizations in our world. The selling proposition can be either equality, security, friendship, or connection. It can be getting rid of depression, environmental problems, […]
Question: Hypnosis is the imposition of one person’s desires on another. If everything is programmed, then why are there such factors in nature when one controls another through hypnosis? Answer: We are all connected together in a common system. But there are people who see more, people who hear more, and those who communicate better […]
Question: Is it possible to go through the entire Kabbalistic methodology according to The Book of Zohar and The Study of the Ten Sefirot? Answer: Of course not! Even if Shamati, Baal HaSulam’s letters, and Rabash’s articles are included, it is still impossible; a teacher is needed for this. And those who do not have […]
Question: According to Kabbalah, collective thought is very effective. For example, if we have some important meeting related to dissemination, we ask everyone to think about it. What is happening at this time? Answer: There are not some secret or mystical forces that begin to work, but desires that are connected together because our thoughts […]
Question: When a person goes against his will by force, does it mean that he is doing some spiritual work? And if he does what he likes according to his desire, then does he not advance at all? Answer: Why should he do something against his will? No. Perhaps there are such moments, but in […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does it feel so good to buy things?“ It feels good to buy things because it fills our ego. We are made of egoistic desires to enjoy through acquiring, buying and receiving, and when we bring desirable things closer to ourselves in such ways, our egos enjoy for short periods […]
When I started studying Kabbalah, there were no sources where the inner work of a person was described; they were all hidden. Even my teacher Rabash kept all this in his archive. And just because I studied with him, was his assistant, secretary, and student, I took the whole archive and started publishing it. Otherwise […]
Comment: When you describe incorporation into other people’s desires, everyone always imagines that you gave something to someone: either you brought a cup of coffee to a friend or something like that. My Response: No, a Kabbalist does not work at this level. Illusionists can work at this level—to guess a person’s desires and thus […]
There are materials in Kabbalah that prepare a person to correctly relate to the text and materials of the text itself. Kabbalists write both for us. In addition, there are texts that they write for themselves, which are called “bird” language. These are letters, symbols, and incomprehensible squiggles. Baal HaSulam has texts that we do […]
Question: How should a person properly adjust himself in thought? Answer: Our job is to combine all our desires into one single desire, all thoughts into one single thought. Apart from desire and thought, heart and mind, there is nothing else in a person. It is necessary that all hearts and all intentions come together. […]
Comment: You once said that praising someone for the work he has done in spiritual development is bad for a person because he advances not on his fuel but on the fuel of others. My Response: It depends on what he is praised for and how. But it really can stop a person. There is […]
Comment: It is said that you can go mad from Kabbalah. My Response: Kabbalah introduces you to the general hologram of the universe, and you see an absolutely correct, real picture, and everyone in it from the outside: how small and flawed they are, that they are perceiving everything somewhat distorted, like little children. But […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where has the world come to?“ There is a higher force in nature that controls the reality we live in, and no matter what efforts we make, we can do nothing outside of this force’s plan and control. We should thus try to understand the destination to which this force advances […]
Question: There is a very short prayer called Modeh Ani, which is a morning prayer in which a person thanks the Creator. Before getting out of bed, just as he opens his eyes, he says this prayer: “I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; […]
Question: What is hypnosis in spirituality? Answer: I do not know. In spirituality, there is a state when a person goes by faith above reason. Maybe it can be called some kind of hypnosis? That is, it is a state of complete and explicit wakefulness. In spirituality, sleep is a certain disconnection from the real […]
Question: Why is the first reaction of a person under stress to get drunk or take some kind of sedative? Is there any substitute for this? Answer: The best substitute is not to be alone with the cause of the stress, to break away from it. This happens if I am in a group that […]
Question: Very often we associate a person’s appearance with some way. Let’s say I have a friend who looks and thinks a certain way, and all of a sudden he goes crazy. But, in principle, outwardly it looks as usual, but it is not at all adequate. What’s going on with him? Very often we […]
Comment: You often say that if we do not come to correction in this incarnation, then we will continue in the next one. It sounds scary because until you come to some kind of awareness, you have to start this process over again. My Response: This is a good incentive to study. Later on the […]
Antisemitism will disappear only after the final correction that should happen in the world. But it is still more useful for the peoples of the world to follow their natural impulses as little as possible, which will eventually turn against them anyway. In the future, we are to see that everything they have done against […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the main existential threat to Israel?“ The people of Israel can exist if they unite or at least have an inclination to unite, i.e., that they have a certain plan of how to realize their unity in the future. If there is no motion at all toward unity, then […]
Comment: There is a parable about a young man who came to the sage with a request to accept him as a student. “Do you know how to lie?” The sage asked. “Of course not,” the student replied. “And do you know who to steal?” – “No.” “And to kill?” – “No.” “So go and […]
Question: Is there such a concept as lovers in the spiritual world? For some reason, many married people, especially now, in addition to the family, have a lover or mistress. Answer: Nowadays, due to the growth of egoism, a person lives quite a long time. Previously, people lived 30 to 40 years. And even earlier, […]
Question: You understand the nature of a person you need to explain everything to 20,000 times before he understands something. How do you develop patience? After all, you have always been a very impatient person. Answer: No, I am always patient with Kabbalistic explanations. As for our production and dissemination, even today I am ready […]
Man has existed for many millennia, but his apparent spiritual transformation began when he began to comprehend his existence above the animal. This is not due to the formation of human society, which was created about 50,000 years ago, but precisely due to the fact that man began to rise above his social condition to […]
Question: You say we can allow the light to work on us. What does it mean to “allow it to work”? What is this annulment of oneself? Answer: We must be similar to the light within our framework, then we can play with it and it can play with us. Within our framework means creating […]
It is said that a person asks the Creator to give him the desire to bestow as a gift because it is a vessel in which one can reveal and feel the Creator. After all, the desire to bestow works on the same wave as the Creator. It is like we are turning the knob […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the best feeling in the world 🌍?“ There is no better feeling than the discovery of all people in the world as parts of our soul, with the positive force of nature dwelling between us. When we reach such a sensation, we feel in our mutual connection that we include […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 34, “What Are Day and Night in the Work?” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to […]
Question: How do you see the movement of the spiritual force? Answer: Inside myself! All desires, the entire world exists inside me. I understand that this world is also inside me. Everything around is in me, in my consciousness, in my desire. I can feel it. This entire world, this entire universe, the people I […]
Question: What is faith above reason? Answer: Faith above reason is faith in spite of reason, in spite of today’s degree. If I move from degree to degree, then at the degree where I am now, I have reason. In order to rise to the next degree, I accept the reason of the next degree […]
Question: Besides the fact that the teacher gives some knowledge to a student, is it part of his function to stir him up, that is, to create difficulties for the student so that he overcomes himself? Answer: No. This is already individual work of a person. I practically do not do this. My function in […]
We must make efforts to create an environment where each and everyone could understand the general methodology, the general system, and the general structure of the world. Then a person slowly begins to develop. At one time I was a very technical person. To this day I do not like watching feature films. According to […]
Question: Mark Twain said: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” Don’t we ever see that this is all as though […]
Question: You currently spend a lot of time explaining the principles of Kabbalah in an easy way. Rabash did not need to descend to the level of other people, he just talked and that is it. How different was the language of his explanations from the one you are using for us now? Answer: You […]
Question: You say that it is important for a person to correctly adjust himself before going to bed. Does it mean that sleep can also be used as a part of the methodology? Answer: Sleep is disconnection of our animalistic body from the inner, spiritual body, which without external corporeal disturbances connects to a huge […]
Question: You work with your desires. What exactly do you do? Answer: There are desires inside me that seem alien to me. As far as I can draw desires that exist in my imagination outside of me to myself, make them my own so that they are like myself, to this extent I move forward. […]
Question: How is it that a Kabbalist who has many students can so competently and so masterfully introduce everyone to the material? I have heard a person say: “I have met with various people who can manipulate, but a Kabbalist is a person who can manipulate in such a way! And you will also ask […]
Question: You speak about the spiritual world as a world of harmony, and about our world as disharmony. Is there any example from animate or vegetative nature that when looking at it from the outside it is immediately clear that it is a nightmare and needs to be corrected? Answer: We have nothing to correct […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the meaning of the Tefilat HaDerech (Traveler’s Prayer or Wayfarer’s Prayer)?“ The meaning of the Tefilat HaDerech (Traveler’s Prayer or Wayfarer’s Prayer) is that we leave the place where we think we live, to another place and path. We do not know how long we will be on the […]
We are all in a vast ocean filled with the love of the Creator. We only need to open ourselves to feel this love that fills the entire world with its infinite light. Let us make at least a little effort and open our eyes, open all possible passages into our mind and heart. Especially […]
Comment: People who study Kabbalah seem to be playing like they are prophets all the time. My Response: What today is prophetic, tomorrow is reality. After all, we are not predicting thousands of years ahead. We are talking about a crisis, about the fact that we are on the verge of depleting all natural resources, […]
Kabbalistic books consist of two parts. One part directs you to intention: what you should do when reading texts. The second part is the texts themselves when, by reading them, you invite upon yourself the upper light, the hidden force that exists in the world that is called the Creator. Thus, this force of nature […]
Comment: Very often people do not want to listen to Kabbalah students, who it would seem have answers to everything. My Response: Whether we do have all the answers is a question. But if we do, then of course a person does not like to listen to us because allegedly the other is smarter than […]
I remember during our trips how Rabash, sitting next to me in the car, would comment on what he saw on the way. Just like a native of Central Asia rides a donkey and sings about what he sees: “Here is a tree standing next to the road, and here is a village appearing in […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you find a soul mate?“ It depends on you and not on who you find. If you like someone as a person and see that they are serious and responsive, then it all depends on you. Try to treat them as gently as possible, and see if they understand […]
We have a problem establishing contact with the Creator. It is not difficult for us to communicate with each other because we, people, have a common language, and we can speak with one another directly or at least through an interpreter. In this way, we can communicate with each other. In addition, we have common […]
If I were to make a film about the perception of reality, first of all, I would explain about managing our desires. The only thing at a person’s disposal is the opportunity to exit his natural existence where desires control him arbitrarily. Sometimes, on some small level, a person can manage them, for example, he […]
Question: If I perceive the world not within myself, but outside of me, should I try to physically influence it because there are a vast number of actions available? Answer: No. I should only help the world, that is, correct my reflection outside of me. In doing so, I am correcting myself. The thing is, […]
Question: When you work with students, do you invest in those in whom you see potential and do not invest in someone who does not have it at all? Answer: This is not quite true. In no case do I rob anyone, and I do not take away the possibility of realization from anyone. I […]
Comment: In the article “The Rose” in the Introduction of The Book of Zohar, it is said that the rose is a cup of blessing, which indicates the extension of five Hassadim within her five Gevurot, and so on. My Response: When Baal HaSulam writes commentary on this article, he gradually descends from the level […]
Question: Walt Disney, a famous animator, considered his main work not cartoons, but the creation of the city of the future, which he was building in the last years of his life. If you decided to build such a city, what would it be like? Answer: The kingdom of the good king, where the Creator […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is sin in one sentence?“ Sin is to think about yourself all the time, and not about others. Based on KabTV’s “Blitz Of Kabbalah Tips” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 18, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
In the verse, “In the beginning God created,” God, too, elicited thirteen words to surround the Assembly of Israel and to keep her: THE, HEAVEN, AND-THE, EARTH, AND-THE EARTH, WAS, EMPTY, AND-CHAOTIC, AND-THE DARKNESS, OVER, THE FACE, OF THE ABYSS, AND-THE SPIRIT” (Introduction to The Book of Zohar, “The Rose”). Comment: At first glance, these […]
In our time, the countries are all linked in the satisfaction of their needs of life, as individuals were in their families in earlier times. Therefore, we can no longer speak or deal with just conducts that guarantee the well-being of one country or one nation, but only with the well-being of the whole world, […]
Just as a rose among the thorns is tinged with red and white, the Assembly of Israel contains Din [judgment] and Rachamim [mercy]” (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “The Rose”). Judgment, the quality of rigidity in our relationship, is red. But when we remove the judgment in our relationship and treat each other only through […]
Question: A samurai came to a sage and asked him if there really is hell and heaven. “Who are you?,” the sage asked. “A samurai,” the warrior answered. “You’re lying,” said the sage, “You have the face of a beggar.” The samurai drew his sword. The sage said, “That is how the doors of hell […]
Question: Recently, several films have been released about the perception of reality, which seem very close to Kabbalah. People realize that there is another reality, but no one can describe it; they can only fantasize and speculate about it. What is the use of their fantasies if a person does not really see it? Answer: […]
Question: Is there mingling in spirituality like it happens now with people changing families? Answer: There is no mingling. In our world, these are ordinary animal passions. Firstly, people simply have egoistic needs at a higher level and cannot satisfy them in any way, therefore, they calm themselves at the animate level. Secondly, there is […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are we made of?“ Creation consists of two forces: bestowal and reception, plus and minus. These two forces exist in every person. By connecting the adducting and rejecting forces between us, we discover them more powerfully and clearly, and we can then use them and incorporate in them. The force […]
Comment: God made a man out of clay. He made the earth, a home, animals, and birds for man. And he had an unused piece of clay. “What else is there to make?” God asked. “Sculpt me happiness,” the man asked. God did not answer anything, thought about it and put the remaining piece of […]
Comment: When I first came across Kabbalistic videos, you were saying the same things as you do now, but there was some energy behind your words. Then, over time, as I listened to it over and over again, I no longer had the initial trembling. My Response: Your egoism has grown, and therefore you are […]
Comment: When a person begins to study Kabbalah, he enthusiastically takes up dissemination and thinks that this is how it should be. Then he stumbles upon a barrier that breaks him and shows that he needs to be careful not to run to everyone and not “wave the flag.” He begins to realize that the […]
Comment: In ancient times, even during the Roman Empire, Jews were treated with more respect than they are now. My Response: At that time there was a very big difference between other peoples and the Jews. The Jews were on a spiritual level; they attained and felt the Creator, and lived according to the principles […]
Question: You have students who have been studying for more than 15 years. Do you see how they change? Maybe some change and some do not? Answer: No, everybody changes. The fact is that the changes that we have to go through take a very long time. First, they are passed through by a group […]
Comment: In the practice of Kabbalah, at some point a person goes through an interesting turning point where he begins to look at people outside of Kabbalah correctly. He seems to change and does not impose his views and interests on them. My Response: What for? The fact is that each of us must become […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you expect in 100 years based on what we have and are now?“ In 100 years, I hope that we become wiser and have new relations in human society that influence nature’s other levels—the animate, vegetative and still—which would calm down nature’s various influences over us. Many people think […]
Question: What did Rashbi’s students, who wrote The Book of Zohar, want to convey to us? Answer: The authors of The Book of Zohar tell us how our world works, how it receives governance and fulfillment from the upper world, and leads itself to equivalence, to a good connection with it. Question: When someone writes […]
Comment: Baal HaSulam’s book Shamati (I Heard) is written logically, beautifully, and understandable for a person. But this text seems to be encoded because it speaks about something slightly different than what is written in the book. My Response: Yes, but a person can discover this code. It cannot be passed on secretly from one […]
Question: Why is music so much more sufficient than a visual picture? For example, if I do not see a person, but I hear what he is saying, I can understand him. Yet, if I do not hear, but I see that he is waving his arms, then I can only understand certain symbolism. Answer: […]
Comment: You say that the transmission of information through vision is more effective than through hearing. But you cannot visually show spirituality, so you convey this information to us orally, as if you paint it through words. My Response: I transmit information orally and try to evoke adequate sensations in people. Question: I am looking […]
Question: You say that you give us information and the rest is our work. What is the implementation of this information? Answer: You must annul yourself before the teacher as much as possible in order to take his advice and instructions and follow them the way he tells you to in the group and in […]
Comment: You say that it is very important that the method of correction be revealed to the world as widely as possible. My Response: I believe there is no other solution! We must put everyone behind the school desk. Everyone must study! Those who society needs to work should work a little; that is all! […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is suffering and depression a result of bad past life karma?“ In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we discuss Reshimot, which are records of the past or information about past actions that are engraved on our soul. Reshimot pressure us and determine our present and future. However, our behavior can change the […]
Preparation to the Lesson 3 Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download Lesson 3 — “The Prayer of Many” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download Preparation to the Lesson 4 Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download Lesson 4 – “Giving Thanks to the Creator” […]
Preparation to the Lesson 1 Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download Lesson 1 — “Before They Call, I Will Answer” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download Preparation to the Lesson 2 Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download Lesson 2 – “Besides Prayer, There […]
As the form of the covenant was sown in forty-two Zivugim from the seed, the engraved and explicit Name was sown in the forty-two letters of the act of creation (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “The Rose“). Comment: It is not clear how to connect these words. My Response: When a person reads The Book […]
Question: Do you have students who suppress others for themselves, that impose their mentality and their understanding on others. How can we protect people from this virus? Answer: In any environment, in any society, there are such people, and there is no getting away from them. It is necessary to accept them as they are […]
Comment: You say that the world exists not outside of us, but within us. In any case, outside you see the same thing that, let’s say, is shown on the news. My Response: Yes, that is correct because we are still in this world with our animalistic senses. In addition I have another sensation above […]
Comment: At one time, many people from different countries of the world came to Israel: from Morocco, Yemen, Russia, and so on. But those who could not settle here began to leave for America, Germany, and other countries. My Response: That’s right because only a person who initially has some justification for living here can […]
The article, “The Rose” in the Introduction of The Book of Zohar says that a rose has two states: Smallness (Katnut) and Greatness (Gadlut). A state of smallness is the beginning of its creation when it contains only the Sefira Keter. This state is called “a rose among the thorns.” The state of greatness is […]
Comment: Since childhood, I was indifferent to anything that concerned Jews. I never even considered coming to Israel. I traveled to many countries and got certain feelings from them. But in Israel, there is a particular sense of something still not being completed here. My Response: Israelis have their own special little pride, but it […]
Question: Vladimir writes: “My friend, who works in a bank, told me about a global reform. The bank’s managers have replaced all men from the cash desk with women. He said that the bank conducted an analysis of many years of monitoring. It turned out that ten percent of male cashiers, working with money, cannot […]
Question: Previously, people traveled from place to place and the journey took a week, a month, and so on. Now they can be in another place in two hours. If everything in me consists of desires, then what is this desire inside of me called a journey? Answer: The fact is that our desires have […]
Comment: I was talking to a man who uses hallucinogenic drugs. He said that at the time he uses them, he loses his own “I” and can penetrate into other systems, cellular communications, the Internet, and can be a hacker. He has indeed hacked modern servers. My Response: I do not believe it. Maybe he […]
Question: What is the basis for the creation of countries? Why are there a lot of different countries and not one common country? Answer: Everything comes from Ancient Babylon, in particular the settlement of people according to their egoistic qualities. In Ancient Babylon there were 70 spiritual roots of 70 tribes. But they were all […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the difference between the terms ‘god’ and ‘creator’?“ PhD in Philosophy & Kabbalah, Russian Academy of Sciences (Graduated 2005)Thu The words “God” and “Creator” evoke different feelings. Religions, beliefs and people in general more readily relate to the word “God” as a certain power that fills the void around us, […]
It is written that “a cup of blessing must be full,” full of prayer, our hopes, and a burning desire to stand before the Creator. All this preparation in the heart is called a cup of blessing. We ask for a blessing, we ask the Creator to transform our nature, to change our heart, so […]
Comment: Various sciences, for example, physics and geology, have their own canons. But Kabbalah, although it explains a lot, works with a person’s inner states. My Response: Naturally, Kabbalah explains the inner world of a person, in which you do not have such fulcrum as in physics and other natural sciences. Natural sciences are what […]
Question: What makes you strong? How do you transform obstacles by yourself? Answer: I see two sides of the world. One side is our world in the form you see it with the naked eye. This world is against me. After all, if I am the bearer of a Kabbalistic idea, almost everyone in this […]
Question: You often say that in addition to studying texts and practicing Kabbalah, luck is also important. What do you mean by luck? Answer: By luck, I mean that a person should be careful not to miss a single moment in life. Luck is not favoritism. Luck is when I make the most effective use […]
Question: The most powerful thing that a person has is visual perception. But sensual desire, as you say, is many times richer and stronger than visual desire. Is there something similar between spiritual desire and material desire? How can it be described? Answer: How can we depict desires? Only in the form of a vector, […]
Question: Why does each nation have its own function? For example, for many years Germany supplied the whole world with tsars and kings? There have been several empires(French, German, Spanish, British, and Portuguese), which in principle held the whole world in their hands. Answer: We should look for the roots of this phenomenon in ancient […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why did the orchestra stay on the Titanic until the end?“ Various accounts of togetherness and nobility during the time of the Titanic’s sinking show us how crises enable people to support and look out for each other. For instance, while the Titanic was sinking, its orchestra kept playing until the […]
Question: Why did the English language actively spread in the world? Answer: This is a consequence of age-old conquests. At one time, Greeks had the dominant position in the world, then the Spaniards with the Portuguese, then the British. When the British appeared on the historical stage, they had a well-developed fleet, their ships could […]
Question: You have explained for so many years that we should be mutually connected, and only a few hear it. But even those who hear still continue to resist it. Why? Answer: Because we are all egoists. Of course, we do not want this. But what you hear, slowly adapt inside yourself, and agree with, […]
Question: I heard about an experiment that was conducted where people wrote various words on bottles containing water. They froze the bottles of water and examined the structure of the ice crystals that developed under a microscope. These formations were very different from each other. Some were beautiful, and some, on which such words as, […]
Question: Why is there an attitude toward Jews as if they are doing something that annoys the entire world? Having lived in Israel for some time, I see that, in principle, they do not accept each other. It seems to me that nationalism is much stronger here than in other places. Is that what causes […]
Question: You have repeatedly said that you can deceive your ego and somehow learn to use it and that egoism is like a donkey that runs after a carrot. How can you deceive your nature so that it allows you to go the right way? Answer: There is no need to deceive your nature; you […]
Question: Should we give money to children? Answer: Generally, yes. It depends on what it is for, but for sure, we should. On the one hand children should understand the value of money, and on the other hand what can be done with it and how. Question: Did you give money to your children? Answer: […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it possible for a Jew to be an anti-Semite?“ A Jew can be an antisemite because being Jewish is not a nationality. To be a Jew means to be drawn to “love your neighbor as yourself,” i.e., to host an attraction to unity. It is a special kind of perception […]
Question: When you began to study with Rabash, you were still in the ordinary perception of this world. Did it not seem strange to you that he talked about the spiritual world? Answer: Do you think he told me a lot?! Very little! Basically, we talked at my level about the methods of spiritual work, […]
Question: Does jealousy have a root? Where does it come from? Answer: In our world jealousy comes from the egoistic feeling of “I have this, it is mine, and I receive pleasure from this, but no one else does. Do not take my bone, or I will bite you.” But as soon as I become […]
Question: What is the power of thought and how can we use it? From the Kabbalist’s perspective, what should one think about every moment? Answer: The power of thought is very great because with it we can bring big corrections into the universe, into its forces and their interaction with each other. This happens only […]
Question: Why is it harmful to gossip and slander? Answer: There is nothing more harmful to people than bad thoughts, especially words. Their presence, development, influence, and interference is very harmful to the world. The most useful thing is to be silent. Question: You said that sometimes your teacher Rabash spoke to himself and explained […]
Question: Is the ordinary suffering in this world not enough for us, must we add suffering to ourselves by yearning to reach the upper world? Does it mean that by embarking on the spiritual path, a person doubles his sufferings? Answer: Yes, you multiply your suffering in order to traverse this path as soon as […]
Comment: When a person begins to study Kabbalah, he goes through various stages including one when he is fanatical about what he is doing. My Response: He is like a little child because little children are fanatical too. The child gets used to his pacifier, to his chair, to his rag, or toy, and he […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do dogs help autistic children?“ Autistic children tend to withdraw and find it difficult to communicate with people around them. They feel lonely, and dogs are indeed one way to help them. Autistic children often develop special relationships with their dogs, patting, hugging and taking care of them with patience and […]
What is a rose? It is the Assembly of Israel, meaning Malchut (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “The Rose”). A rose is an external equivalence to the assembly of souls, and a more internal quality is the connection of all who wish to come together and direct themselves to the Creator. That is why […]
Question: Why did the Creator create our world, and why does He need us? Answer: The Creator created our world in order to create man. And He created man in order to give him the opportunity to rise to His level. Question: What does it mean to love yourself? Answer: To love yourself means to […]
Question: Do you remember what you were like before you felt a spiritual connection? When you found a teacher, did you also ponder questions about the meaning of life? Answer: I pondered these questions probably from the age of five or six. I was greatly consumed by it. I absolutely did not want to live; […]
Question: How does a person find a soul mate? Answer: It all depends on the person himself and not on who he finds. If you like someone as a person and see that he is serious and responsive, then everything depends on you. Try to treat him as gently as possible, and see if he […]
Question: I have to give the world a method of correction, meaning, spread the knowledge that there is an alternative perception of reality. What will it give them? How does the process of their external correction occur? Answer: By correcting others, I correct myself because they are parts of me. I simply perceive them as […]
Question: The Creator created the creation. How did He plant freewill in us? How can it be activated? Answer: On the combination of two opposite qualities. In our world, there is only one quality—egoism. When an altruistic quality begins to develop in a person and it is opposed to the egoistic one in him, then […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is your view on unemployment due to AI?“ The more AI will develop, the more people will become jobless. It is indeed a major problem, and it will increasingly show us that we do not know what we should do with ourselves. People will go crazy if they have nothing […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 32, “What “Israel Do the Creator’s Will” Means in the Work” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, […]
Rabbi Hizkiya began: “It is written, ‘As a rose among the thorns.’” What is a rose? It is the Assembly of Israel, meaning Malchut. There is a rose, and there is a rose. Just as a rose among the thorns is tinged with red and white, the Assembly of Israel contains Din [judgment] and Rachamim […]
Question: Let’s say a simple rural guy comes to the city. Suddenly due to circumstances, he unexpectedly becomes a star. In a matter of seconds the whole nation finds out about him. He begins to look at people differently and behave differently so that he can be seen from a different side. What is this […]
Comment: If you ask any person to name some recent movie, a blockbuster that offers people a good option for the future, one that is not frightening, but kind, any person will have to think. I think there has not been any movie like that for 30 – 35 years. The entire film industry and […]
Question: Why is my group suffering like I am? Answer: No, you just see it this way in your distorted perception. If your thoughts (from morning to evening in your free time from work where you are free to think and feel, or even at work) were about spirituality, and if you also helped the […]
Comment: In the world there are some people who manipulate others. For example, when a thoughts are introduced to people in order to sell them products, etc. My Response: These are ordinary, usual PR techniques. Comment: Essentially, as long as there is egoism, it will always sell something and buy something. My Response: Yes. As […]
Question: In 1862, during the US Civil War, Richard Gatling invented the Gatling gun, a rapid-fire, multi-barreled weapon. He hoped that the gun would demonstrate the folly of war and discourage large-scale war. He is quoted as saying, “It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine – a gun – which could […]
New Life 295 – One Emotion And One Mind Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz What is the connection between emotion and intellect? We consist of desire and emotion. Desire forces our brains to develop new capacities and to create connections between emotions to serve the emotions. This is especially […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is peace between Israel and Palestinians out of reach?“ Peace between Israel and any other nation depends on the Jewish people being at peace with each other. In the past, Israeli Jews were once united in times of war. Today, even war fails to unite us. There is no need for […]
Question: Many people who have gone through clinical death claim that they experienced vivid sensations of a world that is dominated by one force that radiates goodness, love, and mercy. And at the same time, they felt how every moment of their lives, every action and intention, was recorded with pedantic accuracy. Is there any […]
Just as a rose among the thorns is tinged with red and white, the Assembly of Israel contains Din [judgment] and Rachamim [mercy] (Zohar for All “The Rose,” Item 1). When we talk about the gathering of souls, we mean people who are internally connected to each other, although they are not aware of it. And […]
Comment: The ancient philosophers who studied with Kabbalists took some knowledge from Kabbalah and brought it out. From this, certain philosophies and teachings were born. My Response: Yes, philosophers themselves state it. This was in the time of the prophets 600-700 BC and later. Question: How can we avoid repeating the same movement among your […]
Question: You say that egoism forms a certain body. Then what does altruism form? Answer: Altruism forms the soul, meaning a completely different body, a spiritual one. Altruism is based on the fact that I perceive the feelings and thoughts of others as my own. I operate not with my own desires, but with someone […]
Just as a rose has thirteen petals, the Assembly of Israel consists of thirteen qualities of Rachamim, surrounding it on all sides (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “The Rose”). An assembly of people who want to rise to the Creator in connection with each other reveals such possibilities of connection between them that raise […]
Question: Are there any restrictions in mixing the souls, i.e., in spiritual mixture? We often talk about mutual integration when one person accepts the desires of the other. But on the corporeal level, everything is kind of determined: here I am, here are my wife and children. Answer: This comes from the fact that the […]
Question: Does the Creator have favorites? Answer: Yes, despite the fact that He is great, omnipotent, and objective, the sources say that in different centuries, at different times, He had favorites. Question: How can one become a favorite of the Creator? Answer: Try to be closer to Him. Do what He wants from you, and […]
Question: Let’s say I go out into the world and tell a person certain things. Despite the fact that everything is inside of me, does he nevertheless exist as if in my perception? Is there a line between what I can say and what I cannot? Answer: Yes. You have to treat a person as […]
Question: What is the structure of light like? What is its effect, even if we do not make an analogy of our world? Answer: This is the light of thought, comprehension, illumination, disclosure, and wisdom. New capacities in the senses and in the mind open up in you, and you suddenly begin to expand. It […]
A person should try to see that the Creator addresses him every moment through different forces and different events. In fact, the Creator is always close to a person and working on him. Therefore, if a person does not stop searching and always remembers that everything he feels comes from the Creator and he yearns […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can a dream predict something?“ Dreams are when our brain assorts impressions from our experiences that need a certain sensory and mental rearrangement. I understand that many people delve into interpreting dreams, and use them to predict the future, but I personally hold no such beliefs. I never deal with dreams. […]
Question: There is a story of a watchmaker. His work requires a lot of attention, precise actions. But sometimes, while working, the index finger of his left hand begins to twitch and it is impossible to work in this state. What does he do? He does not massage his finger, does not take pills to […]
In the beginning, God created. “In the beginning” is the key, in which everything is hidden, and this is what closes and opens. (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Lock and Key”) Question: In the article “Lock and Key” the word “In the beginning” (Beresheet) is constantly used. Why is it so important? Answer: […]
Question: There is a certain group of people to whom you can play the balalaika, and they feel it like a slap, and some other more “delicious” things they do not feel at all. Is it good when there is such a mass? Answer: Of course it is good. The mass should not be different. […]
Comment: You said that a Kabbalist after leaving this world still does not lose touch with people. You say that as if you have already experienced disconnection and connection. My Response: There is no need to disconnect from anything. I can see from my degree how I interact with everyone. I do not need to […]
Question: What measure of unity should people achieve? After all there are Kabbalists who study Kabbalah, and there are those not interested in it. How can they unite? Answer: Listen to Kabbalists. Try to see with your mind that there is nothing else in the world. If nature’s net gradually descends upon us, leading to […]
Question: You say that people have to go through several lifetimes to start thinking about its meaning. Are they gradually accumulating this knowledge or are they beginning to feel that it is necessary? Answer: Along with the growth of egoism, people accumulate the ability to understand the world more. That is, the mind develops next […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What makes you hate people’s ego?“ A major problem with today’s world is that everyone blames everyone else. If we, however, view ourselves as living in a completely interconnected and interdependent system, then everyone in that system is to blame: no one is right or wrong. If there is evil in […]
And the earth was empty and chaotic and the darkness over the face of the abyss, and the spirit of Elokim hovered over the face of the waters (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, “The Rose”). The earth was empty and chaotic means that it has not yet begun to absorb into itself the quality of […]
Question: It is generally accepted that everything depends on one’s mood. For example: if I am in a bad mood, I go outside and everyone is bad; if I am in a good mood, everyone around me is blooming and fragrant. But there are various events taking place in the world, upheavals, and revolutions that […]
Question: The nature of man is egoism. But when I read the facts of the deaths on the Titanic, it struck me that the orchestra remained playing until the end. The Titanic was sinking, some people and women and children were put into boats, some people stayed onboard, some panicked, and all the while the […]
Question: There is a Jewish prayer for travelers that is read when moving from city to city, leaving the settlement. May it be Your will, G‑d, our G‑d and the G‑d of our fathers, that You should lead us in peace and direct our steps in peace, and guide us in peace, and support us in […]
Comment: We had a story about an elderly woman whose husband died. They lived a whole life together in perfect harmony. She asked how to accept it because she could not time believe he was no longer there. And you said practically one word that there should be submission. We were flooded with questions. A […]
Question: Scientists have proven that a woman retains information about all the partners that she had in her life and this later manifests in her children. Why does this happen? Why does the information remain although there is just one father? Answer: This is why a woman as belonging only to a certain man is […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What exactly is fascism? What is wrong with it?“ The word “fascio” means linking a bundle together. Fascism is thus a certain unity of people, but a unity with no correction of our egoistic desires. Our every desire is egoistic, i.e., a desire to serve ourselves at the expense of others. […]
Question: There are many interesting terms in the article “Lock and Key” from The Book of Zohar. It turns out that we have a lock, a key, and a gate. How do we work with these terms? Answer: They are in our properties. If we get closer to each other, we will gradually approach the […]
Question: People whose point in their heart has not yet awakened will not enter Kabbalistic groups. How will they understand that there is a good way instead of suffering? Answer: Gradually they will start listening to Kabbalists. They are given this opportunity. We have to give them this opportunity and spread it worldwide. If not, […]
Question: There is a parable about two friends who argued and one slapped the other. The latter wrote in the sand: “Today my very best friend slapped me in the face.” They reached the river. The one who received a slap in the face began to sink, but his friend saved him. And the drowning […]
Question: In his “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Baal HaSulam describes the four stages of development of desire and its final form in our world. He writes that our desire to receive pleasure originates from the four-letter name of the Creator. What are these four letters? Answer: He is talking about the four-stage manifestation […]
Question: Why is Kabbalah particularly relevant today? Answer: Kabbalah is the only source that provides us with an answer to the question of correct existence and the purpose of creation. This path still needs to be revealed. However, in principle, we are already at the beginning of it. [313739] From KabTV’s “Blitz of Kabbalah Tips” […]
Comment: Ruslan asks: “Why do you not say as it is: ‘God’? You say ‘upper force,’ ‘Creator,’ or ‘nature,’ and not as they write everywhere else.” My Response: I do not want to confuse people with what they have already heard before! “God, God!” What is God anyway? Question: But still they say “God,” and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think are the responsibilities of a school principal?“ Other than being well-educated and having experience, a school principal is a person who needs to understand children’s and teenagers’ characters. They need to be special people in that they have patience, an understanding of human nature, and knowledge of […]
Question: Do you have fear that your students will no longer need you like it happened with Rabash’s students at the time? Answer: I don’t know! For now, I do not feel this way. Sometime ago I was told a fortune that I would live for many years. But I heard it by accident from […]
Question: What stimulates science fiction writers who suddenly start writing something that becomes real later? Answer: For example, Rabbi Shimon was a concrete and very great person. But he could not express his thoughts in such a way that others could understand him at least partially. Even if people did not understand, then they could […]
Question: If a person suffers in this life, is it karma for bad actions in a previous life? Answer: Reshimot, memories, records of the past, put pressure on a person and determine his present and future. But a person, by his behavior, can change the influence of these records from the past and make sure […]
Question: In the article “Lock and Key” from the Introduction to The Book of Zohar it is written that countless treasures are hidden in the palaces. What are the palaces inside a person, and what are the treasures? Answer: The palaces of the Creator are Kelim (Vessels), that is, great desires that can be revealed […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can plants really talk to one another?“ A research team from Tel Aviv University recently discovered that plants make sounds. They stated that the plants’ sounds are like clicks with the same intensity as human speech at frequencies above the range of human hearing. Various animals like bats, mice and insects […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Inevitable Clash between Democratic Institutions and Democracy” In light of the growing social and political tensions in Israel, Gadi Taub, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Policy and the Department of Communications at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, as well as a political commentator and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it fair to push your child into activities they don’t want to do?“ A child’s upbringing should take place under the influence of the surrounding society. Parents are a very important aspect of our upbringing, but in principle, in any society children are educated not by their parents, but by […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Is the US Government Seeking to Delegitimize Israel?” About a week ago, it became known that the “Biden administration’s outgoing ambassador to Israel personally signed off on a controversial $1 million grant to a program critics said was meant to delegitimize Israel, according to internal State Department communications.” […]
Question: My question is about the program of egoism. If a person has come to the invention of the bow, then the chariot, and so on, then in principle it is possible to predict the next stages in the development of his egoism. Now we have a lot of different technologies. Are there any other […]
Question: The secret of the universe is that we would acquire the qualities of the Creator. He is pure bestowal without any thought of Himself. What is the secret here? Answer: This is a secret because we do not have the quality of bestowal. Question: But we are talking about it now, so it is […]
Question: Does a person have the freedom to implement the principles of creation? Suppose I know that the principle that the world is one and some other principles. What can I do regarding them? Answer: Nothing, these principles provide you with some understanding of the structure of the world, the creation, in which you exist […]
Comment: It often happens that a person changes his name or surname in the hope of changing his fate. My Response: I do not take it seriously. Perhaps he will start behaving differently, but it is purely psychologically. Comment: However, I noticed a pattern that people with the same names behave the same way as […]
Question: How can I control my reality? Answer: We cannot control our reality directly but only through our actions, through our attitude to others. If we treat others correctly, we will positively change our own data, and then reality will be manifested in us clearly, correctly, and consistently. Question: How do you understand how you […]
Question: The treasures mentioned in the article “Lock and Key” are the pleasures of connection with the Creator for which palaces are necessary, that is, great desires. Why does it turn out that initially we have no desire to reveal these treasures? Answer: We are born in such a way that we do not need […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the greatest quotes about love?“ My teacher, Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag (Rabash), used to say about love that it is like an animal that you have to feed all the time, and then it will grow. Love grows out of mutual concessions. Based on the video “Why Love Is Like […]
The expansion of the light, that is, the pleasure itself, and its departure from our desire make the vessel fit for its task. This means that as long as the vessel has not been separated from its light, it is included in the light and is annulled within it like a candle before a torch… […]
Question: What makes you happy? What would you advise a person in the modern world in order to live happily? Answer: What makes me happy is that I continue to work, teach, and receive feedback from my students. This is the first. What more would I wish for? I wish that there would be a […]
Question: How can one find one’s purpose in this world? Answer: I think that it is not simple at all. The thing is that a person is born in a specific environment that pushes him forward, and he changes under its influence. The purpose of any person is to achieve correction of one’s attitude toward […]
Within those gates there is one lock and one narrow place, in which to insert that key. It is neither inscribed nor apparent, but only according to the inscription of the key, who do not know in the narrow place, but only in that key (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Lock and Key,” Item […]
Question: By changing ourselves, we will change the quality of our perception of things that are happening in the corporeal world, but will we not be able to influence the circumstances themselves and change them? The circumstances will still be repeated, but having changed spiritually, will we stop reacting to them the way we do […]
Question: What causes the transformation of the Kabbalist students into ordinary Hasidim? Is it because of habit? Answer: Yes, habit becomes second nature. A person gets used to it. He has a schedule, he has a group. Everything is organized around him: all problems and all good deeds. Life flows automatically. And this philistinism kills […]
Question: When you answer questions, are you making some kind of correction? Answer: Of course! If a question comes from a clear desire of a person, sits inside him as an urgent need for spiritual advancement, and he raises it to me, and I take this question and begin to process it, to feel it […]
Question: Why do we believe that there are reincarnations of souls? Answer: What does reincarnations mean? We are a single thought, one collective soul. This thought remains. This soul remains. Nothing changes. Only the picture we imagine changes; meaning, we do not exist in the thought itself, but in this picture as an imprint of […]
Question: The article “Lock and Key” of the Introduction of The Book of Zohar is about the key that both opens and closes a lock, i.e., something concealed. What is this quality within a person that opens and closes a lock in this context? Answer: It depends on the qualities of the person who is […]
Comment: Arkady writes: “My parents brought me up very strictly. When they wanted to punish me, they never laid a finger on me, my father just used to come close to me, look at me sternly and say: “Arkady, you are destroying your soul with this.” This made me even more afraid than if I […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you maintain a balance in life?“ The still, vegetative and animate levels of nature are the only ones in a state of balance, because they have no free choice. They make no decisions as to whether they should behave one way or another, but they behave according to their […]
Question: Throughout history, people on different continents, with no connection to each other, invented the same things, for example, bows and arrows, chariots, etc. Is it embedded in the information data of a person? Answer: Of course! It is rooted in egoism. By developing to a certain level, it requires a certain filling and then […]
Question: Why does a person need dreams? Answer: Dreams are in some way an overload of the brain, a sorting out of the impressions experienced by a person that need a certain sensory and mental rearrangement within him. Question: People have even compiled dream books; books that explain dreams and predict the future. You dreamed […]
Question: Many films are being released now that more or less correctly talk about the perception of reality. Does this have something to do with the dissemination of Kabbalah? Answer: This is due to the development of egoism, which is looking for and actually anticipates that its next level goes beyond our dimension. Comment: But […]
Question: The main discoveries in the history of humanity occurred at the time when one of the Kabbalists was appearing in the world. For example, when the Ari appeared, the Renaissance era and the discovery of lands began. During the time of Baal HaSulam there was a very strong development of science and technology. Why […]
Question: You say that the screen balances the opposing forces and wars stop. How does this happen? Answer: The screen is an anti-egoistic force that everyone must cultivate in order to connect with others. In our world, we are only slightly inferior to each other because our egoism feels that it cannot exist without it. […]
Question: You are a person with a certain character. How can you distinguish the spiritual in you and where are just the whims of your corporeal nature? Answer: I think it merges together. Naturally I have a temper, irritability, and nervousness. But outwardly, this imposes only some kind of “interface” on the reaction, which, undoubtedly, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “If your spouse has become too demanding and controlling, what can you do about it?“ Kiss them. It comes from the principle, “love will cover all crimes.” Similar to Eastern martial arts, we need to use our opponent’s strength. Therefore, when your spouse bursts into complaints or throws accusations at you, […]
There are gates that were made for concealing, made to block the lights. They are fifty, carved into four directions, and they became forty-nine gates, since one gate has no side and it is unknown where it is, above or below. For this reason, that gate remained hidden (Introduction of The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Lock […]
Today we are in a state where we need to quickly create our own educational system of reaching out to all people and explaining what kind of world we are in. Because no one can. This is subject only to those people who have an integral sense of the world and the structure of themselves. […]
Question: A Kabbalist perceives much more than an ordinary person in his five material senses. Do you see or feel what others consider miracles? Answer: In our world, I do not see more than everyone else sees. I see sources and connections between things. And, let’s say, I do not see the future more than […]
Question: Do you have a powerful material desire? Answer: No. I have everything I need to exist: food, clothes, and shelter. There are many students around me, so I have everything. Question: What would you like now? What is your main desire? Answer: My main desire at the moment? It is to always be well […]
Question: Why was it you who remained the successor of Rabash’s work? Answer: First, he prepared me for this. During all of the 12 years I was with him, I received sensory and factual information from him. I was preparing for this, writing down everything he said, I was writing and summarizing all his lessons. […]
Question: If you try to intellectually explain to a person that bestowal gives much greater pleasure, will it help him change? Answer: Nothing will help. You can say whatever you want. Beautiful words will not affect our egoistic nature. This is what the Communists wanted to do. They came to the conclusion that no one […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does war exist? Is it something deeply implanted in human nature?“ War exists because the universe is made up of two opposing forces: reception and bestowal. When these forces do not enter into a balance, then they short circuit and try to destroy each other. That mutual effort of each […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 44, “What Is an Optional War, in the Work?-2” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to […]
I am often asked: why does a person need a body, why can he not just live inside thoughts? Indeed, the body belongs to the animalistic degree and we want to rise to the human degree that is similar to the Creator. In that case, of course, we will not need this body. But we […]
Question: My intention to act should come from the desire of others. It happens that the person next to me wants to talk, but I promised another to do important work for him. What should I choose if the people around me have different or even opposite desires? Answer: It depends on specific cases. But, […]
The reason why the will to receive must cascade by the four above-mentioned discernments in ABYA is that there is a great rule concerning the vessels: The expansion of the light and its departure make the vessel fit for its task (Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” item 1). Comment: This means that […]
But in the essay, Beresheet, it was said that that hidden, holy one engraved a carving in his intestines, in Bina (Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Article “Lock and Key”). The Creator is the uppermost degree, Keter, who is concealed from the lower ones because they cannot attain Him. Keter is their last, most […]
Question: What is the most important intention a person should have every day? Answer: To be able to do what I have planned. So that today brings me one step closer to the goal of my life. Question: Do Kabbalists plan such a step every day? Answer: More or less, yes. Question: Why do certain […]
Question: Why is it so difficult to implement some things in the Kabbalistic society? It is easier to do this in an ordinary capitalist society. Answer: On the corporeal level, you have means, a material interest, an interest in receiving. In a Kabbalistic society however, it is a spiritual interest, interest in bestowal: “How to […]
Question: How much effort did you have to make to feel what your teacher was saying? Answer: A lot. Question: You did not always agree with him, did you? Answer: Of course not. Question: Did you fight? Answer: I did not fight against him, although sometimes I had a desire to give him an ultimatum: […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it mean to be truly good?“ We are good when we identify with the interconnected and interdependent system of nature, and that we behave kindly toward the system on its every level: the still, vegetative, animate, and especially toward our fellow human beings. By doing so, we increasingly resemble […]
If you become absorbed in reading the articles of Rabash, it becomes clear that they are all priceless. It is impossible to say that some articles are less important because of their small size. They all strike accurately and right on target. Therefore, every year I appreciate these articles more and more, although from the […]
Rabbi Hiya and Rabbi Yosi (two sages) were walking along the way. When they arrived at a certain field, Rabbi Hiya said to Rabbi Yosi, “Your saying Barah Sheet, which is implied in Beresheet, is so indeed, since the six upper days, which are only VAK de Bina, impart upon the Torah, ZA, and not […]
Rabbi Hiya said to Rabbi Yosi, “Your saying Barah Sheet, which is implied in Beresheet, is so indeed, since the six upper days, which are only VAK de Bina, impart upon the Torah, ZA, and not more” (Zohar for All, “Lock and Key”). Question: “In the beginning (Beresheet)” is how the Torah begins. The sources […]
Question: No one can grasp the nuances of the entire corporeal world, and neither can you. You do not know all aspects of it, do you? Answer: No. Not a single Kabbalist knew them. Question: How can you choose the course of action on the Internet or during dissemination? Answer: This is a consequence of […]
Question: When communicating with people, do you input information into them that will be revealed in them in the future, regardless of their desire? Answer: Yes, we all do it unconsciously, and I do it consciously. And not only me, but all souls, all Kabbalists, who are not manifested in our world now. We are […]
Question: When I was a child from ages six to sixteen, my parents drove me to the stadium to run five kilometers. Every weekend we went to the mountains for a 24 kilometer run. After that, I developed a wild hatred for sports. When you give a child an education that will help him in […]
Question: It is believed that elderly people and children have a lot in common, but they have different levels of consciousness. Elderly people start having memory problems. Children simply do not understand somethings, and some elderly people instantly forget what is happening. Why is it like this? Answer: In both children and adults, this is […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I stop being annoyed by people?“ When we see things in others that annoy us, then we have work to do. What is that work? The flaws that we see in others, we should try to see them in ourselves. That is, the flaws that we see in someone […]
Question: Suppose an intelligence agent enters the environment of the enemy and lives there for a long time. How can he protect himself from the influence of this environment? Is it really possible? Answer: I do not know how the agent protects himself. In Kabbalah, it is very simple. If a person does not want […]
Currently, communication between man and the world and communication between man and man is developing. This is a preparation for a state in which we can really be connected to each other. On one hand technical means of communication are rapidly developing. On the other hand people start asking: “Why do I need that? So […]
Question: You say that your teacher Rabash suffered a lot internally. What caused him these sufferings? Answer: A Kabbalist lives in this world as long as he is needed. It does not depend on him. For example, an ordinary person lives as long as he is destined: 60, 70, 80, 90, even 120 years. And […]
Question: Do people resist the spiritual flow with all their might and create tension in themselves that pushes it away? Answer: They do not create tension. They simply do not retain the spiritual force within themselves. Let’s say I have a green glass bottle. Why is it green? Because this glass traps green rays in […]
Question: What does it mean to feel through the desires of another? Let’s say I want ice cream now. Do you connect to me and feel that I want ice cream? How does this happen? Answer: We are not talking about animalistic desires. I am included in you not at the material level but at […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the most important thing in life?“ This is indeed a question that everyone asks. Our lives are filled with myriad things, and at every moment different things appear more or less important to us. For instance, if we get tired, then it becomes important to rest or to sleep. […]
Now we are still developing in the plane of our world. But gradually we complete this development, even the development of science. It just seems to us that all sorts of nano-technologies or some other things are coming. Gradually everything will fold up. The entire world will fold up. We see that not a single […]
Preparation to the Lesson Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 27, “What Is, “If a Woman Inseminates First, She Delivers a Male Child, in the Work?” Video: Play Now | Download Audio: Play Now | Download 2nd part of the Lesson […]
Question: How should you let a child move into life independently? Answer: This is a problem. Be that as it may, I think you should not try to let him go until he feels that he can go on his own and do something. Question: How can you determine that a child is already independent? […]
Question: There are techniques quite close to Kabbalah that transform a person’s reality and he looks at all things differently. But these people have a big problem: they seem to go against society, believing that they can influence their reality and live in it. How can a person not play Superman too much and not […]
Question: How can a person endure three hours of a lesson chained to one place? Answer: He is constantly in a state of inner work. He is experiencing his life in this! The lesson gives him great fulfillment! Question: Are you talking about a Kabbalist who understands what he is doing? Answer: Even if he […]
Question: How does a Kabbalist act? Does he try to find someone to subjugate to instead of subjugating others? Answer: The Kabbalist is looking for an opportunity to connect with others as much as possible in order to reveal the only, single upper natural force, the basis of all nature, the Creator, in this connection. […]
Medium published my new article “How to Make Sense of a Chaotic World” Almost every person in the western world is connected to sources of information that tell us what is happening in the world and help us make sense of it. Previously, the sources were primarily TV, radio, and newspapers. However, in the age […]
My article in Newsmax: “Cold War in Mideast Means Israel Must Be Cautious, Strong” As the tension between Israel and Iran intensifies, and while Iran has just unveiled its first hypersonic missile, rumors about advancement in the Iranian nuclear program are growing even more distressing. While Israel threatens Iran not to try to attack it, […]
Question: If a modern person with his knowledge and understanding of new technologies were thrown into the last century, then the technology he would see there will seem not serious and would seem ridiculous to him. Does it look like the state of a Kabbalist who knows: “Guys, you play, it is serious, but in […]
Question: One of the biggest celebrations for Jews is the holiday of Shavuot when the people received the Torah at Mount Sinai. In general, it is a great event for the world because it can be said that everything began with this. How do you define this celebration for the world? Answer: For the world […]
What does it mean to move in spirituality? This is when you are both in a state of maximum bestowal to the teacher and you can receive from him, and in a state of maximum bestowal to everyone else and then they connect to you as they involuntarily transmit to you their desires, their inner […]
There are two states in a person: when he resists the spiritual quality and when he agrees to build himself in similarity to the Creator. As long as a person is working in his egoism and suffering does not yet force him to start thinking about the meaning of life, about the meaning of blows: […]
Question: All desires originate in the world of infinity, but they must manifest in our world and come to a final form. What final form should they take? Answer: Whether we want it or not, we will have to develop to the very last, highest degree, and feel the whole universe and the Creator who […]
Comment: Sergey asks: “You keep repeating: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ You keep coming back to this law, saying that it is the most important one. My question is, who is this neighbor who should be loved like oneself? And how can you love a neighbor who has planned and committed many atrocities against you […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a question?“ A question is a desire that needs to be fulfilled. Once a desire arises, we need to fill it with its fulfillment. Where do questions come from? In the wisdom of Kabbalah, we call the place from which questions emerge “Reshimot” (“records”). Reshimot are inner informational data […]
Question: In the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” it is said that the four-letter name of the Creator, in the general aspect, is manifested in the ten Sefirot. How should we understand this? Answer: In principle, these are not four degrees of the descent of the light, that is, the impact from the Creator […]
Thus, the only difference between the upper worlds and this world is that as long as the will to receive incorporated in His abundance has not fully materialized, it is regarded as still being in the spiritual worlds, above this world (Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” #2). Question: Once the desire has […]
Question: If a person feels a certain influence from you, feels your energy, does it affect the hastening of his understanding of spirituality? Answer: It depends only on his work. Question: How was it for you with your teacher? Answer: We were attuned to each other: I to him, and he to me! We worked […]
Question: Why did it happen that, besides you, all other students of Rabash practically study by themselves? Answer: It depends on the structure of the soul, and there is nothing you can do. Comment: But, after all, they are at a certain degree of attainment. My Response: This is their internal data. But that is […]
Question: You have repeatedly explained that dissemination needs to be passed on to the next level. Who decides what step to take? You cannot just spread information into the air. How does the process of further connection happen? You had everything clearly set: your teacher, you, and your students. And your students have such layers, […]
Question: Why did the general system not reward us from birth with an altruistic perception of pleasure? Answer: If we were not in our egoistic perception of pleasure, but in an altruistic perception, then we would have no resistance to it; we would simply exist in it. We would be at the level of angels, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is hidden in The Zohar?“ The Zohar hides nature’s secrets from us in a way where we start understanding that such secrets are unattainable, that nature’s “control room” is hidden from us. Nature controls our every movement, thought and desire. We exist in an incredibly limited range of perception, one […]
Question: What is the process of the lesson that you are giving? Answer: It is a correction. I receive desires from others, and these desires give me the opportunity to attract light. It turns out that I work all of the time with new desires, fulfillments, and saturations. This is how the correction of all […]
Question: According to Kabbalah, spirituality is the opposite of materiality. We are carriers of spiritual energy. How is it that this energy, being the opposite, doesn’t harm a person? Answer: Because our whole world exists only on positive spiritual energy. Only! And it cannot possibly cause someone to feel bad, not even the most ardent […]
Question: Where did the concept of “thought” come from? Answer: This is a consequence of the fact that we are people who have a spark of light in them. An animal does not think about whether it exists or not. It just exists and that is it. There are people who also exist because they […]
Question: Which principles of the universe should we try to fulfill first? Answer: The principles of the universe are not meant to be fulfilled. Principles are laws of the universe: the law of the equivalence of qualities, the law of the general unity of all parts of the world, and so on. They are not […]
In our movement toward the goal of creation, we can choose the best or the worst version of this movement. Either we will drag ourselves in shackles, driven by a whip, or we will go in a compartment carriage, on a good road, looking out the window at a beautiful panorama. That is a big […]
Comment: People are constantly stating that they oppose wars, but somehow wars continue to exist. My Response: How can people fight against wars if they don’t also think that everything caused by egoism, in any case, leads to war? The question arises: is it possible to do this in any other way? It is only […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I know if I’m on the right path?“ You know that you are on the right path in life when you are satisfied with knowing how to act, what to do, that you can see the path ahead, follow it and progress toward the right goal for yourself. Your […]
Question: Nowadays people’s consciousness is beginning to gradually change. How realistic is it that people will soon believe in what Kabbalah says and start to change their actions?
Answer: It depends on the need. We see that today people continue to develop all sorts of technical toys, wage wars, and pull each other off our ball, so to speak. They are still satisfied with that type of life.
They are engaged in something temporary, insignificant, and worthless that harms them and thus further distances them from their true Kabbalistic sources. And it will be harder and harder to come back to them.
One who makes the most of his selfishness toward others can seem to succeed in our world. But in fact it threatens him with a very difficult way back to his true source and very bitter sensations along the path of spiritual correction.
That is the way our world works and there is nothing you can do about it. We are trying to accomplish something by disseminating Kabbalah, but in principle, this is all in the program of the world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Change of consciousness” 4/16/11
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Question: Your students are adult men, but do you still treat them like children?
Answer: Of course! How else?! Regarding me, they are students. In their spiritual development, they are children. It is natural that I feel that way about them. This one is pompous, this one is sullen, this one bullies, and this one is too diligent. This one has dull feelings, this one has a sharp mind, and so on. Everyone has different combinations with internal properties and qualities, but all of them are children.
Question: Regarding your teacher, were you also a child for him?
Answer: Of course! Naturally.
He is above me. He is ahead of me. It all descends down the stream from above from the world of infinity through all Kabbalists to us. Therefore, the world has no choice; today it receives through me. But I, in turn, am a baby in the arms of my teacher.
Comment: All the same, in our world, a small child at some point surpasses his parents and becomes higher in understanding.
My Response: That is right. There is an inverse relationship between light and desire, and therefore we achieve more than they do. But it is because of what we have received from them that we are moving on.
Just like in our world, our children achieve more because we have prepared and given them everything that came before them, and therefore they can take another step.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Kindergarten” 4/24/11
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Question: What is the spiritual meaning of war? Why does war exist?
Answer: It exists because there are two opposing forces in the universe. When these forces cannot be balanced by the screen, they come into a state of a short spiritual circuit and try to destroy each other. This is called war.
In the spiritual world, there is a short electrical circuit, a collision of opposite forces and properties, like in the material world. This gives rise to wars in our world.
Therefore, we need to form a screen between these forces, i.e., some kind of correct connection between people.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is War?” 4/16/11
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Question: Why do a lot of people gather when you give lectures?
Answer: We have reached a state in our corporeal development when people are interested in learning about their future and also their present because they are not satisfied with it.
This is not about me. What am I really saying? I am only saying what Kabbalah says, what is written in my books and on the website.
Comment: But people are not captured by your words, but with an internal contact, as if some kind of energy emanates from you that clings to them.
My Response: This is actually true because along with this, they involuntarily receive a certain inner force that is the light that exists in the words and images I live by. They are subconsciously drawn to them despite the fact that they do not have so-called tools of reception. But on the outside, they are still affected by the surrounding light that attracts them.
Question: Can a person change at all due to the light you give?
Answer: No. He has to work on himself. He must gather a certain range of feelings and perceptions within himself that will eventually create a prerequisite for spiritual sensations. Without this, nothing will work.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Root of Success” 3/6/11
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Comment: There is a principle that a student should be a rag at his teacher’s feet.
My Response: Firstly, that was not said by me. Secondly, it is not a rag, but “ashes at the teacher’s feet,” that is, dust.
I remember meeting in England with a great Sufi of the world, an Iranian, a very wise old man. He told me: “If you want to be my disciple, you must come here and serve me completely. So that you love me as you love yourself.”
This is absolutely true! Sufis have the same system as Kabbalah. In principle, it comes from the same source, from Abraham. Therefore Sufis have been engaged in spiritual things for centuries.
Question: Why does Sufism not provide a method of correction?
Answer: Because it does not have three lines of development.
Sufism cannot develop through egoism since only the right line predominates in it. It seems to exist in the same plane. The left line cannot develop at all and attain the spiritual world even a little because it is a single egoism.
Kabbalah is the middle line, which uses both forces, right and left. Therefore a person can grow. We see what state of continuous inner evolution we are in.
Question: Is there any danger that the Kabbalistic method may descend to the lowest trifles?
Answer: No, the Kabbalistic method does not descend. It becomes common, popular, and universal! It comes out of its hiding place and is revealed to everyone!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Receive from the Teacher” 4/13/11
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Today all sorts of previous passions of humanity seem naive to us. But I don’t see any disregard to history in this since this is a natural development. We will also seem like this to our descendants.
If we talked to ancient Greek scientists now, they would give us some arithmetic laws that children study in the first grades today. And these great scientists would tell us about their discoveries with excitement, with a tremor in their voice.
What can I say here? This is how we develop. Everything is relative. Only the attainment of the upper force is absolute because it is unchangeable, and reaching similarity to it begins to lift a person higher.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Time Travel” 9/29/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where will history lead us?“
First, what is history? History is the evolution of desires.
It starts from the smallest and simplest desires, which every individual has—for food, sex and family—and our desires increase to bigger ones that play out in society, for money, honor, control and knowledge, where we develop socially through communal, urban, state and finally global relations.
We see people’s struggles according to the degree of our desires’ development. First, we fought each other in our various settlements, and later, as small disparate states. We ended up unifying in various alliances so that we could continue sizing up against each other, and this process brought us to what we have today.
And what do we have today?
Today’s level of our desires’ development brings us to the increasing awareness of our global interconnection and interdependence, which shows us the futility of fighting each other.
Let’s say that one country shuts itself off from the world. What would happen then?
We fail to realize the full extent of what such a phenomenon would result in. The world would come to a standstill. It would affect us on multiple levels, from our most basic ability to operate simple tools and appliances, through to the unavailability of certain foods, through to economic difficulties and several other phenomena. In short, the world would shut down.
We are clueless as to how interdependent we truly are and our lives’ fragility. We cannot have a world war today because no country provides solely for itself. There is mutual dependence between countries at the level of mere essentials that we need for our very survival.
Think of human evolution like a building we started constructing many thousands of years ago. On the ground floor, we had our own garden, cellar, and we planted our own produce, i.e., we had the ability to provide ourselves with our daily needs. Today, we live on the twentieth floor of that building, and we cannot live like we once did on that ground floor.
I remember my childhood in the small town of Vitebsk with a population of a quarter of a million people. We had a small plot and a large cellar where we kept potatoes, cabbages, garlic and onions, like everybody else did at that time. We prepared this produce a year in advance so that the family would not starve, and it was the same for most of the population.
Today’s world is completely different. Today, we have major residential areas and cities with populations of over a million people. If the systems that provide for their essentials break down, then we would experience global-scale crises. We do not realize what would happen if a couple of large countries suddenly become dysfunctional.
Therefore, if we are to impact a positive shift to a more harmonious and peaceful world, we need to raise the awareness of our tightening global interdependence, that the billions of us on this small planet are all on the same boat, and accordingly we should start relating to others as to ourselves, or at least, as to members of one global family.
History is leading us to increasingly connect. If we are to realize our increasing connection positively, then we need to learn how our nature works in this process: that we were born into an egoistic nature that wishes to benefit itself at the expense of others and nature, that we can never be truly satisfied while living in such a nature, and moreover, that we increasingly suffer at its helm.
With growing awareness of our nature, we also need to learn how to invert it into a new nature: to realize our increasing interconnection and interdependence harmoniously by changing our nature from egoistic to altruistic. If we adjust our educational, media and social influences to direct us at this change—from egoism to altruism—then we will experience our tightening connection as an immense new form of satisfaction, happiness and confidence that would fill our lives. If not, then we will continue developing through increasing suffering.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is History?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 13, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Will Chips in Our Brain Make Us Healthier or Zombier?”
Last Thursday, Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink announced that it has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct in-human clinical trials. The company is developing a chip that should be implanted in the brain with the intent to help patients with severe paralysis to control external technologies and communicate with their environment by moving cursors and typing with their minds using only brain signals. In addition to helping patients with paralysis, experts believe such implants can help treat blindness and mental illness. Musk even expressed his intent for Neuralink to explore potential applications for healthy people.
Just as Artificial Intelligence has become an integral part of our lives, computer chips implanted in our brains will become increasingly commonplace. We cannot stop scientific development; if something can be done, it will be done. The question is not whether or not to permit the development of brain-chips, but how to avoid their countless harmful uses.
As with every new technology, the first use for brain-implanted chips will be for military purposes: as weapons. The destructive potential of turning such technologies into weapons is enormous. The only way to avoid employing them against humanity is by rising to a higher level of humanism than our current reality of relentless power struggles.
Translating thoughts into cursor movements may seem benign, but there is much more to it. The aspiration to apply the technology on healthy people can potentially give its operators control over people’s minds, turn them into zombies, and activate them according to the operator’s will. This may not seem as devastating as a nuclear weapon, for example, but in the wrong hands, it can be even more injurious.
Worse yet, the harm of nuclear weapons is evident, which deters nations from using it, even as they continue to develop them. Brain implants that control people’s actions, however, are a new kind of weapon, and there is nothing to stop power-hungry rulers and magnates from using it, since there is no fear of the consequences. By the time we know what harm this new menace can inflict, humanity could be in total devastation.
Perhaps the only way to restrain abuse of this new power is to have an open discussion about its potential harms. Awareness may be our only counter measure, our only defense against weaponizing mind-control technologies.
In the end, however, I am a firm believer in the good fate of humanity. Whether we realize in time the detrimental potential of computers that control the mind and avoid more tragedies, or realize that we must restrain ourselves only after we inflict disaster on ourselves, as we did with atom bombs, we will ultimately muster the strength to use technology wisely and in our favor.
Human nature is evil at the core and relentlessly pushes us toward the precipice. However, human beings are also able to draw conclusions and choose their course in life. Today we know that destruction of one is the destruction of the other, that harming others harms the harm-doer. Therefore, I believe that we will finally draw the inevitable conclusion that we cannot work in favor of only one part or faction of humanity, that no one benefits unless everyone benefits.
Once we accept this, as unappealing as it may be to our ego, we will begin to conduct ourselves in ways that benefit humanity. Prosperity is possible only when exploitation and oppression become unacceptable, when we feel, not simply think, but truly feel that technology can be used positively only when it is used for everyone’s sake, and not only for the sake of a powerful few.
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Question: You say that everyone needs to know the principles of the universe. Why? At school, for example, children are taught a variety of subjects. But why would the majority study physics or chemistry, for example, if they will not be useful to them in the future?
Answer: These subjects are necessary for general education. Without them, a person cannot think normally. He has to hear and forget a lot of things in order to form some kind of attitude to the world. Subconsciously it still works inside and correctly adjusts a person to the environment.
For example, I don’t remember anything from school and institute chemistry. But I have some feelings about the chemical approach to the world. This should remain from education.
Comment: But during the school years, the child’s world is built. I remember how we were told about evolution, history, about many things, and then you find out that it’s not like that at all. And it’s like your consciousness is collapsing.
My Response: Nothing is collapsing. Humanity is moving forward in this way. What seemed unshakable yesterday is being tested today, tomorrow it turns out to be a lie, and the day after tomorrow a supposedly new truth appears, which in turn becomes a lie in a couple of days.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Needs Your Principles?” 3/27/11
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Comment: When you studied Kabbalah, you disagreed with your teacher at times.
My Response: I am human. Naturally, I sometimes disagreed with Rabash because my nature did not agree. But above this disagreement, I still had to move forward according to his recommendations.
This means that on the one hand I did not want to follow his advice, and on the other hand I understood that I was obliged to follow it through “I do not want to” because all spiritual, upper nature is revealed contrary to our egoism.
It is said: “I created your desires [your egoism] as help against you.” Against you! It is like having an opponent standing in front of you who shows you how opposed you are to the common nature, to the single force. This is your mirror!
Comment: It turns out that the Creator created ugliness and then He mocks a person.
My Response: No, He shows you your ugliness in the way you treat everyone else.
Comment: But it was He who gave me such qualities.
My Response: Yes, specifically so that you gradually learn to become Him, this upper force.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Method of Realizing Kabbalah” 3/27/11
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Question: Does our consciousness never cling to old information from a past cycle or the past understanding of some things? Or is it deposited in the subconscious?
Answer: I can only say one thing: we are not what we feel, that we are enclosed in a certain physical volume, a biological product.
In fact, we are a thought. Only in relation to us this thought is felt as a kind of formed body, in a certain physical volume, which does not really exist.
Thought draws us a holographic or, one might say, a laser picture of the world. Everything that appears to us is thought, information, which is depicted in us in the form of a picture of the surrounding world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Person’s “I”?” 4/16/11
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Question: What is a book?
Answer: A book in Kabbalah is something that externally looks like a scroll or an image of some letters. This image can be on clay, metal, or any other materials like parchment, papyrus, it doesn’t matter what.
In the inner sense, a book is an adapter, converter, connector, and conductor between us. In each of us, there is an internal system called the soul. Through my external, corporeal system, visual or auditory, I come into contact with some means of connecting me to another system—an external one.
That is, my soul is connected through the book to an external system called the common soul.
This is not just a book, but a complete system made by a certain person or a group of people so that I could connect my soul to the common soul, to the common system of governance. This is not possible without a book.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Book?” 3/13/11
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Question: Why do you simplify Kabbalah? People know that Kabbalists have some paranormal abilities, and this attracts them.
Answer: There are no paranormal phenomena. Why do you always look for some tricks or miracles? None of it exists in nature! We are talking about its laws.
You want to say: “There are some laws of nature that we do not know about. If you show them to us, we will be very surprised.” It is like showing a light bulb to a caveman, he will blow on it thinking it is fire. Or if he sees a self-opening door, he will kneel before it believing the holy spirit opens and closes it.
But these are laws of nature! There is nothing else! There are only things we do not know, which may look like a miracle at first. The iron bird is flying in the air! You can only fall to your knees and pray. But in reality? It is the same for everything!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Miracle” 3/6/11
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The point of freewill in a Kabbalistic group is in the decision to expose yourself to the influence of the environment.
This is the most fundamental thing: me and the group. I must gather this team around me, unite them together in one fist, enter among them, invigorate them so that they act on me and I on them, and we would move toward the highest goal.
Although we do not feel it, let’s all take on this task together: “Yes we do not understand what we are doing. Maybe it is still hidden from us. So we will play at it like children and eventually we will grow up because there is a force in nature that develops us.”
But often this is a “voice of one crying out in the desert” that does not resonate with anyone. Or everyone speaks beautifully and others do not respond. Everyone is shouting, “Let’s do it, let’s do it!” and at the same time they look not at each other, but look in different directions.
Comment: Nonetheless people cannot, for example, stay in a certain surrounding for five years that does not affect them in at least some way.
My Response: They have to support each other!
Changes occur in them everyday. Moreover the changes that are taking place in the world should also push them toward their own changes.
After all, since the moment the science of Kabbalah began to be revealed to the general public, look at the changes that have occurred in the world and also with us! There are already millions of us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Method of Kabbalah Realization” 4/10/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you define spirituality in one sentence? What are some practical examples of it in our daily lives?“
Spirituality is the attainment of the quality of love and bestowal above our self-serving desires.
Until the moment of our first spiritual revelation—where we cross the barrier between our world and the spiritual world and encounter the force of love and bestowal—we have no example of spirituality.
After that revelation, our own experience lets us perceive a new spiritual reality instead of trusting someone else’s words.
Until we reach the adequate spiritual desire, called a spiritual “Kli” (“vessel”), within ourselves and make direct contact with the spiritual force of love and bestowal, we have no examples or proofs of spirituality.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on April 6, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: In the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam writes that the entire will to receive materializes, and this place is called “our world.”
The will to receive itself is called “man’s body” (in Hebrew, Guf), and the “abundance” (Shefa) received by it is called the measure of “vitality in that body.”
My Response: Yes, everything consists of a bigger or a smaller desire, which depends on how it is fulfilled and what it eventually feels. This is life.
Question: What does it mean that desire materializes?
Answer: It feels that it exists and can express itself through other desires and include them in itself. It gives it a sense of existence.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 5/14/23
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Question: Many things are hidden from us, i.e., the potential of man himself, our future, divine governance, the governance of nature, etc. Which concealment is the most important for us?
Answer: The general force of nature, which is called the Creator, is hidden from us. It includes everything and draws everything there is in nature, all parts of it (inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human) to some goal.
We would like to find out where our part is, what our fate is, but unfortunately it is not yet possible to reveal this.
We reveal a little from here, a little from there, but, in principle, the more we do it, the more we realize that something very grandiose, general, and integral is hidden from us, and we ourselves are not in it.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to The Book of Zohar” 5/21/23
Question: Can you give an example of the implementation of one of the universe’s principles, for example, revealing the point of freewill?
Answer: No, the principles themselves do not give us a clear plan for their implementation. Implementation occurs by applying the methodology itself, which gradually explains how to act using these principles in various conditions. There is no such thing as applying one principle without using the others.
It is not that you do not use them, you cannot launch them according to your desire. After all, you are inside nature, and these principles are your shell. You exist within them, and they all affect you.
Just to understand where you are, we are talking about the universe, what this building in which I exist consists of. But I exist inside all of it; there are walls, a ceiling, and a floor, some furnishings, some conditions, and air, absolutely everything. However, I am told bit by bit about where I am because I cannot grasp everything at once. Then, gradually, when I work with these principles, everything will come together in one picture.
When I live just in this world, I generally perceive it with all my senses: smells, sounds, visual images, tactile and taste sensations. All together I perceive it as an image of the present moment. But I can deconstruct it and say: “This device perceives sight, this one hearing, and this one something else.”
Then all this is collected inside me and compared with the pictures that are in my memory archive. And what happens next? How do I understand these images that I perceive now; how do I adapt to and work with them? This is what needs to be explained to the person.
The correct picture of the universe practically leads him to the need to change and become similar to it.
If I am in some kind of environment that is higher than me, this is world structure for me. If I am like it, I will know where I am and how I can interact with this building of the world, and then I will bring myself to a comfortable state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Implementation of Principles” 3/27/11
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Question: Can you understand students who are going through different states?
Answer: Of course I understand my students! Every Kabbalist does.
I remember all my outbursts, ups, downs, and my relationship with the teacher. Nothing new appears in front of me because my students are going through what I once went through. I can only remember myself and see the same in others. Everyone goes through the same states.
Question: Is your perception of the lesson you are giving completely different from that of the student? It may be harder for him to endure these three hours. If you gave lectures once a week, it would be easier than three hours every day.
Answer: As a professor, I can give one lesson a day, and that would be enough for a professorial norm. But I am not a professor, I am a Kabbalist.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call.The Magic of the Kabbalah Lesson” 4/16/11
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The common soul is the only thing that was created in the universe and it has only one quality—the quality of bestowal and love.
To the extent that I can adapt to the common soul by acquiring at least a small quality of bestowal and love, I connect with it and contact is established between us. If I cannot do this, then I feel like all the people in our world that are disconnected from it do not understand what kind of shell they exist within. They do not feel this system.
But this is how it should be at the beginning. For thousands of years we have evolved to come to despair and the feeling that there is nothing in our lives, nothing shines ahead, and daily conditions shake us, threaten us, and demand that we understand the reason for our existence.
Animalistic fear, necessity, and hopelessness lead people to start demanding this contact: where is it, how, what for, why, and what are we doing here?
And then The Book of Zohar comes to meet them; it opens and says: “I am the system. By reading me, by being included in me, you connect to the general spiritual system and finally begin to feel what kind of world you live in. After all, you do not feel the world in which you exist.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Book” 4/4/11
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Question: How can an ordinary person implement the Kabbalistic method by hearing about it?
Answer: The Kabbalistic methodology is understood only by the one who implements it on himself, and in accordance with this, his idea of the world completely changes.
As a result, the method comes down to the fact that I put myself under the influence of the right environment, under the influence of the right, benevolent forces of development, that will force me to change gently, and I try to do everything in my power to change under the influence of the environment.
Let us say there is some kind of shell around me. I am told: “If you jump 100 times, this shell will affect you, and as a result you will receive some changes.” I ask, “Can I jump 100 times?” “Yes, you can be sure of that.” I jump 100 times and still deserve a reward, i.e., I am starting to change. This is how the environment affects me.
Question: But why can’t even those who have been practicing for more than 15 years come to the realization of spiritual principles?
Answer: Because they cannot convince themselves that it is important, and this is their only free action. They do not use their freedom of choice.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Methodology of Kabbalah Realization” 3/27/11
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Kabbalah says that there are strict laws in nature. In addition, there are even higher laws, laws of bestowal, which supplement our laws.
Our world is based on the laws of reception. The whole form and matter of our world is egoistic and constantly manifests its egoism: electrons and atoms attract each other and interact with each other, chemical elements grab and attract each other, vegetative nature accumulates all good and squeezes out all bad, animate nature consumes everything for its own benefit, a person mentally does everything for himself, and so on. We are exploring egoism. This is our earthly science.
There is another nature, bestowal, which is to give to others, to fill them as much as possible. This nature is absolutely opposite to ours; it is the anti-world. And this is what is researched by Kabbalah.
But who can explore the anti-world? A scientist who himself, with his properties, is in it. To the extent that he develops his tools of cognition, he can explore it. Otherwise, the upper world does not exist for him, it is hidden from him.
If you ask me to show you something from the anti-world, I will not be able to do it. How will you discover this “something” if you do not have a single spiritual quality?
If you have it, you will see the upper world because you will already have a new sense, the quality of bestowal, and you just need to be taught how to use it and how to control it.
The most important thing for us is to find this quality, to see it in ourselves, to develop it. We do everything together, although it is very difficult. The main thing is to reach the first degree, and since you do not yet know what it is, it really is revealed as a miracle. As if something is close and understandable and at the same time completely unforeseen and unpredictable, so is the quality of bestowal to all our desires and thoughts.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Miracle” 3/6/11
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Question: How should your students annul themselves before you? What should they do?
Answer: I am not asking them to do anything for me. I really do not like it when people try to serve me, give me something, and so on. That is why I push such people away.
I say only one thing: “If you want to do good to me, you should do good to each other.” Imagine that instead of me there is a group in front of you, and what you would like to do to me, do to them, and even twice as much. That is all.
I am inside the group, I teach, and I am around all the time, but I do not accept such an attitude toward me when someone serves me.
In general, if everyone does it a little bit, it is fine. There are people who go for a walk with me, there are people who bring lunch, and there are people who clean my office. I usually prefer women because this is natural for them and they do not have any other opportunity to help.
The men, my students, help me in preparing materials and presentations, but in no case do they serve.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To receive from the teacher” 4/13/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why we need to work?“
We need to work so that we connect and serve one another, as it is written, “Go and make a living from each other.”
Our lives are arranged such that we are forced to connect to each other: I give to you, and you give to me. For example, I give you shoes, and you give me clothes, and another gives me bread and wine, and I give them one or another thing.
We thus see that, out of a survival necessity, we are made to communicate with each other.
Then, as our desires grow over time, we develop more and more goods and services that increasingly connect us. This process of increasing interconnection and interdependence is a subconscious correction that we undergo.
We need to learn why this process unfolds the way that it does, and where it ultimately leads us. For the time being, we can see that our desires’ development over history, from small individual desires for food, sex and family, through to more and more egoistic desires where we use others to benefit ourselves—social desires for wealth, honor and power—lead us to a state where we find ourselves becoming increasingly dissatisfied.
The human ego that wishes to benefit itself at the expense of others finds more and more sophisticated ways to make shovels for digging its own grave. In other words, our scientific, technological and cultural progress brings us to our inability to satisfy our ego’s growing demands, and we remain empty.
What do we truly want out of this entire process?
Our true desire is to gain a sense of the meaning of life. Although we constantly chase transient pleasures that slip through our fingers, our innermost desire is for an eternal and perfect sensation of life.
We subconsciously forget ourselves in life so as not to think about its end, because it is terrible to consider that we part with everything we did. And we did everything just to maintain our animal bodies. Why do we live like that? What is the point? At least an animal does not ask such questions.
It turns out that our life without an answer about its ultimate meaning is pointless, insignificant and empty, worse than the life of animals. At least animals do not suffer from existential inquiries. And we, in order not to let questions about our lives’ meaning and purpose bother us, constantly try to engage ourselves with all kinds of toys.
There is no happy ending for our egoistic desires, but there is a happy life above the ego. The entire purpose of seeing how our ego leads us to a dead end is in order for us to, through the helplessness of trying to satisfy our egoistic desires, come to feel a stronger and stronger need to discover the meaning of life—an eternal and perfect existence.
We will then become ready to shift our egoistic approach of trying to satisfy our desires at others’ expense, to a new approach: Instead of working primarily for the sake of self-benefit, we would work first and foremost to benefit others.
Shifting the place where we feel pleasure—from inside to outside ourselves—is the key to discovering the meaning of life: a new perception that is completely connected with the surrounding reality, where fulfillment expands eternally, and where we sense perfection and wholeness.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Work?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 6, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: How do you define talent? Answer: Talent is a special ability for a certain kind of creativity. Question: Do you think all people have talent? Answer: No, not everyone. Question: Does one need talent to study Kabbalah? Answer: We need a special type of soul. Those who have it, feel the desire for this […]
Question: What do children and elderly people have in common? After all, at some point in their lives, they become exactly the same. Answer: Children and the elderly feel the simplest common values of this world. The main thing is that the body is comfortable, and everything else is the meaning of a small life. […]
Question: Did you say that one can receive from the teacher by bestowing to him? Answer: You are obliged to. You can receive when you connect with the teacher; otherwise, you will have no place to receive. But it is possible to connect with him only to the extent of the equivalence of qualities. You […]
Comment: We are used to the expression “reading someone’s thoughts.” You replace it with the words “know the roots of movement.” Answer: Why should I read a person’s thoughts?! Do I not understand what kind of device it is? A small biological device that is engaged only in maintaining itself in the most convenient form. […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “US Lawmakers Highlight Discord between America and Israel”
Several events that have taken place over the past week highlight where the United States and Israel do not see eye to eye. One such event is the White House’s first-ever national strategy to combat antisemitism. To Israel’s surprise, the Biden administration avoided a clear endorsement of the mainstream, widely accepted definition of antisemitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), after progressive entities (including several Jewish organizations) argued that the IHRA definition does not allow for what they describe as “legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies.” Progressive groups also urged the Biden administration to leave out a definition of antisemitism entirely or consider alternative definitions.
Moreover, among the creators of the document, titled “The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism,” the White House included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a partner in building “cross-community solidarity” to combat antisemitism. This is disconcerting since the FBI has concluded long ago that leaders of CAIR are linked to the designated anti-Israel terrorist organization Hamas.
Another issue that has been on the table between Washington and Jerusalem for quite some time is the inclusion of Israel in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The program enables most citizens or nationals of participating countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. Recently, 16 senators, led by Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas urging the Administration not to include Israel in the VMP until Israel meets certain conditions of reciprocity that they believe are necessary for inclusion in the program.
The letter completely ignores Israel’s complex security issues with the Palestinians and demands that all American citizens of Palestinian origin will be given a free pass into Israel and will be free to travel within Israel with no questions asked. Even though one of the initiators of the letter, Brian Schatz, and one of the signatories, Bernie Sanders, are Jewish, they show no sympathy for Israel’s position. On the contrary, they are leading the demand for Israel to act against its own security interests.
I am bringing up these two issues not in order to criticize the US for its policy or to rebuke this or that senator for advocating an anti-Israel policy. I am doing this in order to stress the obvious truth that US-Israel interests are becoming increasingly discordant, and that Israel should not expect the US to take Israel’s best interest into consideration.
Also, the fact that one of the initiators of the VMP letter is Jewish, and that one of the signatories is a known Israel-basher Jewish senator, proves that a significant portion of American Jewry has no regard for Israel’s security. The conclusion Israel must therefore draw is that it can no longer rely on American Jewry to support it and work in its favor in the US government. The alliance that Israel has had with the US for decades is clearly weakening, including with American Jewry, and I am not sure how long it will last.
It is time for us, Israelis, to stand up for ourselves. It may be painful, but we must realize that US interests are often different from ours, and often contradictory; we cannot rely on them, and we should not expect America to cater to Israel’s needs. We need to do this for ourselves, and we could not begin too soon.
Question: The world’s population is eight billion now. If previously a person met several hundred people during his life, today it is tens and hundreds of thousands. Does it have something to do with the growth of our desires?
Answer: Of course. The fact that today we meet a lot of people in our lives suggests that our desires have become large and complex. They are differentiated among themselves, added, subtracted, multiplied, and so on.
That is why the corporeal world in our imagination has become so complicated.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 5/14/23
Question: Does it matter which medium a book is written: paper or electronic media?
Answer: No. This is not critical. There are different mediums for different times. An ebook acts in the same way as a regular book.
Question: Why were books previously made on papyrus or animal skins?
Answer: What else could they have been made on? At first, pieces of wood were used, also sand or fired clay tablets were used for writing. They did what they could.
It was necessary to have a material that could be made into some form so that it would be recorded and preserved as a transmitter of information.
Therefore, the carriers were earth, stones, wood, and plant leaves. Then they started making papyrus and turning natural materials into something flatter and more suitable. At first, they wrote on special clay tablets and then animal skins.
People saw that the skin of animals consisted of several layers, and if it was cut lengthwise in thickness, it became thinner. They divided it into two parts and wrote on the inner elastic part since the ink on it did not corrode, did not spread out, and remained for a long time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is a Book” 4/4/11
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Question: Why do you introduce the concept of the principles of the universe? After all, this has never been shared anywhere before.
Answer: The Kabbalists of the past have a description of the principles of the universe, but only in a free presentation as if you were describing our world in a novel as great writers did. Kabbalists were practically philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, and educators, but they presented everything in an artistic form and not in the form of a methodology.
Therefore, in Baal HaSulam’s articles and letters, the principles of the universe are described in an artistic style. We take them and format them in a more concrete form so that it is more clear to a person what is happening to him and around him.
As a rule, these principles are the preface to our articles and outline the method of correction that we are obliged to offer to the world.
In other words, based on the principles of the universe, we describe what the past, present, and future are, and how from this moment onward, we need to behave in order to move forward in a mandatory movement regardless of us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Principles of the Universe” 3/27/11
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Question: How can you talk for three hours during the lesson? Where do you get this resource from, and where does this force within you come from?
Answer: I am experiencing it all inside. I am constantly getting new sensations and new tastes. For example, you are sitting at the table, your appetite is constantly aroused, and you are eating food according to this appetite.
You get saturated and again feel the desire, then saturation and again desire, and so on without end. If it were not for our corporeal organs, it would be endless.
Even the corporeal organs already work differently. During these three hours, I have no other desire. The body works autonomously.
Question: Do you not associate yourself with the body at all during the lesson?
Answer: During the lesson, I practically do not feel my body.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Magic of the Kabbalah Lesson” 4/25/11
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Question: What does the field of your spiritual energy do to a person if he suddenly finds himself in it?
Answer: Nothing. Everyone has their own freewill. Those who are physically next to me can perceive or not perceive, resist, and react in any way they wish.
My spiritual field does not exist physically around me, but it exists in all spaces, and feeling it depends only on the recipient. Whoever reveals it and absorbs it into himself is the recipient of it.
I can live my whole life next to a person who will not receive anything from me in the end because he did not tune in to receive from me, and I did not tune in to give to him. There must be contact.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Energy” 4/21/11
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Question: In addition to the role of a teacher, do you have your own personal spiritual development and certain attainment?
Answer: Yes because now is a period of development of all souls when they should begin to rise.
I am a teacher who, while teaching people, at the same time is very dependent upon them. Therefore, if my students succeed, I have the opportunity to rise, and if not, then I am not allowed to rise higher than I would like.
In principle, it will be so in all future generations because the time of single Kabbalists who soared by themselves to the heights of attainment of the upper world, the Creator, has ended.
I think that starting from this period, from our generation onward, all Kabbalists will work only for the dissemination of Kabbalah and the correction of the world. They will not be able to rise higher than their students and the whole of humanity with whom they must be in contact to teach, help, and pull along.
That is why I feel how dependent I am on my students.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Role of the Kabbalist” 3/6/11
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A book is a system for connecting a private soul to the common soul. That is, to what only exists in nature—to the entire system of the universe, to the entire common creation.
The shattering of the common creation happened on purpose so that we disconnect from it and begin to connect on our own, because in the process of connecting, we begin to adapt ourselves to this common system, the Creator, to correct, and to demand changes.
By going through correction upon ourselves, we begin to understand what kind of system we once existed in, and then we were specifically disconnected from it and thrown out so that by gradually adapting to it, we would not only attain it, but also begin to manage it.
A book is a system of communication that achieves a gradual equilibrium, since communication is manifested in balancing properties. Just as in our world two interlocutors tune in to each other like a transmitter and receiver where there must be identical devices on both sides so that both understand each other, it is the same here: my soul must understand the system of the common soul.
If there are common properties between them, then to that extent I am connected with the common soul, the common creation.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Book?” 3/13/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What came first: science or Kabbalah?“
Science came from Kabbalah, which was discovered by Adam over 5,700 years ago. After Adam, Kabbalists appeared 20 generations before Abraham, i.e., prior to the time of ancient Babylon, and then others appeared after Abraham.
Kabbalah gave us a system. Philosophy emerged from Kabbalah. There are several sources, documents and writings of ancient philosophers as well as those of philosophers and scientists of the Middle Ages, beginning with Plato and Aristotle, and continuing with Newton, Reuchlin, Leibniz and others, who described how early philosophers studied with Kabbalists, from whom they derived their knowledge. They developed that knowledge into philosophies, and those philosophies became the foundations of the sciences.
In those times, we aspired to learn about the general nature that was outside of our perception. In other words, we had a closer connection to nature and were interested in learning about the meaning of our lives.
Today, it might sound unreal that we once inquired into the meaning of our lives, but it is due to our present-day distance from nature, where we fail to perceive what it meant to be much closer to nature in those times. Afterward, humanity evolved in its egoistic desires, through desires for money, honor and control, and we developed a much more pragmatic and technological approach to science. Today, however, after eons of such development, we have reached a position akin to those past researchers of our world; we are returning to that same question about the meaning of our lives.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Science?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 6, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: How can I understand that I am on the correct path?
Answer: When you are satisfied that you know how to act, what to do, can see the path ahead of you, can follow it, and move toward the right goal for yourself, then you are on the correct path.
Question: How does the inner feeling arise that I am going the right way?
Answer: This is the feeling of a person. There is nothing else here. Philosophers, scientists, and all sorts of clever people can convince you otherwise, but it does not mean anything. This is your inner conviction that you are living the right life.
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From Kab TV’s “Talks” 5/18/23
Question: What does The Book of Zohar conceal from us and what can we reveal with it?
Answer: The Book of Zohar conceals the entire universe from us in such a way that we begin to understand how unattainable it really is. We expect this Book to reveal everything to us. It is not intended for revelation, but rather for us to make sure that we are in concealment.
It constantly rules over us and influences us. We are in a very limited range of perception of reality, which presses on us all the time, and we do not understand what is happening to us and to all of nature. This is the concealment.
But there is a possibility of revelation against it. The Book of Zohar tells us how we can gradually come closer to nature and begin to reveal it by discovering behind it its forces, schemes, and all kinds of miraculous phenomena. In this way, we will feel and understand what nature itself is.
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From Kab TV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 5/21/23
Question: Let’s say that I feel a strong pleasure from being respected now. When the Creator will reveal Himself to me, will I then feel something more than just respect coming from people? Answer: Much more. If we know exactly from whom we receive pleasure, what type of pleasure, and so on, then we will […]
Question: How lasting are the principles of the universe? Answer: Those principles are eternal because they are taken not from our world but from understanding the foundations of those forces that descend into our world. Our world is governed by a network of forces. It is, in principle, one force. But in order to bring […]
Question: What is a question? Answer: A question is a desire that needs to be fulfilled. Once a desire appears within you, you must fill it with light. Question: From where does a question arise in a person? He does not generate it by himself. Answer: Questions arise from the Reshimot—internal information data that require […]
Question: Today it is possible to create a single genetic culture, to improve humanity. Would it be good if all people become equally perfect? An ideal poet, an ideal scientist, an ideal politician with an innate ability not to take bribes, not to betray. Will it be possible immediately to build an ideal spiritual society […]
Comment: In 1896, Georges Méliès made the world’s first three-minute horror movie. It was called The House of the Devil. More than 120 years have passed since then, and millions of viewers, and maybe billions, adore horror movies. These movies rise to the top of the highest-grossing movies and bring huge revenues. Scientists believe that […]
Comment: There are methods where people sit for ten days, are silent, and meditate. They think that by doing this they are purified. My Response: Yes, their egoism still enjoys it and sees its fulfillment in it for each egoistic level. Egoism is constantly developing in us; it has its own content, and its own […]
Any Kabbalistic material has a long period of influence because during this time the soul undergoes many changes, only we do not feel it. You start reading, studying, and huge changes immediately take place within you. The greatest ones! But they are inside you, in deep layers, and therefore you do not feel anything. When […]
Question: Are all the variety of objects in the universe (planets, people, and so on) desires? Answer: Absolutely everything! Question: So are all the planets and stars the desire to receive? Answer: No. If I feel something, I feel it in my desires. If I have no desire for a huge number of objects, then […]
Question: What is spirituality? Answer: Spirituality is floating in the quality of bestowal and love. But in the understanding of an ordinary person, spirituality is films, paintings, and music. On the corporeal level, that is what is being called spirituality. Question: But since the sixties of the last century, people have gone on all sorts […]
Question: Do people really have to lose everything in order to start listening to Kabbalists? Is it correct to say that when they lose everything, they will have a completely different approach? Answer: The fact is that on the one hand the world should be thoroughly shaken; on the other hand, we have to tell […]
Question: Let’s talk about the inner voice. A child often speaks aloud to himself. Then it is ends and this inner voice goes inside. Also, a person speaks in an inner voice all the time. Scientists say that the inner voice helps us make decisions, move toward goals, avoid mistakes, and enjoy happy moments in […]
Question: What category of souls should join your students? How sensitive are they, and what will they perceive? Answer: These souls are more sensitive to correction, more realistic, and less amenable to all kinds of conventions. They are much more categorical, more specific than us, because they are much more egoistic. I hope they will […]
Question: Did you love or hate your teacher Rabash, or did you feel both? Answer: I loved and respected him very much. But at the same time, I had periods of frustration sometimes: “Well, where is it, what is it, how is it?” and so on. However, it was not hatred. These were periods of […]
Comment: Vladimir, a scientist, is asking: “Dear Michael Laitman, I have a question about the problem of genetic modification of people. You say that a person must go through the most difficult spiritual changes in himself all his life. And then genetics comes and says: ‘Let us carry out genome corrections, and we will have […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do you have the killer gene inside of you?“ Every person has the inclination to kill because we each contain an entire set of desires, from the best to the worst. If we kill others, whether it is in war or in any other states, we actually kill a part of […]
The above-mentioned will to receive is the whole substance of creation from beginning to end. Thus, all the created beings, all their innumerable instances and conducts that have appeared and will appear, are but measures and various values of the will to receive (Baal HaSulam, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah).
Question: How can we understand that all objects are the will to receive?
Answer: I can feel everything that exists only in my will to receive. That is, initially I should have a desire for something, a feeling that I want to receive a certain fulfillment. When I want it strongly enough, I can start to feel it.
The measure of this feeling that comes from the desire for fulfillment, will determine in me how I experience fulfillment, what I should do with it, and how to feel all this within myself.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 5/14/23
Question: Why is it arranged so that a person has to work to earn his living?
Answer: This was done on purpose so that we could be connected with each other and serve each other. It is said: “Go and make a living from each other.”
Everything is arranged for a forced connection between us: me to you and you to me. I give you shoes, you give me clothes. This one gives bread to me, that one wine, and I give them this and that. This is called “communication by necessity.”
We see how, as egoism grows; we are constantly developing more things to be interconnected. This is a subconscious correction of the world. Everything goes as it goes.
For us, Kabbalists, the main thing is to present people with the knowledge of why all this is spinning and what it leads to. We show them how egoism develops over the course of history and gradually leads us to devastation.
Being a gravedigger to itself, egoism shows us how unable it is to fill us or to give us a sense of the meaning of life, something eternal, perfect. But, in fact, this is exactly what we want.
We subconsciously forget ourselves in life so as not to think about the end, because it is terrible since you part with everything that you did. And you did everything just to maintain your animal body. What for? What is the point? At least an animal doesn’t ask about it.
What are you living for? For children? What are they for? Why do you give birth to them so that they suffer? You give birth for your egoism, it is nice for you. And they are the same.
It turns out that our life without an answer about its higher meaning is not only meaningless, but simply insignificant, worse than that of animals, because at least they do not ask this question. And we, in order not to ask them, fill ourselves with all sorts of toys.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Work?” 3/6/11
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Comment: Gennady writes: “Dear Michael, you say that animals have instincts, but we have feelings. I picked up a puppy that was freezing under the fence. And we have merciless frosts in Arkhangelsk. I brought it home, fed it, and kept it with me. I am not married yet. I am 22 years old, and I am studying and working. Unexpectedly, I found myself in hospital with peritonitis. After the surgery, I could not move. And only on the fourth day did I hear that some mongrel was dying in front of the hospital fence. It was driven away, but it kept coming back; it was given food, but it did not want to eat. I immediately realized that this was my Gosha. I asked to be taken to him. I will never forget this picture: he is lying, he is thin, and there are three plates of food around him. He saw me and started to cry. Honestly, he was crying! And I was also crying. I am writing to you now: they know how to love, Michael! They know how to love! We cannot do what they can!”
My Response: Of course! I agree with him about this. Animals demonstrate such feelings that a man is not able to find in himself, to squeeze out of himself. That is for sure!
Question: Why are we shown that they know how to love, but we do not? Do they have any purity?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Comment: That is why we are so drawn to pets, to their warmth.
My Response: We feel sincerity, and it bribes us. Yes, this is a great power.
Question: And when we understand that we cannot be like that, what does it give us?
Answer: Unfortunately, man is not an animal.
Question: Can we at least approach that kind of love?
Answer: No. Our brains, our feelings, and all sorts of perverted calculations will not allow us.
Comment: The animals do not do any calculations.
My Response: No. You see, this dog would have died there.
Question: Yes, he would have died there, for sure. That is, this is my master and I love him. And that is all. But what will we come to because of our prudent development?
Answer: As a result of our development, we come to the simplest state—love your neighbor as yourself. What else would you call it? And then everything works out well. Because concerning “as yourself” you have an example, and your neighbor is also in front of you.
Question: The only question is how to come to this love your neighbor as yourself?
Answer: This requires a very strong disappointment in one’s nature and envy of those animals that can feel it.
Imagine that dog that was dying because he was not feeling that he was close to his friend, I do not even want to say “owner.” And now, when he came out to meet him, what joy the dog felt!
Comment: This is such happiness!
My Response: Yes. When can a person feel like this at all?
Comment: That is, we feel some fragments of happiness all the time, and this is not even happiness.
My Response: Yes, but it exists in the animal world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/3/23
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Question: Did your teacher in some way develop spiritual sensations in you? Did he apply any pressure; did he stimulate you?
Answer: No way! He was waiting until it would develop within me. Now I am much more active with my students in the sense of advancing them than he was with me some time ago. Not a single Kabbalist allowed himself such a thing.
I put them in various unpleasant states up to the point that they can leave; it doesn’t matter to me. I force them to hate me so much, the state where they exist and everything around them with the single purpose so they would come to some group decision. I go for very painful steps.
Question: But what is good if they hate you? What does it give you and them?
Answer: It shakes them. Drama always begets action, while self-satisfaction, the sensation of pleasantness, puts one to sleep. This is how our world works. We can advance only from negative sensations. Positive sensations do not let us take a step forward, they hold us. As an egoist, who would run away from good?
Question: Does it mean in the end your task is to cause hate in your students and even hate toward you?
Answer: No, I do not want it. However, I see that without it they will fall asleep and therefore I try to do something. My task is such, it is better that I do it rather than the outer world and external circumstances that begin to act upon us in a negative way and advance us with their blows.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Reason of Success” 3/6/11
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Comment: Working in an atmosphere of cynicism and deception sucks energy out of us. The stress level increases. But the most striking thing (this discovery was made by scientists) is that by pushing subordinates to dishonest acts, the employer himself becomes a victim of deception on their part. The one who cheats for you will cheat against you. That is what they say.
If employees realize that the company has no moral guidelines, that it seeks to sell the product by hook or by crook and to squeeze the maximum out of the customer, then sooner or later they will begin to behave in accordance with this false culture. And the conclusion is very interesting: “It is beneficial for a capitalist to be ethical. And ethical business will flourish.”
My Response: As soon as they begin to realize that the company is pushing them to steal from customers, they immediately turn it into stealing from managers. Because it is much easier with managers.
Comment: There are many thefts along the road in many varieties…
My Response: It is known that theft is 70 to 80 to 90%.
Question: Is it because the ones at the top are thieves?
Answer: Yes, and they say: “Steal from others.”
Question: And how do you like this conclusion that business should be ethical, then nobody will steal?
Answer: Yes. If there is such a situation in the enterprise that we do not push to sell, do not deceive, and behave openly with customers, then, of course, employees will have this feeling; this feeling will be transmitted through the sale to customers too. And it will be a completely different atmosphere.
Meaning, this firm will inspire confidence and people will buy from it.
Question: Why do we usualy not reach these states?
Answer: Our egoism is very shallow. It cannot see beyond its nose.
Question: Why is it so stupid?
Answer: It was created this way on purpose. Because it is created in only one quality—in any case, get-get-get. And therefore, it cannot be any other way. Outside of myself, I cannot see for myself. I am blinded.
Comment: That is why over time I slowly start stealing. I am starting beautifully, planning to create an honest business.
My Response: You have no other choice. Egoism has no other way out. It sees no other way. It does not have the opportunity to maneuver between give and take, better or worse, this way, or that way. There is no such thing. To do this, you must already be a person with special inclinations and qualities.
Great crooks are great combinators. And they just know how to maneuver between give and take.
Question: It is said about some people: he is direct, he is so honest. Is this most likely just maneuvering?
Answer: Yes, it is natural. These smart people, businessmen, know how to maneuver.
Question: But still, do you have any golden advice for businessmen and businesses? Is there any advice, after all? Egoism will not hear it, but still is there any advice?
Answer: A person must be an intelligent egoist. He must understand that he is an egoist, and he must rise above his egoism, too.
Question: So, if he is a smart egoist, will he try to treat customers honestly?
Answer: Yes, he will try to establish friendly relations with customers, and then his business will flourish.
Comment: This is a tip for business prosperity. Such a simple piece of advice that is very difficult to do.
My Response: Try to be direct with them. It may be simple at first, but when you become an owner and so forth, a leader with such huge opportunities, then that is the problem of staying simple.
Capitalists have found a cure for this—competition—inside enterprises, inside all kinds of organizations, and so on, not even outside. And in some ways it saves. But, in general, it is still a problem, because consolidation happens, mergers happens, and again you cheat the buyer.
Question: When will we stop cheating the buyer? When will the buyer be attracted to such entrepreneurs, to such businessmen?
Answer: No, there is no such thing. This is only if we begin to feel that we are deceiving ourselves in all this.
Question: But will this feeling come?
Answer: I do not know. To do this, you need to be a very serious manager, maybe someone who is interested in development, and not dollars. There are such people here and there. And they are doing business.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/3/22
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Question: Did Baal HaSulam feel dependent on his students?
Answer: Baal HaSulam is the greatest soul who absorbed all the previous Kabbalah and explained it for us. This is a special purpose of a special soul.
We can’t look up to him, but not because we don’t have to burst forward, but because we and he are different types of souls. We have to improve, and he has given us a method of correction and is working with us even now.
Twenty generations of Kabbalists from Adam to Abraham, generations from Abraham to Rabbi Shimon, from Rabbi Shimon to the Ari, and from the Ari to Baal HaSulam and Rabash work together with us and bring light to us.
And we are already receiving it and trying to implement it for our correction. We are completely different souls.
Question: Does this not mean that their souls are better and the current ones are worse?
Answer: There are no better and worse souls in any way and in nothing. There is simply a purpose based on the structure of the common soul.
There are souls who rise first. They are called forefathers, fathers, and teachers, and end with Rabash.
From our generation onward, there are souls who realize what we have received from them. Of course, we still continue to develop this technique on ourselves and give out a lot of various sources and styles of information. But in the end, this is the realization of what the previous Kabbalists gave us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Role of the Kabbalist” 3/6/11
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Comment: Today you can interview a famous person who lived in the last century. Specialists are creating bots based on famous historical figures’ character, works, and so on.
In one creation of a Churchill bot, it was asked: “What is the main problem of our time?” He replied: “You know my position, it is fundamental—will we be able to reach complete unity in order to minimize the misfortunes of the world, or will we plunge into empty chatter, dissonance, and discord.”
I somehow did not imagine that Churchill would talk about the unity of the world.
My Response: Everyone understands and has always understood, in general, that this is, of course, the solution to the problem, but it is unattainable! You could ask Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, or whoever you want, and they would answer the same thing.
Any ruler understands that this is the only solution, but it cannot be achieved, and therefore it is necessary to take something else as a basis.
Question: Do you think if a bot of some “hawk,” a militarist, were created that he would have come to this?
Answer: I think even today if you ask the great dictators of the world, they would say the same thing.
Comment: You said it is impossible.
My Response: It is impossible. Therefore, each of them chooses a different path, which, in their opinion, can still lead people to some level of happiness. And then they will prove to you that this is what they want and do, and they implement this very installation.
Question: So, the earth can be strewn with corpses and the dictator’s thought is to unite the world and lead it to happiness?
Answer: Of course! It is impossible otherwise!
Question: What kind of mind are we talking about? What are we talking about now?
Answer: We are talking about the human mind. A person who reaches some level understands that the best state is when everyone is in good connection with each other, in mutual assistance, and so on.
But since this is not in human nature, what can we do to at least somehow make such a state for people?
Question: Is this why they want to conquer this happiness?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: There will be fewer people, but they will be kind of connected.
My Response: No, they do not set such a task directly. But, in general, this is what happens.
Question: Why is this unattainable?
Answer: Because it is not in human nature.
Question: Is there any way to introduce this into human nature?
Answer: There is no way! Egoism is within us. And it is terrible, extreme! In our time, it has grown so much. It does not give us the opportunity to think that we can be in good connection with others.
Question: Why do you call for it all the time then?
Answer: Because I believe that in nature there is a means to curb egoism, and there is a cure for egoism. It can be changed but not destroyed. But the cure helps to use egoism correctly. And then everything will be fine.
Question: It is clear that egoism demands for itself, exclusively for itself, and nothing else, and not for anyone else. This is egoism. How can this cure reverse this requirement for my own sake? Can you give us a simple formula? Here I am, living for myself, and so is every person.
Answer: You just have to understand that the best thing for you is when you are connected by good ties with others.
Question: So is it, after all, better for me?
Answer: For you.
Question: Purely egoistically?
Answer: Of course! We need nothing else.
Love others unrequitedly. This is the best thing you can wish for yourself. As soon as we want to get closer to each other, gradually rising above our egoism in the movement of love, in the movement of adhesion, connection, mutual assistance, and so on, we will begin to feel the positive forces of nature that will help us in this.
Question: Is this happening outside of my mind?
Answer: Yes. I will begin to identify such forces of nature that will help me get closer to others.
Question: Do I have to take your word for it?
Answer: Do not believe anything. We just need to try to create a mutual good connection through our efforts in this way. Then these—our desires, efforts, and all this—will change the world.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/16/22
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the future of the Internet?“
We will have no need for connection via the Internet in the future. It will be replaced with an internal sensory connection.
At a certain stage of our development, we will feel the need to rise from our virtual connection to a more internal connection with each other. When we feel a deeper desire to be in a closer connection with each other—not virtually, but spiritually—then we will feel each other telepathically.
Such is the network that connects us, and we will reach a stage in our development where we will feel that network.
We discover the telepathic network that underlies our connection through a common desire.
Where can we see an example of such a desire in our current world? It is present somewhat in mothers toward their children.
Mothers feel a deeper connection to their children because of their natural love for them. On an animal level, mothers share a common root with their children due to the pregnancy and birth process. At one point, a mother’s children were inside her, and she feels that connection innately.
How, then, will the desire for a deeper connection manifest among all people?
It will emerge within us as part of our evolutionary process.
Compared to the other levels of nature—still, vegetative and animate—we humans develop toward the eventual discovery of our connection as a single collective. We currently feel this connection on a lower level of desire, in our egoistic desires where we try to self-benefit at the expense of the network. However, at a later stage of our development, our desire will manifest differently.
On one hand, it is an evolutionary process, but on the other hand, this transformation will very much depend on people themselves. If the transformation will take place solely by evolutionary means, without our conscious participation, then we will experience it as forced and painful, with several agonies and torments. For that reason, we call this process the “streamroller of evolution.” This process has been developing us through pressures and pains for thousands of years.
If we wish to progress faster, with more awareness, confidence and happiness, then we need to learn how this evolutionary process works. We could then anticipate our forthcoming pressures, and our increased knowledge will serve us in a positive manner.
We would then be comparable to an intelligent child who understands his parents’ and teachers’ demands of him, and then carries out his duties in advance, without the need for punishments.
However, the pains we experience in our development to a state of feeling as one integrally-connected entity are not punishments. They are prods that we receive in order to advance us to the transformation that we eventually need to undergo.
When we experience that change, we then come to feel our innermost connection to each other, and discover a new, harmonious and complete existence.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Technology?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on February 27, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael
Comment: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and a thousand other experts have signed an open letter to suspend development of advanced artificial intelligence (AI). They wrote:
“Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization? Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable” (“Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter“).
These are the questions they are asking.
My Response: We have finally reached the point of discussing the rise of machines.
Question: Yes, we have seen it before. We used to destroy machines, and now we want to destroy artificial intelligence.
How do you feel about this? In general, is this fantasy so real that they could surpass us?
Answer: These people have stakes in this, Elon Musk and others. Therefore, I do not know about what they write. But, in general, of course, there will be competition.
Any computer is a competitor of a thousand people it frees from work. So, there is nothing you can do about it. But we will not fight it as they did in England several hundred years ago by destroying machinery.
Question: You believe we should not destroy them?
Answer: No, we should not. You will achieve nothing. Progress must take place.
Question: But tell us, why are we given these opportunities to create such machines, such artificial intelligence?
Answer: To begin working on ourselves! By ourselves! So that we put these artificial machines in our place. Let them do all the work.
And we would work on ourselves, on changing our nature from egoistic to altruistic.
Question: So you believe all this progress, which is significant progress, artificial intelligence, and all progress in general, all the simplification of human labor and transitioning it to the machines, is happening so we can reflect on ourselves and start working on ourselves?
Answer: Yes, so we can stop working on the machines and can start working on ourselves.
Question: But was it not egoism that created this artificial intelligence?
Answer: Egoism created everything. Everything around us is egoism.
Comment: Yes, but it creates something that can destroy itself. That is what is interesting!
Answer: Nothing will destroy it. It only allows us to use our opportunities well, correctly.
Question: Are you talking about the correct use of egoism now?
Answer: Yes, so I do not see anything bad about it thus far. Later, we will realize egoism is an evil force of nature the Creator purposely created to show us its opposite side. And we will come to the realization of transformation, of correcting the ego to its next form—the quality of love and bestowal.
Question: Ultimately, you say you favor all this development that will lead us to this state?
Answer: Yes, I’m in favor of the robot uprising.
[312428]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/20/23
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Question: Imagine that science and technology have reached such a level that a single specialist can independently carry out changes in the genome. Is it possible to trust such a weapon to a specialist doctor, no matter how good he may be?
Answer: I think we certainly cannot trust, and I think we will not reach such a state because nature is intelligent and its upper intelligence will not allow us to do this. So we will have to change ourselves.
Question: Do you believe that there will be such a specialist or specialists who will be like that, just turn a knob…?
Answer: No, they can spin as much as they want. They can think whatever they want about their great capabilities, but they will not succeed.
Question: Do you think they can succeed thanks to genetic engineering? What can be achieved with its help?
Answer: Of course, they will achieve some improvement.
Question: For people to be sick less, suffer less?
Answer: Yes, but to change a person, no way. Because whatever we say about good, evil, love, or hate, it is impossible. This can only be done if a person himself wishes to change. Moreover, he will wish for it finally and irrevocably and will ask for it. And the corresponding forces of nature will produce such a change in him.
Question: So no one interferes except the person who asks to be changed. Does he need to be brought to a state where he asks to be changed?
Answer: Yes, he must conclude that he, himself cannot, but that there is such a possibility in nature.
Question: Why does the conclusion that I cannot take millennia?
Answer: A person wants to do everything himself.
Question: Yes. Look, it is the same with genetic engineering and so on.
We want to do everything by ourselves. By ourselves! Millennia go by while man is trying to change everything itself. Today man is changing nature, destroying ecology as a result, and so on, just to come to this little thought?
Answer: Little?! This is a cardinal revolution within a person when he realizes that he cannot do anything with himself, but he needs to make changes precisely in himself. Then he turns to nature.
Comment: Yes, millions of books have been written, crazy wars have been going on for millennia, confiscations, and so on, just to come to this idea?!
Answer: It is the main, fundamental, basic in all of nature—that we are created egoists and must come to a state where we define ourselves as absolute egoists, that we harm the whole of nature, and if we want to change something, we must change ourselves. That is when there will be a change in the species, genus, humanity, and so on.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/20/23
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Question: What is equality?
Answer: Equality is an equivalence of properties. If you and I are equal, then our properties match.
There is no other equality. Despite the fact that internally we are different and we realize these properties in different ways, we still have equivalence. Only in this way can equality be achieved.
It turns out that everyone is absolutely different; no one is similar to another, yet all are equal because everyone realizes himself within bestowal and connection with others to the full degree of his abilities.
Question: Does it mean that the material equality is not connected to the inner equality in any way?
Answer: If you obtain spiritual equality, then there will be material equality as well. Otherwise you will not be able to make the material equality in the correct way.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, What Is equality?” 2/27/11
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Question: Regarding the development of technology, will we step into the maximum that humanity can step into?
Answer: No, we won’t take another step. People will stop getting carried away with it. Look at how all kinds of space programs are being curtailed. So what if we reach the moon? Are we going to bring moonstones here from there? Why?!
There is no intelligent life anywhere else anyway. What are you looking for in the universe?! Inanimate nature? You’ll find it. You will find some fragment, like a diamond on Earth, and then what do you do with it?
That is why people turn away from these programs. The hype with space is over. We’ve circled around the earth and that’s enough.
Space flights will continue for the time being, but only as trips for the general public. As we fly back and forth on vacation on airplanes, so we will fly on spaceships. The shuttle will be set up, and we’ll be around there all the time. You’ll jump into orbit for a weekend, spin around for two days, and go back down to earth. There will be such a trend. And then, that’s it.
What else? They will develop, for example, miniature mobile phones that will stick right out of your tooth, and everything you need will be typed by voice. Such power fields will be anywhere in the world, that you will be able to create a screen on which you can work by moving your hand in the air. Power lines will pass in such a way that you can make this screen at any angle and see and hear everything on it.
And what’s next?! A man remains a man! A toy is a toy, even if it is more cool, more comfortable—and what’s the point of it?! What fulfillment will it bring?
Question: Why did they develop these toys then?
Answer: This is how our egoism develops so that we understand that all this is a useless move leading to nowhere, into emptiness.
What is the technology given for? What should I fill it with?! Why am I given the opportunity to communicate with all the people in the world?! What am I going to do with them? Watch pictures in 3D, in 5D, about some kind of alien beasts or ghouls? How much can you build up?! A person will run out of egoism. He will just turn away from it.
This is where the problem arises: how should a firm earn money? Therefore they rage. They don’t know where to turn.
There is only one way out: up, into a higher space in the next dimension. The alternative is war.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Science?” 3/6/11
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Question: Where has pacifism gone?! Where is it?! Throughout the 20th century it went along with the century and developed more and more.
Answer: Where was this pacifism developing? In the First World War, in the Second World War?! The arms race, all these seizures, in Indochina, and wherever else they happened! Revolutions in Cuba, I can list many such things!
Question: But pacifism tried to prevent a Third World War. There were hippie movements, the Beatles, and Angela Davis. Carnations were inserted into weapons and machine guns. Today no one will write A Farewell to Arms like Hemingway, they will not paint The Apotheosis of War.
Answer: I think we have reached a point where the world has realized that everything is over. Enough talking, what is really needed is, if not to disarm, then to thoroughly rein in all the military and politicians.
Through their games, the rattling of weapons, and the desire to show which of them is stronger, like the boys playing in the yard, they bring us to such a state that it is impossible to live with them anymore.
Question: Does it mean that if earlier it used to be just in words, but today it is in deeds so we seem not to hear the pacifists?
Answer: Today there is no such thing because people realized that this should be much more serious. Carnations, flowers, are not enough.
Comment: This is the first time you have had such an optimistic view of the world. The world can think.
My Response: Recognition of evil.
Question: Is this the recognition of evil?
Answer: Of course.
Question: What will we get to? My question is about the future.
Answer: That it is impossible to live like this. What will happen to us in the end?
Question: Will we get to why this is happening? Why is it developing like this?
Answer: People can hear about it already today, but only hear and not make decisions to eradicate the source of this evil.
Question: Is egoism the source of evil, one way or another?
Answer: Of course, this is our egoism. There is no way to escape this fact. Therefore, there is nothing we can do.
Question: Are you saying that people will be able to hear that the source of evil is egoism, but they will not be able to do anything about it yet?
Answer: The fact is that they will not hear that the source of evil is egoism. But they will hear that these are better, those are worse, these are this way, and those are that way, and still all these clashes will lead somehow to war. But we need something completely different.
We need to tell them that there is no need to say that someone is less intelligent or more intelligent, less developed or more developed, someone descended from some cave dwellers 200,000 years ago, and someone else 2,000 years ago lived in a cave.
We do not need this. This will give nothing but anger and a new arms race.
Question: Then what should I, a person, do?
Answer: See what the future might be like. Kabbalah does not consider people, who is worse, who is better, who is in this way, who is in that way. It says it is clear who all of you are—complete egoists.
We all need to rise above our egoism, everyone above his own. Then everyone will be fine. There is no other solution!
Comment: So when you say everyone should rise above their egoism, you somehow say that I must change.
My Response: Me and everyone else. We all must help each other mutually with how to rise above our nature. We all have the same nature. It does not matter who is developed more and who is developed less.
A person will come to this. Here we need to understand that there is a method, there is such a party, and we need to listen to it. Then the world will slowly begin to change.
Comment: There is a big load on us! The whole world.
My Response: There is such a party, friends!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/3/23
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Comment: I heard a story about a famous actor who was an alcoholic. One day he was sitting in a bar with another man. This man started telling the actor about his own success, plans, and great project that would make him rich and famous, and further related that only he knew what truth was. Then the man got up, ran out of the bar, brakes screeched, and this guy was gone.
The story sobered up the alcoholic who stopped drinking and adopted the principle became: “Be calm, never hurry. Do not make the Lord laugh with your plans; do not fight with foam at the mouth, hammering your truth into the heads of others. Remember, your joy and death will come to you in due time, at the right time. You can’t do a damn thing about it.”
Can you comment on this principle of life.
My Response: I agree with him!
Comment: There are a lot of things here. For example, the starting point: “Be calm, never rush.”
My Response: Yes, because you won’t speed up time anyway. To do this you need to move to other coordinates, and you can’t do that.
Comment: So take your time to do some work; don’t rush to earn.
My Response: No. All the same, everything is planned and it should be so.
Comment: The second: “Don’t make the Lord laugh at your plans.”
My Response: Yes, because you will be fulfilling His plans anyway! And His only.
Question: But how can we not make plans? How is this possible?
Answer: In faith above reason. Calmly do everything that comes to you.
Question: Do you think all our plans that we conceive, twist, and run with are useless?
Answer: It is all absolutely useless.
Comment: And “Don’t fight with foam at the mouth, hammering your truth into the heads of others.”
My Response: That is for sure. First of all, what are you trying to prove? That you are more right than they are?
Comment: Yes, usually so.
My Response: But after all, everyone has their own view, their own egoism; so don’t.
Question: And if you have a deep conviction and you know that this is how people will be better off?
Answer: Buy yourself a big mirror and perform in front of it as much as you want.
Comment: Further: “Remember, your joy and death will come to you at the right time. You can’t do a damn thing about it.”
My Response: Exactly. Even if you want to end your life, it will also not work out according to your desire except when it is necessary.
Comment: But we are developing medicine, lengthening our life.
My Response: This is us making our efforts in order to get out of this world in time.
Comment: So you think that even if we didn’t develop medicine, didn’t develop drugs…
My Response: Absolutely everything would be the same.
Comment: It’s very hard for a person to imagine. He invests so much in being healthy and in having a long life.
My Response: You have to sit in the lotus posture like these ancient Indian elders, and look into the distance, into the horizon, and at the rolling waves of this world. And you don’t have to do anything else.
Question: Then can you generalize all this and give a principle by which one should live?
Answer: The principle is very simple; don’t twitch. That’s all.
Comment: So all these career ladders are worthless.
My Response: We see it all collapsing before our eyes.
Question: And the search for the meaning of life?
Answer: The search for the meaning of life is to find a point of balance with the Creator where you understand that everything should go according to His plan. And you humble yourself before His plan, in the end, and swim calmly.
Question: Basically, this whole life path, everything should come down to what you just said? The search for this point of contact with the Creator?
Answer: Yes. Find this current and join it and swim along it.
Question: And when does the calmness that you now radiate come? After running, searching, or after touching something, some truth? When?
Answer: I think that after 20 years of practicing Kabbalah it may already come. And if one is in the right environment, then even before. Because you will hear this from everyone and so on.
Question: And then we return to all these principles: be calm, take your time, don’t make God laugh at your plans; do they become real?
Answer: You don’t interfere with any of your plans and actions. You just live and try to capture more deeply the flow of life.
Question: What do I capture after all?
Answer: You capture what comes from the Creator and takes you away.
This is time, the flow of time. The river of life. And you feel like you agree with it, are ready to lie down on this current, and that it carries you.
Question: And is this the right principle, a properly lived life?
Answer: Yes. You can’t do anything else anyway. On the contrary, the wisdom is to obey.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/15/22
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do our thoughts influence nature?“
Indeed, our thoughts influence nature.
We live in a single global-integral system of nature, we influence it with our thoughts, and we receive feedback accordingly.
Similar to laws that operate on mechanical, electronic, electromagnetic and other material and biological scales, when we press, push or constrain something, we receive a response. Likewise, when we think positively or negatively about others, we accordingly receive a response.
The global-integral reality in which we live is a closed system, and we receive responses from it according to our attitudes to it.
Based on the video “Do Our Thoughts Influence Nature?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Mutual guarantee for each other is a correction that all mankind must receive from above. As a result, everyone will be obliged to come to the form of Adam HaRishon, that is, to become like one man with a common mind and heart.
We will not see any partitions between us, but we will feel ourselves existing in one body: both in the spiritual sense and in the corporeal, which includes all our desires, thoughts, qualities, and hopes.
There will be no separation between us. We will look by ourselves for what can divide us, and thus eliminate these differences and become as one. Then we will acquire the form of a man, Adam, similar to the Creator.
This noble goal is to be achieved by all people and all nations, for our future lies in it. Let us hope it comes as soon as possible. All this depends on how we can break down the walls that separate us so that nothing separates us from each other, and all the differences that we are now discovering have turned into forces of connection. And then the darkness will shine like light.
The more tightly we unite, the more we will feel how the upper light, the Creator, fills all the gaps between us. And all the obstacles that disturbed the connection will, on the contrary, become sources of uniting forces. That is why we will feel 620 times greater unity, attainment, and the feeling of the revelation of the Creator together as one spiritual Kli. All this is thanks to the mutual guarantee.
It is said that darkness will shine like light. That is, the differences, the forces of confrontation that we cannot overcome yet, will turn into their opposite, into a powerful connection and such strong ties that we will feel like one whole, in one heart, in a single system where everyone supports everyone as one.
The confrontation will turn into a supporting force. It is due to the correction of distance, differences, internal resistance, and rejection of a person by another, that the small, almost imperceptible light that is between us will receive a 620-fold gain. Then everyone will clearly feel the whole world as one person filled with the force of the Creator without any differences and barriers. Thus we come to a full mutual guarantee.
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From KabTV’s “The Arvut” 5/23/23
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The essence of the Torah is to give a person the opportunity to reach the state in which he finds the Creator. To the extent a person receives the ability to understand, agree, and make an effort, he begins to feel the true world that we exist in and that is so far concealed from all other inhabitants of this world.
The giving of the Torah is really a gift given to a person who leads an animalistic existence in this world, but who receives the opportunity to become a man. He can rise above the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels to the level of Adam (similar to the Creator) through the changes made in him by the Creator under a certain condition.
A person must agree with this plan, accept it for himself, and implement it. The purpose of creation is to raise all the people of this world to the degree of the Creator, that is, to bring them to complete adhesion with Him.
Everyone should feel and attain that there is one central force in nature that is the Creator. He alone controls everything, moves everything, supports everything, and we are completely dependent on Him 100%. But on the other hand, we also influence our development. We cannot change the direction of development, but we determine its pace.
In the end, everyone will come to final correction, but at every step we are required to stop, examine our condition and everything that led to it, and decide how to take another step forward from this point.
The entire work of a person is to come to the final correction.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/23, “The Time of the Giving of the Torah”
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The first step to achieve the love of the Creator is to adhere to friends in the group by loving one’s neighbor as oneself. In the first stage, a person discovers his inability to love others and turns to the Creator for help.
Then he sees how much he depends on his friends, on everyone individually, and all together. He aims to get closer to each friend and support him, as well as bring everyone together into one system that the Creator fills and raises higher and higher on the degrees of unity.
Adhesion means that I strive to get closer to my friend by getting to know him better and strengthening the inner connection with him until we feel like one person with one heart. This means that we have one desire, even though we are two different people.
We feel the distance between us all the time, but over it, we want to achieve closeness and connection. And so I learn how much these two opposites help each other.
I study the qualities of a friend and try to make my qualities correspond to him in an external form.
Children learn from adults by imitating them in everything. This instinct is embedded in the child at the animate level. On a spiritual level we need to penetrate the inner qualities of an adult, into his feelings, understanding, and nature, and try to become like him inside.
Of course, this is impossible. But we can outwardly perform actions imitating someone else, even the Creator, and ask Him to reward our efforts by making internal changes in us that will bring us closer to Him. That is the whole point of working in a group.
In a group of ten people, there are ten desires, and each desire is divided into smaller ones. If we try to get closer and closer to each other and intertwine our desires, then over time we will feel how each is imbued with the desires of the other, and gradually we turn into one person with one heart.
Such a connection between people does not happen in the material world—it is a connection of spiritual nature on another level. It is like a chemical reaction between atoms of different substances when they combine into increasingly complex molecules. But only this reaction of connection occurs at a higher degree: between desires, thoughts, and perceptions, and until everything unites into one heart.
Each of us has different qualities, but above all of us, there is one head that controls everything. If the ten is built and operates on this principle, then we feel the revelation of the Creator in it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/23, “The Time of the Giving of the Torah”
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Can there be more than one Israel?”
A new survey published in Israel reveals that about half of the Jewish public in Israel believes that splitting Israeli society into two autonomous states is possible. Ten percent of the respondents in the survey believe that such a division is not only possible, but even likely. In my opinion, dividing the State of Israel into two separate states is possible only in theory, but not in practice. What the survey does show, however, is how divided and splintered Israeli society really is, and this is what we should really worry about.
As a practical idea, two autonomous Jewish states cannot happen because the division would be between secular and orthodox Jews. However, the orthodox Jews cannot sustain a state on their own without the help of the secular part of society, primarily in the economic aspect.
At the same time, the secular part of society will not be able to maintain a separate state because its social cohesion relies on denunciation of the orthodox Jews. If it receives its own state, without orthodox Jews, the fragmented secular society that is currently united against the religious would have nothing to keep it together and would shatter into countless pieces.
Fragmentation and division have plagued Jewish society since our inception as a nation. However, breaking up has never solved anything for us. On the contrary, it only worsened our plights.
Instead of looking to splinter our society even more, we should understand that our only hope of solving our problems is by embracing the differences between us and using them for the common good. Jews will never be similar to one another. On the contrary, the differences and divisions between us will only widen and intensify the feeling of estrangement. And the only way that we can ever deal with our mutual aversion is to accept the differences, embrace them, and then contribute each sector’s unique qualities for the success of Israeli society in its entirety.
Such an approach may sound impossible to carry out, but we really have no choice. Either we embrace it, or we will fall apart altogether.
It is not a new approach. In fact, this was the modus operandi that our ancestors sought to implement. King Solomon encapsulated this method with a single verse (Prov. 10:12): “Hate stirs strife, and love will cover all crimes.” In other words, hate causes conflicts, but we cannot solve them through compromise, but rather by cultivating love for one another despite the hatred. It may seem impossible, and certainly undesirable, to love someone when what I feel is hate, but it is nevertheless the only solution that will save the State of Israel from dissolution.
The way to overcome such a formidable hurdle is to focus not on our negative feelings, but on our responsibility to the world. We must remember that our nation emerged from strangers who followed Abraham’s ideology of unity and mercy among all people, which he bequeathed to his progeny and disciples. Therefore, it is precisely when we feel like strangers that we can implement our forefather’s ideology and realize the greatest legacy of the Jewish people to the world: the motto, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is also when we become a light to the nations, as we had been chosen to be, and what the world still expects us to do.
Our entire history, we have been running away from our vocation. Our entire history, we have been persecuted, expelled, and murdered almost to extinction. It is time to stop running from ourselves, from who we are destined to be, a nation of courageous people who face their own hatred of each other and prove to the world that unity among strangers, which is how we feel about each other, is possible, and we are the living proof. Only if we do this, we will find peace, and peace of mind, and the world will find them with us.
Question: At the end of the article “The Letters of Rav Hamnuna Saba” it is written that all the letters’ questions mean raising MAN by the letters, and all the answers are the descending of MAD. What does it mean?
Answer: When a person is reading certain texts, he raises his desires, requests, and prayers to the Creator, and this is called MAN.
When a person finishes his request, his prayer, then he receives from above what is called MAD, which is a descent of the upper light, the upper force. This is how a person influences the Creator and the Creator influences a person. This is what is called MAN and MAD.
Therefore, it is said that being in the Sinai desert, the sons of Israel were fed on MAN, manna from heaven, that is, through raising their desires, their prayers to the Creator. In response, they received from above something like a white semolina, that is, a substance covering the sand in the desert. They collected this substance and ate it for 40 years.
40 years symbolizes from Malchut to Bina, that people must pass through and correct those qualities, and then they enter the palace of the Creator and reveal Him.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 4/23/23
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Question: What came first: Kabbalah or science?
Answer: In principle, science came from Kabbalah, which was discovered by Adam more than 5,700 years ago. After him, Kabbalists appeared 20 generations before Abraham, before ancient Babylon, and then others appeared after Abraham.
Kabbalah gave us a system. Philosophy emerged from Kabbalah. As medieval German philosophers write, Aristotle and Plato took scientific knowledge from Kabbalists, developed it, and turned it into philosophies, which became the foundations of the sciences.
Many ancient scientists write that they studied with Kabbalists. After all, back then, man aspired to enquire about the general nature that is not in his five animalistic sense organs. Today it sounds fantastic that a person was first drawn to know the meaning of his life; he was very close to nature, and this was what interested him. And then people went into egoistic development and into all kinds of technologies, and they adhered to this right up to our time. But now we are returning to the same position again, to the same first explorers of our world.
The study of our world is the most fundamental; it determines what we live for, what the material world is, and in what we exist.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Science?” 3/6/11
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Question: Why did humanity gradually erase the edge of feeling the spiritual world and then we began to develop egotistically?
Answer: This is because egoism has surged up! The technological revolution began. A person began to develop various technologies and forgot himself in them, started playing with toys, as he is losing himself playing with iPads and everything else today, as if his whole life is in playing in pictures with music.
Nature hammers a person in a person, makes him be a child. Look at what is happening in the world! There are no adults, a person does not want to grow up, he plays all his life.
He doesn’t need a family, he doesn’t need anything, he wants to travel, work a little, and have fun. And this is so until the end of one’s life.
Women still realistically relate to life. They give birth without men and raise children. And, thank God, that our time gives them the opportunity to be financially independent. And men play with toys and remain children. This is what technology has done to us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Science?” 3/6/11
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Question: How do you see humanity, which is divided by genetics into a caste of improved ideal people and those who stayed the old-fashioned way? Will there be any problems? After all, Kabbalah also says that in the society of the future there will be ideal people who are similar to the Creator, and people who are deprived of such an opportunity. Is that not elitist?
Answer: The fact is that people who will be similar to the Creator will be engaged in educating and providing for those people who have not yet become similar to the Creator up to the moment when all people will move from the current egoistic state to the right, corrected, altruistic state.
Question: Is this the exclusivity of these ideal people?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Does it mean that there will be no racism here?
Answer: No, it cannot come from them.
Question: Will there be no advantages of some over others?
Answer: The advantage will be only in that they will take the reins of governance into their hands and will be able to show, prove, and train all the others who are still uncorrected what they need to become.
Question: What should we become?
Answer: Love thy neighbor as thyself. This was said several thousand years ago.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/20/23
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Question: What is history from the point of view of Kabbalah?
Answer: It is the development of egoism.
History is the development of the simplest egoism, which gradually increases from small, individual, family, like in animals, to communal, urban, state, and finally global.
Accordingly, we see the struggles of people at the same level. First, the settlements fought with each other, then small disparate states. Then they united because it was necessary to unite in the fight until they reached the current state.
Now egoism shows us that we are in a useless fight with each other, that we are connected with each other. At the same time full mutual interconnection is revealed, and therefore we raise our hands: “What to do?”
If one country closes and then another, unpredictable phenomena will begin in the world. The world does not realize that it will come to a standstill and that is it. You will not be able to turn on air conditioners or heating, there will be no international connection, nothing. The whole world will just stop.
What does the world have? If today it does not receive a couple of tankers with oil, then it will only have strategic reserves for as long as they last in each country. That is it. We are sitting on an oil needle, not to mention other needles. If there is no fuel, who will deliver food to various countries?
We have no idea how interconnected we are, how fragile it all is. Today there can be no world war because no country provides for itself. I am not talking about any frills, but about the essentials.
Today, living on the twentieth floor, you cannot live as you once did in the village, where you had your own garden, your own cellar, planted potatoes and cabbage, and you were ok; you provided yourself with everything. It is not like that any longer.
I remember my childhood in the small town of Vitebsk with a population of a quarter of a million people. We had a small plot and a large cellar where, like everyone else, we kept potatoes, cabbage, garlic, and onions. All this was prepared for a year so that the family would not starve.
This was the case for most of the population. Today no one has that. Imagine huge residential areas and cities with a population of over a million. What will you feed them? There will be pestilence all over the earth. We do not realize what will happen if a couple of large countries suddenly cease to function.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is History?” 3/13/11
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Comment: There are people who believe that by creating their own infrastructure, meaning building a house, planting a garden with a vegetable patch, etc., will allow them to survive in a dysfunctional world.
My Response: There is no returning to the caves. There are too many of us, it will not work.
I have rich friends who live in England who built themselves a bomb shelter, planted a vegetable garden around it, and feel they have provided themselves for the future.
Nothing will help! The Creator’s plan is such that you cannot predict anything in advance. Moreover, what is destined for you will happen anyway, one way or the other.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is History?” 3/13/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How has technology changed our interactions with each other at both local and global levels?“
The more we develop, the more globally interconnected and interdependent we become, technologically and economically, i.e., with more and more external connections to each other.
We have built systems where if one country switches off in even one of its parameters that it supplies to the world, then the entire world suffers.
It has become impossible to disconnect from the world. Our increasing global technological and other external connections are a stepping stone toward the discovery of a much deeper connection that we share.
We have reached a stage of development where we can understand that we are globally interconnected and interdependent. Moreover, the more we connect in a superficial manner, the emptier we find ourselves.
On one hand, we are reaching the realization of our need for connection. However, we experience myriad negative effects from our current external form of connection. If we crack how to positively connect with each other—a deeply-felt positive connection beyond merely sending each other short, pleasant messages, smileys and heart emojis—then we will start unraveling another world that will fulfill us all.
In other words, our increasing technological interconnection is a preparation for a much deeper feeling of our connection to each other—a feeling of our complete interdependence.
When we learn how to realize our interdependence positively, we will come to understand that we can find the source of our fulfillment in other people and that we need others to fulfill ourselves.
We will then seek connection with others according to a common desire to connect positively to each other. That is, we will seek out other people who will want to be together and who will find fulfillment solely from our togetherness.
The Internet will then become free from the control of people with money and power interests. Our sincere desire to positively connect to each other will leave them no room to manipulate us.
Such a desire to positively connect will bring about the next major revolutions in the virtual world, one which will see a complete remake—and a whole new usage—of the Internet.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Technology?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on February 27, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — The Time of The Giving of The Torah
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2nd part of the Lesson — Michael Laitman, Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (modified)
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Selected Highlights
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Does Shavuot Signify?”
Shavuot signifies the day of the giving of the Torah, which is the greatest event that could ever occur.
Why is it the greatest ever event?
It marks a state where certain people who lived their usual lives, unknowing of why they were alive, received instructions—a method—on how to live optimally in our world, how to discover who they truly were, and that if they so wished, they could exit the narrow framework of feeling this world in their five bodily senses, expanding their perception and sensation to feel a new world.
They called method that they received “the Torah.” Through this method, they could discover a much richer and wider reality—the eternal reality—which they could connect with and feel.
That is what the Torah gives us. It is a method for expanding our perception, and which lets us discover the true reality where forces of love, bestowal and connection dwell in addition to the narrow reality we perceive in our five corporeal senses.
Shavuot is thus a very special holiday. It marks a differentiation of us living as animals in this world to becoming human beings in the fullest sense of the term, i.e., those who exit their feeling of this narrow and transient world and enter the attainment of a true, eternal and perfect reality beyond the bodily senses.
We should thus respect this holiday and try to reach what those who have attained those states—Kabbalists—tell us about it: that it is a state of connection “as one man with one heart,” of mutual support and understanding, with love and care for one another, and where we feel ourselves existing in one heart.
Even though we each initially live in our egoistic qualities, where we play host to many divisive thoughts, desires, decisions and opinions that resist the state of our complete connection to each other, by using the method of the Torah—the method of how to connect to the force of the upper nature that influences and changes us—we can rise from our egoistic level to one of eternity and perfection.
If we had not received the method of connection called “the Torah,” then we would have become completely divided, and we would have had no opportunity to understand the quality of love, bestowal and connection. We would have remained like animals in this world. Thanks to various unique individuals who implemented this method on themselves, we can access and apply the same method on ourselves.
When we do so, we develop a sense for feeling the quality of love, bestowal and connection. We then come to feel that there is a special force that vitalizes and illuminates the connection between us.
All people host this sense, but some feel it more than others, and the method we received on Shavuot lets us develop it until we feel attracted to connecting “as one man with one heart.” Moreover, those who develop this sense influence its awakening in others, and as such, more and more people increasingly draw toward it.
What is this sense? Generally speaking, it is a sense of love.
If we hold ourselves in an inclination to reach a common love for one another, then we undergo several states of feeling our disconnection, with disregard and disrespect for each other, until we discover the force of love, bestowal and connection that unites us upon those states.
We then become a new nation based on a common desire to connect in love above our divisive qualities, i.e., a nation that was previously nonexistent in a natural and biological way.
It is my hope that we indeed develop this sense of love, bestowal and connection using the method of connection that we received, and that we come to achieve this new sense sooner rather than later. When we do so, we will feel a new inclusive, eternal and perfect reality open up to us, a sensation of harmony and peace that we cannot even imagine in our current earthly senses.
Question: Do you, as a Kabbalist, take people’s material situation into consideration?
Answer: Of course I do! I have to consider them with love and empathy like a mother toward a child, and only with the understanding of what is for his benefit rather than what he wants himself.
For this, a certain spiritual maturation must take place in a person. I do not turn to my baby and do what he wants. I do what is best for him, maybe even against his will.
Question: But you feel people much more than many of your students. Although you say you do not understand the level they talk about, you give out such information that is understandable to external people.
Answer: Because I cannot help but feel humanity.
I do not feel mechanical, purely artificial systems created by people; for example, all kinds of financial, banking systems or tricks they pull in business. I cannot feel this mechanics because there is no analogy to them in the spiritual world.
But when it comes to the whole of humanity, its nature, and man himself, his aspirations, and problems that need to be corrected, I of course know better than everyone else. Although these problems may not affect me personally, I feel them because I am included together with everyone in a single system.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Problems of Kabbalah” 2/18/11
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Question: Why is such a thing as sex so hidden? What is sex?
Answer: Sex is a fusion of two opposite qualities that connect with each other in order to rise to the next level.
Initially sex was conceived in nature as a connection of creation with the Creator. Creation is a feminine principle that wants to receive fulfillment from the masculine principle, from the Creator. And when the Creator gives it fulfillment, this fulfillment develops in the feminine principle and generates their next, mutual, middle stage.
The purpose of all creation is to come to such a combination with the Creator. This act of spiritual copulation of the one creation with the one Creator is described in the “Song of Songs” by King Solomon.
Since the state of fusion of creation with the Creator is the highest, it gives the greatest pleasure in our world. Therefore it is said that love and hunger rule the world as two basic instincts.
Hunger is understandable to us; it also exists at the animal level. And sex on the animal level exists instinctively in the same way as food does. The animal needs sex and does it according to the program at certain times of year.
But man does not, because it is precisely in this that he has freewill to come and merge with the Creator. Therefore this feeling in a person is not dictated by nature, but is given to him in perfection so that he can control it himself.
Since we are in an egoistic state, we manage it completely wrong. And if a person comes to a spiritual state, then, on the contrary, he begins to correctly control his sexual impulses.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Sex?” 2/27/11
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Comment: The largest trade agreement in history was forged between 15 countries during the pandemic. The main goal of the RCEP is to smooth the path of trade among the 15 Asia-Pacific nations and eventually pave the way for a comprehensive free-trade zone, in the style of the European Union or the old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a trade pact between 15 nations in the Asia-Pacific region. In total it covers more than 2 billion people — about 30% of the world’s population. It promises income growth to every third inhabitant of the planet and gives hope for the revival of world trade and cooperation. The agreement united China and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, Japan, and South Korea.
The agreement allows trading partners in Asia to gain access to each other’s markets, reduces duties on goods, and improves living standards, especially for the poorest countries in the region.
Why not live like this? They set noble goals, however egoistic, but nevertheless, to provide income for people who are poor today, having nothing.
Answer: Yes, of course, people live badly there.
Question: Why do all the leaders not rise above their pride, join one union, and start slowly reviving our world, which is falling economically all the time?
Answer: I do not think it is possible. I do not even hope that they will have it all as rosy as they write. Someone has to win at the expense of someone who loses.
This is our world! Therefore, agreements are agreements, but then politics comes into play, petty egoism, and that is it.
Question: So, will we not be able to live normally in this world?
Answer: No. We will not. And these good impulses, they are all not really good. The point is, at the expense of what will they win? At the expense of whom will they win?
Question: Do you think one way or another, I have to suppress someone?
Answer: Our world is created this way.
Comment: They say that these are equal agreements.
My Response: That is what they always say: mutually beneficial conditions, mutual trade, and the welfare of nations.
Question: Tell me, please which union will work?
Answer: The one that has a different goal: to lead people to unity, to rise above themselves, above their egoism, above their nature. Otherwise, nothing will work.
Question: So, my goal, that I want to give welfare to a third or half of the world’s population, to the whole world, will not work anyway?
Answer: No.
Question: Should there be a goal for the people of the world to be able to unite?
Answer: Yes. Such a goal is in a state of good balance with the global force of nature, with the general development of mankind. Then, of course, it will work.
Question: Can you imagine leaders who say: “We are now uniting in order to…”?
Answer: They will explain that there is no reception against scrap, one cannot stand against nature. It turns out that going against this basic law of nature is like stepping back on some kind of rake. From this side or from a different side, under some other pretexts, it does not matter.
Question: So if people do not change, will they be like wolves to one another or be in competition with one another?
Answer: They are initially wolves. And they will not cover it with some good external affairs. This will come out and lead them to something bigger, perhaps, war among themselves.
Question: You are saying, if we are wolves, then we cannot achieve anything in this world?
Answer: Nothing. Only by suppressing each other, only by towering one above the other. We must play on our egoism.
Question: Whom does the wolf have to become for everything to happen? So that everything will be fine?
Answer: He must understand his wolf’s nature and also understand that in our time we cannot act in any other way but to become aware of our nature, and together, gradually counter it. It is not easy, but at least we must admit it.
Question: What would you advise these leaders in such a situation, in this world? If they were listening to you, what would you say? Start with yourselves?
Answer: Yes, start with yourself. Explain to each other, and write a general memorandum of your intentions and how you expect them to come true. This is possible only if you move alongside the development of nature so that your development coincides with its development.
We see how for millions of years, with humanity it has been for thousands of years, nature develops us egotistically and at the same time creates such conditions that we are obliged to somehow cope with this egoism, to balance it. And if not, then by war.
So, we have no choice but to first understand our nature, what state we are in, and what should be the path of our development—to realize that there must be a rapprochement between us above egoism.
Question: Is this your advice to leaders?
Answer: Yes. To admit that we are all egoists. It is not that hard. But the fact that we must work on it and get closer to each other is already a problem. How can we see ourselves rising above egoism and acting despite it? How can we weaken the egoistic ties between us and replace them with some altruistic ties, equal, which are based on mutual understanding, on mutual rapprochement? This is not easy.
Question: Would the law of mutual guarantee, which we are talking about, suit them? Can this be included in the memorandum?
Answer: In principle, it is implied that we will act in mutual assistance.
Question: Mutual assistance to what?
Answer: Economic mutual assistance, which stipulates global development, so that there is no one at the expense of others anywhere so that no one suppresses one another.
And how is this possible if we are in a closed space, in a closed world? We must initially define for ourselves the norms of our behavior, each relative to all. That is, it is like a group of 15 people who must work out some kind of system to come closer to each other.
Question: And if they decided to build some kind of common territory in which everyone will, in general, be happy with this connection, then should they follow these laws?
Answer: They must develop the population. They must explain to the population that the future of the world is in the good connection between people, otherwise there will be war, and in our time it can destroy them in a second.
A good connection is necessary in order not to lead these 15 countries to a fierce war, in which they have already been each in their own way, but now it can explode in general. So, this commonwealth will split into many different small communities that will start fighting among themselves, pulling the blanket, and that will be the end of it.
Comment: That is, this is the aspiration for a good connection.
My Response: Who will lead this good connection? Who will promote it, who understands what this kind of connection means? Who will counteract the egoistic individual politicians, each of whom, in turn, wants to climb above everyone and sit on everyone’s heads? This is the nature of our world. Who leads these countries? The biggest egoists.
Therefore, I do not know. Personally, I look at all this, just so it will not all explode.
If they do not follow the path of proper education of the population of their 15 countries, then in the end they will see how angry they are at each other, how much their inner egoism does not allow them to be in connection, even slightly, with each other, and eventually a trade war, a political war, will begin, and then the real war.
Question: So there is only one way—education?
Answer: Only education, changing a person.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 1/3/22
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Question: For a long time The Book of Zohar was hidden from people, and now some have a skeptical attitude toward it: “Well another book has appeared.” How do I explain to them that this is actually a very important book?
Answer: It is impossible to explain. Until a person receives a certain amount of blows and matures, there is no way to explain it to him. He will say: “But I don’t believe it!” Well don’t believe it! You’ll learn gradually. Nothing can be done.
We see that a huge number of people in our world are engaged in all kinds of nonsense! What can you do with them? Can you approach a person and explain to him, show him, and tell him what The Book of Zohar writes about?! He will turn away from you and that is it. But when he gets hit hard, he immediately begins to listen. That is how we are built.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A New Religion?” 4/4/11
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Question: You say that over time we will not need an Internet connection, but only an internal, sensory one. What is it? Let’s say I’m several continents away from you, how will we connect through our senses instead of through Facebook or Skype for example?
Answer: You will not feel the need for an Internet connection. You will feel the need to rise from it to a more internal connection with each other. What is the use of me texting you? Because there is an inner desire to be in a closer connection (not virtual, but spiritual) when we feel each other telepathically. We are simply connected by this network.
Question: How can we uncover this telepathic network?
Answer: It is through desire, through mutual desire.
Usually such a desire exists in a mother with a child. She feels what is happening to him because she loves him, strives for him, and wants to feel him all the time. They have an open animal root between them (not spiritual, but animal) because she gave birth to him. At one point he was in her; a little creature was born out of her, and she feels it.
Question: How will such a desire be revealed to everyone?
Answer: On the account of it rising from within us. It also develops within us. After all, in comparison with inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, we are developing, and will inevitably have to reveal this connection that initially exists between us in ourselves. Now it is still manifested on a low level as a connection of hatred, a desire to use each other, but in the end it will manifest itself in a different way.
Question: So this is a natural evolutionary process. Will it not depend on the person himself?
Answer: No, it will depend very much on the person. Otherwise, if this process goes by the way of evolution, it will be forced and painful, when nature will push us forward with a roller of development as it has been forcing us for millions of years.
If we want to go faster, not by the stick toward happiness, but with awareness, then we must understand nature, anticipate its next pressures on us, and help ourselves in this development. It is like an intelligent child who understands what is required of him and performs everything in advance, without expecting punishment. And punishment is not punishment, but simply coercion to correct development.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Technology?” 2/27/11
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Question: In the future will there be such a thing as the need to work for existence?
Answer: As long as we feel this world, it will remain.
But when we rise to the level where we completely fulfill each other spiritually, we will cease to feel the corporeal level. It will gradually move into the next one, the spiritual one. What seems corporeal to us today is felt as such only in our physical representations.
If our feelings rise to spiritual ones, then we will begin to feel our world as spiritual. We will see that there was no corporeal world. Therefore, it is called Olam HaMedume, that is, an illusionary, imaginary world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Work?” 3/29/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you know about the system in which we live?“
We live in a single global-integral system, and it has a specific demand from us.
What is its demand?
It is that we adapt to its global-integral laws.
The system we live in urges us to connect to it in a harmoniously-interdependent manner, like parts of an analog system.
We, on the contrary, act negatively to each other. We prioritize self-benefit over the benefit of others and the whole system.
Such an attitude is destructive.
It leads to a proliferation of exploitation, manipulation and abuse in our connections, and the depletion our planet’s resources. In other words, we currently want, think and act oppositely to the laws of the global-integral system we exist in.
Accordingly, we receive myriad negative responses from the system, all kinds of problems and crises on personal, social, economic and ecological scales: from increasing depression, stress, anxiety and loneliness through to various wars and other conflicts, and all the way through to ecological disasters and pandemics.
The global-integral system we live in responds to our attitudes to it, i.e., to our attitudes to each other and to nature in general.
We can make of it whatever we like, but we will eventually have to learn how this system functions with total interconnection and interdependence among its parts, its integral laws, and reach the understanding of how to lead harmonious and peaceful lives while living in it.
If we do not learn the system’s laws, we will then feel increasing negative feedback from it, because the force of protection in the system will always prevail.
Based on the video “We Live in an Integral System” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Do you think a killing gene is present in every person?
Answer: Every person has this inclination because every one of us is comprised of the full set of desires, from the best to the worst.
Question: So do we have absolutely all desires?
Answer: All of them.
Question: I heard that a serial killer said that every time he killed, he killed a part of himself? Do you think a person is constantly engaging in some sort of suicide if he kills others.
Answer: That is correct. It is natural because we are all in one common desire, in one common system.
Everything that exists is inside of me: still, vegetative, animate, and human. By killing someone or something, I kill a part of that inside of me. This is so true that a person must repent, so to speak, when he uses anything from this world for himself. He must justify this consumption, starting with a gulp of air and ending with lives, and so on.
It is the same as when we consume food or anything else. All of it requires some kind of correction.
Question: Are you saying that a person kills a part of himself if he kills someone in war or somewhere else?
Answer: Yes, that is correct.
Question: But even when killing an animal for food, am I also killing something inside of me?
Answer: Yes. Anything at all, when I consume it, including as I said before, a gulp of air, a gulp of water, it does not matter what, by that I consume, nevertheless. I kill that particle of the cosmos and I must somehow take responsibility for it. That is why there are blessings that we have to say and more things.
A person feels this even subconsciously. There are people who before drinking something, pour a little out of the cup, cut off a piece of bread, and put it aside, or do other things.
This all indicates that a person understands that he is taking from nature and taking practically without ever returning it. By that, he kills the Universe. And he wants to give, share, and so on. This exists in many nations, and it is subconsciously instilled in man.
Comment: So to exist I must kill around me.
My Response: If you do it as a necessity for your existence, to support life, then it is another matter. But you must understand it, nevertheless. That is why you have to say a blessing, so to speak, set apart a piece for someone, a tithe, and so on.
Question: And a blessing, is it when I say that I require this for my existence?
Answer: Yes. Even though it is not my fault, I was not the one who created myself this way, but I recognize this and share it in this way.
Question: Can you say why this was done? Globally speaking, for what?
Answer: A person must understand that he is in a world where he has no right to anything at all. And if he takes something and consumes it for himself, for his own sake, then he must pay for it, give it back, repay it, and so on.
Question: And the fact that we ruin everything, kill everything, and that we have brought the environment to the brink, will we be punished for that or not?
Answer: Yes, it is a great shame.
Question: Does all of it boomerang back to the person, in your opinion?
Answer: We will have to pay for all of it globally.
Comment: Rabbi Akiva said that the book is open and the hand writes, and you borrow, but later you will have to return all of it.
My Response: Indeed.
Question: Is this what we are talking about the same thing?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is taking normally only when it is for one’s existence?
Answer: It is only for existence, and if you take it only for existence, then you will be able to bestow it.
Comment: And that is blessed.
My Response: Relatively speaking. This is very complex because nature is closed, whole, and perfect. That is why our existence in it, in nature, requires us to be very careful and to be in complete bestowal.
Question: How do we nevertheless reach harmony with nature?
Answer: Only by attaining the feeling of unity with nature and the opportunity to bestow as much as we take. Then we will regulate how much to take and how much to give.
Question: But in principle, are we constantly moving toward this, one way or another?
Answer: I hope that one day we will get there.
Question: But why were we not given an understanding and feeling of this? We take without a second thought.
Answer: But we are moving toward this. This is development, the gradual development of nature from the still level onward.
Question: So do we have to come to a state where I cannot simply take and that is all? And even more so, to kill, steal, and so on?
Answer: Of course.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/23/23
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The thought of creation was to delight the created beings in accord with His abundant generosity. For this reason, a great desire and craving to receive His abundance was imprinted in the souls.
This is so because the will to receive is the vessel for the measure of pleasure in the abundance (Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”).
Question: It turns out that initially the Creator created us in such a way that we want to receive pleasure from the connection with Him, and this depends on the measure of our desire. What does it mean to receive pleasure from the connection with the Creator?
Answer: This phenomenon also exists in our lives. We do not need to go into some cosmic space or dive into spiritual levels. In accordance with his desire, a person can feel something that he wants, and he can even measure, weigh, and tell himself and others about it. Therefore, desire is a necessary condition for a person to feel something.
Since the Creator wants to delight the created beings, He created a desire to receive pleasure from Him in them. Thus, there is the Creator who radiates pleasure, and there are created beings who receive this pleasure, and they should feel that they receive it from the Creator. It all depends on us.
Nevertheless, there are conditions under which we can feel the pleasure emanating from the Creator, be filled with it, weigh it, define it, and even talk about it.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 5/14/23
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Question: In the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Baal HaSulam writes that both pleasure and desire come from the Creator. However, they must be separated since pleasures come from Atzmuto, and desires are “existence from absence.” The Creator seemingly created the creation from nothing. What does “created from nothing” mean?
Answer: In order to feel something, we need a desire. Initially there was no created being, when it appeared, there was a desire in it to feel the Creator, to come closer to Him, and to be filled with Him. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us.
Question: Can we say that all the desires of our world are pleasure from the Creator?
Answer: Yes, absolutely everything, because our world is included in Him.
The general pleasure that comes from the Creator and that all His created beings feel can be felt only to the extent of the desire that exists in the created being. To the extent that I want to feel pleasure, I can feel this fulfillment.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 5/14/23
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Question: How do you distinguish whether you are in corporeal or in spiritual reason?
Answer: It depends on whether I am included in an upper degree, whether I annul myself before it. Or maybe I am no longer annulling myself but have climbed to this degree, I am in it, meaning I begin to absorb its reason into myself and replace my past reason with a new one.
Question: Can there be a conflict of reason?
Answer: Of course! This is a constant conflict because the next degree seems like it is opposite to the present one to you, and its logic seems absolutely illogical because you have to annul yourself, connect with others, be a giver, get out of yourself, and do some seemingly illogical things.
Naturally, your reason is against it. What is considered positive at the upper degree is negative in your reason today; it is stupid. Why on earth would you give to others? Why on earth would you love your enemies? Why on earth would you only think about others? And where are you? These are all illogical actions, thoughts, and decisions.
All this is aimed at making you gain a different attitude to reality and become limitless, infinite. And when you receive for yourself, you are constantly limited in your egoism. You are filled with something and that is it, no more, so you have to run for some other pleasure. You have tasted it a little bit, and again, like a little mouse: here a little bit, there a little bit—that is your life.
You never get satisfied and just get exhausted, dried up. It bores you, it becomes hopeless, dull, and depressive because you feel that all this is useless, and eventually you die.
And another perception of reality is based on bestowal, that is, on getting out of yourself, when you constantly get new desires that exist in other people. You attract these desires to yourself, begin to consider them your own, and fill them.
If this desire was inside you, you would feel a very small pleasure. Look at how a mother feeds her baby. If she would eat the 100 grams of porridge that she gives the baby, what would she feel? And when her baby eats those 100 grams of porridge and lies satisfied, how happy she is! How many times is her pleasure greater than the pleasure of this “piece of flesh” which is now filled!
This is a very small similarity of the pleasure, multiplied many times, which we receive when filling others if only we first achieve love for them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is the Reason?” 2/21/11
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Question: There is a famous bridge in San Francisco where people often committed suicide. Every week a man came there and looked down. One day a driver came up to him and said: “I see you here often. Come to your senses. Life is beautiful.” The man smiled and answered him: “I am the most life-loving person in the world. I just develop this feeling even more when I look down from the bridge and realize that life can end.”
If we have this understanding that life can end in an instant, in a fraction of a second, does it increase our optimism? What do you think?
Answer: I do not know. It depends if this affects a person. I have been to this place and have passed over this bridge more than once. It is a crazy height. The water below has a temperature of seven to nine degrees. This is the Golden Gate Bridge.
Also, there are sharks down there. So, if you are not lucky enough to freeze in a few seconds or minutes, then they will eat you.
Comment: With suicides, everything is clear. But I would like to know about optimism. The fact that in a moment he may die increases the optimism of this man. He says: “But I am alive, and life is beautiful.”
My Response: But you can think the same thing when crossing the street. You do not have to go to San Francisco to do this!
Question: But still many people jump from the bridge and commit suicide, and he just looks. How can we increase optimism? Do you have any advice for people? Especially today it would be good.
Answer: Optimism will be increased only in a good environment where there are friends and comrades. When we can support each other and understand how to practically approach the revelation of real optimism, then, of course, it is possible.
Comment: You are saying that our life should consist of creating such a circle, and then nothing is scary.
My Response: Then nothing is scary. We will exist in it.
Question: What are my obligations in this circle?
Answer: Mutual support, care, and love. That is it.
Question: Does it mean that I grow this circle? I do not just enter it to receive.
Answer: Of course.
Question: Should everyone have this attitude?
Answer: It is contagious, we can infect each other with it. If you enter such a circle, then you gradually become infected with their attitude. I think it is possible.
Question: What about the usual thoughts of a person that I give them everything, I transmit love, but there is nothing in it for me. What should we do with such thoughts? They occur very often.
Answer: Also to get to a circle that would destroy them in you. Thoughts about yourself should eventually disappear.
Question: Is this the main result?
Answer: Yes, so that you think about others, not about yourself.
Question: Is it possible to dissolve like this and think only about others?
Answer: Of course, it depends on the environment.
Comment: Usually, you give an example of a mother who lives like this, if we are talking about our corporeal world.
My Response: Well, this is a mother, and we are talking about an ordinary person.
Question: Is it possible to think about them all the time, to exist for them?
Answer: Yes. We should receive such an example and such an attitude from the environment.
Question: Then can we work with optimism?
Answer: Then you can enjoy life.
Question: I see. You said that this is how you come closer to upper optimism. What is the upper optimism?
Answer: The upper optimism is when you feel that this is the absolute law of the world and that this is the meaning of existence: to rise to its level and exist in it.
Question: When you say optimism, what is it?
Answer: Optimism is when everything is great, has its own meaning, and revolves exactly according to this law—love your neighbor as yourself.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/30/23
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Comment: A student who watches almost all our videos, writes: “Dear Michael Laitman, My beloved husband, my soulmate, passed away a month ago. I try to ease my pain with thoughts and hope that our souls are connected and that I lost the body, but not the unity we had when he lived. Has a part of my soul gone with him? How can I feel a part of his soul in me? Maybe you can answer me. It is very difficult to live without him.”
My Response: Yes, it is difficult to answer such questions, moreover, obviously to a lonely elderly woman.
I think that the main thing is that we should not blame anyone for anything. The upper force moves all parts of nature including us. We need to look at this in a completely practical, pragmatic way. Let us prepare ourselves for the state when we will know and see everything and feel our world from above.
Question: Could you tell what state she should be in? He is gone, and there is no physical body in front of her.
Answer: She must be in a state of submission. What is there, let it continue. Time will change, and fate will change, and then we will feel a new life.
Question: If you pass all this obediently?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: That is, to return to this all the time and torment yourself with it…
My Response: No, none of this is necessary. Torments are not needed.
Question: And what to submit to in this case? To fate, to the upper providence?
Answer: To both. It is the same.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/20/23
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Question: If everyone is controlled by the Creator, where is their freedom?
Answer: We have to disseminate the knowledge of Kabbalah, realize it on ourselves, and show an example to the whole world. And the whole world has to accept it and implement it with our help. If it does not want to, that is its business. If it wants to, it will slowly understand.
Question: But this is not the desire of creation, is it?
Answer: No one asks the creation, just as no one asked you whether you should be born or not. You are brought to the opportunity to act freely. If you want, use it; if you do not want to, then do not. Then you will be led in circles by a long way and through a lot of problems.
If you implement freedom of will through your correction, yearn for it by yourself, and do not resist with all your might, then you go forward and everything is fine. But if you resist, then you will be led by force, like all stubborn ones.
If you understand what “reward and punishment” means, then you will understand that there are two reins that will pull you back and forth. By being prodded from behind by punishment and attracted by the reward ahead, you will always go where you need to.
Comment: It turns out that in this case, the Creator is a sadist.
My Response: The Creator is the upper force. The force! What right do you have to apply any epithets to it?! Merciful, cruel, and so on.
Everything that Kabbalists write comes from what a person feels. The Creator does not feel anything. This is a force of nature, an absolute force in which there is no pity, no anger, nothing. It is the force that should bring all creation to a single end.
It has a certain program. According to this program, the will to receive and the will to bestow gradually come closer to each other according to a certain formula of equivalence between them. This formula is known: between the will to receive and the will to bestow, there must be a screen that balances both forces.
A very simple formula for the interaction of these three values forms the entire program of creation and implements it. This is the Creator, the creation, and a system of interaction between them, which brings them closer and closer at each degree.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is a Parallel World?” 3/1/11
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We, people, were created uncorrected like little children so that we would work hard to correct ourselves and through our efforts achieve a state equal to the Creator, become like Him, and understand His thought and His plan with regard to us.
This is so that we make our way to the final correction and find out why the Creator has broken us so much, why we need to correct this on our own, in what conditions we should be at every moment of time, and what to learn from it. When we finish all of this path, we will become understanding and ready for something, but we do not know for what.
We have only now received the understanding that in our world there is an opportunity to discover that we are corrupted, an opportunity to correct ourselves with the help of Kabbalah and reach the state of final correction. What will happen to us after that is unknown.
After all, the corrected perfect state of the entire creation is achieved when it becomes one single whole and as one single organism opposite to the Creator. The Creator and creation become equal partners, similar to each other; opposite in their natural qualities, and absolutely identical in their external states of love and bestowal. What happens to them next, we do not know. We cannot understand it.
This is a completely different mind and different feelings when everything merges into one single whole. This is the true state of that single force that is called the Creator.
Someday we will get there. I hope it happens quickly. Then, when we are restored to a complete connection, one single whole and one single organism, the next stage, will come.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is It to Be Out of the Body?” 2/21/11
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Question: What is science in your understanding?
Answer: Science is the exploration of the world through our sensory organs and devices that expand their range of perception of reality to the extent that it is available to us.
Any science is characterized by the repeatability of experiments and receiving real results. In no case should you add any of your guesses, additions, or theories! They take place in science, but only as assumptions, not its basic truths.
I, like scientists, absolutely follow this definition of science. I have no disagreements with them on this. The only problem is that they do not understand that Kabbalah is the same science that studies reality, only the reality that is not available to everyone.
Animals cannot explore our reality. Plants cannot explore the reality of animals and our reality. We cannot explore the reality that Kabbalists discover, only after they have created an additional sensory organ in themselves and thus feel the next dimension, a deeper world, on another wave, which we cannot feel, but which everyone can feel if they develop this sensory organ in themselves.
Therefore, anyone can be a Kabbalist, that is, can receive this additional knowledge.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Science?” 3/28/11
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New Life 298 – Creativity At Work
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe
How can we be more creative in the workplace? What sort of communication should we develop between us for this and what is the benefit of an integral workshop in comparison with brainstorming?
Due to the acceleration of change in society, today’s work environment requires teamwork. We are no longer meant to advance and research in a multitude of specialized domains and areas of narrow expertise where we don’t even speak the same language. Instead, everything will stem from connection.
Great ideas are born from interaction and collaboration with each other. Nature is leading us toward organizations where domains won’t exist; rather, we will see nature in a round way. We will connect from within with all the phenomena of nature.
It will be worthwhile to establish a team in every factory and organization that engages in integrative artistic creativity. What are the necessary conditions for this to happen? Such a team must undergo internal change through integral education. Brainstorming should look like a workshop—no one has the answer, but we should each wish for an idea to be born in the other. Our progress will come when we connect with each other internally at the level of feelings, not on an external level. Internal conflicts between people will bring about connection on another level. It’s as if we create a new person as the fruit of love rather than ego, of bestowal rather than receiving for oneself. This character becomes much more creative, from a new level of existence.
Once we are able to include the others and be included in them, the team can proceed to engage with a specific problem or challenge. Solutions will emerge from rising above internal conflicts between people.
We need to create unity around the idea of the problem before us. It will be resolved if we elevate it to a higher degree, because that challenge doesn’t exist there. Every problem is a result of lack of connection; thus, if we connect we will solve the problem and see the solution to it. We generate an action out of a felt solution agreed upon by everyone. It becomes clear on its own in the Partzuf we have built. If there is no solution, it means that we didn’t reach connection.
A truly connected team can solve any problem, from any field, even one that has nothing to do with it.
From KabTV’s “New Life 298 – Creativity At Work,” 2/11/14
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is abundance, and why is abundance usually associated with money?“
Abundance is the feeling of our ability to realize ourselves.
We feel wealthy when we feel like we can do anything we have the ability to do. Likewise, we could have billions in our bank accounts, yet feel poor.
As for the association of abundance with money, it stems from a spiritual root.
In Hebrew, the word for “money” is “Kesef,” which stems from the same linguistic root as the word “Kisuf,” which means “covering.” When we cover our egoistic desires, i.e., desires for self-benefit at others’ expense, we can then rise above these desires—developing an intention to bestow above our inborn desire to receive—and we then experience wealth and abundance on a spiritual level.
In our corporeal world, we consider abundance as having a lot of money that we can use to pay for all sorts of goods and services, whereas in the spiritual world, abundance is the amount by which we can cover our egoistic desires and operate with an intention to bestow.
The altruistic cover upon our egoistic desires is called a “screen” (Heb. “Masach”). It is essentially the feeling of the importance of qualities of love, bestowal and connection above the importance of fulfilling our self-aimed desires. When we cover ourselves with the importance of love, bestowal and positive connection to others, then we become rich—and feel rich.
We then feel that we have everything we want, that we become equal to the upper force of love, bestowal and connection. By doing so, we achieve complete fulfillment and abundance because we attain connection with the source of every pleasure and delight.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Abundance?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on February 27, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 56
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Comment: You said that you were once offered to find out what would happen to you in the future, but you refused.
My Response: Yes. What’s the point? It is said: “Do not practice divination or tell fortunes.” Why should I do this if by doing it I am robbing myself spiritually? I don’t want to know the future; I want to make it myself. I want to go to it blindly. It all depends on how I aspire to it.
Question: Isn’t this moment when you supposedly go to your future by yourself an illusion of freedom? It is programmed anyway.
Answer: The future is programmed but not the way to achieve it. For example, you go to school. It is absolutely certain that you will finish it. But how many times you will sit in which classes, how many strikes you will get and how many A’s or D’s depends on you and no one else. Therefore, it is not known how future states are achieved, because it is in your hands.
There are only two ways to achieve the same state at any given time, the good way or the bad way. Let’s say you come to work and you have to do it. You finished, got a reward, and went home. And so it is every day.
But how you will go through this path from beginning to end, depends on you. Either you will learn how to pass it well and quickly and implement it easily because you understand that this is necessary, good, and beneficial for you, or you will be driven forward with a stick to happiness.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Memory?” 2/21/11
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Question: Modern life is built solely on receiving an education, getting a good job, starting a family, and other similar steps. What is the ideal path of development of a person to change the corporeal orientation to a spiritual one?
Answer: If a person does not have the opportunity to become eternal, that is, to overcome the bar of death, then this life either does not initially make sense, or we need to make it the way we are constantly trying to do, to forget ourselves in this life.
We forget ourselves in it and lead an ordinary life; we show an example of how a person reaches some heights, how he does not pay attention to death, how he accepts his old age and death in a natural way, and so on.
So, we do everything just to accept our life as something normal, proper, natural, and accepted by everyone, and that is why we do that. In no case do we ask the question of the meaning of life, we do not show the end of a person with the question “What is all this for?” We keep this to ourselves always because we do not have an answer to this question.
But gradually we begin to go deeper into nature, and this is what the first Kabbalists did, who immediately asked the question “What is happening in nature?” because they have not yet been clogged with modern technologies and current diseases.
Eternal, perfect, infinite nature does not create anything in vain. Every cell and every organ is in cause-and-effect development and in addition to others. We see clear laws in it.
But where is all this nature? After it created so many things, what does it do with its result, with her most complex object—the human? Nothing! We see that everything connects, constantly rushes forward, and then an edge disappears. What is going on behind this invisible barrier? Where does everything disappear to?
Kabbalah begins to reveal the next dimension to us. Nothing disappears. The animalistic part dies the same way plants and animals die. We, however, as the crown of all development, go further. We must, from what we have been given create above our animalistic part the next part, which is called Man.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Work?” 3/29/11
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Question: You say that we are “up to our ears in the donkey,” meaning that we are in our egoism. If we associate ourselves only with it, then how can we find our spiritual form? How can you find yourself to get out of this donkey?
Answer: This can be done only by attracting the upper force. When you start working with a group in which everyone strives to get out of their donkey, then a point in your heart awakens in you, which begins to ask: “Why should I live in this donkey? What kind of life is this?” Then everyone helps each other and through combined efforts, you develop in yourself a real desire for everyone to get out of your common donkey into existence outside of it.
This desire arises in you while studying Kabbalistic sources. And it doesn’t matter that they are written in a complicated and unattainable way. It doesn’t matter. After all, when you read them, you connect with the next degree, with the next sphere, from which the upper light influences you; the state that exists there pulls you to itself.
On the one hand, your suffering pushes you forward like a cherry stone. And on the other hand, it’s the force that pulls you out. In this way you get out of your donkey and begin to feel you exist independently. The donkey does not disappear, this world remains, but you begin to feel that you also exist in the next, upper sphere.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Head Over Heels in a Donkey!” 1/9/11
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Comment: The main problem in the development of fascism was that it is written in the Torah, “Use a non-Jew.”
My Response: If the Torah is interpreted within the framework of our world, then it will be worse than Mein Kampf because it says that non-Jews should be killed, deceived, neglected, and anything can be done with them.
If this is not interpreted as “my egoistic desires, which I have to deceive, change,” and so on, then it is quite obvious that this can be used as the basis for hatred of Jews.
But who can even think about it correctly? Those who benefit from it politically, no more than that.
Because you don’t see it anywhere in history. Do Jews earn money? That is correct. Do they know how to settle better than others? That is also correct. But, in principle, they do not harm anyone. It is invented by those who benefit from it. And this is natural.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Nazism and the Jews” 1/9/11
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Question: What is the best way to study Kabbalah: in your native language or in Hebrew?
Answer: It is desirable to perceive Kabbalah in your native language, but at the same time, you need to know a couple of dozen, maybe a hundred or two hundred words in Hebrew. It is impossible otherwise.
If you say “face” instead of “Partzuf,” and “head,” “legs,” and so on instead of “Rosh” and “Raglaim,” then you will be confused. And so you, on the contrary, take these words as artificial to define the soul.
They are, in principle, taken from there. It does not matter that in our world we use them to refer to body parts. But in this case, it is simple.
Therefore, I think it makes no sense to translate these words. No one translates special terms in any language, in any specialty. For example, Latin is used in medicine, Italian is used in music, and all kinds of expressions in German and English are used in international technical languages.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Language of Kabbalah” 1/23/11
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Question: What is better for dissemination to fully disclose one idea or try to convey as many thoughts as possible?
Answer: There should be only one idea—an integral society in an integral world.
The transition of the world from discrete, egoistic, and individual to integral, connected, and common is happening now. We cannot get away from this! This is a challenge from nature, a challenge from the Creator, to us.
We must realize this and try to adapt our advancement at the same pace as it is happening on His part; otherwise, it will be bad for us. Humanity will not survive without it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Global Idea” 2/6/11
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In the News (NY Post): “To thine own self, say ‘I do.’
“Indian woman Kshama Bindu, 24, plans to marry herself in what she believes could be the country’s first ever example of sologamy. …
“’I never wanted to get married. But I did want to become a bride. So I decided to marry myself,’ she told Times of India in June 2 report. Her solo affair is slated to be ordained on June 11.
“And while there won’t be a groom, the solo-bration will feature many Hindu nuptial customs including pheras (rounds) around a holy fire, wedding vows, and a vermillion bridal gown. …
“Kshama believes that she’ll be setting a marital milestone with her act of self-love. ‘Maybe I am the first to set an example of self-love in our country,’ the soon-to-be self wedded spouse told TOI.
“While her solo venture may seem sacrilegious, the trailblazing bride argues that ‘self-marriage is a commitment to be there for yourself and unconditional love for one-self’ — because no one can love her better than she can.
“’It is also an act of self-acceptance,’ the sologamist added. ‘People marry someone they love. I love myself and hence this wedding.’”
Question: What is it? What is it when all maternal and feminine instincts disappear somewhere?
Answer: It happens. It is one of the pathologies of the human psyche.
Question: Can it develop as a virus?
Answer: Everything can develop. See what pathological changes are taking place in the world. This is pathology.
Question: But can we look at this pathology in-depth, based on egoism? In principle, we carry out this self-marriage all the time. We are as though, with ourselves all the time, getting married or not.
Answer: There is no doubt that egoism exists and develops from generation to generation.
The fact that we do not want to get married can be understood despite the instinct, especially in women, because it is also associated with childbirth, upbringing, and so on. But, in principle, this is all changing. Today there are a lot of not only men but also women who do not want to burden themselves with any worries. We call it bonds.
This is the growth of egoism and nothing else.
Question: Why is this happening?
Answer: For people to understand that they really need to do something about this egoism. Because it robs us of even such small joys of our life as love, children, and family.
And in a healthy environment. Look at Japan, at other countries. It is amazing, remarkable, and even incomprehensible in some ways. They stop giving birth, buy some dolls or something instead, and that is it.
Question: So does this lead to us returning to a normal natural existence?
Answer: No. It leads us to develop and understand our essence, that we need some kind of communication and some kind of love, some kind of devotion, attachment to something, to someone, but we do not have that.
Question: Which means, when egoism in us finally kills the natural healthy states, we will only then open our eyes?
Answer: I do not think we will open our eyes. I do not think it will correct us. I do not see that people, after doing any insanely negative things, turn in the other direction and come to their denial and correction.
Question: On the contrary, do they justify this act, and in fact, the opposite is happening?
Answer: It is more possible. But usually, humanity rolls on. It will get worse and worse, more egoistic, until it reaches such an accumulation of negative energy of relationships, thoughts, properties, feelings, and so on that people will already explode from within themselves like an atomic bomb and will have to just like crazy, shovel the rubble of their egoism, just to get rid of it.
It will really be like an atomic bomb, but it will start to explode from within humanity. It takes internal negative energy to tear egoism.
Question: Is this the way?
Answer: A beautiful way.
Comment: The beautiful path is not of reason, but of suffering.
My Response: Yes. I see that after this, a bright time will finally come when people will understand and realize based on the manifestation of this huge egoistic force, that the period of love has come.
Question: And will they understand what love is?
Answer: Yes, it will manifest.
Question: What will they understand then? What is love?
Answer: This is not understood, it will just be felt that they should show only such an attitude to each other.
Not that they even should. What does it mean I have to, and I show? It just manifests itself. With our suffering, we will cause this inversion, the manifestation of love instead of hate.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/16/22
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Question: What is mercy in your understanding?
Answer: Mercy is when a person receives the quality of bestowal from above and can bestow in the same way as the Creator.
Comment: But this is not what people usually understand by mercy in our world.
My Response: Everything is distorted in our world.
Question: But does this concept have at least some common link?
Answer: None. In our world, mercy is when I shut up your egoism.
Question: What is justice?
Answer: Justice is when a person receives exactly as much as he is supposed to in order to move toward correction, to his best, predetermined state, to his root.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Justice” 1/23/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What needs to happen or change for humanity to advance?“
Human nature is a desire to enjoy for self-benefit. It is our starting point, and we are placed in a process of development that leads to a state where we will end up inverting our nature in the direction of benefiting others and nature.
Nature in general is the opposite of human nature. It functions according to laws of altruism, interconnection and interdependence. Accordingly, nature develops its still, vegetative and animate parts in a way where they do not use other parts of nature adversely.
In all of nature, only us people have desires to exploit and destroy nature in order to give ourselves feelings of power and respect. We were given this additional egoistic desire in order to upgrade ourselves through our connection to each other, i.e., to learn how to apply favorable and beneficial relations in place of the inclination that wishes to exploit each other and nature for the sake of inflating our egos.
With this inversion of our intention—from self-benefit alone to benefiting others and nature—we discover a whole new world with a new nature, one that is eternal and perfect.
We then live free of pressures and pains. Our feeling of a short, transient and generally miserable life becomes replaced with a feeling of a continuous existence that is free from suffering.
Suffering stems from our egoistic desire to exploit others and nature for self-gain. Therefore, by replacing our egoistic inclination with an altruistic nature of wishing to benefit others and nature, we discover ourselves living in a heavenly plane of existence.
Heaven is a state where a common force of love emerges between people, which forms a connection of “love your neighbor as yourself.” Nature will lead us to this heavenly state sooner or later, and we will have no choice but to invert our attitudes to each other—from egoistic to altruistic—and by doing so, live in a harmonious and balanced connection.
Based on the video “The Big Change Humanity Needs to Undergo” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Question: The article “The Letters of Rav Hamnuna Saba” allegorically tells that each letter comes to the Creator and says that He should start building the world precisely with it. However, the Creator answers: “Yes, you are good, but I will not start with you.”
What process are we talking about? What does it mean that the letters come to the Creator and each asks that the creation of the world would start with it? There are 22 such signs.
Answer: Yes, there are only 22 forces of nature that in combination with each other create the entire universe, absolutely all the worlds, and everything that fills them and saturates them.
It comes from just 22 letters. There are five additional letters that do not decide anything, but are simply written at the end of words.
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From KabTV’s “Introduction of The Book of Zohar” 4/23/23
Hebrew is the language of the spiritual realms. It is the code of the connections of spiritual forces, the forces of our soul, in all possible combinations.
If we take the Bible from the first word “in the beginning” (“God created in the beginning”) until the last word “Israel,” then the whole combination of these letters represents the path that the human soul must go through, the soul of each one in its spiritual development.
Each person must go from his first to last point, which is called “Israel,” i.e., the point of our connection with the Creator.
Question: Isn’t it scary that people use Hebrew now?
Answer: No, of course not. What do they understand? It doesn’t matter. But in principle, all the same, to the extent of spiritual attainment, all people will use Hebrew.
It is impossible to describe the spiritual world with other icons, in a different sequence, and in a different combination. This is the code. Therefore it has not changed for thousands of years. You can do what you want with other languages, but Hebrew does not change.
You can take a book that was written two, three, or four thousand years ago and read it calmly if you know this language. There won’t be any problems for you; you won’t find a single word unknown to you there.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Uniqueness of Hebrew” 1/9/11
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Question: If a student who constantly engages in Kabbalah misses a lesson twice in a row, how is this recorded in his spiritual advancement?
Answer: This is recorded in his internal information data, and then it will be harder for him.
It is like when Adam fell into sin. The first time he tasted the forbidden apple and liked it, it was not a descent because then he did not know what it was. The second time, when he consciously could not restrain himself and tasted it again, this is called sin.
Even in our daily life, if a person commits an offense for the first time, we take it into account. He had no informational record of what would happen to him; he could not foresee that this would happen. For the first time, they make a certain concession for him. But the second time, that is it. Because after the second time, it is almost impossible to stop; there is a clear record that this is good, it is worth doing, and I am going for it.
Therefore, skip classes; once it could happen, but not twice in a row! No way! We should be very afraid of this because this approach weakens us very much. A person usually thinks: “Well, it did not work out, I could not.” And off we go, rolled down, back to this world.
By committing an offense twice, a person gets used to it. Even in the material world, everyone knows this.
You will not be shown leniency for not attending lessons or be given free passes and have everything fine after that. It does not depend on the teacher. I give you the spiritual law! If you want it, follow it; if you do not want it, do not. There is a law! Where are you going to jump? With the Creator, these things do not work.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To damage one’s destiny” 1/21/11
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Comment: A person’s main problem is that he is not tied to higher coordinates. When you say that our world does not exist, that it is just an illusion, the question arises: “Where am I?”
My Response: Nothing can be done. There is a methodology for this. So it is necessary to gradually introduce a person into this, to explain, and to give him the opportunity to explore how to manage his qualities. All this is given to us initially. Everyone can and must attain the truth. This must be learned.
All the suffering in the world pushes us to do just that. It does not push us to improve our world, this small sphere in which we exist. There is no need for that.
We have to change ourselves so as to go out into the outer sphere, and then into a more external sphere, and into an even more external sphere. And if we start improving our little sphere instead, and we want to stay inside it, we only get the blows of nature, which try to push us out like a cherry stone. This is what we feel today in all our actions in the world.
Therefore, we do not need to change the world or even improve society, but rather we need to help a person reach the next degree of existence with a completely different screen in another world in another dimension.
You do not have to do anything else, just this. Everything else will only lead to additional suffering and to the postponement of the end; it will distance the good ascent.
Our world aspires only to this, and we will definitely come to this. But it all depends on the amount of suffering and the length of time it takes to realize that in the end we need to do something reasonable, i.e., first figure out what nature has planned for us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, The Illusion of the World” 2/1/11
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Comment: Looking at a person or an object, I feel them, as you say, through the interaction of forces. But I perceive these objects as a visual, illusory image, which you call a screen.
My Response: The fact is that we perceive our natural screen we were born with. The interaction of forces draws a multidimensional picture of the world on it.
That is, we create flat screens in ourselves, like a computer screen or a movie screen, which are located inside our world. Our world itself is also a screen, only it is three-dimensional, and voluminous, like 3D technologies or other latest techniques.
There are 125 such spherical screens, meaning spheres nested one into another. We are in the smallest inner sphere. This screen, that was initially given to us automatically and in which we imagine ourselves as existing, is called “our world.”
It is created by only two forces, reception and bestowal, at the very minimum level of their interaction. If we can develop them, and raise ourselves up so that the force of bestowal prevails over the force of reception, then we will expand and enter the next sphere, the next screen, where we will feel ourselves living, but in a completely different form.
That is, we will feel ourselves, our qualities, and the entire environment completely differently. This is called the “upper world.” Then we move on to the next state, and the next one, and so on.
All these states overlap each other, and they do not interfere with us, like if you were in a movie theater and see on the screen how you sit and watch a movie, and in that movie, you see how you sit and watch another movie, and so on. And in this way, 125 screens inwardly.
Comment: Everything I feel and see around me is actually the interaction of forces within me. But I see it on my internal screen. In fact, this screen is just an illusion through which I can somehow hold on to the forces that exist behind it.
My Response: It is very difficult to imagine this for a person who does not feel it. You just feel like you are in our reality. You draw it, meaning you create it with your thoughts and forces. In fact, it does not exist.
After all, 125 concentric spheres of attainment do not exist outside of you. You draw them, you create them.
This is a very complex science. Therefore, it is necessary to gradually get used to such an action, enter it, and get used to it. Then you suddenly feel that everything really is arranged in this way, and that is how you live.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Illusion Of the World” 2/1/11
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Question: What is the real truth?
Answer: If we start from below, from us, then it does not exist because we are constantly changing and we do not have a foundation on which we can build the truth. Truth is verity; truth stems from our root that we all originate from.
Everything that exists in our root, as in a point, is the truth. You can say, “If this is already at the root, why should I focus on it?” But you have nothing else to direct yourself to. You came from there; you do not know anything other than that; you cannot invent or imagine anything other than that.
Therefore, what is at the root is in absolute agreement, symbiosis, harmony, and complementation to each other; it forms the concept of root, basis, which for you is truth, veracity. Just that.
You cannot invent anything else. Nothing can come to your mind because you are only a descendant of this root. Therefore, the attainment of the root is the attainment of the truth.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Truth” 1/9/11
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Question: What is hatred?
Answer: Hatred is when I want to see the other person not die, not disappear, but suffer in full accordance with my ideas about suffering. I do not want him to die. No, absolutely not. I wish him such sensations that I will now come up with especially for him so that he remains in them.
Comment: In fact, it is like sadism.
My Response: This is such a high form of relationship that is opposite to love, one against the other. Two opposite forms of attitude to the other person, to a being, to nature, to the Creator, no matter to whom.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Hatred” 1/27/11
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New Life 260 – The Challenges and Difficulties of Youth
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Children and youth are lost today since, for the first time in history, parents cannot prepare a good world for them. Without traditional boundaries, youth struggle with excessive consumption, addiction, and eating disorders. They go to extremes because, without feeling a limit, the edge, they do not feel alive. The only way to attain mental fulfillment for youth is if parents change the general atmosphere toward connection and then spread the new knowledge to the next generation.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 260 – The Challenges And Difficulties Of Youth,” 11/25/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some things we can do to help ease our anxiety about the future?“
To understand that it is just anxiety and not reality.
We should look into what we have the ability to do today, understanding that any anxieties about the future are about what might happen later, and accordingly we should calm down.
Fearing the future gives us absolutely nothing. We nevertheless do not know what will happen tomorrow, so why should we get anxious with various worries and concerns?
Based on the video “Anxiety about the Future – A Kabbalist’s View” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
If a person is not seriously engaged in a group and does not experience common conditions with it, he does not advance.
Question: Suppose a person has the opportunity to attend lessons, but he does not, then he is no longer on the path, but he is still somewhat engaged in it. How should we treat him?
Answer: What can you do with him? You cannot throw him off the roster! He still exists, and in the next incarnation he will again come to Kabbalah and again will have to continue his correction.
So how can you not accept him or refuse him?! You tolerate him only if it does not interfere and does not harm! If he causes harm, that is another matter. But in other cases, you have no right to throw him away.
Do you think my teacher did not have to tolerate me? Did I do everything perfectly? I remember all my faults today. But there is nothing one can do.
Question: Are you so patient with your students because you yourself went through this at the time?
Answer: Maybe this is why. In addition, I am still advancing, and therefore I feel that there is no other way. They are my children. I feel a sense of necessity; I have to, and so on.
But in everything else I am impatient. I have wild nerves and impatience for everything except for a person who tries, but does not succeed.
In other words, in everyday affairs I am impatient, problematic, and intolerable. But not in spirituality. I love my students very much; I value them very much; they are my fortune. All of them! I feel them in myself, probably like a woman feels a fetus inside herself.
Question: How can you distinguish being angry in the corporeal part from your being loving in the spiritual part?
Answer: It depends on the person. If he is developed spiritually, then he understands that now I love him or hate him corporeally, but spiritually I have only one patient attitude toward him, nothing else. I take upon myself all his spiritual problems, suffering, and everything that is in him, like a parent whose child is sick or something happens to him. They are just sick together with him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Unwanted Students” 1/14/13
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Question: Is the Kabbalistic text a spiritual matrix that penetrates through the mind into the subconscious?
Answer: No, it does not work automatically when you look at the letters like a donkey and suddenly something starts to appear in you just because you look at them.
It is necessary to have a great desire to recognize the upper world through these letters so that it arises in you, affects you, changes your nature, and you become better, kinder, closer to others, and connected with others. All this should be included together in your desire.
When you open a Kabbalistic book with such an intention, you are in contact with it even though you absolutely do not understand what it says. But it tells exactly how to act together, connect in love, and complement each other in one single desire for bestowal in which we are like the upper force of nature called the Creator.
If you organize your studies in this way, “you, the book, and a common desire with ones similar to you,” you thereby awaken the upper force that is written about in the book and it really becomes a matrix for you.
The text brings you this force because you read about it, not the book itself, not the pages themselves, but what you aim for through them. From there you receive the upper force that changes and improves you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual matrix” 2/6/11
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Question: Your teacher Rabash’s native language was Yiddish. How did it happen that you made contact with him without a common native language?
Answer: The teacher and I did not have a common native language, but we had a common mentality. He understood Poles and Russians perfectly because he grew up in Poland. In 1922 he arrived in Palestine during the time of the formation of the country, the nation, and he felt perfectly well what had happened here over the years.
But his Polish roots, especially the roots of Baal HaSulam, were felt very strongly. Therefore it was easy for me to be with him because I am from the same places that combine Russian, Belarusian, and Polish cultures, spirit, and even food.
Question: Although you shared a common mentality with Rabash, he still spoke to you in Yiddish. Did you have any problems with this?
Answer: No, I did not feel any special problems in understanding him as a person and being close to him. After all, we are practically from the same time, only slightly shifted. He was 45 years older. In fact, this is a small difference in feelings and in the approach to the world.
Of course, the fact that he was a Kabbalist and felt the world with its roots from above is another matter. But in general there were no problems.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Teacher” 2/5/11
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Question: What is “gematria“?
Answer: Gematria is the numerical value of a spiritual state.
Suppose I am in a certain spiritual state since my desires have acquired a certain similarity to the Creator and are filled with His quality of bestowal. This happens according to the law of similarity of properties. Desire, having become similar to the Creator, is filled with the quality of bestowal and enjoys it. That is, I am similar to the Creator in this state.
My state can be measured according to my desire, how much it has changed in its strength and in its volume. When I weigh my desire, what is it in terms of volume, depth, thickness, how much it has changed and become similar to the Creator, i.e., I weigh the positive changes in it, the various qualities of bestowal and their aspects, then all this together is called gematria.
In other words, the gematria of some object, the soul, is called a power or degree, or a state of correction, similar to the Creator. Therefore, if a person is not similar to the Creator, then he has no name. As soon as he becomes at least a little similar to the Creator, he has gematria, his name.
In principle, all names are gematria because everything in the world is only one desire.
The Creator created only desire, and to the extent that it is similar to the Creator and acquires His qualities, it acquires volume and some form. This form has a name, a measure of similarity to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Gematria” 1/23/11
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Question: How is the soul of a child formed?
Answer: Who can know that?!
Under the influence of the father, under the influence of the mother, and the environment, and all those generations that they have passed. It is all very difficult.
Everything is there inside the mother, formed and transmitted to the future person.
Question: Meaning, during these nine months of gestation, lives and states pass there?
Answer: Yes. And we feel it, in principle, on ourselves during our life—what is in us and how much is in us from our ancestors.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 3/30/23
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Question: What is harmony?
Answer: Harmony is an absolutely complete interaction between two opposite qualities when they complement each other. It is in this complementation upon their initial difference that unity, I would say, perfection, manifests itself.
But this perfection arises only from corrected mergers of opposite qualities. And then there is a great pleasure, as if hunger meets saturation.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Harmony” 1/23/11
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New Life 242 – Happiness and Social Ties, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe
Summary
The law of Nature says that it is the connection between parts that creates and develops life. Happiness and healing can only be found in this single force of connection. In this power of connection, a bad feeling is divided and diminished, and a good feeling doubles, spreads, and intensifies, fulfilling everyone in the process. Whoever wants to change their intention and give to others will discover an endless pool of warmth, happiness, and the power of love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 242 – Happiness And Social Ties, Part 1,” 10/17/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where should I start learning Kabbalah?“
Kabbalah is a wisdom that explains the one unique and unified force operating throughout nature.
Today, humanity is reaching the conclusion that it does not know anything about life’s purpose, and that it must know answers to essential questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives: “Who are we?” “What are we?” “Where do we come from?” and “Where are we headed?” We need to know how we should live, and how we can solve our problems and heal ourselves as we head into the future.
Kabbalah helps us reach such an understanding. It helps us feel nature and reality in its full depth and width. We then come to feel that we know the world that we exist in, and that the world cannot be hostile toward us.
Our education center—KabU—is very practical. It is open to everyone, and it can prepare and advance any person toward life’s meaning and purpose on a simple, straightforward and safe path.
I invite you, from the bottom of my heart, to come and study the wisdom of Kabbalah. This wisdom covers all of reality—the still, vegetative, animate and human levels. It covers the entire universe, from its very beginning until its eternal end: what there was, what there is, and what will be.
The wisdom of Kabbalah explains what happens to us before we are born, and what happens during our lives, and after we leave this world. You will learn all of that here, and we are waiting to welcome you. Come and feel it for yourself.
Based on the video “What Is the Best Way to Learn Kabbalah?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: What is the correct definition of a soul?
Answer: The soul is the part of you that you attain.
The soul is our root where we are in complete merger with the Creator, as two forces: our receiving and His giving. This upper state is revealed to us gradually, according to 125 degrees of attainment, which Kabbalah speaks about.
The term “Kabbalah” comes from the word “receive,” i.e., to attain this upper state. Therefore the gradual revelation of our root, this ascent along 125 degrees, is what we have to do.
We will attain the truth, the only eternally existing state, our root, in which we will merge completely with the Creator, the force that created us.
By reaching this state, we will come to full similarity, equality, and equivalence to the Creator Himself and become His absolute partners in the universe.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Soul” 1/9/11
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Question: What is death?
Answer: Death is when a person feels completely cut off from the eternal, upper, perfect existence. There are not many such people in the world.
The rest are considered simply non-existent. They feel neither life nor death, that is, neither life in the upper, eternal, and perfect space, nor death in disconnection from it.
In other words, life and death are felt only by those people who are already in contact with the next layer, with the next dimension.
Otherwise, we are at the animalistic level of existence like all animals. Let’s say you raise chickens or piglets, and when you need them, you slaughter them and eat them. That is how we are. Only we “eat” others, we are rarely eaten. Usually we die for other reasons.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Death” 1/26/11
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Question: During the study a person works with the material and constantly disconnects from it, works and disconnects. You say that these exits and entries are useful; they make him cling to the material.
How is this better than entering into the material once at the beginning of the lesson and staying in it?
Answer: This is the animalistic level. There is no addition in it. But spiritual work consists precisely in the fact that you are thrown out all the time and you rise on the waves. Through such small ascents that you try to do by yourself, you gradually rise, like a caterpillar crawling up.
Question: Let’s say a person starts studying and immerses himself in the material, but suddenly the thought comes to him: “I forgot to turn off the gas.” Does he need to break away from it and re-enter the material?
Answer: Yes, the Creator constantly gives him these things.
Question: But when you are given this thought, where do you get the strength to overcome it?
Answer: You do not need to do anything. You can be thrown out of the topic of the lesson for half an hour and only then is it made clear to you that you are in different thoughts. From then on, you have to work.
But until that moment, it was necessary for some reason to throw you out of the lesson.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Concentration during the Study” 1/2/11
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Question: Does the visual picture of the perception of our world change when entering the spiritual world?
Answer: Our world does not change in any way, only its roots change. Meaning, I begin to understand what is happening because now I perceive the higher sphere correctly.
But I cannot perceive all actions in our world correctly because many of them are carried out artificially, based on the egoism of a person acting completely wrong.
Therefore, I cannot interpret them correctly in advance, like a child who is doing something wrong. You know that he had to do this or that and get such and such results. But he did it wrong, and it is not known what consequences there may be from that.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Perception of the world” 1/9/11
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Comment: When I lose track of the lesson in the middle of it, at some point the realization comes: “Oh, I am somewhere else!”
My Response: You are given such a feeling, but it is not conscious. Does anything happen for no reason?! First you get a snap and forget about the lesson, fly out of it, and fall.
Then ten minutes later you get another bump on the nose and you ask, “Oh! Where am I?” You begin to understand where. From this moment on, you must quickly get yourself together and re-enter the lesson. In a couple of minutes you will get another snap and be thrown out again.
Question: But where is my inclusion if everything comes from above?
Answer: There is nothing of yours here! This is done only so you eventually understand that you need to do something; otherwise, you will keep being thrown out.
The Creator throws you out through the influence of light. How can you make sure He doesn’t throw you out? Where can you find another light opposite the Creator, who is always messing with you?
To do this, you need a group through which you attract such a light to yourself that the Creator does not throw you out; you fight Him. You are always fighting the Creator. Who else? Is there anyone else?
Question: How can I fight if He controls me?
Answer: Take such force from Him that lets you fight Him. The Creator purposely presents you with various situations, like we do when we play with a child. We create all sorts of apparent obstacles for him to learn from and grow smarter.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Concentration in Study” 1/2/11
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Comment: There is a Chilean parable about a shepherd who crossed a small river over a shaky bridge for 40 years. He was always afraid of falling. One day, he suddenly saw a man approaching who crossed the river through an invisible ford. The shepherd shouts to the man: “I have been walking here for 40 years and I do not know this ford.” He answers: “Look, you are a shepherd, you lead the sheep. But who are you following?”
My Response: This is good. Think about who is leading you.
Question: Humanity is crossing this shaky bridge all the time over a turbulent river. It never thinks about who it is following. It is always inventing some kind of economic and political program.
Answer: There is an effect of mass. The mass is going, and I go.
Comment: People are already falling in the same place, right there; the bridge is already full of holes.
My Response: It does not matter. But they are going, and I must go with them. A sense of community.
Question: Do we repeat the same wars, even in a more terrible way?
Answer: The herd feeling leads us all.
Comment: In this parable, the shepherd saw a man walking through an invisible ford.
My Response: But you still must see this.
Question: How can we see that there is a ford in this turbulent river of life?
Answer: To do this, we need to see the person who is crossing.
Question: How do we see? How can we reveal this vision?
Answer: This is not given to everyone.
Question: Is there a ford in this river?
Answer: There is a ford everywhere and always. But to do this, you need to be able to see a real person who knows how to cross the river and knows where the ford is.
Question: Let us say you are talking about a person, a wise man, who knows where the ford is. How does he know where the ford is? Did he fall off the bridge himself and so on? How does he find a ford in this turbulent river of life?
Answer: This is already a connection with the Creator. There is no other way.
Question: Does it mean that He created this river, He directed us on shaky bridges, He pushes us to absolutely everything, and He also must indicate the ford?
Answer: A person should ask Him to show the crossing.
Question: Should people ask the Creator to show the crossing, the normal, peaceful, good one?
Answer: Yes.
Question: When will this happen?
Answer: When we ask and demand, when there is a need, then we will see.
Question: What is a real request that has an answer?
Answer: That we definitely need to cross this river. We want to cross it not by our own will and with our own mind, but so that we are shown from above for what purpose and why. Then we will get an answer.
Question: Are you saying that we are building these shaky bridges all the time, but we only must ask?
Answer: Of course.
Comment: Will we be able to cross without a bridge then?
My Response: Yes. Otherwise, in the end, we all fall off these bridges and drown.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/23/23
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Question: Why did the Nazis hate Jews specifically?
Answer: This comes from the fact that the matter of our world is completely opposite to the spiritual, which is carried by the Jews.
There is a right and left line, and on the conjunction of them the soul is built. And at the same time there are extreme right and extreme left lines called Klipot, meaning, right and left impurity, which are opposite to their lines, and they hate them. This is all explained in Kabbalah.
The Nazis were representatives of the more impure part of the left line. They understood that the Jews were a spiritual part, and believed that it was possible to physically destroy what was spiritually inherent in nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Nazism and the Jews” 1/9/11
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Question: You often say that it is necessary to justify a friend as much as possible unless he does harm. But where is the line, what kind of harm can be caused?
Answer: When he destroys the group. If a person destroys the group, then he has no place in the group, then he is not a friend. Everything else must be endured.
Sometimes there are moments that look like the destruction of the group. In this case, you can point it out to him. But, in principle, we must try to justify a friend.
The most important thing is still the group because in it a person reveals the upper world, the Creator. And so one can clearly define is it for or against.
There are some people who are as if in a group and not in a group; they just exist side by side. They come and participate in some events, but do not invest in the association. Then they are not friends, but just listeners. There are always those.
The group is made up of many circles. There are people who have been with me for 15-20 years or more, they are proven friends who cannot do otherwise. For them, Kabbalah is their whole life.
There are those who can come today, but not tomorrow, they do not see their life in this. And there are people who exist as if nearby. For them, being in a group has not yet become the place where you reveal your true life, your essence.
When you begin to see deeper connections in unity with friends, the inner connections of the world, when the group turns into a spiritual community in which a completely new dimension is revealed, the inner one, then this is a completely different state.
If people understand that only by creating a new community will they find new connections there, new fields, control over themselves, the world, then they are already really friends.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Harming the group” 1/2/11
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Question: What does it mean to skip a lesson? is it not to hear the morning lesson at all or just miss it?
Answer: It is preferable to attend the daily Kabbalah lesson. But there are people who live in different time zones, and therefore, I cannot say anything here. Maybe they do not have the opportunity to listen to the morning lesson in real-time.
When it is three o’clock in the morning for us, it is already a working day in Krasnoyarsk, lunchtime in the Far East, evening in America, and so on. There is nothing you can do, you have to take into account the fact that the earth is round.
Comment: What if a person misses a lesson from three to six in the morning,
but listens to it in the afternoon?
My Response: That is not a problem. If he listens systematically during the day, then everything is fine.
We have groups that gather in the evening after work and watch the recorded lesson. And there are those who watch the recorded lessons in the morning because when it is morning for them, it is daytime or evening for us.
After all, it is not so important to be with us at the same time. If you are together with the group, this is important. In addition, you can get materials from the archive. If you take them seriously, you will get the same spiritual state that we had during the lesson. It does not disappear, it depends on you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To damage one’s destiny” 1/21/11
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New Life 228 – Happy As A Child
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe
Summary
What makes children happy, loving life, and curious; how can we maintain the feeling of happiness that usually disappears over the years?
To be as happy as a child means that we find something new to enjoy in every moment. The secret of eternal happiness is discovered when everyone makes efforts to complete the lives of others just as we would with a puzzle or Lego. At the center of the group we discover an upper source of unlimited warmth and energy that gives us every kind and shade of happiness.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 228 – Happy As A Child,” 9/8/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “If death is a punishment, how is heaven a reward?“
There is no death.
Through the study of Kabbalah, we can transition from our inborn transient, egoistic and self-serving desire to an eternal and perfect altruistic desire.
Without such a study, then our egoistic desire gradually fades away to zero, and that is what people identify as death.
Based on a Virtual Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 5, 2018. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: In 1969, Oliver Sacks, a young neurologist, experimented with a “wonder drug” on patients with intractable, post-encephalitic parkinsonian syndrome. These sufferers of sleeping sickness were in a frozen state. The patients were trapped patients within themselves, some for nearly 40 years. His book Awakenings recounts the extraordinary case reports of how patients trapped by parkinsonism were re-awakened by levodopa after decades of stupor and inertia. They remembered what they were like 25 to 40 years ago, but the remaining segment of their life was like a cut out of their memory. The miraculous drug had varying side effects including patients returning to their vegetative states.
What was it?
Answer: It was a shutdown of some part of the brain. After all, a person is an animal. Depending on the level that he is functioning at, he can be a plant, he can be a human being, or he can be even higher.
It is all regulated by the level of desires. However, we are not capable of injecting new desires from a higher level into a person. For this one needs to be in a special environment where he can receive them, and through this environment, he can also draw the action of the light upon himself. The light transforms these desires in the way that the person can sense the governing forces within them.
Freedom of will means that a person can draw the action of the upper light upon himself through a certain society, environment, or a group.
Question: What is the function of people who exist in the vegetative state?
Answer: We exist in a single common desire. Therefore, apparently there is a necessity in such states as well.
Everything exists according to the correspondences of the light and desire. According to their movement in relation one to another such phenomena manifest in our world.
Had we advanced toward the goal in a more intense and correct way while transforming ourselves to be more connected among us, there is no doubt the general state of the light and its influence on everyone would be more powerful and benevolent and then we would not see such occurrences.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Are Diseases Necessary? 6/9/12
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Question: Is The Book of Zohar closer to us in understanding because it was written at the verge of the exile from spiritual attainment?
Answer: Any texts of The Book of Zohar are closer to us than other holy books. The holy books mean books written by the Kabbalists from the attainment of the upper spheres but in different keys, in different forms.
The Zohar is written in a style that has the brightest and strongest effect on us because everything is contained in its words, in their form, combination, and intention.
They operate in the same key, in the same stream, they are on the same line with the system of our internal structure, with our world, with the forces of the upper world. That is, the letters are a graphic representation of the combination of upper forces at all their levels up to the highest, that is, up to the level of GAR de Bina of the world of Atzilut.
But there is no miracle in this! There is only one way for the upper energy to influence us, which will transform us. Other sources cannot influence us so much because they are not written with such symbols. They do not depict the same qualities.
If you copy The Book of Zohar in another language, this will still distort it for you. It must be written either in Aramaic or in Hebrew, in Biblical Hebrew. Both languages complement each other. These are related languages that go back to Adam.
Adam is a man who lived in our world 5,782 years ago. He was the first to reveal this upper sphere, these letters, and began to describe the upper worlds with them.
From there, all knowledge came to us through 20 generations who have attained the upper worlds, from Adam to Abraham, and then from Abraham to us. This is all described in the Torah (in the Bible).
So, it all goes back to Adam, the spiritual source of all created beings, that is, not to our corporeal forefather, who allegedly gave birth to humanity together with Eve, but to our spiritual father Adam.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Secret of the Zohar” 1/9/11
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Question: Why is Hebrew used as a spoken language now?
Answer: It is because the Kabbalistic group that left Babylon with Abraham and organized a separate existence for itself according to spiritual laws took this language as their main language.
Aramaic was also used in Babylon. Aramaic and Hebrew are the source of all other languages. This is confirmed by many scientific studies.
The group of Abraham existed for 3,500 years before the collapse of the state of Israel that occurred 2,000 years ago, and they used this language as their own because they were in spiritual attainment.
The Jews wrote in this language about their spiritual attainments. The Bible, the Prophets, the Holy Scriptures, the Talmud, and the Mishnah are written in this language.
While in exile the Jews did not use Hebrew in everyday life, they only taught the Torah in it because they had fallen from the spiritual degree. Now we are reviving this language because we want to rise to the spiritual degree.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Uniqueness of Hebrew” 1/9/11
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Comment: You said that it is easy, in principle, to perceive the teacher’s words correctly if you include yourself in his desires, in the desires of the upper one.
My Response: If I do this in order to achieve something spiritual, then it develops me.
And if I do this because of coercion (fear of punishment) or because I need some kind of reward, like a soldier in the army who either wants to be a general or is forced to serve, then what do I get from this?
It is very important before whom I annul myself, for the sake of what I do it, what goal my teacher or the upper one pursues, and what goal I pursue.
This contact is reasonable, pre-established, voluntary, constantly renewed, and is maintained under the analysis of both. Such a contact is necessary, but it is not at all easy to create. To do this the student and the teacher must understand each other.
They should be like two individuals who are aware of each other’s states.
There is a clear agreement between them; we enter into such contact when the teacher wants to pass on to the student what he has and the student agrees to accept it and asks the teacher to give it to him.
They agree to certain types of relationships when they have to be unpleasant to each other, put pressure on each other, and somehow overcome the mutual remoteness. The student will begin to feel antipathy, even disgust toward the teacher, and the teacher must understand this and help the student adapt to a new connection at a new level. That is, they move forward to work on the process of including the student into the teacher, to change the nature of the student, and to mold him into something completely new.
And the student agrees to this. He goes to this operation for his own transformation on his own accord.
He passes himself into the hands of the teacher who then begins to sculpt from him something completely new. In this way the student goes through all the stages of transformation where he completely changes his past nature along the way. This requires very serious mutual work.
If it is done in a group and the students support each other, it is much easier. And if they do not think about it and do not support each other, then they do not have the opportunity to do it.
I hope that we will have such an opportunity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Student and Teacher – the right contact” 12/1/12
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Comment: When an individual begins to study Kabbalah, as a rule he ceases to perceive the things that exist in the corporeal world. It is as if he cuts himself off and does not want to be connected with this world. It seems that he discovered something new for himself, but the result is the opposite.
My Response: As a result, greater egoism begins to manifest in a person since he must rise to the next degree.
But he is against it, does not work on the increased egoism, and remains in it. Therefore, the corporeal world begins to attract him more and more, and again he delves into a new egoism.
All sorts of past hobbies, fulfillments, pleasures, and achievements suddenly seem even more pleasant than before to him. Previously he refused them, but now he reaches out to them again because egoism in him rose on purpose so that he would rise above it! But he does not do this, and he remains in it.
Question: Does everyone go through this?
Answer: Of course! Usually 90% of people who study Kabbalah do not pass this stage, and they go back to this life and increased egoism. They added a little bit of egoism to themselves from practicing Kabbalah, could not rise above it, and went back to worldly affairs: some paint pictures, some conduct business, and others do something else.
But if a person was seriously integrated into the group, he would rise above the ego and move on. It is based on this fork, on these scissors, that he goes down.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What to Expect from Kabbalah?” 12/22/12
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New Life 224 – Social Skills
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
Children need to be taught how to approach life, connect with others, and belong within society. Parents need to pay attention to the environment in which their child is influenced. They need to explain their thoughts about the behavior of the child’s friends and why it is harmful or useful. Parents need to instill their values within their children by sharing without pressure.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 224 – Social Skills,” 8/25/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some tips for managing stress and anxiety?“
We can overcome stress and anxiety by developing more and more positive connection, friendship and closeness to each other. Otherwise, these and other negative sensations will increasingly disturb us.
If we create small societies in which we develop connections of mutual consideration and support, then we can get rid of fears, illnesses, insomnia and absolutely everything that imposes the stress and anxiety of life upon us.
The more we experience negative sensations like stress and anxiety, the closer we come to understand the need for friendship, cooperation, mutual support and care. Likewise, we will reach the understanding of the need to create societies that will emphasize such values. Otherwise, we will continue developing by accumulating more and more negative sensations over a very long period of time until we eventually wake up to the need for the aforementioned values.
Based on KabTV’s “Blitz of Questions and Answers” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 6, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
In the News (SciTechDaily): “University of Chicago data and social scientists have developed a new algorithm that forecasts crime by learning patterns in time and geographic locations from public data on violent and property crimes. It has demonstrated success at predicting future crimes one week in advance with approximately 90% accuracy. …
“‘We created a digital twin of urban environments. If you feed it data from happened in the past, it will tell you what’s going to happen in future. It’s not magical, there are limitations, but we validated it and it works really well,’ Chattopadhyay said. ‘Now you can use this as a simulation tool to see what happens if crime goes up in one area of the city, or there is increased enforcement in another area. If you apply all these different variables, you can see how the systems evolves in response.’”
Question: What do you think about this algorithm?
Answer: It is very good!
Comment: It scans everything and says: “Here there will be a theft and here there will be murder.”
Answer: Yes, according to some data.
Question: You talk all the time about the development of egoism and how it developed historically within time. Knowing this, can we foresee the future of mankind?
Answer: I hope that egoism will not develop the same way. But if this continues, it will develop even more, exponentially, and we will not try to limit it in any way, or correct it, and so on, then, of course, there would be a world war.
Question: So you are saying that our egoism is a criminal and its actions are more or less comprehensible?
Answer: That is absolutely correct.
Question: Does it work for a complete breakdown of the system so that everything is directed at me?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And it only leads to one?
Answer: And if everyone is like you?
Comment: If someone is like me, maybe we will be afraid to get close to each other? We’ll build fences since we understand our nature.
Answer: That has happened already, and then you fail anyway.
Question: So the ending with this criminal is inevitable?
Answer: It is inevitable.
Question: So what is the task? To understand that egoism is a criminal?
Answer: Of course. Everyone is a criminal! All are egoists.
Question: In principle, if this crime gene develops in us, which is embedded in everyone, then basically there is no future?
Answer: Yes, nothing. But the future of the world is known, and it is revealed gradually. That is, we are taught.
It is like we are in a performance that shows us the development of humanity with its egoism on the one hand, and with the methodology of development of coming closer to the right state on the other hand. And at the junction, in some correlation of these two forces on the one hand, and the development of egoism, the need to unite, to connect egoists, on the other hand, that is where we will be shown how all this will happen.
Comment: In this teaching, it is amazing that it does not handcuff the criminal; it somehow works with him in a different way. It does not put him in prison.
My Response: We are already in jail, and we are all criminals.
Question: It comes from the fact that we are already in prison. And the task is not to be put in prison, but to get out of prison. The reverse problem is how to get the criminal out of prison. Right?
Answer: The task is to show the criminal that he is in prison, so that he would want to get out of it, would understand how to do it, and would free himself and everyone else.
Question: Is this what Kabbalah deals with?
Answer: Yes. Until our time, only a few could escape from this dungeon. But in our time, it is no longer like that; it should already be the way out for everyone, for the masses.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/4/22
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Question: All states come from the Creator. But knowing this, how do we avoid falling into indifference due to this lack of strength. Let’s say I understand that what I’ve done in the past comes from the Creator, then why would I torture myself?
Answer: Yes, you are torturing yourself. Like in the Ilf and Petrov book The Twelve Chairs: you steal and blush. But what should you do? Not steal and not blush, but forget everything that happened before today.
If starting from today you will clearly observe the aspiration forward, you will not be pulled back into nostalgia, and you will not eat yourself up for the useless years you have lived.
Comment: But in this way you can fall into indifference.
My Response: No. It is the striving forward that will help you not look back at everything mean and vile with which you filled your life before you began to study the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Erasing the Past” 1/22/11
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If a person lived only on his own, realized himself, and nothing more, meaning, if our egoism did not try to imitate others and invent new tasks for itself that are completely alien to it, then we would be happy and things would be simple for us. The whole problem lies in realizing others’ desires, which I adopt from them with the help of envy and the desire for fame and power, and these desires become my own.
This is our progress forward! By the fact that I want what others want (suddenly I want it too), I develop. But these desires are given to me so that I can feel others and connect with them, satisfy their desires and enjoy it, and not adopt their desires to myself and try to fill them. In this I never enjoy and will never find fulfillment.
When we adopt others’ desires and start trying to fulfill them inside of us as “I want!” is when we start digging ourselves into the ground.
If I did the opposite, fulfilled these desires not in myself, but in others, in the form that they have, in their place, then I would be infinitely happy! I would connect to everyone. This is why the qualities of envy, jealousy, respect, honor, and all others were given to me, so I would feel the qualities of others and would fulfill those desires inside of them. Do you see how simple it all is?
But we do the opposite. This “opposite,” meaning adopting others’ qualities (envy, jealousy) inside of us, “What do others have? And what about me? Why not?” This is a real expression of egoism. It turns us around in the opposite direction from the goal of creation.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Use Other People?” 12/22/12
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Question: How is it possible to replace one’s mind with the mind of the Creator if I don’t even know what kind of mind He has and what it is?
Answer: When you start acting according to the Kabbalistic methodology, you will see that you are slowly beginning to understand Him, and everything is normal.
Question: But how does it happen practically?
Answer: You acquire the highest mind, the mind of the highest degree.
Suppose I am currently at my level. According to it, in this world, in my condition, I understand everything, perceive, know. In general, I am oriented.
I am told:
- You must block yourself. You must now start working with a higher degree.
- How?
- Everything that seems black, harmful, vague, and incomprehensible to you; everything that is against your egoism, against your knowledge, practically everything that is in you now, you must downgrade, do not pay attention, try to merge with the group.
Relative to you, the group represents a higher element. The more you can do it, the higher you will rise.
That is, you have to accept the reason, the decision, the greatness of the group, all the attitudes and values that the group, the Creator, and the books offer you. Only in this way will you be able to advance and acquire a higher mind.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Higher Intelligence” 1/2/11
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Question: What is the principle of mixing the nations of the world and Israel? What is the purpose of this process?
Answer: On the animal level, the mixing of nations does not matter at all: who mixes with whom, what kind of children they give birth to: black, white, or red.
It only matters to rise to the degree of “Israel” – “Yashar El,” “straight to the Creator,” meaning to the degree of equivalence to the Creator so that those who call themselves Israelites, Jews and non-Jews, will rise to this degree, and the whole of Ancient Babylon will come to its correction.
Question: But what is this quality “the mixing of the nations of the world”?
Answer: This is not an external, but an internal mixing, when a point in the heart begins to arise in each of us, called “Israel” – “Yashar El.” The aspiration to the Creator, to attain the Creator is called “Israel.”
This point originated in ancient Babylon in the several thousand people who left Babylon and formed their own nation although they were in no way connected with each other except for a spiritual purpose.
It is the same thing today. Gradually all nations, each in their own time, in their own situations, will begin to feel the need for spiritual ascent. And that point in the heart, which is called “Israel” – “straight to the Creator,” regardless of today’s Israel, will awaken in everyone and force them to start a spiritual path, because that is how our development is programmed. We will all reach this state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Israel And the Nations” 2/7/11
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Question: What relationship should there be between friends in a Kabbalistic group?
Answer: Relationships between friends in a group are very complicated. Everyone should give others full confidence that he or she loves them, cares about them, and that a friend in his arms is like a baby in its mother’s arms.
By giving such a feeling, it is as if I impose the feeling of the upper state on him, when he can think about others and not about himself. You disarm him, neutralize his ego, and he will inevitably think about others. He will not be able to think about himself because you have neutralized him. You gave him the feeling that you would provide him with everything he would ever need. Then he can go to the spiritual world.
Can you imagine how dependent we are on each other? This is a mutual guarantee. It is not that I think about it, feel it, and measure it, but my friends, with their thoughts and concerns about me, put me in such a state.
I cannot do anything, I involuntarily move into bestowing and into exiting myself because I have nothing to do inside myself. Just nothing! They took it all away from me and it is as if I said: “Do not worry about yourself; this is all on us.” Then I have no choice, I start thinking externally: How can I through them do the same with the Creator?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Motherly Care” 12/31/12
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New Life 200 – How To Fall In Love Every Day Anew
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
In order to develop a mutually loving relationship, we need to feel what is missing for our spouse and try to fulfill that desire. We provide each other with opportunities to love in the same way that a mother loves her baby. In order to receive love, we must give love. We should provide workshops in which people can learn about true love by expanding their ability to feel and their understanding of where feelings come from and the purpose they serve. For example, we need to learn that when emotional coolness enters our relationship, it is only an invitation to fall in love again, more deeply, above our egos, through conscious effort and commitment. By following the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself,” we learn to hold onto each other through every cold wind and live in an eternal paradise.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 200 – How To Fall In Love Every Day Anew,” 6/23/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
Michael Laitman, on Quora: “Can soldiers be against their wars?“
In 1914, during World War I, an amazing event happened. At a time when half a million people were killed near the Belgian city of Ypres, on December 24, before Christmas, suddenly soldiers began to decorate the German trenches with garlands and various lights. Later, they moved onto neutral territory. Both the French and the British also came out to the neutral territory from the enemy trenches, making a gathering of about 100,000 people. They had been killing each other up until that point, but on that day, they got together and connected: they exchanged souvenirs, sang songs, traded buttons, tobacco, wine and sweets, and played football with cans. In 2014, a football monument was built to commemorate the event.
It was an incredible spectacle. Those who fought to the death and hated each other suddenly started bonding. Naturally, the generals were instantly alarmed. Under threat of death, the soldiers were forced back into the trenches, and war continued. It lasted four years and 20 million people got killed.
A key question that arises from this example is indeed, could it be possible to stop war from the level of the soldiers themselves? We see that the soldiers could end the war if they wanted to, but since they follow their generals’ commands, then it would require the generals to also wish to stop the war, which in turn requires each successive higher level, which makes it impossible.
However, the example is etched in history: People who were killing each other in cold blood, with bayonets, fighting hand-to-hand, where everyone was faced with so much blood and it was not just distant firing of guns and missiles. They literally faced their enemies, felt hatred for them, and in a single moment, it all shifted to a state of bonding.
It shows that even the strongest hatred can be inverted in a moment. A fight could continue for a long time, and then all of a sudden, poof—the hatred dissipates. The reason behind the hatred suddenly disappears.
It is no miracle. It is simply how a program that runs our desires plays out. There is no point in our hatred, nor in our love. We can see similar examples of people who were once seemingly in love, and all of a sudden, they stop loving each other. That love that held them together instantly disappears. It is common to hear divorcees say about their partners, “What did I ever love in them?”
The fact that our emotions can suddenly shift from one moment to the next shows us that any unity we establish should be based not on our feelings, but on an idea. That is, if we circulated an idea of the need to unite in order to reach a complete merging among each other as the most desirable state we could possibly achieve, then we would have a strong basis for uniting.
The foundation of this idea is in a higher root, that humanity was originally created as a single unified consciousness that underwent a process of shattering and dispersion until we found ourselves in a reality where we perceive ourselves separated from each other. While we are in this state of separation, we undergo a certain development until we reach a point where we start waking up to our unified state once again. That is, at a certain point, we start feeling that we are opposite to our most desirable state, that we have suffered enough in our divisiveness, and we develop a new desire to undergo a major shift back to complete unification.
Based on the video “How to Stop War” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: We are used to the phrase “Israel’s Independence Day.” We are used to this holiday, and we celebrate it. In today’s world, the word “independence” is heard everywhere: independent countries, independent republics, independent press, independent experts… All sides of conflicts, all parties, speak about it, the rights, the lefts, individuals, everyone!
Besides, it is not just a word, but a very important concept in Kabbalah.
My Response: In Kabbalah, this concept is absolutely the opposite of what people, the world, society, countries, and nations understand.
What does independence mean? Independence from what?
Comment: This is the independence of my borders, independence from someone else. I want to live by myself, with my national independence, republican, state, and so on. If no one gets to me, this means that I am independent; I will build my own world. This is called independence.
My Response: But this is impossible because, in today’s world, everyone depends on each other. So how can we be independent? If you are going to be independent, you should go into the woods and provide yourself with what you can. You are condemning yourself to terrible conditions.
Question: You can say it in another way: “So that no one dictates to me how to live.” Is it also impossible?
Answer: This is the same thing. No one will dictate anything to you, but how will you provide for yourself? How will you create and preserve this independence? It is completely unclear how this is possible.
Today, a developing country in the world should be connected to all the countries by good mutual ties. Only in this case, can it feel comfortable for everyone; otherwise, it will feel crushed, limited, humiliated, and so on.
Question: If it will be on its own?
Answer: Yes, but no one will give it such an opportunity. After all, all countries surround each other and want, like wolves in the forest, to snatch from others as much as they can. This is our normal, egoistic world. It cannot be any different. It was always like that, only we covered ourselves up a little. We did not reveal it enough in our egoism.
Question: Do you think there is no point in demanding independence in this world? It does not exist and will not exist?
Answer: We can demand, but at the same time, we must demand from ourselves! This is the most important thing. If we observe such conditions then there are good neighborly relations, peace, and mutual assistance between us, which are contrary to our inherent, natural quality to receive, conquer, and force peace.
Comment: If we have a connection, then it is against someone. All this is vicious.
My Response: Of course. Therefore, everything we create is only supposedly for the benefit of ourselves and to the detriment of others. There cannot be one instead of the other.
Kabbalah speaks of independence where we rise above our egoism. Independence from our personal egoism. This is what real independence is, and then I only think about others. It is among the others, in good relations with others, which I create with all my capabilities, there I feel independent.
Question: Are you saying, “only about others”? Do I not think about myself at all?
Answer: I do not, I am a consequence. I exist even today as a consequence of the attitude of everyone else toward me.
Question: Does it mean that I can only think about others, and then the consequence will be how they treat me, how I am, and so on?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Should my first thought not be: “Will they treat me well if I treat others well?”
Answer: I do not think this is the nature of a person and our society. Therefore, to say such beautiful phrases as: “Do not hit others, and they will not hit you,” and so on does not work.
Question: Does what you say work? How is it possible in our world that I do not think about myself, but think about others? Publicly, for example.
Answer: The fact is that, of course, it does not work anyway. If I treat others well, I will only give them an additional reason to grab me and bite off all sorts of pieces of me. Thus, the whole problem in human society is for it to transform itself from a pack of predators into an organized, mutual, voluntary, and kind community.
Question: Do you believe in this fiction?
Answer: No, I do not believe it by any means, but I say it because in principle this is the only solution. Exactly when we realize that this is the only solution, albeit a fantastic and impossible one, then we suddenly can implement it.
Question: From where?
Answer: From above. We will be able to receive such a force from nature that will lift us above our egoism, and then it will be implemented. I will be above my nature, I will be above my thoughts, I will be above my decisions. How will it work out? It will work out because the second force of nature will be revealed—the quality of bestowal, connection, and love.
Question: Can you guarantee this to me? For example, I am a politician or an ordinary person, and I hear you. Can you guarantee me that?
Answer: I can only tell you again in more detail so that you understand that there is no other way. Or we are going to perish and die in every generation. And in the future generation, the same fate is prepared for our descendants. Nothing is changing, except that the sufferings are becoming greater, and the possibility of solving them with the help of wars and deaths is becoming more and more terrible.
Question: Will I come to what you say through understanding this and feeling this?
Answer: Yes, in the end, we will understand. Moreover, this is a very scary decision because we will feel like we are being skinned. Because this is the opposite of me.
But there is an opportunity to resolve this issue in a kind, peaceful way. It means to study our nature and study the force of nature that can help us change ourselves. Then we will be able to place ourselves under the influence of this good force of nature, and it will change us from little evil predators to big kind creatures.
Question: Do you think we are getting closer to this understanding that we are little evil predators?
Answer: We are getting closer. However, so far we are also approaching it in a bad way.
But according to the way all kinds of positive and negative forces are being revealed more and more, especially in our generation, and we are given the opportunity to talk about it and somehow implement them; that is, there is hope that we will be able to formalize for ourselves, for our understanding, and for our knowledge of this system of nature’s forces, and to understand how we can balance it and express the good force from it.
I think we can do it. Otherwise, we will still come to this, but in a very long way, a terrible way of suffering.
Question: It is said that the Messiah will come when the face of humanity will be like the muzzle of a dog. Does this apply to us, to our time?
Answer: Yes, it is people’s awareness of their terrible, bestial nature. We are getting closer to this now. But we can see it from afar, and that is enough. We do not necessarily have to get right into the dog’s den. It is enough just to see it and be scared.
Comment: God grant that it will be so.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/3/22
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Question: We have reached a milestone date: 75 years of Israel’s independence. It has been 75 years since the Jews found their home, 75 years of wars, 75 years of proving that this is our place, that we want to live here, and so on. These have not been easy years.
How would you sum up this 75th anniversary?
Answer: I would like us to understand that time is not working for us. We must admit that in the eyes of the world, despite all our attempts to present ourselves as the best, we still look like the worst.
Comment: This is a paradox. We have huge achievements in medicine, in progress, in everything.
My Response: Absolutely no one needs this from us. On the contrary, if we suffered, then maybe a certain number of non-Jews would love us. Or rather, they would feel sorry for us. But not in this way.
Comment: The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam welcomed the creation of the State of Israel.
My Response: He hoped that this state of Israel would be the right one.
Comment: What do you consider right?
My Response: It is when the people who will inhabit it will try to show the entire world what the purpose of a person’s life on Earth is.
Question: You take it globally. What about the fact that a home was created for Jews who were persecuted and exterminated?
Answer: What for?
Question: To live at home, so that no one touches you. Is that not an idea?
Answer: This is impossible for the Jews. We were kicked out of our home. We have never had our own home in general. The fact that we lived for several hundred years, even less, in the land of Israel in the past, says nothing.
Question: How about the fact that Temples were built here?
Answer: So, what? We took the land from other nations and built them. Were there no nations here before that?
Rashi wrote that the nations of the world would come and ask: “Why did you take the land away from the nations who lived here?” And the Jews will have to answer. He asks, what can we answer? “The entire earth belongs to the Creator. He gave it to other nations, and then took it from them and gave it to us.”
But this is correct if we follow His instructions, will, and desire. Yet, we do not do that. Therefore, there is no life for us here and there will not be. Will not be! I say this to everyone and always.
Comment: We started by saying that this is a holiday, but what you are saying does not sound festive.
My Response: This is a holiday because the people received the opportunity, as Baal HaSulam says, to exist on their land and fulfill their mission before all of humanity. So, if we fulfill it, because this opportunity still exists, then everything will turn out right and everyone in the world will understand why Jews exist and what we should do.
Question: What is the mission of the Jews, and why do they exist on this earth?
Answer: The Jews exist in order to live on this earth in unity with each other, in such a unity that will be called absolute unity. When they will be able to show all other nations an example of how to actually live without wars, without violence, without mutual hatred.
This is what we must show to the whole world. Then we will have the right to exist. Everyone will understand why we exist at all. And everyone will be happy to see that we exist on our own piece of land in order to translate all this into action and example.
Question: Then will everyone want this piece of land to exist, for Jews to live here, and for them to prosper?
Answer: Yes. In particular, our cousins the Arabs.
Question: In that case, what is independence in light of what you are saying?
Answer: Independence is independence from our egoism, when we can rise above it and show this example to all the nations of the world how to live in connection, in friendship, and in mutuality. Everyone will want to follow it.
This is our mission from above. Therefore, we are a special nation in this sense, and we cannot escape anywhere from fulfilling this mission. But it may take several thousand more years until we come to this.
Question: Thousands of years?!
Answer: Thousands. Has it been 2,000 years? Another 2,000 years will pass. It does not matter how long it takes, but we still will not be able to run away from fulfilling our mission.
We can hope that over the next 2,000 years, we will understand something after all.
Question: Is there such a layer in us that it cannot be penetrated?
Answer: The egoistic layer is such that maybe the next 2,000 years will do something to us.
Question: But anyway, one way or another, this is not our work, this is the work of the Creator. He might as well do it tomorrow. Why do we have to wait 2,000 years?
Answer: We are obliged, we have to agree to this job. We must wait for such a revolution in ourselves when we want to be not competing with each other but loving each other, to “love your neighbor as yourself” and be able to convey this as an example to all other nations of the world.
Comment: You have always said that a good businessman is a strategist, he looks forward to many years. A bad businessman wants to quickly grab something right now and that is it. You are such a businessman that you are looking forward to 2,000 years. You are engaged in this, you are disseminating this, and at the same time, you are saying that this is…
My Response: I live in this every day with the hope that after some time, I am not saying 2,000 years, but as we understand, not yet today, the people will begin to change.
Comment: And for this, you are ready to keep saying it today and repeating it.
My Response: In order for this to begin to be implemented in a few thousand years.
Question: But are you still an optimist?
Answer: I am not an optimist. I say that this is the law of nature, and we will still be obliged to implement it.
[311981]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/20/23
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In the News (New Scientist): “In 1989, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts detected an unknown sonic presence at 52 hertz. It was initially thought to be from a submarine, but marine biologist William Watkins later determined that it was the sonar signature of a whale, which he gave the nickname “52”.
“It is an unusually high frequency for whale vocalisations, and Watkins was intrigued enough to search for 52 until his death in 2004. But despite picking up 52’s call every year, Watkins never found the mysterious whale. …
“Why 52 calls at this frequency is also a mystery – the whale’s species hasn’t been confirmed, and it is possible that it is the only one of its kind in the ocean. The one thing we do know is that 52 is almost certainly a he: male whales do the singing.
“The reason for 52’s presumed loneliness has nothing to do with the fact that he has always been detected swimming alone. Instead, it is because the unique frequency of his call means that other whales can’t understand to respond. …
“In our increasingly connected world where contact and interaction is only the click of a button away, the fact that so many people still report feeling lonely makes it easy to identify with 52’s situation. There is something deeply affecting about a creature as intelligent and social as we know whales to be, swimming the vast ocean, year after year, never having any proper contact with another of its kind.”
My Response: In place of humanity, I would still start to get in some kind of contact with it. If the frequency at which it talks or wants to talk is known, then we have no problem creating such a device.
Question: Do you think it wants to communicate?
Answer: Undoubtedly. But it scares other whales away with its higher frequency.
Question: And what should we, such lonely whales that live in this world and exist in this loneliness, do? Now a lot of people have gone to live in huts in the forest somewhere in the Taiga and have been living there for 20 to 30 years. This is how people live.
Answer: It is their choice, and I would not say that it is bad. They still find themselves there. Through communication with themselves, they communicate with nature. Perhaps even with the Creator. It is better than communicating with people.
Question: Especially in our time?
Answer: Of course. If they do not feel that they have a special goal, a mission, that obligates them to be in the world among people, then they feel very good. I think that, in principle, they find themselves there.
Question: And if you had a choice, would you go somewhere?
Answer: Undoubtedly.
Question: Would you lock yourself in a room?
Answer: Undoubtedly! I am trying to do that anyway, although this is all unsuccessful. But I still move away from people, from the world, as much as I can.
Question: Is it possible to create a world in solitude? Is it possible to love loneliness? Is it possible to be in it all the time?
Answer: If a person rises, really rises, then he feels he is alone; he is lonely. This is a wonderful state, but at the same time he feels himself in connection with the Creator.
Question: Still a person advances to this?
Answer: Yes. This is the lone whale.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/16/22
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Question: Do you feel how much a person is invested in what is given to him?
Answer: First, participate in everything the main group does. Secondly, it is necessary to do internal work, which, in principle, the main group does and constantly talks about. Do all this and you will advance forward.
How much to invest? Invest and you will see. When you work together with everyone, you gradually get involved in a common spiritual work, you will not go anywhere. So it goes.
Question: Do you feel how much a person’s investment is to his maximum or not?
Answer: What is the difference?! It is his own business. What kind of test can there be? He is building his spiritual future with this!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What to Expect from Kabbalah?” 12/22/12
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Comment: From time to time there are reports in the press that thousands of birds, fish, or other animals are dying all over the world.
My Response: Such reports appear only when it is clearly happening in front of people’s eyes, but in fact, we are in the state of a huge, terrible catastrophe!
This is not just an ecological disaster, but a natural one where we will have nothing to eat. Not only will there be no money to buy something, printing it is not a problem, you will not be able to feed anyone! There will be food riots, epidemics, a kind of ten Egyptian plagues, if we do not start to change ourselves.
Mankind, with its persistent unwillingness to pay attention to what nature requires of us, causes increasingly harsh, severe forces, like a child who does not want to listen to what he is told. Eventually, he will be forced. But with what methods?!
As long as they don’t give him a slap, it doesn’t matter. “Let’s live somehow without it! You can’t do anything.” And when the time comes that we are no longer able to do anything, airports will stop, communication will disappear, there will be no normal water.
We see what is happening. I don’t want to scare anyone. I’m just stating that all this suggests that we are out of complete balance with nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mass Death” 1/9/11
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Question: Nastya writes: “One day the lights went off and I called a neighbor who had two children and invited her to visit me. We were sitting and talking at the table with candles burning with the children were nearby. As soon as the lights came back on, the children ran and turned on the TV, and we became silent.
What do you think about this feeling of happiness that was there and then was suddenly gone?
Answer: Yes, it is gone because it presses. But it has always been so. Recall past times, even centuries ago.
Question: How can we feel such happiness now? Is it possible in the light, with modern technology, progress, and all this or not?
Answer: No. With present life, the way of life, its pace, and everything else that exists, we cannot make ourselves happy. We give in to what we have created, and it is killing us.
Question: I would say that we are bought. Do you think it is not necessary to create or still move toward the goal, toward what I want to be?
Answer: To move toward the goal, you just need to live in a much simpler way, not to wait until nature, society, or the Creator crush us, but do it, perhaps reasonably and gradually, somehow by yourself.
Question: Do you have an idea of how a person should do it?
Answer: It will not work to turn off the lights. It will not work to diminish anything. There are too many interested egoists who will still produce all sorts of rubbish and make all sorts of dull productions on screens—anything possible. All this needs a very strong push and revelation of evil in order to correct it.
How can we uncover this evil? By a serious war?
Question: In whom will it reveal itself, in consumers or in those who push everything into a consumer?
Answer: It is required from both sides. Both from producers and consumers.
Question: So that it is suddenly revealed that this is all evil?
Answer: That this is the end! You cannot go any further; that is it! There must be an uprising. Let us make the world simpler, more understandable, more comfortable, and most importantly, calmer. In such a world we will be able to clarify in ourselves what we are for, why, and what we should come to.
Question: And the last question, what will we understand in this case, as you said? What will we understand then?
Answer: We will understand that the main thing is what a person desires in this world. So that he clarifies it, but very seriously, not halfway. And then he will achieve this goal.
Question: So do you put it this way: “I need to get rid of all this ‘noise’ and very, very quietly focus on what I want.”?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is that all? And what will he understand? What he wants?
Answer: He will understand the meaning of life—the most important thing that he has.
Question: What is it in?
Answer: The meaning of life is in attaining the meaning of life.
Question: It is like a wheel: the meaning of life is attaining the meaning of life. Is there some kind of eternity in this, in what you are saying?
Answer: Of course. It is absoluteness, eternity, perfection, and infinity.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
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Question: What is happiness?
Answer: Happiness is the feeling one has at the moment of achieving a dream; it is a contact with a dream or at least with something one desires.
In corporeal life, a person comes into contact with various pleasures, but he is still unhappy because these contacts bring death. They instantly disappear. They are temporary because everything ends.
At the end of everything there is death, hopelessness, and disappearance. Therefore, as the saying goes, there is no happiness in life. And indeed it is so because life has its limits.
Happiness is when you come in contact with a dream; it is with you, and it is eternal. There can be no happiness if it is transient. Therefore our world is inherently flawed.
Question: Is the attainment of the first degree of the spiritual world already attainment of happiness?
Answer: It is the attainment of eternity and perfection. Even if it is not yet complete, you understand that you are entering this degree. Then you already know where you are going, and you already have different ideas about the world, the universe, and existence.
You understand that you are dealing with eternity, perfection, infinite fulfillment, infinite knowledge, and that whatever you want, you will be able to obtain.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Happiness” 1/18/11
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p
New Life 159 – The Ten Commandments
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
The Ten Commandments instruct us to maintain certain norms in order to reach connection, reciprocity, mutual responsibility, and harmony among us as a new type of society. They were placed before us at Mount Sinai as a symbol of our transcendence above hatred and separation. We discover the ten laws of the single system on our way toward complete, mutual connection. We need to re-establish all of the Ten Commandments with a new quality. For example, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) actually means that I should not cut myself off from anyone, even when it seems as though the other person hates me. We begin to connect according to the principle, “love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) and the spiritual meaning of the Ten Commandments will be revealed to us along the way.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 159 – The Ten Commandments,” 3/17/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
Comment: There is a state when a student speaks against a teacher.
My Response: Then he is not a student! By doing this he completely cuts himself off from spiritual advancement. Much has been written about this. The most important thing in our movement is simply to idolize the friends, the group, the teacher, and the Creator, and to do it more and more at that. How will you advance without this?
If someone speaks badly about the teacher, then that is it, he cuts himself off! After all, in spirituality there are no conditions that someone heard something, and someone did not. You have such thoughts, that is it! Nothing else matters.
There are many so-called students who attend classes, hang out in different groups, and think badly or speak badly of others. I am very sorry that such events take place because it is useless to deal with them, in the end they will not advance.
Question: But can a person get through this state and become aware of it? Or do you think that if he went into such a stupor, he would not come out?
Answer: For everything, so to speak, there is forgiveness, but a person must work on himself. It happens to everyone! I am completely calm about this. But he should be aware of what he is controlled by.
Comment: You said that it is necessary to remain silent and not interfere with those states of a friend that seem bad to us.
My Response: You can sometimes point at it in jest or in between words. But in general no! What is the benefit of that? He must experience all this internally and rethink it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Hate the Teacher and Friends” 12/29/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is true freedom in a nutshell?“
True freedom is freedom from our egoistic nature, where we are enslaved to the desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone in every one of our intentions.
When we become freed from our egoistic intention for self-benefit, we attain true freedom: we enter a state of positive connection where we then enjoy benefiting, supporting and caring for each other.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on April 26, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: Earlier you emphasized that only men can be engaged in connection. And now it is becoming the same for both men and women.
My Response: Yes, women are coming forward and starting to take an increasingly active part in all spheres of life.
Previously, a woman gave birth, cooked, cleaned, and served everyone and everything. And although she was treated with great respect, there was no question of any spiritual work. Even in prayer houses there was no place for them. This was introduced only 100 to 200 years ago.
And today everything is on equal footing. The world is moving toward the fact that women in all societies are becoming equal. And it is not just because we are so good but because this is the movement toward a global correction. There is no doubt that the female part is becoming more and more effective and necessary in our common work.
Therefore, I pay a lot of attention to them. These are serious desires, serious forces, and pressure on all men and the whole world.
Was it possible 200 years ago that a woman would become involved in politics? And today there are a lot of women in top positions in countries.
So, this is a global trend, because the world is growing. Egoism comes forward. A woman represents egoism, the desire to receive. Therefore, she is becoming more demanding and more independent.
There is a lot to respect women for. They are very consistent, very serious, and very meticulous. There is a certain limitation in their corrections, but this is not their limitation but the distribution of nature into two parts.
Therefore I regard women’s connection as a very big and serious matter.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Women’s Congress” 1/9/13
Question: Do you draw whatever you explain to the students from the next degree?
Answer: For me, it is not the next degree. I am in it, and if necessary, I will give you a part of it.
Question: Since you are on much higher than your students, you have to descend to a degree that is slightly higher than them. How does your incorporation in the common mind happen?
Answer: I work with a higher degree. That is my teacher.
Question: So you still have the student–teacher system?
Answer: Naturally! It does not change! And the fact that his body died, what does the body have to do with it? Even before it was not the transmitter of information.
Question: But before everything was passed from mouth to mouth, from teacher to student. And in the current period it is all with the group.
Answer: It used to be with a group before too. All Kabbalists have written about this for thousands of years. There had to be a group anyway because a teacher is just a means. In fact, we have to connect to each other in one unified system.
Question: It turns out that your teacher is the next degree for you. And for each of us is it the group?
Answer: Yes, and this group connects to me.
Question: So, there are three degrees from the individual to the teacher?
Answer: No. You find me within the group. As soon as you can somehow unite, you will immediately see me there.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Higher Intelligence” 1/2/11
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Comment: When a person begins to study Kabbalah, he moves the corporeal world away from himself because it seems completely meaningless to him. But eventually, it turns out that he must unite with this world and love it.
My Response: To love the whole world?! For what reason?! There is nothing to love in it!
People in this world are not the others whom I must love as myself. I do not have to go to them and make their life better. I cannot do this! The Creator makes their life worse, but I will make it better?!
To love them means to go to them and explain a little about the possibility of rising above our world, and then it will be better for them.
I am not in the business of feeding the world when the Creator makes it starve. No! This world will suffer greatly. My task is to tell humanity how to make sure that there is no suffering, but not to destroy suffering! I just cannot do that.
I must bring into this world the method of ascent and not destroy all kinds of suffering on the corporeal level. This is not my mission!
My mission is to teach, to tell, and to help master the ascent to the upper world, then there will be no suffering. It is not to engage in all sorts of noble actions in this world. This completely contradicts the general movement of the world, the program of the Creator.
The world must feel its conformance or non-conformance with the forward movement. It must feel whether it is following the right program or not. If not, then why.
Today the world is in confusion. What to do? Let us say I have billions or anything I want. If I give the world what it lacks and please absolutely everyone, then the world will freeze in this place, and it will not need to develop.
What should I do as a Kabbalist? I should just bring the world the knowledge of why sufferings do not end and how you can rise above them and ascend to the next degree.
These sufferings are needed only to push us to the next degree! These are labor pains. We need to help ourselves be born. This is why I exist.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What to Expect from Kabbalah?” 12/22/12
Comment: You said that a strong sex drive remains in people during the entire long spiritual path.
My Response: Yes, but they treat it in a completely consumer-like way, just like food and everything else. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between sex and love, sex and affection, and sex and caring for a friend, lover, or partner. These are completely different feelings.
The sexual need arises naturally without any object of attention. At the age of 11 to 13 hormones begin to come to play in young people, and suddenly a person begins to love someone.
What does it mean to love someone? If there were no hormones, would he look at anyone? No. There is nothing else here except hormonal dependence on the opposite sex. Why add love here as well?
For a Kabbalist, love is something completely different: affection, family, duty, and just human love.
These are completely different things. That is, ordinary people have this confusion. Even in our system, we can see how much all this is being reassessed now.
Look at what is happening in modern society: divorces, people cannot live with each other. Do they require love? They cannot sort out the relationship between themselves, between sex and love, mutual dependence, friendship, and so on. Humanity always revolves around this and does not know what to do. The Kabbalist, however, has it all in its place.
Question: But a certain period passes and sexual attraction no longer interferes. The pleasure from it is kind of slowly annulled. Or not?
Answer: No, it is not annulled. It just becomes a real, ordinary pleasure. You do not give it some kind of idealized state, but treat it like a physiologist or a doctor.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Sex”
Question: In the group, we play at loving each other, as if we are working for the bestowal. But there is some limit where it collapses. What should be the elements that link the group?
Answer: To ascend and acquire the upper world, there must necessarily be mutual irritation, mutual elevation of the goal and its importance, and mutual awareness of the worthlessness of this life and the attitude to it as a necessary existence for the revelation of the Creator. This is all that the group must give to a person.
Comment: But one who has tasted spirituality can no longer escape from it.
My Response: This is a Reshimo (spiritual informational record), not a drug habit when you cannot escape because you get pleasure.
There is no pleasure here, but there is your inner Reshimo (informational data), which you must realize by moving to the root of your soul from where it descended. This is required of you.
In fact, you are drawn to your star. It is from it, out of billions and billions of stars through the whole cosmos, that a ray comes to you, and pulls you back. And you cannot do anything, you must follow it. Everything else is an auxiliary element that will help you climb this ray.
Comment: Meaning, there is no such option of tasting it and running away.
My Response: No because your root is there! In the material world, you have only its point, the smallest Reshimo. But a thread connects you with that particular state, with that star. You must reach it! Only there is your eternal, perfect, permanent existence!
And in our world, you are like on a business trip. You still have to go up there. There is your home! Therefore, there is no drug addiction here.
You just must do it yourself from the inside. You, on the contrary, are thrown away and told: “Go away. You are not needed. If you want to advance, pay well with your participation, with your service.” And you do it because it is important for you to reach the root of your soul. It is important to you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Star”
New Life 199 – Passion and Intimacy
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
What is love and what distinguishes it from passion? Sex is a natural desire like the desires for food, family, money, or respect. Sexual desire takes on different forms according to the development of our ego and societal influences. Love, on the other hand, is an internal, emotional, and soulful connection based on mutual security and friendship. We are born with a need to be loved by our mother to begin with and eventually by a partner, by society, and even by the entire universe! We develop our unique sense of individuality when we feel loved and connected. In order to create loving relationships, we need to invest in our partners and be open. As a society, we should develop workshops so people can get in touch with their innate desire for love and start to imagine how we would feel if we attained it.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 199 – Passion And Intimacy,” 6/23/13
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
Question: If a friend is allegedly in a descent, then we need to help him with the methods of the Kabbalistic teaching. How do we not interfere with his state that he must experience?
Answer: We should only show him a good example. And then whatever happens, happens.
Question: But how can we determine what is good and what is bad for a person when he is in a state of descent, cannot attend lessons, or, on the contrary, when he is active and always cheerful? Visually, it seems that he is in the subject, but maybe if he is in a descent this the best state for him?
Answer: There is no better state when in a descent! The descent is only in order for us to get out of it as soon as possible. There is no need to be a masochist. If you love descents, then you are just an egoist, and you like it. It is said: “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh.”
A descent means that you have lost the importance of the Creator, the group, the teacher, and the advancement, you do not want any of this. This is called a descent.
Comment: But people are often in a bad mood.
My Response: That is not a descent! It is just a bad mood! You must clearly understand what a descent is. If it is precisely in the descent in importance of the means to achieve the goal and of the goal itself along with the means to achieve it, then you really are in a descent. Then you need to work on it. It has nothing to do with your mood.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Hate the Teacher and Friends” 12/29/12
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it possible to reduce overconsumption?“
We can reduce overconsumption and overproduction only if we change ourselves—to start feeling why life is truly worth living.
We cannot change the world, but we can change ourselves to be content and happy with life’s essentials. We would then put an end to the planet’s destruction, the overproduction and overconsumption of so many goods that are beyond our necessities.
Each person has their own definition of their essentials, which is influenced by each person’s specific upbringing. Everyone would thus need an individualized form of learning about self-transformation.
While it might seem utopian that human society would do away with its surplus activity in order to be happy with what we each truly need, our other option is simply self-destruction—a forceful stop to the process where we stop having children and stop our production lines, stalling the planet completely.
That is the choice before humanity as we head into the future: either we learn to get by and be happy with what we truly need, or we will face self-destruction.
When we discuss self-transformation, we are not talking about changing human nature, but the change of human character, i.e. how we each apply our natures.
In simpler terms, our desire that demands “I want!” within each and every person would remain the same, and the change would unfold in the desire’s fulfillment: that we would feel as if we receive everything we need from the world, and that we need nothing else. We can feel such fulfillment when we mutually fulfill each other.
As we head into the future, we will have to figure out how to not destroy ourselves and instead bring ourselves to the realization of the need for change.
Based on the video “Can We Reduce Overconsumption and Overproduction?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, on The Times of Israel: “What was Antonio Stradivari’s secret to making the best violins in history?”
Indeed, whether it is the latest technologies being unable to recreate the Stradivari violin sound, nor the International Association of Violin and Bow Makers, which has repeatedly attempted to discover the master’s secret with no luck, there have been all kinds of logical explanations such as the wood being different, or the times being different, and so on, but no one really knows the secret.
We first need to understand what happens inside our ear, why and how it is possible to elicit the kind of reaction that Stradivari’s strings derive, and how the sounds enter us.
There is indeed a secret at play, but I think that even Stradivari himself was unaware of it. He was simply working according to a certain intuition.
The secret lies in a special combination of sounds that influences the heart, and we need to think about how the heart responds first, and the ear follows. The primary role of the heart is of utmost importance in this area, yet nobody knows about it.
Even Stradivari did not know about it. He was unaware of such internal mechanics. He and his hands were generally driven by an inner intuition, and of course, the guiding higher force played a role in that interaction.
We are talking about a person who was really just an ordinary person with a certain profession, but at the same time, he became chosen to perform a certain role, and this secret became conveyed through him.
As such, the secret of Stradivari’s violin sound applies to everything beyond musical instruments. The sound has to enter the heart first, and only then does it reach the ear. Of course, this runs against what we commonly think, i.e., that we do not hear with our ears, but with our hearts.
Words also have such a quality, and it is how words are formed. When we speak or write, we have to find a word that enters the heart, and we hear it only afterward.
It is actually very easy to find such words in the wisdom of Kabbalah. My teacher, Rabash (Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag), said about this, “Michael, haven’t you heard what it says in the Shema prayer? It says, ‘Shema (Hear O) Michael.’” I was surprised, thinking why is he saying “Michael” and not “Hear O Israel”? “Israel” is a general name, but in reality, we can insert our own names there. That is, this “Hear O Michael” speaks to the heart, and the composition then begins.
The Shema prayer is considered one of the loftiest prayers, and a prayer is heard by the person’s heart first and only afterward by the ear—if it is even heard at all.
We say in the wisdom of Kabbalah that the prayer of an ordinary person is more exalted than prayers composed by sages and Kabbalists. This is because the person feels it; his heart resonates with the word that is rooted in a spiritual sensation. When a person thus pronounces the prayer with his feelings, he first hears it above. It is not something born within any of us.
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Question: There are many couples in our Kabbalistic group who really want to build their relationships on a new level of connection. They work in their own groups and watch the program “New Life” about family life together.
They want to build the family of the future that you talk about all the time. How can they check that they are moving in the right direction? What is the family of the future?
Answer: It is when a husband and wife are very close companions to each other. They don’t impose themselves on each other. They understand that they have a long life.
Comment: Together.
My Response: Together is relatively together. Together is impossible. We must accept our mutual states so that they are not double-edged, so that they complement each other.
Where we feel that we are doing something pleasant, we get closer. Where we feel that there may be some problems, we move away. We behave selectively. And then we will be fine.
Question: But we do not run away? Is this what it means to build a family?
Answer: We don’t think about building all the time. We just feel where we can help the partner, and where it is not necessary to interfere.
Comment: And this, you say, is called “partners.”
My Response: Yes. This is the most important thing in marriage.
Question: And everything else: love…?
Answer: There is love between a mother and a child. And there is love between man and the Creator. There is no love between people. There is a possibility of creating a very kind, close, mutual connection, but it is still not love.
Love appears, manifests, is created, and is born where there is a connection from nature, from nature itself, like a mother with a child, and as a person arises with the Creator.
It is a natural connection. This can be called love. But just between a man and a woman, even if they understand the importance of each other and try to somehow complement each other, it is not love, it is still mates. And this is the family of the future.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
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Question: A mistake is an important part of the path, but it is better to make mistakes in potential than in practice. What does that mean?
Answer: In potential means that when I advance, I see mistakes in my advancement, aspirations, and efforts. Then I reveal egoism as evil, not by the blows it overtakes me with that force me to go and satisfy, but by the obstacles that it puts on my path to the Creator.
Instead of blows from behind, I discover egoism in front of me that pulls me back and prevents me from moving forward. In this case, I deal with it faster, I understand its nature relative to the Creator.
After all, when I yearn for the Creator, egoism begins to interfere with me, and I see how much it directs me in the opposite direction from itself to the Creator. That is, I start to feel that it is really help against it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. It Is Very Important to Make Mistakes” 1/4/13
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Question: Does a person engaged in Kabbalah, when he receives any state and does not bestow from it, feel only himself?
Answer: If a person is in the quality of bestowal, then he feels others instead of himself, and if he is in the quality of reception, then he feels only himself.
There are only two possibilities: to feel your own desires or the desires of the other.
Our world is built on the fact that we feel only our own desires. We can feel the desires of the other only to the extent that we want to use him to fulfill our desires.
The spiritual world is built on the opposite principle, to feel the desires of the other and to feel your desires only to the extent that it is necessary in order to fulfill the desires of the other.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Erasing the Past” 1/22/11
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Question: What is life?
Answer: Material life is a form of existence of protein matter.
Spiritual life is a feeling of being filled with light, not just with light, because there are many different colors in the spiritual world. For example, the light of Chaya is the light of life, a very great light of receiving, feeling, filling with life–giving power, and knowledge. It is called life.
In the spiritual, our protein matter is not considered life at all because, in fact, it does not exist. In the spiritual world of bestowal, there is nothing that we feel with our five senses in the material world.
Everything that we are observing now is not in the spiritual world at all because it exists only in our imagination, in our egoistic desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Life” 1/2/11
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Question: In principle, Kabbalah is intended for the middle class. After all, people who stand a little higher are concerned about preserving everything they have achieved. And those who are lower are thinking about how to feed themselves. Does it mean that the middle class is the most optimal for studying?
Answer: Yes. I think that as a result of the crisis, the middle class will be the most affected, and it will be possible to talk to them.
On the one hand, these are developed people. On the other hand, they are not devoted to their egoism for some higher purposes and at the same time cannot afford to descend to the level of homeless people and be concerned with just getting a piece of bread for themselves.
Of course, they need a piece of bread, but besides that they have other needs. We need to tell them where to fill these needs. I think they will find it in Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah, Wisdom, Middle Class” 1/8/13
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Comment: The Kabbalists of Kotzk deliberately underestimated the importance of the group, which gave the friends the opportunity to do internal work.
My Response: This is intended for great people, not for us.
Question: If a person is equal to others, should he still try to be lower than others in a Kabbalistic group?
Answer: There is no such thing to be equal to others. Who knows what level one is at? The person himself does not know. It all depends on how he presents himself.
For example, I cannot place myself low because then the students will not respect me and will not accept the method and study. I have to take that into account. In front of the students it is necessary to keep myself accordingly; otherwise, they will not have an incentive and opportunity to learn. This is how a person is arranged. Until they can appreciate me as having the keys to their spiritual world, I have to play before them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Motherly Care” 12/31/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who is more responsible for our society, men or women?“
There are notable statistics in a report by humanitarian organization Care in relation to women. First, that 150 million more women are starving worldwide than men, and 60 percent of the people starving are women, and also that tens of millions of women worldwide eat last, and eat least.
It points to how women feel a natural responsibility toward their families, their children and their surroundings. About this natural responsibility imprinted in women, the Torah writes that “a woman is the home.”
Women’s ability to give birth is one aspect of why women host such natural qualities of responsibility and placing others before themselves. They have a more instinctive feeling of nature. This is why, in the Torah, the Creator tells Abraham to listen to what Sarah tells him. It describes the inner natural wisdom that women contain.
According to nature’s roots, women are already within nature, whereas the nature of the male is the correction of nature—the ability to overcome nature and guide it with an intention to bestow that is similar to nature’s quality of bestowal. If we held the inclination to listen to the inner natural wisdom of women, then there would certainly be more order in the world and less wars and suffering.
Based on the video “Do Women Feel More Responsibility Toward Society Than Men?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: If a student does not want to learn, then he prevents the group from receiving light. Can each element can knock the whole group out of the groove?
Answer: Certainly. Therefore, this condition is called Arvut, which means mutual guarantee. In a closed system, it is the only way! We are all a closed system, in one single mechanism, one common soul, one organism.
You cannot run away from Nature. This is how we were originally created.
If you are a person, that is it, you are in this system and you cannot do anything about it, not even kill yourself, disappear somewhere, or somehow try to annul it; it will not work. You are in a system from which you cannot escape! You can only consciously bring yourself by your efforts to be an organic, integral element of this system.
Now we are driven to this strongly by Nature that shows us that we are such particles.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Harm the Group” 1/2/11
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The Creator is the single law of the universe, of all worlds. The single law is the only one, one, unique, and unified. And all other laws are subordinate to it.
This law is absolute bestowal in complete connection of all parts of the universe, which are tightly connected into one single organism. One! There are no divisions, groupings, nothing. This is the single law. We must come to it according to the following law, which is under it, “the similarity of qualities,” where all parts of creation must be similar to the most important quality, equal to it, and together fulfill this law.
No matter what state you are in, you are obliged to realize in yourself absolute bestowal, absolute connection with everyone, and absolute love. This is what nature rushes us toward.
The next law is the gradual purposeful development to the very final state, that is, full compliance with the quality of bestowal. You are being urged on in accordance with the measure of development that you have to manifest. You are given all the conditions to develop yourself.
If you, by using all these conditions and the means given to us, develop yourself, you move comfortably, well, and quickly.
If you cannot implement these conditions, including everything that is given to you (and it is absolutely clear from above what is given to you, who you are, how you are, absolutely everything is taken into account by this whole closed system in which these conditions are turned on automatically), then you move uncomfortably. Everything depends on the measure of compliance with these conditions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Damage One’s Destiny” 1/21/11
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Comment: The state of final correction (Gmar Tikkun) is considered the most ideal.
My Response: We are in a perfect state all the time. We are, but whether we feel it or not depends on us. We just correct our feeling.
Why is our method called the wisdom of Kabbalah? We need to learn how to receive the right feeling from the state where we are in.
The Creator did not create any evil. He created one absolutely perfect state, but we must gradually reveal it by our own correction.
Question: When we reach this state, do we no longer bring contentment to the Creator?
Answer: It is impossible to say. Firstly, we will all be there, but we are not there yet. Secondly, as it is written in the sources, then a person still suffers because of his past efforts.
But it happens that he calls them back from the past. There are additions; otherwise, the next state will be imperfect.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to See the Future World” 12/29/12
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Question: How can you clothe yourself in the many alien images that you see?
Answer: When you clothe yourself in other people’s images, you begin to feel that they are better, perfect, or at least at the level of perfection, and at the same time you see their manifestation on the earthly level. You already feel two levels in them and then you justify people.
Question: Is there any limit to how much I can interfere in another person’s life?
Answer: You can only set an example for another person. It is most important! Beside the example, you help him along the way. Nothing else.
You cannot point him toward anything, urge him, or pull him even in a good way. This is what I always talk about as a necessary attitude toward our dissemination—only the passive distribution of material!
To the extent that a person rejects or is attracted to our material, there is a continuation of his advancement. He should do it himself! There is no any other way!
You can also unobtrusively show him an example of how much you are drawn to the goal, how much you desire it. Let him, if he can, be inspired by it. But only in this way, without affecting him in any way! This is our external influence.
As for internal influence, you are the complete master there. Feel him within yourself and try to completely fill him with your content.
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“From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Clothing into others”
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Michael Laitman, on The Times of Israel: “What Are Some Noteworthy Quotes About Education?”
“Teach a child according to the child’s way.” – Proverbs 22:6.
There is also a noteworthy quote by Swiss teacher and publicist Adolphe Ferrière that explains how we fail to follow this principle, i.e.
“And they created the school as the devil commanded.
The child loves nature, so he was locked in four walls.
He can not sit without moving, so he was forced into immobility.
He likes to work with his hands, and he began to teach theories and ideas.
He likes to talk – he was told to remain silent.
He seeks to understand – he was commanded to learn by heart.
He would like to explore and search for knowledge himself, but he was given them in ready form.
And then the children learned what they would never have learned in other conditions. They learned to lie and pretend.”
This quote dates back to the beginning of the previous century, but it is just as accurate today. It shows how children have natures to be like free birds, but we place them into cages.
Why? It is simply easier and clearer for us to coercively make children stay within our four corners. And by doing so, we rob them of their soul’s, mind’s and heart’s free development, and even disrupt their bodily development.
The principle “teach a child according to the child’s way” means that children should be raised in ways that let them freely develop. In practice, it means that they should listen to adults, but adults should adjust themselves to be as interesting and as relevant as possible to the children. Also, children need a lot of time outdoors with their friends, and to be simultaneously with their friends and their teachers. That is, they should engage in several activities that involve creating, inventing and fixing things together, as well as in ongoing discussions with their peers and with adults where they need to debate certain topics and reach conclusions.
Such an approach develops children in the natural course of their activities. It liberates them and gives them the freedom to think and to develop new ideas. We have yet to see an educational system that develops children to their fullest potential in such a way. Instead, we pack them into cubes that constrain their thinking and optimal development.
In order to upgrade education to “teach a child according to the child’s way,” we need different teachers, or more specifically, teachers themselves need to initially undergo a different course of education over several years, and only then will they accordingly become ready to cater to children. We will then start seeing completely different results to the current ones.
I think that the move to this kind of education will come when we become completely disillusioned with the ways we currently raise children, when we see that our current systems serve to create a world of increasing depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and other problematic phenomena across the board on personal, social, economic and ecological scales.
Michael Laitman on The Times of Israel: “How to End War”
In 1914, during World War I, an amazing event happened. At a time when half a million people were killed near the Belgian city of Ypres, on December 24, before Christmas, suddenly soldiers began to decorate the German trenches with garlands and various lights. Later, they moved onto neutral territory. Both the French and the British also came out to the neutral territory from the enemy trenches, making a gathering of about 100,000 people. They had been killing each other up until that point, but on that day, they got together and connected: they exchanged souvenirs, sang songs, traded buttons, tobacco, wine and sweets, and played football with cans. In 2014, a football monument was built to commemorate the event.
It was an incredible spectacle. Those who fought to the death and hated each other suddenly started bonding. Naturally, the generals were instantly alarmed. Under threat of death, the soldiers were forced back into the trenches, and war continued. It lasted four years and 20 million people got killed.
A key question that arises from this example is indeed, could it be possible to stop war from the level of the soldiers themselves? We see that the soldiers could end the war if they wanted to, but since they follow their generals’ commands, then it would require the generals to also wish to stop the war, which in turn requires each successive higher level, which makes it impossible.
However, the example is etched in history: People who were killing each other in cold blood, with bayonets, fighting hand-to-hand, where everyone was faced with so much blood and it was not just distant firing of guns and missiles. They literally faced their enemies, felt hatred for them, and in a single moment, it all shifted to a state of bonding.
It shows that even the strongest hatred can be inverted in a moment. A fight could continue for a long time, and then all of a sudden, poof—the hatred dissipates. The reason behind the hatred suddenly disappears.
It is no miracle. It is simply how a program that runs our desires plays out. There is no point in our hatred, nor in our love. We can see similar examples of people who were once seemingly in love, and all of a sudden, they stop loving each other. That love that held them together instantly disappears. It is common to hear divorcees say about their partners, “What did I ever love in them?”
The fact that our emotions can suddenly shift from one moment to the next shows us that any unity we establish should be based not on our feelings, but on an idea. That is, if we circulated an idea of the need to unite in order to reach a complete merging among each other as the most desirable state we could possibly achieve, then we would have a strong basis for uniting.
The foundation of this idea is in a higher root, that humanity was originally created as a single unified consciousness that underwent a process of shattering and dispersion until we found ourselves in a reality where we perceive ourselves separated from each other. While we are in this state of separation, we undergo a certain development until we reach a point where we start waking up to our unified state once again. That is, at a certain point, we start feeling that we are opposite to our most desirable state, that we have suffered enough in our divisiveness, and we develop a new desire to undergo a major shift back to complete unification.
Michael Laitman, on The Times of Israel: “The Secret to Living Beyond 100 – A Kabbalist’s Response”
In Australia, a 100-year-old woman shared what she considered the secret to her long life, that longevity stems from a calm attitude to any tumultuous life events. She recommends not holding onto grudges and to live in the here and now. Her credo is, “Don’t worry about things that may never even happen.”
While it might seem like good life advice, a Kabbalist views it as lifeless to not worry about yesterday or tomorrow, and only to live in the here and now. It is how the animate degree of existence lives, but not the human.
Take any animal: it lives in the here and now. It is another matter if they have premonitions, but if they do not receive that sensation, then they live with what they have. An animal’s movements are quite simple, whereas humans burden themselves with all kinds of cosmic problems. For instance, stars might be exploding in another galaxy, and there would be people worrying about it.
Our worries with where we are gives us a feeling of life. On the contrary, a calm bodily existence, where we live with only what we have, is an animalistic life.
A Kabbalist is a person who opens himself to the world by coming out of himself and participating in it. He absorbs the world’s desires and problems and then processes them in order to activate his correction, in order to seek the optimal response and intention to everything that he absorbs. He thus feeds back into the world a corrected response to what he absorbs.
Such a life is far from being free of problems. Yet, it gives the Kabbalist a feeling of happiness because he feels that he carries out a necessary duty. Otherwise, it is not a human life. A Kabbalist can live in no other way.
However, in relation to the lady’s statement about not holding onto grudges, it is indeed important. It also comes naturally to a Kabbalist because if we accept everything as coming from a single force—nature’s force of love and bestowal—then everything that plays out among us is a picture of the world that nature directs. If we hold onto such a picture, then our attitude to it becomes correct and practical.
We can then no longer hold onto any grudges because we involve ourselves in the world’s correction, in the absorption and manifestation of the world, and we engage in the system together with nature. In other words, we not only observe and absorb what is around us, but we understand that it is being done for us, and that it is processed in our perception of reality.
We then need to act in a way that justifies this picture that projects within us. Living in the here and now is thus correct, but in the sense that the “here and now” is the reality that we create. We receive our impressions from nature’s output toward us, which we process as our input. We then constantly correct our impressions and reflections of the world, and we do so in order to justify nature on all degrees of our perception.
Michael Laitman, on The Times of Israel: “Abundant milk, meat, and fish, but no animals in sight”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood by a sleek tablet-like touchscreen of a big meat-producing machine, chose the percentage of fat he wanted in his steak, and pressed “Print.” A few minutes later, his order was ready. Printing a fish took only one minute. Soon, cultured meat and fish will be available in Israeli supermarkets. Even sooner, cultured milk will be on the shelves. The machines are ready, distribution agreements have been signed, the medical tests were successful, and the regulatory procedures have been completed. The dream of consuming animal protein without breeding or killing animals is months-to-a-few-years from becoming a reality. Has Israel solved the world’s food problems?
Especially when it comes to food and drugs, caution and prudence are critical. But with all the due caution, we may indeed be able to solve the world’s food problems. However, as with every breakthrough, we should not jump to conclusions before commercial distribution is underway, and the general public begins to consume these products. Especially for deprived areas such as parts of Africa and Asia, mass machine-production of meat, fish, and milk can be a life-saver in the full sense of the word.
But will it be a life-saver? Regrettably, human nature will stand in the way. Man’s evil inclination will run ahead and cease the opportunity to make another buck, to exploit, humiliate, demean, and abuse more people and in new ways. In all likelihood, humanity will waste yet another great opportunity to end its misery, and the rich and powerful will only become more so, while the indigent become even more deprived.
Theoretically, one of the ways in which society can mitigate the potential exploitation of such potentially life-changing innovations is by creating social wealth funds such as the one Norway has established, which uses some of the profits from its oil industry for the common good. Another way to balance the expected gargantuan profits is to modify the royalties that the state collects from manufacturers of cultured proteins. The State of Israel did this when natural gas was discovered off its shores, and everyone seems to be content with the agreement.
However, in practice, I think that such arrangements will not hold for long. In the end, humanity will follow the way of the ego, as it always does, and the abuse of knowledge and technology in service of the rich will continue.
A side note regarding the breakthroughs in food-tech in Israel is that many believe that these technologies will improve Israel’s international status. Over the past ten years or so, Israel has become a world leader in some of humanity’s most pressing issues: It is the world leader when it comes to water conservation and desalination, and a world leader in agriculture. It has become an exporter of gas, and from a country that was dependent on oil for its survival, Israel has become almost energy independent. Its military industry has leaped forward and today, Israel manufactures and exports almost everything except for fighter jets. And now with the advances in food-tech, it is jumping to the head of the bandwagon in food production, too.
However, all these boons have not made Israel any more popular among the nations, nor will they make it popular. Some nations may want its knowledge and technology, so they are willing to put on a friendly face to get a discount, but this is where Israel’s “favor” in the eyes of the nations ends. The only way Israel can truly be accepted by the nations is if it “exports” unity and social cohesion. For all the glitz and glory of sophisticated weapon systems and advanced food-tech, the only thing that the world needs from Israel is an example of unity. Social cohesion is the only “product” that all the nations want, that no one knows how to form, and that Israel can, must, and is expected to provide. If Israel delivers this, it will not need weapons, hacking tools, or any other protection to secure its place among the nations.
Additionally, if it delivers unity to the world, humanity will know how to use technological innovations for humanity’s sake, and not solely for the rich, powerful, and abusive few.
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Question: Let’s say a person does not want to study, and the whole group suffers by it. How can I take away his free choice to join or not join the group?
Answer: You do not have any free choice! By joining a group, you accept the condition of complete connection with others in order to reveal the Creator. How can it be that you want, do not want, one way today, the other way tomorrow?
In which groups would you be allowed to do this? There is no such thing in the army or even in any enterprise where they unite in collectives to create something, to do something! How is it possible?
This way today and that way tomorrow?
Everyone makes a commitment. If you do not do this, then the others will not commit to you either. So, you have nothing to do in the group, you will not advance.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Harm the group” 1/2/11
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Comment: You said that we could feel final correction (Gmar Tikkun) now if we perceived ascents and descents as the same, correct state.
My Response: But we are not able to achieve that yet.
What does final correction mean? Final correction is when you feel the current state as absolutely perfect. You are in it even now, but you have to correct your feelings.
Question: Kabbalists say that later we will even envy the overcoming that we carried out earlier. Why exactly envy?
Answer: Because in overcoming these sorrowful, difficult states, you give the Creator special pleasure by your yearning for Him. Like a little child who is puffing, trying to build something with his cubes and cannot. This is the most rewarding job for parents who see how he wants to become smart.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to See the Future World” 12/29/12
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Comment: You said you cannot convey a full picture of the entire system to external people who are not engaged in Kabbalah because it is against the plan of creation.
Answer: They will not understand anything! How can they understand what I am telling them given their current qualities? Or how can they even somewhat agree with it, even purely theoretically? And then what? It would destroy their egoism, destroy everything they know, everything they do.
In their eyes Einstein will suddenly turn into a little boy, as would other scientists across multiple disciplines look completely superficial and shallow. And what is next?
Why humiliate people? I respect them for their serious contribution, for their commitment. They realize their healthy egoism and strive to know and attain as much as possible. This still develops various paths to the Creator. Science is increasingly approaching a premonition of the upper force.
Therefore, I do not want to interfere in any way. Because if they learn about Kabbalah, they will not be able to do anything! They will instantly forget it! The system of egoistic self-defense will instantly kick in, and that is it: “I’m back to my scientific niche, I do not want to know anything!”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah, Science, Middle Class” 12/29/12
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Question: How does your mutual activity with students occur: contact, symbiosis, or connection?
Answer: When students ask me questions and convey their desire to me, I start to dig into myself and find the answer. I myself do not have these questions. It is like a child who asks: “Dad, how does it work?” Then the father starts thinking about it and explaining it to him, but otherwise, the father would not have thought about it.
But there is no problem for me. Let’s say that the father needs to know a certain device, instrument, or story, and if he did not know it, then he could not give an answer to the child. I do not have such a problem because I am in the general system of the universe. Therefore, when students ask me something, they highlight this system to me with their questions, and I explain it to them. The only problem is how to present everything so that it is clear to them.
Comment: But everyone understands that this is literally just one second of insight that disappears from a person.
My Response: It does not matter! If the desire of people connected to mine, to my capabilities, and made disclosure, then it remains in the world and makes it easier for everyone to further disclose and use it.
By doing this, I am potentially revealing the next degrees, which will then be very easy to reveal. In other words, the degrees already exist, and you will climb them. I am preparing this for the future.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How does Laitman use students?” 12/15/12
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Question: Igor asks: “I am an empath; I am physically shaken by the troubles that are happening around. How can I learn not to empathize?”
Answer: No, it is necessary to empathize. This is how we were created. We just need to create a parallel system in ourselves that will understand why everything negative is happening. In order for us to complement this with a positive to extinguish this negative.
Comment: Igor writes that he is deeply shaken by what is happening, he empathizes with it.
My Response: Nothing of this is needed. Absolutely! It is necessary to relate to this very simply.
Everything in the world is in an exceptional form. It depends only on us as to how these opposing forces and phenomena will complement each other to absolute, complete perfection. That is what we need to desire.
Question: Reveal the secret; how do you see it all? We see it quite differently. Look at what is happening: wars are being prepared there; weapons are being accumulated over there; people are dying and close to death from hunger in other places. So, he says it shakes him deeply. How can you say, everything is in a state of perfection?
Answer: First, it is necessary to try to reach the feeling of the Creator, who manages all this, and manages it absolutely calmly, methodically, and with love. And He already sees the beginning, the middle, and the end in one absolute state. This is the first.
Second, everything that happens in the world happens inside of us. Inside of us, only inside of us, and not somewhere outside where stars explode, something falls down, something is being done. This is how it seems to a person. For this, we just need to read a little bit of Kabbalistic materials regarding the impression about the world, the universe, about what is happening. It is all inside of us and only inside of us. And if we change our qualities, then accordingly we will change our perception of the world, and we will see a completely different world.
How could it be? After all, I can see who is killing whom, who is doing something with someone. Look at what is going on in the world! Just evil, only evil. It is because that is how I look at it, at this world.
Comment: So you say in a simple way: inside me is war, I see war; inside me is evil, I see evil; inside me is hate, I see hate.
My Response: Yes. This is called an “egoistic, individualistic perception of the world.”
Question: So, this is my correction?
Answer: Change yourself and you will see a different world. And what is it like in general? It is nothing! A simple light flooding the entire universe.
Question: Am I in front of this light?
Answer: To the extent that I can imagine it. And not further. But I think we are getting closer to it.
Question: Do you have such a feeling?
Answer: Yes, I hope that it is getting closer and closer and more tangible
Question: And a person will be able to understand that if he changes, the world will change?
Answer: It is very easy. It will suddenly be simply as usual for people, why didn’t we see this before?
Question: It will not be like a discovery of America?
Answer: No. People will just talk about it as if it was also so yesterday. So, it was not there yesterday, you didn’t see it. You say “yesterday”?
Who?! We?! How could it be?
Question: Are you talking about what a person would possibly say: “I’ve changed, the world has changed”?
Answer: He will not even realize that he has changed; it will be so natural.
Question: Just the world will change, that’s all?
Answer: Yes. He’ll live in a different world.
Question: But is it going to happen because of his internal efforts that have been going on all the time?
Answer: But not everyone made internal efforts. But in general, it will happen anyway.
Question: Who does it, a person, or is it done by the light, the Creator?
Answer: The light of course! But we need to ask very hard for the light to do this with us.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
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Comment: The first social system was matriarchal. Women used to rule everything.
My Response: We started with the matriarchy, and we will finish with it.
Comment: But according to the law of nature, men in the chain of evolution, in receiving light, are closer to transmitting it to women.
My Response: So, what?! Who is the carrier of the matter of our world? It is the one that needs to be corrected and connected with the Creator? Women. The female part will really be the main one, and the male part will be the correcting one.
What is important to us: the tools with which they fix or what they fix? The desire is corrected. A woman in our world embodies universal desire. And with what is it corrected? With the help of men. It is corrected and that’s it. It can be put away.
Question: Let’s say we corrected this desire. What will the role of men be in the future?
Answer: None! All together are fully connected with the Creator. But it is thanks to the fact that the female part has been corrected.
Question: Why was the whole ancient culture based on the fact that a woman was at the head of society?
Answer: Because it is the basis of nature. Until egoism began to develop and man began to hunt for prey, everything concentrated around the woman.
It is the same with animals. The most important thing is the female part, it reproduces offspring and takes care of them. And the male took part in the creation of offspring and left.
Of course, there are isolated individuals who are connected to the family for life, or at least until the cubs grow up. And, in principle, everything is around the mother. She is the main force; she takes care of everything.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Matriarchy Is Waiting for Us!” 9/1/13
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you finish the sentence, “Heaven is..”?“
Heaven is a state where a common force of love emerges between people, which forms a connection of “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Question: You said that in a group there are inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels, and everything depends only on a person’s intention. How can a person choose this level with his intentions?
Answer: By his development! He is rising. Now you cannot feel what level of development you are at. “I am a man in this world. See, I am a man! Look, two legs and two arms, like a monkey, and the head is also in place. So who am I, a man or not?! I look at myself in the mirror; I look like a man. Suddenly, some kind of wolf’s face appeared; no, it is not me! It is me, but internally. Suddenly, a rabbit’s face appeared, and this is also me sometimes.”
Who am I inside myself? And what we are inside we do not understand. You do not understand what level you are at, at what level are your desires of vegetative, animate, inanimate, or human type.
In principle, they are all very easy to sort. If you live based on the advice of others, in the depth of our world, then your desires are definitely at the inanimate level; otherwise you would not exist.
Desires of the vegetative level are where you completely follow what is in this world, you go after everyone else; where everyone goes, you also go. It is like this: a little toward the sun, a little like this, a little like that; these are egoistic desires of the vegetative level, and they are not even animate yet.
Desires of the animate level is where you start looking for meaning in movements, and anxiety already arises.
When you start to implement these desires to reach the next level, then although they are still egoistic, they are already approaching the desires of the human level. That is, in them you move from Lo Lishma (for yourself) to Lishma (for the sake of the other).
Question: How are they sorted in a group according to the intention?
Answer: In the group, they are usually of the fourth level. Or they are at the border between the third and fourth levels, animate and human.
Then at the next degrees, they are sorted further because each level consists of four more. This is the natural law of the decomposition of each object.
Question: Does it mean that in the group itself there is an inanimate level, a vegetative level, and so on?
Answer: Yes, we can see this by the extent people participate in everything, by how much they are inside the spiritual work, and how much they devote themselves to the implementation of the methodology. But this is not necessary because they are integrated into each other. Here, a lot depends on the root of the soul.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The root of the human soul” 12/22/12
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The ten is the state where you begin to feel that you have to be connected with everyone, you need to get out of yourself and unite with everyone.
People form a common relationship among themselves, a common body that is a separate small cell in spiritual space. Everyone has to annul themselves relative to others and imagine themselves connected to others; in the end they create this organ because there is no one person in the spiritual world.
The derivative of our connections manifests itself at the next level. Let’s say if we take you and me, then on the spiritual level there is only that which has manifested itself between us as a connection, that is, our common “we.” And at the next, higher level, there is our “we” and someone else’s “we” also interconnected together.
And so we are constantly rising from hierarchy to hierarchy in a more complicated form, constantly increasing our connection, let us say squared.
In fact there is a special system of magnification, a complex series of raising the connection between all, and it is qualitative, for example, from the level of Hod to the level of Netzach, then to the level of Tifferet, Gevura, Hesed, and so on. That is, there are not just quantitative, but qualitative, changes in the connection between them. So we can’t measure it.
How do you measure the progression of getting closer in our world? Let’s say you become acquainted with somebody. So when you meet, you start greeting him. Then you can say a few words and even sit together with him, have a cup of coffee, and so on.
And in the spiritual it is even harder because there is mutual inclusion in each other, because at the first level you and I become “we,” not “I.” Then egoism grows between us and separates us again, but qualitatively. Like in a measuring device, your sensitivity increases and when it seems to you that your parameters match, it turns out that they are still disconnected, and you adjust them again to the connection, but with increased sensitivity.
And then you switch the sensitivity again and once more you see that they have diverged, but already, let’s say, one in a thousand, ten thousand, a million, and so on. You are constantly moving toward greater and greater convergence and fusion, qualitative and integral, where everything together at every level should be united into one whole.
This is a very serious, fascinating work that goes through feelings and at the same time through the mind. As a result, you create a prototype of the Creator in yourself; that is, this huge network begins to live in you, and you own it, it is yours, and it has you in it.
Question: And if we take a large number of people, not tens, but thousands?
Answer: What’s the difference? Perhaps the network will turn out to be more entangled, but also more effective, because everyone goes toward agreement with everyone else and adds to them their power of unification. Therefore if people move forward, then the larger the group, the more effective it is, the faster at each stage it will finish its unification and will be ready for the next stage, ready for the next qualitative rise.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, Ten People Equals a Full-fledged Group in Kabbalah” 12/1/12
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Question: Years pass before a student really becomes a disciple of a Kabbalist and can receive the methodology from the teacher.
How does this transformation happen? Should a certain number of changes take place in a person, and will it happen?
Answer: The point is that we are working according to a common system; we are led. We need to perform the necessary actions that are prescribed by our teachers who have traversed this path, and then everything will be fine.
Here we need constant work on the same material, that is, on our egoism, to rise above it together with our friends in order to clearly realize our direction, our place, and our connection in order to find the Creator in the connection between us. These are simple actions, but they are constantly changing because our sensations are changing.
So there is nothing complicated here. Mutual support (Arvut) is the most important thing! If it exists, then you can go ahead. If it does not exist, then nothing will happen. The main thing is to achieve mutual guarantee. Each one supplies the other with the necessary conditions for correction, and then he receives from everyone.
The exit out of yourself, the concern for correcting the other, lies in the fact that you supply him with everything so that he does not need anything, but can only think outside of himself. This is the biggest problem. If people start feeling this, then they will have no more problems. They will be able to rise above themselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How To Become a Disciple of a Kabbalist” 12/29/12
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Question: What should a couple write in a marriage contract so that it strengthens their bond, does not break it, and does not separate them?
Answer: It should be written in the marriage contract that in fact, no matter what happens between us we will always think about making the other feel good, that it cannot be that one wishes something bad for the other or would do something bad. This is the oath.
Question: What if I suddenly do wish bad for the other? What if this suddenly pops up in me?
Answer: This all needs immediate correction. That is, there are things that should be above our desires, above our egoistic calculations, and above everything else. Like say with children, no matter what happens, you still think about making them feel good.
That is all. And it is the same here.
Question: Should we just write this in the contract, this simple phrase?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
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Comment: You said that reason kills feelings because it comes from egoism and that the smarter a person is, the more constrained he is in himself. But we cannot do without reason.
My Response: The mind is given to you so that you gradually acquire a higher mind that operates not on the quality of reception, but on the quality of bestowal. Such an action is called faith above reason.
Moreover, this is not faith in our world, which is simply receiving data from others and accepting it as the truth.
Faith in Kabbalah is the quality of bestowal that operates within you on the quality of reception; it is when the upper world is more important to you than ours. And then you begin to feel the upper world to the extent that it really becomes more important to you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Woe from wit” 2/5/11
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Comment: In corporeal life when one person meets another, they identify each other by their faces, the way they look, and not by their inner qualities.
My Response: This is because they feel only our world.
And I feel my teacher, who is no longer in this world, not by his beard and appearance; I feel the person.
Even in the corporeal world when you live with someone for a long time, you just start to feel him. He becomes for you some internal image, not external.
It is the same in spirituality. You feel the souls. I feel the inner energetic spiritual component of my teacher and not the physical body which has long decayed.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Organ transplantation” 2/3/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does nature teach us when a disaster strikes?“
Natural disasters come to show us that we live out of balance with nature.
We are parts of nature’s integral system, and in nature we have the still, vegetative, animate and human levels.
Nature acts as a single organism with interconnection and interdependence among the still, vegetative and animate levels. We are also parts of nature’s interconnection and interdependence, but we lack perception and sensation of it. As such, we are willing to destroy everything as long as the human level is well-off.
Natural disasters come to show us that we cannot continue living the way that we do, that we have to change our attitude to each other: to accept humanity as a single integral system where we are all interdependent, that we have to take care of each other, and if we do not, then our lives will become increasingly grim.
Based on the video “What Do Natural Disasters Teach Us?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: If a person asks to be brought closer to the light, won’t it be an egoistic request? After all, he wants it to be better for him.
Answer: It doesn’t matter. Desiring spiritual things egotistically for oneself is called Lo Lishma.
A person wants to experience the spiritual world, to receive spiritual life and a sense of true reality, and to see that his life is not wasted. After all, it is going by and who knows how long he has left? He doesn’t want to end it pointlessly.
A person initially cannot think about anything but his own benefit. Therefore ,if he does not egotistically desire the spiritual and imagine it as good, he will never turn to it.
Therefore the spiritual path begins with egoistic attainment (Lo Lishma), and then, under the influence of the upper light (Ohr Makif), the egoistic attitude to the spiritual itself is replaced by altruism (Lishma).
Therefore a person’s egoism is called “help against oneself” (Ezer Kenegdo) because it leads one to a state where he suddenly sees: “But it’s precisely what is bothering me!”
The very ego that helped me so much and pushed me forward, I must now destroy, not the desires themselves, but only their egoistic intention. Thus gradually the light changes me.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/23
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Question: Mikhail asks: “What is the ultimate goal of a person? Is it to dissolve into the Creator, as you say, to merge with Him? Will we lose our identity or not?”
Answer: I would say it is much higher—to complement the Creator. Except that it is said “You create Me.” So says the Creator. But at least if we do not create, we complement Him.
Question: So, is there some flaw in Him if we complement Him?
Answer: Of course, there is a lack because He is suffering very, very much without us. He has the desire to bestow, to saturate, and to emanate, and there is no one, no one wants to.
Question: But we want to be satisfied, to receive, right?
Answer: We do not want to be fed from Him and not by Him! Therefore, here, I would say, it looks like a war of nerves, who will be the first to give in and say: “I love you!” This is a game of exhaustion, of course, really.
Question: Mikhail asks: “Will we lose our identity or not?”
Answer: We will find it then. What kind of identity do we have now? There is absolutely none.
Identity is acquired by the fact that we become necessary for the Creator in action. We are already necessary, but in action, in the fact that we get closer to Him, unite, and merge with Him; in the fact that we complement the universe, we cause filling in the whole universe, the upper light that fills the whole creation. Without us, it would be empty, cold, and dark.
Question: What kind of additional help does the Creator expect from us?
Answer: So that we turn on the light, turn on the light in fact in this world, so that the universe would be filled with the light of the Creator, love, goodness, unity, and perfection in all possible forms.
Comment: At the same time, you say this today when one does not know where to run. With these crazy wars.
My Response: Nothing needs to be done. We just must wait calmly, with confidence that this should happen, to want, to ask, to quietly ask the Creator.
Question: Is that all that is required of us?
Answer: Yes. Without unnecessary noise, statements, disputes, without anything.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
Comment: If we compare you and Baal HaSulam, he was not as public as you are and he did not disseminate to such a large number of people.
My Response: I am sure that if he could, he would have done everything. In 1940, Baal HaSulam published the newspaper The Nation. Can you imagine what it meant to publish a Kabbalistic, Zionist newspaper at that time?!
And the book The Giving of the Torah in which he addresses ordinary people! A Kabbalist comes out of his corner and addresses ordinary people! He was a true revolutionary!
Who am I compared to him? Now everything is open, do what you want. It is a completely different century!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who controls Laitman?” 12/27/12
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Question: Am I a puppet through which the Creator acts on the friends? Or are the friends only means through which the Creator acts on me?
Answer: I cannot control my friends in any way, in no way! By being connected with them, I can only convey my support to them.
And by not doing this in accordance with the capabilities of the system we are in, I harm both them and myself. We are always mutually incorporated in each other. If I do not transmit what is in me to them every second, I short-circuit myself and of course them.
This is an analog, integrated system. There is no getting away from it! There are no such calculations here where you constantly think about how to arrange something for someone. There is no such thing! All together! From the start!
When we understand this, everything will be fine. In the meantime, everyone is thinking about how to gain something and always at the expense of others! When the system is revealed, then everything will become clear.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who controls you?” 12/29/12
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Question: In Kabbalah, two people are considered a Minyan (group); they also make up the ten Sefirot. On one hand, there are at least two, and on the other hand, is it desirable that there are 10 people?
Answer: Two people are necessary in order to be able to understand what it means to exit yourself. For this exit to be really outside of oneself, it takes ten people. Then they form a common system.
But in principle, ten is not necessary. We just want everything to be similar to the spiritual system. In fact, it can be two, three, or five people; it does not matter. The main thing is that there should be someone outside of you on whom you can work out a way out of yourself.
As a person goes out of a space capsule into space, in the same way you should be able to go out into another. For this, the other must exist. He must be in a certain contact with you, in a certain connection, in mutual assistance, so that you can do it.
Question: Should a person do this actively so that everyone can see or is his presence enough?
Answer: Yes and no. It depends on what kind of person, at what time, in what era, and with what kind of egoism. It is not easy.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How many people should be in the group?” 12/22/12
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Question: How do we absorb the world around us and connect with it?
Answer: One can absorb the world only to the extent that is necessary to correctly explain the method of ascent to people.
What does it mean to enter this world? If I am at the next degree, then this world is just a small part in which I know everything from one end to the other. I feel it in absolutely everything: its energy, movement, and connection between all objects.
I am only interested in the part of this world that is called a person’s consciousness. I want them to acquire higher consciousness. This is what I have to do as someone who is at the next level; I help everyone who is at this degree to climb to the next degree. This act is called spiritual birth.
But to dive into this world, where to dive?! Nowhere! You have no idea what it is like. Compared to the upper world, it does not even come close to a millimeter; everything in it is so much more flat and linear.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, What to Expect from Kabbalah?” 12/22/12
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Question: In one of your clips there was a story about a lonely whale that exists in its own frequency and makes its own sounds. The others don’t see or hear him. He wanders all by himself.
Martha writes to you: “Tell me, what should I do? I am such a lonely whale. I am surrounded by a lot of people, but I am all alone. I really want to communicate with people, but I cannot find sincere contact, I am afraid of people. What should I do?”
Answer: Tune in to the fact that there are no sincere contacts. Exist the way you exist. It is not called being a lonely whale. The whale also does not exist alone, but among many, many others, similar to and including him. So are we.
Comment: But it was said that the whale wanders around alone, that none hear it or see it. Martha thinks she is the same.
My Response: So, what? What Is wrong with that? I do not feel like a lonely whale. I do my own thing, communicate with a certain number of people, and so on. That is, it is not loneliness.
Question: Not loneliness. And if she has this loneliness?
Answer: This is how she feels.
Question: If she writes: “I’m afraid of people”? How can she overcome such a problem if it is not at the medical level? Fear of people, fear of contacts, there are the people who do not want this connection; they are afraid of it. What should be the result of their efforts?
Answer: The result is that they eventually find company in which they feel free.
Question: But we need to look from easy to difficult, with whom can I? Do not force yourself.
Answer: No! But you can join some clubs and chat with one or two women or men there.
Question: Please explain why you insist on contact. Why not tell a person: “Well, just exist the way you are”?
Answer: But she is complaining!
Comment: She complains, that is right. “I really want to communicate with people, but I cannot find a sincere contact.”
My Response: Sincere! She herself is not ready for sincere contact.
Question: Is that what you feel?
Answer: Of course.
Question: What kind of contact is sincere for you? For her, it is clear to me that she is looking for something like this for herself.
Answer: For me, a sincere contact is to find a book that would capture me. That is all.
Question: In general, what would you call a sincere contact?
Answer: When they understand you. But that is hardly good either. At the same time, a person has very little of himself left. It is true, we do not really want to open up.
Question: Yes, we are closed, of course. So, after all, what is sincere contact?
Answer: I do not know. This is when you feel comfortable with a person. But with whom can you be constantly calm?
Comment: This is also a problem.
My Response: Of course.
Question: A real contact, what is it?
Answer: Real contact is obviously when you love a person and want to make him feel good all the time.
Comment: You took it and suddenly turned everything around just like that. Instead of being good for me, you say: “So that it would be good for the other. And this is called contact.”
My Response: Yes when I feel that I want it to be good for him, create a pleasant atmosphere for him, a feeling.
Question: And if we are talking about the upper, about the Creator, what is a real contact?
Answer: This is already an equivalence of form. This is so that I can affect the Creator in the same way that He affects me. To do this, I need to change my nature, which, by the way, He made for me. So, I must ask Him to change it. This request is the contact.
Question: Can such a request be sincere?
Answer: Partly, until I really ask sincerely.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/23/23
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your thoughts on pain?“
Pain is our body’s reaction to all kinds of bodily disruptions. It warns of danger and makes us act—to move toward pleasure and away from pain, to diagnose the cause of the pain, to reach conclusions and to advance in our lives to new states.
Pain impacts our ego, the desire to enjoy at the expense of others. We can feel pain when we feel bad, or when sympathizing with others who feel bad, or when the pain of envy strikes us when we see that others are better off than us.
There is pain that prods us from behind, making us evolve, and also existential pain that ultimately pulls us forward to greater fulfillment.
We would feel nothing at all if it were not for pain. Whether it is a certain kind of conflict, contact or pressure, our every feeling is built upon a certain form of pain, and we can only feel pleasure, fulfillment and enjoyment after pain.
However, we can overcome pain. When we rise above the ego, i.e. when we ascend beyond prioritizing self-interest at the expense of others to its opposite—prioritizing the benefit of others—we can then live in complete fulfillment, without emptiness, where we relate to everything and everyone out of an ever-increasing wholeness and love.
Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Medium published my new article “What Is the Most Important Advice You Would Give to Someone to Live a Long Life?”
In Australia, a 100-year-old woman shared what she considered the secret to her long life, that longevity stems from a calm attitude to any tumultuous life events. She recommends not holding onto grudges and to live in the here and now. Her credo is, “Don’t worry about things that may never even happen.”
A Kabbalist is a person who opens himself to the world by coming out of himself and participating in it. He absorbs the world’s desires and problems and then processes them in order to activate his correction, in order to seek the optimal response and intention to everything that he absorbs. He thus feeds back into the world a corrected response to what he absorbs.
While it might seem like good life advice, a Kabbalist views it as lifeless to not worry about yesterday or tomorrow, and only to live in the here and now. It is how the animate degree of existence lives, but not the human.
Take any animal: it lives in the here and now. It is another matter if they have premonitions, but if they do not receive that sensation, then they live with what they have. An animal’s movements are quite simple, whereas humans burden themselves with all kinds of cosmic problems. For instance, stars might be exploding in another galaxy, and there would be people worrying about it.
Our worries with where we are gives us a feeling of life. On the contrary, a calm bodily existence, where we live with only what we have, is an animalistic life.
A Kabbalist is a person who opens himself to the world by coming out of himself and participating in it. He absorbs the world’s desires and problems and then processes them in order to activate his correction, in order to seek the optimal response and intention to everything that he absorbs. He thus feeds back into the world a corrected response to what he absorbs.
Such a life is far from being free of problems. Yet, it gives the Kabbalist a feeling of happiness because he feels that he carries out a necessary duty. Otherwise, it is not a human life. A Kabbalist can live in no other way.
However, in relation to the lady’s statement about not holding onto grudges, it is indeed important. It also comes naturally to a Kabbalist because if we accept everything as coming from a single force — nature’s force of love and bestowal — then everything that plays out among us is a picture of the world that nature directs. If we hold onto such a picture, then our attitude to it becomes correct and practical.
We can then no longer hold onto any grudges because we involve ourselves in the world’s correction, in the absorption and manifestation of the world, and we engage in the system together with nature. In other words, we not only observe and absorb what is around us, but we understand that it is being done for us, and that it is processed in our perception of reality.
We then need to act in a way that justifies this picture that projects within us. Living in the here and now is thus correct, but in the sense that the “here and now” is the reality that we create. We receive our impressions from nature’s output toward us, which we process as our input. We then constantly correct our impressions and reflections of the world, and we do so in order to justify nature on all degrees of our perception.
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Question: An elderly couple that lived together for more than fifty years was asked how they managed to live together for so long? They answered that it must be because they were born and raised in the times when you fixed what was broken and did not throw them away.
Basically we are throwing away broken things today. Replacements come—no problem. If the relationship is completely broken, how can you fix it? People write to you all the time, and you insist on holding on to the end. But how do you hold on when everything has been broken and there is nothing left?
Answer: Have you lived together? Do you have children? Have your children given birth to grandchildren?
So you have to stay glued together somehow. For the sake of the children and grandchildren because they are your descendants, your consequence. Therefore, you must stay together for their sake. If only officially; it doesn’t matter how.
It means that you can live officially together. For them, you are together. You create this theater for grandchildren and children.
Question: And what does it give? Why are you so insistent on this?
Answer: This is called “family.”
Question: So family is grandchildren, children, and their parents? Is this a family?
Answer: Yes. All those alive and united with each other after all.
Question: Is there a root to this?
Answer: We have to keep this structure. It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not.
Comment: So this remains, even if it breaks me; if everything is already broken and I cannot tolerate the other…
Answer: Don’t pay attention. What’s the difference? What does “breaks” mean? You go on with your life, your wife goes on with her life, the children have their lives, the grandchildren have their lives, and so on. But you’re not breaking anything.
Question: So in a bad relationship, your advice is to act?
Answer: In any condition. You don’t even have to act; just don’t separate officially, don’t get divorced.
Comment: You are now obliging a person: “This is how you must live.”
Answer: If you are aimed at the family existing and at your descendants living within this framework, then you can uphold it. I think we must maintain this connection.
Question: What do you base this on? That this is a bad example for children and grandchildren? Now we are talking about elderly couples. Suddenly they decide to divorce, or suddenly they are in a bad relationship. Should they stick to it because it’s a bad example for children and grandchildren, and it may continue on?
Answer: That too. People should know that if they get married and have children, they should live, in a way, for the sake of the children.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/23/23
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Everyone has to build a connection from a person to a ten, and from a ten to a wider circle, and even farther and farther, until we see the whole world united together in one group. This goal should be kept in front of oneself as a desirable state of the world. If we strive for it, we will undoubtedly move according to the Creator’s desire.
Although the world is in the exact opposite state, in hatred, wars, and separation, we need to disseminate this message and do everything possible to bring everyone to unity, starting from ten, from our point, until all of humanity is united as one person with one heart.
It may seem like an unrealistic dream, but we are not required to realize it, we just need to ask and join the program that the Creator implements. Every person and every ten must participate in it to the fullest.
The main thing is to achieve unity, promote it, and stay in it until it becomes the aspiration of the whole world. And the world will definitely turn in this direction; everything depends on us. We are at the central point of all of humanity, and we only have to want. If everyone puts pressure on their heart, then we will certainly succeed.
We want to come to bestowal, Lishma, and complete unification with the Creator. But we also want to see the whole world united, so that people understand that there is no other way beside only one global union for everyone. The Creator will help us reach such a state, and we will all, with the whole world, ascend in the attainment of the Creator upon spiritual degrees and thus fulfill our destiny.
As a result, everyone should know the Creator, “from the smallest to the greatest,” as it is said: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” The house of the Creator is the desire to bestow that governs over everyone and connects everyone together through mutual ties. We need to disseminate this knowledge so that everyone understands; whether we want it or not, this is the program from above. And we live in the era of the last generation when it must be realized.
People should know that regardless of their desire, this happens according to the program of creation. And if now we feel states that are the opposite of this goal, then this is the path leading from Lo Lishma to Lishma that lifts us from the animate degree to the human degree, to the degree of the Creator.
And in fact, this is not such a distant goal. All this happens inside humanity, inside a person, and it does not take too many years and superhuman efforts. If we listen even a little and attune ourselves to this goal, then this change will happen in us.
You can win at the expense of quantity, but you can win on account of quality. Let’s try to win with quality if there are not so many of us quantitatively. But we need to make sure that there are many more people around us who will understand and agree that this is how it should be. And although they will not rise due to their own work, they will at least accept this idea. After all, every day it becomes more and more obvious that there is no other way out, and only if such a correction is made in us from above, we will be happy.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/23, “Connecting the World”
Comment: To correct oneself for the sake of correcting the world sounds unthinkable for modern Jews.
My Response: Yes, exactly. It is much easier to raise any other nation to this precisely because there is less egoism and less potential for correction in it.
The Jews have internal genes from past incarnations. Therefore, dig a little bit, and they jump out. We see that among the people of Israel there is an opportunity for communication, unity, and mutual assistance.
All of this is not superficial, it lies inside. These are internal genes that are records of the information in which we existed. And now it is necessary to revive it and raise it.
We are trying to do it through dissemination. Of course, we still need to make a lot of efforts to pull the masses living in Israel with us.
They will gradually begin to be imbued with this since we that are correcting ourselves penetrate them even if we do not want it because the whole world is interconnected. And through them the correction will pass to the rest of mankind. It will pass! Internal forces will seep through everyone, and people will begin to understand, think, and solve all problems in a different way.
I believe that we can still make a correction and implement it in a good way. I believe in it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Gaza Helps the Jews” 11/24/12
Comment: Let’s say a person has slept at the lessons for several years. He worries about it, but there is nothing he can do.
My Response: It is very good that he is worried. Let him pray, look for some method of salvation, ask friends, and develop a desire to get out of this state.
Question: But from the point of view of spiritual development, is he at least somehow progressing in such a state?
Answer: For example, if a person who is sitting next to him looks at the topic we study from the point of view of corporeal realization or wants to know what is written in The Study of the Ten Sefirot in order to start controlling something somewhere, is it better?! He does not think about the goal anyway.
This one, however, is under the influence of the surrounding atmosphere, which affects him like a small sleeping child: he sleeps, but still the environment affects him, like in the mother’s womb.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Friend Who Sleeps during the Lesson” 12/26/12
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What does “love thy neighbor as thyself” mean? It means that those desires that are in others, you love as in your child and you enjoy when you fulfill them. You have the opportunity to do this endlessly and infinitely, many times more than if you were trying to fulfill them in yourself. So what are we missing? Connections with others through love.
The practical implementation is very simple: in order to fulfill each other and enjoy ourselves, we only lack the love between us.
If everyone around me are like my children and I can fulfill them all the time, then what pleasure I feel when I pass pleasure and fulfillment to them through myself, and feel how they enjoy it! After all, I am becoming a conductor of seven billion unlimited pleasures, like ZAT de Bina, like a mother who can feed everyone.
This is the simple idea of the Creator: “Love each other and be happy!”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How To Use Other People” 12/30/12
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Question: How can you use your egoism so that you can take control and it does not control you?
Answer: It is said that the Creator created everything very simply, but man got confused and complicated everything for himself.
We all do this; it becomes incomprehensible to us because we constantly want to get out, to go the indirect way.
Desire-pleasure, desire-pleasure; everything is very simple, and there is nothing else in nature!
And we start twisting things, inventing how it is possible without it or outside of it, or instead of it, and so on, and in the end we steal from ourselves. By stealing from ourselves and constantly encountering problems, we, in general, create difficulties.
Nature is arranged according to the principle of simple selfishness. We are the same creatures as animals. But our selfishness is also connected with the fact that we learn from others what to enjoy. And therein lies the difficulty.
If I acted only according to my needs, it would be very easy for me. I would calmly work on how to get the maximum pleasure at the minimal cost. This is a simple self-filling formula. This is how all nature works. And in that way I wouldn’t have any problems.
But when I start to see instead the needs of others that are not mine and try to make them my own, then there is already a problem because I am not created to receive other fulfillments. Therefore I am confused.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call How to Use Other People” 12/30/12
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What question should we all be asking ourselves today?“
Humanity has to acknowledge that it has developed a corrupt society with hostilities and collisions in its connections.
Today, we have to undergo a self-examination and ask ourselves serious questions about how and why we live: What are we living for? What is the meaning of life? What is its purpose? What is the point of living? Is it simply to survive the few years that we are here, or is there something greater worth investing ourselves into?
For our first 20 to 25 years, we grow up in learning environments. Then we work quite hard for the next major portion of our lives, and then at the ages of 60 or 70, we start approaching our life’s end. In our years of work, we have children that we need to raise and show them the way into life. What do they get out of this society that we have built?
It is like we have placed ourselves in turbulent waters, and then we try to keep ourselves afloat somehow so as not to drown. Ultimately, however, our lives’ frictions and hardships are all in order to lead us to the most fundamental questions about our life’s meaning and purpose, and suffering will increase until we will have to undergo a serious self-scrutiny.
Based on the video “What Humanity Must Acknowledge” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Are Some Noteworthy Quotes About Education?”
“Teach a child according to the child’s way.” – Proverbs 22:6.
There is also a noteworthy quote by Swiss teacher and publicist Adolphe Ferrière that explains how we fail to follow this principle, i.e.
“And they created the school as the devil commanded.
The child loves nature, so he was locked in four walls.
He can not sit without moving, so he was forced into immobility.
He likes to work with his hands, and he began to teach theories and ideas.
He likes to talk – he was told to remain silent.
He seeks to understand – he was commanded to learn by heart.
He would like to explore and search for knowledge himself, but he was given them in ready form.
And then the children learned what they would never have learned in other conditions. They learned to lie and pretend.”
This quote dates back to the beginning of the previous century, but it is just as accurate today. It shows how children have natures to be like free birds, but we place them into cages.
Why? It is simply easier and clearer for us to coercively make children stay within our four corners. And by doing so, we rob them of their soul’s, mind’s and heart’s free development, and even disrupt their bodily development.
The principle “teach a child according to the child’s way” means that children should be raised in ways that let them freely develop. In practice, it means that they should listen to adults, but adults should adjust themselves to be as interesting and as relevant as possible to the children. Also, children need a lot of time outdoors with their friends, and to be simultaneously with their friends and their teachers. That is, they should engage in several activities that involve creating, inventing and fixing things together, as well as in ongoing discussions with their peers and with adults where they need to debate certain topics and reach conclusions.
Such an approach develops children in the natural course of their activities. It liberates them and gives them the freedom to think and to develop new ideas. We have yet to see an educational system that develops children to their fullest potential in such a way. Instead, we pack them into cubes that constrain their thinking and optimal development.
In order to upgrade education to “teach a child according to the child’s way,” we need different teachers, or more specifically, teachers themselves need to initially undergo a different course of education over several years, and only then will they accordingly become ready to cater to children. We will then start seeing completely different results to the current ones.
I think that the move to this kind of education will come when we become completely disillusioned with the ways we currently raise children, when we see that our current systems serve to create a world of increasing depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and other problematic phenomena across the board on personal, social, economic and ecological scales.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Israel – a country under an anxiety attack”
Following the wave of terror attacks, the ongoing demonstrations against (and for) the judicial reform, and the barrage of interviews in the media warning that Israel is on a precipice, there has been a sharp increase in calls to emergency centers reporting states of anxiety. People are worried about their future and the future of their children. Gradually, we are discovering that the haven we sought to build in the State of Israel is no longer safe. It is time we realize that we will not feel safe anywhere. We will be surrounded by hatred until we realize that the key to stability and security is not our economy or our military, but our unity.
Just as it was during the exile, when we were constantly surrounded by hostile neighbors, the countries of the world will do the same to our country. As former director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman said, Israel is indeed “the Jew among the nations.”
Israel is one of the most advanced countries in the world. A world leader in high-technology, cybersecurity, a military industry and an army that are the envy of many of the most developed countries on the planet, an economy that is strong, solid, and continuing to develop, and an abundant supply of natural gas, Israelis should have felt safe and confident, even complacent. Yet, none of these advantages will provide us any confidence as long as we are weak inside. We will be defeated internally and externally not for lack of power, but for lack of ability or will to defend ourselves due to inner division. Our worst enemy, therefore, is not Iran or any of its proxies; it is our own division, our hatred of each other.
We can never hope to eliminate the differences between us. Our ancestors came from different tribes and nations, and the cultural differences between them broke the nation over and over again until we were dispersed throughout the world two millennia ago. Since then, the differences between us have only grown and deepened. Currently, the abyss between some of the factions and sectors in Israel is so deep that they literally regard themselves as members of different nations, and even state this explicitly.
However, just as the differences between us did not matter to the Romans 2,000 years ago, or to the Nazis and their accomplices eighty years ago, and they slaughtered us indiscriminately, today these differences do not matter to the rest of the world. Humanity regards us as one nation, so until we begin to behave as such, humanity will punish us collectively, irrespective of our political views, religious orthodoxy, cultural background, or any other distinguishing criterion.
But why does humanity hate us? Every country has its own professed reason for resenting the State of Israel and its Jewish residents. However, the root cause behind all those grievances, and the fuel that feeds the fire, is our own disunity.
We are like no other nation; we are dependent on ourselves, on our unity since this is exactly what the world wants to see from us. We did not win our independence only by war. Before the war broke out, the world explicitly expressed its consent to the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel. We were given a chance to carry out our historic role of being a model nation. If we do not live up to the task, the world will revoke our right to live here and banish us from Israel to who knows where. In fact, our international status is so poor that already, if the vote on the establishment of the State of Israel were to take place today, it is clear that we would not get two thirds of the votes, which was the minimum required in November 1947 to confirm our statehood. The truth is that we would be lucky to get one.
Yet, as I said, we are dependent on ourselves. If we become a model nation, whose members agree on nothing, yet maintain, and even solidify their unity above the chasms in their views, lifestyles, and cultures, we will win the world’s respect and affirmation. If we succumb to hatred, the world will intensify its pressure on us, we will become increasingly isolated, the country will disintegrate, and who knows what will become of us.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “2,000 Years of Hatred with No Sign of Relief”
Yesterday was Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War II. Today, April 19, is the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the longest and most intense rebellion of Jews against their oppressors. The heroic, yet hopeless resistance was crushed, but became a symbol of the resilience of human spirit. The Holocaust itself, however, highlights the question of the persistence of antisemitism, and why its ferocity and deadliness has not subsided throughout the centuries.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Roman general Titus destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and exiled its remaining Jews to Rome. The Roman emperor Hadrian changed the name Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, a city dedicated to Jupiter, and when the Jews revolted against him, he brutally crushed the revolt. To erase the connection of Jews to their land, he changed the name of Judea to Syria Palestina.
Since then, every year, Jews commemorate the fall of the Temple. Likewise, since the Holocaust, every year, we commemorate the slaughter of European Jewry almost in its entirety. In between the cataclysms, we were expelled from Spain, murdered in Ukraine, driven out of England, and basically persecuted everywhere we lived, and in every generation. Why has there been no relief from Jew-hatred?
There has not been a relief, there is no relief, and there will be no relief from antisemitism until we acknowledge that the root of the hatred, its wellspring, is not with the nations of the world, but with ourselves. We are creating and swelling their hatred toward us through our own hatred of each other.
History proves that before every major cataclysm that befell the Jews came an extended period of growing division and internal enmity among the Jews themselves. When their inner hatred climaxes, so does the brutality and violence that their persecutors inflict on them.
Nothing about our nation resembles the making or the history of any other nation. The whole world sees us as different, and the only ones who cannot accept this are we, ourselves. Nevertheless, we are indeed different, and until we understand in what way and what for, we will not uproot the hatred toward us.
Abraham, the father of our nation, was not born Jewish, or even a Hebrew, as he is the one who engendered the nation. Likewise, many of our nation’s greatest were either converts to Judaism or the children of converts.
In fact, despite centuries of communal life, we were not regarded as a nation until we stood at the foot of Mt. Sinai and pledged to unite “as one man with one heart.” Immediately after, we were told that our nationhood, forged through unity, was not for our own sake, but for the sake of the nations, to be a light to the nations, a model nation that will prove that unity and peace among nations are possible, even when they seem locked in conflict.
Since then, division among us and the nations’ hatred toward us have been linked. When we are separated, we betray our duty to the world. As a result, the world resents us and blames us for its woes.
It makes no difference that we do not understand why humanity hates us, or that humanity does not understand its grudge against the Jews. As long as we are disunited, every nation in every generation will find its contemporary pretext to vent its hatred, which is ever fermenting in their hearts. We should not be misled by momentary pretexts; underneath them lies the same old anger at the Jews for not being a model nation, a show of unity and peace despite coming from different nations.
We have experienced 2,000 years of hatred with no sign of relief because we have not uprooted division from our midst. If we want to prevent the next cataclysm from unfolding, the only thing we can and need to do is reunite among us and become the model nation that the world expects to see.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “How can I cope with the general dissatisfaction I feel about my life?”
Thousands of years of human progress, and what do we get?
We can get any material thing we want, but remain dissatisfied.
In any case, we play the game and chase transient pleasures. What else can we do?
We look at each other and thoughtlessly follow the current trend. We think that if we act like everyone else, we’ll feel good. So we select our goals from a smorgasbord of material forms of food, sex, family, money, honor, control and knowledge. We pursue them, hoping to escape the emptiness.
We keep ourselves busy so that the base question about our existence—”What is the meaning of life?”—doesn’t appear in the cracks of our self-centered hearts.
Sooner or later, however, the deepest question about the purpose of our existence will awaken to distract us from our rat race.
But what is the real distraction?
We actually built our whole lives on the real distraction—distracting ourselves from what is most important. That is what we will come to understand.
As long as we close our eyes to avoid truly seeing, we can run along with the crowd. But eventually, exhaustion sets in. We start feeling the meaninglessness, emptiness and dissatisfaction of trying to keep up with the ever-accelerating pace of the materialistic treadmill.
Welcome to the new desire that is evolving within humanity: the desire for life’s ultimate meaning and purpose.
The time has come when we need to wake up from our dreams of pursing self-interest at any expense. As we have taught ourselves to succeed and find our place in our materialistic world, we need to start learning about the new desire emerging in us: what exactly it is, why it is emerging today, where it comes from, and most importantly, how we can guide it to its fulfillment.
In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this desire to discover the meaning of life is called “the point in the heart.” The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method that was made specifically for fulfilling this desire.
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Is there any hope that today’s people of Israel will be able to escape from the division in society like they once managed to escape from Pharaoh and exit Egypt?
Unfortunately, there is no basis for this yet. After all, when we left Egypt, we felt that we belonged to the same nation and opposed a common enemy, the Pharaoh, that is, the egoistic inclination that separates us.
When we left Egypt, we had already achieved some recognition of evil, but today this is not the case. Today we see evil only in those who oppose us; the left sees evil in the right, and the right in the left, and that is it. We do not notice our true enemy—our own egoism. Therefore, we are still far from exiting Egypt, and there is still a long way to the recognition of the evil of our egoism.
It depends on the education and preparation of everyone, and we see how difficult it is to accept this. Egoism is so deeply embedded in us and has grown so widely that it is difficult to understand where it begins and where it ends.
Unfortunately, we do not try to move to correction in a good way by ourselves, but we advance only because the Creator pushes us forward. Therefore, it is difficult to say what other trials we will have to go through until we reach the final redemption.
“Egypt” today is a common mutual hatred between everyone. Whichever way you look at a person, all his relationships with the surrounding society are permeated with hatred. Egoism is our Pharaoh, as it has always been. We will be able to exit Egypt only when we erase brotherly hatred from ourselves and replace it with brotherly love and connection.
People should learn how to treat each other with love, no matter how contrary it is to today’s reality. The revelation of evil must precede the revelation of good, but in the end we will implement the program of creation.
The exodus from Egypt is an exit from mutual hatred, mutual rejection, and the common evil that has poisoned Israeli society. It is the people of Israel who are in Egypt, not the nations of the world who have everything in order.
Unfortunately, the people of Israel are experiencing such a manifestation of evil that does not yet lead to a solution and does not allow them to recognize the evil contained in mutual hatred. Everyone is still only trying to prove to others that they are right. Therefore, nothing good will come from it, and we will continue to fall.
The army, the police, and all circles of Israeli society are already involved in this two-sided conflict. Such an attitude is completely unbecoming to the people of Israel and has led to disastrous consequences in the past.
The problem is that no one wants to be cured of this disease. Everyone thinks that the solution is that his opinion should prevail because egoism always requires: “I will rule!”
However, we must continue to disseminate the method of connection and hope that the Creator will save us from all troubles, and from this division too.
The Creator cannot open our hearts in order to enter them. We have to open our hearts ourselves by working from below, and then the Creator will enter them from above and fill them. Our hearts are opened by the fact that we try to come closer to each other and pray to the Creator for help. We must know the essence and purpose of the people of Israel.
I wish the people of Israel greater wisdom and greater understanding, a greater sense that we are a very small nation surrounded by other nations who want to destroy us. We can be saved only on condition that we understand how this can be done, and we end from this moment onward all wars between us in order to live by the rule: “They helped everyone his friend!”
The people of Israel must live by such a law, and then we will end all these quarrels and come to the final redemption.
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From the Writers Meeting – Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman 4/4/23
Comment: It happens that when you say something, it touches a person so deeply that he can simply melt away from impressions. A few moments pass and it loses its importance for him. He knows perfectly well that this state will go away, it is impossible to hold it for a long time.
My Response: A person receives this state from me because he cannot connect to it on his own. It entered him for a while, left some kind of trace, and disappeared. He does not live in it permanently. But it should stay forever and other impressions would be layered over it.
Comment: But he wants it to work inside of him.
My Response: Humanity has only one solution—to seriously work on uniting with each other. You cannot do anything about it, there is nothing else.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Incredible!” 12/1/12
Question: In principle, it is not personal growth that is important to you but precisely common growth, right?
Answer: Why do I need personal growth?
Must a person who wants to do good, and Kabbalah is in principle a tool for this, necessarily climb to the very top and throw cakes from there?!
If I can lead people to the idea of unity at my level especially in conditions of crisis, suffering, the threat of famine and world war, where can be a field more fertile for bestowal and love? Only here! Only at this level! I do not have to go up to do that.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Сontrols Laitman?” 12/27/12
Instead of maintaining connection between us and filling each other, we, with our egoistic properties, want all the needs of others, their desires and empty spaces, to be ours. We try to fill them and as a result remain empty and unhappy.
But why should I envy because I cannot fulfill myself anyway! “Others have it, and I should have it.” I begin to work seriously, I earn, I fulfill the desires adopted from others and do not experience any pleasure because they are not mine; they should not be realized in me, but in them!
And what is the result? I worked out too much, spent my life on it, tried to fill other people’s desires in myself, and I die with nothing, even more empty, many, many times emptier.
This is our life. Instead of acting to the contrary, to be filled with the fact that you feel the desires of others and you exist in order to connect with them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Use Other People” 12/30/12
Comment: There are students who leave us but somehow remain connected to us.
My Response: Those people are trying to adapt their studies of Kabbalah to our world. They cannot tear themselves away from us because they want to use the egoistic world for their corporeal ascent.
For example, someone insists that I explain Kabbalah to academics and politicians because he wants to look wise in the eyes of the whole world, he wants to be proud of his association with Kabbalah.
And I do not need it at all because there is nothing great in the greatest of this world. Therefore, he begins to complain about why I don’t explain Kabbalah to important people and don’t go and bow to them.
Why do I need it? I need students who will implement Kabbalah within them, within themselves, and by doing so correct the world! And I am not going to engage in such “marketing.”
In general, I am not interested in people who cannot pass spiritual laws through themselves. According to the definition of Kabbalah, they are considered animals, that is, they are content with the animate level.
I do not neglect them, but simply sort them according to the line of desires. Desires for this world prevail in them, and I need people with desires for the upper world. Suppose you were given a desire for the higher world, and you began to apply them in the direction of our world. Then stay with them! Nothing can be done.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What to Expect from Kabbalah?” 12/28/12
Comment: You once said that if there were no desire to receive, then we simply would not perceive each other because we feel everything based on benefits, what I will get out of it. In this case, egoism plays a huge role and thanks to it we feel each other.
My Response: But this same egoism also limits us; we see and feel only what is beneficial to us. We do not feel the universe as it exists, a vast universe that includes all worlds, all forces, all fields, all of space. This space is not lifeless, but for us, it is empty.
Let’s say there is a couple of thousand kilometers between you and me right now—a void. Or it feels the same between me and some star. But this is not emptiness; I just do not perceive and feel this space because for me it does not exist.
There is no empty space. We learn in Kabbalah that everything is desire, but it is of a kind that I am not interested in. I was created in such a way that I do not notice it, it does not matter to me. It is not that it is bad or good; it is just that I am created that way. Just like you would say: “I am walking around a big city, but I do not notice anyone around me, just emptiness.”
The method of Kabbalah is to develop a sense of the real environment in a person, and through it he will understand what kind of force created and holds the entire universe, what for, and how.
As he begins to understand this, he will be equalized with this force, adapt to it and to everything that it fills. As a result, he will not only absorb it, not only compare his properties, but he will be able to control it; that is, he will be at the highest point of the entire universe. We must come to this.
You may ask, “Isn’t this world enough for a person? Why does he need another, higher world?”
It is in order to own everything, control everything, consist of everything, and eventually rise to the level of the Creator and be in a state of full bestowal and love. This inversion is incomprehensible to us because you can reduce your egoism to the state of an inanimate object and live without thinking about anything.
However, nature is designed so that you reach the maximum, but in this maximum you work for the service of others, for the maintenance of life in everyone and everything—like the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to see the other world?” 12/1/12
Question: You have reiterated that a man and a woman are by nature completely opposite to each other. They are two different perceptions of the world. Then how do they communicate with each other?
Where is the point of connection?
Answer: It is above them, in the Creator. Between husband and wife, the point of connection is the Creator. “Husband and wife, Divinity between them.”
Question: When you say the Creator, can you simplify it a little?
Answer: This is a common property of reciprocity, mutual support, love, and connection, created by a man and a woman. It goes particularly in this combination—a man and a woman.
Question: Do they have to understand this in advance before they start their relationship?
Answer: In general, yes. This must be the purpose for which they bond together.
Question: What is the purpose of these two different, polar people—a man and a woman?
Answer: The purpose is that through mutual assistance between them, they reach such a state, such a connection when they will “revolve” around each other and at the same time create a special form of existence—”I am for you, you are for me, and both of us are for the Creator between us.” As it is said: “Husband and wife, Divinity between them.”
Question: So that the Creator becomes the highest property of love, bestowal? And it grows, and grows, and grows?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
Comment: When a person begins to study Kabbalah, a higher power gently guides him. But, sooner or later, one experiences states that dull his mind and feelings as if he had never learned anything before.
Beginners, as a rule, at first seem to understand everything, speak correctly, and then when they move from theory to practice, all this is taken away from them. And if they have not established contact with the group, the probability of leaving is very high.
My Response: It depends on the properties of the soul and on the luck of a person, on his guiding star.
The main thing is not to stop! The main thing is not to leave! There is nothing else in life. Well, that is who I am, what can I possibly do? But I will still pursue it. At least at the end of my life, I will not reproach myself for leaving this path.
The rest is in the Creator’s power no matter what we want. It is the Creator who rules. After all, I must say: “There is none else besides Him! This is what He wants. Even though I may have had to change and do things differently, I cannot comprehend what I should be doing so that things would turn out different; or how I did not do it, and yet it is what it is.”
I cannot compare these two states within myself because they are different. Why do I come to the same conclusion that this and that is the will of the Creator? Where am I in this picture?
In our flat imagination, in our flat analysis, we cannot do it. Here, spiritual analysis is required since the other dimension is multipolar. Not our multipolar, but the spiritual. We do not have anything multipolar, we are all selfish and everyone only pushes others from their own selfish point.
When space is multipolar and spiritual, when there is a property of bestowal and property of receiving, and they correlate with each other at different levels, then it is a different story. Then you understand that there is an “out of time” concept. Time goes to the past, to the future, and stops. It works as you like; you can go into the past and at the same time change the future and change the past from the future, in general do whatever you want.
It is the data that is at your disposal just like your whole life. That is, it is no longer our earthly life in a material body. After all, everything that you experience and feel in connection or in divergence with everyone is incessantly multifaceted, multilayered, and at your complete disposal. You are included in a completely different coordinate system that is n-dimensional.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Impact of Kabbalah on a Person” 6/11/14
Question: What is love?
Answer: Love is when you perceive the desires of another person above your own and strive to fulfill them.
Question: But isn’t classic love when there is a burning sensation in the heart?
Answer: I do not know about the burning in the heart. We need to ask the physiologists what can burn there. You are talking about some suffering, maybe bad feelings and experiences.
I, however, am talking about the fact that love is the desire to fulfill the desire of the other person by yourself at the expense of and above your own desires. It does not matter at all to you what will happen to you from this, because the most important thing for you is what will happen to him. This is earthly love, and not the one Kabbalah speaks about.
According to Kabbalah, love is an adhesion of two spiritual objects: the created being (man) and the Creator. Or rather, the soul and the Creator. Such adhesion is reached by the similarity of qualities when the soul and the Creator bestow to each other, fulfill each other, and therefore merge together and absolutely complete each other. This state is called love.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Love” 1/19/11
Question: If we talk about the family of the future, what kind of agreement do they make when they get married?
Answer: An agreement that he or she should, first of all, think about the children, then about the spouse, and then about himself or herself. In general, this is very simple. I do not see any problems.
When they think in such a state and are guided by such thoughts, they will have no problems. Even if they will not live relatively closely together, because everything happens in life. I have seen many families who are happy and at the same time do not have close contact with each other.
Comment: So, they follow this formula if there are children.
My Response: They are good friends.
When we first of all demand love and devotion, it is wrong, it quickly leads to defeat. We even see in our lives that it does not work out.
Question: How does the Creator then make all these turns?
Answer: Because there is a difference between the level of an animal and the human level. We definitely should be ascending to it.
Question: What is the human level in this?
Answer: The human level is when I think of my spouse as a friend.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/14/22
Question: Do those people who have gone through some spiritual stage, no longer see the point of returning to some former pleasures?
Answer: No, this is not correct. All kinds of disturbances arise in them in the form of yearnings for various pleasures. Of course, the greatest pleasure is sexual, which remains for a long time during the path, and it practically does not die.
A Kabbalist does not begin to neglect any of the pleasures of this world. On the contrary, he feels very good taste in food, in rest, in everything. He appreciates it.
He just becomes a kind of gourmet. If you really want to enjoy something, you need to feel that you are actually enjoying it, that it is correctly connected with your goal, tied in such a way that through this world you receive some additional divine phenomenon. Then you feel pleasure also through the objects of this world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Star”
The main thing is to imagine yourself always standing before the upper force, which is one, bestows, good, and leads to the goal. If I direct myself toward the goal, I will always feel goodness and a good attitude to myself. If I yearn for the goal, I will always see that everything is aimed exactly at this goal, in order to help me reach the image that I have to mold from myself.
Everything is arranged to make me similar to Him. Everything that happens in my life are just exercises that are placed before me every moment so that I can form myself with their help.
If a person organizes himself in this way, he will be happy that he is in the process of forming his personality to become a man, Adam, which means “similar” to the Creator. Then he sees that there are no evil and hostile forces in the King’s palace, but everything is done for his benefit. Only the Creator accompanies him and “embraces him from front and back,” from all sides.
Everything is arranged only for the sake of adhering to the Creator, as the purpose of creation.
Therefore, if at some moment a person feels bad or uncomfortable about the purpose of creation, about the Creator, or about the surrounding reality, it is a sign that he has not yet brought himself into balance with the conditions given to him, nor in agreement with “the good who does good,” with “none else besides Him,” and has not connected with the quality of bestowal so that it would reign in him.
This is how we need to establish ourselves and constantly move toward complete correction.
If a person accepts all the conditions, causes, and accidents, and correctly uses the environment, the teachers, the group, and the study, and cares about them and about dissemination throughout the world, if he accepts everything in order to reach the quality of bestowal so that only a point of effort remains from him and everything else in him is filled with bestowal, this means that he is studying the Torah Lishma.
That is, he turns all the strength he has received—all his powers, qualities, and abilities—into a form of bestowal. He wants to rise above his quality of reception in such a way that he does not feel that it really exists so that only bestowal would rule.
If this is the desire of a person, he is called a sage, Talmid HaCham (a disciple of the sage), and is studying the Torah Lishma. After all, he learns from the sage, from the Creator, and receives examples from Him at every moment of his life, and strives to attribute them all to the force of bestowal, to one force that is good and does good.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/11, Shamati #22 “Torah Lishma (For Her Name)”
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The spiritual world is a completely different system of coordinates. In addition to being n-dimensional, it is also analog. There are no impulses in it where this comes after that, that comes after that, and so on, as they say in Kabbalah, “cause-and-effect development of creation.”
But we cannot absorb it otherwise, so Kabbalists explain everything to us precisely in the impulse mode, and then it becomes clear: this is earlier, and this is later, and so on.
In the upper world, you enter a completely different space. There everything happens above time, above space, above the past and future, meaning above states where this depends on this and that depends on that.
In the spiritual, everything depends on everything, as in an analog system. There is no entrance and exit, at each point, everything is an entrance and everything is an exit. There is no such example in our world.
Each time the entrance is your rebirth that is associated with separation from the past and birth on a different, qualitative level. This is what humanity is about to do.
I am afraid that we are not yet able to explain clearly to ourselves, and even more so to humanity, what is ahead of us and how much we need to make superhuman efforts in unification and in moving toward integration! Maximum efforts! Close your eyes and do everything for this! Throw yourself off a cliff into the general stream every second! Otherwise, we have very difficult times ahead of us.
As a result, humanity will achieve this anyway, but… I still do not see that according to mutual assistance between us and the world, mutual inclusion, rapprochement, and mutual understanding that we are moving toward this normally.
But I really hope that we will break through our impact on the world to the level where we can turn it into a greater manifestation of goodness.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Influence of Kabbalah on a Person” <12/1/12
Question: What exists in the space that seems empty to us in our egoistic perception, but in another perception is densely filled with everything?
Answer: It is types of desires: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human desires that we do not perceive from the next degrees, from the degree of the world of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, Adam Kadmon, and so on to the level of infinity.
And there, just as in our world, we see the inanimate, vegetative, and animate degrees and the degree of “human,” we observe these kinds of forces, but only forces in the world of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and Adam Kadmon.
And most importantly is that in each of these worlds you discover the force that binds them and guides them. It is called the Creator, the one that creates in this world. You merge with it, connect with it, adapt, and you become it.
As a result, it turns out that a person ascends to the highest degree of the entire universe and includes everything in himself. But this is an all-encompassing image of a person, when all our bodies disappear at the level of our world, and all our desires, powers, knowledge, and newly acquired qualities merge into one image “Adam.”
That is what we are going toward. What is happening in the world marks the beginning of this path, the beginning of the spiritual elevation of humanity. Spiritual means beyond matter. This is the path to information, to a new change within us, in our “I.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to See the Other World?” 12/1/12
Question: You say that at every moment a person is in ideal conditions for his advancement. When he is distancing from his studies, is that also ideal for him?
Answer: Of course, naturally. If at every minute of his distancing from the spiritual, he can make a leap back, then this is the best option of getting closer for him.
Comment: You say with sadness that it is a pity to look at this distancing.
My Response: No. No way. Even a person who feels this should see himself as happy. This is our path. It is the reciprocating motion that pushes us forward like a wheel. We are rolling forward, and the wheel is spinning back and forth, back and forth. That is the only way we advance.
Question: Let’s say you see that a person has moved away a little. Do you not feel sorry for him?
Answer: No, I do not feel sorry. He must move away.
But when he begins to understand that this distance is for his ascent, and at the same time pushes forward while in this distance, then the distance passes quickly, qualitatively, and gives him a huge leap forward. Then it turns out that he is no longer a small spinning wheel. After all, he inflates it and becomes a big wheel. Therefore when he makes a big turn backward, at the same time he goes forward a lot. This is what depends on the person.
Otherwise, all the wheels practically spin in place. But we hope that we will inflate ourselves properly and move forward. I think that now there will be a good reassessment of values among the local population, which will also give us a push forward.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ideal Conditions of Attainment” 12/13/12
Being on the verge of Lishma is a very special state. I am glad that we have achieved it, and we can already, all together, help each other and try to enter Lishma. Even just getting closer to this state is also a huge achievement.
Lishma is a quality of the Creator, but we can already grasp it, understand it, and feel it.
Concerning Lishma [for Her sake]. In order for a person to obtain Lishma, one needs an awakening from above, as it is an illumination from above and it is not for the human mind to understand. Rather, he who tastes, knows. It is said about this, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Baal HaSulam, Shamati Article No. 20, “Lishma [for Her Sake]”)
To do this, it is necessary to make efforts, pay attention, have sensitivity of the heart, and as much as possible do this jointly, together. And if with all this, we do not feel any reaction, then we can only pray, that is, ask the Creator to listen to us and teach us how to turn to Him. Then there will already be a mutual connection between us.
On the one hand it is said that the Creator hears everyone’s prayer. But on the other hand this prayer needs correction because it is not raised by everyone from the correct place. After the transgression of the tree of knowledge, we were thrown far away from each other as if by an explosion and flew in all directions.
And now we need to gradually connect back together with the additional egoism that we received during the shattering. To do this, we need to feel how far apart we are and that we cannot get closer to each other and all together get closer to the Creator.
And since we discover that we are completely unfit for this, it is necessary to raise a prayer. Prayer should be as close as possible to our common heart, to the union of our inner desires. Therefore we want to reveal all the desires of our friends and unite them in order to bring everything together to the Creator to give Him our heart.
Try to imagine such a state and stay in it all 24 hours a day. Gradually we are getting closer to such work due to the desire to help our friends and be together as one man with one heart. We are trying to take at least a small step, but together. Otherwise, it will not work; it will not cause the right reaction.
Thus we take step by step in the direction of the Creator until we feel that He is coming toward us.
To take a step together means to want to unite so as to become a Kli to serve the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/23, “On the Verge of Lishma“
Question: How can one correctly appraise a member of the ten?
Answer: Nowadays a very extensive, stormy external connection is needed because we are very small and our egoism is very primitive. It is difficult for us to get out of ourselves, to sacrifice our little egoistic world because external society and life influence us too much. We must get good help from a friend and the environment.
Comment: Recently you have been focusing on the connection among groups.
My Response: Of course, this is mutual assistance. Therefore, I am very happy when students come to us for internships and for congresses. They see how we live. It means a lot to them! They absorb our spirit.
After returning home, they pass it on, compare it, and try to work like us. It brings us closer to each other.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Many People Should Be in a Group” 12/29/12
We are all in the same network. Therefore, those who can strongly influence this network are the engines of positive direction in humanity. After all, it is possible to influence only by the power of bestowal, kindness, and love. Not in any other way!
The opposite force, which is selfishness, hatred, and violence, immediately switches off there; a restriction (Tzimtzum) occurs, and the network is blocked.
To the extent that people approach spirituality and become like the spiritual system, they act positively because in the higher world there is a “filter” that allows only positive influence to pass through.
The upper world is very simple; in it there is a Machsom or Parsa through which only a positive influence passes, only a striving for connection.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Manipulate People” 1/16/13
Question: Is the group like a laboratory for you? Have you sort of created an environment for yourself that allows you to develop directly?
Answer: Yes, of course. They are with me, and I am with them. Absolutely!
If it were not for the group, I would have developed in a different direction. The group pulls me down by my legs, it grounds me. Look at what kind of TV recordings we have about family, about love, about unemployment, and so on. We have everything there! All this can be found in the archive.
I myself would have never produced this. But the host starts pulling information out of me like a magician pulling out colored handkerchiefs tied together, and I talk. I could not have done it without the group.
What we have done in recent years: the method of correction for beginners, the method of raising children, courses for beginners, none of this existed in Kabbalah. All of this is brand new! And all is suitable for our time! Without the group, I would never have developed this.
After all, I just talk, and then students make it all and sew it into a program. I could not physically handle it and would not even go this way at all! I would rather aim upward. I would not have the language to explain everything! I would be spinning around the world of Atzilut in my research, but not in this.
The students are constantly bringing me down to earth. And rightly so, because the world demands it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Controls Laitman?” 12/27/12
Question: When a certain opinion that something is important is formed around people, it can affect some but not others. How can you influence the masses to make it work?
Answer: Only through the internal network of connections between all of us.
We are all tied into one network. But a person who is not engaged in spiritual work has very little effect on it. However, my influence on this network is really strong because I am a part of it.
With the help of intentions and corresponding qualities that I have specially created in me, I influence the entire system. It turns out that we get locked in this way. My impact on the general system of humanity is billions of times greater than that of an ordinary person.
This is the only way! As for the media and everything else we do in our world, humanity has very little effect on the general system.
Our main influence should be directed at correcting the world. If we create its correct microstructure from ourselves and this microstructure is spiritually powerful in the general structure of the world, then it will influence everything else most of all.
Although this will be done by a small group (maybe only a hundred people), but in terms of its power and quality, it will surpass the rest of the world billions of times over. That is the way this is arranged!
It is just as in the human brain where everything is controlled by a tiny microprocessor the size of a match head, and everything else are auxiliary systems around it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to manipulate people?” 1/16/23
Currently we are at the first initial stage of our spiritual development. There is no way for us not to be born in the future. But we can be born the hard way when we resist and do not want to go to the state of a more developed fetus; we do not want to increasingly adapt the spiritual forces of bestowal and love of others within us and assemble a spiritual image from all people.
When we assemble it at such a level that we will deny and destroy everything that contradicts the connection between us, then we will become a spiritual fetus.
Egoism between us will be increasing, and we, thanks to it, will constantly be in a greater connection with each other above it until the nine-month development of the fetus ends, and then we will reach spiritual birth.
We can imagine how difficult this period is! Now all of humanity is being pushed into the womb, and nature is beginning to pressure us. This is the huge, closed, global, integral crisis that we feel today; this is the first pressure of nature on us so that we begin to connect with each other.
It presses on us from the outside, like a mother, but still gently. Later it will push more and more if we do not start connecting with each other.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Threat During Pregnancy” 12/7/12
Question: Why does Passover last seven days?
Answer: Seven days are seven Sefirot, all levels of our soul. On the first day of Passover, a person leaves the intention “for his own sake” and continues to get rid of his egoistic intentions on the second, the third day, and so on until he completely breaks away from them.
In this way he approaches the state called Yam Suf—the final sea. He is ready to throw himself into it in order to completely break away from Egypt, i.e., from egoism.
Question: Leaving Egypt is the last border of the corporeal, egoistic world, beyond which there is a notional line called the Machsom. After passing it, a person begins to feel love, bestowal, and the spiritual world. What happens to him? What is the transformation behind this line?
Answer: Beyond this line, a person thinks only about how through others he can more and more implement the quality of bestowal and love within himself. As a result, he begins to feel in this quality that he is being filled with the upper light—the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/26/21
Consistent study of Kabbalah develops qualities within a person that can be used to research spiritual space, to be born in this space and to live in it.
These qualities develop gradually. This is the purpose of Kabbalah—to transform our egoism into altruism and to the degree of this transformation to begin seeing the upper world in this attitude to the world. And you see it and sense it; it is here.
Just like in science fiction movies about space: people look out the window, they see dark space, and suddenly some alien spaceship appears before them. They did not see it before. Why do they suddenly see it now? Apparently, they turned on a different property, a different locator, a different frequency, or different sensor.
It is the same here. This is pure physics and math, there are no miracles here.
We are gradually preparing a possibility for the revelation of the governing system, i.e., the upper world, the upper nature, or the Creator for all of humanity. This is our mission. Humanity does not know about it and it does not need to; it will know later.
Moreover, it will not know about us at all since this does not exist in the system, this is all nameless. But still, it is a tremendous pleasure to feel that you are paving the way. You understand in advance what joy and good will come out of this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How does Laitman Use Students?” 12/15/12
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Question: When the people of Israel were exiting Egypt, the sea parted before them. What does this mean?
Answer: It is another final quality. Therefore, it is called Yam Suf, the final sea, [the Red Sea in English] after which there is no return to Egypt. This is the final break away from egoism. There is no turning back.
But before that, there are all sorts of doubts and problems. Later, in the desert, there also will be doubts and problems, but they are of a different kind.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 4/15/19
Question: While speaking about dissemination, you once said, “If you are able to not curse the Creator, then you can go into the masses.” You are constantly working with this, to justify Him through the masses?
Answer: It depends on what degree. It is written, “Don’t believe in yourself until the complete death of your egoism.” I can be led through such states, such torments, such visions… No one can vouch for themselves. I am not Rabbi Akiva who was skinned.
This is an allegory and the truth, in general, everything together. That is, the final degree of egoism is the skin covering the soul.
Question: To such an extent is a Kabbalist led through such powerful trials?
Answer: Any person, including you. And there is nowhere to go other than rising above these corrections in such a way that you will feel them as redemption rather than suffering.
Everything depends on whether we reject our egoism with the help of the group, with the help of the light that we draw to us when studying Kabbalah. Then, we perceive everything that happens to us as good medicine, as the medicine of life.
But if we do not reject egoism—our body so to say, the body does not mean our flesh that we identify ourselves with but egoism—then we feel enormous suffering, as if we really are being skinned. And we nevertheless come to correction. But these are enormous, very prolonged torments, experienced in the most difficult way.
This is why Kabbalah was given to us in order to do it differently, to rise above the ego and separate from it. When I perform the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) on it, I no longer feel what happens to the ego; it is no longer mine. What does it mean, not mine? It is as if I have received anesthesia. At least in this way.
But afterward, I separate from the ego so much that I do not feel that it belongs to me at all: this is not my body, this is not my egoism, and that is all. It is as if I come out of it and exist separately in the quality of bestowal.
Question: Must we reach such a degree as Rabbi Akiva did so that even in this situation we find a way to justify the Creator?
Answer: Yes, that is how powerfully you have to separate from your former egoistic body, egoistic desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Justify Suffering?” 10/27/12
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Question: When one of your students started talking about the importance of spiritual work due to repetition of actions, i.e., about how it seems to him like a routine, you replied: “We cannot hear what you say.” Why not?
Answer: One should not hear bad things about spirituality.
Comment: But you once said that you can even swear at the Creator…
My Response: This is your own business. I do not want to hear it. You go ahead and swear. I said it is better to swear than to forget.
Imagine that you love another person, and sometimes there are all sorts of disputes between you. It is better than cutting off the connection and moving away from each other.
Question: But you hear a lot of similar things when people express their doubts and say: “I do not believe, prove it.”
Answer: This is natural! A person is in concealment! How else can he react?
But when he calls spiritual work a routine and complains that he is tired of this everyday life, then we should not listen to these and other negative statements about spirituality. He can talk to himself, anything can happen. But he has no right to speak to others!
In relation to other people, he must play as in a theater, show himself to be inspired and elated. This is the only way!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Things That are Forbidden to Hear” 1/3/1
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Comment: You said there are two kinds of hatred: hatred on the spiritual path and hatred from outside people. Friends in the group face the first kind of hatred, which is a beneficial rejection. But there is also harmful hatred that comes from people on the outside.
My Response: Hatred that comes from people on the outside is a small hatred on a material level. It leads to murder, extermination, and all sorts of problems, but on the animate level. This hatred does not forge, but destroys, like kids in a sandbox who do not play together and destroy each other’s forms built out of sand.
We need to think about the other hatred that arises when we aim to get closer to each other. Then a rejection emerges between us that we need to rise above. This is a particular hatred on the path.
To the extent that you strive for unity, you reveal your nature that resists it and build a connection above it, like laying bricks and rising above this masonry.
That is, hatred is like blocks. You want to aim toward another, but face a wall before you. While climbing this wall to get closer to others, you face yet another wall. You climb it, and there is another wall. And so you rise above the wall until you reach its top.
Therefore, this is the hate that forges; it gives you qualities, strength, and material, and by rising over it, you form a connection. It gives you the property of love and bestowal. After all, this hatred comes to you in all the ways you understand: why you dislike, despise, and repel each other. The reverse side of this, like a glove turned inside out, is love.
Then you understand what love is because, in fact, we do not know what it is. We do not know how to unite or treat each other with kindness. Today, everything is based only on lowly mutually beneficial interactions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Two Kinds of Hate” 12/1/12
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Question: Who are the Egyptians and Israelites in spiritual work?
Answer: The Torah speaks of a person as an object that includes the entire world. Everything is inside a person.
The Egyptians in us are egoistic forces; the Israelites are altruistic forces or forces that want to be altruistic but are under the control of the Egyptians (egoism).
Pharaoh represents the entire egoism in which we exist.
The Creator is the upper force that governs Pharaoh, Moses, and everyone else. His task is to bring all creation to become similar to Him, to altruism. But this requires recognizing egoism as evil and exiting it.
Moses is the force that represents a part of the Creator, which is located inside a person and pulls him forward to the revelation and attainment of the upper spiritual qualities.
Between these forces, interactions occur where a person feels within himself which of his desires are egoistic, which are altruistic, which require a connection with the Creator, and which cling to the Pharaoh.
Thus, he sorts them out in himself, and as a result of his work understands what is speaking within him; he sees that he is completely under the authority of the Pharaoh. Wherever he turns, there is the Pharaoh hiding inside of him.
It seems to him that he is already working for the sake of bestowal and love for the other and that he is above all earthly egoistic desires, but he continues to constantly reveal them inside himself. In the end, he does not just despair, but he is convinced that the Pharaoh owns him 100%.
At the same time, a special point becomes apparent within him called Moses, which opposes the Pharaoh. It enters a fight with him and condemns itself to the ten Egyptian plagues, which must be performed on the egoism. In this way, a person begins to understand that he can get rid of the ego. But how? This is not clear yet.
With this feeling, he enters the dark night, where, on one hand, it is not visible and it is not clear how the redemption takes place, but on the other hand, he longs for it. This night is called the night of the exit from Egypt, which we celebrate at Passover.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/11/23
Question: Passover symbolizes the exit of each of us from the animal state. But it all starts with the Creator’s promise to Abraham about inheriting the land of Israel. The land of Israel is Eretz Israel, the desire for the Creator. Did nature originally provide that every person will achieve this quality?
Answer: In general, yes. As a result of our development, absolutely all people on Earth must achieve the quality of “Man – Adam,” that is, similarity to the Creator.
Question: What does “becoming a Man” mean from the point of view of Kabbalah? What is this degree?
Answer: “Man” is “Adam” in Hebrew, from the word “Domeh,” which means “similar to the Creator” or “in God’s similarity.”
What does “in God’s similarity” mean? Since all the qualities of the Creator and His attitude to everything that He has created are love, bestowal, and good feelings, then a person who acquires these qualities becomes like the Creator and is called a Man. And before these qualities are acquired, he is considered an animal.
In other words, if a person is in his natural egoistic qualities and cares only about himself, then this is called an animalistic state, and if he cares about others and the altruistic quality of the Creator is in him, then this state is called Man.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/26/21
Question: What is the miracle of getting out of Egyptian slavery?
Answer: The miracle is that, in principle, it is impossible to get out of slavery. We were born and exist with the intention for ourselves, and only through the help from above, with help of the Creator, can this intention turn into an intention for the sake of bestowing to others. This is how we get out of Egypt.
The miracle is that the new qualities of bestowal and love appear in us instead of the qualities of reception and hatred.
A person himself must consciously ask for these qualities, and then the upper force of nature will begin to cultivate them in him.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 4/20/22
Question: With the development of technology, people are increasingly immersed in Internet and social network addiction. You have said this is the same as drugs. How can it be treated?
Answer: In everything that develops we must realize the positive and negative sides. So far people are just playing at it, and they are playing, of course, with their egoism.
The whole Internet is a demonstration of who we are inside. When you enter the Internet, you see what humanity is. If there was some kind of extraterrestrial civilization, it would be enough for them to look into our Internet, see what is there, and they would immediately understand that there is no point in contacting us as there is nothing at all to talk about with the earthly civilization.
But this is the beginning. In principle I am very glad that this network is developing on its own, and then we will adapt it in the right direction. There will be several more hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, and there will be drought, severe cold snaps, and starvation. The future is preparing many unpleasant surprises for us.
Humanity, eventually, will begin to understand more and more that there is nothing it can do. Involuntarily the opportunity to do all sorts of stupid things will be taken away from us. When there is nothing to eat, you will not scour the Internet in search of dubious pleasures. When you have no electricity at home and the water level rises from below, or everything is burning from the heat, then you will not be up to looking for some entertainment. So there is an awareness of the need for correct development ahead.
It is very simple—get closer to each other and enter into homeostasis with nature. That is all. It is the law of equilibrium. The law of equivalence.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Internet Addiction Treatment” 11/3/12
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Comment: Sometimes you say to a student: “Do it this way.” And it is obvious that he is not happy about it because your advice is against all the rules. But you say: “It is better for your development,” and you leave him alone with himself.
My Response: But what can I do? Sometimes I need to show a person a little bit that he is close to spiritual actions, but slips past them, and does not want to enter into them. Inner egoistic security pushes him away from this and protects itself.
Question: You once gave an example: You are riding in a bus that is shaking and either you grab the handrail and you will be thrown out, or you will do something that is not typical of egoistic nature, grab a friend and it will help you. Is that really how it works?
Answer: If there is no connection in the group, it is very difficult to hold on! But through natural suffering, it is simply impossible! This is such terrible suffering when you have to give up your egoism in everything, in every element, and tear yourself to pieces slowly, piece by piece, in every cell.
Therefore, we need to understand what an amazing means we have, the upper Light, which we can attract through our correct interactions with each other. It can easily influence us and gently change us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Correct Contact Between Student and Teacher” 1/11/13
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Now we must begin to connect with each other, that is, to not destroy the egoism that separates us, but to connect above it. Knowing that you and I are opposites, completely distanced from each other, and maybe even hate and dislike each other, we still have to start working on getting closer to each other, on interconnection. And so should everyone with everyone!
Do you understand how much suffering we will have to endure in order to go toward each other at least a little if we do it under the pressure of external forces? Imagine what hurricanes, explosions, exterminations, sunstrokes, and famine we have to endure so that people can become a little closer to each other, caring and listening to one another! Nature will roll over us like a steamroller.
Or we will understand and begin to ask: “Give us the opportunity to rise above ourselves,” and thus we will get strength and new qualities, and begin to get closer to each other. Then it will be pleasant and easy, although we do not have these qualities in us. They will appear as desirable, but only if we invite them.
If not, it will be just awful! Even in order for humanity to annul its enormous egoism, that is, to rise above it, requires terrible suffering and deprivation! A person must experience unbearable horrors in order to give up his “I.”
But if we only ask, we will go the easy, pleasant way. But this requires recognition. That is why we are trying to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Threat During Pregnancy” 12/7/12
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Question: How should we introduce a new person to the study of Kabbalah together with the whole group?
Answer: Gradually. After all, we are talking about wisdom that is above our nature. It talks about everything in a completely different way in different terms, qualities, and forces. You need to get used to it gradually. We are trying to adapt the Kabbalistic methodology to our world, but it is not easy.
It is impossible to bring the upper world down to ours. There is a clear hierarchy of degrees and division by qualities, that is, by understanding. I cannot feel the upper world because now I am in different qualities from it. I do not see it, do not notice it, and do not feel it because I do not have these qualities. Therefore, I do not catch it in my network of sensations and understandings; I am not adapted to it.
The wisdom of Kabbalah is built on bringing a person slowly to this and allowing him to change his qualities gradually. But this happens only in the group. If you need to create qualities of connection with others, then the group is the place where you can do it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Enter a Kabbalistic Group?” 12/12/12
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Question: Why don’t you give as many explanations while reading The Book of Zohar as when studying TES?
Answer: Because The Book of Zohar is not perceived by us at all. Baal HaSulam made some connection between us and it through his scientific Kabbalistic explanations. And the rest of the original texts of The Zohar are not Kabbalistic but descriptive, semi-cryptic, and therefore, difficult for us.
But on the other hand, it is very easy, because reading it, you feel that this does not apply to you at all, and it therefore seems to be easy to build the right intention. However, it is necessary to somehow get attached to the text, so Baal HaSulam made additions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Zohar or TES?” 11/3/12
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When reading The Book of Zohar or studying The Study of the Ten Sefirot (Talmud Eser Sefirot, or TES), you feel from both of them that you are dealing with the highest information. They are unique. There is something about them that inspires respect and admiration.
This information does not incline you for servile worship or for fanaticism. On the contrary, it raises you. It does not lower you, it does not crush you, or force you to kneel or tremble.
By raising you up, it makes you a Human with a capital “H”; it reveals the upper world, and does not suppress.
This is the difference between The Book of Zohar and TES and any other religious source. Kabbalistic sources talk about the upper world, but at the same time they raise a person to it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Zohar or TES?” 11/3/12
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Humanity is finally beginning to realize that it is coming to an end. People are not talking about it in full voice yet, but they are already saying that they do not know what to do. This is already a good result.
Our egoism in no way wants to act the way it should. It wants everything to be the way it wants it to be. Like a small child who closes his eyes and says: “There is no such thing!” It seems to him that if he closes his eyes and sees nothing, it means that it does not exist or nobody sees him.
It turns out that humanity acts in the same way: “There is no such thing!”. When I talked to the Nobel Prize laureates in economics many years ago and told them there was a crisis, they looked at me almost with mockery: “Well, what is wrong with you? What are you talking about?!” Of course, I kept silent. With whom should I argue?
I understand that these are just people. But today they do not say that anymore, it gave them a big whack on the nose.
Nevertheless, even if they already hear, they do not want to accept it internally yet. There are several thresholds that information must pass before a person accepts it, suppresses himself, and begins to take it in.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Conquering Space” 11/11/12
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In our spiritual work, we use the materials that Baal HaSulam wrote and build ourselves on what he did.
I know from my own experience that I am allowed to go forward only to the extent that I have to explain Kabbalah to the world, but I cannot go any further. I feel like a dog that runs on a leash beside the owner, the owner constantly holds the leash and doesn’t let the dog get ahead too much.
I would rush forward with desire and strength that I cannot even describe, but I feel that I am tied to the world. Bound! As far as the world can advance, I am permitted to go ahead of it by a few degrees and that is it. These are high, spiritual degrees, but no more! I feel a rigid attachment to the world, I cannot be free. This shows, of course, my place, my duty, and my work.
There is a huge difference in how much the world has begun to move forward in jerks now, and how much it gives me the opportunity to speak. I have to keep a lot inside myself because I cannot express myself, it is like I am mute. Then the world takes a step forward and words, images, and symbols appear. I can express it right away! Some kind of external expression appears that was not there before. This is how it follows the path that the world goes through.
He is far away, somewhere out there, sorting out his problems: the same terrorists, on the one hand, economic crises and natural disasters, on the other hand. But all this gives some kind of impetus, and I have the opportunity to express a lot of connections, laws, and root causes, to link them, and to give out a new layer that can be explained. And so, in layers, I feel that I am moving forward. But these layers depend only on how the world is going.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Significant Kabbalist of All Time” 11/17/12
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Question: There are people who can adapt to any situation, and there are those who would start suffering from internal turmoil if you take away their iPhone. Why are there such different classifications of egoism? Which is better?
Answer: It is difficult to say which is better because humanity is arranged in such a way that everything complements each other, like in any electronic, mechanical, human, or social schemes.
There are fools and smart people and strong and weak people. Usually, people who are physically strong are not very developed mentally and vice versa. That is, everything complements each other, and perfection is achieved through this. Therefore, it cannot be said that one wins and the other loses. The Japanese are small and slight, but look at the technology they develop. The Chinese are like that too.
Each nation has its own physical, mental, moral, and psychological characteristics, and things are moving toward ensuring that everyone complements the other. Nobody will have an advantage.
No matter how people are, for example, if they are great at doing something, they still will not be able to flaunt it and win something from others. It is the harmony that gives us winning. Without proper, mutual, and standard interaction, everyone will lose: the smart ones, the stupid ones, the strong ones, and the weak ones—everyone.
All the same, before us looms the plan of nature, its indispensable condition to bring everything to harmony, to unity. And the human level, man must fulfill this condition consciously, against his egoistic nature.
If he understands this, that is, if he looks at the world around him and sees himself below all of nature and not outside of it or above it, and he understands that everything in order to achieve homeostasis will act in this direction, he will be fine.
Otherwise, the strongest, the smartest, and the very very best will look foolish, weak, unreasonable, and flawed, and will eventually die. That is all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Hurricane Sandy is Just the Beginning” 11/3/12
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Question: If a person watches our lessons online and suddenly decides to try working in a group, how harmful can this be for him or for the group?
Answer: If he has the right desire, he can gradually blend into the group. We are talking about people who for many years either study or don’t. We don’t put much pressure on them. But a person must understand that he can “roast” for many years, like meat in a brazier.
If we put the meat on a small fire, then it will not fry, but will remain warm and raw until it spoils. Therefore, for frying, we must set it to a certain temperature, for a certain time, it must go through some kind of change that will transform it to another state. Otherwise, you leave it in its former state, and add extra energy that is completely unnecessary to it.
The same thing happens with a person who comes to a group and starts exercising once a week. He seems to be getting smarter, he seems to understand and philosophize more: here, they say, I’m already such and such, and besides, I’m a Kabbalist.
Comment: Suppose a person comes across Kabbalah for the first time and immediately wants to enter this system.
My Response: We have special courses for this. Along with that, he can watch our lessons. We do not close ourselves off from anyone or anything, but we are against immediate entry into the group. It is necessary that a person still go through the steps of development.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Enter a Kabbalistic Group?” 12/1/12
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Comment: In some countries governments officially take control of the Internet and block sites that promote, for example, pedophilia, etc.
My Response: Of course. If you have a family and small children, would you let them watch obscene programs on television or on the Internet? No. So we need to find some kind of regulator. The problem is how to find it.
Humanity is not inclined to look for something in common; it comes to something involuntarily, for example, an agreement on flights, on corridors for aircraft, and so on.
But in general, this is a big problem, especially with issues related to business. Some kind of moral basis is needed for this, and humanity does not have it.
Today’s parents, in principle, have other things to worry about. Our egoism has grown so much that the Internet does not correspond to what happens in schools. Therefore, I am in favor of reaching an international agreement, an international restriction.
Man is an animal, and the most terrible, ugly, and egoistic one on top of that! If we allow everything, it is not freedom, but a perversion that turns our life into such a swamp from which we would not get out! We would drown there. Therefore, we need to restrict ourselves so that we are at least in such a state from which we could initially go further, think of something, and choose some kind of middle line.
Our egoistic nature crushes us and pulls us to the very bottom. The popularity of porn sites is above everything else. This shows who we are!
I am not going to enforce anything, but it should be very limited and properly considered. I am not a hypocrite, but it must not be like that.
We will have to do something anyway. I am in favor of creating an international organization to control the Internet in which there would be representatives of all countries. This is the correct approach.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Control Over the World Internet” 11/3/12
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Question: Where is the line between justifying the Creator and disagreeing with Him?
Answer: You do not agree with Him in your egoism, but in your qualities of bestowal and love you are similar to Him.
There is a law of nature: to the extent that you are different from the Creator, you feel all kinds of concealments, fog, distance, misunderstanding, and rejection. You carry out the concealment yourself with your qualities.
Moreover, the concealment corresponds to the extent of your development. It is just like with a child, he is not given a more difficult task than one he can solve. For example, we buy a one-year-old child a toy that says: “Age: one year” on the package.
It is the same case here. Everything is perfectly clear, and in accordance with the mentality, development, and mood with what happens to everyone. This is a huge system that is constantly moving and adjusting all its parts to the final stage—to complete connection.
A person should understand that at every minute of time he is in the best condition to choose the right path. Not otherwise!
Question: Where should the disagreement be, with how I perceive it?
Answer: Of course! You have to change yourself a little. First of all, you must realize that everything comes from the Creator, from the absolute good, and that now you perceive it differently—in quantity, in quality, in any form—only because your personal uncorrected qualities distort everything. But these are the uncorrected qualities, which at the current moment, you can already correct.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. If I Do Not Agree With The Creator” 12/15/12
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Question: To what extent is it welcomed in Kabbalah for friends as a whole to discuss among themselves common actions that should be performed on the spiritual path?
Answer: We discuss these issues in workshops. Workshops are a laboratory in which we polish our mutual relations between us on the spiritual path of development. Here we think like researchers who experience everything through their own experiments.
Many scientists often tested all kinds of drugs and preparations, and recorded the results of their experiments. This is especially true in the study of human conditions. For example, in astronautics, various studies are conducted on thousands of people: overload, weightlessness, isolation, and so on. And we have the same thing.
But, we have another problem. We go through it on our own, and then we share our experience with each other. All Kabbalistic books are written based on the experience of those people who have traversed the spiritual path. And we draw this methodology from books that explains how Kabbalists go through everything themselves, what to do at that time, how to behave, and how to lead others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You Can’t Share Your Grief with Others.” 11/24/12
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Question: We often listen to the teacher and think that the perception of his words occurs through the eardrum. How can we perceive it not through the vibration of the air? You said that in Kabbalah to listen to a teacher is a big job.
Answer: Of course. It is necessary to hear through the equivalence of qualities, through aspiration to the teacher, through the state when you try to “get into” him and fully adapt to him.
In our world, it is also desirable to understand and feel an ordinary school teacher, and to connect with him if he really wants to pass on his knowledge and his approach to you. After all, this is not just knowledge from a book; rather, he wants to convey his view to you, his philosophy. Then it is very important for you to be closer to him.
This is the difference between dead Western science and the sciences that were taught in the East, in Tibet and in China, no matter where. This is a completely different school. There, the attitude to the teacher was like to dervishes, Sufis, and rabbis, like to spiritual teachers.
In the West, you did not have to enter into a special internal contact with the teacher, everything there was aimed not at becoming closer, but at individualism. But in the East, on the contrary, the connection was the main thing, and students always coexisted with the teacher.
It was an entire system, although nowadays we have moved away from it and all this no longer has any original forms.
Where are all these correct relationships that Abraham once passed on to his disciples and sent them to the East? Then all these teachings passed from Ancient Babylon to the East, each in accordance with its tribes, its peoples, and gradually developed into Tibetan, Indian, Muslim, and so on. But today this no longer takes place on Earth.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Correct Contact between Student and Teacher” 1/11/13
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Question: During pregnancy, there are two periods that threaten miscarriage. As a rule, it is the initial stage, and the next one is closer to the birth itself.
Is there a similar situation in Kabbalah? One when a person comes, and after a while his initial desire, the fuel of which he used to run disappears? Is this similar to the first threat? Also, when a person is already approaching the entrance to spirituality and he suddenly just leaves?
Answer: Indeed, these stages on the spiritual path can be compared to periods of threatened miscarriage. At the beginning of the path when a person advances, there is of course such a threat. But I would not say that it really depends on him. And later, when he is already advancing toward spiritual birth, such a threat exists there as well.
But, in general, during all births, there is also a lot of tension from the entire nine months. The very first stage of spiritual development is very difficult because it is a period of self-annulment, of annulling one’s “I.”
Question: It turns out that the fetus has no options to stay inside the mother, right? Anyway, one way or another, he has to be born; he cannot stay inside her.
Answer: Definitely, there is no getting away from it.
There is no way we can avoid this path. Of course, there may be an injury or some kind of unfortunate incident, and then it can happen again and again. But a person has nowhere to go, and he will still be forced to enter his birthing journey and be born. All the same, he has to place himself under the influence of upper forces.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Threat During Pregnancy” 12/7/12
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Question: Why do we have to thank the Creator for obstacles?
Answer: Because if He does not renew His contact with you, then there is no way you will be able to renew it. It is either the Creator will renew it directly with the first thought from above or He will do it through someone.
Therefore, first of all, you should turn on our TV channel or our website—this should work automatically—and no other sources of reception!
In the evening I can listen to the news or even watch a documentary if it is really interesting, and that is it. After that, when I get up in the morning, only Kabbalah!
I get up 1.5 or 2 hours prior to the lesson, not a word from anyone, I only tune into the connection with the Creator! Then this entire world is clearly sensed as His conduit. How can it be different?!
Otherwise, the whole day is gone in vain. Not only in vain, but it goes into negative! And I will have to correct it because I strengthened my connection with the Creator through Klipot (impure forces)—through the incorrect system.
If I spend my day as if I do not have contact with the Creator and do not use this entire world in order to get connected with Him even more, to rise above all obstacles that He puts here for me, like on the theater stage, but rather perceive this world as truly existing, then I empower the so-called impure forces instead of connecting with that single force that determines, rules, and spins everything. Thus, I distance myself from contact with Him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Practical Kabbalah” 11/4/12
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Punishment from God is among the many theories people have come up with for why we suffer, i.e. that God punishes us for certain actions we have (or have not) done either in our current life, or in past lives. However, aside from theories, nobody really knows why we suffer.
Especially in our current times, we can see that we are globally interdependent and interconnected. The more we develop, the more our global interdependence reveals to us.
We live in a single global system, and we each share a mutual responsibility for the well-being of the entire system.
Similarly to how our bodies work, we feel a wound in our pinky toe as a pain throughout our whole body, and if it is a major wound, then it demands our complete attention. That is how we increasingly reveal ourselves in our world today.
If we comprehended and felt the full extent of our interdependence, then we would quickly conclude that we need to fix our connections: to upgrade our attitudes to each other as to members of a single family—and even closer. If we do, then we will start sensing that we live in an absolutely perfect world, free from suffering.
Based on a Virtual Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 27, 2015. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Alexey Malakhov on Unsplash.
Question: You said that we can correct the external manifestations of various events within ourselves. In particular, you cited what happened in the Gaza as an example. What does it mean to internally correct the external manifestations of the Gaza Strip?
Answer: Why else are external manifestations given to us? They are only given to us so that we can improve internally.
The whole world must reach correction. If we do not correct it in a normal way, that is, by revealing the Creator, then we are given all sorts of external problems that still force us to go toward this. But then we come to the Creator because of them.
Look at how many problems and suffering accumulate and how much time passes until we begin to realize that all this is only to solve our internal problems. This takes time! But by working internally, we can immediately get down to business.
Question: But if there were no external Gaza Strip, how could it manifest inside a person?
Answer: Under the influence of our dissemination, under the influence of some other milder problems. But if not, then by means of war, serious losses, and serious beatings, because then one starts asking, “How can I correct this, what should I do?”
Jews are very stubborn people. It is almost useless to say anything to them. To do this, we need to properly tune in because their heart, hearing, head, and brains are closed. Everything is closed! On the other hand, they are smart, wise, and receptive people, but very far from changing themselves. Very far! This means they are stubborn!
This stubbornness will require many more sacrifices until they finally agree that something needs to be done.
Question: What will their agreement be? In participation or just awareness?
Answer: In serious participation! In correcting themselves for the sake of correcting the world, for the sake of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Gaza Strip Helps the Jews” 11/24/12
Comment: On the spiritual path we are constantly shown various flaws, but we must always justify them.
My Response: You cannot just justify them verbally. You must rise above them and break away from them.
It all depends on correction. Correction means distancing from old egoistic desires. But you do not break away from them physically as if breaking connection with them. You distance yourself from them to the extent that you feel their flaw, and then you do not use them. You cannot touch them.
On the other hand, you are tempted in more and more ways to be selfish. Depending on this, if you are in a group, you have the opportunity to attract more and more upper light to yourself.
The stronger your desires are, the more you need the group to attract more upper light and break away from these desires. Then separating from them will not be painful like an amputation without anesthesia. In this case, you will be able to turn to Him as a strong individual and correct them from the outside, and once corrected, attract them and use them in yourself. This is already a high-level correction, receiving for the sake of giving.
In general, it is normal for us to receive for the sake of receiving. Then you make a restriction on it and do not use it. Afterward, you apply it only for the sake of bestowal, above it. And later, you use it for the sake of receiving in order to give to everyone else by passing it through yourself.
Thus, you go through the same four stages leading to the fifth where you completely merge with the whole universe.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Justify Suffering?” 10/27/12
Comment: Once you tried to make an example of one student to others. That student immediately began to justify himself, and you tried to explain to him that he needed to accept it.
My Response: Every person should look for a wide variety of qualities in himself. I need to point at someone, and maybe even jokingly take them aside for people to see. How else can I convey an impression or some kind of tip for a person to himself?
Comment: It often happens that you talk in general about the state of the group, but sometimes you get personal.
My Response: So what? Let everyone learn! Why should we be ashamed of each other?! What can I be embarrassed about?! In our world, I go to the doctor, tell him everything, and he takes tests from me; there is nothing to be ashamed of, not the animal body that I do not associate myself with. I tell him that I have such-and-such pressure, such-and-such blood, and so on.
But when we turn to sensual things, I feel embarrassed when I tell the doctor that I have such-and-such feelings and such-and-such drives. Why?! After all, this is also our natural, inner animal body.
When I talk about the spiritual, here I am no longer “I.” I am working on what I have received from the Creator.
In an animal body, I have nothing to work on; I follow a diet, exercise, go to the doctor, and that’s it. And in my inner spiritual body, I am in a state where I can really work on myself. This should be studied.
And all this work on myself is also not personally mine! It is absolutely the same for everyone! Everyone follows the same path if they try to work on themselves! Everyone has the same failures and the same problems!
Look at how the book Shamati or other articles and messages are written. They are written for everyone! Whether it may be an Indian, Turk or Frenchman, young or old, man or woman, it does not matter at all! There are almost the same paths for everyone. What is there to be ashamed of?!
There is one soul for everyone. Why can’t I talk about it out loud and everywhere, especially when everything depends on it?! We are adults! What can a person be ashamed of?! Today came, tomorrow left. Where is he? What is he? He doesn’t know anything. Look at the stupid things he does while he exists in this world.
So how can I not talk about everything as openly as possible, just to be understood?! Only small children are shy because they identify themselves with their body: “My body is me.” And a truly adult person is not shy.
Kabbalah says: “Stop being shy; go to the one who created you.” That is all. Turn to the one who created you.
You can only be ashamed of one thing, if you had the opportunity to make some kind of correction, to do good in the world, and you didn’t do it. Be ashamed about this! Nothing else depends on you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman Offended a Student” 11/17/12
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Comment: Psychologists say that one of the factors to prevent divorces and quarrels is to sleep in a shared bed, necessarily under the same blanket where you must either settle the relationship or improve it. You have no where to go. They say that there should not be, in the literal sense, a gap between husband and wife, different beds, rooms.
As far as I understand, this is a modern view, it somehow differs from our forefathers. The male and female halves were separated then.
My Response: There has always been a separate male and female bed. They didn’t sleep together.
Question: Tell me then, why, from a spiritual point of view, should the male and female each have their own half, their own part?
Answer: Because initially we are two halves.
Question: And in us, in a person, is male and female also divided?
Answer: Of course!
Question: In every person?
Answer: Not only in every person. In every atom, in every piece of information. There is no such thing that the nine Sefirot and the tenth Malchut are connected. Only after they are ready for this, and on the basis of mutual collision does penetration occur. A new life is born out of this. But all this is only temporary. It is an act and nothing more.
Question: Now the basis is clear, why they should be separate. Then the question is will they ever be connected?
Answer: In no way, never! This will be a clear and correct interaction between creation and the Creator.
Question: Is this the union of male and female, where the Creator is male and creation is female?
Answer: Yes. This is the same as the question: Will egoism ever disappear? It won’t disappear. It will be used correctly in our connection.
Question: Then the Kabbalistic question is: “And what is the final correction?“
Answer: It is when egoism and altruism interact with each other correctly and maintain a clear balance between each other.
Altruism is male, and egoism is the female inclination. They understand that one cannot manifest without the other.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/4/22
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Comment: You say that there are no regional borders in spirituality, that people in different countries go through the same states.
My Response: What does it matter who a person is: man, woman, what race, nationality, etc.? This all applies to physical bodies, whereas in regard to the spiritual world, who are we? What does the outer shell have to do with it? It does not exist at all, except in our animal senses.
Whoever stops at that cannot move forward at all.
Question: Do people in America and in China go through the same internal states?
Answer: Absolutely! Of course! What difference does it make where they are physically?
Question: You once said that those who isolate themselves from others with their pride, thereby bury themselves in a way. Is this their problem?
Answer: Naturally this is their problem. They have to annul themselves a lot more than everyone else.
Question: When you say that we are in such and such a state, are you describing the individual’s state or the state of the group? According to the perception of reality, what you see is whatever is happening inside you?
Answer: Of course I speak based on my condition. Everything is revealed only in relation to the one who attains. The attainer in this case is me, and I express my opinion. Only my opinion is more important than the opinion of others because they comprehend less; that is, they are more dependent, and fall more under their various calculations.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Tyrant and Despot” 10/20/12
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Comment: Everyone has their own understanding of correct connection, and no matter how much you explain, it still vanishes like water into sand.
My Response: This is because sand is our egoism, which will never be filled with water. Sand is made of silicon, it does not absorb water, but only allows it to pass through.
We can only rise above egoism; otherwise, we will not be able to do anything. No wonder they say, “as hard as silicon.” We must rise above the ego and turn its qualities into kindness, gentleness, and love.
Comment: You always say: “We need to unite! We have no connection!”
My Response: Because it really doesn’t exist yet.
Full connection will happen only in the world of infinity, beyond the 125th degree. I am not talking about that.
I am talking at least about the fact that we should begin to unite at a degree at which we will become one single healthy spiritual organism. It will be able to absorb everyone else into ourselves and begin to grow together with everyone; it will become the embryo of a new world, around which and to which all the other parts are connected, and will form one single whole, one single body.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Unbelievable!” 12/1/12
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Comment: A person by nature can adapt to different conditions. For example, by mastering space, he can annul his “I” and adapt to this environment. But as soon as it concerns the laws of nature that we do not perceive, he immediately begins to turn on his “I,” with things such as “there is no evidence, there is no logic.”
My Response: Because we think with our bellies and not with our brains. What is good for us is true. Feelings turn on instead of reason, and our feelings are egoistic. That is why we live, act, and decide this way.
This is a huge problem that should be solved in the near future anyway. Either there will be great suffering that will teach us, or we will start listening to what Kabbalah science says, and then the suffering will gradually decrease, and we will begin to receive information through the head, and not through the skin—one of two things.
And how we will move forward: either with the most terrible suffering, when maybe a couple of million people will be left from all of humanity, or “with a song to happiness” – it depends on us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Conquest of Space” 10/3/12
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Humanity needs to know that there is a next level of complete unification to which nature advances us, and the fact that nature is connecting us against our will is the reason for all forms of suffering we endure. In other words, there are forces of nature that are connecting us more and more, and by rejecting the tendency to positively connect, we experience suffering, and on the contrary, if we act in unison with the forces that connect us, we will experience life blissfully.
That is why we require a whole new kind of education today, one that teaches us about the forces of nature that operate on us, and how we can equalize with those forces by realizing our connection positively. We can then rise peacefully to the next level of a harmoniously-connected life to which nature guides us.
We see that we have become a global humanity. There is nowhere to escape from our global interdependence and interconnection. Entering into unison with nature thus means that we should upgrade our attitudes to this tightening globally interdependent and interconnected state we find ourselves in—to realize that we are all in one boat, that we are all a single family around the world—and to start relating to each other accordingly. This is the message that nature wants us to hear, and if we remain as foolish children who wish to simply chase what seems sweet and good for each one of us individually, without considering our mutual influence and dependence, then what will nature do? It will punish us until we start listening to what it wishes to communicate to us. Our incongruence with nature’s connecting tendency is the reason for our suffering today, and it is the reason we will experience more and more suffering as we head into the future.
We should thus take heed to what nature has started showing us, that we are a single globally interdependent and interconnected humanity, and that if we wish to realize our interdependence harmoniously and peacefully, we need to invert our attitudes to each other so that they are all-inclusive like nature itself.
It is quite complicated since we are born and raised solely in our egoistic nature—self-benefit at the expense of others and nature—but if we set ourselves on a path of implementing a new connection-enriching learning throughout the world, then we will be able to undergo a positive transition, alleviating the need for all kinds of turmoil to befall us.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Medicine From all Sickness” on October 27, 2012 with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: During lessons, do you try not to make drawings so that students do not get used to them?
Answer: Yes. If I draw a circle or a line, then at the same time I explain that this is such and such a quality and that the direction of the lines to the right, left, up, and down represent spiritual qualities, and so on.
However, it is very difficult for people to get away from visual perception. They still depict our world and the upper world by the same means of expression, and we have to gradually move away from the images. I make a lot fewer drawings now than I used to.
In the spiritual world where there are a great number of words to introduce a person to a certain state, similar to the spiritual one, about which you want to tell him so that he can feel something, sometimes a drawing is necessary. For example, the Ari drew the “Tree of Life” – “Sefer Ha Eilan” (“Eilan” is a tree, “The Book of a Tree”).
My teacher Rabash did not draw at all. For the last 12 to 13 years of his life, I was by his side, and it seems to me that I probably scared him with my drawings.
At the beginning of studying Kabbalah, I depicted everything in drawings: circles, arrows, drawings, and various relationships. I did not have the opportunity to ask the question correctly, and therefore I wanted him to understand my question from the drawing. Is it in this way or not, and explain why.
I piled so many drawings on him, especially about the world of Infinity—circles one inside the other, overlapping, conjugating—that it scared him. I drew a lot, according to the text, and not just what I wanted. When he saw it and realized that I was asking questions in this way, he said: “That’s it. We will learn in a different way.”
But I did not stop drawing, I just did not show him anything anymore. I drew for myself because the drawing expresses very specific states, and conditionally you can express anything on it, if you clearly understand and accept it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Does a Person Draw?” 11/29/12
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Question: There is a psychological attitude called “postponed or delayed life syndrome.” This is when a person perceives his life as a draft or a rehearsal before something big and meaningful, which will come later in the future, as if people are going to live forever.
There is an example of a senator who wakes up and suddenly prestige and political success no longer are important to him, despite the fact that he is a politician. He really wants to enjoy life: have breakfast with a friend, be in the company of his wife, and read a book or a magazine.
What happened? He was diagnosed with cancer. Is this really the only thing that can prompt a person to suddenly wake up and start living?
Answer: Of course! Undoubtedly! When he is certainly promised a close end, everything else just disappears from the horizon and loses its importance. Everything.
Question: Does everything that was the most important thing in life suddenly become vanity? Is this the kind of fear we should experience?
Answer: Of course! Precisely! It is like Woland said in The Master and Margarita. One cannot escape that.
Comment: Actually, this does not really say why the mind is given to us, to Homo sapiens (wise men).
My Response: It is only so that we realize that this is how we live. As soon as the end is clearly known to us, then everything other than the end can no longer interest us.
Question: Do we suddenly start looking for real values when we know the end is here?
Answer: But what can we find if the end is here?
Comment: This senator found some simple truth.
My Response: Go for a drink, have a meal with friends and with a woman, and so on. All this also happens after the reassessment of these events and values. Therefore everything loses its taste. There is nothing left here but to live every second that you have so that you feel less pain. That is all.
Question: And more enjoyment?
Answer: He just needs drugs and that is it. Switch off calmly, my friend.
Question: Then what do you call a true moment that was lived correctly, with dignity?
Answer: I am not in favor of living for just one moment at all. That is not my philosophy.
My philosophy is that life should consist of such moments constantly, from moment to moment, again and again. Then it will be possible to think that this cancer, or some other fatal disease, or the end in general, which everyone has by the way, are not important. And then a person will clearly understand what is given to him, why, for what, how he should live it, what to leave, and what to do with himself.
Question: What should we invest in these moments? Let’s say I agree with you: live every moment and prepare for the next moment.
Answer: Elevate yourself above your animalistic nature and as quickly and brightly as possible, more effectively achieve the quality of bestowal and love, which does not relate to our world. And thus, as they say, prepare yourself for the future world. That is all. It will be a very effective use of this world, this life, for the sake of the future world and the future life.
Question: Do you think that when a person is given such a limit, called an “incurable disease” or something, it is done precisely for this?
Answer: Yes, for this! It is necessary to prepare people who will serve these so-called unfortunate. I do not consider them unfortunate. I believe that they have been given a great opportunity to correct themselves, change themselves, and raise themselves to the level of the next world.
Question: To the level of this love?
Answer: Yes. May they enter it with no problems.
Question: Does it turn out that those who remain in this world that burn it with the pleasures of this world are the unfortunate ones?
Answer: Yes. The others can already rise to this in advance! Suddenly they see there is no disease. Then the question is: Why did I do all this? Someone deceived me so meanly.
Question: Yes. The doctors will say, “My dear, everything is fine with you.” Is this such a trick that the Creator does with a person? Are you really for such tricks?
Answer: I am in favor of deceiving a person so that he solves the correct equation with his life and death. And in order for him to change his life based on this decision.
Question: Does the word “deceived” not bother you?
Answer: No, of course not. This is an egoist! He should be deceived big time! We should trick egoism all our lives, the way it tricks us now. This is already a serious, borderline deception.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/4/22
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Question: How can you see the Creator in all obstacles?
Answer: Only a group can help you with this, which must keep you in this state all the time.
But how can you decipher what comes to you? How can you work with an obstacle? First, we study it, and then a person goes inside himself.
Why do we conduct workshops, talks, have questions and answers, and read articles? After all, they describe all our work. Of course, when a person goes through various states, he begins to understand that this is something that he has not previously imagined.
But then, by reading the primary sources in each new state, he begins to understand what it was about. This is always later, he does not feel it in advance, and then he sees what is written in them really happens.
This is the highest psychology, a gradual, gentle transition to the next level, to the next dimension. Or do you want nature to do what it usually does? That is, a species dies out, and another appears in its place. This could be so. Today we are faced with a choice.
Question: Why do we begin to understand and realize everything later and not immediately?
Answer: If you knew in advance, you would egoistically want to go for it. How is that possible?! And now you understand with your new thoughts and mind. You used to read the same thing, but now you feel it in a new way because new properties, new sensors, new sensations, assessments, and internal dimensions were born in you. You start to study yourself from a new level.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Use Obstacles” 12/1/12
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Question: Can we, once we have passed through various states, talk about them?
Answer: We do not talk about past states, we do not discuss them. We discuss only our means of connection in order to reach future states because they are common to us.
Let’s say you and I are at the eighth level of development and should ascend to the ninth one. Therefore, we are theoretically discussing how we can connect with each other because we do not yet have these qualities. By doing so, we do not interfere with each other, but, on the contrary, support each other in how we should be interconnected.
We are not yet working with our new qualities, we are not showing them to each other, and we are not interfering with each other’s spiritual work. We only, as children, play the next state, how can we connect with each other. When it comes and is implemented within us, then we begin to understand it. We are not talking about it anymore; we are talking about the next state. But never about the past!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Use Obstacles” 12/1/13
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As we progress, the evil inclination, the power of egoism, comes out more and more harshly each time so that, in the end, we do not know what to do. It is as if a wall appears in front of us over which it is impossible to climb. And in the end, we come to the Red Sea, to the stormy, angry waters that are ready to swallow us up and cut us off from life.
Thus, we begin to feel all the forces of nature, but when we overcome all these states and include them in ourselves, we become stronger, and this is what our progress consists of.
However, it is said that if “The sons of Israel believed in the faithful shepherd Moses properly, they could hear his voice and be saved from the Klipa of Pharaoh.” This means that there is still some chance to get out, but the question is whether they use it or not.
Like in mathematics where negative multiplied by another negative yields a positive, it is also like this in spiritual advancement when leaving Egypt. If the majority of the group wants to work for the Creator for the sake of bestowal, then they can oblige Him to help them.
From heaven we are never given half; it is necessary to achieve the full measure of the revelation of evil, and then help from above will come in its entirety. Therefore, we can complain and make claims, but until we make the full measure of effort necessary in our state, there will be no breakthrough. And only when we put the last coin in the basket of efforts, then the Creator will help us achieve the goal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/23, “Pesach (Passover)”
Question: Does the relationship of hierarchies between people change, for example, between you and students?
Answer: It is hard for me to say because, on one hand, I treat everyone as a student. On the other hand, internally, I treat them as friends. Here arises a problem of connecting to me as a teacher on one hand, and the difficulty of expressing myself as a friend on the other hand.
Now, I am gradually trying to do this, but I am afraid that in doing so I will fall in their eyes, and they will disregard me a little like one who is closer to them. This will complicate their path, they will accept less from me, and appreciate less. This is the way man is. I am afraid that by doing this I will not give them enough strength to move forward.
Therefore, I have to shout, push, show an example, and demand. If I am on par with them, then what will be an incentive for them? Will it be just that they value each other and value me above the fact that they see everyone as equal? It is very hard.
That is, I need to show myself as an image that they should respect. This will give them a driving force.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Prejudice Against a Friend” 11/24/12
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Question: Baal HaSulam descended from the high level of understanding at which he was in order to explain the Kabbalistic methodology in simpler words. How did it happen with him?
Answer: I do not know. It is as if you jump from a chair to the floor, and someone jumps from the stratosphere. This is a completely different technique I have not yet attained at all.
I study Baal HaSulam at my own level, not at the one he is at. His level is unknown to me. I know only what he wrote about himself. If he had not written, I would have said about him: “Yes, he is at a high degree, but I do not know where.” After all, any upper degree feels like infinity relative to the lower one. You cannot measure it in any way with your instruments; therefore, it is infinite, without end, and without boundaries.
Question: Did Rabash tell you about his father?
Answer: No. Both Rabash and Baal HaSulam are unattainable to us. These are the greatest souls! The fact that we are connected with them and receive directly from them is, of course, a great fortune. For this, we must constantly be in a state of gratitude and awe!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Significant Kabbalist of All Times” 12/17/12
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The world has become so small that everything is close. Wherever you go, the same hotels and the same things are everywhere: squares, towers, houses—anything else except maybe museums.
I think everything is advancing toward the fact that tourism will drop. Firstly, because there is a crisis, there is no money.
Secondly because everything is on the Internet. You can also take a walk near your home. It seems to me that all this will change. We have built a huge number of hotels. I’ve been thinking for a long time: what will become of all this? Everything will be empty.
Question: But is tourism, in fact, the pursuit of various states?
Answer: Yes. Man has already developed and he goes deep into himself. Now tourism will become more domestic. I think that people will be attracted by internal changes in themselves, changes in internal states, instead of external ones like flying somewhere, walking around a city in groups, or watching something.
People will be more attracted by the journey inside themselves. This is interesting tourism.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. 21st Century Tourism” 11/24/12
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Question: Why don’t we remember how we were born? Why don’t we remember those torments? We subconsciously know that this has happened, but we cannot associate ourselves with it.
Answer: We can. We can go back and see ourselves being born in our mother’s womb. But what for?
Comment: Because in spirituality it probably gives a certain range of sensations.
My Response: There, as in our world, you feel and realize what you need at every moment and nothing more.
Question: Does a Kabbalist clearly remember the stage before the Machsom throughout all the steps?
Answer: No. Is nothing taken away from him and nothing given to him? Is he not inside a system that calls him according to a certain program? And how does he know the next step and what he should be in it? He does not know it.
Comment: I mean the past, suppose before the Machsom he remembers all this.
My Response: He may not know. It may fall out of his current sense of awareness. Just like you do not remember what happened a week ago on a certain day at a specific hour. And you can be reminded of this and, very seriously, to that extent that you will shudder.
So it is in Kabbalah. Not everything is open before you. Reshimot (informational spiritual records) rise and fall, rise into your consciousness or disappear again inside, and you do not use them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ideal Childbirth” 11/3/12
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Of all the great Kabbalists of the past, Baal HaSulam is the most universal. He presented Kabbalah in a scientific style, in a language that links both the ancient language, the ancient biblical approach, and the scientific, psychological, Kabbalistic approach. He interconnects it all. He made an amazing revelation!
I can’t stop admiring how he turned everything around, took it, and opened up everything! Before him, everyone was beating around the bush and did not know how to convey the methodology as if they were tasting it. But he opened it up!
Of course, he can be compared with other great Kabbalists, but in the sense of revealing Kabbalah, he certainly made an amazing step forward!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Significant Kabbalist of All Times” 12/17/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are things that can only happen to Israelis?“
It is common in Israel to disrespect people of status, such as state officials. The reason for this is that we—the people of Israel, the Jews—are a free people in our roots. We originated as a nation of members who were equal to one another.
About 4,000 years ago, when we first united as “the people of Israel,” we had gathered around Abraham. At that time, Abraham invited anybody in ancient Babylon who had a desire to reach the degree of equality, love and freedom from the limits of this world, to implement his method.
Abraham taught his group that they were a free nation in that they each needed to develop themselves to become a positive force of support, encouragement, care and love toward each other. In such a state, nobody is lesser than others and no one can tell others what to do, but we can each give each other examples of love and care. If we can sustain ourselves in that continuous motion to love and care for one another, then we experience harmony and peace, but if we cannot hold ourselves in such a positive direction, then we become like savages.
Abraham’s method is supposed to unite people as equals, without any limits, where no person is greater or smaller than the others. In other words, in our origin, we have no sense of one or is powerful and another who is weak, but rather we all complement one another in a common effort to unite above our differences.
Since Abraham once united us as equals in a connection of love among one another, then we developed a very open approach in our relations. We dwelled in a positive connection where we behaved as if everyone everywhere was in our bedrooms.
Later, when we fell from the degree of a common love for one another and immersed ourselves in opposite attitudes to each other—a state of unfounded hatred—the feeling of our equality turned into a common disrespect and disregard. In other words, disregard, rejection and alienation replaced love, mutual consideration and unification. That is what we see among us today.
We need to understand how much of a better life we could be living if we once again applied Abraham’s method to our relations. If we start uniting above our divisive drives, then we would experience a whole new harmonious and peaceful world open up to us. We would draw the force of love and connection that dwells in nature into our relations, and by doing so, we would tap into that ability that once united us as “the people of Israel.” Our unity would have immensely positive rippling effects not only for our own well-being, but people around the world would also feel a surge of a new positive force enter their lives, and the attitude to Israelis and to Jews in general around the world would become very positive: people would revere the group that brings love, peace and unity to the world.
Based on the video “The Matter of Equality among the Israeli Nation” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: The holiday of Passover tells about the way the Jewish people came out of Egyptian slavery. In fact, for Kabbalists, it sounds different. There is our egoism, our nature, and we talk about how we come out of this egoism.
I have a feeling now that this is not a Jewish holiday, but a worldwide holiday, especially considering the events that have happened in the world.
What does the Passover holiday mean for the world? How do you feel about this?
Answer: The world feels that it feels bad. But it does not know what the reason is. What the cure for the fact that it feels bad, it does not know either. Like a child: he just feels bad and that is it. There is no recognition of evil, that is, it does not know what the cause of suffering is.
And the reason for suffering is a large, sharp increase in egoism, which sometimes freezes a little and suddenly grows with a jerk.
Question: Does it mean that it is impossible to say that the world feels like it is inside Egyptian slavery, under the slavery of egoism?
Answer: It depends only on the way people feel. But they just feel that they feel bad.
Question: Has the Passover holiday not reached humanity yet?
Answer: I think it is not quite right to call it a holiday. The world does not feel that its egoism is the cause of all its suffering.
But it is necessary to feel that! If we begin to look closely at our egoistic nature, at how we treat each other, then we can conclude that our whole world is evil because we are such egoists, because we wish evil to each other, and we are in opposition, in contradiction, in internal and external confrontation with each other. We are slaves of this egoistic force that guides us, twists us, and pushes us.
To recognize the evil of our nature is the most important thing. Because after that we can already come to an understanding of how to get rid of it.
Question: If we assume that a person begins to feel this, what will his thoughts be? How can one get rid of this? Except for the inner cry: “I want to get rid of it! I do not want to be an egoist!”—what else do we need?
Answer: Nothing! Only to demand from nature that it change us. Nothing else. We do not have to make any extra effort because there is really nothing we can do. If we are inside egoism, then any of our attempts and actions will still be egoistic, and we will only deceive ourselves with them.
What we can do, however, is to gather, discuss our state, conclude that it is simply terrible, and that there is no way for us to get rid of it ourselves unless we just convince our nature to leave us alone, that we do not want to be under the control of egoism. Take away from us this alien will, this upper force, so that it does not command each of us and does not push us against each other!
Question: Will a person then have a feeling that he is under the control of the Pharaoh?
Answer: Yes, that he is a slave to the evil force of nature. Then he will begin to understand this story correctly. He will begin to treat it correctly, that in fact, this evil nature was created in such a way on purpose. By whom? By a positive force, the Creator, so that we turn to Him personally, so that He removes this evil nature from us.
If we convince the Creator to remove this evil egoistic force that pushes us against each other and does not give us peace, then this will become a truly worldwide holiday in which everyone is interconnected, in which everyone begins to treat each other correctly—with love, with knowledge, and with the understanding that we are one, a single system.
Question: What is “the people’s exit out of slavery”? Are people the whole world?
Answer: Absolutely the whole world.
Question: What about the leader who leads them? The Torah says Moshe or Moses—what is it?
Answer: This is from the word “Moshech,” pulling. It is the force that pulls people out of their egoism.
This force comes from above. The force of recognition of the evil in which we were, and the good in which we can be.
Question: Do you think that humanity should reach out to this force?
Answer: Everyone should feel from within himself that he is shouting, that he wants this. We need nothing else. There is no need to follow any people, leaders, redeemers, messiahs, and so on. We do not need anything else.
Question: What is freedom then? After all, this is a holiday of freedom.
Answer: Freedom from egoism, freedom from the fact that you are under the influence of evil all the time and it is your inner evil that pushes you to be evil to others. All this is the holiday of redemption. This is the holiday of spring.
Only egoism is the cause of our suffering. There is nothing else. There are only two forces in the world: positive and negative.
Question: Then why do we not just concentrate on this point?
Answer: We do not want to, we resist with all our might just not to get close to it because we are all egoists. Only in egoism do I feel myself and the whole world. I cannot imagine how to feel the world outside of this quality.
Question: In principle, does the wisdom of Kabbalah speak only about this—how to feel who you are, your nature, and how to exit it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What to do to make people start doing it?
Answer: If we do not want to do it, we will be forced to. But everything will be fine.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/22
Passover means the transition from the feeling of our world that is inherent in every person in this world, to the feeling of the upper world. This is subject only to the Kabbalists.
Passover, like all Jewish holidays, is a purely Kabbalistic holiday. It says that a person jumps from a state of the inability to unite with others to a state when his egoism allows him to do so.
The exit of a person from the authority of egoism to unite with people close in spirit is called Passover.
Question: What allows him to make such a jump?
Answer: Desire. After all, from the beginning of entering Egypt to the end of staying in Egypt, a huge egoistic desire is constantly developing, which does not allow the people of Israel to connect with each other.
The people of Israel must connect in order to reveal the Creator in connection with each other—the quality of bestowal and love. And when a person sees that he has no way to do it, then he feels like he is in the Egyptian darkness. Now he is ready to do anything just to get out of there! This is called the escape, salvation, from Egypt.
If we consider this from the point of view of what happens to a person, because this is usually what Kabbalah says, then we are talking about the quality of a person who is ready to do anything, even throw himself into the sea, just to escape from his egoism, rise above it, and achieve the Creator’s quality of bestowal and love.
He throws himself into the sea, and the sea gives way before him. He goes through it, cuts himself off from the ego, and thus becomes ready to work with it to transform it into altruism, while being above egoism. This is the way out of Egypt, which we celebrate during Passover.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/14/16
Question: Matzah is a symbol of the Exodus from Egypt. Why is it necessary to eat Matzah on Pesach?
Answer: Matzah is unleavened bread, that is, bread that is prepared in a special way with the minimum amount of water needed to make leaven. Then it is baked simply on coals or in a hot pan—it doesn’t matter.
Matzah is baked to commemorate the exit from Egypt and symbolizes our rapid transition from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow. It happens unexpectedly, abruptly, in supposedly the most inappropriate place and time for a person.
There is an accumulative process, a buildup, and a person gets out of the power of egoism. This is called the exodus from Egypt.
Question: That is, a person does not expect this exit?
Answer: He is always expecting it, but does not know that it is coming. And when it really happens, he does not understand how it suddenly happened. But someday it will happen to everyone.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/19/22
Question: What is Pesach?
Answer: “Pesach” isfrom the word “passover, Poseah, stepping over”. It means stepping over from a world in which egoism operates to a world in which altruism operates.
Question: Four questions are asked on the eve of Passover. What are those questions?
Answer: Those four questions refer to the four levels of egoism that are in every person. They symbolize our desire to exit the power of general egoism, which is divided into four levels.
Therefore, the youngest in the family, that is, the smallest one who is starting to grow, asks questions about his spiritual growth. It is such an allegory.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/19/22
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Question: What to do when one friend is dismissive of another, the friend judges the other one based on his appearance or status?
Answer: It gradually passes, depending on what you get greater impressions from, meaning, what you value more.
By looking at a person, if I can scan his appearance once and identify certain signs that are purely outwardly positive or negative for me, for example, character, etc., then I lay them out and sort them. This is how every person is arranged. Then I scan his inner qualities, which are only related to his spiritual path.
After that, I have to give myself an account of what is most important to me in him.
It is possible that he is a redhead and I do not like redheads. It is possible that he is dirty and I do not like such people either, and so on and so forth, no matter what it is that repels me outwardly. We know from psychology all these conditions.
Then I analyze the internal conditions: how much this person is dear to me, how much I depend on him, and how suddenly I am imbued with his greatness, integrity, directness, and aspiration. As it turns out, he really does not care about himself and therefore is slovenly, untidy, and does not pay attention to himself.
That is, I begin to reveal completely different qualities in him, and they are very dear to me. Then they suppress everything else in me, I stop noticing absolutely everything external that once repelled me. This is no longer a barrier for me.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Prejudice Against a Friend” 11/24/12
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Question: Did Baal HaSulam have a special soul? In principle, he was like an angel.
Answer: No, he is not an angel. An angel is someone who is given something to do, and he does it without putting any effort of his own, like, say, a horse, cow or dog, like any person on the street. They obey the calls of nature that are aroused in them, its signals, and they fulfill them.
And here the man worked on himself and made great efforts! Therefore, it cannot be said that he is an angel. He is a “Man.” And an angel is a very small degree.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Significant Kabbalist of All Time” 11/17/12
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The male and female parts of the group are two mutually opposite forces that must act in a certain harmony and connection.
When they have one goal, they can really achieve a lot. Without the development of a female stabilization system, a man will rush forward and only tear everything apart, just as it happens in our world.
The male part or man can move forward correctly and receive help from above only when he has a special, developed stabilizing part that holds him back, and gives his striving forward the right direction, the right pace of development.
A man must understand that he cannot develop alone, he needs a stabilizing female part, and in order to move forward together, he rushes forward, and now he is alone.
The female part must know that she is doing everything to stabilize this common part, but not to prevent a man from moving forward, but rather to be ready to be for him, to really be the part that supports and protects him, like a mother of a little son.
In some ways such a relationship remains for life: the wife is a little to the side of a mother, and the husband in the aspect of a little son.
Question: What is the ideal combination of female support for a person who follows the path of Kabbalah?
Answer: The ideal combination of female support is when a wife studies with her husband, understands his occupation, his movements, aspirations, his flare-ups, falls, weaknesses, strengths, and his peculiarities thanks to which he can develop spiritually, and her exclusivity in supporting him, to prevent him from going beyond the boundaries of the correct “path” along which he must move toward the goal.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Women’s Friendship” 10/27/12
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I hope that humanity will be able to realize the problem of its incongruity with nature very quickly. I see from the articles published on the Internet today that people are beginning to understand this.
It is still a long way for them to hear what I am saying to them; it is not easy. But they are already riding this wave. My voice does not reach them yet, but they are already somewhere out there in the distance.
I am already noticing them. They are getting closer. Maybe I will live to a point when we can really seriously talk not only about how to get out of the current state, but how to build a new one and quickly, easily reach the degree of Man.
This degree does not apply to Earth at all! It starts on Earth from our animal body, but it has nothing to do with a new world. Man ends up in the upper world, outside our universe where a spark of light broke into the material world and created it.
Through that hole through which the spark of light came to us, we need to jump back out. Then we will look at our world from afar and see: “It turns out, this was our mother! We were born and went out into that upper world!”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Treatment of Internet Addiction” 11/3/12
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Question: How does it come to you that you can talk to the world?
Answer: It appears from within due to the influence of the light. I feel how it acts, enters, reveals, arranges qualities, connects them together, links all internal causes and effects, and forms such a model in you, and then you can talk.
I do it in every lesson with small steps. I cannot come to class and say old things. Never! I always go at least a millimeter forward.
Question: Do you think Baal HaSulam also kind of descended from certain heights?
Answer: I do not descend from the heights. Baal HaSulam was at the level of the Creator! At the full level, i.e., in the full scope of the entire universe—lower and higher, including everything within himself.
Question: In principle, did he attain the entire path?
Answer: Absolutely! Not only the entire path but more than that—the 10th Millennium!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Significant Kabbalist of All Times” 12/17/12
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Question: I perceive everyone as disconnected from the Creator. And the group is the mechanism that pushes me to Him. How does this mechanism work when you give them spiritual information?
Answer: We will not understand this until we reveal the true vision of the universe.
Now we are working as if with one eye. When we open both eyes, a three-dimensional image will appear. This is what is happening to us today compared to the feeling of another level.
We lack voluminous, inner vision. Therefore, Baal HaSulam called his writing on The Study of the Ten Sefirot inner observation.
Question: Why do I see those who are yearning for the Creator as disconnected, as the same as I am?
Answer: These are parts of your soul that broke away from you that have received an opportunity to independently aspire to Him. Everything is done to make your correction easier. This is how you should see others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Be Closer to the Creator?” 12/3/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is social division in Israel becoming more extreme?“
There are different kinds of divisions in every society and nation, but in the Israeli nation, the division is much stronger. This is because, as it is written, we are “a stiff-necked people.” It means that we are incredibly stubborn, and this stubbornness comes from us having an overblown desire.
It is unlike the desire in other nations. We can see it clearly among Israelis, among Jews in general, and everyone feels it one way or another.
How is it expressed?
We each feel as if we have a certain power, and accordingly we are ready to stand up to anyone. We do not care who it is. If you put the Prime Minister in front of any Israeli, you will see that there is an attitude as to a person of equal status. Moreover, it is common to feel smarter than others, no matter what position they hold, and to relate to them accordingly.
In other nations, there is a feeling of knowing one’s place and degree in society, an unspoken code of how to speak to one person or another. In Israel, however, no one cares about other people’s seeming status. It is the nature of the Israeli nation and of the Jewish people in general.
In the past, religion tied us more tightly together. It calmed and restrained us as it made us fear all kinds of punishments, and it also attracted us to various rewards for being nice people.
When we move away from religion—and this happens in all sectors, including the ultra-religious—it is called “the decline of the generations.” That is, we believe less and less in a common path, in the various higher forces of nature that we think might punish or reward us. We then become more and more stubborn from one generation to the next, and it leads us to a point where we take no one else into account.
In such a state, however, we cannot return to how we acted toward each other when we had smaller desires. Rather, we need to learn how to rise above our bloated desires today, to unite above our divisions, i.e. to realize the state of “love will cover all crimes” that we once discovered when we first became a nation. Our lives will become harder and harder in our stubborn divisiveness until we eventually realize the mutual detriment we bring to each other in such a state. We will then need to shift our course to unite above divisions through our mutual positive influence on each other.
Based on the video “Why Is Social Division in Israel Becoming More Extreme?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman, Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Listen to an Audio Version of the BlogDownload:MP3 Audio
https://cdn.kabbalahmedia.info/Oe1c8ue7.mp3
Comment: No matter how much of a scoundrel a person is, he always finds an excuse for his actions.
My Response: Otherwise he would not be able to commit them. At the moment when he is acting, he must feel absolutely right.
Question: But what can we do to justify the Creator and friends with the same confidence?
Answer: This is possible only under the influence of the upper light. The person himself is not capable of this.
On the contrary, the more we move forward, the more we attain our own meanness, our own impotence and insignificance. But if at the same time we put a lot of effort into connection with our friends, then through them we receive the upper light, which allows us to see our states as purely negative and vicious.
Then we have a great desire to get rid of our qualities. We begin to demand this from the upper light, which gave birth to these qualities, as it is written: “I have created an evil inclination.” We ask the Creator to correct these qualities.
Question: But why can a person justify himself without the light, and the other only by taking into account its influence?
Answer: Because we are in one single quality of our egoism, which is to love ourselves, justify ourselves, and take care of ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. ‘I’ Am Always Right!” 11/16/12
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Question: There is a kind of parallel between childbirth in the material and spiritual world. In our ordinary life, the very process of birth, the pain that a child experiences, also happens in the spiritual, or is it just an allegory?
Answer: This is not an allegory! It is not a very pleasant feeling, but serious external and internal work.
The one who is being born also helps himself get out from within, to escape from this dark realm. It already seems dark to him, he does not want to stay there, he twitches, beats inside, as if in a cage. Meaning, the former good womb of the mother becomes a prison for him.
At any stage of our development, the beginning something seems good to us, then we discover the bad in it and strive for something better. It is the same here. This is growth, awareness.
Question: So this is the development of the same egoism?
Answer: Not only egoism, but attainment, awareness, sensation, and connection with the upper. It is a symbiosis of all kinds of attainments, sensations, and qualities.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Perfect Childbirth” 11/3/12
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Makes People Right-Wing and Left-Wing?”
How Do People Who Have No Political Connections Become Left or Right-Wing?
Nature consists of two forces: giving and receiving, plus and minus, positive and negative.
We each also play host to these forces. They exist on all levels of our lives: material, psychological and spiritual.
As for political right-wing and left-wing inclinations, I would first stay clear of defining them as such because nowadays these terms have become very convoluted, making people confuse one for the other.
In its origin, however, a left-wing inclination leans toward completion, connection and compromise, while a right-wing approach is its opposite: leaning to defining borders, limitations and boundaries. In other words, by nature a left-wing approach is “what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours,” and a right-wing approach is “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.”
However, in our distorted lives today, which are far from nature, we see nothing that expresses true left-wing or right-wing inclinations. This is because we live in times where an overblown human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—stands at the foundation of everything we think and do, making us far removed from any kind of natural approach to these inclinations.
There are no genuine examples of real left-wing and right-wing inclinations in today’s world because they are blended with the desire to exploit anything and anyone possible in order to fulfill egoistic pursuits. For instance, a person might naturally have a left-wing or a right-wing inclination, but due to the ego’s powerful urge for fulfillment today, then that person could very easily find themselves on the other side in practice.
I thus think that dividing people and nations into left-wing and right-wing brings us no lasting benefit. Instead, we should focus on upgrading our education around the world so that we learn how nature works, how we develop, where we are headed, and what we would like to see in a better future state. If we start elevating our awareness to understand how we can reach balance with the new globally-interdependent conditions we find ourselves in, then we would start seeing an expression of our more natural inclinations. We would then see how people and nations are left-wing or right-wing inclined by nature, and accordingly we would be able to guide everyone to a more harmonious and peaceful future according to every person’s and nation’s natural inclinations.
Part and parcel of this new educational process requires running a serious ongoing examination into how we could reach equilibrium among the differing inclinations in humanity and guide a positive course of development. We need to constantly scrutinize humanity’s and each nation’s optimal form, while understanding each nation’s different nature and thinking about how to piece all people and nations together in complementarity.
There is a need for competition and the use of power that lets the stronger win, and there is also a rightful place for the weaker desires that demand government support for their lives. Both inclinations need to find their expression, and we can each make decisions according to our respective characters.
We need to understand the complex richness of nature, which does not let us simply be good people that can agree on something and hold that agreement. We change from one moment to the next. That is why, even during the process of signing a certain agreement, we can already find ourselves thinking about how to breach it and benefit ourselves at the other party’s expense.
The human ego today does not let any person or side hold onto anything that holds us all together. Accordingly, we can expect more and more friction between the left and the right as we further develop. Moreover, if we fail to regulate the friction, then the conflicts between the two sides could lead to major destruction, like another world war.
We need to understand that these opposite inclinations are embedded in our nature and they will increasingly unravel so that we create a system that balances them. It is similar to how, in electricity, we place a resistor between plus and minus where they connect and perform some kind of work. We similarly need to approach our inclinations, but we require something common for us all to work toward.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “When Will Human Population Exceed the Capacity of Planet Earth?”
There is a popular narrative today about human overpopulation being a problem—that it increases global warming, climate change and disease, to name a few.
However, in actuality, the more human population, the less suffering we each individually endure.
Moreover, we would not perceive human overpopulation as being a problem if we would upgrade our attitudes to each other, by positively connecting to each other above our egocentric, individualistic drives.
First, in relation to the statement, “the more population there is on the planet, the less suffering we absorb”…
We first need to understand that there is no such concept as redundant people in the world.
Not only can our planet handle many more people, a higher human population also does not equate to more suffering. Instead, when viewed from the perspective of humanity’s development toward its united future state, the formula looks like this:
The amount of people divided by the amount of suffering equals our ability to exercise free choice—to connect above the ego.
In other words, if there are more people, then the amount of suffering disperses among them, and as a result, everyone suffers less. For instance, say humanity needs to endure one million tons of suffering at a certain stage of its development. Then, what would you prefer: to be part of a humanity of eight billion people that needs to deal with that one million tons of suffering, or to be part of a humanity of two billion people taking on that burden? It is clear that we would choose the option of less suffering.
How does this work? To understand it, we need to take a bird’s eye view of humanity’s development.
We are currently in a process headed into a future of humanity connected as a single organism, where we will feel each other closer than we feel our own families. Today, we are at a crossroad: We can either continue following the path of our growing self-centered nature, where we seek fulfillment on a background of gradually intensifying personal, social and global problems; or we can exercise our free choice to engage in this process positively, connecting above our egoistic nature and rising above the problems.
If we realize our free choice in this process and start connecting above the ego, then no single person on the planet will appear to be redundant. Instead, every person will be viewed as a very precious creation, inseparable from society, who carries a significant portion of humanity’s load. Each person would be as important as cells and organs in our bodies, each working for the benefit of the whole body and looking out for each other in the process.
There are thus no redundant people. What is redundant is all the thinking put into restricting population growth. Instead of thinking about restricting the population, we should think about how we can guide our rapidly-growing population to a positively-connected society. By doing so, we would realize our ability to exercise our free choice and discover a new picture of reality above the one we currently perceive in the ego.
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Question: Children have a very developed sense of attachment. Suppose a child went to his grandmother’s for the summer, rested, got used to it, and when he leaves, it is like he is being torn away from this forever. But the older a person gets, the easier it is to break these ties.
And for someone who studies Kabbalah, on the contrary, the task is to build up connections as quickly as possible so as not to get stuck in spiritual work?
Answer: Yes, but to do it using what is called “this world.” For him, the whole picture of the universe, the whole system is one, he does not break it. There is nothing to give up, to break away from. It is such an amazing discovery when it all comes down to one single world. And there is nothing superfluous, everything mutually includes and mutually complements each other.
Comment: Moreover, people have different attitudes toward attachments. For example, you can remember the car you sold for a long time, or you can quickly sell it and forget it.
My Response: It does not depend on whether a person is more sentimental or less sentimental, thinks quickly or slowly, but on how much he is engaged in higher or lower things. If he is engaged in high things, then the importance of lower things for him disappears very quickly.
Let’s say he changed cars, changed apartments, but his head is still occupied with some higher problem.
I traveled a lot to different countries. Do you think when I was driving that I felt that I was somewhere? If they told me: “You need to go out to take a photo or a video,” so I went out, walked along the Champs Elysees, or filmed in Berlin near the Reichstag, or in Italy next to the fountains. That is, I did what I was told, and was not eager to see the sights.
And not because I am indifferent to these places, I really love architecture and paintings. I am a man of this world and once I was seriously interested in them. But if you are captured by a higher idea, then all these cities and countries spin like a globe.
I remember how, as a child, when I could not go anywhere, “abroad” seemed to me some kind of magical world, something unrealizable, extraterrestrial. I sometimes remember my childhood performances when we lived behind the Iron Curtain. It is a small pity that today I do not have that aspiration, desire, admiration. Everything is being suppressed by the higher levels I am at, by what interests me now.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Acceleration of Life” 10/27/12
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Question: It is natural for a person to share his grief or his worry with others, but is this not welcome in Kabbalah?
Answer: We should not share personal states because they are only yours and the Creator’s. If these states are only mine and the Creator’s, based on the root of my soul with Him, and yours is based on the root of your soul with Him, then we can simply harm each other.
Two souls cannot feed from the same point, they feed from two different points, each for itself. Therefore, in our world, it is impossible to openly consult and talk about our personal states, about how everyone progresses, how someone goes forward and reveals the Creator, the upper force, and the world. This is the same thing since the entire system of the universe in which we exist is called the Creator or nature.
In Kabbalah, it is not acceptable to share our inner states because each of us will confuse the other.
We can talk about family, children, and everything that exists in this world because these are all animalistic states at the animate level. In addition, it is possible to discuss, not our momentary states, but the general actions that each person should perform on the path to the Creator since there is a common methodology, theory, and practice of spiritual ascent and revelation of the Creator.
But I should not talk with anyone about my personal contact, and what state I am in with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call We Should Not Share our Grief with Others” 12/16/12
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Question: There is a parable in which a husband and wife move to live in a new apartment. Early one morning the wife looks out the window and sees a neighbor hanging laundry. She says to her husband: “Our neighbor is a very bad housewife. Look at how dirty her clothes are.” The husband does not pay attention and is silent. Every day she looks out the window, sees her neighbor and says, “Oh, what a slob!” Suddenly one day she looks out the window in the morning, and sees the neighbor hanging clean clothes. She says to her husband: “You see, this slob has finally learned how to wash.” “No,” says the husband, “I just got up early today and washed our window.”
This seems to be our whole life. We look at the world through our dirty window, and badmouth other people.
Please tell me why we don’t notice that the window is dirty, but instead we criticize others?
Answer: It is more enjoyable for us to see what is happening at the neighbors. That is why we don’t see what’s happening at our place.
Question: Am I afraid to look into myself?
Answer: You can’t.
Question: So I keep seeing that there is dirt everywhere else. And do I have to clean it?
Answer: Yes.
Question: At what point do we notice that the window is dirty? How will we be led to the fact that this is our dirty window?
Answer: If there is no husband, you won’t notice.
Comment: This is the root of all troubles and wars, and we want to change the world, and we want to change others. This little parable is our whole life.
My Response: Yes.
Question: Who do you call a husband in relation to us, for example?
Answer: Someone from the side, someone serious who is on the same level with you or even maybe a little higher who can point you to understand the reason the world is dirty; it is dirty in you.
Question: Who can do this? Who is the husband who will clear the window for us so we will see that it was all about us?
Answer: The husband is the one who can rise above the female essence.
Question: Are we the female essence? In general, is all of humanity a woman?
Answer: Women, yes.
Question: Can we say that we are a woman, and our husband is the Creator?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Which means until the Creator wipes the window and says “Look, it’s all about you!” will nothing move? Are we going to solve problems at the ground level, kill others, or torture and torment them?
Answer: Yes. And then we justify ourselves.
Comment: That’s a very pessimistic end to the story.
My Response: This is our whole history.
Comment: I have to see that it’s all about me. We talk about it all the time.
My Response: It doesn’t matter. Even if you were to see and hear, you still wouldn’t want to see it.
Question: Won’t I request it anyway? So where is this gear shift after all? Where? How?
Answer: It will come from above.
Question: The fact that this egoism is in me, does it prevent me from seeing others and that all the dirt, all this dirty laundry, is in me?
Answer: Yes.
Question: It can only be from above, you say. Why do you keep saying that you need to love your neighbor?
Answer: These are the commandments. We must do this in order to correspond with the laws of nature. How to do it? When we are convinced today that otherwise we will not withstand, that we will not survive, then what is left for us?
Question: So do we have to be on the verge of life and death? And then we will begin to understand that we need to treat each other with love?
Answer: You see how simple it is.
Question: But there is only one moment that we have to be brought to the edge; that is what is scary?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And what about our reason?
Answer: Reason will not help. We do not live by reason, but only by our feelings.
Question: Then the human boundary is not necessarily between life and death, is it? It may be emptiness; it may be depression or some kind of inner cry?
Answer: But this boundary is when one feels hopelessness. And then he begins to realize that it is all about him.
Question: Does the Creator give us this understanding?
Answer: Yes. Or if some group of humanity will take on watering everything with love, watering the whole humanity with love.
Question: Are you saying that we need an example?
Answer: Yes.
Question: The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam wrote about the last generation. These were his deathbed notes. After all the incomprehensible things he wrote in his Kabbalistic works, he suddenly wrote understandable notes called “The Last Generation.” There he wrote that a group of people should appear who will take on this law of “love your neighbor” and begin to live by it and spread it all over the world.
Do you think that this is not fiction or idealism?
Answer: Time does its own thing. I think that after all humanity will agree, out of desperation to accept this principle of a new life.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/9/23
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Question: How can the light affect people who do not study Kabbalah and are not in any way on the spiritual path?
Answer: The light will influence them based on the fact that they will be included in us and will quickly come to a sensation of the next degree of existence.
This is the core of our work with the world. They must know that there is a next level, and that is why we are suffering at the current level. The forces that compel us to rise to a new level affect us in such a way, and if we act in unison with them, we will be fine. Let’s start climbing with them, thank them, and use them correctly. This is the essence of the method of Kabbalah.
It tells us what to do: reach out to each other and work in unison with the forces that compel us to rise to the next degree.
Today humanity already sees that it is becoming global. There is nowhere to run. To go along with nature means to benefit oneself or it is to one’s own detriment. But people, like foolish children, don’t want to hear about it. And what will nature do? It will punish them until they obey. And that is why sufferings are ahead.
Comment: But according to your explanations, it is not their fault that they do not hear us.
My Response: Yes, and now it is because nature has already begun to clearly manifest itself in relation to humanity and to show it which direction is correct—the direction of unity, harmony, and a correct, kind, gentle attitude to oneself, to others, and to nature, the direction of reasonable consumption, integral upbringing, education, and so on. Nature shows all of this.
You can say, “But the same nature (Creator) has given us such egoism that man is unable to cope with his egoistic impulses. He doesn’t care about what nature offers him; he doesn’t want to do anything differently. What then can be demanded from a person?!”
From a person pretty much little can be demanded. This is indeed so. But a lot has to be demanded from Jews; pressure has to be applied to them, and it needs to be done correctly with understanding the essence of the pressure and pushing them to fulfill their mission.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Medicine From all Sickness” 10/27/12
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Question: Is it possible to say that the Creator plunged Himself into a state in which He perceives Himself as a creation?
Answer: No. All creations, in fact, are in one single, absolute, perfect state. In order for the creation to attain the Creator, it goes through all kinds of phases, which are called “exile,” so that they can attain from these phases of concealment, exile, and darkness the state they actually are in.
This can be compared to the way I deliberately make faces for my child as if I am angry, happy, suffering, or passionate about something in order to evoke all kinds of reactions in him, and he will begin to understand me better and develop.
Look at how many toys we invent, how many methods, not for the bodily development of children, but for their intellectual development. After all, if we did not do this, they would remain at the animate level as if they had been abandoned in a forest. How much humanity invests in kindergartens, schools, and education; this is a huge world!
All this is only in order to pull up a child who is born like a piece of meat, like an animal, and give him development. In just a few years, he goes through amazing revolutions inside himself and becomes a person who understands not what we understand, but more than that!
Can you imagine what is inherent in us from the very beginning?! What potential! All this is only thanks to the correct attitude to children.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who is the Creator?” 10/27/12
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Question: What is the difference between the method of Kabbalah and other methods? You say that in other methods there is no way to draw light.
Answer: It is not that they do not have the ability to draw light. If a person does not have a point in his heart, there is no basis for the development of his soul, so there is no way to prove or show something to him. He will not be able to discover by himself to know which method suits them and which does not. Therefore, people advance through trial and error.
We are constantly getting confused in this life, inventing something, believing that we exist in some kind of reality and for the sake of it. Then, if a point in the heart arises in someone, this person comes to Kabbalah and begins, from this point, to build a correct perception of reality in himself.
There are not many such people. To date, there are hundreds of thousands of them, maybe even a couple of million along with those who are interested and those who are on the periphery. But this is a very limited number of people.
All the others, who do not have the embryo of the real state, cannot develop it. They live like the billions of people in the feeling of this world that cannot really create a picture of the next level for themselves. They just exist in this world.
But what can they do? Gradually, under the influence of suffering, they will begin to feel their insufficiency and will join those who have a picture of the upper world. In this way, everyone will enter this picture because they will be connected by their desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference Between Kabbalah and Other Methods” 9/8/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are Israelis united enough?“
In order to unite, we need to annul our egos toward each other.
What are our egos? They are our self-aimed inclinations that make each of us consider ourselves the greatest, that there is no one like us. Such an egoistic approach obstructs our unity.
Our problem is that we unhealthily seek how to overpower each other instead of searching for closeness.
Our egos stand in the way of us building a true nation. We might prosper in many fields, but that is only due to the competition in our midst. However, there is no unity.
Unity is at the basis of nature, and of the Israeli nation, and today it is nonexistent here. Moreover, our lack of unity is our greatest threat because unity is what should support us. We thus become increasingly vulnerable to our enemies the more disunited we are.
Based on the video “Are Israelis United Enough?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: Scientists constantly come up with new medications that suppress diseases. Today many diseases are treated at the genetic level.
You say that diseases are an of expression of egoism. Where do the expressions of disease vanish to when they are treated?
Answer: They go inside and cause the next level of diseases or simply other pains because we have to correct everything at the moral level rather than genetic.
Question: Basically, today some people begin to hear that we have to unite the entire system in order to avoid diseases. What should happen in order for people to start hearing differently rather than poking around at the micro level?
Answer: For this to happen the light has to act upon them so they receive a special perception. Without this perception they will remain at the animal level. They have to obtain a different level of perception.
Just like a cat or a dog living next to you cannot understand you—it will be devoted to you, it will do everything it can, but only at its own level, it will not be able to rise to your level— so a person who has lived next to you for decades, even if he is kind and smart, with great abilities, will not understand you if he does not have this predisposition.
Even though this predisposition exists in everyone, it has not developed yet. In some people it reveals earlier, and in others later. But if the person does not have it yet, you cannot do anything. You have to wait patiently! Perhaps you can help in some way, you can speed him up in this direction, and you can try to include him without his knowledge into spiritual movements. It will help him expedite his development, but he will not be able to understand what Kabbalists sense and the world they exist in.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Medicine From all Sickness” 10/27/12
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Question: In the 60s and 70s of the last centuries, South Africa was considered one of the most heavenly places to live, and then it slipped to the level of general Africa.
My father was a marketing director of an English company and lived in South Africa for 14 years. At the end of the 80s, when he left there, he cried on the plane, because he understood that this heavenly place had come to an end: What had lasted for so long collapsed in a matter of days.
Most of the buildings built in the 70s, which were a symbol of independence, were expensive apartments that have become drug dens.
Is there anything we can learn from this?
Answer: Learn?! Humanity?! Never!
Where have you seen humanity learn anything at all? There is no more stupid creature than a human who does not learn from anything! He constantly needs to be driven forward with a stick, and he only thinks about how to dodge this stick.
If we could draw our caricature, we would depict a mischievous boy who is constantly looking around and searching for a place to run away to, and behind him, like in a Tom Sawyer story, his aunt runs after him with a big stick that she tries to smack him with, and sometimes gets him. This is us! This is us and Mother Nature.
Have we learned anything today?! Today we are more like barbarians than ever before. We take care of the body in a way that we have never taken care of it in history. We have plastic surgeries, transplants, and tattoos, we remove body parts, and whatever else we do!
Our ancestors would envy us. We have built such a cult of a body that has never existed before. Instead of rising above it and developing the spirit, look what we are doing! On television, they only show programs about food, how to cook and fry it, the Internet is filled only with sexual offers, and TV programs are about how to earn money somewhere, and so on.
If once the knowledge of literature, music, and arts was respected, today there is none of this! The degradation is complete! A person clearly shows another person that he is his enemy. This is considered right, good, and supposedly emphasizes your independence and self-sufficiency. What do we teach children at school?—To suppress the other. What are we teaching them in general?—Only to conquer, suppress, and grind down others.
Meanwhile, the means of confrontation are getting stronger. Today, we can easily “smooth out” each other and sweep them away from the surface of the Earth. Astronauts say in one voice that when they look at the Earth from afar, they have the impression of it as a fragile, very delicate balloon.
And we, who live here, are ready to tear and cut everything as if we have descended to some planet to conquer it, as if this is not our only home!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Black and White World” 11/13/12
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Question: You said that we are not corrected to the extent that we can perceive the writings of Kabbalists. Everything that comes out of their mouths comes from the Creator. Does this mean that a person in spirituality cannot be wrong?
Answer: Kabbalists express what they attain. What they attain is part of the upper universe.
Of course, they may also be wrong. After all, any attainment consists of several parts: a part that I clearly know, a part that I feel only at the moment and am in it now, and a part that shines before me, i.e., my attainment in the future.
Therefore, it is impossible to say 100% that I will not make a mistake. Just as in our world there are people who understand more or understand less and attain more in-depth or less.
Let us say that I am talking through a computer connection right now. What do I understand about it more than a couple of buttons? And there are people who know about all these modems, switching frequencies, providers, and so on. There are those who develop these technologies, and they are already sitting in the future.
It is the same in spirituality. It all depends on the size of a person’s soul. It shows how much he will be striving to go forward.
Comment: But you said that the Creator speaks through the mouth of Kabbalists. They do not have their own calculations when they talk.
My Response: Yes. This means that they have attained the qualities of the upper world and speak based on these qualities.
There is no Creator except what they have attained and exist within it. It is as if the Creator broadcasts to us through them, as if through a mouthpiece.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mouthpiece of the Creator” 11/9/12
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Comment: Often, when you listen to a lesson, your mind seems to be cancelled; there is no perception at the level of logic, and it is very difficult for you to grasp something. And then, when you listen to the same lesson again, everything becomes logical and clearly structured. The picture is beautiful.
My Response: It all depends on you. And for someone else, it may be the other way around. During the lesson everything was logical, harmonious, and clear, and in the afternoon, a person listened again and had confusion in his head, he did not take in anything.
Question: And how should it be?
Answer: Neither way! Everything is relative to a person. If you have the opportunity to arrange yourself for a lesson, that is, to prepare yourself internally for it, then you will perceive it correctly, and if not, then no.
It is just like with the upper world: if you have the opportunity to create it in you, then you create it, and if there is no such opportunity, then it simply does not exist. It is not there!
Therefore, everything is aimed at creating qualities in you that would correctly depict the spiritual. And outside of our qualities, there is absolutely nothing.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Nothing Exists” 10/3/12
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Listen to an Audio Version of the BlogDownload:MP3 Audio
https://cdn.kabbalahmedia.info/9d8iEJdl.mp3
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “On the Eve of Passover – No Sign of Unity”
Passover is the most festive of all the Jewish holidays. It is a celebration of freedom, when the people of Israel became liberated from the yoke of slavery in Egypt. Back then, the Hebrews united around Moses, and despite internal disagreements, maintained their unity. The reward for their insistence on staying together despite their disputes was not only their freedom, but the declaration of their peoplehood by God.
Today, on the eve of Passover, I am sad to say that we have none of the unity our ancestors had fought for; power struggles reign supreme, and everyone wants to be king. This is a recipe for inviting a modern-day Pharaoh to come and rule over us.
Israel has many enemies. Iran has sworn to destroy it, its proxy terror groups incessantly try to maim it, international movements such as BDS try to cripple its economy, and countries that pretend to be friendly finance anti-Israel movements. Yet, none of these entities pose an existential threat. The only existential threat to Israel is its social division.
Two thousand years ago, we lost our sovereignty due to baseless hatred of each other. For the past two millennia, we have not healed that hatred one bit. If anything, it has only intensified.
Therefore, before we begin to work on “improving” the political situation in Israel, we must understand what it is we must improve. Today, almost everyone takes sides in Israel’s political altercation. Everyone thinks that the country’s deterioration is the other side’s fault.
But the country is not deteriorating because of the Left or because of the Right, if we even know what these words mean today. The country is deteriorating because the Left hates the Right, and vice versa, the secular hate the religious, and the other way around, the rich despise the poor and the poor hate the rich, and the only winner in these—and countless other divisions in Israeli society—is hatred.
Back in Egypt, Pharaoh loved Joseph. He entrusted his entire kingdom in Joseph’s hands, and at that time, the people of Israel were happy in Egypt. When Joseph died, the Israelites became divided and wanted to disperse among the Egyptians. This is when “a new” Pharaoh, who did not know Joseph, arose and began to afflict Israel.
Division also caused the coming of Nebuchadnezzar, who sent Israel to the Babylonian exile. Internal hatred intensified even more during the time of the Second Temple, and brought upon us the Roman general Titus, who destroyed Jerusalem and exiled the relics of the people of Israel in Judah. Even before the onset of the Inquisition, Spanish Judaism experienced an extended period of growing disunity, and the same trend was visible before the rise of Hitler to power.
It is convenient to believe that our enemies appear without cause, but if we ever want to break the vicious circle of periodical expulsions and extinctions, we must begin to search our souls and find where and how we contribute to the empowerment of our haters. If we do so, we will find that our sages have been telling us since the inception of our nationhood that we empower our haters with our hatred of each other.
If we realize that Pharaoh is alive today, governing our hearts and pitching us against each other, enslaving us to his whims and making us think that we are working for ourselves, when in fact we are working for him, then we might choose to follow Moses, the voice of unity within us that says, “No matter how we feel about each other, we are one nation.” It is our choice whom to empower. If we keep empowering Pharaoh, our internal slavery to him will become an external destruction. If we empower Moses and choose unity above all else, our good future is guaranteed.
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Comment: Arkady writes: “Michael Laitman, you always talk about the heart—feel with your heart, understand with your heart, and hear with your heart. Everyone nods their heads and writes sublime comments, as if they understand. But it is not clear. Tell us, practically, what is a heart that hears, understands, and feels? Otherwise, it resembles philosophy that is completely devoid of life.”
My Response: A heart that understands is aware of everything, feels, and hears; these are connected hearts, nothing more.
Comment: But the human heart has different associations.
My Response: Remove everything preventing their connection with each other, and you will get this common heart.
Question: When you say “heart,” what do you mean? Do you mean desire?
Answer: Yes, desire. Not a pump.
Question: What should my desire become in order to connect with desires of others?
Answer: It could be a pump, when I pump others. I live in order to pump blood, to drive my blood through others. And so does each one through all others.
Question: When you say “blood,” what do you mean?
Answer: Life-giving fluid. This is life.
Question: And when you say “life,” what do you mean?
Answer: Life is a feeling of connection with everyone and the reason for living.
Question: What do we come to when we start living this way?
Answer: We rise above ourselves, live for others, and are connected all together, and then we understand the hearts of all.
Question: Then it will all be like one heart. Besides “heart” can we replace this word?
Answer: No. This is what we are used to and how it is said and written everywhere.
Question: Kabbalists write “heart.” Why the heart and not the mind?
Answer: It is responsible for life. This is where we feel fulfillment, compression, expansion. We live according to this rhythm.
Question: When I say, “My heart is in pain,” what do I mean?
Answer: It is actually shrinking; these are very serious nerve connections. That’s why a person feels more, less; it is the work of the heart. That is why it is so significant.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/9/23
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Comment: Your most successful students are those who are receptive to reprogramming. They easily part with a certain firmware and change to another.
My Response: Of course; it is very important.
If a person has such natural flexibility, which is not easy to achieve because we go through huge internal transformations; if he is capable of it, is waiting for it, and is in anticipation that it will happen to him often, then he moves forward.
It is like a drug, when you just lose your head and then recover again. The same happens here, only you no longer recover because both in the heart and in the mind there is a serious internal transformation, reconfiguration, and upgrade. But it is wonderful!
At first such a restructuring seems like a strong blow to the head, and then you feel it as something necessary to get closer to the next step. You have to grow up to it.
In this life for several years you go through such transformations that people go through only when they die and are born again. And you can go through it even every day!
Therefore it is said that Kabbalah accelerates and eases development, because it is very difficult to go through such a shake-up, such an internal restructuring, without a group and without studying. After all, normally in order to undergo at least some transformations during life, you need really terrible suffering: illness, death, and to be born again.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Confidants“ 10/6/12
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Question: Sometimes you lead the whole group into such states that the students feel it is necessary to make an effort to get out of them. Is this part of your job?
Answer: Of course. This is education! Why else do you need a teacher in Kabbalah? A teacher leads the students through all the most basic steps of entering the upper world, and then they will be able to go further themselves. In our world, we do exactly the same thing with our children; we see them through until they become adults.
Question: During this process, do you experience what you say, or do you just act so that the students feel it?
Answer: No, I experience everything with them. The thing is, I sympathize with them, and I empathize. For me, this empathy is much deeper than theirs. If they do not succeed in something, or something is difficult and incomprehensible for them, I experience it much more than they do. It seems that I am even smiling, but actually I am very worried internally. I am able to survive this because I understand both the entrance and exit from these states and their necessity.
Just like in our world, for example, a child with food poisoning needs to fast. He cries and wants to eat, and his parents suffer from this, but on the other hand, they know they cannot give him food, and they have to wait. Or, for example, they know it is necessary to treat their child’s sore with antiseptic and it will burn, but they do it anyway, and this is not a big deal.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Tyrant and Despot” 10/25/12
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Question: What happens to a person a moment before the Machsom when two systems are reversed within them?
Answer: There is complete detachment, the feeling of failure, utter hopelessness, and absolute powerlessness, the disappearance of any features, understanding, knowledge, and accumulated experience—just emptiness.
Comment: On the one hand, this is a state where you can easily move away from the usual things and your understanding of the world, but on the other hand, it is very painful to break away from what supposedly is my “I.”
My Response: No. The thing is, you already want it like a person who has suffered a lot before death and wants it. He understands that there is no life in his past qualities anymore, that everything that happened to him is necessary for him to reach the state where he wants to get rid of all of this himself and move on to the next view of the world through the qualities of bestowal and not through the qualities of reception.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Perfect Birth” 11/15/12
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Question: If I received a thought during the lesson that takes me away from spiritual actions, then what do I need to do internally in order to use it correctly?
Answer: Be grateful that you received the disturbance because there is no evil in the world; there is only good. It depends on how you look at this disturbance.
If you look at it correctly, then you will see that it is good. Every obstacle is placed before you. It is like how we set up some obstacles for small children as exercises.
We do not help him all the time; rather, we give him exercises with which, overcoming them physically, he becomes smarter, and more developed in feelings and in mind. We cannot develop his feelings or mind, so we give him all kinds of disturbances, and various sensations, and constantly bother him. That is how we are also being bothered. Therefore, you need to be thankful, because otherwise, you will remain a small animal.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Practical Kabbalah” 11/4/12
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Question: You often repeat: “Why don’t you ask?” But how should we ask? Everyone wants to, but no one understands what they want. Is it some kind of stupid state of hopelessness.
Answer: But why?! Because you do not sense whom to turn to. I understand your problems and I want to direct you correctly.
You do not know whom to turn to. If some kind of a statue were placed in front of you, you would be able to do it.
Once, when I was in Mexico, our bus stopped in a parking lot near a village. There was a statue of the Madonna at the crossroad.
There were many Mexicans among the passengers. People got off the bus. One lame Mexican with a wooden crutch, who had difficulty getting off the bus, approached the Madonna, kissed her, and began to pray. There was something for him to turn to, there was a specific image.
And there are no images in Kabbalah! To what should you turn? To your own corrected self!
Who is the Creator? The property of bestowal and love for others revealed by you.
Kabbalah turns you to yourself. It is impossible for us to understand it! In our minds, this is a terrible dualism, and we cannot do anything about it.
Therefore, Kabbalah is intended only for those who already have this dualism inside them: there is a heart and a point in the heart, i.e., a selfish desire and a germ of altruistic intention. With this, you can move forward and begin to adapt and develop it.
The heart develops, and a point in the heart grows. In other words, two opposite desires develop; there is a dipole that can exchange and grow.
And if there is only a single desire to enjoy, then we need to imagine someone from the outside, not within oneself, but one against the other, and establish one as higher and the other lower, as if this is a created being and this is the Creator.
All this is conditional; there is no creation and no Creator. There are two levels one against the other, and that is it.
And where are you? You are nobody. You exist between these two levels, what we call the middle point of Sefirat Tifferet, Klipat Noga. You exist at this point only in order to realize both levels between which you exist. This is how you develop.
But if there is only one earthly desire in a person, his life, his loved ones, and so on, then he needs some kind of external object to which he will pray, to which he will turn, and on which he will supposedly depend.
In principle, Kabbalah itself sets people up this way. It still comes from ancient Babylon, from Abraham, who gave everyone what they needed: the beginnings of all religions, the beginnings of all beliefs, and the beginnings of Kabbalah. In practice, this is a single knowledge only at different levels.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Important Prayer” 10/6/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What makes people right-wing and left-wing? How do people who have no political connections become left or right-wing?“
Nature consists of two forces: giving and receiving, plus and minus, positive and negative.
We each also host these forces within us. Existence itself requires that a plus has a minus next to it, and vice versa. Such a duality exists on all levels of our lives: material, psychological and spiritual.
As for political right-wing and left-wing inclinations, I would first stay clear of defining them as such because nowadays these terms have become so convoluted that people confuse one for the other.
In its origin, however, a left-wing inclination is more or less toward completion, connection and compromise, while a right-wing approach is its opposite: one of rejection, which defines borders, limitations and boundaries.
Generally speaking, a left-wing approach in its essence is “what’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours” while a right-wing approach in its essence is “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine.”
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Based on the video “The Nature of Right-Wing and Left-Wing Political Approaches” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
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Lesson on the Topic “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
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Selected Highlights
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It seems to us that we are correcting only our own soul. But in fact the soul of each person stretches between all souls. Therefore, when I correct my tiny part, through this I correct the integration of my particle in all souls.
Therefore we cannot say that a person corrects only his own soul. He corrects the entire creation, only to a very small extent that is included in the creation. Then he adds more corrections and more, and in the meantime, other people also correct themselves and their integration into this person.
It is about this that it is written: “They helped every one his friend,” which means that I correct myself in him and he corrects himself in me, and so we all correct everyone and become like one person with one heart.
Each person includes 600,000 souls, which themselves are also divided into 600,000, and those are also divided into 600,000, etc. It turns out that each of us is like Adam HaRishon, and when we all join together, we also become like one soul of Adam HaRishon. It is not the quantity that is taken into account here, but the depth of the feeling of unity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/28/23, “Connecting into One Soul”
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Question: Why do all children like to draw? What are these qualities and properties?
Answer: Drawing is an expression of one’s perception of the surrounding world because verbal means of attainment are not enough. Drawing is necessary for a person, it is the most ancient art. Since ancient times, people left cave carvings. After that, writing emerged. This is all about expressing yourself.
For example, there are many things within me that I cannot express other than through drawings. During lectures and lessons, I made thousands of drawings because they express much more than words. Drawing is the world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Does a Person Draw?” 11/29/12
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A person who understands the obstacles given to him, and sees them in exactly the correct and reasonable attitude of the upper governance toward him, feels completely different—he feels like a partner of the Creator.
Everything becomes simple and clear for him, and he only needs to grasp this thought, this feeling, and connection with the Creator and not let go. No matter what people say to him now, and no matter what is happening around him, within he is attuned to the Creator.
On the corporeal level, he is with everyone else, and this in no way should affect the connection with the Creator. On the contrary, one must understand that through others, at this level and in this plane, the Creator acts this way so that one does not break this connection.
He suddenly begins to see that the people around him are angels, that is, the guides of the Creator’s thoughts, His ideas, His governance, and they have no personal relationship to him; there are no personalities around him at all! It is just the Creator dressed in all kinds of objects that affect him in this way.
And through them, he begins to lock himself only to the Creator, and it turns out that the person reveals that there is none else besides Him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Practical Kabbalah” 11/4/12
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In religions everything is based on simple faith, and in Kabbalah it is based on attainment.
In Kabbalah, faith above reason is the revelation of the Creator in the light of Hassadim. Hasidism, however, took from this only the name “Hasidism.” But in the Kabbalistic understanding, they do not have faith.
Faith is the revelation of the quality of Bina. Their faith is when you close your eyes and say: “I believe.” But when you close your eyes, what can you believe if you do not see anything? In fact, faith is a vision, not a concealment.
Therefore, Kabbalah is a method of revealing the Creator to the created beings in our world. Revelation! It is the opposite of any Hasidism or anything else. Initially, in the 16th and 17th centuries, when Hasidism appeared, it really was a Kabbalistic trend. Today it is just constantly growing egoism that conceals the truth from a person.
However, another flip is taking place now. I hope that the unfolding sufferings, the unfolding new desires, the increasingly unfolding limitation of our existence, the beginning of the revelation of the meaning of life, and the possibility of overcoming all crises will all work together, and people will easily and slowly begin to come close to the method of revealing the Creator because without it, it will be very difficult for them to live.
This is what the Creator does, and we have to help Him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Global Puppeteer” 7/28/12
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Question: If you imagine the picture of the world in utter chaos, can some community that would live by completely different rules jump sharply out of these sufferings?
Answer: Yes, it could. But suffering will remain to the depth of egoism that exists.
Even if seven and a half billion of the world’s population die, the remaining half billion will go through enormous suffering because all the desires and all the qualities of those seven and a half billion will flow into them.
This remaining half billion will finish the correction, but in very severe agony because the suffering will not be distributed to eight billion. This is a terrible thing!
Imagine that there are only a thousand people around you and you have to absorb all their sores, all their negative qualities, everything that is in them, and live with it now. Your egoism will be a thousand times bigger, or even more, because it is cumulative, combined.
Imagine how many illnesses, sufferings, and blows you alone will have to feel, and your good desire will remain the same—one. These blows will eventually shake you, but not immediately because you will have to realize, feel, and decide for everyone that you cannot remain in this state.
Therefore, do not expect anything good. There will not be a better state in the future if we do not start improving it quickly ourselves. In a world where everything is interconnected, it cannot be otherwise. The interconnection is such that you cannot escape.
Question: So will even those seven and a half billion suffer and leave this state?
Answer: They will suffer within you. This is called Hitkalelut Neshamot, connection of souls. They will not go anywhere, but they will be so integrated into each of us that everyone will have a larger soul.
Therefore, at the time there was a need for the shattering of souls, for their multiplication. Where does the demography come from? On the basis of what it jumps up and down in different countries throughout history? It is precisely because egoism is growing and you need to somehow cope with it.
Adam alone could not correct it. Therefore, it had to be divided into eight billion parts.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Will Humanity Die Out” 10/20/12
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Question: Five of the largest universities studying world problems stated at the same time that the risk of using nuclear weapons in the world had reached the highest level since the Cold War.
All the countries that possess nuclear weapons continue to increase and modernize them and do not even think to negotiate or to talk about peace or reducing nuclear weapons. It was heard here and there before, but now no one talks about it at all. It seems that the number of nuclear warheads in the world has begun to increase for the first time since the Cold War.
In the past we talked and agreed, in the 70s and 80s we heard it all the time, but now it’s as if it’s been cut off. Did we realize the truth that we will not agree?
Answer: Yes. Today the world is so diverse and so selfish that no matter whom you negotiate with, it is useless because there are 20 other countries that have nuclear weapons that are opposed to your agreement with someone else and are not going to negotiate with anyone.
I think all the speculation about this will not yield anything.
Nothing will help! Everyone will hold on to their nuclear club, we will not trust anyone, and so we will exist from day to day, and so on.
Question: What is the way out of this?
Answer: This is the way out.
Question: The way out is to exist like this? Everyone holds a stick and exists this way?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So you see that the countries will increase their nuclear weapons even further?
Answer: Sure. So what? The bludgeon will no longer be 100 kilotons, but one million kilotons, and more and more.
Question: Now Iran will have nuclear weapons and someone else will also. And will everyone have nuclear weapons? Will we continue to live like this?
Answer: Of course.
Question: For how long? Until what state?
Answer: I don’t think it is going to collapse. It will be increasing all the time.
Question: Is there any way out of this situation?
Answer: Will we find a way out? Or will everything blow up?
Comment: And some two unfortunate people will start giving birth and reproducing again.
My Response: Yes. That’s it and nothing else, or there is the revelation of the Kabbalistic method of getting rid of egoism and the destruction of any egoistic weapon as a consequence.
Question: This is the alternative that Kabbalists offer. And they say that it will happen, that one way or another we will come to this. Even through wars will we come to this?
Answer: Yes, it will happen.
Comment: So you have only one conclusion: look at egoism and only to work with it.
My Response: It is eternal; there is no getting away from it. It can only be corrected within something, but it does not disappear by itself.
Question: That’s reasonable. What you say is logically clear, that we create all this with our pride and our egoism. Why don’t we hear that this is the way out?
Answer: No, people may agree with you, but they will say, “This is unrealistic.” And they will be absolutely right.
Question: When does it become real?
Answer: We need to tell all people about this. And then we will bring this state closer. But how it will develop and reveal to people that it is really possible to get rid of egoism as a universal, central evil, we need to move toward nevertheless. We must advertise and expand this education and upbringing.
Question: How does it feel for you to live with this awareness, to continue working, to continue disseminating?
Answer: It feels normal. I know that I will die tomorrow and the world will continue to exist. And a lot of people will think like me and try to do something until it eventually works out. Everything flows.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/16/22
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Comment: Many of us are by no means beginners in Kabbalah study, but are still like small children who are trying to understand how to address the Creator correctly, and just cannot come to it.
My Response: For thousands of years, millions of people in the world have been moving toward this like little children. But some of them grow, develop, become smart, and different from those children who, although still young in body, are dead in spirit.
This is an internal search, and it is wonderful! We cannot measure and see from the outside how hundreds of people gather together and rush to exit our world, our level of values, and our petty desires and intentions that are aimed only at surviving well for a minute, and the next minute, and the next. And that is it. It is such an amoebic existence. After all, what is such a huge organism with its potential doing? This is such a waste of resources! How can this be?!
And we have thousands of people who are thinking: “How can we rise above this amoebic state?”
Humanity is performing the simplest operation on itself of how to slightly move into a more comfortable state every moment of time. People move like amoebas, as if they are in some kind of solution: I feel a little bit better like this, I feel a little bit better like that, and that’s it.
But while studying Kabbalah, people try to rise, rebuild their program, and leave their body at the earthly level. Let it continue to exist in this solution, but you need to raise yourself and create within us another level of consciousness, perception, and existence that does not depend on the body. From your point in the heart, like from a drop of semen, you give birth to a new self—a Human! It is to be born through a small passage so that this drop passes through a small hole and starts its birth and development on the other side of the barrier.
Isn’t that wonderful?! Isn’t it worth the effort? Mind you, these efforts are definitely not in vain! Why remain in the amoebic state if there is the possibility of being reborn? It does not matter what happens! Even if nothing works! It’s just that we can’t waste ourselves on staying in this state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Important Prayer” 10/6/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “On which factor, does our future actually depend?“
Our future depends on understanding who we are, where we are, where we are headed, and how we can align ourselves with the laws guiding our development. When we do so, we will find ourselves living in a harmonious and peaceful world.
Until the 21st century, we evolved according to the egoistic drives that grew within us. Today, the human ego has reached it apex, and accordingly we now have an opening to exercise free choice in our further development.
What is our free choice? It is our ability to rise above our egoistic nature.
Rising above our ego is our only free action because everything else we do, which stems from our egoistic drives, functions according to an involuntary program that constantly makes us move toward self-aimed pleasures. Therefore, when we can rise above self-interest, thinking and acting for the benefit of others, we perform an action that is outside our entire egoistic nature. In this free act, we picture no pleasure in a self-aimed direction, wishing instead for all goodness to redirect to others.
If we realize our free choice, we will rise to a new nature with a new perception and sensation of life that is eternal and perfect.
The laws of nature will unfold whether or not we exercise our free choice. However, without our participation in this transition, we will experience life as increasingly bitter and painful. Our egoistic desires can never be fulfilled. The more they fall short of the pleasures they constantly seek, the more we will find ourselves becoming entangled in a growing web of problems.
Our ability for free choice is what separates us from animals and all other parts of nature. It is for this reason that Kabbalists say that the whole of reality was created for man: We are nature’s sole intelligent creatures that are capable of rising above our inborn egoistic state and aligning ourselves with nature’s laws—laws of love, giving and connection.
We have an immense transition ahead of us, and an even more amazing goal. Our current state requires us to seek answers to new and greater challenges that we encounter as we head into the future. It is indeed a positive situation that I relate to with much hope, not with anxiety.
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Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
“Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt.” We go through two states: a period of descent and a period of ascent. The descent comes first because this is the time of the revelation of the evil inclination, of all egoistic qualities, and our separation. This is why we will have something to correct later.
First, we plunge into our egoism, and then we correct it and plunge into even greater egoism, and correct it again. Thus, step by step we are getting closer to a complete correction.
We must remember all this—the fact that the Creator does everything. There is none else besides Him! He gives us an evil inclination and He gives us a good inclination, and controls the entire process of correction, changing us state by state. There is nothing that does not come from Him.
We need to cling to the Creator, as a baby clings to the mother, sitting in her arms, and then he is calm and not afraid of anything. We also need to hold on tightly to the ten, within which there is the force of the Creator because it connects. This is how we will move forward.
Nothing happens in order to cause harm; everything is just in order for us to hold on to each other and the Creator more and more tightly. Therefore, we must remember that everything comes from one upper force to help us to grow more and more. There is no evil, everything is for the good.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/23, “Pesach (Passover)”
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Comment: You say that now is the perfect time for correction. In the future, this will be increasingly more difficult to implement.
My Response: Of course. From the moment we had the opportunity for correction, we were given the go-ahead. First, it happened in the 16th century, in the time of Ari, and then at the beginning of the last century. But at least today, when the external crises are growing all over the world, procrastination leads only to bad conditions. There will be no better conditions.
Question: “Better” in terms of egoism?
Answer: No, in feelings. In our feelings it will only get worse. Not because I speak like an evil prophet, but because this is the purpose of creation, this is its plan—to bring us to the next state by hook or by crook. Therefore, we will be beaten until we want to correct ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Will Humanity Die Out” 10/22/12
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The whole reality hints to us how unattainable it is. It simply does not exist. Everything is in our imagination, like in a dream.
If we could put in the correct spiritual filter, we would see that there is nothing whatsoever except for some clumps of lower consciousness within a person.
There are movies that show sleeping people, placed in transparent capsules, who are flying in spaceships toward other worlds. They were intentionally put to sleep, placed in some solution, and they are dangling in this formalin connected to some tubes. But even this does not exist in our world.
If we put a filter on all our sensations that would filter out all our inner fluctuations and depictions and would keep only something that really exists beyond our attitude in relation to it, we would receive absolute darkness.
After all, everything we perceive, i.e., inanimate, vegetative, and animate states, are called preliminary sensations that are given to us to enable us to come out to the level of true reality.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Break Away from Everything Earthly!” 10/16/12
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In the material world we are inside a cocoon we have created. Our whole life today passes like in a science fiction movie in which astronauts are put to sleep to be sent to distant stars.
So, we feel ourselves sleeping in this life and acting automatically. The only thing that is turned on in us is a searchlight that directs us to the goal.
This is what we live for.
If a person is set on revealing the upper world and he has a special unearthly goal, it should captivate him. He should feel as if he is flying in a spaceship, feel like he is passing thousands of parsecs of distances every day, and live in accordance with this.
And the rest of life is just a necessary escort. Earth, space, and our world is like a spaceship, a kind of a capsule.
Actually, the Earth is quite small. It is just the way we look at it. If you go to another dimension and look at our world, then it is one small black point relative to the next, upper world. We gradually begin to understand this and together with this point, without leaving it, we rise to the next dimension, to the next world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Confidants“ 10/6/12
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Comment: Going through “The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” we study how the whole system, individual worlds, etc. are built.
My Response: In fact, nothing is built! There are no worlds, no Sefirot, no Partzufim, there are no degrees at all.
What does “there are” mean if I do not feel them? In Kabbalah, we are talking only about a person who reveals them himself, creates them in himself.
It is the same with what you are feeling right now. For you, this world exists as perceived by you, there is some person sitting in it far away from the place where you live talking to you, you imagine all this. It is created in you, it is not outside of you, but in you, in all your visions.
Question: And then how did I come to this if I perceive it this way?
Answer: This perception arose in your so-called animate state. For some time some pictures go through your mind, which you call “my life in this world.” That is it. After a while they disappear, and that is all—life ends.
Kabbalistic sources say that everything exists only relative to the person who attains it. In fact, nothing exists by itself. I cannot say that I am sleeping now or I am going to die, or something else will happen and everything else will remain in existence.
There will be nothing left! There is no such thing! Nothing exists outside of me! I perceive everything only in me.
Kabbalah has instructions for how to create an eternal, infinite, perfect reality inside you, how to achieve it, and make it true.
But this is unprovable to people who have not gone through this. It seems to them that what they feel is the true reality.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah and Other Methods” 9/8/12
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Question: Do you have states that do not allow you to mentally break away from the corporeal level?
Answer: No, unless there is a wish from above to confuse me in something. Then all of a sudden, I receive some thoughts, all kinds of worries about loved ones or something else. This shows me that here I have not yet finished my work, here I have not yet pulled myself up, and so on.
Question: How do you handle this?
Answer: Let’s say you’re sitting in my class, and a couple of hundred other people are sitting beside us. Together we study the methods of elevating a person, his correction, the problems of our world regarding the next degree, how we should perform some actions, and so on, and suddenly you have some thoughts about your loved ones or distant ones, or about your debts in the bank; it doesn’t matter what or how.
You must understand that all this is in order to sharpen your studies now so that you are more clearly connected with them, that it is in the form in which all these disturbances are being sent to you now that you must strengthen your ties with the upper world.
This is how it will be all the time. That is, as soon as you wake up in the morning and establish a connection with the source in the first second, from this minute onward you should only develop your connection with Him and see all the disturbances as means of strengthening the connection. This is how we need to tune in and look at the disturbances!
Otherwise, you will remain a small child, you will remain in a bad connection with the Creator, with the upper force! You must advance with the help of these disturbances and rise above them! In any case, do not annul them or throw them away! Of course, it is a whole science of how to use disturbances, but that is what they exist for.
Thus, if you can hold out like this for at least a few hours every day, I guarantee you, in a week I will already be talking to an angel.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Practical Kabbalah” 11/4/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the meaning of Deuteronomy 5:15 where it writes, ‘Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there’?“
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the state of slavery in Egypt means that we are under the complete control of the desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, or in other words, the human ego.
From such a state, we embark on an inner journey to correct our desire so that we enjoy not egoistically, i.e. for the sake of self-benefit alone, but for the benefit of others and the Creator, which is an opposite desire to ours—to give, love and positively connect.
This inversion of our intention is considered a correction of our nature, and it is described in the Torah as us exiting Egypt and entering the Land of Israel.
This correction of our ego from prioritizing self-benefit to prioritizing the benefit of others and nature describes the spiritual path we undergo until our final eternal and perfect state, called “the end of correction” (Heb. “Gmar Tikkun”).
At every stage of this spiritual path, we need to exit our ego called “Egypt,” and gradually start revealing the force of love and bestowal in nature called “the Creator.” Doing so leads us to great joy and a major surprise that the Creator prepared for us.
Therefore, our need to remember that we were slaves in Egypt means that we were in the desire to enjoy for ourselves alone, which completely controlled us, and that the Creator brought us out from our self-aimed desire. We needed to feel that we could not exit our egoistic desire other than by connecting to one another and reaching a sincere mutual request—a prayer—to exit our ego. We were then granted access to a new nature of love, giving and positive connection with others through which we discovered a harmonious, peaceful and joyous reality.
This feeling is very special because a part of it penetrates our desire to enjoy, and another part resists our desire. With this contrast inside, we can then scrutinize the forces that operate on our egoistic nature, whether and how much we can exit the control of those forces, and how the upper force—the Creator—grants us that special ability.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 27, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash.xt
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The New Refuseniks”
In the early 1970s, when I first asked for permission to immigrate to Israel, the Soviet authorities denied my request. In those days, I was not alone. Many soviet Jews who sought to leave the Soviet Union were refused and became what we now know as “refuseniks.” Even though I was denied, I kept hoping. After several years, I was finally given permission to make Aliyah [immigrate to Israel].
I paid a heavy price to come here—money, career, family—and came to Israel penniless with a wife and newborn son to feed. I did this because I believed that Jews should live here, and I wanted to contribute my share to the revival of the Jewish people in their homeland.
I served in the army, and then worked for the Israeli air force as part of a team that calibrated navigation and stability systems of fighter jets. I knew that if I did not do my job right, I would risk the pilot’s life. I treated my job as a sacred duty and would not dare slight any aspect of it or allow myself any kind of negligence.
These days, a new kind of refuseniks has emerged. The new refuseniks are not denied anything. They are not refused; they are refusing. Many of them are Israeli air force pilots who declared that they refuse to partake in training or in military action until the government withdraws from its intention to overhaul the Israeli judicial system. They declare that they are doing this in the name of democracy, but their ultimatum attempts to force their opinion, a minority opinion, on the democratically elected government. Indeed, with each passing day, the true nature of our “democracy” is surfacing.
We should not be surprised. After all, we are the people of Israel, the obstinate nation where each member feels that they should be the prime minister. It is true that as we are approaching crucial times in the history of humanity, the people of Israel will have a special role and each member of the nation will have to function like a prime minister, but it will not be in the sense that we are absolute leaders and everyone obeys our orders. On the contrary, it will be by setting an example of kindness and love of others above all the differences. The current attitude, where anyone who thinks a little differently from me is my sworn enemy, is the exact opposite of how we should behave toward each other.
Worse yet, as time passes, we are growing increasingly vicious toward others. Our nation has a history of self-inflicted trauma. We do not need to go back to the days of the ruin of the Second Temple, when a ruthless civil war destroyed the city of Jerusalem and prepared the ground for the Romans’ takeover of the land. It is enough to look back at the days preceding, and during Israel’s war of independence, when Jews told on other Jews to the British authorities and got them hanged, or when Jews fought Jews over possession of arms that came on board the ship Altalena, resulting in multiple casualties by drowning and by gunfire, shot by other Jews, and the sinking of the ship with most of its badly needed weapons and munitions still on board. It was a classic case of Jewish egocentrism: Either I win, or no one wins.
The current struggle is no different. It is not about a judicial reform; it is about power. When we are willing to destroy our country if we are not in power, this is what will happen. We will sink the country just like Altalena sank. And just as with Altalena, the few survivors will blame each other for our destruction.
At the moment, the only way I see to reverse the trajectory of mutual destruction is through the world’s pressure. If the nations hate the Jewish state with sufficient ferocity, it may just be enough to force us to unite. But even then, we will remain united only while we are under threat. The minute the threat is gone, so will our unity.
Of course, we could unite of our own volition and resolve that nurturing solidarity is preferable to a pointless struggle to the death, but at the moment, I do not see that Israelis are even looking in that direction, they feel too entitled, and are too proud being refuseniks.
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My article in Newsmax: “Netanyahu Will Achieve Nothing With Appeasement”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to pause judicial reform in order to give time for negotiation with its opposers will achieve nothing. The struggle is not about this or that law, or about how to appoint judges to Israel’s Supreme Court.
The struggle is about power and control, and when it comes to power struggles, there is no room for compromise. As several leaders of the protest have stated, as well as major media outlets, the resistance will not stop until they are in power and Netanyahu is behind bars.
It is to be expected that there will be disagreements and struggles between the coalition and the opposition. In fact, there are power struggles even within the coalition, and divisions into Right, Left, and numerous other kinds of disagreements.
We should not expect anything else when every politician wants nothing but personal promotion and does not care about the country, or even about one’s party. All we can and should expect is constant power struggles.
In light of such self-centered motivations, I cannot take sides and decide which side is right. Nevertheless, it pains me to see what is happening in my country. People often ask me about my position. I express my position in my lessons, but it is not political.
My position is that we have no choice but to connect above our differences. We will not feel any closer to each other, but at some point, we will realize that despite our mutual aversion, we have no choice but to learn to function like a united family.
As long as each side’s motivation stems from narrow, partisan interests, neither side can be right. The only thing that is “right” is unity; everything else is inherently wrong.
Regrettably, we are not only far from this perspective, we are growing further away from it by the hour. In the current situation, when political leaders and media outlets push for violence, I think that bloodshed is highly likely. I would not be surprised to see gunfire and casualties as a result of the political upheaval.
At the same time, I do not think that a full-blown civil war is imminent in Israel. Despite organized efforts by interested parties and governments to pitch Israelis against each other, I think that Israeli society is not going in that direction, at least not yet.
Even though I am pessimistic about the outcome of the current negotiation, I think it is good that we are talking. Talking is always preferable to fighting.
However, if the parties want to make the discussions productive, they must first admit that the struggle is not about laws, but about power. Regrettably, since the establishment of the State of Israel, I have never seen a real discussion and openness regarding how to share or manage power.
In all likelihood, we will continue to struggle until we face annihilation. Only then, perhaps, we will realize that we are governed by our own wickedness, and we will resolve to change our nature.
But to get there, I am afraid we will have to experience despair, anxiety, and a physical threat of destruction. We always have been an obstinate people, and we always will be. We are in for a rough ride; I only hope we wise up before we crash.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Debate Is Not about Laws, It Is about Control”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to pause the judicial reform in order to give time for negotiation with its opposers will achieve nothing. The struggle is not about this or that law, or about how to appoint judges to Israel’s Supreme Court. The struggle is about power and control, and when it comes to power struggles, there is no room for compromise. As several leaders of the protest have stated, as well as major media outlets, the resistance will not stop until they are in power and Netanyahu is behind bars.
It is to be expected that there will be disagreements and struggles between the coalition and the opposition. In fact, there are power struggles even within the coalition, and divisions into Right, Left, and numerous other kinds of disagreements. We should not expect anything else when every politician wants nothing but personal promotion and does not care about the country, or even about one’s party. All we can and should expect is constant power struggles.
In light of such self-centered motivations, I cannot take sides and decide which side is right. Nevertheless, it pains me to see what is happening in my country. People often ask me about my position. I express my position in my lessons, but it is not political.
My position is that we have no choice but to connect above our differences. We will not feel any closer to each other, but at some point, we will realize that despite our mutual aversion, we have no choice but to learn to function like a united family. As long as each side’s motivation stems from narrow, partisan interests, neither side can be right. The only thing that is “right” is unity; everything else is inherently wrong.
Regrettably, we are not only far from this perspective, we are growing further away from it by the hour. In the current situation, when political leaders and media outlets push for violence, I think that bloodshed is highly likely. I would not be surprised to see gunfire and casualties as a result of the political upheaval.
At the same time, I do not think that a full-blown civil war is imminent in Israel. Despite organized efforts by interested parties and governments to pitch Israelis against each other, I think that Israeli society is not going in that direction, at least not yet.
Even though I am pessimistic about the outcome of the current negotiation, I think it is good that we are talking. Talking is always preferable to fighting.
However, if the parties want to make the discussions productive, they must first admit that the struggle is not about laws, but about power. Regrettably, since the establishment of the State of Israel, I have never seen a real discussion and openness regarding how to share or manage power.
In all likelihood, we will continue to struggle until we face annihilation. Only then, perhaps, we will realize that we are governed by our own wickedness, and we will resolve to change our nature.
But to get there, I am afraid we will have to experience despair, anxiety, and a physical threat of destruction. We always have been an obstinate people, and we always will be. We are in for a rough ride; I only hope we wise up before we crash.
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Comment: You have students who constantly sleep in class.
My Response: When I was studying with Rabash, we also had a student who worked very hard at a construction site and he fell asleep all the time in class. He was never late, he came at exactly three o’clock in the morning, sat down, and slept. This continued for seven or eight years until the death of our teacher. And Rabash didn’t say a word to him.
Question: If he was sleeping, then nothing happened to him?
Answer: No, it happened because he made his efforts—he came!
By the way, he was a hard worker by his physical constitution. It was hard for him to work internally, with his head. He did not understand anything either in studies or in spiritual work, but he had a desire, he wanted, and no one had any complaints about him. He was in everything with us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Light Lulls the Body” 10/20/12
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Question: We live in turbulent times, after all. We look back and we see pandemic and war. We have also had powerful earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. I will not even mention the death toll because it is growing rapidly. Every day they add two or three thousand unfortunate, dead people. It is also very cold there. The cold weather hit exactly at the same time. Now, probably, it is almost impossible to find people who are still alive.
When there are wars between people, then, in principle, it may be possible to come to some kind of agreement at some point when the forces are exhausted. But when war is declared by nature, what is there to do?
We are such little bugs! We have developed science and technology, but we cannot foresee what is happening. What is going on there is hell! The war that nature has declared on us, what should we do with it? How can we work with this?
Answer: I think there is nothing we can do. Nothing!
The Torah says that if you do the right thing, according to your conscience, and so on, then everything will be fine. The Creator—Nature (in gematria “Teva”) will treat you normally, and everything will be fine. You will get the sun in time, the rain in time. In general, everything will be alright. But this is on condition that you will be good.
Question: You said that Nature—”Nature” with a capital letter—is equivalent to the concept of the Creator. The gematria of these two words in Hebrew is the same. That is, we are talking about the Creator, right?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: You also say that if we are good to the Creator, then He will be good to us.
My Response: Naturally. Fulfill His commandments and you will see how He treats you absolutely in the same way! The commandments are the laws of nature.
The laws of nature are not physics, mathematics, and so on, which we know from science. The laws of nature are those that relate to the level of a person’s attitude to the world. That is, it is the relationship of people with each other, the relationship of a person with inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature. This is a person’s attitude to the universe, to the cosmos, to everything. All of this means the attitude of a person to the Creator.
In general, it should be just love, a correct and warm attitude to everything that is outside of you. To everything outside of you.
Comment: That is, I have a love for myself, there is no getting away from it.
My Response: This is your egoism.
Question: Are you saying that I do not have it for the other and for what is outside of me?
Answer: No, of course not.
Question: Or is it insufficient?
Answer: No! It does not exist.
Question: How can I exit myself and start loving something around me? Are there any steps that a person should take? We are now talking, in principle, about how to resist or how to stop this entire war that nature has declared against us. If possible, give specific advice. How can I exit myself and start loving something outside of myself?
Answer: This is “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the most important and general commandment of the entire Torah.
Question: When you say “neighbor,” do you mean only a person who is close to me?
Answer: In general, in principle, this is an attitude to everything around you. You must develop this love in yourself and start giving it. Moreover, not just by calculation: this I love a little more, this a little less, and so on. Love! To love is when your heart tells you what your attitude should be.
Comment: The topic of the heart is also not very clear to us.
My Response: We need to work on it. This is not just to flip some switch. This is a whole process to love someone outside of yourself.
Question: What does it mean to love?
Answer: To love means to treat another as yourself. What could be simpler?
Comment: That is for sure. But we cannot make this step.
My Response: No. We do not even understand how.
Question: How to make it then?
Answer: I do not know. We need to just watch some movie first, about how a person loves himself so that I can learn from this how I should love others.
Question: Do you mean, kind of to copy it?
Answer: Yes. Go on, show me in some movie about how much I love myself, without any exceptions. Then I will see from here how I should love others. So that I always have this example.
Comment: So, I live all the time to receive something sweet, good, warm, kind, and cordial, I want everyone to treat me like this.
My Response: Mainly, to be right all the time.
Question: You are right here, yes. Do I suddenly have to give it up and say, “You are right”?
Answer: Yes.
Question: This is a serious job. Will nature calm down then?
Answer: Of course, it will calm down! Because you, the most important instigator of all this negative process, will simply remove yourself from the picture. Nature corrects us and leads us to this very decision.
And nature reacts to this. It has given the human this world, this Earth, at his mercy. Do whatever you want.
Comment: But, in principle, it is giving and bestowing.
My Response: It is giving and bestowing to the extent that you are giving and bestowing.
Comment: You put an equal sign here; if I am the same as it, everything will be fine.
My Response: A person must come to the similarity with the Creator. This is why nature is not giving up here.
Question: If we reduce everything to a short sentence, then it turns out that we must be similar to the Creator and that is it. Just how to do it?! Will it not rest until we come to that?
Answer: No! It is said about this: “Rise to the level of the Creator.”
Comment: Do you know that seismologists are already predicting that it will not stop, but will continue to shake us more and more? There is something going on with the core, something with the Earth. I will not go into the technical details. But they say it will continue to shake and there will be more and more places where it will be seriously shaking. That is what they say.
My Response: It is as if the Creator is playing with our Earth as with a ball.
Question: Is this, as you say, until we make this decision and begin to move toward the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Do we just need to make this decision? Is that all that is required of us?
Answer: But we need to agree! To accept means to agree. This is not like at a meeting—we accepted this unanimously and went home. There should be unanimous agreement here, of all people to live according to the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Question: Can we say that all 613, or even 620 commandments are included in this one commandment?
Answer: Of course.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/9/23
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Kabbalists do not enter into a trance like psychics and do not delve into themselves in some kind of ecstasy, like other sorts of mystics from ancient times to our time.
Since they have a screen, they consciously, with reason, with feeling, they clearly and calmly exist not only in the external layer of information and forces, but also in the inner one where all events are organized and decisions are made because in their movement they walk the middle line.
The right and left lines are bestowing and receiving, but they are always in the middle line, like at the equilibrium point of the arm of scales, which is why it is called the tongue of the scales. Being constantly in the middle line, Kabbalists always make precise calculations so that the measure of their attainment and the screen are balanced all the time.
Their advancement lies in the fact that, just as egoism is constantly increasing, the screen must also increase. In this way, they move as if on two legs.
Therefore, they have clear and controlled movement. We know that when a tunnel is being built, a shield moves ahead, cuts off the layers of soil, one by one, throws them out, and goes forward. Similarly, so do the Kabbalists.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/1?
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When we reprogram ourselves from reception to bestowal, a completely new system is built. We begin to take into account others: their desires, intentions, and thoughts. They become more important to you than yourself because they are an object that you want to fill, and you view yourself as only an instrument of filling them.
At the same time, you must reach a state where you enjoy filling them, and doing it above the huge egoism and hatred that is revealed between you; meaning, you build love over hate.
And all this should happen consciously, actually, when you are making great efforts to change yourself internally, to create completely different values in yourself, the values of bestowal and love, specifically above hatred.
As a rule, you are indifferent to our world and you find it disgusting. There are several people for whom you have a heartfelt feeling and there are several others for whom you have a pleasant feeling, only because you use them for your egoism. And your attitude to everyone else is as follows, from indifference to neglect and petty, everyday hatred of our world.
When you are engaged in spiritual transformation, you will not feel your neighbor as a loved one. No! You will constantly reveal that this is your hater and always have to build a connection above the degrees of hatred and rejection. 125 degrees is the thickness of your egoism, which will grow all the time, and over them you need to constantly create absolutely complete connection and love.
Love is when all the desires and aspirations of a neighbor, everything that he wants, you supply to him with all your heart, despite the disgusting attitude burning in you toward him. In our world, these are incredible opportunities that a person must find and begin to display toward others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Man Without a Soul” 10/6/12
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Question: Before you started studying Kabbalah, did you have a predisposition to it?
Answer: Yes, I did. I have felt absolutely dissatisfied all of my life. I was not satisfied with this reality in any way.
I had questions about why I was born and why I existed, although I had everything in abundance. I grew up in a decent, intelligent family. Any education, whatever one needs, I could have it all: any children’s clubs, books, no problem. Yet, I was interested only in finding answers.
Question: Usually young people live by certain interests. When they turn thirty, there is a turning point. Therefore, they very often come to Kabbalah after thirty. Did you also come to Rabash at this age?
Answer: I would have come earlier, of course! I think around 13 to 14 years old because my studies at school, at the university, and everywhere were just attempts to find something, otherwise I would not have had the strength to study.
I was lazy and jumped from one thing to the other. Nothing attracted me! I could not bring myself to do unnecessary things. It was very hard. Although, if something is important to me, then the concept of laziness disappears altogether. But this is like everyone else. The most important thing is the importance of what you do.
Comment: On the other hand, thanks to this, you have experienced certain facets of life.
My Response: Only based on a feeling of deep dissatisfaction.
[310401]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Break Away from Everything Earthly!” 10/16/12
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Comment: In principle, a Kabbalah lesson is perceived by us in conceptual apparatus. But you keep saying that this leads us away from the correct understanding because the perception of the mind does not give anything and we need to break away from the images.
My Response: Yes! Because the main thing for us is to develop sensory perception, to feel what we lack.
Our mind is secondary, it develops in accordance with sensations. If I did not have one of the organs of perception, then, accordingly, the brain would not work with it.
If I did not have all the organs of perception, then the brain would not work with anything at all. It would not exist. It would be in the form of a rudimentary, point-like state. From what, then, could it develop? Imagine, if there were no sensory organs, then there is no brain.
Thus, a person has only a theoretical possibility of starting to develop. Some kind of impetus is needed to give a person direction in the development of one’s feelings, and then in the development of his mind. This initial state is called “point in the heart” or “Reshimo” (record, informational gene).
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Nothing Exists!” 10/3/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the actual meaning of freedom, in one sentence?“
Freedom means that you overcome your egoistic nature—the desire to receive pleasure—and by doing so, come closer to the altruistic laws of nature.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on March 29, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: Do psychics and everyone trying to find out the future see it from their uncorrected perception and sort of lay it out on a timeline?
Answer: Psychics, as a rule, also have certain conditions, prohibitions, internal barriers. They are not like ordinary people because what they feel in the higher world already keeps them in their actions, in their attitude to the world.
It is a multi-layered hierarchical system. Therefore, there are such psychics who gladly served the fascists and were their spiritual ideologists. And there are those who cannot afford to do something to the detriment of humanity, that is, to drive it to the goal of creation in an evil way.
It all depends on the level of comprehension and on how much these people realize themselves in the hands of the upper force that stands above the information layer and above everything that can be comprehended. And if they do not have this awareness, then they are just spiritual puppets, so-called angels.
Question: It turns out that they still see only a certain informational layer. They don’t see all the development options, do they?
Answer: No, they only see what is given to them, no more. A person does not understand how limited he is. He thinks that everything has already been revealed to him, but in fact it is just a small drop of information with which he superficially contacts.
He does not see a lot of options. In any case, he is shown a very limited picture either in time, in height, or based on prerequisites. By prerequisites, we mean the sources of what is happening, the causes.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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There is nothing outside of our properties. This is incomprehensible to us, but it is very close to quantum physics, to all the latest theories in physics. Of course, physicists have their own “problems,” but still they are smart people, they come to such conclusions without any Kabbalah.
In fact, they are trying to hint through matter that nothing exists. In general, they say that there is only some kind of energy, some waves, and still they cannot say anything about them since all this manifests itself in relation to the observer and is grouped depending on his properties.
The two sciences Kabbalah and physics have come right up to each other, but they will not be able to unite—for this their properties must be changed.
Physicists reach for this with their brains. And although some kind of sensitivity develops in them, it is minimal, at the animal level. And the next level is the one that is explored by a Kabbalah scientist, not a physicist. This is completely different, beyond the quantum leap, where there is light and not particles.
Physicists come to this through the mind. But they stop there, they cannot go any further and claim that physics is at an impasse, in crisis.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Nothing Exists” 10/3/12
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There is no true reality. We have to create it ourselves.
The moment you create the quality of bestowal in yourself, you build this reality within it—you and the Creator! When we say “There is none else besides Him,” we mean there is nothing but this quality or your ability to create a higher state.
Question: How is it that the darkness we exist in has so many huge objects placed in it?
Answer: What huge objects?! It is all such minutiae that it is not even noticeable. None of this exists! This is all fluctuations in our unconscious state.
Comment: But for a person, it is quite sizable!
My Response: It happens because you zoom in on it, so you get such volume. Bring it to its normal, objective boundaries, and you will find there is nothing at all, everything disappears.
It depends on the qualities you look at this world with: either from the standpoint of receiving or the standpoint of giving.
From the standpoint of bestowal, our world does not exist because it does not have this quality. From the standpoint of receiving, it exists at such a low level that it is called merely a point of our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Break Away from Everything Earthly!” 10/16/12
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Question: What happens to people who leave the Kabbalistic group? Do they disconnect somehow, or do they stay in the system internally?
Answer: Among those who left are people who practically forget about this period of life. After all, the main thing is what a person lives for, and whether one is yearning for the world of bestowal, the upper world, or not.
When people lose this desire they return to the usual corporeal system of values and exist normally, and they have nothing else. Subconsciously, somewhere deep down behind the cerebellum with some kind of posterior brain, they understand that there is something else, but they suppress it in themselves: “Perhaps someday….”
Or life no longer seems so flat to them when a person, like a moth, flies and wants only to bask in its rays. They already feel that there is another world and another life because the illumination remains.
I think that when they leave us they do not have absolute complete joy in this world. Who has it at all today? The feeling that there is something else higher constantly gnaws at a person, but it is hard to reach: “I will leave it for later.”
What can you do? This is not a simple thing. I speak as a person who has been in Kabbalah since 1975. Those who really stay are, of course, heroes. The main part of the world group are people who came to us at the turn of the century.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Do People Leave Kabbalah?” 10/20/12
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Question: When arctic temperatures drop down to -40 degrees and the wind speed is 40 meters per second, penguins gather into a circle and slowly move around the circle. The warmest ones in the middle of the circle switch places with the colder ones standing at the edges. And they continue this way until the storm passes. They survive thanks to each one’s care for every other one in extreme conditions.
Can we humans adopt this skill that penguins have?
Answer: No, of course not. What we see in the animal kingdom is the expression of natural laws and not freedom of will.
Question: So this is not the penguins’ freedom of will?
Answer: No, of course not. I do not switch places with someone because I think I should give up my spot to him. I switch places with him because this natural law is present inside of me and it directs me on how to act.
Question: Am I driven by instinct to switch places?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: So, the penguin is warm and comfortable, yet it goes into the cold, into the storm, and gives up its place to another penguin to warm up instead of himself. You are saying that this does not exist in man.
My Response: It cannot. We do not have such a law.
Question: Can we develop it within ourselves?
Answer: Go ahead, love your neighbor, and everything will be good.
Comment: In principle, they say that there is a core inside the Earth and the Earth rotates around it. You are describing this law in a similar way; the core is everything and the foundation of everything. And you can answer any question, in principle, with this sentence?
My Response: But this is the central law of nature.
Comment: Yet at the same time you say that it is difficult to achieve this.
My Response: To realize, agree, and accept it as the true solution to all our problems, that is not easy.
Comment: Nevertheless, sooner or later we will be obligated to achieve it.
My Response: We will achieve it.
Question: Is there a way to circumvent it?
Answer: No, of course not. However, it is written that this will happen by way of inconceivable suffering. But where can we escape?
Comment: So, we will be able to leave the warm spot and give it up to another person, for them to warm up, only if there will be love between us.
My Response: Yes.
[310321]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/9/23
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Question: When you realized that our world does not actually exist, how shocking was it for you?
Answer: In principle, I had a hunch about this. Many people have a hunch about this.
It is not necessary to reveal this in your qualities, because everything is so logical that I somehow pulled myself up to such a realization, without Kabbalah.
The fact is that I was created a little detached from our world. When I don’t feel matter, I feel good.
I’m telling you how it was. I was drawn to this feeling because I felt that all the spinning electrons or people are all unimportant, unreal, and not the main thing! Precisely, it is they who are the screen in front of the eyes that does not allow me to see the truth.
Since childhood, I had such a clear impression. Therefore, when I heard that Kabbalah thought this way, I dashed to it! I started to delve into the Kabbalistic books without understanding anything and hardly making any sense of a couple of words. I am glad that I found a friend who read these books aloud to me.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Break Away from Everything Earthly!” 9/15/12
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Question: If the desire is taken away from a person who is engaged in spiritual advancement and he is not even able to move a finger, how can he keep on moving without this desire?
Answer: These are just metamorphoses that we have to go through. First of all, you have to connect with the group and with the study, and you will find that you have to form a new desire. You change not the desire itself, but the intention. That is, the motivation disappears, for the sake of what to move.
Previously you moved for yourself, you realized that you have to do millions of things in the world and thus fill yourself until you begin to realize that you are made of desire and fulfillment, and your mind exists only to help you fill yourself.
Man is a very simple machine, a kind of box that wants to fill itself. It has arms, legs, a head, tongue, eyes, and ears. This robot is looking for a way to fill itself each moment to the maximum while spending the least effort to do that. Optimal filling in accordance with emerging internal needs—this is us, very primitive, very simple.
Now there is a reprogramming of this box with arms and legs. A person must perform it himself, understand what he is doing, realize, and agree with this: How should I now reprogram myself so that my filling is the filling of others?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Man Without a Soul” 10/6/12
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Question: Can you describe by your example how I can see certain qualities in you?
Answer: Regarding you, I am a part of you. You just have to correct yourself to such an extent that you can put this part into yourself. That is all.
Question: But how can I feel your qualities correctly?
Answer: You cannot feel me correctly because you do feel not me, but the egoism that supposedly is between you and me. You feel only the egoism that is separating us, and you see it.
The wisdom of Kabbalah says that you must rise above your egoism, and then you will begin to feel the other as yourself. You will see that apparently, he is connected to you, he is your integral part. To do this, you just need to rise above your egoism regarding the other and annul your ego.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mirror Of a Soul” 10/4/12
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Comment: In Kabbalah, unlike other methods, a person is constantly given a choice. In other places, he gets into an environment that suppresses him. And here he is free to leave even after five years.
My Response: In the process of practicing Kabbalah, a person is always thrown out of its study, and he must strengthen himself again and look for the goal every minute.
It constantly disappears because every minute for him is a point in the path that does not have its own direction, and he must look for a vector again at every step so as not to turn in the other direction. In order to always move in a straight line, he needs to find a direction at each point of it.
He builds his own way. There is no ready way at all! As in outer space, whether you are there upside down, horizontally, or vertically, it doesn’t matter how, you don’t have any landmarks, you have to check and choose them yourself every time. And every minute! You can’t get a foothold, take some corner, and walk along it. There is nothing to measure from!
[310313]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah and Other Methods” 9/8/12
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Question: What parallels can be drawn between the relationship of a man and a woman compared with the Creator and the creation?
Answer: All the movements, connections, rapprochements, and distancing that exist between the Creator and the creation happen between a man and a woman because these states in spirituality are the source of gender separation in our world.
In the beginning, there was no world at all, no humanity, and no separation of people. They appeared precisely because the Creator created the creation—something that receives from the Creator.
The Creator is considered a masculine force, creative and developing. Creation is a female force, receiving, multiplying, and expanding, which, by its development, comes to the perception of the Creator and the desire to become one with Him. It is in the purpose of creation.
In the corporeal world in our biological protein bodies, this is realized on the earthly level. Correct implementation at the protein level is also necessary for the entire creation at all its levels in order to come to the correct state. There is nothing beyond this unity.
Therefore, Kabbalah, studies this unity in forces and understands everything that happens in nature at all levels—between people, between parts of nature, and in human society—and that a person, based on his nature, creates all kinds of political, economic, commercial, family, and other systems.
Kabbalah is a universal wisdom because it operates with the most universal things: two forces, the Creator and creation. It explains how they gradually, through a hierarchy, descend through the four worlds, form our world, and in it, reach the same realization. Everything is very simple.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Man and a Woman, an Eternal Orgasm” 6/16/12
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Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: You have repeatedly cited the metronome effect, which is the fact that metronomes moving randomly will suddenly begin to move in synchrony after a while.
There is one very important detail here, the metronomes should stand on the same base. If you put synchronous metronomes on different bases, they will loosen up after a while. There should be a single base for the metronomes.
Today’s humanity resembles such versatile metronomes. Everyone is moving in different directions. What base should be placed under all these “metronomes” so that they will suddenly begin to move harmoniously together after some time?
Answer: It is the law of mutual dependence, absolute mutual dependence. The dependence of every person on everyone, everyone on everyone else.
Comment: But now everyone, including scientists, claim that today’s humanity resembles one village that is dependent on each other. Even we see it.
My Response: But I do not see an immediate consequence that would stop me from making egoistic actions. Therefore, it does not help.
Question: So does all this remain in theory? Scientists talk, let them talk.
What should we do to come to this law? In principle, it is a logical law that we are all already really in a mutual relationship. Somewhere there is war and the whole world suffers; someone quarrels somewhere and the whole world suffers. Can some kind of dictatorship squeeze the world? You are in mutual relationship with everything!
Answer: No, this will not be the fulfillment of a voluntary, heartfelt law. In this way, you can put everyone in a row and that is it.
Question: Do you also want it to be voluntary and heartfelt?
Answer: With the realization that without this, we will be lost. It must be this way.
Question: When does awareness come? When I can no longer bear it?
Answer: Yes, probably so, with the realization that, otherwise it is impossible.
Question: So now are we being led to a dead end?
Answer: Yes. We live in good times.
Question: The great Kabbalist sages have said: “We would not like to live in this time.” Do you think we live in this time?
Answer: We are getting closer. What will happen next is hard to imagine. It will be such a study on our own flesh that.
Question: Do you directly perceive the words of the sages of the distant past that they would not want to live in this time?
Answer: Yes. Both literally and figuratively, in every sense.
Question: So difficult times await us if we do not come to our senses? And to come to your senses is again, as you say, to come to love for your neighbor?
Answer: Yes, nothing else. This is the law, and it must be fulfilled.
We will wait until the loving hand of the Creator squeezes us from above.
Question: He, being loving, is making us become loving?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And then will everything end and a completely different dimension will begin?
Answer: We will be like metronomes. This is called being on one basis.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/9/23
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A person who studies Kabbalah internally feels that this is exactly the place where he should be.
One feels that this is precisely the truth because in no case does it decide anything for him. And on each path, one not only moves somewhere in a certain direction, but a person himself builds his future state. It does not exist!
All religions and beliefs describe that there is hell somewhere, paradise somewhere, the promised land somewhere, and some temple, some devils, ghouls, angels, no matter who, what, and how. All this does not exist at all!
There is no Creator! He does not exist!
Even a person does not exist! There is an animal in which there is a point, the germ of the soul without any direction, and there are instructions on how to create everything else from this point.
Our world is called “this world” because it does not exist either, there is just an animalistic state. The future world is the next state each time, and you create everything that is in these states by yourself. In the end, you even create the Creator.
Kabbalah is an instruction for a person to exit the animalistic state. There is only a small point in him, the germ of his next spiritual state that he must cultivate and create in himself. This point comes with instructions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah and Other Methods” 9/8/12
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The group of Abraham, who agreed to work on the attainment of the upper world and left Babylon with him, subsequently felt that they were plunging into great egoism, which was called the Egyptian exile, from the spiritual state that they were yearning to reach.
Once they overcame this hatred for each other and came out of it, they suddenly discovered a completely new relationship between them. Then they began to feel the laws of human exchange and negotiation, which were later described in the book called the Torah (Bible).
It describes not just personal connection between people, but a method of universal interconnection, that is, very complex interactions when people are one system.
Adam, the first person who revealed the spiritual, spoke and wrote only about himself. He was going to adapt nature within himself, he was alone.
Abraham, however, is a completely different degree, the next level. He said: “All people need to unite! The egoism that has arisen between us is the perfect material for spiritual work. This is what separates us, and breaks all the elements of interaction between us. In fact, they exist so that we can correctly assemble them between us. Let’s assemble a scheme from them. Perhaps we will even discover that the scheme already exists in some way, we just need to start running it, and treat it correctly. If we start treating each other with love, with the correct interaction between us, we will see what kind of system is formed between us.”
At the next stage, the leader of this group was Moses; he described the spiritual system in the Torah. In it, he outlined all its laws and began to describe this system from two sides so that everyone could understand it correctly, perceive it, and begin to commute themselves in it as an integral part.
Practically, the entire Torah is laws of commutation. This is why it says: “Love your neighbor as yourself is the main law of the Torah.”
Love means joining the spiritual system without any interference, completely in your absolute realization.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Days When Miracles Happen” 10/7/12
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Question: Why does our world believe that truth is a logical explanation in the mind? That it is not a feeling, but a clear explanation, as if trying to prove a formula.
Answer: We have nothing else to rely on. We love logic because it puts us in a state where our sensations are unable to prove their truth to us.
In the spiritual world, however, this is not necessary, because in the world of bestowal, connection, and love you begin to connect with the other parts of spiritual matter. In this case, you do not need any proofs and confirmations because everything is in you. You have a sensation of absolute knowledge and feeling, because apart from this nothing exists at all, and this is absolutely clear.
It is clear, and not due to whether we feel it or not, like it is in our world. After all, one can say: “There are still some worlds, some other states there around the corner or somewhere else.” No. In the spiritual world, you feel the true state of the universe, besides which there is nothing else, since the feeling of the upper world is the feeling of its root, its source—the Creator.
Therefore no doubt arises in you; there is nothing that you could add, but not because of your limited perception or some mental limitations, as it is in our world. For example, start talking about lofty matters with some tractor driver and he will tell you: “What is out there! Nothing else exists except for my house and the general store.”
It is from the attainment of the absolute, complete, interconnectedness, the absence of any restrictions in the form of space, time, and movement, that you reveal that you are in the only state that exists. It is not even clear what “only existing” means, but there is nothing else besides it.
This is also very difficult for us to determine; that something still exists and something does not. We always start from the opposite because it is beyond words. We will come and see.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Logic Rules the World” 9/15/12
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In the News (Reuters): “The two officials…appeared before a House of Representatives intelligence subcommittee for the first public U.S. congressional hearing on the subject in a half century. It came 11 months after a government report documented more than 140 cases of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, that U.S. military pilots had observed since 2004. …
“Bray, deputy director of naval intelligence, said the number of UAPs officially cataloged by a newly formed Pentagon task force has grown to 400 cases. Both officials chose their words carefully in describing the task force’s work, including the question of possible extraterrestrial origins, which Bray said defense and intelligence analysts had not ruled out.
“Bray did say that ‘we have no material, we have detected no emanations, within the UAP task force that would suggest it is anything non-terrestrial in origin.'”
Question: What do you think about the seriousness of this issue?
Answer: They say what they decide they can say. There are still a lot of things that are not said, are not finished, and are classified. It is a fact that such kinds of things do exist relative to us. But the thing is, we still do not know anything about it.
Question: Who is flying?
Answer: It is not known who and how. They just fly.
Question: Can you assume that these are some aliens flying?
Answer: What is the point if I guess? I do not have any knowledge about them.
Comment: So, at least they do exist.
My Response: There is everything in nature, above us and below us, everything in general. So what?
Comment: Entire huge departments are engaged in these developments, tracking unidentified objects and so on.
My Response: They have money, let them work.
Question: Some say that aliens want to tell us something.
Answer: I do not think there is any desire to tell us anything because we have never been told anything. Otherwise, this would have been reported to us long ago. They observe us a little. I think they are much more developed than us, and they have really nothing to do with us.
Question: Is it because we are not developed at all?
Answer: Of course.
Question: So, are we like guinea pigs for them?
Answer: They guard us in some way.
Question: Do they study us?
Answer: I do not think we are worth studying.
Question: Then tell me please what should be said to humanity? Humanity is always waiting for something to be said to it.
Answer: There is nothing to say! What can you say to humanity? You come to a forest, to inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature and see all these types of nature there. What do you want to tell them?
We are at the animal level. Moreover, we are at the negative animate level. What can they possibly tell us?
Question: There is nothing to convey to this humanity, nothing to say to us?
Answer: They have nothing to tell us because we are not at the level where we can correctly perceive what they convey to us.
Question: In other words, if we were at a level that is closer to correct perception, would they have transmitted their message to us?
Answer: Of course.
Question: What would they transmit then?
Answer: How can we rise even higher? Not in technology, not in machinery because that is no longer a problem for us. Rather, by uniting with each other we would begin to feel the forces of nature hidden from us and use them correctly.
We could fly in any direction, at any speed. For what? To engage in an even greater unification of nature.
Question: In other words, can we say that everything, even what we have created, all these technical means: the Internet, airplanes, traffic, is precisely for us to…?
Answer: Only to make sure that this is not what we really need. So that we would throw all these toys away and take care of our internal states.
Question: What is the ideal inner state we should arrive at?
Answer: Communication without words.
Question: Is this when we sit, stay silent, and connected?
Answer: Yes, that is how we communicate. A song without words. There is such a connection, without words. This allows everyone to communicate on the same frequency, on the same level, where we all understand each other.
It is not difficult for us at the level of our thoughts, they freely hover and interconnect. We comprehend the general plan of nature, what we have come to, to merge and to mutually complement each other in everything. And then we begin to comprehend perfection. It happens because we are completely different, but we want to feel our unanimity in our union. That is it.
We implicitly strive for it, although, of course, selfishly, and wrongly. But nature leads us to this state in such a way that we realize the depravity of our original state and its realization, and as a result, come to the correct balance with each other.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/16/22
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In the future, the major mass of humanity will advance in spiritual development with a sharp leap because it has nothing to correct. It does not correct itself, and therefore it will feel it, as it is said, at once.
The masses do not have to go through what people with a point in the heart go through. They do not have a higher awareness.
They do not build in themselves a so-called computing, conscious, attaining upper part, meaning a sensory system of identification and decision making. There is no reciprocity in them, there is only a desire. But it is an immense desire. When it begins to connect with the head part, it gives it enormous forces, enormous new possibilities.
This system, called AHP (body), and existing in the masses with the exception of a few million, which is the head part, moves the whole of humanity; it is actually very wise, sensitive, and understanding. But exactly itself, its direction is absent in this so-called body.
All the direction, all the development, all the work with the upper space and movement, should give it just a few million with a point in the heart. They have only one distinction: they are very weak in strong desires, in strong mind, in processing information above their desires, but they are strong in developing sensitivity to direction. That is, this is the part that works only on the perception of the direction.
Like in a torpedo that has a spinning top guiding it on a given course, with a program control, with a sense of the correct trajectory of the path, that corrects itself all the time, takes into account feedback errors, and so on, this guiding system, which represents just a small sensory part, refers only to a few million, and everything else to billions.
Such a gyroscopic system with reciprocity, aim, direction, definition, feeling, this is the head.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Is the Superman?” 9/15/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What will heal the wounds in the Israeli society?“
Amid the painful rifts in Israeli society, in a period of mass protests, strikes and sharp divisions, today my student asked me: What prayer can we raise in such a situation?
We can only raise a prayer for unity above division.
It does not matter who is right and wrong. We are not given these situations so that we can work out who is right and wrong. There will be no end to such arguments.
We only need to unite, and our unity should be above all differences—above everything.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on March 27, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Yoav Aziz on Unsplash.
Preparation to the Lesson
| | |
Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
| | |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 14
| | |
Selected Highlights
| | |
Question: Reshimot (informational genes) awaken in us every day, and we must implement them. But if a person does not study Kabbalah, these Reshimot accumulate, and then some pressure must occur for him to make a leap forward. Ultimately, he must recognize that he is obligated to do this.
Who is to blame for the fact that a person does not wake up?
Answer: No one is to blame! No one is to blame for anything yet.
But gradually, the guilty ones will be those in whose hands the method of correction of humanity lies and they do not make every possible effort starting with themselves: “I am to blame! I am the main perpetrator!”
And then everyone else goes through the same process, including you because you know about it. And whether it passes through you further or you become a plug in the way of passing this information, is worth thinking about.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Is it All Laitman’s Fault?” 10/1/12
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Question: Suppose I am looking at someone and see certain character traits in him. My task is not to see these qualities. But how can I realize that I am still working with these properties? How can I see them not separately from myself?
Answer: Every part of your soul seems to be separated from yourself. It is fully equipped with an autonomous system: the body, the nervous system, and everything that is in it. And when you begin to connect these parts to yourself, you see that the animal body can be dropped altogether and only its inner part remains.
All the features of a friend, his character, properties, memory, and everything else become connected to you except for your inanimate, vegetative, and animate components. It just disappears because it relates to our world. Everything else belongs to spirituality, so it is combined into a single whole, into one single system.
When a person comes in contact with other people, then all properties begin to manifest themselves in forces of rejection between him and others. He sees 613 different forces of rejection that he must correct.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mirror Of a Soul” 10/4/12
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The current stage of our development is dissemination because the world needs the right interconnection or as we say, mutual guarantee (Arvut).
Let’s say everyone agrees: “Yes, we need to be mutually connected; otherwise, we will eat each other.” But how can we come to a mutual agreement?
This is where Kabbalah comes into play. Not the preliminary stages when we say, “Be a good boy,” but Kabbalah, because without the upper light, without its attraction, you will not be able to change yourself. You will always oppose others. Therefore, Kabbalah is necessary for people.
They must ensure that a kind to each other is needed because nature obliges us to mutual guarantee. We are on a small sphere and are completely connected to each other. It does not depend on us; it is a condition that obliges us from above, from nature, and it enclosed us all together: “And now, sort it out.”
We will either arrange a showdown and then everyone will stick a knife into each other, or we will try to somehow come to an agreement.
But how can we agree if we are all egoists and only think about how to achieve something using others? At the same time we realize that it no longer works through the other, that if the system is round, then we need to act together.
The center of this system should be a common goal for everyone: not me, not you, not everyone for themselves, but the center of the system. How can we change ourselves, our nature? For the first time in history, we come to the need to change not technology, not society, but the person himself.
And then Kabbalah will come on the scene as the only means of attracting the power of correction.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Is it All Laitman’s Fault?!” 10/1/12
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Question: In Erich Maria Remarque’s in The Arc de Triomphe the character Dr. Ravic is a stateless refugee in Paris in the unstable period between World Wars I and II. He is a skilled, but unlicensed surgeon who “ghost operates” on patients on behalf of lesser-skilled French surgeons.
He was stripped him of his German citizenship and unable to exist legally anywhere else in western Europe; Ravic manages to hang on. He is one of many displaced refugees, stateless people without passports or documents who live under constant threat of being captured and deported from one country to the next.
In the novel it is written that he lived, and that was enough. The era was unstable, so why try to build something if everything will inevitably collapse soon? He was portrayed as thinking it is better to go with the flow without wasting your strength since strength is the only thing that cannot be restored. Holding on was what was important, and the less strength you spend, the better. It is better to keep them in reserve.
Do you think it is right in difficult times, to lay low and not to waste your strength, and just hold on? Even if it is projected to our time. We have a similar time, you might say. How does one survive in this time which is rather vague?
Answer: Our time is not what it was then. I do not think it is that vague. Nowadays we are not in a state where we can declare something and it will affect something. Here such forces are involved in the battle among themselves that, no matter what you squeak, no one will take it into account.
Question: Then tell me, how do we live in such a time?
Answer: Exist. Today everything is so captured by all kinds of bodies in all countries—in all of them!—that all your attempts are futile.
Question: Is this how one should live? How?
Answer: No, I have my own line. I believe that a person should be educated on the topic of who governs the world, how the world is governed, and how to enter this upper governance and act through it. But this is not politics or journalism, nothing like that.
I think that this is the way we can seriously affect the world.
Question: So do you think that is why this time has come, so that we have such opportunities?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is there such a thing as courage in order to come to this?
Answer: There is a different kind of courage here; it is in the fact that you have to confront your inner doubts, attitudes, and so on. That is the main thing.
Question: And the doubts are mainly: What kind of force is this? Does it exist at all?
Answer: Yes. We need to work to reveal it and to use it to move the world.
Question: Is this task peculiar to a strong person? Or can it become the task of any person to live like this and search?
Answer: I think that a person should feel a response in his heart. And then he will have the strength.
Question: So is the strength also given to him from above?
Answer: It will be given to him. He just needs to make a small effort. It is the same right to go through the years with the same goal, to despair and still get up and go.
Question: Can one person do this? Can he tune himself like this, all on his own?
Answer: I don’t know. Everyone is called Adam.
Question: From the word “similar to the Creator”? Is it about everyone?
Answer: About everyone, of course.
Question: What is your main advice nowadays?
Answer: Be human!
Question: Be Adam?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/1/22
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In the history of human development there was a certain period when souls that we call prophets existed in our world as well as the spiritual world, and thus they described the future of humanity.
However, they described it conditionally: “If you behave this way, it will be this way, and if you behave differently, it will be different.” This is because freedom of choice remains, and they cannot say anything for certain.
That is, they can speak about certain states. If those states are already predetermined for the future and only continue to unfold, then nothing can be done to change it. It is like during a war when a signal is sent via all communication channels to all fronts and many different units, the orders are sent out and no one can stop anything from happening. They already begin to be into action as time unfolds.
It is the same in the material world, if we have made certain actions below, which were meant to bring us to the next degree either by a good path or a bad one, but we have already chosen this path according to our actions, it has to be realized this way. Then it is launched.
But until it unfolds in our world, it might take another five years. By forecasting the dates of the beginning and the end of the war, the Battle of Stalingrad and other events, Wolf Messing was simply psychologically connecting to the informational layer.
I am sure that all kinds of special units in all countries have been and are engaged in this. There are entire units that process this information as much as they can understand it. But they surely do not possess the method to influence the informational layer itself. For them it is what actually exists. They can inflict energetic blows on each other, but they are unable to affect a change of circumstances by that. For them it is like destiny.
Psychics emphasize that in this respect they are fatalists, meaning that they grasp the future as much as they can feel it, as deeply as they can see this picture, a temporal reference, meaning they receive information as if they are peeping into the future—but not more than that.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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Nowadays, there are very few real homeopaths. A person who feels the action of powers is a godsend, not an ordinary doctor.
It is possible to study homeopathy, but it is not easy to become a specialist or a master because you need to feel the inner energies that are used to prepare homeopathic medicines: where they are and how they work.
It also depends on a person’s temperament, race, nationality, and even on time. Earlier, 20 to 30 years ago, certain homeopathic remedies were effective, but today there may be completely different ones: people change. After all, these drugs influence the system of internal forces of a person.
This is not allopathy, but a more subtle system, like Chinese medicine, acupuncture. In my entire life, I have seen dozens of so-called specialists, of which only one turned out to be a real specialist.
After my accident, my liver did not work, and the doctors refused to deal with me, they predicted I would last six months or a little more. But this guy took a big needle and said: “I have to stick this nine-centimeter-long needle into you, but you will not feel anything.” He squeezed it between his fingers and completely immersed it in my liver; in half a minute I was healthy, even though I had absolutely nothing left of my liver. This is a specialist!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is homeopathy?” 9/8/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do I prevent a nuclear war?“
Even though there is a joint statement between five of the world’s most powerful nations—the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France—that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” we still see that these same nations continue spending trillions of dollars on the arms race. Such statements simply give the people what they want to hear so that those in power can continue their rule.
While we live with self-interest at our core, where we each prioritize self-benefit over the benefit of others, then we position ourselves on a rickety foundation to prevent any kind of future war.
In order to truly prevent a nuclear war, we need to correct our egoistic nature so that we will prioritize the benefit of others and nature over self-benefit, and we need this correction to play out among everybody: from the broadest masses to the ruling elite.
Correcting our egoistic nature and discovering a sturdy foundation for human relations that would safeguard us from future wars requires a new universal education—one that focuses on our need to unite above division.
We need to learn about our egoistic nature: how is it opposed to the general altruistic laws of nature? What are the driving forces behind human development? Where are we headed? And how can we align ourselves with nature’s altruistic laws in order to experience harmony, peace and balance in our lives?
The more we immerse ourselves with this new form of universal education and start correcting our egoistic nature, the more we will protect ourselves from future wars.
Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 1, 2022.
Photo by Ant Rozetsky (@rozetsky) | Comunidade de fotos da Unsplash on Unsplash.
Preparation to the Lesson
| | |
Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
| | |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 14
| | |
Selected Highlights
| | |
Question: Is there a purpose for non-kosher animals?
Answer: Non-kosher animals symbolize desires that we are not yet able to correct. Therefore, we must put those desires aside for the time being and not use them until the final correction.
In the final correction, they will all rise and be corrected. It is said that the pig will be the most kosher animal. It is just that now it represents the desires that cannot be corrected, and it is not only pigs, but also camels and other animals. The pig is just a symbol.
From a spiritual point of view, there are many different prohibitions. For example, it is forbidden to eat the first fruits from trees for three years; you should not cut the edges of the field, but leave them for the poor because you cannot use everything for the sake of the Creator. And there are many more.
In fact, the Talmud, like all sources, explains the laws of the spiritual world.
Question: If a person in our world eats pork, does that mean something?
Answer: It does not mean anything unless he wishes to become like the upper world at the same time. He does no harm to his health.
Question: But a Kabbalist would not eat pork?
Answer: In principle, this is a very difficult question. In general, a Kabbalist tries to imitate all the laws of the upper world in his mechanical actions, although he treats this completely differently from other believers.
In principle, we are only talking about spiritual work, and this absolutely does not include any physical actions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Food Is the Meaning of Life” 9/8/12
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In our world, there is a certain cyclical change of time, days, weeks, and so on, because the perception of a person is divided in this way. Everything happens relative to him. The person who began to build the upper world in himself revealed it in certain measures of attainment: day-night, week, that is, six days, and the seventh state is called Shabbat (Saturday).
Then he began to determine that his sensations depend on some special light source called the “moon,” and relative to it he is in a state of four definite steps called “weeks.” Then he felt his dependence on another source of light called the “sun,” relative to which he is in a state of twelve or thirteen degrees. These degrees change every four years.
This was determined by Adam, the first person who attained the spiritual world. Everything comes from him to us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Days When Miracles Happen” 10/7/12
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Question: If the masses do not go through the same sensations as people with the point in the heart, do they lose something or is their perception a result of the entire movement?
Answer: When the masses come together, they begin to work harmoniously.
Question: But people with the point in the heart experience an entire set of sensations and impressions that give breadth of vision, a completely different perception. How do the masses receive this?
Answer: They receive this by connecting to people with the point in the heart and creating one unified system between them. Therefore, their perception becomes the same as in one single organism.
Then there is such a connection between them and they reach such an adhesion when all the difference disappears between all the billions of these particles. All communication lines disappear, and they become one common whole, the way water drops merge into one.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Is Superman?” 10/5/12
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Question: There are certain periods when a person awakens by himself, and when he is awakened by the system. Holidays and Saturdays (Shabbat) seemingly come from the system. Surely something happens to a person after all, right?
Answer: If a person is in the spiritual world, yes, and if he is in our world, then this is psychology. Let’s send you to a desert island and see how you will distinguish the days of the week there, you will count the days and nights like Robinson Crusoe.
Question: As a result, does everything depend on a person’s opinion?
Answer: Of course! No more than that. Because in the spiritual world, these are just the stages of your personal spiritual development. Let’s say you are in your spiritual attainment on Sunday, I am on Thursday, and he is on Tuesday. That’s all.
The corporeal part of holidays is determined by people in our world! If they think about the same thing, they attract a certain light upon themselves. That is, they express light in themselves, a general movement that already influences everyone else. Just as in our world, we know that if a great number of people think about something, it influences the rest, and they will also think in the same way.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Days When Miracles Happen” 10/7/12
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Question: You tell us all the time: “Do not look at the faces of your friends, it is very distracting. All of them are your desires.” How does one look at them at all, how to connect them to me?
Answer: They are all part of you, as is the entire world. But since it once was shattered into pieces, now you feel everyone as separated from you, distant, and opposite. If you assemble these pieces, you will see how an image appears inside them.
What does “image” mean? Qualities! Not the face and body, but the qualities of mutuality, love, bestowal, and adhesion. This is the Creator. You create Him yourself; you mold Him by connecting your shattered qualities within yourself. That is all, there is nothing else. Nothing exists outside of you. Everything is yours and everything is just you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mirror Of a Soul” 10/4/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I help depressed teenagers on a large scale?“
It seems to me that children were happier in the past when people lived simpler lives. Family and social connections filled our lives, and we were closer to our parents, neighbors and people in general.
Today, we live in a generation that is glued to its screens, wanting to have nothing to do with one another. The parents of our generation are also generally busy making a living, and I think that teenage depression has a lot to do with us parents neglecting our children.
I would thus recommend parents work less and pass more time with their children. They should do various activities together, like going to the beach or to a soccer game, and so on, and most importantly, the activities should be for both parents and children together.
Today’s families are missing out on much connection, and so I think that it is a must for parents to do more in order to connect with their children.
Based on the video “Curing Teen Depression: Advice for Parents” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
| | |
Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
| | |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 12
| | |
Selected Highlights
| | |
Comment: I noticed that the same lesson is perceived differently not only by everyone but even by the same person when he listens to it again.
My Response: Naturally! A person changes and therefore each time he always perceives things differently.
What is a lesson in itself? It is light. A person, depending on his state, places his vessel, meaning his sensations and his qualities under it. It is with his qualities that he determines how he will be affected by what he hears.
Each lesson is a certain measure of light. It depends on the person how and what will happen to it next. Therefore, the different perception of the same lesson lies in the difference in the qualities of a person.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Nothing Exists” 10/3/12
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Question: Kabbalah says that a person is new every day. What is going on in you that makes you radically different?
Answer: I am changing because my inner program is changing. It is constantly renewed.
After all, you sometimes feel it for yourself, perhaps not at the same pace as I do or with the volume of changes between states, but it is felt by everyone who is connected to the method of Kabbalah and goes through internal changes—”a person inside oneself.”
You can’t explain it to others. They did not feel it nor can they understand how there can be such states where suddenly everything becomes dark, then light, suddenly you are carried up with a broad view of the world, or suddenly thrown into some narrow egoistic field and forced to make lowly, crude calculations.
This is the person inside us working out his degrees in order to reach a state where his only desire will be to reveal the upper force, in order to immediately, here and now, begin to feel it, to realize it. But for this we need aspirations for this, desires, qualities.
We must come to these desires and qualities so that we can feel it to such an extent that it would be within the framework of our sensations, would enter into tolerance, into the sensory field—not infra or ultra. As in our world, with all kinds of phenomena that we do not feel but reveal through instruments, it is the same with the Creator.
He exists over some threshold, above the speed of light. It is like Rambam wrote that the whole universe and the whole world exist below the speed of light. No matter what physicists say that they have found something that moves at a speed beyond the speed of light, it is all nonsense, their mistakes, and they are yet to reveal it.
The Creator exists above the speed of light and above all our capabilities, which we, being in the body, are not able to feel even with the help of devices invented by us. We are unable to seize Him, He eludes us and that’s it!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change Every Second” 7/14/12
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Question: In spiritual work, does the only thing that depends on the Kabbalist is how he builds the screen?
Answer: Of course. But this is the result of a huge number of internal actions, decisions, and analysis. This is the crown of all the work of a Kabbalist.
And he does not build the screen. He prepares all the conditions in order to claim it, and then the next level clothes on him and gives him a screen. This is how he always rises.
He kind of lifts himself up. Now there are such two-level devices adapted for cars, when the car, as it were, lifts itself, transfers it upward and upward with an anchor, and so it moves forward with a progressive, stepping, start-stop movement.
In Kabbalah, such a movement at every step involves analysis: first, the fall (left line), then its realization, then the beginning of work with it, and so on.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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Comment: In our world, there are manifestations of spiritual roots in the form of holidays or Sabbaths.
My Response: The special states that a person goes through as he attains stronger and stronger connection with others are called Moadim (Holidays). Moed is a temporary stop on the way, like a station or a waypoint, meaning a state in which you radically change your inclusion into the common system.
Comment: But the same Sabbath exists also in the corporeal world.
My Response: It does not mean anything. Was there no Saturday or other days of the week before Adam?! There were days and nights, but no one celebrated anything.
Comment: However, it seems that Saturday (Shabbat) is a specific day, even in corporeal perception.
My Response: This is just our psychology! If you are in spiritual ascent, then during the day you can experience all seasons and all days of the year.
During the holidays, we experience some feelings only because a large number of people are celebrating and they create a certain atmosphere and certain force around them, and that is a different matter. But it is not because such a state comes from somewhere above.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Days when miracles happen” 10/7/12
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Comment: You said that you teach students to ask questions correctly because by doing so you pass your matrix to them.
My Response: Otherwise, it is impossible. After all, a student is just an unformed desire; there is nothing else in him except for physical flesh. The teacher helps to form this desire correctly so that it becomes suitable for receiving the light.
A teacher is the one who helps you form or rather shape your vessel.
Question: You received a certain matrix from Rabash. How similar is it to the one you bring to your students? Or are they completely different?
Answer: This matrix is universal, it is one: similarity to the light, the quality of bestowal. Then each student customizes it for himself. I just teach him how to do it, I push him from one side, then from the other side: do it like this, do it like that, and like that.
Even students of an artist or musician still paint or play in their own way. If he is a Master with a capital “M,” he teaches them how to show their talent, peculiarity, and individuality. He does not impose his matrix on them in order to imprint himself in them. First, it is impossible. Second, then this is not a teacher but some kind of corporal in the army.
A teacher is one who helps the student develop individually.
Question: How does the process of individual development of the student happen? What exactly are you doing?
Answer: There is daily systematic work. We see that it takes years.
In the process of spiritual work, students are given some pleasant or unpleasant influences, perhaps a personal example—mostly negative and not positive—so that they see that I am also like that: I get tired, treat someone badly, or something else.
In short, the student must be left with freewill, a place for doubt, a place for reflection: why is it so and not so, is he right or wrong—both regarding the teacher and regarding himself. He must be taught to dare, to doubt, and to make mistakes.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Become a Guru?” 9/23/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can dogs smell cancer?“
Israeli startup, SpotitEarly, uses dogs to detect cancer in people with their sense of smell. The process involves giving patients a mask into which they breathe for a few minutes. The mask is then taken to a laboratory where dogs smell it, and in over 90 percent of cases, dogs have detected the cancer patients. Moreover, it has been found that the dogs can detect cancer in its very early stages, before it shows symptoms.
Indeed, there are several phenomena in nature that we have yet to find out about, and we may well soon discover more of them. Yet this discovery is beautiful, that we can detect cancer in its early stages and save many lives.
It also shows us how despite our powerful technological progress, dogs can detect cancer more effectively than us. This is because we each emit a cloud through which it is possible to detect a lot of information about us, including what we think and feel, as well as our inner illnesses and where they are located. Most animals sense what we emit in that cloud, but since we do not feel animals, then we do not understand what they sense.
We commonly think of human beings as the most developed of all creatures, but we then find such abilities in animals that show how—despite our developed intellect—we are no better than them. A clear indicator of this is the fact that our development leads us to invent and stockpile more and more weapons. That is, the more we lay our hands on things, the more we bring about negative outcomes.
In order to start developing more positively, we need to look a little into the future and ask ourselves a serious question: “What do we really get from us living the way we do?”
Based on the video “Can Dogs Smell Cancer” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Christian Lue
Comment: There is a parable about an eastern ruler who wanted to know the whole history of mankind. A sage brought him five hundred volumes. The ruler responded, “Who can read this? Put it in a concise form.”
Twenty years later, the sage returned with fifty volumes. But the king was already old, so he sent him away again.
Another twenty years passed. And the aged, gray-haired sage brought the ruler a single volume containing all the wisdom of the world. The ruler was on his deathbed and did not have time to read even one book. Then the sage told him the history of mankind in one line: “A person is born, suffers, and dies.”
Is this the history of humanity?
My Response: That is five hundred volumes, yes.
Question: Can you imagine?! All this wisdom and history, so much has been stated, and as a result we bring one line: “A person is born, suffers and dies.” Is this our world?
Answer: Of course. And we are spinning in it in order to add more and more volumes, volumes, volumes.
Question: The question is: Why be born?
Answer: Why be boem? In principle, this is incomprehensible to a person. Therefore, he sees neither the beginning nor the end. He sees himself only on the animal level: the birth of an animal body, the suffering of an animal body, some pleasures of an animal body, and the death of an animal body. Nothing else.
Comment: We can’t get off the ground, so to say.
My Response: If we can’t go higher, we don’t understand the meaning.
Question: So if we cannot rise higher, then the whole history of humanity is: a person is born, suffers, and dies. And if we can rise or want to rise higher, then what becomes the history of humanity?
Answer: Then it is necessary to detach from the animal body, to rise above it, and not to live by its desires, aspirations, and so on. Then you will begin to feel what your spiritual body requires of you.
Question: What does this formula turn into? It turns out that what is born is when I rise above egoism? It is born, and then suffers, then what does it turn into?
Answer: One separates oneself from egoism, rises above it, and begins to feel nature in a different form, in bestowal, in love, and in connection and reciprocity. Not in receiving, as in the animal body, but in bestowal, as in the spiritual body.
Question: And then what does suffering turn into?
Answer: Into pleasure.
Question: So you said: “Enjoys and lives forever.” Is this the formula of real humanity?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: It is very bitter to me that our earthly formula is “born, suffers and dies.”
My Response: And without it there would be no other. We would not be able to achieve eternal form through our own efforts, our own capabilities.
Question: So there should be such an initial formula so that we attain it and want to get out of it?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: It’s been going on for millennia. Millennia, millennia, millennia.
My Response: So what?
Comment: We are writing volumes of history!
My Response: These are souls! And what is there in this history and volumes?! All this is nothing!
Question: So a person must be born to live forever, right?
Answer: Of course. I think we are already coming to this gradually.
My optimism comes from the absolute pessimism of our world. I think humanity will shake itself up, That we will not agree to live for this life.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/5/23
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And they built Arei Miskenot (to Israel), and to Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses. This is because all the work of Israel fell into the Klipot, and they saw no blessing in their work (Baal HaSulam, Shamati No. 86, “And They Built Arei Miskenot“).
There is only a person and the Creator. If we have thoughts that are alien to spirituality, it means that we are among people who live in this world with their various egoistic desires and plans.
But if we purify our thoughts and desires and direct them more toward connection, it turns out that it is only us who remain in the world and all the others as if disappear and turn into the people of the Creator, that is, they merge with the Creator, become included in Him, and reveal the upper world, eternity, and the perfection of nature.
Therefore if we stop building something for ourselves like the cities of Pithom and Raamses, which were beautiful for the Egyptians, and instead build Kabbalistic groups, one world group, and one united humanity, then this will be one home for everyone. And in this way we will reach the goal.
In the end the building that was built for the sake of egoism collapses, and the building built for the sake of bestowal is restored at its expense, and so we come to the final correction, to the perfect Kli.
If we do not see the completed building yet, it does not mean that it does not exist. If it disappears from our senses, it is only to give us the opportunity to continue working and building further. All our work is intended to build—from all our thoughts and feelings, from everything that we have in the mind and in the heart—one Kli for the revelation of the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/23, “Pesach (Passover)”
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Question: If I had known in advance all the processes, confusion, and seemingly wrong movements that I would have to go through to implement some dissemination project, I would hardly have taken it up. Is a person specifically given such concealments so that he makes efforts?
Answer: Of course. If you only knew what lies ahead of you! Our world is not a big deal, but all the other degrees are not even possible to describe.
Our world is just a small dot, and still there are great galactic distances in it. All these are incredible forces. Only by qualitative ascent from the inanimate level to the vegetative, animate, and human levels can we overcome them, not by spreading in breadth, but by spreading upward.
You immediately move from the inanimate corporeal level to the vegetative level; that is, you immediately dismiss the entire universe; you do not need it. Only on Earth vegetation exists, and only on Earth the animal world exists, and only on Earth are people from whom you immediately move into the next dimension, the upper world. That is, you sort of pierce the shells and so go from sphere to sphere.
Comment: Although this is not an easy path, it still leaves certain feelings in a person that are more valuable than the confusions in which he was in before.
My Response: Confusions are also components. They are the ones that organize your vessel. Without them, you cannot understand or receive anything.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Personal Benefit” 9/8/12
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Question: What is homeopathy?
Answer: There is nothing special about homeopathy. These are the same forces that exist in matter only at its more hidden levels. You seem to use not the properties of matter itself, but the properties of those forces that determine its chemical composition.
Let’s say gold, copper, lead, or some plants, or some liquids are used to make homeopathic medicines, it does not matter what they are made of. By homeopathic dilution of substances, one draws strength from these materials and uses them. In general, it is not the substance itself that is used, but its power.
It is a very good thing to give the body an opportunity to work with those substances with which it cannot cope on its own. For example, I cannot give the body any poison, but in homeopathy, I can do it.
And there are very interesting combinations. Let’s say for depression, homeopathy prescribes Aurum (Au-gold), its power, because depression mainly derives from greed.
The main cure for infertility and other female problems is Sepia. This is the fluid that accumulates in a frog when its sac swells.
For overactive, demanding male workaholics, Nux Vomica is used.
These materials are good because they impact the system of human energies also by forces and not by matter.
Usually, when treatment is carried out with the help of chemicals, it is necessary to prescribe a lot of drugs to impact the nervous system or other internal systems of a person, not material but already on a different level.
And here, you act precisely by force against force: you add, correct, give the body a challenge, or, conversely, help it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Homeopathy?” 9/8/12
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Question: Should a teacher remain as a teacher for a student or as a system, as a structure? Should a student feel the greatness of the teacher?
Answer: The greatness of the teacher is necessary in order to absorb the method of development from him and to develop ourselves in order to connect to him because he is above you, he is in front of you, and by your side.
Therefore, in order for him to transmit the upper light to you through himself (and it will certainly pass through the teacher), you must connect to him as he connects to his teacher. In order to do that, you have to annul yourself before him in some way. This is called the greatness of the teacher.
That is, you treat him as your source. This is how the world is arranged, according to hierarchy, everything descends from above downward. The students will also have their own students, and so it will continue, like the tree of life.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Become a Guru?” 9/23/12
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Question: If a person does not participate in the daily Kabbalah lessons on a daily basis, he does not give his part of the light that passes through him to the system and blocks it, correct?
Answer: Of course! We are in one single system, and if I do not pass the life-giving force through myself to the rest of the cells of the single body of humanity, then I do not receive it either. If life does not pass through me, then I as if block a vessel in the system, and it thus dies and, through it, all the others.
Therefore, everyone must necessarily open, find connection with others, and continue to spread this system further in an organic, mutual combination of everyone with everyone as required by today’s global integral community from which we cannot escape. We must advance and develop.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Is it All Laitman’s Fault?!” 10/1/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why would we want to bring back extinct animals?“
I received this question from my student who mentioned a project of a company that is working to bring back the dodo—a large flightless bird that became extinct about 350 years ago—with the help of gene editing. The bird had lived for millions of years in the forests of Mauritius, close to the coasts of Africa, and according to scientists, the process will be completed in six years and the extinct animal will return to the forests of Mauritius.
I answered him that it is forbidden for us to intervene with nature, because nature is smarter and revives what it wishes back to life.
We only need to reach balance among each other, that we will not fight each other, but rather live like any other species that has its rightful place in nature.
If we manage to reach balance among each other at the human level, then our balance will positively influence the entire system of nature on its still, vegetative and animate levels as well, because we are the species with the greatest amount of influence in nature.
Just from achieving balanced human connection, we might very well see the dodo or other species come back to life, simply due to nature’s will. This is because nothing disappears in nature. If a certain species had existed, it means that its information exists in nature, and when we organize our relations in a way that makes room for everyone in nature’s general system, then all parts of nature will gradually return to their place.
Based on the video “Is it Correct to Revive Extinct Species of Animals and Birds?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: Do you try to glue the students to each other, to the group, so they do not constantly refer to you to solve some issues?
Answer: In no case do I ever lock the students in on myself, I do not play someone great, smart, or something else in front of them. I play the role of a methodologist in front of them.
I fixate them on each other because they can only solve all problems between them. They must unite, and according to my method, by collectively connecting to me, they absorb the upper light.
Question: But without contact with you, the group does not work no matter how ideal it may be?
Answer: No, that is not true. The teacher may not be in this world; it does not matter. If the disciples gather, they will feel me and the other Kabbalists who are higher than me inside them.
Question: How do we sense it? Suppose the physical greatness of a teacher is one thing.
Answer: We are not talking about physical greatness at all. What does it mean to physically look at a person? Who is he? He is a piece of flesh like everyone else.
A teacher is a conduit of the upper light to his students and that is all.
Question: Let’s say a group comes together and senses the teacher who is no longer in this world. What is the indicator that they feel it correctly?
Answer: If the students unite, then because of their connection they will feel me without guessing on a crystal ball or on something else.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to become a guru?” 9/8/12
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Comment: You said that of those who do not have a Masach (screen), people with less desire, less egoism, for example, yogis, are closest to spirituality.
My Response: Naturally. But what does “closer” mean? The level of babies, who are closer to the mother because they are completely dependent on her, have no independence.
And when they begin to develop independence, they want to somehow approach, feel, understand, and be in it, they will begin to move away, gain egoism, and only then begin to approach the spiritual. That is, their path is not close, not by a small leap.
You can enter spirituality only with huge egoism, which you have already recognized as evil, and you are sure that you need to correct yourself.
Comment: But you say that great egoism without a Masach (screen) is the most terrible evil, the furthest from the Creator.
My Response: Without a Masach (screen), it is all the evil of the world. Certainly.
In fact, this is small egoism, small desires. Real egoism is in the spiritual, when in spiritual falls you want to use the Creator (upper force) for yourself, become great, rule over Him, as in the fairy tale about the golden fish: “I want to rule!”
This is where the person stops and starts again. That’s all right, everything must be outlasted.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Biggest Еgoist in the World” 7/14/12
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Comment: I notice that people become more patient with time. Even overly active students who used to shout, try to prove something, and lead revolutions became calmer. They began to understand that it is not about external changes but internal ones.
My Response: Today the world is so well disposed to attain the Creator, to reveal Him, which is simply amazing! All the circumstances surrounding us help push us forward. And what else is there to do in this world?
Twenty years ago it was still impossible to talk to people about Kabbalah. Thirty years ago they didn’t care about us at all. What do you do? Is the world created to think about some high matters? “Grab everything you can! Whoever has a longer yacht has succeeded in life.” And now this all passes away. Some kind of realization is coming.
Of course there is a need to occupy life with something. People get carried away and play with everything like boys in the yard, do this, and this, or that, in order to occupy themselves. They need excitement; they need a sense of life! It is just a pity that they feel this life for themselves in the form of a game. And there are people who are malnourished, do not know where they will lay their head, and so on. That is such a theater.
So this is a problem. However, according to the people who come to me, I see that they really feel that the world is not the same anymore. But it is they who are not the same! What about the world? Does the sun not shine?
Of course everything is changing. Look at the ecological situation! We see what is happening in the world. These are the first small waves of a hurricane, a cyclone, or a storm that is approaching us and will be flooding us. And humanity will not be able to do anything, even if it throws all its strength at it! Nothing!
Subsequently, it will discover that our desire and our thoughts are the greatest weapon in the world that is able to resist or cause any changes in the world. If we think well, and for us it is like thinking about a white elephant (it is almost impossible), yet if we somehow come to this state, then we will survive. And if not, then we will drown, die, and burn.
This is the problem; I have to think well, but I can’t. How should we act in this case? Here is where people will face the necessity to change themselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. People Change” 7/14/1
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There is nothing in our world that is just invented or made up. Everything is based only on the basis of upper spiritual actions, even what we should eat, how to sit at the table, and what to say.
We are talking about the intention of a person in the process of spiritual work, and not during the meal itself. If he is preparing to receive the upper light, he must know what intentions to make for each reception, for each portion of light, and how this light comes to him.
Our world does not exist at all, it is built on the basis of spiritual roots. Therefore when a person wants to make an exact copy, to put one world on top of another, then he acts physically in our world and at the same time spiritually with his intentions in the upper world. Then he gets an absolutely clear similarity of one world to another, one world seems to be superimposed on another.
This is as if deification of our world, that is, even in his physical actions, a person raises our world to the spiritual. But it is he who does this, and not because there is any special holiness in the animals he slaughters or in the actions he performs, but precisely because he wants to be like the spiritual world in everything that happens to him and within him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Food Is the Meaning of Life” 9/8/12
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In the News (Snopes.com): “A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. …
“In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition. …
“This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?
“One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”
Comment: When I read this, I drew this parallel: let’s say our science of Kabbalah, which existed 2,000 years before all religions, currents, and so on, stands somewhere where people move and run by. Nobody asks for any big amount of money for it; people are just asked to pay attention to it because it will tell them about what the basis of the world is and how to become happy in this world—and very few people stop. How many of us are here?I compared it to that great violinist.
My Response: I don’t believe it can happen by itself. Only if the Creator, of course, changes some initial conditions and initial data in people could this happen.
Question: Then people could stop and suddenly hear?
Answer: Yes. But otherwise, no.
Question: And so they run and pay a lot of money to discover how to become happy and how to become successful.
Answer: People have a need for this, but not in the approach that Kabbalah requires.
Question: Why can’t we adjust the music to people like that?
Answer: We can’t set this up. This requires turning yourself off and turning on completely different sensors, different senses.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/24/22
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Each and every individual will understand that his own benefit and the benefit of the collective are one and the same, and by this, the world will come to its full correction (Baal HaSulam, “The Peace“).
It may seem to someone that we are talking about communism or socialism here, but in fact, the wisdom of Kabbalah explains the general law of nature according to which all of nature is connected and linked in an integral form where everyone depends on everyone.
The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we can influence general nature in order to benefit each element of nature as well as its general force, which is called the Creator.
Call it socialism or communism, it does not matter, but the general law of integral nature initially operates throughout the universe. There is only one force that acts, connects everything, and leads to complete unity. All parts of nature are connected to each other, and we have no right to pull them out of this integral dependence originally established in nature.
Therefore we have to study this law and know how to implement it without making any amendments of our own that seem more convenient and beneficial to us. Our task is to study the laws of nature and follow them. This advice is given to us by the wisdom of Kabbalah, and those who follow this advice will certainly succeed.
After the final correction, all humanity will unite in such a way that everyone will understand their destiny and the entire reality will be clearly revealed to us from end to end; that is, the Creator will be revealed to everyone. We will live in a clear, transparent world, and we will know how to correctly exist in mutual cooperation and unity, in an embrace with each other, and not only people, but in general all inanimate nature, plants, and animals.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/23, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
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Question: Victoria writes: “So often I want to forget everything that has happened. So many days, so many years have been wasted, so many mistakes have been made. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot forget. My memory again and again emits pictures of the past that cannot be erased.
Tell me, why are we given memory? If only it were given to learn, to memorize something necessary. But no, it often breaks the heart. So, what is it given for?”
Answer: I think that this occurs in you because you are very eager for the future, and therefore, for some reason, you feel sorry for the past, that you did not have time for something. Do not worry. One should always think that every moment that has passed is made by the Creator, and it all depended on Him alone. Therefore, in no case should we worry about the past, the future, or anything, but only the given moment.
Question: So, you can say thank you for what happened, whatever it was, right?
Answer: For everything that has been, for everything that is, and for everything that will be. But the most important thing is to live now. Only in the present. In Kabbalah, there seems to be no past or future tense, only the present.
Question: Do you ever regret anything in the past? Does your memory ever cut out something that makes you suddenly shiver?
Answer: It is all gone.
Question: Do I live in the compartment of today?
Answer: Not even in a day, but the moment.
Comment: Now we are talking with you, this is this life. And everything that has been and everything that will be is not a concern anymore.
My Response: All this does not depend on us in any way.
Comment: Teach me to live like this. I can say that, but if I am tested in a second, I will be a rag.
My Response: No, I am clearly not worried about the past. Although, if you count how much time I have wasted and for what, then of course it is…
Comment: Heaps.
My Response: But that is how it should be. Agree with the fact that the Creator does everything, and that is for sure for the past! And you fully support Him, trust Him, and accept Him.
Question: But how about the future? Everyone dreams of something about the future, everyone hopes for something that will happen in the future. It cannot be taken away from a person.
Answer: If you are thinking about the future, then, you are taking it away from the Creator. This is also forbidden.
Question: Is this also His prerogative?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So, if I define this formula for myself, what is it?
Answer: At the moment I am connected with the Creator, merge with Him, cling to Him and I do not want anything else. That is how a child sticks to its mother, and that is what he wants. This is it, nothing more! That is how we should be.
Question: So the basis of this formula is to stick to the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: His past, His future. And yet this is my present, is it mine? Do I exist here after all?
Answer: I do. In the present, that is me. And only I determine, so to say, that I want to be with the Creator, to hold on to Him.
Question: Right now?
Answer: Yes.
Question: I see. Then will all the sorrows go away?
Answer: There is nothing else. Nothing.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23
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Question: You say that a Kabbalist deliberately hides the future from himself and does not want to see it because he wants to exert efforts. How does he do it? Is it that the picture is revealed to him, but he does not want to see it?
Answer: The fact is that people are included either in the lowest level of the information layer, or in egoistic management, jointly guiding the economy and power, juggling governments, countries, and peoples.
Kabbalists follow a completely different path. They must first acquire a protective screen that they put in front of them. Any revelation they make is possible only if they can use it correctly for their own growth, for becoming similar to the Creator, and getting closer to Him, because similarity to Him is the goal of creation.
This condition, which they accept upon themselves, becomes the defining one for them, the highest, and is called restriction (Tzimtzum) and screen (Masach). That is how they work.
Therefore, there is no random restriction for them, as with psychics. They have the ability to consciously ascend with an understanding of cause and effect.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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Question: Are there moments of truth on the spiritual path when you progress in constant tension? Can there be constant pressure?
Answer: There is no pressure at all in the spiritual. At the degree of our world we are being driven a little by animal suffering, but we cannot move forward with them.
If you really want to move forward, then you need other sufferings—sufferings of love. And for this you have to get a desire from the environment. You cannot move forward with your desires, you have to include yourself in the environment and get support from it.
The support of the group is that it constantly gives you desires for attainment: positive, negative, it does not matter which.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pride” 6/30/12
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Question: Is it possible to study Kabbalah in a drugged condition?
Answer: No, on the contrary, it requires immense internal tension, absolutely sober thoughts, feelings, and reactions. This is not the buzz, when you have to be in some kind of frenzy surrounded by smoke that is necessary for mystical actions. Here you need a very clear head, and very clear feelings, desires, and thoughts where you know how to manage them.
I used to think that if spirituality is somewhere out there, then the more I disconnect from this world, the closer I will be to the spiritual one, and it will enter me directly. I just open my mouth only half-consciously and—voila! I connect directly.
No! This is absolutely not true. We see this in all of our activities. Spirituality is revealed only with attainment, sensation, effort, and mobilization of internal reserves. Neither alcohol, drugs, nor some kind of ups and downs will help. On the contrary, they disconnect a person from the spiritual and include him in some kind of internal trip and nothing more.
Kabbalah is not just for or against drugs and alcohol. After all, when you are sitting with friends, you can drink a little in order to relax on a human level but not to get drunk, rather, relax a little because a person has internal locks in his relations with others.
In addition, if a person is doing very serious inner work, then alcohol and drugs quickly burn out. It all depends on one’s internal tension.
Kabbalah starts shaking you so much that drugs do not help here. You feel like you fell out of life. The rest have gone far ahead, and you seem to be crawling out of the basement into the light of day.
I have never tried drugs in my life. I had a rejection of any means that could cut myself off from real attainment of the upper world. Therefore, I could not accept any religion or any other teachings. When they told me: “You have to believe, you have to accept, you have to switch off,” it did not exist for me, but only real attainment, real analysis, and synthesis of knowledge.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Attainment through Drugs” 7/14/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the future of humanity?“
In the future, people will come to see the connections among nature’s myriad parts.
More specifically, our future change would be only in how we understand connections.
Take, for instance, an alien suddenly visiting our planet. It would see us all as a single phenomenon, and would be unable to discern our differences, that there are police officers, thieves, rich and poor, women and men, and so on. It is the same with us.
When we discover the world where we are correctly connected among each other and with nature, with the revelation of the force of love and bestowal among us, then we would sense a completely new, amazing and capacious reality. We would understand the depths of everything happening in the universe, with the born, the unborn, the living and the dead.
That is what we can expect in our final future state.
We will understand nature’s inanimate, vegetative, animate and human matter in all of its cycles.
Most importantly, however, we will feel that we exist in a network of connections and mutual influences among nature’s parts and degrees before their origin in our world, and during their existence in our world and afterward.
Perceiving the complete interconnection of nature’s parts will give us an eternal picture that answers our every question without exception. We will gain clarity as to why everything happened, is happening and will happen, the way that it did, does and will do. We will also receive a clear understanding of the law by which we develop. Like with embroidery, on one side we see a beautiful picture, and on the other side, we see various knots where if they are cut, the picture falls apart. That is what we are like: if we do not feel our connections, then we fall apart and become distant from each other.
Based on KabTV’s “The Last Generation” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 27, 2017. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 2
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In the News (The Guardian): “Five of the world’s most powerful nations have agreed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” in a rare joint pledge to reduce the risk of such a conflict ever starting.
“The pledge was signed by the US, Russia, China, the UK and France, the five nuclear weapons states recognised by the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) who are also the five permanent members of the UN security council. They are known as the P5 or the N5. …
“‘We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,’ the statement said, echoing a joint declaration by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev at a 1985 summit in Geneva. …
“The five nuclear weapons powers also stated that the ‘reduction of strategic risks’, making sure global tensions never lead to nuclear conflict, was one of their ‘foremost responsibilities’.”
Question: Trillions of dollars are spent on the arms race, and such sweet letters are swiftly signed: “We are against the arms race. We are for stopping it” (whatever you want). What kind of papers are these?
Answer: Everything that is written and said is said only for the people and nothing more. The people will swallow it all and everything will move on.
In principle, all this is done in order to stay in power, to keep stealing, plundering, controlling, and ruling. Almost everyone has one goal: “I want to stay in power. I need it; it is profitable, it is convenient… and after us, the deluge.”
Question: Tell me please, do people want to hear it?
Answer: Yes they do. That is why they sell it to them.
Question: At what point will it no longer be a sale, and we will really reach a place where, with pain in our hearts and with great desire, we will sign such a paper that we do not want, God forbid, some kind of nuclear war to take place? What would have to happen in the world?
Answer: To do this, we need to correct people. So that the ones below understand that this cannot be without correcting everyone, right up to the very top.
Question: And if a person understands this, what will happen? What will he demand?
Answer: Then he will demand universal education, new education—collective, loving, etc.
Comment: I would like to believe that we will reach such a state.
My Response: Yes. But not now and not with these declarations.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/6/22
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The society in which we live egoistically dominates us; it sets all sorts of standards for us: dress like this, comb our hair like this, look like this, be tall and thin and not fat or short, and so on.
This was created on purpose in order to better show our egoism. It turns out that a person exists in a variety of external negative influences. This state is called Galut (exile), when our qualities of bestowal and love are in exile from the spiritual and under the power of egoistic values, assessments, and attitudes.
Therefore all our efforts should be aimed at replacing these egoistic social attitudes with spiritual ones, and I will look at the inner world of a person, not at his externality, and I will evaluate him by his thoughts, not by how pleasant and good it is for me. This is our constant work on ourselves.
Here Kabbalah puts a person in very strict conditions where one must constantly engage in introspection and understand that a public egoistic machine is working on him by supplying him with its attitudes and egoistic standards every minute: “You must do this, look at people in this way, evaluate them according to such and such criteria.”
And a person must constantly resist this. Then he will see in the society around him, in the egoistic machine that acts on him, the guiding hand of the Creator, which thus educates him and leads him to a state of absolute love for all.
In this case the world becomes the arena, the place where we unite with the Creator in our mutual love for him. In fact, this world disappears; it does not exist. It is like a place where we simply connect, the Creator and I.
It is revealed to me that the whole world was created just for this. All this trumpery, lots of people and everything that happens to them, their influence on me and my influence on them are needed only to work out my relationship with the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Hate, but Also to Love” 7/29/12
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Comment: On holidays like Passover and Sukkot, everything revolves around a meal.
My Response: Meals come from spiritual roots and embody receiving the upper light for the sake of enjoyment.
A meal is not just a feast where you drink and eat. The fact is that all holidays have their own symbols and there are various customs around them. But in general, they express the consequence of spiritual actions and are absolutely clearly constructed in accordance with them.
There is nothing in them that we are used to: “Now let’s go, sit down and eat.” For example, everything that is served on the table in the New Year (Rosh HaShanah)—carrots, a fish head, a pomegranate, and so on—are hints of spiritual actions or phenomena.
Nourishment means receiving the highest light and abundance, not just the food that the body needs. After all, we mean the spiritual body, not our physical body.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Food Is the Meaning of Life” 9/27/12
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Question: How does a person use envy correctly without trying to extinguish it in oneself?
Answer: There is no need to extinguish anything, not even the most negative thoughts and motives! All of this is corrected by the light, not you, so there is nothing to suppress in yourself.
On the contrary, when all sorts of negative qualities manifest themselves, it means that now you need upper light that will correct you a little. That is all. Meaning, you have a need for light, and without negative feelings it would not exist.
Question: Let us say a person has a need for light, but it does not take away his desire to stab someone. Or is it somehow transformed?
Answer: It is transformed. It is like you are cutting the intention, but the desire remains.
If you have a desire to slaughter people, then go to the slaughterhouse and work there as a slaughterer of cattle. And the transformation takes place in intentions.
My intention to cause someone some kind of injury turns into the opposite. I correct it with the help of the upper light to the opposite, and my enemy becomes my most beloved friend, no matter how incredible it seems now.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Use Envy Correctly” 9/8/12
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It is not easy to climb the spiritual degrees by faith above reason because the picture that appears before you is absolutely clear and understandable to you. This is the hostile action of egoism that reveals the future to you as the present, and you must neglect what you see as if it does not exist.
The revelation of the Creator unfolds all possibilities before you, not just a temporary scan, and makes the future like the present, because there is no future, present, and past.
The surrounding light is the future. The light emanating from Partzuf Nekudim is the past. The inner light (Ohr Pnimi) that fills the Partzuf is the present.
When a person has all this converging into one, he does not take it into account; he has a screen to disassemble everything into parts and make a temporary setup himself, to go through all these states with his own efforts.
In other words, the Creator reveals Himself and everything becomes absolutely clear, but a person voluntarily conceals the Creator from himself, i.e., all the energy, information, action, and plan, in order to create a picture out of the darkness by himself and combine it into one mosaic, because in this way he learns the inner meaning of the Creator and this will give the Creator pleasure. That is what he is interested in!
So Kabbalists have a slightly different approach compared to psychics. We disagree with them because first we need a screen to turn our world into a world of infinity in all respects with infinite knowledge, attainment, movement, or whatever.
The screen is necessary for one to own, like the Creator, who took all the power of the universe, and not our little world that occupies one dark point, and to use this power as he sees fit based on his elevation.
Opportunities should not exceed knowledge, otherwise you see what an atomic bomb in the hands of savages can lead to.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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The Ari’s book Gate of Intentions, which in fact means their roots, describes spiritual actions that are behind physical actions. From this, it becomes clear why a person is arranged in such a way that he must eat certain food.
Precisely a certain one, that is, to not eat the meat of animals that swallow food, but only of ruminants that regurgitate food and swallow, regurgitate and swallow. Such a closed cycle of digestion symbolizes feedback.
The “cloven hooves” represent the Parsa that separates the right and left lines.
Of great importance is how to cook food, and why it should be kosher. Kosher means usable.
The separation of meat from dairy is the right and left lines. The six hours break between eating them is HGT NHY: six Sefirot of Zeir Anpin that separate it from Malchut. And so on.
All this is in imitation of the upper spiritual sources that have descended into our world and built their corporeal counterparts in it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Food Is the Meaning of Life” 9/27/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the world really controlled by just a few families?“
Indeed, we live within a power hierarchy where only a few dozen families control the world and do whatever they wish for themselves. It seems as if they have limitless abilities with their power, as they limit humanity from obtaining true information, acquiring certain medication, normal food and cheaper energy that we could have long used instead of oil. They act based on their egoistic pursuits and position.
We are powerless to create any different kind of order in our world unless we rise to a degree of connection where we start feeling the positive forces dwelling in nature, which are currently concealed from us. We will then exit this power structure we find ourselves in. These few families cannot stand in the way of nature’s governance and limit our world in its positive form of development.
The wisdom of Kabbalah calls these people in power “angels.” The Kabbalistic meaning of “angels” is completely different to the way most people think about that word. “Angels” means certain forces that are under the complete control of the upper force, and these ones in question function as a shadow of our flaws.
If we positively connect in a way that adapts us to the positive forces of nature—forces of love, bestowal and connection—we neutralize negative forms of control over us. For the time being, however, while we remain detached in our egoistic connections, each one pulling their own way, then it is as if we sustain those few families’ power. In other words, we ourselves are their power source, and we create the conditions for their existence.
Therefore, our progress to a harmonious and peaceful future depends on our transformation to positively connect. When we do so, we will feel the powers over us operating out of absolute love and care—an attitude that will grant everyone access to the most powerful, boundless and perfect form of fulfillment.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 14, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 1
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Selected Highlights
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Question: It is said in Kabbalah that those who are greater than their friends have more egoism. Surely you are the greatest egoist of all, are you not?
Answer: I have always been a very big egoist, so much so that I simply could not hear others and be in tune with them.
Question: How do you have the patience now to listen to the most stupid statements?
Answer: The fact is that I integrate with the one who asks, in his desire. His desire is new in the world. It does not matter that I went through that already and he did not. In the general system, this desire has not yet been corrected, and when a person asks, I connect to his desire and make a correction.
For me this is an opportunity to do more, so I am glad for such manifestations. The same questions can be repeated for thousands of hours, but each time they are asked by different elements of the general system of souls, and therefore every time I look at this as an opportunity for correction. With my answer, I connect a person to the spiritual, and he continues on.
Switching occurs through me.
It is just a system, like that which we see today in technology, in computers, and in some large networks. It is a system! Of course, it works on completely different principles, primarily on the principles of bestowal. Secondly, it is integral. Everything in it interacts simultaneously; there is no time, no cycles. This is not a pulse system, but an analog one. It is impossible to describe it.
But in principle it is possible to influence each other in some way. Prayer is called the revelation of desire, and the answer to prayer is the reception and fulfillment of desire. There are two very interesting articles in The Book of Zohar about raising prayer and about its fulfillment; these laws of commutation are described there.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Biggest Еgoist in the World” 7/14/12
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Question: What is the perception of reality of a person of the last generation?
Answer: The reality of the last generation is that people will see all the connections between the numerous parts of nature.
Nothing will change, only the understanding of connections will change.
For example, if an alien suddenly came to our planet, he would not be able to understand the differences between us. It would be incomprehensible to him that these are policemen, these are thieves, these are rich, these are poor, these are women, and these are men. It does not have that understanding. It is the same with us.
When we reveal the upper world, we see nothing new except that we begin to understand the correct relationship between all the elements of creation. It is so amazing and capacious; it gives an understanding of the depths of everything that happens in the universe, with the unborn, with the born, with the living, and with the dead.
Everything is included here: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human matter in all its cycles. But most importantly, there is a network of connections and mutual influences between parts of all degrees of nature before their origin in this world and during their existence in this world and after.
When this interaction is revealed in its entirety, a person sees an infinite, eternal picture that gives answers to all one’s questions without exception. Everything becomes clear to a person in whatever has happened, is happening, and will happen in the world.
He clearly understands the law by which everything develops because he sees the interconnection of all parts of nature. It is like embroidery on a hoop: on one side there is a beautiful picture, and on the other side there are knots, and if you cut them, everything will fall apart. We are like that, without feeling the connections, we move away from each other.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 12/27/17
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In physics, there are phenomena that based on some alternative possibilities and research, we come to the conclusion that something exists, but we cannot determine it even indirectly. We have the same problem with the Creator. People guess and make assumptions about Him, and on these bases philosophies, religions, and what not arise!
What is this force that determines, creates, and brings everything to life? We cannot feel this either in our bodily senses or with artificially created instruments. We cannot! We do not have such a measuring tool or some kind of scanner or X-ray.
Kabbalah directs a person to create a device within oneself that will enable the person to sense the Creator, tune oneself to this phenomenon, this force, this field, and by continuously changing oneself to come closer and closer to it. You need to work tirelessly on yourself and then it will happen.
It is said that after you make certain quantitative and qualitative efforts which are called Igati (came), you will reveal Him, which is called Matsati (found). And that is it!
The only problem is that we do not know exactly what kind of efforts there are. And for that we have been given a group and all the conditions that Kabbalists write about.
In principle, Kabbalah exists only to help a person not be confused, but to apply the right amount of effort in the right place and as efficiently as possible.
And then, when you grasp the tail of the feeling of the Creator, and you already have it, you begin to move forward along it. You grab the end of the rope and climb up. The main task of Kabbalists is to bring us to the first contact in order to grasp the feeling of the Creator.
Therefore, every day you need to change and be afraid that you are losing time. After all, here you are racing against time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change Every Second” 7/14/12
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Comment: You say that dissemination is more useful to us than to the world because the world does not change. We must change it.
My Response: Yes, the more I pass the light through me to the whole world, naturally the more I ascend and rise. It is an interconnected system. I cannot ascend unless the next layer forms underneath me. This is how I grow, only through the students.
Once upon a time, the first Kabbalists were at the level of NHY, the lowest Sefirot. Then a layer of students started to form under them who reached the level of HGT, and then to the level of HBD. That is, everything grows from the bottom to the top because more and more corrected souls are connected from below.
The same thing happens with us; if you want to rise even a little, you need some more people to form under you.
For example, if you make a certain dissemination project in such a way that many people will awaken from it to a correct action and as a result they somehow indirectly, no matter how, reach the source of light, then naturally, a huge foundation will be formed under you so that you can rise.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Personal Benefit” 9/8/12
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Comment: Jewish people have their own purpose and that is why the point in the heart is revealed in them. But others do not have these sparks. But sometimes you say they will still awaken in everyone.
Answer: No, the shattering was only among Jews. Therefore, there are parts of the desire of the common Malchut into which the sparks of bestowal have penetrated more or less, but they necessarily exist somewhere.
Therefore, there are such nations, such parts of civilization, that cannot independently feel the point in their heart or ignite it by attracting the upper light upon themselves and creating an inner light out of the surrounding light. And there are those who gradually will be able to do so.
Thus, there are nations closer and further from correction in accordance with the so-called 70 nations of the world—the 7 Sefirot of Zeir Anpin. Therefore, they are divided into more active ones, not as low, with awareness and perception, as well as less active, more passive ones.
But this does not say which of them is higher or lower. This only speaks about the correction process: who is earlier or later, who should help those lagging behind.
And then, once everything is formed into a general system, it turns into a sphere where everyone is absolutely equal.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Jews Always Win“ 6/9/12
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How does the connection between the Jews influence the Israeli Arabs for the better? How will this change the sense of discrimination felt by some of the nations of the world? How can we understand the crucial role of the Jews?
The way to work with Israeli Arabs is to show them how we, the Jews in Israel, connect among us, and how we can accept them among us so that they can also be connected with us. Let’s investigate the systems of our connection, but from the perspective of the corrected form. For this we have a method and we know from the forces of Kabbalah what form we need and how to implement this. Then we will reach tranquility with our neighbors and the rest of the nations of the world and they will come and help us. The nations of the world will carry the children of Israel on their shoulders and bring them to the temple in a perfect state.
We are falling behind in this. There is a unique partnership here. We should form the head. The people of Israel have an idea, a message. The nations of the world have the forces. We do not have the forces, and they need a goal.
All parts of the body are important in order to reach the goal. Since each one’s unique role is equally necessary, they won’t feel that they are deprived. They don’t want our role; they just need us to fulfill our role so that they can perform their role. Once we do the work, once we wholeheartedly want to achieve wholeness, they will adhere to us and be devoted to us heart and soul. By this we can turn them into aiding forces. The work is therefore not among the Arabs, but among the Jews.
The moment Israel acts as the head, this force of connection will pour from Israel to the nations of the world, and the world must respond accordingly.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 454—Israeli-Arab Relationships,” 11/13/14
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
| Video: Play Now | Download | Audio: Play Now | Download |
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you define “love” in one sentence?“
Love is to place the desires of others above one’s own desires.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Find the Purpose of Your Child” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 27, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman 6/27/12.
Question: You said that attainment is the perception of the opposite. Is this the correct definition of attainment?
Answer: Yes, attainment appears only from the perception of the opposite. Otherwise, there would be nothing.
The Creator does not have this. In the absolute, if we can somehow talk about His existence outside of us, everything exists outside the definition of a thing from its absence, some property from its opposite, light-darkness. It exists only in us.
Therefore, we must accumulate many sensations of light-darkness in ourselves and from this create a picture of the world and of ourselves.
Question: What is attainment for all sorts of gurus, for example, Indian yogis?
Answer: This is the psychology of our world. The time will come when people will rise above it.
They will see where the science of attainment called Kabbalah is, and where the beliefs and personal impressions of a person are, which he somehow gained in our world and which are mainly based on rituals: how to dress, dance, sit down, stand up, and so on. All this is connected with his material life, his physical body, some actions, words, and everything else.
But here there is none of that. This means that if an initial desire for spirituality arises in a person, then the method of its development does not at all apply to our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is Attainment?” 9/15/12
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Comment: In our world a person is judged by his achievements in society, to what status he reaches.
My Response: To what status? Sometimes I watch the news on TV channels and that’s it. All other programs talk about all kinds of frauds, murders, punishments, about the army—everything is forceful. The triumph of power is promoted: here we are him, and he is us, who will crush whom, and so on.
Is it really possible to educate the population about this?! Not even just to educate, but somehow to nurture a new generation.
What kind of person do you end up with? We have no idea what we are doing with society at the same time! Or is this the state program? Maybe it’s called freedom: Do what you want?! This is terrible!
And the Internet is not a free field either. They are led by serious forces; the state should think about what is happening in the field of the Internet. There are laws for its development, switching, and management. Or does the state think it’s OK to have so many porn sites there? It is an unreasonable approach! This also affects a person!
Of course, things like violence and murder, should be mentioned but in a very limited way so that we can see that there are such things. People need to be educated! Man is an animal. Once he climbed down from a tree, but today he is worse than in those days.
So where is this government policy?! Any parliament in the world deals only with internal bruising and nothing else. Look at the structure of the world, what selfishness has brought us to!
I’m not against crime films. But these should be isolated cases from which you can learn something, and not shown on all channels. By watching all this, negative examples are deposited in our brain, and we are already acting on these patterns: This is how I saw it in this film. These pictures pop up in a person, and he realizes them. This is the current upbringing.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Man Is Judged by His Deeds.” 6/16/12
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Comment: A student who is not yet in attainment has a feeling that there is a certain force, but he does not use it as a Kabbalist because he does not understand it.
My Response: If he does not understand, then you cannot do anything. We must strive to reveal it.
The most important thing is not to feel crushed by everyday life so that what was yesterday is yesterday, today is completely new, and every time it is new more and more. It is hard but necessary for advancement. To meet every minute and ask yourself: “Well, what’s new?”—shake off the dust that settles on you every second.
Comment: The main problem is that many people freeze and enter a layer of some kind of habit.
My Response: That is the worst part. As Pushkin wrote, “Thus heaven’s gift to us is this: That habit takes the place of bliss.” This is terrible happiness. It is not only an animate level but the happiness of the dead, when you exist and that is it. We must fight this state.
Comment: But on the other hand, there is a need for a person to get used to something and at the same time always to be refreshed.
My Response: And what can you get used to? No way! Habit is death.
Habit should be only at the level of a conscious routine when you set certain tasks for yourself and set a routine in accordance with them. Then you really control yourself and your movements. But if you give yourself up to a dead routine, then that is it.
Everything can be changed and reconsidered at any time. This should be our habit.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Habit Kills.” 6/30/12
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Comment: I constantly look at the comments on your videos. Among the people making comments, there are those who believe that you work by following someone’s program, like a representative of some secret lodge.
My Response: What kind of secret lodge can we talk about if we talk about bestowal and love?!
There can be no mysteries here because you want to attract everyone to mutual bestowal and mutual love, to a society of reasonable consumption, balance, and equality, and you yourself remain on the sidelines, that is, not to lead all this and pursue some selfish goals. Where can there be any egoistic intention here?
I understand people. A person cannot believe that someone is working for an idea. The idea must be either religious or national. And when it is not against someone, but on the contrary, for universal equality, brotherhood, and unity, then it sounds unnatural.
Of course, people have thoughts that there must be some kind of underground society here, which may have decided in this way to break and destroy the world, with poor people and governments devoted to them and supposedly caring about them.
Today we have already reached the final stage of our development. Therefore, on the last straight line, they can say anything they want. Time is running so fast that they won’t have time to invent something.
There are some philosophers, all kinds of wise guys who twist everything the other way around. I once met with a famous politician and listened to his philosophy. It’s just an explosion of an unjustified and unconfirmed mystical extravaganza that you don’t know what to do with and also mentions angels, ghouls, devils and others. And, of course, all this negativity is attributed to Jews and all the positive is attributed to other peoples.
I think that people like this highly erudite person will eventually realize their confusion. It’s not their fault. I can respect him for his general knowledge. But I also understand that he relates the Jews and their mission from a completely opposite side.
He ascribes to them great powers, abilities, and versatility, considers them the greatest force in the world, that they practically determine the entire history, everything, everything, only from a negative point of view. It all depends upon the view. It will turn around for him and I think he will understand.
By the way, I am by no means offended by anyone. Let people know that I love them all. Just so that they will always read and study what I say, it doesn’t matter with what purpose, even to find something for which you can tease. And gradually it will sort itself out.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Agent Laitman” 6/16/12
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Question: If a person steps out of the group for some time does it happen according to a program instilled within him?
Answer: No way! A person does not have a predetermined program in regards to approaching or distancing from the Creator! Everything exists within his freedom of will.
This is not predetermined in advance! There are some initial coefficients, constant data that are provided in the common system since this is a system rather than a single person and the Creator. This is a whole body: others will be influencing in some way, the world will be advancing in some way, some of its pieces, meaning souls will fall or rise in the movement toward the approaching and revealing the Creator together, in one single state.
The more effective this will be, the more it will influence a person. The more the world will slow down, the more it will slow down the person. However, these are only the outer data. Every one of us can also influence this.
There are situations you cannot escape. However, when you individually advance toward the Creator, toward His revelation within yourself, you experience these situations in completely different aspects; instead of stopping after receiving a blow, oppositely, you can speed up your movement.
This can be compared to a launch of a space shuttle in the direction of distant planets. When you launch a space shuttle a far distance, the space objects that exist between us and the target object serve as sources of acceleration. If the space shuttle is moving toward them with a certain trajectory, they will attract the space shuttle and will accelerate its movement; however, they will not let it approach them. It is like they pull the space shuttle toward them, it moves faster, eventually skips them, and continues to fly further.
The same is happening in spiritual work. It seems to you that these bodies that are together with you on the path can slow you down, attract, and even swallow you on the way. However, in reality they only accelerate you and you skip through further.
Question: Does it mean it is unrealistic to make a calculation about what is good and what is bad?
Answer: No, only maximum advancement with the help of yourself, the group, and the entire humanity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Do They Leave Kabbalah?” 7/14/12
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Comment: Sometimes a person is strongly thrown out of spiritual work. He starts to back off. Maybe he will slowly get closer afterward, but he is already distancing himself.
My Response: We will see later. In the end, he is not going anywhere anyway. Of course, it may take years.
I gave an example of when I was studying with Rabash, a man who had not been there for ten years came back one morning. Then the same morning a second man appeared who had not been there for fifteen years. I quietly asked Rabash: “Who are they?” He replied: “This one has not been here for 10 years and that one for 15. That’s it, they started coming back.” So a new circle began.
It was very interesting to watch those who returned. They did not have any feeling that they had left the group at all. It was strange to see it! As if a person did not have those years, he fell and woke up ten years later. And no one even said a word of reproach to them. Then it struck me!
And now I am not surprised by this and in no case do I worry that I have invested so much in someone, and then they would leave and maybe even say something against our methodology. I understand that they may come back later.
It is not man! These are his internal changes that are simply necessary; otherwise, he will not reach the revelation of the Creator. He must go through everything! If he is driven forward by the light, then all states are good for him.
Question: So these people had to go through a state of disconnection for 10 to 15 years?
Answer: I do not know. After this has passed, you have to say: “Yes, this is how it should be,” but not before that.
Of course, in those 10 years, they could have achieved something more. But, in principle, this is how the program manifested itself, and it depended not only on them. After all, they are a small cell in the huge body of all other souls connected together.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How do They leave Kabbalah?” 7/14/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you gain from rising above the ego?“
You gain upper knowledge, sensation and attainment with which you acquire absolute fulfillment.
You then see the entire universe from one end to the other, indefinitely and integrally, and you feel and realize how interconnected everything is.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pride” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 30, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: There is a parable about a frog who got stuck in the mud in a rut. No matter how hard she tried to get out, nothing worked. Friends tried to help to no avail, they failed.
In the evening, the exhausted friends went home and left their friend to the will of fate and were sure that they would come the next day, and she would no longer be there.
They came, and she was jumping merrily on the grass. They say, “How did you manage?!” “Very simply,” the frog replied, “a cart appeared, and I simply had no choice but to get out as soon as possible.”
How similar it is to our world, that we have to approach such a disaster that will simply crush us!
My Response: The awareness.
Question: Yes, and only then will we get out. You say that there is a path of goodness, and there is a path of suffering. We are on the path of suffering. Meaning, we should be crushed, and only then will we come to something good?
Answer: Yes. At the last step. Otherwise, we will not want to get rid of egoism. There must still be an ideological basis here, the solution to the problem is at its root—for what will we get rid of atomic weapons.
We must get rid of our desire to suppress, destroy, and dominate others. The desire to receive, the desire to suppress another is pure egoism. That is what we have to get rid of. This means, to come from hatred to love.
Such a turn is practically impossible. Only through the revelation of evil. And the revelation of evil can really only be global and only a free decision.
Question: So, we, like this frog, are in a rut? The cart is coming, and we still don’t care about it?
Answer: Yes. Moreover, we look at others, what would they do? Let them be the first to get scared and start doing something. But I hope that today’s situation also determines something.
Question: Is it not just a cart, but a tank that will crush us?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So, this fear, as you say, is at the heart of everything. And we will escape out of fear?
Answer: Yes. We will jump out of fear and from the realization of the inevitability of death. Moreover, we are not particularly afraid of death. It is just that the time will come, the condition of humanity will change, and we will understand that we have nowhere to go, and dying is also not an option, it is not a solution to the problem.
Question: And how does fear and the fact that committing suicide, dying, is not the solution to the problem, lead to the realization of the foundation that everything is in egoism, that it is to blame for everything? Where does this turnover happen?
Answer: A revolution occurs in a person when he suddenly begins to realize that even death does not save him from egoism. That even his death does not lead to the end of existence. He will exist in the feeling of such suffering, internal, it’s no longer a matter of physical, not bodily, the body already seems to be gone, but he will continue to suffer.
Question: And when will he realize that the cause of these sufferings is egoism? At what point is this understood?
Answer: When one has nothing left but egoism. When one sees that death does not save him and does not pull him out of terrible conditions, out of life. He will continue. After death, life continues, only in a different form, and he will suffer all the time, as in hell.
Question: And who will tell him that egoism is the cause of everything?
Answer: Then he will feel what sets him up to such a negative attitude to himself, to the world, to everything, and to egoism itself, which dominates him and always leads him from suffering to suffering.
Question: So, there will be this point that says: “I wanted to suppress everyone, but I have to suppress myself”? Will that be the feeling?
Answer: I think so. This is the solution. There is no other solution.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23
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Question: What is the difference between hallucinations and dreams?
Answer: Hallucinations are not dreams, but certain excitations that we artificially induce in our consciousness, not during a state of sleep, but by going into special states of semi-disconnection or complete disconnection.
Sleep is the natural state of the body. It is typical for everyone. It seems to us there are some creatures that do not sleep. In fact, they still sleep either in motion or in some other way. It does not matter, sleep is necessary.
Any living being that has perception and some storage of information must sleep. In this state, it passes from one state to another. It is so with all wildlife; ie., even plants fall asleep in winter and wake up in summer.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Reality in a Dream” 6/9/12
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In our time, a hierarchy has formed in the world where there are only a dozen families or people who control the world and do everything they wish for themselves. It seems like they have boundless abilities, they are controlling humanity and limiting it from obtaining true information.
In addition, they limit us from getting medication, normal food, and cheap energy that could have been used a long time ago instead of oil, and they are doing this based on their egoism and their position.
Nothing about this can be done differently until humanity rises to such a degree of internal integration that it starts feeling the upper force, the upper governance. Only then will the world stop being controlled by a handful of people. They will not be able to stand in the way of the upper governance and limit our world in its positive development.
Of course, these people themselves are also angels; meaning, they are governed by the upper force. They are like a shadow of our flaws. When we begin to unite among ourselves, we thereby neutralize them. But for now, in our disconnection, in our egoism, it is as if we are sustaining them, we are their power source, and we are creating the conditions for their existence.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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Comment: People spend most of their life on food, everything revolves around nutrition. Why is the system built in such a way that the process of nutrition practically occupies our entire life?
My Response: What else would you do?
If we had organized life in our world correctly, in accordance with the upper spiritual roots, we would deal with the food issue for a maximum of two hours a day for normal, rational self-sustenance and devote the rest of the time to our spiritual development and fulfillment.
Instead, we spend time making unnecessary things, selling them to each other, quickly bringing them to the “cemetery,” and making new ones.
In principle, sleep, nutrition, and spiritual work are what a person needs in this life in order to quickly begin to feel a new, quantum spiritual world and pass into eternity, into perfection.
What else do we need? Why should we linger here, at this waypoint?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Food Is the Meaning of Life” 9/27/12
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Comment: You say that it is necessary to learn how to empty yourself quickly so that the next day will be like a new one. You must not be stuck in yesterday’s calculations.
My Response: Yes, a mandatory condition for spiritual work is to be renewed every minute. In no case do not drag yourself from minute to minute. Leave your prior one in the past minute, and in the new one be a newborn, with new views, new tastes, a new attitude to everything.
Will I be able to or not? If not, then I am an animal that does not change during life, while a human changes.
Comment: But memory nonetheless exists. Many old people live in past memories.
My Response: This is given to us on purpose so that we suffer from how much, perhaps, we have done wrong to others. It is good if people have such remorse. But, in principle, it is necessary to live anew. I personally can’t otherwise. I just don’t agree with the fact that the day or some part of it, has passed just like that.
I have a schedule, and I have to follow it: lessons, blog, preparation for workshops, all kinds of meetings, five-minute meetings, preparation of materials for dissemination, for development.
Even if I don’t change anything myself, it still makes me change. In advance I put myself in such a framework that forces me to do this.
There is a schedule and I am in it. And inside this, of course, there are also my own thoughts and good impulses. How can they herewith not be renewed?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Change Every Second” 7/14/12
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As a result of the breakage of the common soul, its descent and mixing of all kinds of broken parts even at the spiritual level, all kinds of analyses, clarifications, and scrutinies of these parts take place in us, and therefore a person is often in such states when he does not know what is happening to him; someone seems to be leading him, performing actions for him, he somehow automatically goes through life and suddenly there is some kind of an accident, fate, fatalism.
What to do? Being only in the sensation of our world, we do not understand anything. For this reason, there are some people who feel that they are supposedly messengers of the higher worlds. This is how their egoism sets them up: you are special, from somewhere out there, take care of yourself, you have a purpose, etc.
This has been known for centuries. Where did all the beliefs come from? Some eccentric jumped out of bed early in the morning and ran through the city, shouting that he had an epiphany. And it went on and on for thousands of years.
But all this comes to its logical end. Today we are in a state of clarifying these things.
According to Kabbalah, everything is explained very simply, according to absolute laws, not as mysticism, only higher physics. The difference between Kabbalah and all religions, beliefs, and even sciences is that it is very realistic. It is not limited, not rigid, and not closed, like other sciences, where scientists are blinded in their characteristics.
They do not understand that they are limited in their perception of the world by their qualities, and they believe that what they see exists. If they had expanded their senses and their organs of perception, they would have seen more. They do not have a mechanism for expanding the boundaries of their perception. This is the limitation of the sciences, their dead end.
Kabbalah is good because it says: “Indeed, we have only what we see, what we can clearly explore, with repetition, with experience, with many people, and so on, but within the limits of those boundaries that give us existing knowledge.
However, these limits can be expanded. Let us say you have such a framework, you see the world through some diopters, another through others, and a third through the third ones. Let us describe the world through all these diopters and see how we can change our vision, that is, our perception, and whether we can expand it. If we can, that is great.”
In such a way we get 125 degrees of attaining the universe, the world. Moreover, not only attainment of its image, but also in-depth opening, i.e., qualitative attainment.
We do not just expand the world by zooming in on stars with a telescope or magnifying microorganisms through microscopes. We change ourselves! You begin to see the world qualitatively, deep into the n-dimensional space.
Then you see its governance, internal connections, meaning, and everything else. But again, it is realistic, scientific, and is confirmed by those who are engaged in expanding their perception.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Perception of the reality of a schizophrenic” 6/9/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is Passover important today?“
Kabbalists relate to Passover with utmost importance because it represents an exit from our egoistic nature, the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, which separates us from sensing the eternal and whole reality in which we exist.
The exit from our narrow egoistic perception into one where we exist in a common positive connection is the start of the spiritual path. The more we develop, the more we feel our egoistic nature suffocating us, leading us to an increasing entanglement of problems and crises.
Why? It is in order to grow a new desire in us: to escape from our egoistic closure in order to move toward a new state of positive human connection.
In the language of Kabbalah, this shift is described as the restoration of the common vessel of Adam HaRishon, our return to one common soul in which we feel ourselves—all of humanity—as parts of one massive desire that is filled with an immense force of love and bestowal, which binds us together in complete harmony.
It is for that reason that Kabbalists consider Passover the most important of all holidays. The word for Passover in Hebrew, “Pesach,” means to “leap” (pasach). Making a leap means shifting from a state of egoistic reception to altruistic bestowal.
It is truly a special holiday when we exit our egoism and begin a fascinating journey into the spiritual world.
Preparing for Passover means preparing our desire to want to include everyone together as one, for everyone to fill our innermost desire, that our thoughts and aspirations would be aimed in a purely spiritual direction: to connect among each other and with the Creator—the force of love and bestowal that connects us.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on March 6, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
To reveal the common Creator in the ten means to open our hearts, connect together, and discover that we are absolutely similar, equal, identical—everyone in everything. The revelation of such a commonality to us gives us a feeling of the Creator.
Therefore it is said that there is no Creator as such, but there is a common feeling of all hearts together in one heart. This is a very special feeling that fills absolutely everything. This is the state we need to reach, and there is nothing better than it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah lesson 3/13/23, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
Question: Vladimir writes: “I have analyzed all sorts of conflicts in different historical periods. I came across an unexpected conclusion. The closer nations feel each other, the more intense hatred appears between them. Strangers can come to an agreement, but relatives are ready to fight until complete destruction. They do not agree to anything else.
Why can hatred between alien, distant nations end in peace, and hatred between close nations should end with the death of one of them?”
Answer: This is this very egoism that does not tolerate anything that exists next to it.
Comment: It would seem that with somebody close, you can somehow negotiate.
My Response: No! If he is close, but I hate him, I do not like him, and I do not somehow correspond to him, or him to me, then egoism is manifested to a great extent between us. As Vladimir writes, close countries especially hate each other.
Question: What conclusion can we draw here? At what point can close people become really close? Anyway, they are pushed to face the fact that they are close, after all.
Answer: Only love! Otherwise, if they just coexist side by side, it is an underdeveloped society, a society with underdeveloped egoism.
Question: In principle, if we are talking about countries, should the governments develop only love?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What do you mean by this word?
Answer: What does love mean? This is when I feel directly physically connected to the other, dependent on him, and he on me. In such a way that I cannot do without him, and he cannot do without me. This state of ours obliges us to take care of each other.
Question: Do I then have a desire for him to feel good all the time? To make him happy?
Answer: I think about him because by doing this I also ensure a good existence for myself.
Comment: You are not destroying this egoistic foundation. It exists all the time.
My Response: It is necessary. There is no getting away from it. This is like in a couple where they love each other, but it is egoistic love. They understand that it will be worse for them without each other. They take care of each other because in this they each take care of themselves.
Question: When does war happen, when does hatred happen, at what point?
Answer: It is when these ties are torn. When I am not worried about the other, then I start fighting with him. There can be no peace. There can be peace only when we are dependent on each other, and this dependence is mutual, and we must definitely be together.
Question: Does it mean that your main advice is to build such connections that it will be impossible to break them later?
Answer: Yes, depend on each other in everything. This is how it is in general nature, in space, everywhere.
Question: If we are talking about governments, is their main concern how they can no longer exist without another? I do not exist without the other, right?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Then what happened in the world? Why is it like this?
Answer: People have become independent. They believe that they can exist without the other, conquer the other, and so on. But in fact, this is not the right principle.
Question: But we have always said that the world is absolutely interconnected for us today. Why do we not see it?
Answer: We see. This is why the world still exists and depends on each other. Well, you see how this mutual dependence is used. In fact, they lead themselves toward impoverishment, death, and so on.
Question: Does the principle “So that I feel good, and so that he does not feel good” still rule?
Answer: Unfortunately, a person does not understand this general law that he can feel good only if everyone feels good.
Otherwise, everything is constantly boiling in a pot of hatred. This is our egoism, which the Creator created so that we would see that we cannot get along with each other in any way. The only way is to accept the governance of the Creator, the governance of love, and cover everything with this feeling, with this attitude.
Question: Is it this egoism that I have to cover with love?
Answer: Yes. This is what we need to implement every day. Remind each other every day, talk about it every day, and so on.
Comment: A person has a feeling all the time that the work must end one day. But you say it will never end.
My Response: Never. You have to think every day about how much you love another person and hear the same thing from him.
Comment: This requires not just mental strength, but upper forces!
My Response: When you realize that this is inevitable, then it does not seem hard for you.
Question: Is there a moment when it becomes an easy path?
Answer: Yes. It becomes second nature.
Question: What is needed for close people to exist in peace and love?
Answer: They should need each other. Need! Not in order to suppress and get rid of each other and be free, but due to the fact that their life, freedom, and existence depend on the other. All this closed nature will eventually lead us to this.
Question: What does “closed nature” mean?
Answer: An interconnected system of nature.
Question: So, is it for a reason that we are now being shown that we are interconnected?
Answer: Of course, it is in order to lead us to take care of the other.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23
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Question: Nadezhda writes: “The question is very painful for us. I could not get pregnant for a long time, and we decided to adopt a child from an orphanage. This was a lengthy procedure that took us five years. This is how Ilya appeared in our house.
And then I managed to give birth to a child. Today we have two sons Ilya and Denis. Ilya is 8 years old, and Denis is 6.
I am writing to you with the consent of my husband. We do not know what to do. Denis, our biological son, feels that he is less loved. He became irritable. He does not hide that he is jealous of his brother and shouts at him. He does not know that his brother is adopted, but we do know.
We have watched a lot of your talks on the topic of education. We have seen the one in which you say that adopted children become closer than biological ones. But we love them both equally. We do not single out anyone, and still, something is wrong.
We want them to be real brothers. We are suffering so much! How can we change the situation?
Answer: It is because you are constantly proving to yourself that you love your adopted son like your biological one. You cannot help but distinguish between them.
Question: It sits in them, and therefore the adopted son stands out, and the biological one, as it were, appeared naturally, he is ours, right?
Answer: Yes. Imagine that every time, in any turn, in any appeal, you still feel that you owe him as an adopted son. And the other one is yours.
Question: He will remain mine, and I must prove to the adopted son all the time that he is mine, right?
Answer: Yes. They will grow up, they will go their own way, and each will have his own family, and everything else. But for now, yes.
Question: Will it be like this for now? That is, our biological son feels at the inner level.
Answer: He is at the adopted child level. And the adopted child is at the level of the biological one. Because that is the way things are in our world.
Question: Can you give some advice, please? How can parents at least bring their children to a state in which they are still like brothers?
Answer: It depends on the parents. The kids probably do not know (the truth).
Question: They do not know. Can parents change internally like that?
Answer: No. It sits in them internally so deep. They wanted a child too much, and therefore, due to their strong aspiration, they accepted the adopted child in such a way that he became dearer to them than their own.
Question: Then tell me, what is love for these two children, the adopted and the biological one?
Answer: Love is earned. You must pay for it, sacrifice yourself, and then to that extent you love. They wanted a child so much that the adopted child is more precious to them than their own.
Question: But will this not lead to any distortions or tragedies?
Answer: Children will grow up and then they will figure it out. They will figure it out anyway. It will take time.
Question: Time heals here. So do you tell the parents to calm down? To keep living as they are living now? Obviously, they love both.
Answer: Yes, but still there is a difference.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/5/23
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Comment: When you give public lectures, you count on the transmission of information, but you do not receive feedback from the audience, and there are only a few questions.
My Response: When I give a public lecture, I try to convey to the public my feelings, my spiritual message, so that it enters into them and works. People transfer their internal energy to each other.
We are all connected together in one network. By communicating, we excite dependence on each other and transfer energy to each other even more. It does not matter if it is verbal or written. We transfer energy and this is the most important thing. Basically that is what I am after. And then it continues to work internally within people.
Question: Can you do this without physically interacting with them?
Answer: Of course I can and I do it all the time.
It does not matter what world a person is in if he already has a spiritual Kli (vessel); that is, there is the force within him. But it is important for me that people perceive this on their level and get mature, normal impressions and also carry this at the level of our world.
There are no problems in the spiritual world; everything is perfect there. We need to make sure that our world rises to the level of the spiritual. This can be done only through the gradual earthly awareness of all people.
But it seems to me that we are going right, more or less, at a satisfactory speed.
We have made sufficient progress in creating a system of unified integral education and upbringing, a methodology for teaching it to the broad masses.
Humanity is moving toward the fact that it will need the correct interaction amongst itself, otherwise we will not overcome the manifestation of the general crisis.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Energy Exchange” 6/16/12
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There are no manipulations in Kabbalah. Why do we need them if the whole system is intended as the realization of freewill? Therefore, it is forbidden to put pressure on a person, to drag him in clearly or secretly, no matter how.
Such tricks are possible only at the level of our world, in egoistic systems. After all, a special calculation is done for this.
Even when parents force a child, for example, to acquire a profession that he does not want, to become this or that way, or some state institutions force people to act a certain way under a fear of punishment, those who exert such pressure pay dearly for doing that. After all, here you are conflicting with the plan of the Creator to bring a person to the image of a “man”! It is horrible!
These people, these systems in the next generations will go through great earthly and spiritual suffering before they come out of this state, as they have limited others in their freewill.
Most importantly, a person must develop freely! Only then will he fulfill his purpose. One who limits the other will have to make a double correction. This is a terrible thing!
All of humanity is moving in this way on the level of our world. But in spirituality this does not exist at all. There a person is the master of his fate.
Therefore, the teacher does not ask the student practically anything, he only says: “Are there any questions? Ask.” Are exams suitable? No. Does he push anywhere? No. He only pushes his students into some actions that can continue to develop them, but he in no case dictates anything, it is impossible.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Coercion in Kabbalah” 6/9/12
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Question: How can a person not get stuck and not harden on the spiritual path so that he has constant movement forward?
Answer: The support of the group is needed here. A person himself cannot do anything, he will constantly forget about the spiritual goal. His animal component always aims for the stable: there is a corner with hay to lie down and sleep; there is a trough with bran or a bag of oats to eat. And he does not need anything else; he can stay in this stable forever.
In order to get out of a safe philistine corner, the support of the environment is necessary. No heroism will help here because it is necessary to make constant efforts to move forward.
The greatness of the goal is necessary here, which a person can get only from the approval of the environment; great desires are needed, and there are none. But when you look at others and see that they are burning, they have it and you do not, then jealousy, envy, and pride gnaw at you and lead you forward.
You hate the others for showing you their big desires, but that is what pushes you forward.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Getting Stuck in the Spiritual…” 6/30/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do people relate to their reflection in others?“
We do not see other people but our own reflection in them.
Kabbalistic sources describe this phenomenon of our perception extensively, that we do not see others, but we see them in our perception, and what we see as their positive or negative traits or behaviors depends on our own habits, mentality and upbringing.
We do not perceive other people in and of themselves. Rather, we perceive them as correlations of themselves and ourselves.
The world is a reflection of your desire. Everything you see is your desire outside of you.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. I Am a Mirror for Others” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 6, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: Do Kabbalists define each other by name?
Answer: If I say that my teacher, Rabash, is the first disciple of his father, Baal HaSulam, then this says everything for me. I do not need anything else.
The same is true when I say that I am a disciple of Rabash, his follower, as though his shadow, then this is also enough.
Meaning, anyone who is interested in Kabbalah understands who I am, and it is clear to him what to expect from me and what questions to ask. He understands my essence.
Maybe this does not explain my achievements, because if I am his follower, it does not mean that I have reached his degree. But by what I do, how I teach, you can understand that I am at least at the degree that I teach.
My students and I do not study the degree at which I am. We are studying the degree at which I can teach them.
Just like a teacher with higher education who knows a lot comes to the classroom and leads it for many years and constantly reveals his knowledge at the degree of the understanding of the students so that they understand and be drawn to him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Meaning of a Person’s Name” 6/16/12
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Question: All people in the world have a first and last name. Where did this structure come from?
Answer: In general, a surname is something unnatural and artificially invented. A person must have a name, the name of his father, some position, or a reference to an address. Let’s say: “Lumberjack Byaka, son of Shmyaka, from Kudykina Gora”—everything is clear, you cannot go wrong.
This has always been the case for all nations, the most extended identification of a person. Where the surnames came from, I do not know for sure, I did not research this subject.
Perhaps it refers to belonging to a tribe, a clan. After all, there used to be many different tribes that today are represented by one nation.
Of course, surnames also indicate ancestry identification. For example, the last name Abramov means that there was definitely an Abram in this family. How else to identify a person? You just need to point to a person.
In Kabbalah, the name of a person can indicate maximum spiritual achievement; this is the most important thing. What difference does it make to me what his or her name is in this life? But if he was a son of a special person and received his spiritual heritage from him, then, of course, this is important.
Usually a sage is called: “So-and-so, a student of such-and-such” not by his father, but by the origin of his school.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Meaning of a Person’s Name” 6/16/12
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Question: How can one learn to treat a friend the same way Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma treated his disciples?
Answer: You have to be attracted to a friend. And although you do not see his inner essence yet, the upper light will come and do everything.
You have to imagine all the friends as big, united together, and only you are somewhere out there, outside of them. You need to pull yourself up to the high state they are in.
Question: We usually see friends from the side of the ego: “Well, who are they?” When will they actually become great in my feelings?
Answer: When you make a certain amount of effort of wanting to see them in this state.
And when you see them like this, they will immediately seem to you as being in an even lower state so that you will make efforts again and again. This is not a one-time, but a step-by-step movement forward.
They will always seem low and hateful to you, like the disciples of Rabbi Shimon who revealed such an attitude between themselves and each time reached a state of love.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Simulator” 6/30/12
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Comment: You say that the main force of egoism is pride.
My Response: Yes, but it is gradually defeated throughout all the degrees.
Imagine that you have to love all the people you dislike the most from the depth of your heart, while at the current degree. Then even greater egoistic levels are revealed.
Meaning, at each degree a person must reach a state where he treats the world with understanding and love. He realizes his inner degree and moves on. And immediately an even greater negative attitude toward the world and hence to the Creator is revealed to him.
The Creator, as the creator of the world, shows us the world He created and says: “If you fully agree with this, then to the extent of your approval and love for what I have done, you can be next to Me.”
And who likes this world, not to mention the spiritual one? All the spiritual worlds are revealed as BYA de Tuma, that is, as unclean, evil worlds in which terrible pictures of injustice regarding human egoism appear before us. You must rise above it and see the exact opposite picture.
Here it is necessary to rebuild one’s worldview to the present, not a mental worldview where I compose this picture inside myself, but where I clearly see pictures of the world around me that are revealed to me on my inner screen.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pride” 6/30/12
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Love of the created beings is a springboard to the final correction, to the love of the Creator, and to the purpose of creation as the result of our spiritual development.
We reach the love of the created beings as a result of our work in the corporeal world, in a group with friends, from the desire to get closer to them, so that in this way we can come to the love of the Creator.
By working on the love of friends, we receive a special force, a special upper light, that influences us, corrects us and gives birth to the love of others in us, which leads to the love of the Creator.
Otherwise, we would not be able to reach love of the Creator because He is concealed from us and is beyond our sensory organs. We are not able to imagine the Creator and build an attitude toward Him in any form. Only if we come closer to friends and through all the obstacles, failures, descents, and rejections and we continue to yearn for the love of others, then in this way we will learn what the love of the Creator is.
After all, this feeling is completely unavailable to us. Just as the Creator is separated from us, so love for Him is not felt in us in any way. If we feel some kind of love of the Creator in ourselves, then it is an egoistic feeling. It is not love at all, but egoism under the guise of love of the Creator.
But due to the fact that we work together in a group, after a long time and a great number of states that we go through, as a result, we begin to feel how important love of friends is to us. Then a special force, a special attitude becomes clothed in this love of friends, which is the love of the Creator, and so we receive His nature, come to love and unity, exit our egoism, and come closer to the purpose of our development.
All this we reach with the help of the upper force. If we use it correctly, the Creator will make all the necessary changes in us so that we finally reveal a special attitude to the Creator in ourselves called “love.”
Therefore it is written that there is self-love and there is love of the Creator, and there is a medium, which is love of others.
Through love of others we come to the love of the Creator. Therefore Rabbi Akiva said, “Love your neighbor as yourself is a great rule in the Torah.”
The Creator has arranged an intermediate station on the way for us, a state from which we can work. After all, love of others is at least to some extent understandable and palpable to our senses. If we make efforts to try to reach the love of friends, then in this way the upper light gradually influences us and leads us to genuine love of others, the ultimate goal and peak of which is the love of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/23, “From Love for the Created Beings to the Love for the Creator”
The vision of the future is concealed from the ordinary person. And this is rightly so because it would take away someone’s freewill.
On the contrary, a person is given darkness and emptiness. Do you want to get to a state where you are above time? Please go, but on your own, when you will be in this layer consciously and will not do anything to harm others.
You will always be silent even if you begin to exist in this layer. And this will never limit your free movement: you will not succumb to some stupid fanaticism in order to swim fatalistically through this layer.
A person rises to this layer only with a screen when he takes on the responsibility to move forward, although he sees the future predetermined 100%, he wants to implement it himself. This is called faith above reason.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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Question: When you describe the various states, you say that we have to go through them ourselves. Does it happen that you talk hypothetically about what awaits everyone, but you have not passed these states yourself?
Answer: No, how would I be able to talk about them?
Question: Does it mean that you have passed through everything you talk about inside and out?
Answer: No, not inside and out! I have not gone through everything that we read in the books yet. Where am I compared to their great authors?! I have not reached many degrees of my teacher, especially Baal HaSulam or other great Kabbalists.
But what I am saying comes from my feelings. From what else can I answer questions?
I have made particular progress in explaining the connection between our world and the upper world because this is what our generation needs.
The current generation needs the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to link its internal state, structure, and psychology with the upper world, with integral education and upbringing, with inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, and the state of “man,” with the development of egoism, crises, and with the influence of the outside world on us. We need to know how to organize a group that includes all of humanity.
I am constantly digesting all this in order to create such a good sphere around humanity in which it could find itself and begin to adapt to the general universe, to go beyond the human body and our five senses. I think this is the most important thing.
That is, I am like a point of contact between what an ordinary little person feels and at least the first spiritual degree to which I would like to bring him.
If I could bring a large mass of people to the first spiritual degree while I am still in this world so that it would work out like this, billions are in the feeling of our world, and hundreds of thousands are in the feeling of the upper world, and the rest are between them, on all levels, then there would be contact between the upper dimension and ours. And I have actually helped to create it. This is my dream!
Question: What are the chances?
Answer: I think there are chances. I am an optimist! As long as I live, I hope.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s States” 8/5/12
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Comment: One day a disciple asked his master: “How long do we wait for changes for the better?” “If you wait, it will take a long time,” the master replied.
We always have two possibilities: either to wait for a change for the better, or to not wait and to act. We see today that actions lead mainly to hatred, to a desire to change others. This is called action. I have a feeling that it is better not to act.
My Response: Actually, yes.
Question: What do you think is the right approach?
Answer: The right approach is to consciously dissolve in nature. Nature is the Creator. As much as we agree with this nature, with how it flows and what it does, it is much easier for us to accept the truth.
Question: So are you in favor of accepting?
Answer: What can you do?
Comment: Be proactive somehow. Here the wise man said: “Act.”
My Response: No, there is no point.
Question: So for you, the action is to accept what is happening? Can this be called an action?
Answer: Of course, you are working on yourself.
Question: Is it something active?
Answer: Of course. You force yourself to accept nature, or the Creator, as the only objective force of reality that exists.
Question: So I justify what is happening to me?
Answer: Of course, and everything around you.
Question: This is clearly a fantasy, but if everyone acted this way—politicians, scientists, what would happen? What would everything turn into?
Answer: Everything would be good and quiet. We would agree with the course of our lives and would calmly observe it.
Question: What about science, medicine, technology, and technological progress?
Answer: These too are given to us to gradually master and realize that none of them will change anything in the end.
Question: What is action and non-action? What is an action in agreement with what is happening?
Answer: This means that I fully trust the Creator and do not want to change anything according to my mind. I do not want to run ahead of what is happening. In general, I am not interested in any problems or any states. I am interested in involving myself in this and going with the flow. Not because I am lazy, but because I do not want to interfere in what is happening with my brains or my strength.
Question: The master was asked: “How long do we wait for changes for the better?” He replied: “If you wait, it will take a long time.” How would you answer? Or how would you comment on it?
How long do we wait for changes for the better?
Answer: There is no need to wait. The best is what is now. As you change yourself, your perception will change accordingly. Take everything philosophically.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23
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Question: Can it be that a person sees his qualities through me?
Answer: He sees through you, and you see through him. Thus, each of you has a mutual exploration of the world through yourself.
If the whole world were in you, you would be closed only in yourself, in your desires, and would not explore anything. You do not know yourself and you never look inside yourself because the desire is always aimed at capturing, bringing, taking, and absorbing in yourself.
When I see a huge world outside of me in which everything inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human are images of my desires, since they are outside of me, I am very clearly given the opportunity to explore myself. I explore the whole world, I absorb it, I want to know. Therefore, egoism is such a help for us.
When I begin to remake myself in relation to others who are outside of me, I actually change myself, my inner qualities, and desires from egoistic to altruistic.
But who do I treat like this if this is outside of me? The Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. I Am a Mirror for Others” 6/9/12
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Kabbalah reveals to us that “there is none else besides Him.” The Creator is behind everything that happens around us. The main thing is not to be distracted from the thought that all this is Him, to look for Him in all the images around you and inside you.
Apart from the thought that “there is no one else besides Him,” everything else is controlled by Him. This thought is also given by Him! But you must grasp it and begin to cultivate a free, separate, opposite state in yourself from it, and to become similar to Him, a person, Adam.
Question: How can you not become religious when you start talking like many do?
Answer: No, these are all words; they have no meaning. The meaning of the words is completely different.
In religions, everything comes down to physical actions. They do not have an internal apparatus. Their internal actions are in the form of repentance and so on. Kabbalah, however, is directed in the opposite direction from religion, toward the revelation of the Creator.
Religion exists due to the concealment of the Creator and is in no way interested in revealing Him. Therefore, it says: “Be a simple kind of man, obey, and that is it.” But Kabbalah is interested in developing a person.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Global Puppeteer” 7/28/12
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New Life 453 – Wave of Upheavals in Israel, Part 2
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There is very little understanding as to why there is such an upheaval at this time. It is unclear what should be done regarding the violence being committed against common citizens.
The final state is determined by the initial thought. It is all part of the waves of development governed by the absolute laws of nature. We are under this system of laws whether we are conscious of it or not. The process we must go through in history begins in the chaos of the shattering of harmony on all levels. There are different periods within this process— still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.
The periods within the speaking level are of a different nature. Humanity was not conscious of the way it has developed until 5,775 years ago when Adam discovered nature’s plan. Since then, we have some kind of knowledge about what is happening to us, and we have been given the tools with which to research our internality. Our future form already exists and we need to reach it. By our participation, we can initiate an easier, more pleasant process.
When I participate, the force inside me is felt as desirable and good. We are learning how we can influence our fate. How do we hasten the process and consciously participate in our own attainment?
If we discover certain phenomena that are outside of this harmony, it means that we are not keeping nature properly. A very tiny part of humanity called Israel determines how the rest of humanity will act. Others can also join this process. If there is no wholeness, Israel is to blame. We need to understand that Intifada and anti-Semitism indicate that Israel is falling behind.
Already a long time ago, Israel began to fall short of its correct participation. We needed to start pulling ourselves and the rest of the world into its whole and perfect state. We only need to think how we can take the forces of nature and arrange the connection between us within Israel. When we connect among us, we disperse the force of wholeness and perfection, of love and connection to all of humanity.
We were once connected in the time of the First Temple and we fell from that state into the nations of the world. We integrated with them and absorbed all of their desires. It was necessary to absorb the entire human ego inside of us, and this is what we went into exile for. Now we need not wait for anyone else. It is up to us. Once we have connected among ourselves, the nations of the world will come and help us. If we do not perform our role, we can expect worse calamities to occur.
We need to understand the measure to which we are still not in a corrected place. The people of Israel must awaken and start doing what is upon us to do. Let us make of our life and the lives of all nations a good, pleasant, and beautiful life.
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is English considered an international language?“
England once fought with Germany to spread their respective influences on American territory, and the German language was set to prevail at a certain point. If it did, then today we would very likely be in a world with German as the common international language.
But human development took a different turn.
Instead, the English branch of culture—which is not far from the German one, but which is more open—became the international one.
At that time, the Germans wished to overpower and enslave others by force. The British, however, planted their own culture and language, expanding in a completely different way.
The English had a softer and more preferable attitude to the world and to the discovery of new lands than the Germans, and English thus prevailed. Due to this difference in approaches, English is closer to being corrected as an international language than German.
Despite the prevalence and spread of German culture throughout Europe, we find that the German language is not used other than in Germany and some nearby countries.
Unlike our past development, however, today’s path to unification will not be through the expansion of nations and languages. Instead, our next form of unification is one that nature is forcing on us, where we become increasingly interconnected and interdependent worldwide.
We are now developing to a critical tipping point where we will need a new method of connecting to each other above nationalities and languages. Without upgrading our attitudes to each other—to positively connect above our differences and divisions—then we will feel our tightening global interdependence as a negative phenomenon that brings us more and more suffering.
I thus hope that we undergo this major transition to new positive, supportive, considerate and encouraging attitudes to each other above our differences sooner rather than later, and realize how much better, harmonious, joyful and peaceful our lives can be.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. English Language” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on June 2, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: You explain that nothing dies and the dead remain among us. All this is kind of a part of a common desire.
My Response: We all exist in a single information field. This has been known since the time of the first psychologists and much has been said about it in connection with psychics.
Wolf Messing claimed that he simply connects to the information layer by applying some kind of voltage he does not understand. He could carry out natural internal efforts and did not even know where they came from and what they were.
By the way, other people also have such an opportunity but they do not know how to make these efforts and form a connection channel to the higher information layer. And there are people who feel it, and they have it.
But their connection channel is very limited although it allows them to learn and feel something. To “know” means to feel because in spirituality the present, past, and future exist outside of time. There is no time, only events.
In general, the events do not exist there either; it is us who unfold them, make a time sweep, and as it were, put them on our calendar. But in the spiritual world everything is single. You connect to the energy, but being a limited consumer, you unfold this energy in a certain plane, as if cutting off certain layers from it.
Thus, you can partially perceive this energy since we can fully feel it only after the general final correction. In the meantime, there are people who can connect to this and they state, in general, some specific facts or their sequence in the future.
Such people are called “prophets” in Kabbalah. They are Kabbalists who had precisely a predisposition to interpreting the higher information layer similar to our earthly sweep.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalists Versus Psychics” 7/14/12
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Comment: There is a personal, touching story on the Internet about someone’s grandfather who died. The grandfather was in the hospital and before leaving forever, he slowly removed his oxygen mask and put his hand to his mouth. We thought he did it because of pain, but it turned out that he sent three air kisses to his wife, and he left.
How does this happen? When there is nothing left in front of us, we can perform some kind of an act so that another person feels good. Many people say that before death confessions of love are made that people leave with such a feeling of gratitude toward someone. They pass warmth to someone. But in life, it does not happen. Why?
My Response: It is because of egoism. As long as egoism lives, prospers, and flourishes, it wants to fill itself, and you have no opportunity to think about somebody else.
Question: Can I do anything selflessly?
Answer: No.
Comment: And here egoism says that it already understands that it is ending.
My Response: But here there is no egoism anymore, you no longer feel yourself in your body; you gradually leave it, and you feel light and free.
Question: Is this a moment of freedom?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And all my life I was just a slave to egoism?
Answer: Yes. Therefore, a person who dies is called Niftar, liberated from egoism.
Question: Is it possible to live all the time as if you are leaving?
Answer: That is the way to live!
Question: Like on this border?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And then you will be able to give, to bestow, and to love?
Answer: This is what is called to constantly adhere to the Creator.
Comment: That is, I must live as if in a moment I will not exist.
My Response: Not even that you will not exist in a moment. It is as if you have already disconnected from your body, from its concerns about everything, and you only want to be connected with the Creator.
Question: Then I do not care about my future and do not care if it will return to me somehow, right?
Answer: It does not exist anyway.
Question: Is it liberation all at once?
Answer: Of course, that is why it is called Niftar, liberated. Or as they say: “The dead are free.”
Question: Can you learn to live this way throughout your life?
Answer: Surely.
Comment: Then we will learn to give, to love, and to bestow.
My Response: Of course.
Comment: And we will not live in this constant, black care for our life.
My Response: Yes.
Comment: It would be nice to learn this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23
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Question: How can I personally insist that the light affect me?
Answer: You do this with the help of a group, by connecting with others by wishing to increase your yearning for the quality of connection and mutual guarantee, by wanting to be with them in one single desire, above egoism by lowering it, and by directing your aspirations to the upper world, to bestowal and love.
By creating such a common desire, when all your egoisms are lowered and all yearnings for the Light are above them, you want the upper light to create an instrument of perception similar to it in you. To the extent these egoistic desires are rejected downward, and to the extent the altruistic aspirations, meaning mutual love, connection, and similarity to the light, are raised up, you come closer to the light in terms of quality, in terms of values.
This light that constantly surrounds us, this physical field affects you all the time. Although it is permanent, its effect depends on your effort toward it.
As a result of its repeated influences, an organ of perception of light is formed within you. That is, the difference between these two opposite points becomes such that the upper light can enter into it and fill it. As a result, the Partzuf, a system, is formed. Your desires become similar to the light since it enters into these desires according to the law of equivalence of forms.
Then you begin to understand, to feel its qualities, its program, its intentions, and its beginning, end, and purpose. Without it, you cannot do anything.
Therefore, the entire method, in general, is simple. But a person does not agree with it. Firstly, his egoism rejects everything. And secondly, he cannot believe that in this way something can change.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Making the Light Work” 6/9/12
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Question: You say that one needs to justify friends even if it seems that they neglect me.
Answer: These states are given to you on purpose; they play with you like with a child. They show you some scary faces, and you are afraid of them? You need to look deeper and treat everything that surrounds you as a game that is being played with you from above.
You must understand who you are dealing with—the puppeteer who stands behind the screen and controls everything. You need to contact Him through dolls; He will not let you near. Through them, He shows His attitude to you, you must show your attitude to Him through your attitude to the dolls, and then you will correspond to each other.
So you can only understand Him through this game. You do not have a direct language of communication with Him, you have not yet reached the degree of bare information. It must be embodied in words, in music, in feelings, in something like that.
And then everything rises to areas where all this does not exist. But first we need some kind of external shell, the so-called language, like of a computer or like our language we communicate with. The language of my communication with the Creator is the world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World Puppeteer” 6/30/12
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Question: If you do not like a friend, but you justify him and nevertheless your attitude toward him still does not change, is this the wrong process of scrutinizing?
Answer: There is an absolute setting for all elements of creation and for the entire creation in general—look at it the way the Creator looks at it, justify absolutely, bestow, and love. The upper force proceeds precisely from that in relation to what it has created.
If I cannot treat all created beings in this way, then to the extent that I do not treat them with absolute love, egoism rules within me, which I must correct to a state of complete love for all.
Therefore, it is said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the basic rule of correction.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Hate, but Also to Love” 7/29/12
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Question: How can a person guarantee something if he constantly goes through internal changes?
Answer: It is necessary to create such a field in the group and in yourself that will hold you in advance. Or one that a least will not let you be thrown away.
If you are changing under the influence of your general software, so to speak, that light causes in you, then this is normal. Even if today you seem to contradict your self from yesterday, this is also normal in our state when we change so often and so effectively.
But often you fall out of the movement forward when suddenly you are cut off from the connection with the rest, like a computer cut off from the connection with the outside world because its modem stops working. What should you do in this case?
Here a person is obliged to protect himself in order to keep contact. This can only be done with the help of friends because he himself falls out of the common work and comes to a state where he does not control himself and does not know what will happen to him. It is like losing consciousness. Therefore, his only hope here is for others.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Do People Leave Kabbalah?” 7/23/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the difference between God and Nature?“
“It is best for us to agree and accept the words of the Kabbalists that ‘the nature’ (Heb. ‘HaTeva’ [‘הטבע’]) has the same numerical value as ‘God’ (Heb. ‘Elohim’ [‘אלהים’]—eighty-six. Then, I will be able to call the laws of God ‘nature’s commandments [Mitzvot],’ or vice-versa (God’s commandments [Mitzvot] by the name ‘nature’s laws’), for they are one and the same.” – Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “The Peace.”
There is nothing besides the system of nature, which Kabbalists equally refer to as “nature” or “God,” and we are integral parts of this system.
Therefore, when we say that there is one God, it means that there is nothing besides one force acting in this single system we are parts of.
The desire of the single force acting in reality is to bring us into connection with it—not via coercion, but through awareness in a positive manner.
As much as we understand, feel and attain this force as one that is good and benevolent, then we can adhere to it and reach its level of complete awareness.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on March 13, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Baal HaSulam writes that since the word “nature” is equivalent to the Creator, it is possible to call the laws of the Creator the commandments of nature, and vice versa, the commandments of the Creator are the laws of nature, since they are the same thing. In other words there is nothing but the system of nature, which is the Creator.
This is how we should treat everything that surrounds us, our influence on the world where we exist, and its influence on us, while we recognize ourselves as an integral part of this system of nature, which is called the Creator.
There is only one upper force of the Creator, which desires to bring us to adhesion with Him, not forcefully by coercion, but by a conscious way of good. To the extent that we understand the Creator, feel Him, and attain Him as good who does good, to this extent we will be able to get closer to Him and connect with Him. In this way we will return to the Creator—to nature.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/23, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
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Question: There is a Jewish parable about a young man who asked a sage: “We hear that in the past, in the good old days, people used to see God with their own eyes. People used to meet with God. God used to call people by their first names. God was very close. What happened now? Why is He hiding from us? Why doesn’t He hold people’s hands anymore? They stumble in the dark without Him.” The sage looked at the student and said: “My son, God is still where He was, but people have forgotten how to lower themselves low enough that they can see Him.”
He says you must lower yourself. What is it to lower yourself?
Answer: Annul yourself. Your mind, your strength, your superiority, your egoism overall. Then you will see the Creator.
Annulling myself means I don’t want to decide anything. I want only one thing: to bow before the force of nature, which claims that only for the sake of others, only in connection with others, and only in mutual support can we exist. This is called lowering yourself.
The law of nature says it very simply: we are all interconnected. That is, if I think about others, and care for others everyone will be fine and so will I.
Question: Is this lowering my “I”?
Answer: Yes. But this lowering toward others, this egoism cannot be broken through. It is possible only if we convince each other that we have no other option and lower ourselves together.
Question: This word “lowering” does it frighten you, push you away? Not really you, but someone proud?
Answer: Of course, we will have to put away our pride somehow, and deal with it.
Question: How would we make purely corporeal decisions and some plans?
Answer: Precisely by lowering ourselves toward each other. We won’t survive any other way.
Question: So we cannot build one strong country. Do we also have to take care of everyone else, the whole world, everything? You give us such difficult tasks. Or can we do it?
Answer: I think this is not a difficult task. Our development will lead us to feel that we are one nation on Earth, and there is no escape from the fact that we must support each other. This will become the main law. Nature will force us.
Question: Is this the future?
Answer: Yes. I think it is not far off.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/5/23
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Question: The Doomsday Clock symbolizes how close we are to a nuclear catastrophe (how much time to midnight). Midnight signifies the moment of nuclear catastrophe. In 1953 we were very close to that, two minutes to nuclear catastrophe. This was during the development of nuclear weapons in the US and the Soviet Union.
Today, the hands of the clock are 90 seconds away from midnight. This means there are 90 seconds until midnight. The clock readings are calculated annually by 15 Nobel laureates.
We understand and see where this can lead. We see the consequences of the disaster; we have been shown footage of this all the time. But we are not afraid of anything. Somehow it does not frighten us. Why?
Answer: It is because we live with it, we got used to it. Also we did not experience it firsthand, and whatever happened in the past was a long time ago. It is human nature to forget everything and live by today.
Question: Do you think you have to live in Nagasaki to remember and be afraid?
Answer: I think they are not afraid today either.
Question: Is there a mechanism in us that says that nothing will happen or “I don’t care about anything”?
Answer: Perhaps it is a habit. How much can you be afraid and how much can you talk about it? It is better to live and not think. I think that is how people live.
Question: And now it is getting worse; the expenditures for armaments is outlandish. Why is this arms race increasing?
Answer: It is because one cannot help but think about defense. Countries cannot think about it any other way, and are conditioned this way. One looks at the other and copies them.
I am more concerned about new countries, such as Iran and various states in Asia, getting pulled into this.
Comment: Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
My Response: Yes. They also have nuclear weapons and maybe even the means of delivery. Of course this is all wrong and misguided. The proliferation of weapons has taken on a widespread fascination, significance, and growth. Therefore, according to all this, the world indeed is very close to nuclear war, on the one hand.
On the other hand, many people understand that, in general, it is the end of this entire era, which, although marked by a nuclear arms race, was still peaceful.
Question: We always say, “The upper force, the Creator.” Why is He showing it all to us? Why is He unleashing all this?
Answer: So that we think about ourselves.
Comment: But we think about ourselves all the time.
My Response: No, we do not think about ourselves. If we thought of ourselves, we would not behave this way.
Question: What should we do?
Answer: Imagine there are two fighting factions where you live and everyone is in this atmosphere. What should they do? Naturally they would want to get rid of these two militant groups.
Comment: And live peacefully.
My Response: At least peacefully. Certainly not under a threat of war which can ignite every moment.
Question: And yet, why does the upper force, the Creator, allow such a thing?
Answer: So we understand that everything we do, we do badly. We are the ones who bring ourselves to such a state with our egoism. We do everything out of egoistic considerations that do not allow for anything other than suppressing another. Any concerns for what happens to this person are turned off.
Question: So egoism is not against its own destruction or being destroyed?
Answer: No, it is not against it because it will still exist in some form.
Question: So we have to come to understand this evil?
Answer: The evil is in the ego itself. That is the main thing. So the intensity will grow higher and higher until we realize it.
Question: You are saying that to stop the arms race we have to understand the evil of egoism?
Answer: Yes. It is quite possible that there will be a thermonuclear war. After that, humanity will gather and perhaps will even be able to adjust itself correctly in this quiet period after a nuclear war.
We will see how it unfolds. Baal HaSulam did not rule out the second, a third, and even a fourth world war.
Question: He thought the ego to be so resilient that it is the only way to destroy it or break free of it?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23
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Comment: Sometimes when your students ask for your advice on this or that action, you answer that it is not worth doing, and then at some point as if you become a new person and say: “It is very important to invest in this.”
My Response: This happens because I begin to feel that people are ready for this action. There are two stages here. One is when I do not get involved and I do not feel people’s readiness yet, and the second when I feel their readiness, I identify myself with them, and start pushing them myself.
Comment: It often happens that at first you are even critical of their proposals.
My Response: No, it is not criticism. The fact is that I always go into any state that students offer me, from the point of view of denial, to checking this state, to grasping it, and in the process I tell what I see from this side.
And then, by feeling their readiness for proper implementation, I move on to the fact that perhaps it is necessary to do so and so. I go through these states along the way without hiding the fact that I see it from one side and then I see it from the other, so that they get a general overview and understand the picture.
Question: What should the student do in this scenario when you first say one thing and then a different thing?
Answer: Act in accordance with the decision being made. I do not think we should stop there. It always happens that way.
Comment: But you once said that due to strength and desire, you can push the Creator.
My Response: Naturally, this is what we do at each stage. You have to beg Him. And to do this, you must have such a strong desire to overcome His resistance.
Of course, the desire is also given by the Creator, but to what He gives you, you must add your efforts.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Tricky Laitman?” 6/30/12
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We need to quickly reshape a person’s view of the world, and educate and raise them.
Religions, on the contrary, make people closed, fanatical, and encourage not taking anything into account: “Follow all these traditions and the future world is guaranteed to you, but on this earthly level, let be whatever will be.”
But there is no future world! The animal body dies, nothing remains of it. And a person does not have a soul if he or she has not yet attained the Creator’s properties—bestowal and love. This is the property in a human that is called the soul.
People do not understand those great opportunities when one can really become a person of eternity. Otherwise, it does not work.
Either you just live in a protein body that dies, decomposes into its original elements, and that’s it. Or while in the physical body, one acquires something new—spiritual existence, which you develop, pass into, and live in. And even when your body is dying, you do not think about it; it is as if you simply cut your hair or nails because they are of a lower level, vegetative or animate, compared to you—a person.
You are already at the next level, in the next dimension. This is the opportunity that everyone has! Why should we look under our feet when we can look at the sky? People do not understand it.
They are not afraid of wars, destruction, or suffering. They somehow support each other and forget: “Come what may. Another day has passed and it is good.”
Moreover, they pass it off as maturity, as a realistic approach to life, as strength, and pride, and they arrange all kinds of competitions of who is stronger, like wild animals in a fight for a female. But when it comes to animals, it is an instinct both to preserve and to pass on the correct genotype from generation to generation. There it makes sense! And here, for what?
Question: Why does the Creator arrange such cloudy minds for people?
Answer: It is a transition from one state to another. Birth always occurs with the fetus inverting: its head was up, it must turn down, and again, when born turn up.
Birth is such a turning point, a bifurcation, that changes everything. And when you approach it, you become insane because you must move away from your past state and come to the future. This transition is very dusky and very problematic. This is the problem of the birth of a new humanity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Where is the human soul?” 6/16/12
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Question: You said that Rabbi Shimon conducted pure light, and Rabbi Aba clothed it in letters. What was the function of the other nine disciples of Rabbi Shimon in this chain?
Answer: They represent a common system. If they had not been there, Rabbi Shimon would not have felt anything and Rabbi Aba would not have been able to open the upper light and clothe it in letters. After all, all these ten people are ten Sefirot, a complete Partzuf. How could anything happen without it?
Question: When Rabbi Aba clothed the light in letters, what exactly did he transform?
Answer: He clothed the light in a type of shell you need to acquire to reveal the upper light.
The rest of Rabbi Shimon’s disciples worked in this system together, in harmony, to reveal the upper light that emanated from their teacher.
Comment: Interestingly, Baal HaSulam worked independently and described all this as well as they did.
My Response: Firstly, Baal HaSulam also had his own disciples.
Secondly, when a person enters the spiritual world, he already has other students and another company: those properties, those desires, those corrected and uncorrected elements of the general system, which we simply do not detect with our five senses.
There, contact takes place at the level of desires and thoughts, and not at the level of the bodily matter that we imagine.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How The Book of Zohar Was Written” 6/2/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do some people find thrill-seeking activities such as bungee jumping or skydiving exciting rather than scary?“
Whether it is bungee jumping, skydiving, other extreme sports, thrill-seeking theme park rides and even scary movies, in such instances we want to feel the limit and how we breach it: that we reach a state beyond our capabilities.
We then enjoy the state. There is pleasure in exercising a certain level of control over fear.
The pleasure of having control over fear then becomes stronger than the instinct of fear that surfaces.
When fear dominates us, it feels like it penetrates every cell of our bodies, all the way to our bones’ marrow. That is why the pleasure we experience when we feel a certain level of control over fear is very powerful.
However, if we felt that our lives had a higher eternal purpose, and we set ourselves on a path to attain that purpose, we would then feel no need for these kinds of transient pleasures, no matter how strong they are.
We would also then not fear anything because we would see that we are controlled by the upper force, which wishes solely to develop us in order to benefit us with its eternal and perfect quality of love, bestowal and connection.
Based on the video “What Are You Afraid Of?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: A person is powerless over his words and actions, and this includes someone who has been on the Kabbalistic path for some time. First, he speaks with an understanding of certain states and he can make some promises. Then he acts as if he has been replaced and has competent excuses for his conditions. This is such a trick!
My Response: This is not a trick. This individual is changing!
Of course, there are people who plan in advance to get out of some state in this way. But I am talking about those who always speak sincerely based on the feeling they are currently experiencing; it is only that the states change.
A person has no control over anything! If you want to deal with someone and be more or less sure of a positive outcome, then you have to deal with extremely primitive, and not spiritual people, they do not change.
They are like animals: in ten years everything with them will be the same as yesterday. Therefore, with great reliability you can be sure that what the person said today will also be true tomorrow, unless he has planned some meanness in advance.
A spiritual person is constantly changing internally. Every time he thinks and decides differently. He does not understand how yesterday he could think in such a way because today he sees that everything should be completely different.
Question: What is changing in him at this moment? It is like a different chemical composition is poured into a person.
Answer: Absolutely! You are affected by light from the next spiritual level, and a change occurs. This means that completely different qualities are awakened in you.
We have desires, and their formation is like a blank computer in which there are memory cells, a motherboard, various blocks, a microprocessor, and so on. The light sets the whole program of work, and therefore such great changes take place.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. You Cannot Trust Anyone!” 7/14/12
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Question: Is there any alternative to egoistic fulfillment? What does a person acquire as a result of rising above egoism?
Answer: With his upper knowledge, upper sensation, and upper attainment, a person acquires absolute fulfillment. He sees the whole universe from end to end indefinitely and integrally and feels and realizes how interconnected everything is.
Question: Does the suffering of love give a person such fulfillment?
Answer: It is easier for me to say yes. It is impossible to describe this because for this it is necessary to rise into a different sensation. For any sensations, a substrate is needed, the so-called screen, otherwise what will you feel them on.
Today, man is at the animate level. He does not feel himself outside the body and cares only about feeling as comfortable as possible every second. This is the meaning of his existence, which fits into one small phrase “as long as I exist.” This is our entire animalistic essence.
Therefore, if you do not give a person suffering, he will remain the most primitive animal and will not move. All our movements are made only in order to fill ourselves with something.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pride” 7/30/12
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Question: Why is there such a factor as a surname in nature?
Answer: Because this is how we are arranged. Animals have the same thing, only their identification is of a completely different kind. A dog in order to find out about another dog does not need to ask for a passport. A dog will smell it from all sides and knows everything at once: who it is, what it is, and where it is from.
Question: Do names and surnames have any spiritual roots? For example, in Kabbalah, sages are given certain names according to their spiritual achievements. But there are also human names.
Answer: These names are given according to origin.
If we value a person in our world, first of all, by his social status, wisdom, family, professional, national, or state affiliation, then according to this we attribute all sorts of epithets to him.
For example, a doctor, professor, or laureate. We attribute all this to the name in order to emphasize the essence of this person.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Meaning of a Person’s Name” 7/10/12
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Question: In modern physics, there are three main types of matter: matter, field, and dark matter. What kinds of desires and how many of them are there in the spiritual?
Answer: There is the desire to receive. This is what we reveal in ourselves, and other things are not attainable to us.
Question: Is it probably also divided into some hundreds and thousands?
Answer: But it is still a desire to receive.
Comment: Let’s say in our world we see that there is a substance and there is a field— two different types of matter.
My Response: This is a manifestation of the same force, just on different levels. And it is the same way in the spiritual.
Question: From the point of view of Kabbalah, what is primary: matter or consciousness?
Answer: Of course, consciousness; only question is: of what? The realization of matter itself is primary, otherwise we cannot say that something exists. This can be said only to the extent of self-attainment.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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Question: Can a person force his child to study Kabbalah?
Answer: Of course not! In no way! He just has to give him an opportunity, and the child himself chooses yes or no.
But, in principle, when a child is still small, you give him a certain amount of knowledge. You pass to him what you consider important. That is how the world works.
If you consider Kabbalistic knowledge important, then you instill it in him. If other knowledge is important to you, you will pass it on. This is natural for parents.
That is, what is natural in nature and thus recorded in our life has the right to exist.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Find the Purpose of Your Child” 6/27/12
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In the corporeal world we very often observe the beginning and the end of relationships between a man and a woman because our world is built on an egoistic basis. This cannot happen in the spiritual world because there is a constant continuity, an “eternal orgasm.”
Question: What is the ideal use of spiritual rules for a person’s protein life?
Answer: It is to become like the relationship between the Creator and the creation! This is the purpose of our existence here—to learn about the eternal, great, and powerful contact with the Creator and build it at all levels from the world of infinity to our world. This is the final correction of man. And the rest of nature is also included in man.
The ideal relationship between a man and a woman will happen when they begin to complement each other correctly so that the Creator, the force of bestowal and love, is revealed between them. This cannot happen if there is no upper attainment.
Therefore, nothing can be solved at the level of our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Man and Woman – Eternal Orgasm” 7/15/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are you afraid of and why?“
I am afraid of nothing anymore.
In the past, I was afraid not having enough time to complete everything that I wanted to in life.
That passed a long time ago though.
What is there to fear? If we would see the truth, then we would have no fear of anything at all, because we would then see that we are in the hands of the good and benevolent upper force. Also, we would see that we have no control over our lives, and we thus have nothing to fear. In short, we have nothing to be afraid of.
Based on the video “What Are You Afraid Of?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
As a person develops, he changes not for the better or for the worse, but toward a sharper understanding of the state in which he is. As a result, we really realize that all our movements and all our development come only from our egoism, which has no future. We will nevertheless have to part with it and see that the future is only in the forces of bestowal and connection. Our egoism should lead us to this conclusion, and this is why it is called help against you.
Do not count on governments suddenly realizing the destructive evil of egoism and ending wars. To the government come those who are one hundred percent egoistic, and therefore they are not capable of such awareness. Awareness requires two opposite foundations in a person, at least some grains of goodness. But once a person gets to the level of a ruler, the last drops of goodness absolutely disappear in him, and only one aspiration remains: to rule more and more. Therefore, it is impossible to directly influence the rulers, but we can influence the Creator who will already do what is necessary with them.
If our worldwide Kabbalistic group, in the volume that exists today, all the men and women, feel the force of connection between us and within it our connection with the Creator, then this will be enough to turn the world around.
The world does not need much. There are billions of people in it, but their desires are very small, and therefore they cannot do anything themselves. However, the desire of Kabbalists to connect with each other and connect around themselves all of humanity through good relationships is thousands, billions, of times greater than all the egoistic qualities and connections that exist in the world.
Therefore, we only need to take care of how to become representatives of good relationships to everything, that is, representatives of the Creator at the level of our world. Then everything will be great. We just need to build a strong, devoted connection between us. When we really feel that we exist in one heart, we will be able to go out into the world, and the world will feel the force of good emanating from us that is so urgently needed by it as it is the only force capable of correcting the world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/23, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
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Question: How should a person behave in order not to take away the freewill of someone else?
Answer: Love, but love can also be different, like a mother who smothers a child with her love. To love is to put the other’s desire and his way above your own.
Question: Let’s say parents build a child’s life according to their understanding of what is right and what is not. How can one determine the right path?
Answer: It is from the fact that you take the desires of the child and work with them, not with your own. That is why the Bible says to educate a child according to his way.
Question: How did you give such a foundation to your children?
Answer: I tried to ensure that they were more or less in a society in which they would not catch any viruses. Only this, nothing else.
They were brought up in normal conditions within the framework of a conservative education. I believe that this is how it should be with children; otherwise, you still fall under other currents that today have no direction, but just follow wherever the current takes them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Find the Purpose of Your Child” 6/27/12
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Question: According to Kabbalah, what I see outside of me is my own reflection that I see through the prism of my egoism. If I am annoyed by someone’s qualities, then these qualities are in me. Could it be that I am a reflection of another person’s quality for him?
Answer: Naturally. Each of us sees not another person, but his own reflection in him. This is what is said in the primary sources. You do not see the other, but you see him in your perception, and it is good or bad for you depending on your habits, mentality, etc. You do not perceive him, but you perceive him as a correlation of him and yourself.
The world is a reflection of your desire. All that you see is your desire outside of you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. I Am a Mirror for Others” 6/9/12
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Question: Do you think that in the process of education it is better not to put pressure on the child, not to impose your views on him?
Answer: What do you mean by not to put pressure on? As a father, am I obligated to raise him? Of course I am.
I have to give him a certain amount of knowledge, skills, foundations, and examples, and some of them will develop into habits with the help of which he will behave in a certain way all his life. There is no escape from this!
You are the result of the education you received no matter what it was, but you are the product of your environment in childhood and in youth.
We cannot get rid of it. The upper governance created such a system around us in this way. Everyone is born in a certain circle, in a certain environment and surroundings. It is foolish to object to this if everything is arranged so by nature.
Comment: Information received from parents remains for life: “Dad said,” “Mom said.”
My Response: You cannot do anything about this. This is how everything is arranged in the world. Therefore, first of all, it is desirable to educate parents so that they properly educate their children. That is all. After all, the problem of education is the only problem in the world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Find the Purpose of Your Child” 6/27/12
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Question: In a dream we see different images, we experience all kinds of situations. When we wake up, we realize that all that was not real and what we saw in our dream simply does not exist. And the next day you forget it altogether.
Kabbalah says that our world is an illusion. Does this mean that when a person, upon entering spirituality, awakens from earthly hibernation and the illusion disappears?
Answer: No. The fact is that this illusion will not disappear until the whole world is completely corrected. And even if a person’s bodily contact with the world disappear, his presence in this world does not disappear anyway. That is, roughly speaking, the dead are together with us.
After all, all this is a desire that is depicted in front of us. It may take on special forms, but in itself, it is eternal.
The light created a desire that should take a form similar to the light and move from the quality of reception to the quality of bestowal. This is the entire path. But the desire itself exists parallel to the light; they are, so to speak, equivalent.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Reality in a Dream” 6/9/12
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Comment: You say that the information of the light is in a different dimension. You, in principle, operate with the information of the light and the information that is understandable to students. But through this information, you still transmit a layer that a person perhaps does not even understand.
My Response: This happens to the extent that the student is annulled toward me. This does not mean that he becomes my slave, serves me, gives me gifts, etc. I push such people away and do not allow them to do anything like that.
But if a person internally agrees, and wants to absorb this technique, accept this idea, these changes, and this transformation so that all this manifests itself in him, then he receives through me. It depends only on him.
It is not up to me. It is the same as parents with young children, what can they do if the child does not want to?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Coercion in Kabbalah” 6/9/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do people change for the worse when they get older?“
I received this question from my student after he was touched by a story of a seven-year-old girl who placed parking tickets on cars’ windshields in her neighborhood, where she wrote “You parked very nicely!” with a heart-shaped drawing.
My student asked: Why do only kids come up with such sweet ideas?
Indeed, in many ways, kids are smarter than grownups, because when we grow up, we are under our ego’s control, and we thus do not see grownups doing such pleasant actions toward each other.
For the time being, this girl wishes to express her good inclination, but we can expect that when she grows up, her evil inclination—egoistic desires to benefit oneself at the expense of others—will also grow in her. Then, we can expect that she will start giving out other kinds of items that might favor some people and go against others. We could expect that she would mingle in the divisive atmosphere that permeates our society, with certain group identities opposing and competing against others, which leads to quite terrible outcomes.
Our salvation from this mess we find ourselves in today is that we raise the importance of connection above our divisions. Otherwise, we will finish ourselves off. We are ready to build our success against others, but not against our ego that resides within us—and that very ego will bury us.
We thus need to realize that there is something much more important in life than being right, that “love will cover all crimes.” If we direct ourselves at positively connecting with each other above everything else, then we will see how much better, more harmonious, peaceful and joyful our lives will become.
Based on the video “Do People Change for the Worse as They Get Older?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: We say that the entire universe consists of matter. But you claim that matter is desire. Physicists, however, say that matter consists of atoms and molecules.
My Response: It comes from the way we perceive this matter. This is how it is manifested in relation to us.
Question: Then what does spiritual desire consist of?
Answer: The desire consists of ten Sefirot, which are divided into another ten, and another ten, and so on. By studying The Study of the Ten Sefirot, we learn the structure of our desire.
Question: Is it ours? Or is it a common desire of the entire universe?
Answer: It is common, of the entire universe, but not of the corporeal universe!
Question: Can we say that there is a law “the particular and the general are equal,” and therefore, by studying the structure of the ten Sefirot on myself, will I be able to understand what is happening in all the spiritual worlds?
Answer: Of course. By analogy.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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Question: How can a person act correctly without making any calculations? For example, for someone, attendance at morning lessons and participation in various events are normal learning conditions, and it is hard for others to attend lessons every day. What should a person do?
Answer: Let him come as much he can, that is his business. Everyone acts according to the measure of importance. One is present every day, it is very important for him not to miss anything; for him every minute in the lesson is a necessity. And for another, it is normal to come once a month and, as they say, join in.
We give everyone the opportunity to act as they wish. At the same time, we do not remove their freewill, but we simply talk about the importance of the goal. And now, let them try to do what they can, each in their own way.
Let’s say one will make clips about Kabbalah, another will write articles, the third will constantly go to classes and only, so to speak, gnaw at the granite of science, the fourth will compose songs, and so on. Each student moves along his own vector, in accordance with his internal structure. So what? Do not compare them with each other.
Question: So, one student should not put pressure on another?
Answer: He has no right! He can only raise the greatness of the goal in him—nothing more.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Coercion Against a Friend” 6/9/12
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Question: You said that in order to unite we need to try to raise the importance of things that can stimulate us. Who does it depend on whether a person touches it or will retreat after all?
Answer: Only on him. In some ways it depends on the friends around him, but then it would not be his decision, but their pressure.
Question: How is it possible to encourage a person to overcome his rejection of others?
Answer: Work, to work on it all the time!
Now that we constantly hold workshops and discussions, a person falls under the powerful influence of everyone else and it relaxes him, lowers his egoism, draws him in, and lifts him up.
He is imbued with unity, feels great power in it! It gives him such a pleasant feeling that after that it is easier for him to get in touch with the group. I think that this will greatly accelerate our progress toward correction.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. As Long as I am Alive, They Will Only Suffer” 6/2/12
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Question: You often draw a parallel between waking up from sleep and waking up from the feeling of our artificial, contrived world. Is sleep the correct parallel to spiritual awakening?
Answer: No, it is just a metaphor, nothing more. There is nothing that connects the dream with the feeling of the upper world.
Sleep, like in animals, is just a physiological human need. It is a necessary restructuring of the brain when it stores information, sorts it, and prepares for the next impressions in order to process all information, and translate it from perception to knowledge.
This is a huge job that nature does. We are not doing anything here. But before us, as if various events unfold (only detached from matter) and so they acquire such bizarre forms, nothing more.
There is nothing from the other world in a dream. It is just that those images, those impressions, that we see coming out of our rigid sense organs acquire all kinds of fluctuations.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Reality in a Dream” 6/9/12
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Comment: You said that if the external image of another person was inside me, then I would love him and somehow justify him. But if I see him from the outside, I immediately look for some flaws in him. However, it happens that a person constantly criticizes his internal qualities and feels remorse.
My Response: This is only if he suffers from them, if they cause negative emotions in him, and not in any other case.
Suppose I was told that I have ugly ears, and hearing this, I begin to suffer. Since then, I do not feel good about my ears, I do not like them. What can I do? It means that such an attitude toward myself was imposed on me; otherwise, I would not have thought about it.
See how a mother treats her child: he may be very ugly, but he is hers! She sees nothing ugly in him because she loves him. As it is said, all transgressions or all flaws are covered by love.
But when a person suffers, then the object of suffering gradually changes from a loved or neutral one to a hated one. So he begins to move from love to hate because the former object of love, which used to give him pleasure, now causes suffering. Therefore his perception is transformed into hatred and dislike. But this happens only on our corporeal level.
On the spiritual level, everything happens depending on the qualities of light.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Those Jews Again!” 6/9/12
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Question: In everyday life, Jews cannot get along with each other, but at the same time they very quickly developed the country and literally raised it from the swamps. In addition, whenever war starts they win, although they remain scattered. How is this possible?
Answer: It does not depend on them. Do not credit them with it. This happens only because they have the upper purpose! It is only because they have a special quality of light, but in no way is it because they have the best brains. Also physically they are definitely not stronger than others. They owe this only to their upper purpose!
Therefore it is pointless to fight with them in general regarding any matter. Those who do, possibly not now but maybe for tens or hundreds of years, lose in the end, by and large.
We see this by the movement of Jews during exile from Spain to France, from France to Germany, from England, and so on. They came, the country blossomed, they were kicked out, and then the country fell into decay.
All this is the manifestation of the upper system. I am talking about what is happening when the upper governance is clothed into people. If they act against the Jews, who have a method of correcting the world inside of them, then in the end they are opposed to the Creator’s program.
From this they should suffer in the course of history by the manifestation of evil. Thus they show everyone else and themselves that the opposite of correction, manifested this way, is negative and deserves punishment. This is the path of suffering.
Question: In principle this is not their choice, right?
Answer: Of course not. After all, they had no way to be different. Where can a person have freedom of will?
Question: Should people learn from these things?
Answer: Actually no. If ordinary people do not have freewill, there is nothing you can do. You can only turn to those who have it.
If a person has egoism and a point in the heart and he can cause light to act on his ego through it, it can form the right dipole so that egoism and altruism are together as Keter and Malchut, one is put above the other so that the quality of bestowal prevails over the quality of reception, and in addition if he connects with others to make sure he is in the quality of bestowal with regard to them, and if he hides his quality of reception, then the upper light is revealed; it corrects this person, and this construction rises to the first degree of the spiritual world. And that is it.
Those who do not have a point in the heart, from the awareness of the crisis, meaninglessness, inevitability, and worthlessness, to the extent that they join this system, they also go up and move on. The feeling of the correctness of connection awakens within them and connects together into one system, and they feel the correct direction.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Why Do Jews Always Win” 6/9/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the biggest regret people have on their deathbed?“
A very common regret people have before death is in relation to what they did not do in their lives, for instance, the regret of working too much and not dedicating enough time to their family and friends.
Such moments, however, can also awaken feelings of gratitude—for one’s spouse, children and friends surrounding them in their last moments.
Indeed, why do people think of what is more important in life in their life’s closing moments?
It is because they are making their final calculation in life, and they see their inability to do any more good. They thus feel regretful. Then they think that they should simply forgive everyone and ask everyone for forgiveness, and conclude by asking the Creator for forgiveness due to their inability to correctly connect with Him.
While many people awaken with such thoughts in their life’s closing moments, we should exercise these thoughts throughout our lives, from the moment we gain some self-awareness. The end of this line of inquiry should awaken in us the question: “Do we find favor in the upper force?”
And how would we know whether or not we find favor in the upper force?
We would not know. But by asking ourselves time and again, we correct ourselves bit by bit.
Moreover, we should be grateful as much as possible to the Creator for everything we have endured. Gratitude is important because we do not truly know what is good or bad, and so we need to bless the bad as well as the good while trying to be good.
Based on the video “Why Do So Many People Feel Regretful Just Before Death?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr.
Question: The Study of the Ten Sefirot, written by Baal HaSulam, is a commentary on the book of the Ari, the great Kabbalist of the sixteenth century.
Why was it important at that time to write about such phenomena as time, space, and motion, first the Ari, and then Baal HaSulam?
Answer: Because at that time humanity had already grown to a state where it could somehow intuitively understand these sources.
In principle, they wrote for their own and for subsequent generations. And earlier Kabbalists expressed all this in the form of various stories and legends.
Comment: Indeed, the Ari and Baal HaSulam have a completely different language. We read The Study of the Ten Sefirot as some kind of physics. And there was no such thing before.
My Response: Yes, it was different before, but the same thing was stated.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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The entire substance that is attributed to the emanated being is the will to receive. Any addition in it is attributed to the Emanator (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Inner Observation, Chapter 10).
Everything we observe, see, and feel in this world is attributed to the Creator, except the will to receive. The Creator has no will to receive, but He controls it.
Comment: It turns out that we are not inside Him. But you say sometimes that we are in the Creator, in nature.
My Response: It depends on how you explain it and how to accept it. But in general, on the one hand, we are outside the Creator, and on the other hand, inside Him.
Question: He created the will to receive, which does not exist in Him, but He controls it. Where is this desire? In what place?
Answer: There is no place. A place is a desire.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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Question: In your opinion which work is more successful: when a person is already in the system of attainment or when he is just entering it?
Answer: In principle, anyone can write. But a Kabbalistic work can be written by a person who feels the upper world, who realizes, understands, and feels the action of the light, the Creator, on himself according to the changes that it causes in him. He goes toward the light, and the light acts on him accordingly.
The wisdom of Kabbalah describes only these phenomena, which, in general, consist of two components: a person and the Creator, a person and the light. There is nothing else.
Comment: But you wrote your first book as a complete beginner in this system.
My Response: Yes, these are the first three books in Russian. I published them in 1983. Then, of course, I was a beginner. I was completely attached to my teacher Rabash and this helped me get some insight from him and sanctification with a big smooth light emanating from him. Therefore, what I have stated in these books is indeed true. Moreover, in general, I simply recounted some of the main positions of Kabbalah, the very basics.
Comment: You also wrote the book Attaining the Worlds Beyond at that time. After that, you wrote seemingly more complex or easy to understand books, but it was never anything so sensorial. It still works very well.
My Response: I wrote Attaining the Worlds Beyond in ten days. It just popped out like that and that is it. As I have already said, the material accumulates internally, accumulates more, and then splashes out. Nine months you bear it and in a couple of hours you give birth.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Written… Eternal…” 6/2/12
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Comment: You often give the example of Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma, who was offered the chance to leave his disciples, but he refused because for him the disciples were like a spiritual simulator.
My Response: Rabbi Yossi ben Kisma felt his disciples internally. He did not see their external qualities, not the way we see ourselves and the world, but he saw through several layers inside. After all, we are all in a completely corrected state, and we are only separated from it by 125 concealments, as if by shells.
This is how we feel—everyone through the maximum shell on which he is standing now.
Rabbi Yossi tried to go through all these shells and see their inner essence. This is how he discovered their completely corrected state and saw them as one, great, and united.
He communicated precisely with this state and not with an external group. For him this group was like a single whole, something sacred, something that existed in the corrected state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Spiritual Exercise Machine” 7/27/12
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Once during Sukkot, the entire group was in a very good state and I asked my teacher Rabash what else were we lacking in order to jump right now to a special degree, which already is a spiritual one. He answered: “We are lacking an attack. We need an attack from your side.”
An attack is a cry of the heart. Everyone connects in one heart and together we ask, demand, shout, and beg for one thing: we want to rise up and cling to the Creator. It does not matter whether it is men or women, the main thing is to cry together from the bottom of the heart and address one Creator.
We only need to strengthen our connection so that it becomes even more powerful and strong, where everyone clings to the friends with all his might and holds on to them. Then we will definitely feel ourselves in a spiritual ascent. The Creator has placed us in a good state; we just need to connect more.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/23, “Working in Ascents and Descents”
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Pesach (Passover) is the biggest holiday for Kabbalists because it represents an exit from our egoism, from the will to receive pleasure, from the state of separation from the Creator, and from distance from our friends.
Passover is the beginning of the spiritual path, when we break away from the pincers of egoism that suffocate us and do not allow us to breathe.
Therefore we want to escape from such egoism in order to move toward connection between us and to restore the common Kli of Adam HaRishon, one common soul, in order to feel in it one spiritual world, one light, one Creator, and all of us together as one.
This is why this holiday is so important. There is no more important holiday than Passover. “Pesach” means “leap” (pasach). When we make a leap, we move from a state of egoistic reception to altruistic bestowal.
When we exit from our egoism, the will to receive, and this earthly nature that is artificially created by the Creator, it is really a great holiday. A fascinating journey into spirituality begins with it.
A person should feel that he needs a spiritual Kli, that he wants to contain all the parts of the soul so that they fill all his inner desire, and all his thoughts and aspirations would be only about the point of connection with the Creator. If he has reached such a state, it means that he has already prepared himself for exodus from Egypt.
Without a sense of exile, it is impossible to reach redemption. After all, the advantage of light is revealed only from darkness. Therefore, if the Creator wants to lead us to bestowal, to a state of being equal to the Creator, He is forced to lead us through exile.
The difference between exile (Galut) and redemption (Geula) is only in one letter “Aleph” – א, meaning the Creator. When the Creator begins to appear in our life, exile turns into redemption.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/23, “Pesach (Passover)”
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Question: We know that the structure of our world is atoms. They consist of nuclei, nuclei of protons, neutrons, and electrons. And what is the structure of spiritual matter?
Answer: Spiritual matter is desire.
Question: What does it consist of?
Answer: Desire exists by itself. It was created by the Creator, and therefore, there are no more questions about what it is. It is the very desire that exists in nature, and all nature consists of it.
Moreover, this desire is only to be satisfied, to enjoy, to receive, to be filled with something that is outside of it. And besides, there is a desire to give, to saturate, to fill. Everything that exists consists of these two desires.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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Question: Why was English chosen as the language of international communication?
Answer: At one time England fought with Germany for the spread of influence on the American territory, and such prerequisites were created that the German language was supposed to prevail. As a result, today we would have seen the whole world speaking German.
But the upper management took such a turn that the world went along the English branch of culture, although it is not far from the German one. It is just more open, less closed.
The Germans wanted to enslave everyone by force, and the British, basically, planted their own culture, their own language, and therefore, they spread in a completely different way. The Germans did not have a goal to discover new lands and settle there. Their goal was only to enslave and crush.
And the English attitude to the world, to the discovery of new lands, was more preferable and softer, and therefore it prevailed. As a result, English is closer to being corrected as an international language than German.
And where is the German language used except for Germany itself and some countries around it? Nowhere. And this despite the fact that German culture has always prevailed in Europe. English, Austrian, and Hungarian kings were from Germany. In the end, these are all Germanic peoples.
Previously, there were a lot of all kinds of Germanic tribes that united not so long ago. But today it doesn’t matter anymore.
Question: What is the next, correct way to merge?
Answer: Now there will no longer be a path of unity across peoples, nationalities, and languages. The next path is a general forced unification, from which we cannot escape.
And Kabbalah will spread spiritually as a spiritual culture. People will be drawn to it no matter where they are because, due to their inner need, they will feel that they need it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. English Language” 6/2/12
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Question: When many people gather at the congress, and among them are beginners who absorb what you say with their mouths open, they are just in shock. While they are in shock, does the system work with them somehow?
Answer: Beginners are shocked by two levels.
The first is the level of knowledge, generalization, and understanding of the entire system. Suddenly they see that somehow everything is coming together, everything is in order. From clarity, from awakening, they experience the first shock, it is because Kabbalah really gives such a simple, clear, and precise view of the world and nature that a person is really amazed in comparison to what he knew before. This is the first.
The second is that they feel the inner force that comes from the upper layer. They cannot explain what it is, but the feeling is already there.
Question: Does it mean that information from a parallel layer enters them?
Answer: No. I cannot insert anything into them if they do not want it. Only to the extent that they have spent their efforts to come to the lecture, connect, listen, understand, and join, they absorb some information. But in no case does it deprive them of their freewill.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Coercion in Kabbalah” 6/9/12
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Kabbalah is a method of attracting the upper force that changes you and raises you to the degree at which you can feel it. As Baal HaSulam said, “And only what you reveal, you and no one else will reveal.”
People are always trying to retell all this as if one can convey something in words. There is no way! No electrodes and signals can do anything.
It is impossible to connect to the next informational level by any science, because the information is in a different form there, in the form of light. And there are no physical adapters of light that would sense it at our level, you have to create them.
To create them is to “become similar.” To the extent that you are similar to the qualities of light, you begin to connect to this field and receive energy, information from it—everything that is in it, its perception.
Therefore, there is nothing but an internal change of a person!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. I Am a Mirror for Others” 6/9/12
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New Life 452 – Wave Of Upheavals In Israel, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
In the wake of a wave of riots among Israeli Arabs—violence and terror attacks that have made people afraid of being on the streets—we would like to understand the complex relationship we have with Israeli Arabs.
We need to look at this from the point of view of the truth of the upper force and how it behaves toward us. The system of nature begins from a chaotic starting point where everything is gradually arranged according to laws that have become increasingly clearer. The human level was already contained within this system of inanimate, vegetative, and animate creation, but has not yet been fully revealed. Nature is always being drawn toward balance until it reaches its inner harmony.
Accordingly, human society is also in a process of rapid development that draws us toward greater revelation of balanced and harmonious states. We can observe that nature proceeds at its own special pace called ”in due time,” which we perceive as historical processes and the relations between different parts of humanity. Within this context, we see that a special phenomenon called “the people of Israel” is present throughout all of history.
When compared with other nations, the creation of the nation of Israel was completely artificial. Instead of evolving naturally out of common culture and customs, Abraham gathered from among all the nations those who cared about the upper force. The essence of this nation is this very exalted idea not of this world. According to this principle, Abraham said our place is there, and so they went. There existed an equivalence of form with the soil. When Israel was no longer in accordance with “one man with one heart” and “love of others,” the land expelled them.
History exists only in order to allow time and place to work on this nation in its special role throughout history. They had to go through a shattering; they had to discover an opposite state, exile, where they were totally separated and dispersed among all the nations, after which they have gathered once again to elevate themselves toward unity and pull all of humanity toward unity with them. Everyone hates Israel and wants to erase it, and yet they see that they depend on Israel. They believe that Israel are the ones creating the problem, and they may feel weak compared with the people of Israel.
History has to end at the end of 6,000 years and conclude the entire historical process where we reach the end of correction, this world disappears, and we enter the next world. This upper state is a state of unity and mutual bestowal. The Israeli nation has to be the head and lead everyone to this final state. We have to take into consideration what the general plan is and how closely our participation matches this general plan. Israel must balance the forces of plus and minus, otherwise adverse consequences will manifest. We must tell everyone what is coming and lift ourselves to the degree of harmony, bestowal, and love. We receive the guidance of nature, sometimes as “help against.” When we understand the tendencies of nature and the plan laid out for us, we will be able to resolve the problem.
This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
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The spiritual path lies through ascents and descents. Through descents, the Creator reveals the will to receive (evil inclination) in us so that we feel how far we are from the Creator. Then, with the help of a good inclination, we come closer to the Creator and through the feeling of states of distancing and coming closer, we move more and more toward the purpose of creation.
The purpose of creation is to come closer to the Creator and to complete adhesion with Him without any limitations. Relatively to this state, we should feel how far we are from the Creator now.
Therefore, first there is always a descent and distancing, then an ascent and getting closer. In this form and with such steps, we eventually come to complete adhesion with the Creator. That is, an ascent is impossible without a prior descent. We need to get used to it, know how to go through such states, and appreciate the descents because through them we learn and acquire the next state and the ascent that comes after them.
The ascent cannot be greater than the descent. In each descent, you need to already understand, feel, and imagine the future ascent. The entire path consists of descents and subsequent ascents. At first, we feel how we are moving away, how bad we feel, and every taste even for corporeal life is lost. Then, by overcoming the descent, we feel that we are getting closer to spirituality and going deeper into it in a more and more tangible way.
Thus, through descents and ascents, we are treading toward a state that will only be an ascent—the final correction for all descents.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/23, “Pesach (Passover)”
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It is not a problem to allow us to escape from Egypt, from our egoism. But the fact is, in the fight against egoism, we acquire additional Kelim that are new and great desires. Through these Kelim we will be able to attain the essence of the new land based on bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/23, “Pesach (Passover)”
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Now it is us who come on stage, a universal religion, so to say. This is not a religion, but this is what Baal HaSulam calls Kabbalah in the article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose.” It means that this is not Judaism but precisely Kabbalah, which lays in fulfilling the principle “love your neighbor as yourself.”
When 2,000 years ago, at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple people fell from fulfilling this commandment, then they fell in religion. This is how religions came to replace the Kabbalah.
Kabbalah says: “By loving your neighbor as yourself, you open yourself up to the sensations of the upper world here and now. There is no time, there is no death, there is only what you feel. Now you feel a small world, a small dimension, but you can rise in your sensation to the next dimension. So begin to feel it now.”
When people fell into egoism and stopped hearing what should be said about love for their neighbor and forgot about it, then they chose various earthly commandments and rituals for themselves and an after-death reward for this.
First of all, this is not work on your own correction, you do not receive a reward for your effort immediately when you change and as a result feel the next world, which is your reward. According to religions, supposedly by performing some physical actions here, you receive a reward after your body dies. But why does it interfere? What kind of paradise is there that it is necessary to be bodiless?
In general, religions twisted everything a little. I think soon people will begin to understand this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. America vs. Europe” 6/2/12
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The will to receive is the first form of every essence. We define the first form as “substance” because we have no attainment in the essence”(Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 10, Item 35).
This is about spiritual matter, and not about the inanimate, vegetative, and animate matter of our world.
Question: It is known from physics that the universe is 95% dark matter. It turns out that what we see and study today is practically nothing relative to what exists. Maybe this dark matter is the emanator, the Creator?
Answer: No, the Creator is above all this matter, He is like its essence. Matter itself is not attributed to the emanator. The emanator is what emanates matter.
The essence of matter is the will to receive. This is how the Creator created it.
Comment: Currently, there is no direct evidence of the existence of dark matter, only indirect ones.
My Response: Most of our knowledge about the universe and nature, in general, is based on indirect sensations, proofs, examples, and studies because we are not at the level of what we are investigating.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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Question: You record a lot of materials. Will it work after a while when people will start being awakened a little?
Answer: Of course! I am sure that here and there all sorts of excerpts will be taken from it and books compiled again, articles made from them, classes conducted, and lectures, seminars, and courses made according to this material.
After all, what we are going through today, everyone else will be going through in 10 to 20 years. For this reason, I emphasize this, all this is recorded and will be used later. Life will show.
It doesn’t frighten me, even if it would be erased and thrown away. The most important is to serve the world.
In principle, what I have done and said has already served the world; all this information has settled at the level of our world, materialized in it, and entered into matter. It is already working; it cannot be erased. I lowered it from a higher degree to an ordinary, earthly one.
Question: Why does spiritual information settle in our world after you get it out in the open?
Answer: I use the usual earthly mechanisms: desire and verbal communication in a circle with students. Therefore, at the level of our world, this information already exists. It is like being recorded, reduced to its level.
I remember that Rabash did exactly the same. It meant a lot to him just to get it out in the open. Sometimes he would say things that we, his students, did not understand at all. He would emphasize: “I am saying this not for you.” Like they speak at a press conference, not for the public, but share information for those who attend it so that they understand more.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Confidential information” 6/2/12
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In the News (EurekaAlert!): “Researchers from Japan have found that young infants can make and act on moral judgments, shedding light on the origin of morality.
“In a study recently published in Nature Human Behaviour, researchers from Osaka University, in collaboration with Otsuma Women’s University, NTT Communication Science Laboratories, and the University of Tokyo, revealed that 8-month-old infants can punish antisocial behavior exhibited by a third party. Thus, the motivation driving punishment might be intrinsic as opposed to learned. …
“‘We wanted to know whether third-party punishment of antisocial others is present at a very young age, because this would help to signal whether morality is learned.’
“To tackle this problem, the researchers developed a new research paradigm. First, they familiarized infants with a computer system in which animations were displayed on a screen. The infants could control the actions on the screen using a gaze-tracking system such that looking at an object for a sufficient period of time led to the destruction of the object. The researchers then showed a video in which one geometric agent appeared to ‘hurt’ another geometric agent, and watched whether the infants ‘punished’ the antisocial geometric agent by gazing at it.
“’The results were surprising,’ says Kanakogi. ‘We found that preverbal infants chose to punish the antisocial aggressor by increasing their gaze towards the aggressor.’ …
“’The observation of this behavior in very young children indicates that humans may have acquired behavioral tendencies toward moral behavior during the course of evolution,’ says Kanakogi. ‘Specifically, the punishment of antisocial behavior may have evolved as an important element of human cooperation.'”
Question: How do you feel about this? Do we have it in us? Can this point be developed in us?
Answer: Yes, but this is not because of the correction of a person. This is because people today are born with such developed qualities that they are more empathetic and understand empathy more. This is a consequence of the development of the soul.
That is, the suffering has accumulated and concentrated in such a way that people can feel the other.
We see this both in public relations and in what people write and say. People are learning. People are learning and they are ready to understand each other more. This is based on egoism; there is nothing altruistic about this.
Question: Does it mean that now precisely such souls are descending into the world that can empathize?
Answer: They understand empathy more because they are more interested in it personally.
Question: What should it develop into?
Answer: They will conclude that altruism is preferable to egoism.
Comment: You keep adding that egoism is the basis of everything.
My Response: Of course. This is already good. This is a form of developed socialism.
Question: How can we accelerate this? Should this be accelerated?
Answer: It can be through all kinds of examples and encouragement.
Question: You keep saying that it is necessary to create a society that will constantly encourage these good deeds. Do we then disperse this empathy more and more?
Answer: Possibly, yes. It is possible that this will accelerate it in some way.
Question: What is the final state of this point of empathy?
Answer: The final state is the creation of a good, correct, real socialist society.
Question: What, in your opinion, is true socialism?
Answer: It is an ideal social system when everything is done to make people feel good. But absolutely everyone.
That is, everything is built in such a way that you cannot do something in one way here and in a different way there, better for some and worse for others, and so on. This is a must for everyone!
Question: Do we have these presuppositions? If we just need to develop this, then we will reach such a society?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: Then a person is born in order to reach this socialist society in such a form.
My Response: Of course.
Question: Where is this upper force that you talk about all the time? Where is the Creator?
Answer: Without the upper force, they will not be able to do this.
Question: What do we have to tell the Creator to get there?
Answer: Allow our egoism to agree and come to such a result.
Comment: Otherwise, our egoism says: “I need more, not him.”
My Response: It will not allow us anywhere. Any step aside, either to the left or to the right, will mean death. Moreover, in such fanatical, ugly, and underhanded forms that with all our pre-thought-out and prepared beautiful intentions, suddenly we will see that I cannot dodge it in any way. I want to reach out and give, but instead, I suddenly see in the process that I cannot give, but only take.
Comment: I see. This is egoism.
My Response: Yes, it is such a fight within yourself, but it is beautiful.
Question: But is it really important for me to see this? To say that this is inside me.
Answer: Of course.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/13/22
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
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Zohar for All “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “General Explanation for all Fourteen Commandments and How They Divide Into the Seven Days of Creation,” Item 10
| | |
Lesson on the Topic “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does nature require of us all?“
I received this question from one of my students after the tragic Turkey-Syria earthquake, when dozens of thousands of people got killed, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless in the freezing cold with no food.
The student asked me what did people do to deserve such a blow from nature, and what does nature want from us all?
In short, we need to stop the way we live in a rat race, to calm ourselves down, and to do as nature wants. And, indeed, what does nature require of us all?
Nature needs us to be good to each other. In other words, nature wants us to be positively connected with each other with a good and kind desire.
The law of nature is that its parts need to interconnect in a harmonious and balanced manner. We humans are the only part in nature that interferes with its balance.
How? It is our egoistic nature, which makes us want to exploit others and nature for personal gain.
We thus need to correct the way we use our desires so that we do not try to harm others and nature for personal gain, but on the contrary, that we rise above our egoistic use of people and nature and positively connect.
We need to bring ourselves to a state of positive reciprocity and mutual connection. We would then see how our desire to bring peace among each other would bring us positive feedback from nature. We would then experience harmonious and peaceful lives, and nature would no longer send us various disasters and pandemics.
Based on the video “Turkey-Syria Earthquake: What Does Nature Want from Us?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
*From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 3/8/23*
Dear Women,
On this International Women’s Day, however much I can say “Thank you” to women around the world, I cannot express the true amount of gratitude for your consistent immense contribution.
While gray clouds gather over our world with divisive forces tearing away at every sphere of human relations, it becomes increasingly clear that if the world developed according to the will of women, then we would be living in a completely different world.
The Kabbalistic sources write that it is thanks to righteous women that we succeeded in exiting Egypt. “Egypt” in this context has nothing to do with the geographical location. Rather, it means the egoistic human nature behind our divisiveness, conflicts and wars. Therefore, I sincerely hope that your desire will help humanity overcome its egoistic nature and that you could impact a major positive shift in the world.
You have the special ability to understand what it means to care about the world’s future and the next generation of children and families. For the time being, we fail to understand the full extent of the world’s dependence on you, but the more we transition to an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, the more we will see how much we all depend on you.
I thus hope that you will wish for everyone’s hearts to open up to one another until we discover how we can all live together in harmony and peace.
The most important thing is to continue, as it is said: “Do anything but leave.” This “Do not leave” applies to every moment. In the moment in which you are, do not run away, but continue the same path to the same goal. Then these moments will very quickly become stages of the path and will lead you to the goal. This is the main thing.
Here, of course the group that can pull you and take care of you is very important. We need to awaken each other all the time and advance in such a way.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/23, “Preparing for the opening of the heart at the Congress”
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When we discuss the topic of Passover, we don’t study the details of the holiday according to the calendar on the wall, but rather, the spiritual path and progress toward the final correction. This path is not short and it includes many stages. The very first stage is to begin to relate correctly to your will to receive, to your nature, in order to understand why this state is called exile or Egypt.
Everyone who wants to come to the land of Israel, to ascend to the upper spiritual degrees, must first go through exile in Egypt. We study spirituality in a state of exile, that is, when we are distant from spirituality.
Exile teaches and educates us and reformats us in the correct form. When we realize that it is absolutely necessary, then we will be able to come out of exile to redemption. Redemption is impossible without prior exile.
What is this exile? It is not corporeal troubles, the suffering from hunger, thirst, or hard work. Exile should be represented as an exile from spirituality. But we do not know what spirituality is yet! Yet it is precisely at the time when we are in a state of exile that we begin to feel what spirituality should be, where it exists, why we are far from it, and what we lack.
This is how we gradually begin to receive Kelim, desires for spirituality. When these desires reach a full measure, we escape from the state of exile. It really becomes unbearable for us, and we cannot stay in it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/23, “Pesach (Passover)”
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The path from a person of this world to the state that is equal to the Creator is divided into many degrees and states through which we need to ascend. That is, each person needs to correct his inner qualities until he turns from an ordinary person into one who is similar to the Creator. This entire path can be divided into stages, just as physical routes are divided into kilometers along the way. There are 613 commandments in the Torah, states that we need to go through. The commandments are also called advices, which must be fulfilled in order to become more and more similar to the Creator, with their help, up to complete adhesion with Him.
Commandment also means advice because in each such appeal of the Creator to us there is a preparation for attainment, which is called posterior, as well as the attainment itself, which is called face. The Creator offers us some kind of action. If we fulfill it, then in accordance with it we will receive some kind of spiritual elevation and new qualities will be revealed in us, and thus we will take a step toward the Creator.
Performing the action itself is considered the posterior; that is, at this time we still do not understand anything and do not receive anything, but when we finish the action, we reveal some quality, the next degree, a new state of the Creator, and this is called face.
Therefore it is written in the Torah: “We shall do and we shall hear!” These are two states. When we do some actions exactly as it is written, we reveal within ourselves the ability to hear and rise to the next degree.
There are 613 such degrees in total. There are 613 preparatory degrees that take us to a new level. And there is also the side of the face when after preparation, we begin to hear and understand what is being said and to reveal something new. This is how we attain the meaning of these commandments, the meaning of these instructions.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/23, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar“
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Question: Why were your first students Russian speakers?
Answer: I published several books in Russian first. So people came to me and literally forced me to study with them. Actually it was easier for me to read and write in Russian back then.
Besides, I did not see anyone needing it in Hebrew at the time. Thus, in the closed Russian circle I felt free and unrestricted. I was afraid to reveal myself in Hebrew. Who am I even if I am a student of a great Kabbalist? I still lacked confidence and it was not time yet.
It was 1991-1992 and I was giving talks on the radio in Russian at that time. Therefore Russian speakers came and said they wanted to study.
Question: Why did you feel the need to speak on the radio?
Answer: This need had developed in me long before. Kabbalah itself called for this and I felt a certain inner pressure. It is like childbirth when you give out what is in you, give birth, and have room for the next portion, for the next buildup and attainment of the material.
I accumulated the material, attained it, compiled it within myself and then poured it into the book. Through this I gave birth in a way. Then my inner capacity was vacant again, and it was possible to start thinking about the next topic, accumulate material, process, and study from the sources.
It was a huge incentive to develop, read, process, realize, and express everything on paper and get a reaction from people.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Laitman’s Soul Root” 6/2/12
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Question: There are a lot of articles in the media questioning where we are going. Many articles today report on what is happening in Israel and concludes that Israel is becoming a tough and cruel country as evidenced by 55,000 cases of physical violence, 32,000 of domestic violence, and mayhem on the roads.
Instances of a driver in a traffic jam getting out of his car and beating up another driver, knives instantly being pulled out in altercations, and domestic violence turning into death have been noted. There is also violence in hospitals, in ambulances, and incidents of doctors being beaten.
Tell me please, what is happening with Israel? Or maybe we haven’t seen this before?
Answer: It used to be a little different because egoism was not so big everywhere. Today it is a terrible condition and it will be even worse.
Question: Does this mean we will not be able to stop it by any earthly, ordinary measures?
Answer: No, not by any ordinary measures. Egoism is getting bigger, more merciless, and more uncontrollable by the minute. That is how it happens.
We are influenced by the egoism growing in us, which we must correct, and yet we do not correct it.
Question: So it will inevitably grow and require only correction?
Answer: Yes. And we cannot look at others to compare with others, how they are and how we are.
Question: So the correction is on us? Only?
Answer: Yes. Just turn everything into friendship, into good relations. Nothing else. If it will work, yes, and if it will not work, it will be the end of us.
Question: So you think the goal of the country is good connection and friendship between all citizens of Israel?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Just like that, in a simple way?
Answer: It is not easy and simple, but it should be like this.
Question: So you think that the laws, even the economic and political laws of the Knesset, should be brought only to this?
Answer: Of course.
Comment: They say that we simplify everything, that sentences are too simple, so simple for people! But, on the other hand, it is impossible to implement, as it turns out.
My Response: So if they can’t do them, then what does “we simplify” mean? We should only say good things to each other.
Comment: Meaning, to radiate only warmth to another.
My Response: Only!
[307024]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/8/22
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New Life #258 – Mixed Neighborhoods
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
What do we need to do to make our neighborhoods the best in the world and live with our neighbors as one family?
Neighborhoods of mixed cultural values are colorful, but they present special challenges. How can we create harmony within such diversity? What happens when there are populations with different needs and little common ground?
Each prefers their own approach to life and while they may not want to impose it on others, they also don’t want to change their approach. We need to work against our rejection of each other and feel that our neighborhood is our common place. We must increase the profitability of going against our ego and see that working together is safer and better in the long run. We need to go from self-concern to social concern through psychological and social education; we need to take the needs of others into account in mutual respect and assistance. We need to elevate above the differences to something greater.
I might start when we can make common efforts to address common problems, like trash or crime. We will more easily connect when we are faced with a big common loss or a big common benefit to be achieved. We can strive to succeed and to celebrate our successes together.
In practice, we need to gradually prepare different groups for eventual mutual connection; it won’t happen immediately. We should look for opportunities to connect a little. We can lay the foundation for connection in each group separately and then mix them a bit, like inviting others to wedding celebrations for example.
Through intention and effort, love will grow in each separately and awaken together between them. The most diverse groups can be taught to love the others above their differences, for everyone’s common benefit.
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This summary was written and edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman
From KabTV’s “New Life #258 – Mixed Neighborhoods,” 11/20/13
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What story is read on Purim? Why?“
The story starts with Ahasuerus, King of Shushan, enjoying a royal feast, and then his wife, Queen Vashti, disobeyed one of his commands, so he divorced her and sought another wife.
The king had a loyal minister called Mordecai, who was a Jew and who had a beautiful niece, Esther. Mordecai sent Esther to apply for becoming the king’s new wife, and the king was so impressed with Esther that he married her. However, following her uncle’s order, Esther kept it a secret from the king that she was Jewish.
Soon afterward, Mordecai, while sitting at the king’s gate, overheard that two conspirators, Bigtan and Teresh, were plotting to assassinate the king. Mordecai thus passed on this knowledge to Esther, who told King Ahaseurus, and he executed Bigtan and Teresh. While we would expect the king to reward Mordecai for this deed, the king surprisingly rewarded and promoted not Mordecai, but Haman, and Haman gained a very powerful position in the kingdom as head of all ministers.
Out of all people in the kingdom, Mordecai was the only one who refused to accept anyone besides King Ahaseurus as ruler. This infuriated Haman, and as a result, Haman ordered the genocide of all Jewish people—women and children included. He justified his decision to King Ahaseurus by stating that the Jews were scattered and dispersed, and that the king would be better off without them because they do not obey his laws. The king approved Haman’s request.
When Mordecai heard about the order to kill all Jews, he was shocked. He proceeded to tear his clothes, cover himself with a sack, and pour ashes all over himself, and then he started yelling about it all over the city of Shushan until he reached the king’s gate.
When Esther heard about Mordecai’s frenzy, she sent servants to dress him up but he refused. He told them to tell Esther about the plan to kill all the Jews, and that she must beg the king to undo it. Esther was terrified because she thought that the king would disapprove of her request. However, thanks to Mordecai’s persistence, she finally agreed but passed on the message through Mordecai to the Jews of Shushan that they need to unite around this request to save their lives.
The Jews’ uniting gave Queen Esther the strength she needed to approach King Ahaseurus with the request to reverse his decision. It is considered a miracle that he accepted this request, because it was only customary for the king to call up anybody whom he had a request for. At that point, she revealed to the king that she was Jewish, and that Haman was planning to kill them all.
Around this point, the king also learned how Mordecai was the one who saved his life from Bigtan and Teresh’s plot to assassinate him, and his attitude to Haman turned bitter. While Haman had been preparing gallows upon which he would execute Mordecai, the king became so upset with Haman that he ordered his execution, and the execution of his entire family, on the very gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordecai. And from then on, the Jews’ lives were saved, and they reveled and feasted in their unification.
Since that time, it has been customary to celebrate Purim with a lot of joy, eating cookies called hamantashes [hamentashen] (Haman’s Ears), giving gifts to the poor, wearing costumes and masks, and drinking so much alcohol so that we cannot tell good (Mordecai) from bad (Haman).
Besides the joyous atmosphere that surrounds Purim, it has a very important and serious message specifically for the Jewish people. Especially in times when antisemitism is exponentially on the rise globally, the Purim story shows us that the Jews’ only “weapon” against the rising hatred toward them is their unity.
We can and should protect ourselves and our loved ones. However, if we wish to rid ourselves of the negative sentiment coming at us from all directions, then we need to unite. The custom of giving gifts to the poor (usually portions containing hamantashes and wine) is a sign of closeness, an expression of a desire to bring all factions of the nation together. Our great sages over the generations have repeatedly told us that our unity will be our salvation from any negativity toward us.
The Book of Zohar, in the portion, Aharei Mot (item 66), takes the importance and seriousness of our unity one major step forward, that our unity not only brings us peace, but it brings peace to the whole world.
You, the friends who are here, as you were in fondness and love before, henceforth you will not part from one another, until the Lord rejoices with you and declares peace over you. And by your merit there will be peace in the world.
Antisemitism is a constant pressing reminder that we Jews need to unite just as the Jews did in the Purim story, and that if we do, we will be saved from harm. Moreover, as The Zohar writes, our unity will spread beyond our own bubble to humanity at large.
Similarly to how Haman’s reasoning to commit genocide on all Jews, including women and children, seemed over the top, we likewise see how seemingly illogical so much anti-Jewish reasoning is. It is because a lot of people instinctively feel how the Jews’ are behind the various forms of pain and suffering they feel in their lives, and they blame the Jews for standing behind much of theirs and the world’s suffering—while Jews themselves have no such intentions.
If we thus unite among each other, and show that we wish to share our unity with the world, we would then serve as an example of brotherly love above differences that no other nation could display.
Humanity today desperately needs the inclination to unite above differences, and this is the ability that we Jews have the potential to provide. Haman is a symbol of our rampant egoistic desires for honor and power at all costs. These desires stop us from caring about each other, and make us wish to trample on others in order to expand our own personal empires. If we Jews give into such desires, then people around the world instinctively feel that we are doing something wrong, and antisemitic sentiment swells against us.
Antisemitism is thus part and parcel of the laws of nature, a reminder of our need to unite above our differences, and to serve as a unifying example for the world. If we exercise the condition that our ancestors once met, “love your neighbor as yourself,” we can revitalize the emotion of unification, which would in turn overcome our rampant egoistic demands represented by Haman.
When we do so, then the world will see the true value of what Jews represent—that there is no matter of superiority in the Jews’ existence, but a need to reach a state of genuinely caring for each other and acting as a conduit for such care to spread worldwide.
We then reach a sensation of humanity as a single soul, i.e. we feel a unified desire connect us, and in such unity, we experience harmony and peace.
The purpose of antisemitism is thus to push us to realize our unifying role in the world, which is the meaning of us being “a light unto the nations.” We would be wise to learn how to unite, and to exercise unity above our own differences, because by doing so, we would experience its myriad benefits of joy, strength and prosperity. When we unite, we eliminate hatred, antisemitism, wars and all forms of negativity that emerges from within human egoism to divide people.
It is my hope that we use the Purim holiday as a reminder of our need to unite, and that we move in a unifying direction sooner rather than later. We would then spare ourselves and humanity much suffering.
Based on “The Meaning of Purim” by Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)”
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Lesson on the Topic “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
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Selected Highlights
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That innovation, meaning a new change of form that has occurred in the spiritual, is regarded as having been divided and distanced from that spiritual. It is considered to have emerged with its own name and authority, by which it is exactly like a corporeal being that some part departed from it and moves about from place to place. Hence, the new form is called “movement.” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 9, Item 33).
This is about a force that holds, not only the corporeal, but also everything that exists, and gradually changes it from degree to degree, from stage to stage.
Question: Let’s say there is an object in our world that can physically move some distance. This is what we call movement. Baal HaSulam, however, talks about movement in spirituality. For example, a person is developing spiritually, which means his form has changed from one to another. What form are we talking about?
Answer: About the movement inside the object. Changing a person’s purpose, his essence of existence, his intentions, his desires, his qualities. All this gradually changes and transforms. We see that everything in nature is subject to change, and therefore we say that everything is moving.
Question: Does this also apply to the desires of our world? They do not change.
Answer: They are also changing, but very slowly. In spirituality when I have some kind of connection with the upper force, the desire changes; this means that I have moved closer to the upper force.
Everything happens in the image and likeness of the upper force. If we reveal it for ourselves, we attain some images and qualities in it and then we can examine to what extent we are similar to them or not, whether we are closer to this upper force or further from it.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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Question: Does a person who is engaged in spirituality experience all states consciously or unconsciously like in our world?
Answer: One wants to experience them consciously because one’s existence and movement depend on it. There is nothing unconscious in spirituality at all. If you made some kind of movement there, it means that before that you thought about it and decided to act on them.
Question: It turns out that in our world, all physical, biological, and other processes occur as if on my behalf, right?
Answer: Yes, because we are not aware, we do not reach such a level to be able to be aware.
Question: Does it mean that we are still in some kind of intrauterine development? Even on a psychological level a person is not aware of much. Some kind of program automatically operates inside him.
Answer: An ordinary person does not know where he lives, how he lives, for what, or what the goal and the purpose are.
Question: And what is the point of that?
Answer: Gradually, these feelings accumulate and lead to the fact that a person is dissatisfied with one’s life and begins to delve into its source, and thus one approaches the Creator.
Comment: It takes millions of years!
My Response: It does not matter. Nature has time.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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In our world, Jews are carriers of a spark of light; therefore, people subconsciously hate them: “There is something peculiar about them, something about them is not right. They are not like all other people; they are like a special race or space aliens.”
And in fact, it is true. After all, there are fragments of sparks in them, which are opposite to the egoism of an ordinary healthy person. Therefore, on the one hand, people are drawn to them; on the other hand, they hate them.
From this, they inflated an entire system, anti-Semitism, and everything else. Why? Such is the difference in qualities! In our world they are the only ones who have a spark of light.
These Jews are still trying to convince everyone that they are like everyone else. But this spark is embedded within you, you cannot cut it out with any surgical instruments! You have something that others do not have. Other people are obliged to hate you because this is an opposite quality, it is not from our world at all!
Therefore, until the same quality is manifested in all people, anti-Semitism will exist. That is, on one hand, it is impossible to destroy these people, this tribe, this practically Kabbalistic group, because they have an upper purpose: to transmit the highest state to the entire world.
On the other hand, as long as they do not realize their mission, which they themselves do not suspect, anti-Semitism and hatred for this quality will not pass. They must reverse it, but not for their own sake.
Anti-Semitism somehow drives them to this and catalyzes the process.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Those Jews Again!” 6/9/12
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Comment: Let’s say I see some negative qualities in a friend and understand that they are in me. But at the same time, he sees negative qualities in me and realizes that they are in him. There is such a duality.
My Response: I do not advise messing with this; this is already a philosophy! We do not have enough internal tools to take in the secondary, tertiary, and other sensations. It is impossible. This is the next level of knowledge.
In order to feel this, the light needs to reveal within you its overall control. You yourself cannot understand this with your mind. You do not have to try to understand anything with your brain at all. It will only confuse you.
You need to tune in so that the light creates the sensations of the second, multi-layered level in you. But this second level is not just an enlargement of the first. It is an introduction to the n-dimensional space in which the absence of time, movement, and place immediately makes it closed and round, without beginning or end.
All kinds of earthly measurements, time, distances, higher-lower, more-less, and so on, begin to disappear in it. This cannot be described in our world, in the qualities that a person has at our level. It is impossible to describe.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. I am a Mirror for Others” 6/9/12
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In the News: “Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a ‘super bad feeling’ about the economy – so much so that he’s directing company executives to freeze hiring and cut staff…” (NPR).
“Elon Musk welcomes global recession: ‘it’s been raining money on fools for too long’ … Some bankruptcies need to happen. (The Guardian).
My Response: Ultimately, of course, to bring the world to a healthy and correct distribution, with balance, proper payment for labor, and the right labor, a great deal of the things we have done must be destroyed.
How many schemes have we twisted between us, and all these judges, lawyers? A change in our relationships, when we cleanse them of all all that is pretentious and unnecessary, when all the stock markets and law offices fall, and so on, and so on, then all of this will acquire a completely different foundation, a healthy foundation.
Question: Are you drawing direct connections between us or all sorts of concocted things and production? As soon as these connections become corrected, all of this space will start to be cleansed, right?
Answer: Yes. Even if we removed just the insurance companies from our world, the world would become different.
Question: Will we be able to remove it by simply having more direct relationships?
Answer: Of course, yes. The very name “insurance company.”
Comment: Yes, I insure myself to the fullest; if something happens, then… And when will they fall, these companies? Won’t it simply happen by changing the law and saying that there are no more insurance companies and that’s all?
Answer: I don’t think it will fall quickly and decisively. It depends on man’s disillusionment in this life.
We have to undergo very serious distress and reassess our values. Only then will we reach a decision about what we need in this world and what we don’t, to such an extent that in that decision we will be at the degree of life and death, eternity and death.
With these kinds of problems and when we wish to change them, then we really will be able to start rebuilding our world.
Question: Will we reach a sort of simple decision as a result of all these deliberations?
Answer: The decision is very simple: how can we rise above death. Because all of these insurance companies, everything there is are just how I can make things safer, fulfill them.
Question: Yes. They are founded on death, actually. And here everything will be founded on life, yes? Meaning it will be based on how can I rise above death, right?
Answer: Yes. Therein lies the basis for the existence of all these companies, and in general, the social relations we have concocted over the last century.
Question: And when I desire this, to rise above death, then I will gradually be cleansed of all of this?
Answer: Yes. Everything will go! The threat of war and all of these competitions in general will go away.
Question: When you say rise above death, what do you mean by it?
Answer: Rising above death is ascending above egoism. And it is such that I do not care about the relation of death and life; it is when I see an eternal flow in this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/13/22
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Question: It is known that the whole reality is divided into ten Sefirot, which in turn are further divided into ten, and so on. Does this mean that all over the world there are some places similar to Jerusalem, Lake Kinneret, and Galilee?
Answer: No. Kabbalists divide the whole world only into the land of Israel, then into Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Babylon.
These lands are under a special spiritual influence, descending as I named them: Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Babylon, i.e., today’s Iraq.
All other parts of the earth are practically on the same level and spiritually absolutely lifeless. But when people from there begin to rise to their spiritual root, then, as it is said, the land of Israel will begin to spread like shagreen leather over the entire territory of the globe.
Comment: You say: “Jordan, Syria…” It turns out that the current enemies of Israel, the countries that would like to destroy us, are the closest to Israel. Everything is upside down in our world.
My Response: Because we are upside down. As soon as we return to our roots, correct ourselves inversely, the correction of our neighbors will immediately occur. We should not expect any change from them until we change ourselves.
Let’s hope that first of all we realize this, feel this, and implement this.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why are people scared of black cats?“
People’s fear of black cats, shying away from broken mirrors and attributing dark and ominous signs to all kinds of events in our lives, such as Kyiv residents recently doing so in relation to huge flocks of crows that passed through their skies, have their historic folkloric origins.
However, we need to progress beyond assigning any special importance to such phenomena.
We can do so by replacing such signs with positive signs, such as the demonstration of positive attitudes to each other.
If we emphasize the growth of positive mutual attitudes and the achievement of “love your neighbor as yourself” in human society, then such a condition would cover everything else. Then, whether we walk past a black cat, a broken mirror or myriad other superstitious phenomena that we might be careful with, our attraction to achieving a strong positive human connection would cancel out any of those influences.
Based on the video “Crows Over Kyiv – An Ominous Sign?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
First of all, we must reveal who we are, that is, that we belong not just to the inanimate, vegetative, and animate world, but to the global system of nature, which is all integral, connected, and interdependent. We exist under the control of one force that acts on us from above without asking us because it has a predetermined program.
Even before we appeared on the degree of this world according to its decision, it was already planned that we would depend on each other as one man with one heart in order to reveal these connections. Precisely because we are so different, disconnected, distant, and opposite, but we yearn to connect above all our differences, we assemble from these opposites a mechanism that will be called “Come and See” (Bo-Reh), the Creator.
Since we are created beings, we advance by revealing everything from the contrast of opposites, like black on a white background; otherwise, we would not be able to examine, study, and perceive different qualities.
Therefore, the further humanity develops, the greater separation we feel, and eventually we start to hate and repel each other. Development always takes place along two lines: left and right. First, the left line is revealed: dislike, hatred, and enmity. Then we realize the essence of creation, its correction, and that the Creator alone controls the two lines, both left and right.
Then we begin to come closer to each other and connect to such an extent that we become like one man with one heart.
All corrections take place in two stages: the left line and the right line. This is how the heart beats; it operates in two directions: pumping blood and pushing it out. If we act in this way without interrupting the stream flowing in both directions, in and out, inside the heart and inside our life, then only in this form do we feel our reality and the reality of the Creator, and in this movement we feel ourselves and our life.
Therefore, we have to work on connecting into one ten. Although each of us is able to perform only one partial action, we still work together like parts in an engine that perform different functions but for the sake of one goal, one action, and a common result.
This is exactly how we need to see the world Kabbalistic group, as one body where everyone is focused on the purpose of creation and everyone is ready to do everything to reach it to the extent of their understanding of their role, feelings, and the abilities given to them from the general system of creation.
Therefore, the main thing is to connect for common action. In this connection, no one is similar to the other, but everyone is working to reach a common goal. We are very different in this work, and the differences will only increase. This is how the disciples of Rabbi Shimon at first did not feel the differences between them, and when they advanced, they sometimes wanted to kill each other.
So, as we develop, we discover our confrontation and opposition, the distance between us. But when we reach connection, we reveal in it all the qualities of the Creator and all of His nature from the side of creation by becoming like Him and merging with His nature.
Therefore, the path of correction is connection in one ten, a correct union. By completing each other in the ten, everyone reaches perfection. The Creator builds out of us the structure of a man, Adam, similar to Him. This system becomes such that the Creator dresses into it and is revealed to all parts of creation, to all souls. This is His purpose in relation to all created beings.
After the connection we reached at the congress, no matter which parts of the world we go to, we should feel like parts of the same body that are completing each other. We need to be connected with each other like a mother who feels her children and what is happening to them even if they are far away, and she thinks about them all the time. Our connection must be even stronger because we belong to a spiritual body.
If we yearn for such a connection, we will reveal the upper reality that exists in an eternal and perfect form above this corporeal reality that is revealed within us now.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/23, “Preparing for the opening of the heart at the Congress”
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How hard a person perceives his state depends on his understanding of what goal he is moving toward. Then he will have no problem going through any state as long as it leads to a good result.
I think we understand what is happening to us and what should happen. The difference between a bad and a good state is in fact only in the quality of the connection between us.
If the connection is good and correct, then everything goes smoothly like a stream flowing freely through unclogged pipes. The main thing is that there should be no blockages in them and that no one blocks the access for the others, but on the contrary, wants to tie them together and connect them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/23, “Preparing for the opening of the heart at the Congress”
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Comment: Let’s say a person understands 100% that he has to come to his friends and embrace them. He approaches them, and then some kind of blockage occurs in him. He cannot even touch these people; it is not in his power.
My Response: It is a very good state! Beautiful! I understand this very well!
Question: But what is blocking him, and how can he do something?
Answer: He is blocked by the lack of need for it.
He needs a shock, the realization that he will not survive without it. He should be in such a state that if he does not do this, then his very unsightly behavior will be revealed, which will hit his pride, and cause sizzling shame in front of everyone.
He needs to raise the necessity of this movement in himself like a person who grasps at straws. “There is nothing to grab because you are drowning! How will this straw help you?” But he grabs. That is the feeling he lacks. There is not enough sense of necessity! Moreover, the necessity without which there is death. He has to repeatedly convince himself of this.
Comment: But the trick of egoism is that it finds a bunch of things against it.
My Response: It is that same light that shows you how much you are not ready to connect with it yet.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. As Long as I’m Alive, They will Only Suffer…” 6/2/12
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Comment: You once said that one way or another, all of humanity will become inhabitants of the land of Israel.
My Response: Kabbalistic sources say that at the end of days the land of Israel will expand to the entire world.
This means that forces that are now concealed must descend from above to this land and from here spread their influence to the entire territory of the planet.
No matter where people are, they will feel their contact with the upper world, with the Creator. Therefore, the land of Israel is considered special.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10
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Question: What is the difference between getting a desire from the masses and the need that we should have during our studies? For example, before reading The Book of Zohar, you always say that now we need Hissaron, spiritual hunger, a common desire.
Answer: Of course! There can be nothing without a common desire! Only a common desire rises upward. Only through a common desire can you attract the light; otherwise, you do not correspond to it and there is no contact.
In order for there to be contact, all convex and concave parts in the contacting devices must be the same.
Therefore, if you act alone, there will be no contact. First, you have to collect the desires of the masses, which is called “a prayer of many.” And when you raise it up, you lift up this common desire to be filled. At the same time you are as if asking for them: “Give me for them!”
But first you have to get their desires from them, and here dissemination, connection with others, and contact with the outside world are necessary. Your studies will not be of any use if you do not pursue the goal of fulfilling someone.
And where is this goal to fulfill someone? Show it practically. Kabbalah is a very practical thing; otherwise, it would not have been revealed now! Otherwise, I would have been sitting quietly, writing my books quietly, and that is it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Benefits of Fasting” 5/7/12
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Question: There is a phenomenon called the Jerusalem Syndrome. Do you believe in it?
Answer: Indeed, there is such a syndrome. Even doctors talk about it.
First of all, Jerusalem is characterized by a special, somewhat unusual yellowish light. Artists and photographers know this. But no one understands why it is like this. There is a certain impression of yellowness, gold, in this city.
In addition, there is a special power in Jerusalem, a psychological impact on a person noted when sensitive people or people with a weak psyche suddenly begin to not feel well, this city has too strong an impact on them.
You have to get used to it, adapt. Although holiness, the upper force, practically left this city after the destruction of the Temple, there is still a connection with it, but it is hidden. And that is why it is felt.
But when this connection really begins to be restored, then Jerusalem will begin to radiate such tremendous spiritual energy from itself that it will be felt in all corners of the world.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10
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We just need to direct our hearts correctly. This does not depend on the person himself but on the environment, whether it is directed at the goal he has chosen. When a person enters such an environment and wants to join his friends, he directs his heart more and more precisely to the goal chosen by everyone else.
That is why we are going to the convention, it is in order to be imbued with the same spirit that is in it. Our correction depends on how well we manage to do it.
The heart is all the desires of a person. I want my heart to be together with all the desires of the friends striving for the same goal. Maybe we do not quite accurately depict it now, but we are always trying to figure it out, like in a sight that is more and more accurately aimed at the target, making it clearer, closer, and more desirable.
If our thoughts, desires, and heartfelt aspirations are much more connected, as if in one person with one heart, we thereby influence the general upper force, the Creator, even more. The more we combine our efforts and focus on Him as the only force that determines everything, we build His image in us more precisely; as it is written, “You have made Me.”
The more correctly we depict the Creator, the closer we will come to Him, connect with Him, and begin to feel Him. This is the purpose of our work—to correct our hearts. A person is not able to correct his thoughts, but he can direct his heart directly to the Creator, and then all his thoughts will be only about how to bring contentment to the Creator. When the heart is completely directed away from myself toward bestowal, the upper light will reign in it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/23, “Preparing for the opening of the heart at the Congress”
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Question: How can a person, contrary to his egoism, strive to overcome it and continue to unite? In his mind he understands that he needs to rise above himself, to connect with others, but it is so difficult to realize. What should attract him so that his egoism agrees to do this?
Answer: You just need to think a lot about it, read, and try to persuade yourself in every possible way.
To someone it will come through the mind, to someone else through feelings, to other people through historical examples, perhaps, through some religious images, through fear, it does not matter how, it happens in different ways. But still, a person will come to the conclusion that he is obliged to do this and will begin to move toward this.
As a result of these efforts, the light will act on him and change him. A man himself will not move a muscle. He is totally built only on causing the light to actuate him.
The most important thing in our life is preparation for its greatest achievement. Our whole life is preparation for complete correction.
Every second is preparation because only a small move forward to the goal depends on us: either in intention, desires, or even just some kind of a movement. And the rest is done by the light that we cause the impact of.
Either our thoughts and desires, that is, our mind and heart, move forward by themselves like a machine, and the light constantly affects them. But since they constantly change, like some kind of a drum inside us, we grow and change.
Or we ourselves make movements forward to the light somehow, at least a little bit exciting ourselves with the help of the environment. You will not do this in any other way but for just connecting with the others, perceiving their mind, feelings, desires, and thoughts from them.
When we make just a slight movement on our part, we cause a bigger intensity of light. It is not the light that changes, but us as if approaching it, striving for it, exposing ourselves to its bigger influence.
This is what our advancement is about. There is nothing more in the world. Only this happens every second. Therefore, we and all of nature in general exist inside this permanent light, like inside a soup, and we are being cooked inside it on constant surrounding fire.
It depends only on us how we will reach greater similarity to the upper light. If we want it from inside of ourselves, then we will quickly come to adhesion with it.
That is all. There is nothing else here! Our whole life is just aspiration, intention, and preparation for the lesson in order to internally, by our desires, move ourselves to the light, to its properties. This is the whole method!
Therefore, when you ask: “How can we get closer and reveal some secrets?” What kind of secrets?! Everything is open in front of you! Try to strive for the light and move closer to it in your properties. And this is possible only through rapprochement with others, through love of friends, and then through love of all of humanity.
In this way you will cause a bigger impact of light, enter the development faster than others, and quickly understand and feel everything. You will reveal the field in which you exist, the upper world. In parallel to five corporeal senses, you will begin to feel the internal structure of the spiritual world. It exists here and now.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. As Long as I’m Alive, They will Only Suffer” 6/2/12
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Question: How should we treat various diseases? Are they a correction?
Answer: Of course they are a correction. Moreover, according to Kabbalah, it is desirable not to remove the agonies of death. They are serious corrections of our egoism.
It should be made as easy as possible, yes, but, in principle, only ease it. This is a general correction of egoism, which suffers and ends its specific sufferings in the state in which it feels itself at the lowest level of its existence. All the rest of our existence is smeared across all the rungs of the spiritual ladder.
Comment: We are familiar with physical suffering. But spiritual suffering is completely different. It is like an inner, emotional experience, but the physical is still more detestable.
My Response: You can rise above physical suffering so that you stop feeling it, but the spiritual one needs to be corrected and replaced by more sublime suffering. Here you have no way to escape.
Suffering is the absence of fulfillment in egoism. If you replace it with the lack of the ability to bestow and love, then it takes on a completely different tone—the suffering of love. This is already completely different; it is purposeful and carries sweetness in itself. We can replace all kinds of bad suffering with good suffering.
Question: When you were sick, your teacher Rabash said that you should rejoice in it. How can physical illnesses be used?
Answer: You do not need to bring them on yourself on purpose. But physical sufferings help, they lead a person to the goal.
You should not revel in sufferings, wait for them, or exalt them as something necessary, but if they come, you should try, on one hand, to somehow replace them with more sublime ones, and at the same time understand that suffering of any type cleanses a person from egoism, it elevates him.
However, at our level, this is a very long and wrong path. Therefore, Kabbalah is against suffering.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Benefits of Physical Suffering” 5/21/12
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Question: Do you call Jews or your disciples in general the representatives of Bina?
Answer: Disciples or Jews are one and the same. In the sources, the Jews are people aspiring to the Creator, the people who want to attain the meaning of life, not ordinary people.
My disciples are the Jews, from the word “Yehudim,” striving for unity.
People who cultivate this yearning in themselves begin to feel all their corporeal impulses as artificial and superfluous ones, which they must still use and in which they must live, because this is necessary to correct the world. Through this they are in contact with the world.
At first they live just like everyone else. Maybe they succeed on the corporeal level, maybe not. But in principle, their suffering is internal, not external. Sometimes they go through very interesting metamorphoses.
Question: What is the difference in the perception of life of that part of humanity that needs to awaken as opposed to just an ordinary person?
Answer: In a person who is constantly transforming, the upper light is working all the time. That person perceives the world a little differently than other people.
He makes rather strange decisions and has sharp turns in life. He goes through many options for his attitude to life: quits, moves, accepts, discards, and gets carried away by one thing or the other, then quickly cools down, etc. This is a feature of his rapid development.
He seems odd, a little out of this world, a little edgy, angular, or smart. But in the end, in spite of everything, he discovers his find; “I found it!”
Now everything depends on his further development. As much as the strength of his desire to discover the purpose of life is truly deep, so he continues.
What matters here is a huge number of factors that awaken between him and the source of his development, how much he hears what he is told and grasps it, how much he has common habits and morals with the environment he is in, and much more.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Representatives of a Different Mind” 6/2/12
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Comment: There is a very clear Jewish parable in which a scientist came to a sage and asked, “They say that you, sir, give people amazing medicines and know how to heal. Give me medicine that will teach me to fear God.” “For the fear of God,” the wise man replied, “I have no medicine. But there is a medicine that will help you love God.” “I desire this even more,” said the scientist, “give me that one.” “This medicine is, love of one’s neighbor,” answered the sage.
That is such a simple formula: If you love your neighbor, you will love God.
My Response: Yes.
Comment: There are always questions, I see my neighbor…
My Response: We do not see our neighbor either. In principle, he is just as incomprehensible and hidden, as the Creator.
Comment: But for an ordinary person, I see my neighbor. Here he is in front of me. But I do not see the Creator.
My Response: What does it mean to see the Creator? What is the question here?
The Creator is everything that is around us. Absolutely everything that is around, everything that I exist in, that fills the whole world around me; all this is the Creator.
Question: Is it possible to fall in love with everything that fills the world around us?
Answer: Yes. Connect with Him and desire to be afloat in Him all the time. That is all.
Question: Does the fact that I do not tear myself away from Him mean that I accept everything?
Answer: Absolutely.
Question: And do I also accept the worst thing?
Answer: It does not matter what.
Question: All this is from You, and I accept it?
Answer: Yes. This is what adhesion is.
Question: Then why does love for one’s neighbor lead to love for the Creator?
Answer: Because we can better direct ourselves this way. Otherwise, how can we do it? For me, as an ordinary person, the Creator is something distant, incredible, other-worldly, and so on. And if I accept everything around me that it is the Creator, then how can I get close to Him and direct myself to Him? Only through my neighbor.
Question: That is, I am trying to love my neighbor and understand that this is …
Answer: Everything around me.
Question: This very thought must stay in me all the time, that all this is from the Creator?
Answer: Yes, this is the Creator. And this is called, from the love of one’s neighbor to the love of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23
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Comment: We live in the age of rapid technological advancement. For example, there are cameras that make such high quality videos that it simply kills the film industry. People use it, and nobody can turn back the clock. This has seriously disrupted the whole industry.
My Response: So what? All these huge cameras disappeared, but man still remained. If he wants to offer something of high quality to the world and there is demand for his product, he will do it with a small device instead of a large movie camera.
What is the difference? Why all this bulky video equipment? Why do we need this? Is this mastery?
All great artists were poor, hungry, and never had many colors, they painted on simple, plain canvases. That is when one shows a skill! And it really was a skill!
Art should be expressed through pain, suffering, or striving.
Question: Yes, I have met artists who were poor and expressed their canvases through pain. But soon after, a patron would appear who would sponsor them, and it would be impossible to get anything out of them. When there is no pain, there is no advancement. Is this what the Kabbalistic principle is?
Answer: Only hunger! Only hunger in the general sense of the word, no matter what, can aim a person toward a goal. A person is suffering, slowly looking for a way out; without this, we cannot do it.
Question: How should such a hunger for learning be expressed?
Answer: Studying will surely let me reach the quality of bestowal. Although I do not know what it is, I do not want it, but I hear, see, and read that it is a general quality of nature. I have to get to know it gradually.
Kabbalistic books tell us that in nature, besides the quality of reception, there is also the quality of bestowal. What should I do about it? How do I find the second force of nature? With its help, I will be able to explore nature, understand the world I live in, save myself and others from suffering, and find what I want.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Benefits of Fasting” 5/7/12
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Petach Tikva is a very interesting place on the map of Israel. Firstly, it is called Em HaMoshavot, that is, the ancestor of all today’s places of settlement in Israel. We know that after the last long exile we returned here in order to revive spirituality.
Therefore, it is not by chance that by the will of the supreme providence we found ourselves in this place, which in our time is the basis of all settlements in the country. Apparently, we should be here because it is very difficult for us to leave and move somewhere from here.
We have settled here and probably for good reason. The future will show how Kabbalistic knowledge will spread from here to all corners of the world and how people will be drawn to a sense of spirituality through the land of Israel, i.e., through its history, geography, travel, tours, and at the same time they will want to consistently start their spiritual tour.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10
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Question: You say that when spreading Kabbalistic knowledge a person may not even understand the material received, but some mechanism is triggered inside him, and this is more important than if he understands the explanation with his mind.
How does it work?
Answer: Yes, the main thing is that it first happens in feelings and then the mind understands.
Why do I need to care about the mind at all? It only serves the feelings. First I see a picture, feel it, and then I start thinking about it. It is this way in everything in the world and in everything in our perception. The mind is only a servant of my feelings. It defines feelings, measures them, sorts, compares, analyzes, and gives me an opinion.
Therefore, if I need to change my opinion about my feelings, this is one job, and if I need to change my feelings with the help of the mind, this is a different job.
Question: But how does the physical dissemination of Kabbalistic knowledge take place?
Answer: Only from above. We give a condition for the light to spread even wider, to penetrate even deeper.
Due to the fact that we connect externally with other people, we allow the light to act through us on them. In this way, they gradually change their opinion, their attitude toward us, to the world, to everything.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Subtleties of Dissemination” 4/21/12
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Comment: As a rule, most of the European countries that once ruled the world have fallen into decline over time. For example, Greece is now one of the poorest countries in Europe.
My Response: Nothing can be done. Such is the dialectic: first you conquer some countries, and then they rule you. It is the same when you give birth to children: first you take care of them and sort of rule over them, and then, as adults, they rule over you. You cannot escape this—it is dialectic.
The same thing happened with the Roman Empire, Ancient Greece, Egypt, Persia, and other countries. Everyone first conquered and expanded, and then changed roles with the enslaved nations.
Question: Let’s say America is at its peak right now. So, it is very easy to predict what will happen to it?
Answer: No, it is impossible to predict. America captures everyone in a different way, not physically but technologically and financially. Therefore, it is not necessary for someone to rule over it. It is just that there will be a “deflation” of America in the future, but not in the sense that it will be ruled over by someone. This is a different type of power. It is a little different every time.
America has conquered the world with its culture, and it is not a monoculture. This is not Russian, French, or some other culture, nor a religion that wants to conquer the world. It is something that everyone can fit into.
This explains the amazing speed of the spread of the American way of life. It is very light and appeals to any egoism. It lets you kind of relax. Young people bite into it. This is a different type of conquest.
I do not think that Americans in this regard will receive a reverse negative blow, or that they will be conquered by some other culture. Which one? After all, there is no one they enslaved. They only contribute, supplement.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. America vs. Europe” 6/2/12
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Question: Why is life given to man? So that, based on his limited, petty animal mind, he would ponder about his existence?
Answer: We exist in such a small area where we do not understand anything, but we start poking around in it and make some kind of science out of it. We do not see nature as a whole. Instead of one whole picture, we divide this nature into hundreds of sciences. Why? What is in it? What is the point, what is the need for us to see and feel something?
It turns out that it is impossible to detach from egoism if it is not materialized by our mind. And for this, our mind must see itself mastering absolutely everything, then abandon it all as it leads nowhere, make mistakes in everything, and in the end, it gives a person only suffering.
And we see what science has come to, to the fact that it does not want itself. People are still going into science, trying to learn something, but its latest achievements say: “That’s it, guys, it is time to close.” And scientists feel it.
I really like to listen to physicists, biologists, and natural scientists. They indeed are already talking about borderline phenomena with the spiritual world. They already feel it, but they are afraid to talk about it openly because they will be told that it is mysticism.
After all, people who are far from science do not understand that science has entered the border area with the spiritual world, and those concepts that we previously interpreted as mystical are not at all such.
Quantum physics especially has given us a lot. In principle, the whole world is quanta, it is light, as Kabbalah says.
We are now at a very interesting stage of development.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Dream 400 Years Long” 4/7/12
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There has been a strong earthquake in Turkey again, so we should hurry up and build a stronger connection between us. The connection arises only when there is a strong desire for mutual bestowal. To the extent that we build this connection, we will be able to stop the revelation of all the evil forces of nature.
Why does an earthquake, epidemic, fire, or tsunami suddenly occur precisely in this place? We will be able to understand the causes of these disasters and counteract them in a different way.
Now we are putting up resistance against resistance, and this is not good. We need to tune ourselves from the inside so that all the forces of nature from the outside act favorably for us. Meaning, we need to polish our stony hearts in such a way that we can make a Kli out of them to reveal the Creator.
And then the Creator outside will correspond to the form created inside. The inner light and the surrounding light will come closer to each other, and the border, the wall between them, will not separate them. It will only emphasize how different we are by nature from the Creator and how we want to resemble Him with our desires.
If I adjust myself to my friends and see that we are building the house of the Creator together, then I feel joyful from it. I bring myself in line with the place that the Creator will fill, and I cut off from myself those desires, thoughts, intentions, and actions that prevented the revelation of the Creator and our connection. The more of those desires I eliminate, the more space will be freed up for the Creator. Before that, He had no place in this world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/23, “Preparation for Opening the Heart at the Congress”
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Comment: A group of historians and archaeologists claims that before the civilizations of Mayans, Incans, and so on, there were super-civilizations, and that some kind of super people lived in the lands of Israel and India. Scientists have evidence that the cut of stone in these places is so perfect that even modern technologies cannot do this.
My Response: Yes, of course. When we go down under the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, there are blocks of 40, 60, and 70 tons. How could it be moved and installed with such precision without modern technical means? Even today it is difficult to do so.
Moreover, these blocks were brought from afar, tens of kilometers away. How were they delivered? How were they installed?
This is an incredibly difficult engineering challenge! It is beyond our power even today, and even more so at that time! Therefore, scientists have assumptions about superhumans.
I think they just misunderstand it. In many countries we find such paradoxes that people of the past used a kind of electric batteries, they made correct calculations based on the stars in the sky, and they had a different approach to nature.
The modern approach is rigid, as if digital, computerized, and their approach was based on the use of the general force of nature. They knew how to use methods that we do not know about today.
Now, moving to integral humanity, becoming generalized and round, we will gradually acquire a mind that will be in similarity with nature.
When we, like all nature, become tied together by mutual guarantee, by a common obligation, and people understand that they are one single whole, then we will have a new mind, new thoughts, new desires. In this case, we will be able to understand nature itself because we will be like it, we will be together with it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mysterious Civilizations of the Past” 5/19/12
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Comment: You say that a paper book is still more important than an electronic one because it has a spiritual root while an electronic one does not.
My Response: Now everything is moving to electronics, everything will be in electronic form; this cannot be changed. But the book itself is simply symbols that a person writes with his hand and reads with his eyes.
Basically, I do not think it matters much for our generation. Today I also read basic literature from the screen although we learn from books.
Question: But you said that now even paper is not what it used to be. Does the texture of the paper on which the book is printed play a role?
Answer: Real paper is, of course, papyrus. From that came the word “paper.” Also, records were made on sheepskins that were prepared in a special way. When you take the skin, it splits into two parallel layers. The book is written on the outer part of the inner layer.
Question: Why was this done?
Answer: Because a book is a desire of a person that he describes in writing.
We can correct all our desires in four and a half stages. They are called Mocha [marrow], Atzamot [bones], Gidin [tendons], Basar [flesh], and Or [skin].
The skin is the last part that belongs to Malchut; it can only be corrected halfway. This divided skin of an animal (we, after all, are also animals and correct our animal part) can be corrected only halfway from the inside.
The other part cannot be corrected; those desires are too great for us, we do not have the strength for this. Therefore, the book is the maximum attainment of spirituality through four and a half degrees of our desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Book or iPad” 5/21/12
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Comment: If you look at what is the most popular on YouTube or on the Internet, cats are of great interest. There are millions and billions of views of these animals lying on their backs or climbing into a bag, etc.
My Response: Miserable humanity! Look at the level of its development, the needs it has, and what a big lack of confidence! Children that lack a mom.
Comment: Imagine a hedgehog swimming in water, and there are 40 million views.
My Response: Well, what can you do? This is the way of development.
Question: Is it possible to come to the point that people will discard this animal part and suddenly become interested in the inner part?
Answer: Yes, they will discard it. Or rather, they will slip past it quickly. After all, everything happens under the influence of light. So, soon they will feel the changes in them.
When we bring the upper force, mind, and light into this world, it affects everyone, and people become different. They suddenly think differently, feel differently, and suddenly look at the world differently. Their requests and needs change, they solve everything differently, and cannot help but follow the change that the light creates in them.
So, all this depends not on them but on us, on those who know that it is necessary to cause a greater intensity of the manifestation of light in our world through us, through the multitude of people who are already striving for the goal of creation today.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. 40 Million Viewers!” 6/2/12
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Comment: There is a parable about a man who was dying from an incurable disease. His relatives had already given up believing he would recover. But they were told that there is a wise man nearby who heals people. They brought this wise man to the ailing man. He asked to be left alone with the patient. They talked quietly and then the sage left. The next day, the patient began to recover. He recovered fully. And then he was asked: “What did the sage say to you that you easily defeated the disease?” He replied: “The sage told me: don’t try to overcome the disease – love it.”
It sounds, of course, very wise, but it is impossible to love your illness.
My Response: Agree with this. Meaning, agree with what comes to you and accept it as the best option.
Comment: Humanity is sick, and sick with diseases that are largely incurable. Everyone wants some advice that will suddenly help him to live somehow.
My Response: Relax and don’t try to change anything. Swim calmly with the flow of life. Accept what you have. Because everything that is done is done by the Creator. Therefore, do not contradict Him, but feel that at every moment in time, you are connected with Him.
Question: What should one do with the fears that spur a person on all the time?
Answer: There will be no fears! Because fear comes from you wanting to secure some special future for yourself. Here it doesn’t exist.
Question: So, fear is when you disagree with the Creator?
Answer: Yes. But not in this scenario. The future disappears, it doesn’t exist. At every moment it is equivalent to the fact that you are leaving and there is nothing left of you. And everything is calm. Whatever was, will still be. As King Solomon had it written on the ring.
Question: So, you think that if a person gets along with this formula if he lives with it and exists, then it will free him from fears and even from pain?
Answer: The point is not that he will be free from fear and pain, but that he will simply be properly connected with nature, with the Creator.
Question: And what will this result in?
Answer: This will give a connection with the Creator, serenity, rapprochement, and simply merging.
Question: What place do doctors occupy in this whole bundle, in the formula?
Answer: Doctors, in principle, are not designed to pull a person out of an illness. They can’t do that. It is necessary, so the Creator will send it in one way or another, wherever and whenever is necessary.
But the fact is that doctors should help a person to be in clarity. In clarity of mind, in clarity of strength, as much as possible. So that he would properly relate to everything that happens to him.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/12/23
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Question: People from all over the world come to our Kabbalistic center. As a rule, they arrange tours to Kabbalistic places and after passing through all these important, energetic spiritual points, then leave for their cities and countries.
Can this be compared to how waters descend from Mount Hermon into Lake Kinneret?
Answer: Naturally. Of course, they will take all the energy of the holy places with them, and then it will work in the regions where they live. Therefore, it is very good that they visit special places.
While there they read texts prepared in advance for each place in their languages, in order to merge into the energy that exists there, to come into contact with those forces that affect them, it only depends on the person—to reveal them for himself or not.
And when they arrive home, even when they forget about it, they will still subconsciously radiate this divine force received here in the holy land.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think about the Hebrew language?“
The Hebrew language emerges from our dialog with the source force of our lives, the force of love, bestowal and connection that is called “the Creator” in the wisdom of Kabbalah.
According to Kabbalah, the Hebrew letters are the forms that our desire receives from the Creator. In other words, every letter is a new form that we acquire when we become somewhat similar to the Creator.
Our matter is a desire to enjoy, which is opposite to the desire to bestow enjoyment, which is the Creator’s form. Therefore, when we apply an intention to bestow enjoyment upon our desire to receive, then it is considered that we acquire a form similar to the Creator.
There are 22 of these forms that we can acquire upon ourselves, and in addition, the five last letters, the MANTZEPACH. When we apply these forms upon ourselves, we create words, which are spiritual actions. That is, when we transition from a state where we are immersed solely in the desire to enjoy for ourselves alone to a desire to bestow enjoyment to the Creator, then we hold a dialog with the Creator. We reach out to Him and we change ourselves through the forms that we accept upon ourselves. By doing so, we express our desire and our language to the Creator. He then understands us, and He begins speaking to us through these letters, these symbols.
We can then know the Creator when we have received the 27 forms from Him, and we can then identify the form that the Creator reaches out to us with.
Based on the video “What Are the Hebrew Letters?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Fourteenth Commandment,” Item 250
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Lesson on the Topic “Working in Ascents and Descents”
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Selected Highlights
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Imagine that there is a stone wall in front of you with one empty hole where you need to put one missing stone. That stone is you, and you need to make the shape match the empty hole in the wall from all sides.
A correction must be made on yourself by connecting yourself to the friends surrounding you from six sides. You need to get your spiritual form from them. You have no spiritual form at present; it appears only to the extent that you adapt yourself to your friends and connect with them as one Sefira among the ten Sefirot.
They determine how you should look, how you should bestow, and how you should behave with them. In this way you enter into your spiritual work and you begin to understand that this is the work of the Creator. The Creator changes your friends all the time; they polish you, and thanks to them, you acquire your correct and real spiritual form.
The spiritual form of each one depends on everyone, and this is how we all build the image of the Creator together. He Himself has no form; it is we who create it. As it is written: “You have made Me.” By the fact that everyone brings themselves to be in correspondence with others, we create the Creator who did not exist before. Only the law of correspondence of the qualities of each to all the others works here.
It is impossible to reach a connection with the Creator if you have not established connection with all your friends. The stronger your heart is, that is, the more ready you are for spiritual work, the more difficult it is for you to feel others and to begin to relate correctly to the fact that it is in connection with them that you must form a place for the revelation of the Creator.
Everyone should try to minimally cut off his qualities and to adjust himself as much as possible to the place provided by others. Through the qualities obtained in this way, we build a spiritual vessel, a wall, and a house.
The pieces that I cut off from myself are my stony heart, which has resisted connection with my friends. By cutting off these pieces, I am able to connect with my friends and thus build a large Kli, a temple. It turns out that I only cut off what was not necessary, something that prevented me from moving toward a higher purpose.
I see that it is worth cutting off these properties and desires from myself in order to bring myself into conformity with the highest level together with my friends, to build a higher Kli.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/23, “Preparation for Opening the Heart at the Congress”
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Question: From a letter: “Kabbalah is a mystical movement in Judaism. In essence, it is a method to read and understand Torah. It is based on the idea that the text of the Torah can be interpreted at four different levels the highest of which is revealed through special mystical practices. So, Kabbalah is mysticism and not truth?”
Answer: What nonsense! I have not heard a single word of truth right now.
Kabbalah is simply a set of laws of nature that we must observe if we want to live in harmonious union with nature.
Question: What is this set of laws, what is nature?
Answer: There is nature, it is everything that exists including people, including everyone and everything, our world, our worlds, galaxies. Basically, it is everything that we can imagine. It all represents one unified whole that exists with the help of mutually interconnected forces. Kabbalah explores these interconnected forces.
It explains to us that only by fulfilling the general law of nature, the general interconnection between all parts of nature, will we be able to understand, perceive, feel and exist in this nature.
If we do not reach the desire to attain this nature, then it will gradually throw us out from itself. And in the end, we will still be forced to accept its integral law as the general law of everything that exists.
Question: You talk all the time about one law that governs all this nature and us. What is this law?
Answer: This law is called the Creator. That is, there is a force that contains all parts of the universe at any level: inanimate, vegetative, animate, human, and others that we do not yet know. We may call them mystical, it does not matter. But all these levels exist, interact, and are interdependent on each other.
Question: It turns out that we are inside the Creator, inside this law?
Answer: Of course! Inside the Creator. And we are obliged to obey this law. Of all the forms of life known to us, we are the only form of life that is aware of itself and is aware, in some way, of the presence of the Creator, its source, its root.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23
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Question: You constantly direct students to the group. What would this action be for someone not in the group as such?
Answer: I do not have to mechanically be in a group with you. I am inside it.
Do you think that a group is ten men sitting in a circle and talking to each other? The group is an inner force. Everything exists in the world of infinity, in absolute perfection, but everyone feels it in the qualities he is in at the moment.
My teacher, Rabash, gave an example, if you look at a plane flying in the sky, one believes that its length is 5 meters, another thinks it is 50 meters, and the third person 100 meters. How can we grasp the real length of the plane if it is far away? We cannot. That is, everyone measures it in their qualities.
So it is with regard to the spiritual, I feel the group to the extent that I can imagine it in a corrected form.
In fact, in the world of infinity everything is in a completely corrected form: the group, humanity, and all the people. But, to some extent, I can only feel it in the measure, at the level I am at.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Group for Laitman” 5/19/12
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Question: Where did people get the need to take care of their bodies—at least physically? After all, if you look at animals, they do not play sports.
Answer: Animals instinctively play sports. It does not happen that an animal eats and goes to bed. It will eat, run a little, and then lie down.
There is no such thing that it eats twice as much as it needs. Let’s say a tiger caught an antelope. He will eat his share and leave the rest; he will not overeat. He does not stock up. Nature does not allow him to do this so that he is always on the move, in labor.
But man, because he has a mind, began to allow himself over his natural, innate way of life. However, he has freed up time for progress.
He started to generate electricity, which does not exist in nature, energy, gasoline, and create engines, mills, and engage in intensive farming, use animals, horses, and so on. That is, he began to free himself from constant concern for necessary processes, and he acquired free time.
But what does he spend it on? That is the whole problem. That is what Kabbalah says: you cannot pass science to egoists because in the end they will free themselves for everything they have done.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Get high” 4/21/12
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The geography of Israel has its own unique features. Absolutely all climatic zones of the Earth could be found here. At a distance of literally 20 kilometers from each other, there are such transitions that are not found in other parts of the planet for thousands of kilometers.
Here there is desert, subtropics, and the lowest point on Earth, the Dead Sea. The elongated configuration of the country is very unusual, and it forms the seam between Europe, Asia, and Africa.
And in ancient times, millions of years ago, it was all connected and there were no canals. Over time the tectonic plates split and everything sort of spread out.
For these last thousands of years, it has been possible to speak about the geography of Israel as completely similar to the geography or connections of the upper world, the world of Atzilut.
Comment: But previously Israel was wider and stretched to the Euphrates River. And now it is an elongated strip.
My Response: It does not matter. We do not consider the current political borders, but rather geographical boundaries, the ones where the upper force that affects this land is spreading and is called “Israel.”
This force in actuality operates from the Nile to the Euphrates, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and today’s Israel. All these places are under a special upper influence that is called the power of “Israel,” which means “straight to the Creator” (Israel, aimed upward).
But still, the most intense internal part is the one that is under the jurisdiction of Israel today. It fully corresponds to the structure of the upper world, the world of Atzilut.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 12/27/10
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Question: In our life, as long as humanity has existed, there have been wars, and their instigators have always been men. Where in the nature of a man is such an essence to constantly either fight or play at war?
Answer: Firstly, they have not grown up, they are the same boys, not adults. An adult must eventually grow up over generations. During one lifetime, maybe not, but if generations had passed on the wisdom of life to each other, then this would not have happened.
After all, war is mutual destruction. And with it, you are not advancing yourself. By destroying others, you end up hurting yourself. History confirms this. So, there’s no point!
If the old people, who understand this, would pass on their wisdom to the young, taught them correctly and formed a different understanding of the world in them, the world would be different. We would not have spent a lot of money on the military, on police, and we would have lived just fine!
But our nature does not allow us to do this. So first of all, we need to correct it and not just have a nice life.
The general law of nature, the Creator, drives us to a certain goal and forces us to be fools until we realize who we are, that He is always tripping us up so that we finally give up, turn to Him and ask Him to remake our nature, change us— that is what you need.
Don’t make me feel good, but make me good! And then I will see the world as beautiful. That’s all! To change a request, a demand, an appeal to the Creator is what is required of us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Cal. Men’s Games” 3/31/12
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The second commandment… it is love—that one should love one’s Master with whole love…even though you do not know if I will come after you to support you… [and] although I am not giving you anything, your love will still be whole, to adhere to Me with all your heart and soul (Zohar for All, Introduction of The Book of Zohar, The Second Commandment, Item 198)*.*
Ultimately, we are talking about desires. If the other’s desire and my desire are arranged in such a way that I want to use his desire to fulfill my own, this is called “self-love.”
If we are in an equal state: “I give to him, and he gives to me,” each of us perceives his desire and the desire of the other as one.
For example, as in a combat team or as “one man with one heart,” this is the condition “do not do to the other what is hateful to you.” Then you will be connected to each other, but on condition that you are connected together by one desire. This is not love, but the connection of friends.
Whereas love means that I take my desire and put it below the desire of a friend (the level of love depends on how much lower) in order to use my desire only to fulfill the desire of a friend. His desire determines everything for me, and I live inside his desire, like a mother inside a baby. She feels everything he feels and what he needs, and only exists for this. This is called love.
Therefore, “to adhere with all your heart and soul” means to perceive the desire of the other as your own and take care only to serve his desire day and night. When is this possible? When everyone connects together under the influence of the upper force.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/11, The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Second Commandment”
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Today the whole world is beginning to feel the Egyptian exile, that we are all in the grip of dark forces, our character, our nature, which simply kills us and kills everything. This is Pharaoh, the dark force that rules over us.
If we begin to feel that it is not the egoistic force, but the force of bestowal, love, connection, and altruism as the highest and greatest for us, then we will demand an exodus from this exile, we will begin to do something, and we will be able to attract another force upon ourselves called the general force of nature or the Creator. It specially created this environment for us so that we would want to choose it out of two forces, and would appreciate the importance of bestowal and love over anger, reception, and egoism.
This is the meaning of the Egyptian exile, which the whole world is beginning to feel as we see that its egoism is destroying it. The world will continue to reveal this evil, but it will not be able to do anything. People will die, spoil nature, make their children and grandchildren die before their eyes, the most precious thing they have, and they will not be able to do anything; so much their ego will push them to death.
What the Jewish people once went through can be repeated all over the world on an even larger scale. A person will be muzzled until he understands that only his nature is evil, and only the exit out of it, the rise above the qualities of greed, envy, jealousy, pride, vanity, and cruelty (in general, everything that characterizes egoism) will give him the opportunity to continue to exist. Then he will be ready to give everything for the sake of rising above the ego.
But this is not enough since this is the same egoism, only in a different form, self-love. In addition to the recognition of evil, one also has to go through the state of the recognition of the greatness of the quality of bestowal, that is, to attain the plus in addition to the minus, that the quality of bestowal in itself is great, good, and carries some upper value. But what value if not for the sake of egoism?
But here a force called “light” begins to act inside of me. This force gives me a sense of the importance of the goal because it is dear to me. The path to it is not in my egoism, but in altruism.
It is similar to how in our world a person has some idea, which is absolutely abstract and has no practical use, but it is so dear to him that he is ready to give his life for it. This is such an idea and such a feeling that appears in a person, it is not from our world.
He begins to understand that the quality of bestowal is special in itself. It elevates and carries the upper value! When such a feeling comes, a person is ready to get out of the control of his egoism, and not because he feels bad, but because the quality of bestowal, as he feels, is the highest one.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Miracle of Birth” 4/7/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is it that could cause a civil war in Israel?“
As the days pass since the 2022 Israeli elections, the conflict worsens between the political blocs. The opposition states that the government is illegitimate and discusses the possibility of a civil war while the coalition calls for the imprisonment of the opposition leaders on the basis of treason.
In Israel, we are coming to a state of inner struggle, hatred and rejection that has caused us to degenerate several times over history, and once again, we are at a crossroad. Even though we understand that our situation is dangerous, and the country has fallen apart twice before due to letting our differences detach us, it still does not matter. We see that we cannot agree to any kind of a compromise, even if means the country’s dismantlement.
And what is this dire situation ultimately based on? Simply put, ego and pride. One cannot let the other govern the country as long as there is the slightest opportunity to put spokes in the other’s wheel. Other than uniting above the divisions, as is it written that “love will cover all crimes,” we can do nothing else to fix our current conflict.
We have to unite and reach a state of a common love despite our hatred of each other. If we fail to positively connect above our differences, then we will cease to exist.
Based on the video “Is Israel on the Verge of Civil War?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
All our work is to transition from the perception of reality in egoistic sense organs to the perception of reality in altruistic sense organs.
This is the whole difference between the feeling of this world and the feeling of the upper world, between our current perception of reality in which we live in a lie, away from the Creator, and without any perception where we are, to understand, feel, and know where we exist, and within whom and with whom we reside.
This change of perception is made by the effort of a person. But beforehand there must be a desire to change our perception because it will happen only if we desire it. Therefore we must make an effort to imagine the upper reality, to create its image in ourselves as the Kabbalistic books speak about, and to build such relationships among us in the group.
Then during the study when we read about this upper reality, we will demand that a force from above come and open to us the organs of sensation, these floodgates of sensations, that we would reveal where we really are and not remain in this false, imaginary, far-fetched picture that appears to us today in our muddied organs of sensation. Thus, all of our work is to give correct definitions of what is called true reality.
Each of us, with all his might and as much as possible, should try to imagine, draw, paint, or form for himself a kind of supreme image in which we are all united in our desires together and with the Creator so there is no difference between us, but within us and between us reigns the Creator, the quality of bestowal and mutual love.
There is nothing but this state; there are no imaginary pictures, and we ask from this reality that it affect us and manifest in us. This should be the result of our efforts.
This is exactly what a person should constantly strive for during the reading of The Book of Zohar and other Kabbalistic books. And this is why these books speak about the true reality. Otherwise we could read books written in a different style, or there would be no point in reading them at all.
Therefore when we read about the upper reality in these books, we must try to achieve it. As Baal HaSulam writes in the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 155 “…through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls—from the only existing state, and thus they correct themselves.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/10, The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Tetzaveh (Command)”
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Question: When studying Kabbalah, a person’s outlook changes. Maybe for someone it looks like pure psychology that a person adjusts himself to the influence of some force that changes him, but in fact he becomes completely different. Is that how his psychology works or, as you say, does the light change him?
Answer: It is the light! Only light!
Psychology works in our world when a person replaces one desire with another, one object of pleasure with another, and makes selfish calculations: what is better, what is worse, where will he be beaten less, where can he snatch more, and so on.
Thinking about how to get out of depression and rising above your mood, how to realize your inner natural data, how to behave with other people in order to make it better—these are purely egoistic tricks.
And light changes the very nature of man. Therefore, psychology cannot help here. It brings a person to this, helps him realize all his problems, and then he must work in a group, with light, in order to change himself.
Question: But how does it happen? What mechanism changes in a person? Where does that portion of light drip that either changes the soul or something else?
Answer: Light affects egoistic intentions that are built on the same principle as altruistic, spiritual ones, only in reverse order.
After all, before there was only a system of bestowal, and then its shattering created the opposite system—receiving. Both systems are opposite to each other, and a person must choose under which one to be influenced.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Cal. Bonded!” 3/31/12
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Today, humanity is on the verge of spiritual realization. The whole history of the Jews (whatever one may say, they are still a special people) is a demonstration to all mankind of what will happen to them.
But you can unfold the course of history differently, not physically, but with a quick awareness, that is, to accept the methodology from this nation. Then, there will be no need to experience what they have gone through, i.e., be wiser by possessing this knowledge.
We see that people do not yet know how to work with it, what to do, where to run from it. They raise their hands and say, “No, no, we’re fine.” The same exact thing is written in the Egyptian story: “Everything is fine, all is good, we still have nowhere to go. Let’s come to an agreement with our pharaoh (egoism). Let’s try to do something different.”
People seek and search. This is natural because they do not want to see or actually do not see an opportunity to avoid it, because it is a completely different nature.
The Creator is hidden, the upper force of nature manifests itself only one-sidedly, as mechanical, inanimate, non-purposeful, without a plan: matter develops and that’s it. It has evolved from inanimate to vegetative, animate, and human. So, we are the smartest! And what do we see? We can’t do anything.
It was the same with Moses when he was told: “Why do you worry the people? We are fine. Be quiet, do not spread your Kabbalah, do not call for an exodus, for an ascent. Get out of here!” Therefore, he was forced to run away to the King of Midian Yitro, and only returned 40 years later. That is when the people began listening to him because they had received many blows during that time.
Back then, this story happened to a small number of souls and now, it must happen to the whole of humanity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Miracle of Birth” 4/7/12
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Question: Based on the experience of workshops, how can a person correctly place oneself under the general field in which he is trying to be a part?
Answer: It should be included as an active element of cooperation, as an organ of an electronic, mechanical or electrical system that tries to realize itself beneficially for the overall purpose of the system, that is, try its best.
I am canceling my “I.” Whatever this action is, good or bad, it doesn’t matter to me, it doesn’t matter how I personally perceive it. I put the action, the benefit, the goal of the team, above mine. And I don’t care about my personal goal right up to its killing, just as some insects or even cells of our body receive an order to kill themselves, and they carry it out.
If the goal of the collective is visible to me, and it contradicts my own, then my goal has no meaning, I destroy myself. This should be the inclusion in the group.
And beyond this limit are the following stages. There you begin to feel the spiritual world because your egoism no longer hinders you.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Lithuanian Experiment” 3/13/12
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Comment: You said that if we have any material desires, it is better to realize them quickly so that they do not interfere with our spiritual development.
My Response: If your head is occupied with spiritual development, then involuntarily you will not perform any stupid, unnecessary movements in everything else.
Nevertheless, you still need to organize yourself somehow: make yourself move, eat normally. Let’s say I have a sedentary job, I sit almost all the time, so I force myself to move for an hour and a half a day.
Doctors say that even half an hour a day is enough: a little exercise, walking by the sea, cycling.
But I personally think that, although it is necessary to force yourself to do all this a little, the main thing, of course, is internal work. If a person is engaged in it, then he inevitably has a normal exchange in everything else.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Get High” 4/21/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What can we learn from elephants?“
Elephants are very compassionate and sensitive animals. They are the only animals that hold a burial ceremony. Often the herd digs a hole, covers the dead elephant and stays near the grave for several days. Also, if the herd encounters a dead elephant that is not from their herd, they will treat it as if it were one of their own. In addition, if one of the elephants in the herd is sick, they take care of it, bring it food and help it up.
When we see such examples of sensitivity and compassion, we can raise the question to ourselves as human beings: What do we have that animals don’t, and is there anything that we can learn here?
We possess additional desire to animals, and the problem is that we use our excess desire to our detriment. We can see a clear example of this problem if we look at the endless wars and cutthroat competition we find ourselves in over history, and the way we pour money into stockpiling more and more weapons today instead of myriad other means that could benefit us. We are constantly engaged in thoughts of how to exploit, overpower and outcompete others.
Animals also show many examples of overpowering and killing other animals, but they do so out of a survival necessity, not out of enjoying themselves by feeling bigger, stronger, faster and better than other animals—as we people do toward each other.
Why do we relate to other people in such negative ways? It is in order to sustain our ego, i.e. to try and satisfy our desires for money, respect and power. We do not try to overpower others merely out of a survival necessity.
Therefore, when we consider the fact that we have bigger egoistic desires that we use to the detriment of others, we cannot say that we are at any higher degree to animals.
If we wish to maximally realize our additional desire and truly show ourselves to be loftier beings, then we need to rise above our egoistic desires—our desires to benefit ourselves at the expense of others—and reach a state of a common love for one other, a state of “love your neighbor as yourself.” In other words, instead of prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others, we need to prioritize the benefit of others over self-benefit.
As a result, we would reach a perfect and eternal state—a state that we were put here to achieve.
Everything in nature on the still, vegetative and animate levels—outside of humans—is in a harmonious interplay, and only we humans breach that balance with our self-serving use of our additional desire.
We should thus think about how we can shift from prioritizing self-benefit at the expense of others to prioritizing the benefit of others, and to use ourselves for others’ benefit. It is because, by inverting our intention and attitude to each other from egoistic to altruistic, we would discover no less than a perfect world for everyone.
Based on the video “What Can We Learn from Elephants?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Our success depends on connection. Therefore, we must come to the congress with open hearts, ready to connect.
Imagine that the world is facing a catastrophe similar to the devastating earthquake that recently occurred in Turkey. But now, the earth will shake all over the surface around the entire globe. Scientists have already warned about this danger several times. And we are able to save the whole planet from this disaster.
Let’s try to glue all the parts of the globe together so that they do not move and cause earthquakes. We can glue them together with our desire because human desire is at a much higher level than inanimate nature, plants, and animals. And if we want to cleave to each other at our human degree in order to become as one person with one heart, then of course we will not let the globe crack.
Otherwise, it will become more and more restless, and seismic activity will increase drastically. But it all depends on us.
And we will eliminate not only earthquakes, but any negative phenomena that exist in this world. Let’s say we want to clean up the whole globe from garbage, from all waste that pollutes waters, land, and air. To do this, we need to purify our hearts. After all, it is at the highest degree, and if we cleanse the heart of dirty thoughts and desires, then the whole globe will be cleansed.
We are thinking: how can we clean up the planet? And everything will be very simple, there will be no problems. Nature has all the forces for this; it all depends only on how we use them. Let’s start purifying our hearts and see that the whole world becomes fresh, bright, and clean. Everything depends only on our desire.
In the few days remaining before the congress, everyone should try to correct themselves so that they arrive at it with an open heart. And then this congress will become a place of purification of the world.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him”
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Question: Where did the word “Zion” come from?
Answer: “Zion” is from the word “Etzia” (“exit”)—exit from exile.
If Zionism previously attracted Jews to Zion, today it not only does not attract, but actually repels because it is being replaced by a new form of uniting people, not around some places called “Zion” or “Jerusalem,” which have become symbols of hard Judaism.
Real Zionism, which has gradually formed and is still being formed from the past, is “love your neighbor,” which is the next step in the connection of the people regardless of their land or even their customs.
The most important custom—”love your neighbor as yourself” (the main rule of the Torah)—is what it is calling to fulfill in the first place. This is the real Zionism of today that arose on the ruins of the old one, which has simply served its purpose.
Previously there was an aspiration to the earth, to Zion, to stones, to the Wailing Wall, to something so much more understandable and in some way attractive, like stones in the ancestral cemetery. But in the end, all this disappears and is emptied of the great fulfillment that once existed, even at the beginning of the 20th century.
By the 21st century it has ceased to be something attractive at all. On the contrary, the call to Zionism is something inhibiting, and it manifests itself as a lack of understanding of the current situation and the movement of history.
Now Zionism has taken the place of uniting all people, not only Jews, although the Jews should be in the center. This connection should indicate the future to all the nations of the world.
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From KabTV’s “Zionism” 1/18/23
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Question: If I acquire the quality of bestowal, how will my system of perception work then?
Answer: In bestowal you begin to perceive everything as a common field and nothing else! You will begin to see everything as one single whole that shimmers with all sorts of waves of influence on you in order to change you.
In fact, these waves do not exist either. Then you will come to the conclusion that this is how your sensitivity changes inside you in terms of the quality and quantity of your 613 desires, and therefore, you feel these waves, these shimmerings, these images in the field. Then you will begin to feel that in addition to the field of your perception, there is a constant field of bestowal, love, and emanation.
Question: How will I perceive various corporeal objects?
Answer: In no special way. Like all kinds of inanimate objects, that is, imprints of your desires, the ones that have no actions of their own, like everything else. You look at everyone and everything around you, and perceive them because you see your qualities turned outward.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Other World” 4/27/12
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Question: What is the meaning of the period of our existence on Earth as if being in a dream?
Answer: This stage is similar to those periods that nature has gone through in the development of the Earth. It all began with periods of geological development when there were no plants or animals and only inanimate matter was developing. For millions of years, the Earth gradually exploded and cooled, exploded and cooled.
Baal HaSulam writes that such periods alternated every 30 million years, when the Earth ignited like a fireball and then cooled, and again ignited for 30 million years—lava and hot streams rose from below, the earth’s crust exploded again and cooled again.
This continued until the conditions for the development of life appeared. This stage lasted several billion years.
And then, for millions of years, vegetative life was born. Then for hundreds of thousands of years animal life, and then man.
Naturally, all these periods successively shortened, as they passed along the axis of the natural logarithm. From about the period of 2.67 such a reduction in time began to occur.
The same correspondence between the first (inanimate), the second (vegetative), the third (animate), and the fourth (human) development exists in any segment. If we take any of them, it will be similar to the general one, as in a holographic picture.
Now we are at the stage of only preliminary awareness of the evil of our nature. But we see to what extent time becomes more compressed, how it is being more and more compressed from year to year.
I think that over the next few years we will come close to the need for a singular transition—a leap in our understanding, awareness, sensation, and in the internal restructuring of each of us and all of us together, in the need to make an internal revolution and feel, see, and realize where we really are.
Then we will reveal a different world, which will be revealed to us as eternal, perfect, and infinite. After all, when a new vision of the world is revealed to you, everything is rebuilt in you.
Imagine that from this moment onward you begin to feel that you exist eternally, endlessly and to what extent your attitude toward yourself, toward the world, toward life, toward people, toward everything would change. We cannot not imagine it, but such a restructuring of consciousness will take place and change everyone.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Dream 400 Years Long” 4/7/12
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Question: When someone falls spiritually, we have to support each other along the way. You say a person must go through these states. What is the limit of our intervention?
Answer: There is no limit. If you are doing it with love, there are no prohibitions. To support means to help with love. If you think about the benefit of a friend and do not think that he is being punished for his benefit, then everything will be fine.
Question: Suppose a person cannot wake up for a lesson. Where is the fine line between the fact that I have to bring him to class and the fact that I will harm him by doing that?
Answer: It is necessary to treat such situations very delicately, to try to be gentle with your friends.
I was not always successful with that. I remember I got very irritated, I could not stop myself. “How is it possible not to get up for the lesson?” One day, another day, and the same every time. You wake up the friend. “That’s it, that’s it, I’m getting up,” he shouts from the balcony, and ten minutes later, it turns out that he fell asleep even more soundly. And how to wake him up? You no longer know what to do. I tried everything. Of course, it was wrong, I was still a beginner then. But all this was not simple.
Our entire path is not easy. Now it is much easier because the masses create the corresponding field, and it is already easy for every beginner, he feels that there is such an action in the world, such an opinion, such a desire, such a relationship. There are already talks about it: something is soaring somewhere.
Today it is so easy compared to what it used to be! Before, it seemed quite the opposite. It was very hard! I think the support is getting better and better every day.
Question: How can I not to give in to the misconception that I am doing good for another person to overpower what is not worth doing?
Answer: Nothing will help! Until a person is corrected, nothing will help.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pull out the Friend“ 3/11/12
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Question: What happens in the intermediate state, when a person has not fully felt the power of bestowal and has not fully completed the work with his egoism? He is neither here nor there.
Answer: Neither here nor there is the most complicated, suspended state. It is necessary to do everything as soon as possible to pass it; there is nothing left to do.
Question: But this whole path is still a transition between the two worlds?
Answer: I understand that this path is unpleasant, but you cannot get away from it.
This is the path where you simultaneously discover both descents and ascents, and yet you cannot balance them, supplement one with the other, or justify them. That is why the years of internal struggle and adaptation to new spiritual conditions are very difficult. I see this in my students, but unfortunately, I cannot help them more than what I am doing.
Just like a teacher at school, can he do something instead of the student? The student is obliged to go through his school years, absorb all the material himself, and complete the required number of tasks, tests, and exams because otherwise he will not know anything at all and will not be able to go out into life.
He must do something. Otherwise, he will have to deal with huge gaps. At least he graduates from school and has an idea of what biology, zoology, botany, geography, history, and mathematics are, at least something, somehow.
You can finish school and university, and, in general, know nothing. Maybe, you will not need all this in your life except for a general understanding of what is happening.
But in spirituality it is different. If you do not know the laws of the universe, if you fail to apply them to yourself, then the upper world will not be revealed to you. After all, you attain it to the extent of your understanding, your power of adaptation. You only reveal what you can practically work with.
Like a child, to whom only a small part of the surrounding world opens up. He does not understand what exists above him. He is interested in his toys and his mother; here is his car, something big that is moving, and this is his world. Everything else, something much bigger, especially in terms of quality, like connections between people and the like, he does not understand at all. He knows that this is his nanny, this is his mother, this is his grandmother, and the fact that there is some kind of connection between them, that there is some kind of life going on behind them, all this is not yet for him.
If we do not grow out of this state, we will not reveal anything. In the spiritual world, if you have not developed the power to understand, realize, and interact inside yourself, then you stay at the same level. You cannot grow automatically. You grow only to the extent that you open the world with your knowledge and abilities.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. All Suffering Has a Purpose” 2/11/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does unconditional love exist between two partners?“
Unconditional love can exist between two partners if they work on it and attain it.
Love is based on mutual concessions, yielding to one another, and finding joy in doing so. When we love our partner, then we have no demands for any special attention or care from them. Instead, we enjoy the pleasure we receive from sacrificing ourselves for their sake.
Such pleasure is similar to the feeling of satisfaction that we get when we give something to our children. However, our children are naturally closer to us because we feel them as parts of us. With our partners, though, we are separate in our desires and opinions, but by correcting the love between us, then we can bridge that separation.
By nature, we focus mostly on our own desires with little regard for our partner’s. In other words, we relate to our own desires with a higher level of importance than to our partner’s desires. In order to shift from this nature-given self-centered state to a state of love, we need to merge our desires so that they adhere as a single desire. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this condition for achieving love is described with the phrase, “Make your desire like His, so He would make His desire like yours.” Such love discusses the love that we achieve between the creation, which is a desire to enjoy, and the Creator—the source force of love, bestowal and connection. By adhering our desires into a single desire, when we prioritize fulfilling the desires of others over our own desires, we then reach a state that Kabbalah describes as “husband and wife, and Divinity between them.” That is, we require the force of love itself to enter our connections in order for us to be able to truly love others, to aim to benefit others outwardly with no wish to receive anything in return.
Achieving such love requires connection-enriching education. That is, we need to place ourselves under the influence of learning, guidance, exercises as well as social, cultural and media influences that describe the nature, need and importance of reaching a state of love.
We need to understand that the use of our loved ones and families in order to primarily benefit ourselves ultimately brings about neither joy nor love. The sole way of finding true and lasting fulfillment is to learn how to love correctly—where we prioritize benefiting others over self-benefit, and where we become willing to concede our own desires for the sake of fulfilling the desires of others.
We can bring joy to others and to ourselves by giving endlessly. This altruistic modus operandi would act as a source of everlasting fulfillment. That is, by aiming ourselves in the direction of fulfilling others, we place ourselves into a cycle that positively boomerangs back to us with feelings of absolute and eternal love, as well as eternal life. Instead of trying to consume everything for ourselves, we can bring life to everyone around us with our love. Doing so would enable us to ascend to a higher dimension where we experience Heaven on Earth—an eternal and perfect life.
Regarding our partners, we should shift our focus from searching for love to building love. We need to stop expecting people to act in extraordinary ways toward us, and instead find partners who share a common goal and understanding of what true love is. We can then enter the process of learning and exercising the achievement of true love together with our partners.
Based on “A New Life” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 30, 2015. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Nicola Fioravanti on Unsplash.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic” “Preparation for Opening the Heart at the Convention”
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Selected Highlights
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Spiritual movement means a new change of form. We should still explain the meaning of time and movement that we come across in almost every word in this wisdom.
Indeed, you should know that spiritual movement is not like tangible movement from place to place. Rather, it refers to a new form. We denominate every new form by the title “movement.” exactly like a corporeal being that some part departed from it and moves about from place to place. Hence, the new form is called “movement” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 9, Item 33).
We are talking about the force that determines the form of the existing world. It changes all the time, and therefore, the world is changing and so are we in this world. But it is almost impossible to explain how this happens since the very essence of the existing matter is changing, not physically but spiritually.
In spiritual matter, desires change as the basis of its existence. The meaning and the purpose of the matter is changing, and thus we feel only the consequence of this.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23
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Question: Cinematography was introduced in the early 1900s. What did it give to humanity?
Answer: All inventions of humanity are carried out by order from above, from the general global mind, the Creator, who leads us with the general control signals of nature from top to bottom to ever greater integration, globalization, mutual complementation, mutual guarantee, and connection.
Therefore, along the way we develop ideas, which seem to come to our mind, that help us achieve greater communication with each other. This is what causes all our actions.
They may even seem to be leading us not straight to connection, but in a completely different direction. This happens in order to reveal minus from plus and plus from minus. Any human action, no matter how positive or negative it seems to us, leads only to universal globalization, dependence, integration, and mutual guarantee.
We are moving toward a state in which we will not be able to feed ourselves, keep ourselves warm, or clothe ourselves unless we are completely connected by absolute unity. And when we discover this connection, we will not be able to manage it. How can I manage billions of connections all over the world at the same time?
This is what communists found out when they discovered that by governing the state according to the system in which everything is dictated from the top down—to whom, how much, where to be delivered, how, and by whom to be transferred—they got such a complex machine that could not be processed by any computer, especially at that time.
Nowadays we see that we are also not coping, that all this is a single continuous disorder and nothing more. How can we manage such an economy? Anyway, humanity has come to this question because the integral connection leads us to it.
And it really does not matter who invented cinematography or the Internet. Everything happens according to the upper plan: to bring us to the general unification where we feel the need to attain the upper single mind and desire because otherwise, we cannot exist. This will be the real internet.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Invention of Cinema” 2/11/12
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Question: There is a well-known parable about a man who prays to God every day to help him win a lot of money in the lottery. Finally, God could not stand it, opened a window in heaven, and shouted to the man: “Listen, I’m willing to help you, but you at least have to buy a lottery ticket.”
It turns out that we want to be happy in this life, to win, but we don’t even buy the lottery ticket. We are doing something wrong. We are wasting our energy in the wrong place.
Tell me where and how? How do I buy this winning lottery ticket?
Answer: You should plead, attempt, and work on getting closer to mutual love for each other. There is no other way.
Question: Do we waste energy buying other tickets?
Answer: We invest in all kinds of things. Of course, we cannot be in this nature of love and mutual dependence. But we can ask for it. Open not even a window but a small crack, and shout into it that you want to love others.
Question: Is this buying a ticket?
Answer: Yes.
Question: When you buy a ticket, you pay for it. What is our payment here?
Answer: Being ready to strive for love for everyone.
Question: Is this what is required of us? Is this the winning ticket?
Answer: Yes, only this.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman.” 1/26/23
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We should transfer the external earthquake into an internal shaking of the heart, that is, we should feel that everything depends on us, and this is how we will be able to correct them. If we all connect together, we will calm all the earthquakes, the earth will not be able to shake.
An earthquake occurs when tectonic plates shift relative to each other because breakage occurs between them and there is no connection. But if we humans connect with each other, then the entire earth will connect and become stable. There will be no more shocks. Otherwise, we will end up on a planet that is shaking all over.
We just need to get closer to each other with our hearts, nothing else is required. Bringing hearts closer together is what will correct the world.
To come to the congress with an open heart means to be ready to take into your heart every friend from every corner of the earth from where he came, as well as all those who for various reasons could not come. My heart is ready to accommodate everyone, and in the end, all of humanity.
The heart of every person is able to accommodate the whole world. When we hold the whole world in our embrace, it will not be able to be shaken by earthquakes or suffer from epidemics and natural disasters. Everything will be fine.
If we want to connect all our desires and all intentions together and direct them to one Creator, to one source, then we bring our world into a stable state. There will be no unpleasant shifts in it, and everything will move only to an even greater balance, smoothly, carefully, and slowly. We will live in a peaceful world. We can do it.
Everything depends on the person, but only when all of humanity will be like one person, and not billions of people, each of whom is pulling in his own direction.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him”
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Question: In this world, in this illusion, we are given the opportunity to connect together. By playing in connection with each other, do we thereby correct the spiritual?
Answer: In playing with unity, we call upon ourselves the surrounding light to the extent of its similarity, like children who play and thereby call upon ourselves a special force that develops them. This force exists in nature. If a child does not try to play, to do something, he or she does not develop.
The same thing happens to us according to the same principle. There is nothing supernatural here.
We are trying to unite, but we do it consciously. We know that we must call a higher power upon ourselves and we use all kinds of advice from Kabbalists for how to do this most effectively. Therefore, a group of ten people comes together with a certain intention and discusses those topics that bring us closer to the power of the light.
This is the light of reason, the light that fills us, and from which it becomes warm inside. This is how we operate.
You can call it a ritual, how the ancient priests caused some kind of phenomena, it does not matter. The main thing is that our actions should be aimed at challenging the positive force of nature, which immediately affects us and gradually, step by step, begins to purposefully change.
These actions become vital for you, because thanks to them you change, and it happens absolutely clearly. You feel how from time to time completely different realizations occur in you, an understanding of what is happening, and your relationship with other people, with the forces of nature. Moreover, you yourself begin to influence this force, attract it quite intensively, and change faster than all other people because they do not use this opportunity. This is what Kabbalah gives us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The World of Liars” 5/19/12
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Question: There is an area in Kabbalah called Kabbalistic geography. What is it?
Answer: Kabbalistic geography is not only the geo-science of the Earth and the consequences that the upper forces cause on Earth. It includes the study of our world, our universe, as a mold from the next, upper world. After all, from that degree, forces descend into our world that determine all corporeal parts: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels and their interaction with each other.
Moreover, a huge number of forces are occupied by inanimate nature: an infinite number of stars, galaxies, planets, nebulae, and other celestial bodies. But, despite the quantity of these forces, their quality is scanty in comparison with the vegetative and animate nature that exists on Earth, and even more so with the level of “Human.”
That is, as more qualitative forces appear in our world from the spiritual world, their quantity in our world decreases accordingly, but their quality increases.
If we go further in this quantitative and qualitative influence and the similarity of the upper world to our world, then we can say that all the countries of the world, all the imprints on the surface of the Earth, are Kabbalistic geography, that is, they are the result of the influence of upper forces on our Earth, on its surface.
Everything that determines ecology, geography, topography on the Earth, and not only on it, but also underground to its center, everything that surrounds our Earth, all this is a consequence of these upper forces.
But the most interesting thing is that it relates to a person. Therefore, in Kabbalah, we study more about the connection between the Earth, its geography (climate and all kinds of geographical features) and those peoples who live on it, and from generation to generation moved by various means: either wars, or the discovery of lands, and so on.
As a result, the most interesting thing is, of course, the development of the people of Israel, since this ancient Babylonian group, practically a part of all humanity, carries the method of correcting it, raising it back to the upper level, from where all the forces that form our universe descend.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 12/27/10
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Lesson on the Topic” “Preparation for Opening the Heart at the Convention”
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Selected Highlights
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where did all the antisemitism come from in the first place?“
Antisemitism lives in the foundations of human society and human nature. The human ego—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—evolves throughout history and during a person’s life. The more it grows, the more it feels an opposite force also dwelling within. That opposite force is called a “point in the heart.” Contrary to our egoistic desires that wish solely to absorb pleasures into themselves, the point in the heart is a desire that has potential to develop into a desire that loves, gives and positively connects to others.
The point in the heart is also known as the seed of the soul, as we can develop it to discover our soul—the connection that underlies those very points. The realization of the potential encased in this small point of desire is the ability to rise above the human ego, where instead of detaching from one another through our growing egoism, i.e. increasingly prioritizing self-benefit over benefiting others, we instead prioritize the benefit of others and positive human connection.
The point in the heart is the opposite of our egoistic nature. There are people who host only the negative egoistic force, and there are people who have both the negative egoistic force and the positive altruistic force. When both positive and negative forces coexist in us, then we become called “Jews” or “Israel” according to our inner essence. Likewise, if we solely host the negative egoistic force with no revelation yet of the point in the heart, then we are called “nations of the world” according to that essence.
We underwent several stages of development throughout history. The point in the heart first surfaced throughout human society in ancient Babylon. The Babylonians who felt the inner urge to seek something deeper in life beyond the earthly egoistic desires joined Abraham, who taught a method for how to nurture the point in the heart in order to rise above the ego and positively connect. Abraham organized the Babylonians who wanted to study with him into a group, and he called this group “Israel,” which is made up of the words “Yashar Kel” (“straight to God”), i.e. people who aim themselves directly at the attainment of nature’s upper force of love, bestowal and connection, which is opposed to the force existing in human beings, the force of reception.
Since Abraham’s time, the two groups—Israel and the nations of the world—have undergone much development. Some from the Israel camp left the group to pursue their natural egoistic inclinations, i.e. with an inclination to the nations of the world, while some from the nations of the world felt that they possess a special closeness and connection, which draws them to Israel. In other words, Jews are not a nationality, but they are people who host the point in the heart, which associates them with the positive force of nature, and which is opposite to the egoistic force that we are born and raised with by nature.
The source of antisemitism is in the contrast and conflict between the two opposite desires of our inborn egoism and the point in the heart that can develop our ability to rise above the human ego.
Based on the video “What Is the Essence of Antisemitism?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can ChatGPT write another Bible?“
I received a similar question recently from one of my students who mentioned that people use ChatGPT to write various kinds of articles and books on a wide range of topics. As such, could ChatGPT write another Bible, the Torah or The Zohar?
Very simply, neither ChatGPT nor any kind of A.I. program could write a spiritual text.
A.I. is based on human intellect and emotion, our inner programming. Spiritual texts, however, are written from a higher level than human intellect and emotion. They are written from the soul’s interconnections, which computers cannot reproduce.
Based on the video “Can ChatGPT Write Another Bible?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “How to Unite a Nation that Is Not a Nation”
Earlier this week, Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, gave a heartfelt speech where he called on both sides of the political rift surrounding the proposed judicial reform to lower the flames and build bridges above the disputes. “We are in the midst of fateful days for our nation and for our country,” Herzog said. “We have for quite some time now not been in a political debate but on the brink of constitutional and social collapse … we are on the verge of a violent clash—a powder keg…on the threshold of one man’s hand against his brother’s,” he stated, adding that both sides need to understand that if only one side wins … then all of Israel loses.
Are we really brothers? We certainly do not feel like brothers, at least not as it seems in protests and in clashes with authorities and the calls by political leaders to shed blood. So, are we brothers nonetheless?
The truth is that we are not. In its origins, the people of Israel came from different places, different tribes, and different cultures and faiths. Our ancestors formed a nation, but they did not come from the same family and there was no familial connection to keep them together at times of disagreement.
For this reason, whenever a dispute erupts among the people of Israel, it leads to fierce clashes, intense hatred, and a deep sense of alienation. The only way to solve these rifts is through acknowledging our origin, our consequent vocation, and by committing to carrying it out. Without all three, we will have no peace of mind and no peace. We can already hear voices among Israeli leaders calling for bloodshed “in order to save Israel’s democracy.” Unless we realize the purpose of our nation, we will fall once more, as we always have in the past, into such division that will bring upon us death and destruction.
Currently, many of us still feel as one nation, albeit a deeply divided one. Yet, that feeling is quickly dissipating in the face of slurs and hollers that stymie any attempt at unity and demand a total surrender to the dictates of the entitled. These people do not feel that we belong to one nation, even if officially we do.
This is why our only option to avoid yet another dismal chapter in the annals of our nation is to take up our vocation as a national task. Only if we return to our roots, to our legacy to the world—to be as one man with one heart and to love one another as ourselves in order to set an example for humanity—will we be able to overcome the rifts that tear us apart.
The divisions between us are not about this or that reform; they are reflections of our ingrained hatred, the same hatred that has haunted us since the inception of our people. The hatred we see on Israel’s streets today is the same hatred that divided and weakened the leadership of Israel’s first kingdom, and the same hatred that set off a bloodbath among the Jews inside the surrounded city of Jerusalem, which led to the fall of the Second Temple. It is always the hatred between us that inflicts on us adversity, and nothing else.
No foreign general or leader has ever been able to defeat Israel unless Israel first defeated one another and paved the way for a conqueror to come and plunge the relics. No leader ever turned against Israel unless he saw that Israel were weakened by their own discord. Today, we are paving the way for the next villain to come and exploit our disunion. But as then, so now, the new chapter of Israel’s chronicles of defeat will not be for the might of our foe, but for the infirmity of our union.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Hidden Nexus between Ukraine and Turkey”
While the world is grappling with the magnitude of the disaster that struck Turkey and Syria, the war in Ukraine is raging on without any sign of abating. Whether cities are being destroyed by shells or by an earthquake, the result is that countless lives are lost or devastated. It seems as though there is no connection between the two disasters, as if nothing ties wars with tremors, but this is not the case. Between all crises, be they earthquakes, wars, famine, or plagues, there is an underlying, hidden nexus that weakens human society and allows for the eruption of all crises.
Humanity is not a collection of separate elements; we all influence one another because we are one entity, one body. Just as a weakness in the body makes it easier for various illnesses and problems to break out, a weakness in human society causes the eruption of crises that affect all of humanity.
When a person’s overall health is poor, it might manifest in a simple cold, in the failure of an organ, such as with diabetes, in cancer, or in the collapse of entire systems in the body. On the surface, we may not see the connection between the different medical crises, but underneath, it is the weakness of the body that allowed for the outbreak of all of them.
The same rule that applies to the body applies to the “body” of humanity. On the surface, crises seem unrelated. But behind all of them lies an inherent weakness in the human body: disintegration among the cells and organs of humanity.
The fact that we do not feel that we are one entity and operate as if we are separate elements that fight against each other, strive to dominate each other, or even to destroy one another, weakens the entire system, which is all of humanity. As a result, “illnesses” are breaking out everywhere.
The only difference between these ostensibly separate crises is that the overall weakness causes different symptoms to show in different places, according to specific conditions in different regions. Nevertheless, the way to prevent all of them is the same. Since their one cause is disintegration of human society, the cure that will heal all of them is reinforcing cohesion and mutual responsibility around the world.
While we must address each crisis separately, and try to restore peace in Ukraine and save what lives we can in Turkey, we must also work on long-term solutions to prevent or alleviate future calamities. To achieve this, we must foster stronger human connections on all levels.
As human connections are unraveling in every aspect of human life—from the family level to the international level—we must educate ourselves about the necessity of positive connections. Positive connections not only make us feel better, safer, and happier on the personal level. They change our entire society and our behavior in it, and consequently change the world.
Good social connections create stable, peaceful societies and peaceful international relations. They prevent exploitation of people and depletion of natural resources. The impact of such improvements affects us on the global level, and not only on the personal one.
If we are to make a lasting benefit from the horrendous pain that disasters such as the war in Ukraine and the earthquake in Turkey have inflicted on humanity, it is that we begin to implement a global plan to deepen our awareness of our interdependence on the quality of our relationships, and that only if we foster positive, supportive relationships, we might be able to avoid or lessen the severity of future crises.
Miracles do not exist! All miracles are the result of our inner pressure in the yearning to come closer to each other.
This is how we will rise up, see all the worlds, everything from top to bottom. The Creator will be revealed to us as a network that embraces everything and includes everything within it.
We will feel ourselves in a space that has no movement, no beginning, no end; it is in constant motion. All this will be normal, there will be nothing surprising about it. This is how we will exist.
But before the congress, we need to prepare ourselves for miracles because if we want to connect with each other, then our closeness with each other is already a miracle! After all, this is against the fundamental law of nature—the law of egoism.
Therefore, if we aim to rise above egoism, we will attract the influence of huge forces of nature that are above it, that is, the forces of upper nature.
I really hope that we will be lucky, that the Creator will guide us and help us, and that we will connect with each other by the force of bestowal, by the force of love. Then this war will end, and in general—everything in the world will calm down, and we will all become like one man with one heart.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/2/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Following the Creator in the Desert”
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Question: What does the information about the four phases of the expansion of the light in the form of letters give us?
Answer: This information gives us first knowledge that the entire Hebrew alphabet depicts to us the qualities of light and the qualities of darkness—the qualities of creation and the qualities of the Creator.
It is so created to explain to us how different we are from the Creator, and how we can depict our qualities relative to the Creator or the qualities of the Creator relative to us.
Practically all letters are like drawings, images, of the characteristics of the Creator on the background of the qualities or characteristics of creation.
Question: Can we say that a Kabbalist looks at these letters and sees instructions in them on how to receive the light and apply it on his desire?
Answer: Of course, yes.
Question: And the one who does not understand how to do it, how does he use this in life?
Answer: So, he does not understand, he looks at these letters as if they were the Chinese alphabet.
There are no letters actually in the Chinese language—only a great number of images, thousands of hieroglyphs. But they depict conformity between qualities.
It is the same in Hebrew. Although we have only 22 letters, they are enough to depict the relationship between the light and the Kli, creation and Creator. It is a very economical alphabet.
Question: Can an ordinary person use this in his life?
Answer: No. What can he use it for? He can write it down, he can read it. But without understanding the essence of the Creator and the essence of creation, he will not read it correctly.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/15/23
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How can we justify the Creator when such terrible disasters like the earthquake in Turkey happen? We do not know why the Creator awakens us through such sharp and heavy blows.
But apparently they include both help and punishment. We can try to turn this punishment into a reward through our connection. After all, this is the only action that can help us.
We can immerse ourselves in those states in which our friends found themselves who were physically trapped in the disaster zone, and try to pull them out of all these places and states, and lift them high above our heads.
We value them as devoted close friends yearning to reach a common connection between all of us and the Creator, and we will do our best to constantly feel them deep inside our thoughts and hearts. The Creator arranges everything so that we all become included in this action. In this way He binds us together through this disaster, and we need to unite even more because of it.
We need nothing except the connection; then the light that the Creator shines upon all of humanity will shine more strongly in those groups that have united. Therefore, the stronger our connection, unity, and embrace, the more the upper force, the light of the Creator, will influence us and pull us out of all the troubles.
We embrace all the friends who are in the earthquake zone, we fill our thoughts and hearts with this concern, and thus we will be able to protect them from troubles with the help of the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Commandments of the Torah, the First Commandment”
Kabbalah says that there is the upper mind, one we reveal when we connect in a group. If a group goes for connection, then it discovers not “I,” not “we,” but something else above “we,” an absolutely common unified whole, a common desire and a common mind.
This is the system of governance, the upper nature—the Creator. It exists always, only it is concealed from us.
We need to reveal this upper system, the upper mind, and then we will have no problems interacting with each other, controlling everything, and coming to universal communication and connection because we all will be connected to this upper system.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Invention of Cinema” 3/3/12
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Judicial War May Devolve into a Civil War”
The judicial reform that Israel’s new administration is advancing has stirred turmoil throughout Israeli society. From every sector and faction of society, people are condemning the reform or rooting for it. Those condemning it warn that the reform will obliterate Israel’s democracy and place it at the mercy of politicians. Conversely, those who praise it say that it will restore the balance to Israeli democracy, which has been disrupted when Israel’s supreme court took excessive rights into its hands, such as the power to revoke laws or appoint new judges.
Recently, the protests against the proposed reforms have become so heated that prominent figures in the Israeli society, such as incumbent mayors, decorated retired generals, opposition leaders, and former prime ministers have begun to tout the possibility of a civil war, with some even explicitly calling, on social media and in public speeches, for the murder, no less, of Prime Minister Netanyahu, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, and the entire cabinet, in order to restore democracy.
Since the inception of our nation, we have been known as obstinate people. We are extremely opinionated, and we think that only our view has merit. Worse yet, at certain points in our history, we took this view to the extreme and not only believed that anyone who disagreed with us did not deserve to live, we also acted on that belief and went on vicious civil wars. Now, it seems, we are heading there again.
Democracy is not good for such people. Democracy is for those who believe that general policy decisions are made at the polls. If more people prefer one policy to another, the parties that support that more popular policy will win the election. It does not make them entitled to abuse the minority, but it does make them entitled, and even obligated to implement the policy for which they were elected.
If I think that my country is democratic only when the view I support is in power, then I am not a democrat; I am a tyrant in disguise. It hurts me when I see what is happening in Israel today. While the rest of the world is learning and progressing, we are stuck in power struggles that will unquestionably bring the country to its knees and ruin the State of Israel.
Perhaps, considering our bloody past, when we killed each other in civil wars, it would be better if the people were dispersed and the nation disbanded. I have no idea what the Creator has planned for us, but if the choice is between dissolution and civil war, I prefer the former.
That said, there is a third alternative. Our people always have been and always will be obstinate, arrogant, and opinionated. If we are disbanded now and reassemble later, we will still have to face each other and disagree just as we do today. We are like that because our ancestors were like that, and precisely because they were like that, they realized that their only chance of success was to step on their own egos and form a union precisely with their dissenters. In those days, it was either unity or death. Now we are approaching that dramatic point once more.
In the past, when our ancestors chose unity, we not only became a nation; we also became a model for the world, a proof that no matter how much we cannot stand each other, if we rise above our hatred and unite, the bond we will form will overcome anything, and the power of such a nation will be insurmountable.
At the moment, I do not see that people are in any mood for conversation, much less unity. All I see is bellicosity. But as long as we are still not fighting, there is hope that we will come to our senses before we drown the ship that we are on.
We see that many people came to the group to study Kabbalah at the call of the point in the heart, at first they were on fire, but later cooled down and left this path. Why does this happen? It is because they could not annul themselves and rise above their pride.
To advance, you need only one thing, to bow your head before everyone, lower yourself to zero, and not make any calculations. If a person expects to receive more and more, then he has not yet started working against his egoism.
To lower yourself to zero means to make absolutely no calculations for the future. There is nothing in the present, there is no future, and I do not need them. I want to be at least at zero in the state that the Creator gave me. If I hold on only to this zero, then I discover behind this zero the opportunity to hold on to the Creator. I discover that there is the Creator to hold onto because I disconnect from my egoism.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Following the Creator in the Desert”
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Thus says the Lord, “I remember in your favor the kindness of your youth, your bridal love, your following me in the desert, in a land that is not sown.” This is written about the assembly of Israel, Malchut, when she was walking with the people of Israel in the desert (Zohar for All, Emor, “The Holiday of Sukkot,” Item 275).
Malchut is all desires that want to be corrected and reach the degree of Keter.
The desert is the entire path from Malchut to Keter, which we have to go through and ascend relative to the connection between us by uniting more and more. When we reach Keter, we become like one whole, as it is said: “The Creator is one and His Name is one.”
This is the path we have to go through. On this path of ascent from Malchut to Keter, all the events that the Torah tells us about happen to us. It is necessary to walk on the land that is not sown, on which nothing grows, on which no one has walked, sowed anything, or succeeded in anything. Yet you are walking on it because you want to come to the house of the Creator; you are following His instructions: “Follow Me.”
We are walking through a desert land where there are no signs of life, there is nothing to feed from, and there is no food (light of Hochma) and no water (light of Hassadim). But we still keep going, because this is the command of the Creator who wants us to come to Him in this form.
We only have a prayer that we want to follow the Creator with all our might. There is nothing to eat and nothing to drink, but we keep walking this path because this is what is ahead of us now. If you wait for more comfortable conditions, then nothing will work. You need to accept the conditions that the Creator gives you and continue the path until you rise to the degree of Keter, that is, to complete adhesion with the Creator from the side of Malchut.
Along the way, we go through all sorts of ups and downs, disconnections, burdening of the heart, and confusion of the mind. Success depends only on the willingness to continue. Let there be no feeling, no understanding, no guiding star ahead, and no good luck, but we are moving like an ox to the burden and the donkey to the load; we just keep going.
Whether I want or not, I continue anyway because this is my life, and no matter what happens, only in this form am I under the control of the upper one. Let him do whatever he needs to do with me. I know that this is how I am relentlessly getting closer to the goal.
The result of corporeal life is known, it is the same for everyone. The body will die, and all that remains of it is a point in the heart, the soul will rise according to the different calculations. Therefore, there is no choice except to continue.
Even if I perish in this desert, I have done everything I could with all the devotion of my soul to the Creator. I was not capable of more, and I could not do anything else, I tried to realize the potential that the Creator gave me with the point in the heart.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Following the Creator in the Desert”
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What does it mean to prepare for the desert? This means that I am ready to go into the darkness with my group after my teacher no matter how difficult and unclear it may be. This is the path in the desert.
There is desert and night around me, meaning it is unknown how, where, and with the help of what to go.
If I want to reach the connection with the upper force, with the Creator, I should not ask for guarantees. I just keep moving forward despite all the difficulties that arise before me.
The desert means that I have nothing to revive my soul with, there is no food or water. It is clear that during the day I suffer from the heat under the scorching sun, and at night from the cold; these are harsh conditions. Yet it is possible to live in the desert; people live in the desert. Therefore, it is necessary to continue despite the conditions. These conditions are specially given to us from above to help us discover the quality of bestowal and become similar to the Creator.
There is no past and no future, there is only the present moment in which I adhere to the Creator with all my strength.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Following the Creator in the Desert”
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Question: There are two categories of disturbances. One is when something happens in the outside world, and from these disturbances, a person runs to the group. This is it, he is together with his friends. Another category of disturbances arises as a result of connection: people have connected and difficulties appear. What is the difference between these two types of disturbances?
Answer: The first kind is just a beginner’s disturbance. But when you feel disturbances in connection, these are already disturbances that occur throughout the entire path, the entire ladder up to the world of infinity.
It is written in The Book of Zohar that even Rashbi’s disciples felt great hatred for each other before writing The Zohar, that is, before exploring the upper elevations, which they then described.
The problem in the connection between friends is manifested throughout the entire path. It seems to us that this is only for now, and then it will disappear. But this is constant spiritual work until the final correction (Gmar Tikkun).
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Two Kinds of Disturbances” 3/11/12
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Comment: You say that sometimes we underestimate the power of thought and the extent to which it is possible to turn everything around using thought.
My Response: Thoughts and desires are the most important and highest forces that instantly permeate the entire universe from end to end. Instantly! There is no greater, higher, or stronger power than the mind connected with desire.
All other forces are much smaller. If we were given the opportunity to use thought and desire purposefully, we would destroy, burn, and ruin everything around us immediately.
The fact is that our egoistic forces of the heart and mind (meaning desires and thoughts), manifest themselves within us in a very weak form at the level of our world. And as soon as we begin to possess the altruistic forces of connection (the right line), to this extent we begin to develop the left line—negative, egoistic connections.
By managing both forces,, we are constantly creating a system of balance. Then the middle force (the middle line) is revealed, called the supreme force of nature, the force of unity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Power of Thought is the Manipulation of Consciousness”
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The intermediate stage of transition toward a new stage should be a period of self-study and self-education. Then we will build a society of rational consumption where we live in a normal and rational way and we take care that everyone has the same general level, but in accordance with the individual needs of everyone and according to their taste.
The most important thing is that in addition to providing us with a rational level of corporeal existence, we will develop ourselves through our new social ties so as to be in complete similarity to nature.
Thus, we will begin to enter into its hidden forces and to feel the vast space in which we exist, not the universe that we depict for ourselves, but inside a great and multidimensional machine.
In this case, it will be completely under our control since we will become its uppermost beings.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Make a Revolution” 2/10/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What can we change?“
Contrary to a lot of opinions, we do not have to change the economic, social and political structures, and other various superstructures in society.
We have to change ourselves. And we can do so by means of education.
Changing ourselves means changing our egoistic self-centered approach to life, which makes us want to enjoy at the expense of others and nature, to its opposite: an altruistic intention to benefit others and nature.
The education we need in order to perform this change is one that guides us to positively connect through raising the importance of benefiting others over benefiting ourselves. It involves learning about the egoistic nature dwelling within us, the altruistic laws of nature outside of us, how these laws operate throughout nature’s still, vegetative, animate and human levels, how the universe and humanity constantly develop to higher and higher levels of unification, and how to willingly and consciously align ourselves with the higher unified form to which nature develops us.
We can change nothing without undergoing this self-transformation, because we each have to be at the foundation for any new changes that transpire. Also, today in particular, we are in a transitional period where we will increasingly feel pressure to undergo this change from our egoistic approach to life that detaches us from each other and nature, to an altruistic approach that connects us and brings us closer together and with nature. Moreover, undergoing this change will yield a new sensation of eternity and perfection the likes of which we have never experienced in our current egoistic makeup.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Make a Revolution” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on October 2, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Initial Takeaways from the Disastrous Earthquake”
As the scale of devastation from the earthquake that struck southern Turkey and Syria becomes clearer and more horrifying by the minute, initial takeaways are already surfacing. But before I talk about what I believe needs to be done, I wish to extend once more my deepest sympathy and prayers to the people of Turkey, and especially to those who have been affected by the quake. May they recover quickly, and may they never know sorrow again.
Earthquakes are not uncommon in Turkey, including strong ones, though not as strong as the one that struck this past Monday, and its subsequent powerful aftershock. Therefore, it is surprising that Turkey did not take more extensive preventive measures against powerful tremors. Every country that is located in an area that is prone to earthquakes should take this into consideration. Just as Japan imposes strict construction standards that make its buildings much more quake-resistant than almost all other countries, so should every country do if it is located in an earthquake-prone region.
However, there is something that is just as important as imposing construction standards when it comes to saving lives: international cooperation. Member states of the NATO military alliance, for example, are required to meet certain military standards. Once a country becomes a member, the rest of the countries in the alliance are required to help it if it is attacked.
Similarly, there must be an international alliance that mandates all the member states to help one another in case of a significant seismic event. At the same time, members must meet minimum conditions that the alliance will determine as far as building and road construction standards, accessibility and durability of rescue routes, communication and energy infrastructure, and medical services.
Without such an alliance, each country will determine its priorities by itself, and usually, rare emergencies are at the bottom of the list. The problem is that emergencies do happen, and when they happen, the cost of years of neglect is horrendous in human lives, infrastructure, manufacturing, and money. By the time countries realize they should have prepared in advance, it is too late.
Therefore, by forcing its member states to take preventive measures, an international alliance can save thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives, as in the case of this week’s quake. Additionally, the mandatory mutual assistance will guarantee that affected countries do not have to face natural disasters on their own or rely on the generosity of other countries, which is never enough, and often comes with a political price tag attached to it. If neighboring countries are obligated to help because of their membership in an international alliance, such considerations as international relations and other political caveats will not impede the provision of assistance.
Moreover, maintaining an alliance against natural disasters can help foster better relationships that will reflect on other aspects of the countries’ relationships. Enemies do not talk; they fight. But once countries are engaged in an alliance, they communicate regularly and are no longer enemies. On the contrary, they are responsible for one another. Therefore, they can communicate with one another freely and directly, which can help resolve crises in other dimensions of their relationships.
Therefore, establishing an international alliance for dealing with natural disasters can have benefits far beyond the purpose for which it is established. If we leverage the cooperation established in order to save lives during earthquakes and the like, we can begin to foster better and more constructive relationships among all the countries in the world.
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A true connection with friends means that we feel one hundred percent connected and we understand each other.
The inner connection depends on the heart, on how much we want to open our heart toward the Creator and let Him into this heart so that inside this heart we feel the Creator, understand what He wants from us, and understand what we want to give Him.
The Creator wants us to appreciate internal life more than the external life. That is, the connection with the Creator should be first for us, and everything else should be secondary and temporary. If we manage to direct ourselves to that, it will already be a significant success and we will see that we are advancing.
If we fail to reach such an attitude, then gradually we will begin to move away from the spiritual path, return to the pursuits of this world, and spin in its wheel between shopping, work, and entertainment.
However the method of Kabbalah does not imply neglecting external life. It is based on increasing the importance of spiritual life, not on lowering the importance of the corporeal life. But the importance of spirituality should be higher than any corporeal fulfillment.
No matter how corporeal life puts pressure on me—family, work, and other needs—above all this I value spirituality. All my life I evaluate in terms of how much it can help my spiritual advancement or destroy it.
I raise spirituality high above everything, and I place corporeal life below under this umbrella. Then everything is suddenly easy to arrange. A person only has to agree that this should be his approach to corporeality and spirituality.
Corporeality is needed precisely in order to raise spirituality high above your head. It is like two parallel layers: spiritual life at the top and corporeal life at the bottom, and in any situation in life we maintain this attitude.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “On the Night of the Bride”
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At the Arava Convention our ten will be divided in three parts: some will come directly to the convention in the desert, some will participate in a local mirror congress, and some will connect to the convention virtually from home. Is it possible in such a situation to connect as one person with one heart?
If we really want to connect between us and with the Creator, we will be in one heart, which is the Creator. He is one and He rules over the entire world without any boundaries and separation. If I connect with Him, I connect with every friend who is also connected with the Creator. That is all. Let us try to implement it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “On the Night of the Bride”
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Question: What is the spiritual root of money?
Answer: Money, in Hebrew “Kesef” comes from the word “Kisufa (Lehasot)—to cover.” This means it is the equivalent of anything in the world that can cover almost everything. It had to be done. At first it was gold, bullion, whatever, until people came to coins.
Question: Can a Kabbalist be rich?
Answer: Undoubtedly. One has nothing to do with the other.
Question: Which is better, to have a business or to work in a company, in an institution?
Answer: It depends on the character of the person and why he needs it. If I can while owning business be more free and give my free time for the benefit of myself and others, then, of course, having a business is better.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Question: While reading The Book of Zohar, how can I feel that I am reading from a desire that comes from a general connection and not my personal desire?
Answer: You can read The Zohar separately, only it will not give you anything.
Question: What is the difference between when I am together with everyone and read based on my own desire, and when I go through a common desire?
Answer: When you read together, but at the same time you seem to be alone, then you are really alone.
And when you read together with others in one common desire and you have annulled your egoism in order to join together with them and attain the upper quality of bestowal and love to the extent of your equivalence of form to it, that is, you have prepared yourself by connecting with the group to connect with the upper force, then you really have its revelation in the quality that you have prepared in yourself in advance according to the law of equivalence of form.
Therefore, the difference is that you attain two different worlds. After all, when you study only for yourself, you just study wisdom or knowledge. And when you read and connect with others, you attain the upper world firsthand. It clothes on you because your qualities, which love with your friends has prepared, have become similar to it.
Question: If I’m not trying to understand what is written in The Book of Zohar, but I’m trying to catch the general wave, how do you direct your desire through the common mass?
Answer: Only with your love; there is nothing else. Only with your kind attitude! Only by incorporating in the friends! Like a mother through her children; in no other way. Don’t try to find anything else here. It’s very simple.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Read The Book of Zohar through Others” 3/11/12
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Comment: You say that a hero is someone who constantly makes efforts, and although he loses all the time, nevertheless, he remains a hero.
Answer: He is not losing! He treats his nature as purposely imposed on him and given to him for change and transformation! So what if he feels weak against this nature? And who is he?! He was made like this!
If a person is engaged in a higher purpose, then he has strength from the next stage. And if he does not do it, then he is just a small animal of our world that pollutes our poor small planet, and that is it. Look at what it looks like from the outside.
What should we be proud of?! What should a person be proud of?! The fact that he can lift 150 kilograms?! In proportional measures, a mosquito can lift more than a person can. Let us say you are smarter than everyone else, but what are you wasting your mind on?
Animals use it in order to survive, to exist, and to develop offspring. And you do just the opposite! You ruin yourself, your offspring, everyone, and everything. None of the animals defecate where they live. They do not destroy themselves. And a person acts absolutely unnaturally. We have absolutely nothing to be proud of!
People are creatures with such intelligence and capabilities! And they use them quite oppositely. So does it deserve praise?!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who Is the Real Hero?” 1/28/12
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Question: You once said that even if a person were in a restaurant, for example, it is possible to go through the feeling of “desert” without having physically to be in one. How can this be reached and for what reason?
Answer: The fact of the matter is that when we are in a restaurant, we are not able to do this. After all, we consist of an animalistic body, of our own idea of our world; therefore, we also need external attributes.
We are at a level where our lowest desire feels like our world to us. But our world does not exist; this is how we feel inside a desire and is the lowest stratum of it. Imagine that you are cutting slices of bread and the very last of them is the lowest slice of your desires that you feel yourself in.
Afterward you will start to feel the next slice, the next level. And it will also be felt as an absolute reality. A huge reality will be added to you, suddenly it opens up before you like a computer. And then the next layer, and more, and more! Thus you attain ever wider spheres.
Then you begin to understand where you exist. Prior this, it is all just talk in order to somehow attract and keep you on the path of revelation.
But all this is only our desire. And no matter how it seems to us that it is outside, it is all inside. There are not my body, nor time, nor space; nothing exists as there is only a desire, and it has no dimensions and no volume.
Question: If we talk about the sensation of “restaurant,” it is a convenient, comfortable place. In this place you will never feel any deficiency. You are sitting, it is warm, and you are being served (all pleasant sensations). Where can we discover a scream or cry to exit? But if you are actually in the desert, then you feel it.
Answer: On the contrary, I wish for you to sit in the desert and feel like in a restaurant.
Question: But how?
Answer: It is necessary to try, to make an attempt.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Exit the Desert Without Ever Being There?”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a true hero?“
Heroes are those who, while immersed in their egoistic self-centered nature, build another person out of themselves, one that is in equal to the altruistic force of nature.
Imagine that you are in a closed dark space, like a worm inside a rotten apple.
You start slowly emerging from it.
You peek outside and see a wonderful bright new world filled with love and care, people happily enjoying their lives together.
You then exit yourself and enter into a completely different space with a blazing sunlight and a blue sky, out of the darkness that you were previously in.
After you exit the darkness, you need to process it—that following the dictates of your egoistic desires leads you to darkness, as the ego itself extinguishes pleasure in a self-aimed direction.
Is this transformation really doable?
Yes, it is—by building yourself, from your ego, in similarity to the altruistic force of nature.
You study the laws of nature.
You grow a demand for them to reveal themselves in their pure altruistic form, to show you an example like an adult to a child.
You then overcome your ego as much as possible.
You then use your ego not for yourself, but in order to resemble and reach balance with the altruistic laws of nature.
What does it mean to resemble the altruistic laws of nature?
It means that you develop love for all people.
You then gradually learn the laws of nature, bit by bit, making yourself more and more similar to nature.
As a result, you come to see that your ego—this mass of desire to enjoy that is your whole nature—exists in order to invert the intention upon it. By doing so, you gain the full altruistic quality—love and bestowal—for everyone, like the altruistic force of nature.
You then reach balance with nature: a new state, experiencing a special force of a great loving and giving connection with others and with nature—the opposite of how we currently use our desire to enjoy (selfishly, at the expense of others and nature).
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who is the Real Hero?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on January 28, 2012. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Second Commandment,” Item 203
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him”
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Selected Highlights
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Listen to an Audio Version of the BlogDownload:MP3 Audio
https://cdn.kabbalahmedia.info/IIjEomgH.mp3
Perception of reality is the most important topic because a person wants to know in what reality he exists, in what kind of world he was born.
How are the upper worlds and the lower world built, how do they exist, by what forces are they controlled, what is the reason for such existence, what are its results, and toward what everything is moving—we need to reveal all this. And this is why the correct perception of reality is so important.
For simplicity of understanding, we can say that there are two worlds: the upper world and the lower world or the spiritual world and the corporeal world. In the corporeal world, which we feel with our five senses, we exist according to the flow of time.
Time is our inner feeling, and according to our feeling everything happens at some time. We associate the flow of time with various external factors: the sun, moon, stars, and past events that give us a general sense of the past.
We do not know what the upper (spiritual) world is. But according to the stories of Kabbalists, people who have revealed the upper worlds, other times and forms of existence operate there. We can reveal them, feel and exist in them, and in this way we will attain the eternal and perfect reality in which there is no beginning and no end. There we exist above time, space, and all movement.
The spiritual reality exists outside of time, motion, and space, and the corporeal world is inside time, motion, and space. Since our sensory organs are based on the perception of a corporeal system of coordinates, meaning, time, place, and motion, we therefore feel only this reality.
If we want to feel the true, spiritual reality, we will have to rise to it in our perception by changing our sensory organs. We will no longer feel reality as a physical movement in corporeal time, but we will feel it in a spiritual form, and this is how we will live. The Book of Zohar writes that spiritual time is determined by the change of forms and degrees that are above space and time.
It is very important to imagine what the upper spiritual world is, which exists above time, motion, and space, and how we can feel it, live in it, and connect everything that is there with our corporeal world so that these two worlds will merge into one for us.
When we attain what time based on changing forms and degrees means, we will understand what the corporeal world is and what the spiritual world is and how these two worlds are connected. We will also understand why the Creator created us with a sense of the corporeal world and why from here we must ascend to the upper, the spiritual, world in order to feel ourselves between two worlds— the upper and the lower.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “On the Night of the Bride”
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Expansion of the light means filling desires with light. Despite the fact that the light and the desire are opposite, they need each other simultaneously. After all, the light wishes to fill all creations, all desires. And the desire of the vessel, the Kli, is to be filled for its own sake.
Here arises a contradiction between them, and the light gradually corrects this desire so that from the state of being filled for oneself, it begins to understand that it is best to be filled for the sake of the light.
Question: Why does the by-product of the state of receiving for oneself manifest itself in our world as great forces of evil?
Answer: The fact is that we are interconnected parts of the system. So, if you do something for yourself, it goes to the detriment of others. No one can act in isolation from others; therefore, by not acting for the sake of others, you are acting to their detriment. That is the problem.
Question: Indeed, people do everything for themselves. I think any psychologist will confirm it. However, most people do not do evil to others. Yes, they receive for their own sake, but why is it called evil in Kabbalah?
Answer: If we saw the true picture of the world, we would understand how we constantly wish good for ourselves and, at the same time, necessarily cause harm to others.
Question: Even if I do nothing explicitly bad to others?
Answer: Even if you do not understand it. We are all in a closed system as if inside a sphere. And if you think only about yourself, you are definitely stealing from others.
This happens at the level of desires, thoughts, and actions. But we do not see these actions.
Question: Does it mean that even if I live on an uninhabited island, I still would cause harm to the whole system?
Answer: Yes. An enclosed system is totally closed in, and no one can disconnect themselves from it.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/15/23
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Question: What satisfies a woman?
Answer: You need to say good words to women all of the time and nothing else. She doesn’t require much. Show her your affection, care, and love, and she will do everything for you.
I’m not talking about a woman like she is some kind of a pet. The female nature is such that she is ready to do everything for a good attitude from you. But this must be taught.
Question: What attracts men to women?
Answer: Care, affection, and warmth attract men. A woman can easily manage in life because she serves him; that is, she replaces his mother.
Question: What does it mean to love a woman?
Answer: Loving a woman means to feel that you need her and to show her that.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Comment: Sometimes you tell your students: You are an experimental group, and a methodology is being worked out on you.
My Response: I work with them. They are changing, and thus we can find out increasingly higher and deeper layers of nature.
I allow myself to open up to the extent that they change. Just like any teacher if he has more advanced students, he can talk to them on higher topics.
Question: What is best for you and your laboratory?
Answer: I wish they were at my level! That would be the best thing. We would do experiments together.
Question: If there are 10 to 20 people next to you who are in spiritual attainment, what is the benefit?
Answer: This would give a completely different exploration of the world. I would really like to have 10 to 20 such students so that all mankind will rise up! We would have been on a completely different degree already! It is a different dimension!
This is not our world, but the lowest state that we do not feel. What should we live for?! Not for the sake of our mortal body, but in order to exist on a spiritual level, in attainment, and in reciprocity!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Laboratory” 1/28/12
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Question: To what extent do you feel this world? Is there still some sort of borderline? If some experts in their field come up to you and claim: “I am very good at it,” and you do not need to plunge into it. Is there any borderline here?
Answer: If specialists in something artificially created by man in any field come to me, then I can learn something from them for the purpose of dissemination. And for my personal spiritual elevation, I do not need any specialist.
But since I deal with teaching, that is, I turn to students, I am happy to meet with specialists. They help me find new examples and develop the language.
I published several books with psychologists. And I can also talk about Kabbalah with historians from a historical perspective, and so on. That is, I am ready to communicate with them.
Let the physicists come. It is more difficult to find a common language with them, but still it is possible somewhere on the so-called “periphery.” In other words, there is no common language inside physics and Kabbalah, but outside there is. For example, if physicists begin to tell me about all sorts of processes that take place in atoms, I will see them in the form of Reshimot, light, and Kli at different levels of entry and exit of the light when the screen expires, suppose from Tabur to Peh. It is interesting for me.
The same is true about chemistry, biology, zoology, and so on. The principle is the same! The exchange between plus and minus is all nature! There is nothing else. This is at different levels. After all, an electron, an atom is the basis of everything.
I have always strived for a complete picture of the world. A partial one never suited me. I could not stand a partial one! What is the point in sitting somewhere in a corner and picking at bugs there?! I could not stand it!
Only the general picture! Only the global one! You see, you understand, and you connect all the elements of the picture into one common whole, harmony, a huge panel, a palette of everything. It is breathtaking when everything opens up in front of you, and you see and feel it! It is fantastic!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Border between the Spiritual and the Corporeal” 1/28/12
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Comment: There is a Sufi parable about a fool who met the ruler of Baghdad. The ruler asked the fool, “Where are you coming from?”
He said, “I’m coming from hell. I wanted to be given a fire to light my pipe there.”
The ruler asked him, “Well, have you found the fire?”
He said, ‘The ruler of hell told me that they have no fire. I asked him “Why is there no fire? This is hell!”
The ruler of hell told me, “Everyone comes here with their own fire.”’
My Response: Yes. Otherwise, how else will you get to hell?
Question: With what kind of fire in us do we come to hell?
Answer: With an egoistic one. There are two types of fire: black fire and white fire. The black fire with which a person wants to burn everything in order to acquire everything for himself is the fire with which we come to hell. If we come, God forbid, it burns us.
Question: What does it take to extinguish this fire?
Answer: Do not give it a place in yourself or in your heart. Rather, show everyone that you have a fire, but it is white and does not burn in hell; it burns only in a good connection between people.
Question: So when it says “I am burning in hell,” does it mean that I am burning in my own fire?
Answer: In your own egoism.
Question: Is it still possible to extinguish this fire?
Answer: Only if there is a good connection between people. Only through this feeling.
Question: How is this extinguished? What kind of water is this?
Answer: It is not water. Water is also used, of course, because water is the quality of bestowal. But in principle, this is extinguished only by changing the relationship between people from evil to good. And then this black fire turns into white.
Question: Is this the main task? But the fire still exists?
Answer: Yes. Fire is the basis of life. It exists.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/15/22
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the Kabbalistic definition of light?“
Light is the force in nature that influences, governs, permeates and animates everything. All other forces that we observe in nature are derived from it.
We feel the light as a source of goodness, a law of nature, a powerful force and a great pleasure or fulfillment.
Based on KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” on January 15, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Listen to an Audio Version of the BlogDownload:MP3 Audio
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “New Antisemitism Needs Ancient Solution”
In an attempt to counter rapidly growing antisemitism in the country, the French government updated its plan to combat antisemitism to include training teachers and requiring students to visit sites of antisemitic or racist incidents.
The problem of rising antisemitism is hardly exclusive to France. We see this targeted hatred rising dramatically in many places. One may ponder why this age-old hatred does not go away despite initiatives like France’s Interministerial Delegation for the Fight Against Racism and Antisemitism (DILCRAH), which it adopted in 2015 and updates every three years, and the multiple efforts in other places in the world where Jews are persecuted.
Hatred toward the Jewish people has been a regularly recurring phenomenon over the course of history that started in ancient Babylon and has taken on many forms up to the current time when we see what we call the “new antisemitism” is the same old hatred clothed in new dressings.
Ancient Babylon was a time of great social turmoil marked by the shattering of the Tower of Babel when the Babylonians felt an outburst of the human ego and lost their ability to understand one another.
In response to the demands of the time around 4,000 years ago, a Babylonian priest named Abraham discovered a method for rising above humanity’s divisive inclinations to reveal the single unifying force of nature.
Essentially, Abraham led his followers on a path to the discovery of this uniting force of nature through work in practical actualization within the relationships between people who applied the principle, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
The uniqueness of the followers of Abraham was that they shared no biological roots. They came from among all the peoples, clans, and tribes of the region. They coalesced as a group formed of people from different nations in the area who were drawn together based on a unifying ideology and joined together by a commitment to work on themselves in order to attain the quality of love of others above the pressure toward social division that existed at that time.
The Jewish people became a nation through a pledge to be “as one man with one heart.” This common ideological connection among the people of Abraham was formalized into a binding covenant at the time of the reception of the Torah at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Since then, it has been our duty to maintain this connection between us and to pass it on to other peoples, a role that does not involve entitlement, but rather service to others. Therefore, it is the duty of the Jewish people to fulfill the law of love among ourselves and to set an example of this brotherly love to others.
Unfortunately, since the time this covenant was made, we have completely lost awareness of our Jewish unity, and in its place, frictions and separations prevail. However, this shared experience of attainment made an indelible impression on the Jewish soul that is so profound that it could never be erased.
Thus, we should not waste energy thinking about how to make small fixes here and there. Instead, we need to put all our effort into achieving unity. I am certain that if the few million Jews on the planet today would think about how to unite in order to do good to all of humanity, the unifying tendency would expand throughout the world and everyone would join in.
In short, humanity will be able to connect on the condition that the people of Israel unite. Today, however, Jews are more divided than any other people. Therefore, antisemitism will gradually gain force and acquire forms that will unpleasantly compel us to unite. Eventually, an inner perception will form within Jews that we need to be closer to each other. And by finally doing so, we will save ourselves and the whole of humanity from all hatred, division, and crisis.
More on the subject in my book, New Antisemitism: Mutation Of A Long-Lived Hatred.
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Hochma is called “light,” and Hassadim, “water.” Bina is called “upper water,” and Malchut, “lower water” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 8, Item 29).
There are two types of light: the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim. The light of Hochma fills the desires to receive, which have corrected their intention to bestowal. The light of Hassadim fills the desires to bestow, which have also corrected themselves, but not to reception for the sake of bestowal, rather for pure bestowal.
Therefore, the light of Hassadim is much weaker in intensity and strength than the light of Hochma. But, in principle, these two lights fill the entire universe, which is the desire to receive.
Since the correction of the desire to receive into the desire to bestow is the purpose of our work, first we neutralize reception. This is called “Tzimtzum” (Restriction), which means that we do not want to work with the desire to receive, we rise above it.
Then the Ohr Hassadim (the light of Hassadim) spreads in our desire. And then we can even rise to the level where our desires are filled with the light of Hochma.
That is, everything happens in desire, which is the only creation.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/15/23
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Question: What is the Creator?
Answer: The Creator is the one and only force of nature.
Question: What information does the Creator transmit to a person?
Answer: Only what a person needs in order to be a useful entity in this world.
Question: How can one be useful in this world?
Answer: Love.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Question: Why are so many people turning to magic, witchcraft, and Tarot cards these days? Today for example, there are a huge number of different predictors on YouTube, who, like some experts, direct the public consciousness with their forecasts and predictions. Why?
Answer: I think it’s because people need it. People don’t have answers to the questions that arise, and time is running out. Everything that happens to us puts pressure on us, and that’s why people are looking.
Question: Can they find any correct answers for themselves there?
Answer: In general, yes. Not everything and not about everything, but partly yes.
Question: Why did Kabbalists forbid predicting the future?
Answer: A person should not know the future. He himself must act in such a way as to create the future from the present.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Attempts to unite carried out in a group are always new. Like with a child who is constantly making mistakes, in the end, he comes to a decision and achieves the goal himself. But on the spiritual path, we see that we are not able to achieve the spiritual goal; we have to receive strength and explanation, help, and support from above. But this is already a decision. And then we demand and receive.
From where can a person of our world gain an understanding of the methodology, knowledge, and power? After all, it all belongs to the spiritual level, to the next dimension! It is just above his head: absolutely different thoughts, decisions, and understanding of nature, completely different brains. They work according to a different principle.
In our world, there are electronic devices that are not compatible with each other, and we need to create a commutation between them, build whole commutative systems.
And in spirituality, even this does not exist. There is a qualitative quantum leap here. We have to get an additional portion of light in order to rise to the next level.
Comment: You once explained that there is no need for heroism here. We do not need to strive to succeed because the Creator heals only broken hearts.
My Response: It is necessary to succeed in understanding that we require a portion of light from above that would give us absolutely new qualities.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Reason for Failures in the Group” 1/28/12
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Question: How should we view the suffering of a person on the spiritual path? What does it bring him?
Answer: Suffering helps to eliminate its cause. If I suffer from something, it makes me start looking into the cause of suffering and how to escape it.
Question: There is an animal-level suffering when a person wants to organize his material life, and there is an opposite, spiritual suffering, when one has everything, but cannot find himself. What is the qualitative difference between these two types of suffering?
Answer: It depends on the degree of suffering and on the level you are at; there are four levels of nature inside us: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human.
Question: You said that coming from the opposite, from feeling pain, you can feel pleasure much stronger.
Answer: Well, this is suffering of a different kind—suffering of love.
Question: Let’s say a person is on the path, and he actually realizes this is a difficult path that requires him to undergo certain things. What does the constant feeling of these waves give him?
Answer: Advancement, attainment, and the feeling of being at the very crest of life, at its very peak. He understands there is nothing else, this is the ultimate. He looks at everything around him, sees right through what is happening, and everything is clear and understandable to him. He wants to know, attain, and connect with the cause of everything that exists, and even to rise above this cause.
I don’t even know how to say it, but it doesn’t compare to anything. Kabbalah cannot be substituted with anything. Nothing! Any science or anything one is involved in this world is all inside this world: in the world of a meager consequence of the upper world.
Here you have a method of attainment, not just some story, but the attainment of the upper world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Suffer, Derive Pleasure” 1/28/12
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Question: What does a Kabbalist experience when he takes people to another degree?
Answer: That is his job. He works!
Question: Is there some mechanism by which he feeds all this mass?
Answer: He lives off their desire. They want to rise at least in something, at least somehow, at least passively, but they want to. And he doesn’t need anything else besides that.
Question: What is the beauty of this action?
Answer: The beauty is that there is a connection of different souls. When they unite with each other, they reveal the Creator, the upper force. Moreover, everyone to the extent of their participation.
And the Kabbalist who connects them feels it more, above all. He feels the benefit of his action both in relation to these souls and in relation to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Become a Star?” 5/14/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is war a necessary part of life?“
The will to dominate is at the very foundation of our nature, and war is thus a part of our lives. However, it is counterproductive to our very own interests.
If we view humanity from aside, then we see that war destroys us. With all of our technological progress, we could have built heaven on earth, but we see the contrary: that we instead plunge into more and more wars and conflicts.
At the basis of all war is the human ego, which sizes us up against each other, placing us into a constant competition. As a result, we reach such relations where we see war becoming increasingly inevitable.
When can we reach some peace and quiet?
It is when we will develop ourselves and reach a state where, through a correct form of education that guides us on how to understand who and what we are, what nature is, how nature works and develops, and how we can enter into balance among each other and with nature, then we will eventually come to hate war and discover an eternal state of peace.
At the heart of such education needs to be a common love for one another. On one hand, war is embedded in us, but on the other hand, through learning and exercising love toward one another, we will be able to destroy our warring inclination.
Love will win over hatred and the warring inclination because love is a much stronger force. However, love is a force that can enter our relations and defeat the warring inclination on condition that we develop a desire for it to govern us.
Based on the video “Is War a Necessary Part of Life?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Medium published my new article “Your Negative Attitude to People Causes Climate Crises More Than Anything Else You Think Does”
As the climate heads into greater extremes globally, how can we best deal with future climate crises?
The short answer is that we cannot deal with them unless we take care of nature’s inner balance.
We live in a tightly-closed and interdependent system in which everything boomerangs back to us. While living in such a system, we need to reconsider what we want and think, and how we treat each other, because our human connections are the primary influence on how nature responds to us.
It is common to think that climate is dependent on factors outside of us — whether it be balances between heat and cold in the environment, or the effects of various kinds of pollution we emit — because we lack a complete picture of how our attitudes to each other bring about the strongest responses from nature toward us.
No creature distorts nature the way that we people do. And it is not simply a matter of switching to renewable energy sources, electric cars and the like; it is a matter of how we relate to each other.
If we truly wish to witness more balance throughout nature and not have to deal with all kinds of cold waves and other natural disasters, then similarly to how we have electricity, water and gas meters in our homes, we should also have meters that count how much evil we emit into the world from our negative attitudes to each other. What I mean is that if we could feel the extent to which we emit negative forces into the world, which negatively ricochet back to us, then we would wish to change this negative driver within us. We would want to switch it to a drive that makes our human connections positive, and which harmonizes us with nature.
In simple terms, when we get up in the morning, we should first and foremost consider what we need to do in order for all people to have it good. Developing such an attitude is not so simple, yet we will need to seriously work on it as we head into the future. A life of increasing blows from nature or a life of peace and harmony depends on the extent to which we impact a shift in our attitudes to each other — from negative to positive.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Holocaust Remembrance Day: Reflections on New Antisemitism”
Holocaust Remembrance Day is a time to reflect on the past, and how modern-day circumstances prove that the ominous specter of antisemitism didn’t simply die with World War II.
Indeed, Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg, recently stated that social media had given antisemites propaganda power “that the Nazis could only dream of.” Mr. Goldberg also shared his fears of a “bleak” future without survivors to tell their stories.
In my book, New Antisemitism Mutation of a Long-Lived Hatred, I emphasized the fact that antisemitism is alive and kicking and should serve as a wake-up call to Jews all over the world. Like Mr. Goldberg, many in the Jewish community have grave concerns for the future.
For example, Steven Spielberg, who established the USC Shoah Foundation to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, has expressed deep concern that genocide is as possible today as during the Nazi era. “When collective hate organizes and gets industrialized, then genocide follows. We have to take it more seriously today than I think we have had to take it in a generation.”
Within three months of Hitler’s coming to power in Germany in 1933, a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses and professionals was ordered. The Nazis’ official explanation for the boycotts was that they were implemented as a counter-reaction to the demands of Jewish organizations in the US and Britain that were boycotting German-made products due to the Nazis’ rise to power. This action legitimized anti-Jewish activity and gave it official support which had not existed until that time, and it marked the commencement of the war against the Jews, with the penetration of the German consciousness with antisemitic ideology.
The Nazi boycotts were accompanied by harassment and vandalism of Jewish businesses, people, and institutions. The boycotts were followed by a widening cyclone of actions that led to the deaths of six million of our brethren. For this reason, it is understandable that when Jews hear the word “boycott,” it still triggers a brutal reminder of the beginnings of the Holocaust.
There are differences between the 1930s and today, the major one being the existence of the State of Israel. The position of Israel today in relation to worldwide Jewry is similar to that of the Jews of Germany in the 1930s: it stands at the frontline and bears the brunt of a new war against the Jews. Antisemitism has been repackaged under the guise of anti-Zionism.
Israel is an intrinsic part of the collective Jewish identity and is perceived as such by the nations of the world. So, when judgment is passed and punishment is imposed on Israel, it falls on the entire Jewish collective and not only an individual part. The increasing pressure against Jews and the State of Israel is a wake-up call for Jews to come together and ask essential questions: Who are we as a people? Where do we come from? Where are we headed?
The Jewish people are a unique example in humanity. The fact that our ancestors originally came from a wide variety of backgrounds, united above their differences, and became one nation, united “as one man with one heart,” makes us unique. But this uniqueness does not mean we are to look down on others; it means we are to serve others by using our ancestral wisdom to benefit humanity. Giving the world an example of unity under the motto, “love your neighbor as yourself,” is what the nations subliminally demand from us. They instinctively feel Jews hold the keys to peace and prosperity in the world, and their complaint for our not sharing these keys manifests as antisemitism.
It is incumbent upon each and every Jew to unite above our differences yet again. The only thing that will put an end to the new war against Jews is our making the entire Jewish people as one. As the great Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag wrote about the pivotal role of the Jewish nation and what is expected from us to fulfill:
“[The Creator said] ‘You shall be My Segula [remedy/virtue] from among all peoples.’ This means that you will be My remedy, and sparks of purification and cleansing of the body shall pass through you onto all the peoples and the nations of the world. The nations of the world are not yet ready for it, and I need at least one nation to start with now, so it will be as a remedy for all the nations.” The Writings of Baal HaSulam, The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]
Over time, Jews have abandoned the unique connection we once cultivated and have become self-centered. However, the pressure of globalization is forcing us toward interdependence once again as humanity seeks a way to live together peacefully but cannot find one. Until Jews relearn how to create unity between us as before, the world will lack access to the knowledge of how to accomplish this necessity for integration and will continue to blame us for its woes. It is mounting pressure upon us until we finally change our course of action toward cohesion rather than division.
The need for cohesion is as crucial today as it was in those days. Jews must embark on a shared path to become a unified and thriving people once again with a desire for a common spirit and vision. We must set aside our materialistic impulses and our fears for the sake of this and future generations.
“The fear of the Lord is the Resheet [beginning] of wisdom.” It is also written, “The fear of the Lord is the Resheet [beginning] of knowledge,” since fear is called Resheet. Also, it is the gate by which to enter faith, and the whole world exists on this Mitzva” (Baal HaSulam, Introduction of the Book of Zohar, “The Commandments of the Torah,” the First Commandment, Item 189).
The fear of the Creator is a common foundation that binds everything and holds the whole building on itself. A person fears the Creator, who is the root of everything, governs everything, and organizes everything. There is nothing in the world that exists outside of the Creator, the one upper force that embraces everything.
It is a mistake to think that a person can exist independently of the Creator and decide something oneself. Such a thing does not exist in nature. Only the Creator does everything, and therefore, fear of the Creator is the root of everything.
To fear the Creator means to tremble before the greatness of the one who reigns everywhere and governs everything like before the only force in the world on which a person depends one hundred percent.
But this is not about being afraid of the Creator, but about being afraid to separate from the force that embraces everything. A person should perceive every moment of his existence as being sent by the Creator. This is what is called the fear of the Creator.
The Creator is the entirety of nature, which includes all the natural laws that He established.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”
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Question: What attracts men to women?
Answer: Many things. It depends on what preferences men have. Depending on them, they look for the corresponding fulfillment in women.
But, in principle, a woman is an irreplaceable person in society, thanks to which it exists. Men could live peacefully in the forest, sit by the fire and smoke, and a woman forces a man to build the world.
Question: But when a man chooses a woman even for a short-term relationship, he does not think that she saves the world. What is it that attracts him to her?
Answer: In principle, a man is not able to exist without women. A woman can without a man, but a man cannot without a woman.
Question: In what sense can he not exist without her? After all, he can cook himself a meal, take his clothes to the laundry or wash them.
Answer: Even in the modern world, all this is very difficult. I do not think this is possible in the broad sense of the word. A woman, however, sorts it all out, she is used to it, and she can take care of herself. A man cannot take care of himself!
Question: Do you mean that he needs some special psychological completion?
Answer: Psychological, physical, and physiological—all of them. It is impossible to live without women. Without men, however, it is possible.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Question: Are there any examples of receiving for the sake of bestowal in our world?
Answer: No. In our world, we do not feel the desire to receive and the desire to give in an open form. We do not see the fulfillment that others receive.
Question: But in our world, a person also feels that he receives and gives. What desires are we talking about here?
Answer: The fact is that in our world all desires are egoistic. Even if a person gives, he acts so only for himself.
Question: So, when a person comes into some kind of contact with an upper force, he receives something from it, and gives something to it. And these calculations fill him when he receives and gives. And if I just contact people in this world, I also receive and give something, I also fill up, but is it something else?
Answer: If you assume that this brings you closer to the Creator, that you can give to Him, then you feel receiving or giving. It is impossible to give and receive directly from the Creator. It always goes through humanity, through other people.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/15/23
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Question: What does the study of Kabbalah give a person?
Answer: It gives the ability to feel the world and answer all the questions that arise in him.
Question: Why does the world need Kabbalah?
Answer: So that the people who live in it can answer their questions.
Question: What is the power of thought and how can we use it?
Answer: The power of thought is what controls a person and with the help of which a person controls the world.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Before reading The Book of Zohar, we need to adjust ourselves so that we feel that we are in a group. Then we are in an equivalence of qualities with the very group of Kabbalists who wrote The Zohar, and we can more easily understand what they want to convey to us.
Understanding comes as a result of the influence of light. The light acts on us from the connection between the souls of the ten Kabbalists, who all together were in a completely corrected state, that is, in a completely corrected connection with each other.
Therefore, when they corrected the connection between them to such an extent that none of them had an uncorrected will to receive, they revealed between them the upper light, called “Zohar” – radiance, which is emanating from the Rosh (Head) of Arich Anpin, the light of infinity.
Therefore, if we try to reach the same relationship between us as the authors of The Book of Zohar, we attract light from the same states they have reached.
This light can also create a connection between us, as it is said: “He who makes peace above will make peace upon us.” This is what we should expect from reading The Book of Zohar.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/10, The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus)”
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Comment: If we treat time on a psychological level, then indeed, it may not exist. But with respect to our protein bodies, we see that time still exists.
My Response: Our protein bodies measure time by their pulse, the beats of the heart, and by the way we measure the relationship between the states we go through. But these are all purely subjective concepts.
In fact, if you are in a rocket that is launched into space at high speed, then time will be measured differently for you, and you will look different compared to others.
Time is not a biological system that changes you; time is what you change. So I would not treat time in this way. But we are used to it, and live in a world in which time passes according to the ticking of the clock.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do ultra rich people do philanthropy?“
On one hand, the ultra-rich are driven by their own power and wealth, but on the other hand, they are motivated by a challenge—that they wish to see a positive result from their lives.
If we act for humanity’s benefit, then we feel a loftier result from our lives.
Whether it is through philanthropy or pushing certain entrepreneurial initiatives that they believe benefit humanity, they like to see that their success changes the world. Then, when they feel that they bring something good to the world, they feel as if they soar ever higher above everyone, only instead of money, they see humanity’s achievements in light of their work.
Based on the video “Why Do the Ultra-Rich Do Philanthropy?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
A man is created from the material of the desire to enjoy; therefore, he is constantly worried about whether he will be able to get pleasure. A person is concerned about this every moment of his life; a person feels some kind of deficiency and fears that he will not be able to fill it. He is like a bunny always hiding under a bush and trembling with fear.
The fear of not getting what we want lives in us all the time. This is our nature of the desire to enjoy, which is based on fear.
But when we correct ourselves, we must move from fear to trembling. This is something completely different. I am afraid that I will not be able to give to the Creator, I will not be able to draw near Him, to become like Him, to fulfill His desire. He has been guiding me and giving me exercises all my life, and I am afraid I will not feel it and will not connect with Him correctly.
Fear is anxiety about my own existence, and trembling is anxiety about whether I will give pleasure to the Creator. The main task of a person is to achieve such trembling; this is the very first commandment.
The feeling that everything comes from the Creator and there is none else besides Him is the root of the right trembling from which one already comes to wisdom, attainment, and correct fulfillment.
The source of trembling of the Creator is in Binah, and above Binah is Hochma, wisdom. And even higher is Keter, the full governance of the Creator over all reality. Therefore, it is possible to enter the GAR, the higher Sefirot Binah, Hochma, and Keter, only through Binah, which is called trembling.
There are different stages of fear. At the initial stages, a person worries about himself, about what will happen to him and what he will not have, and he is afraid of punishment. And so he goes through all the fears until he rises to true trembling when he is afraid whether he will be able to please the Creator.
And in order to come to trembling before the Creator, a person needs proper work with his friends, where is the root of all fears: Will I be able to help my friends, will I be able to feel their help for me or not? All work on spiritual development revolves around mutual guarantee.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”
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Question: What does it mean to “act for the sake of others”? For example, a factory worker stands behind a machine for 12 hours. Does he work for others? Or, let’s say a teacher at school teaches children. Is it for the sake of others?
Answer: No. Action for the sake of others is an intention and not the action itself. I can work 20 hours a day, but it does not mean anything. Why am I doing this? If it is for the benefit of others and this is my motivation, then I am doing good. But if I work 20 hours a day to earn a million dollars, then I am not doing anyone any good.
Question: Does it mean that we need to have some kind of device to check this intention?
Answer: We do not have such a device. We cannot measure a person’s inner efforts. We cannot measure his thoughts.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/8/23
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While working on themselves at the level of the Second Temple, the people of Israel tried to do everything possible to stay on it, but egoism grew because the ego that contained all of humanity was not corrected since humanity was still developing egoistically.
Therefore, the developing egoism affected the Jews, and they could not remain at the same level of benevolent interaction with each other. Their condition is represented by the wars with the Romans and the Greeks, but in fact these were internal wars of the people of Israel.
The fall occurred under the influence of egoistic desires: the Greek ones (in ideology) and Roman ones (in action). Of course, this is not about the Greeks and the Romans because we are talking only about the internal states of the same group of Abraham.
Eventually they fell from the level of the Second Temple: “Do not do to the other what is hateful to you,” were completely disconnected from any kind mutual actions, and became like ordinary people. This means that they were captured not by the Egyptians or Babylonians, but by humanity in general, which was disconnected from all spiritual categories.
This is the next, most difficult stage—the third exile from spirituality. The Jews entered it gradually and lost their previous degree. This continued for many years and ended in the 16th century in the time of Ari.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14
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Question: There are 31,556,926 seconds in a year. How would you advise spending these seconds in the most efficient way?
Answer: There is no need to think about it. You need to think about how you fill your time. The main thing is to understand what you exist for so that every moment of your life will be filled with the mission you live for.
Suppose the main thing for you is the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah. You should measure your time and your success by this parameter.
Question: Precisely regarding the results, right?
Answer: Of course. In the corporeal world, we do an action, and after a while, we see the result. But in the spiritual world, because all actions are performed in relation to the Creator, the action itself is already a result and a fulfillment. Therefore, time does not exist there, it does not stretch.
Question: Suppose, now I’m making a program with you and the result of it will come after some time, then, is the reception of the filling delayed?
Answer: You are cutting time. But if you would receive fulfillment right now, then time would not exist for you.
Question: That is, a Kabbalist lives outside of time, right?
Answer: In general, yes.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why Deny the Holocaust When We Can Simply Forget about It?”
January 27 is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In recent years, there has been a sharp resurgence of antisemitism, which seems to be accelerating. The Jewish Agency’s Fighting Antisemitism page states, “With violent instances of antisemitism on the rise across the world, we are devoting more resources than ever to expunge this epidemic and ensure Jewish safety.” However, the efforts are not working. A report that the Jewish Agency recently released has found that antisemitic incidents on U.S. campuses have gone up by almost 50 percent during 2022, compared to a year earlier.
Even worse, as time passes, people forget about the Holocaust, or come to think that it was far less horrific than it actually was. This fork-movement of forgetting what had happened, on the one hand, and the spreading of antisemitism around the world, on the other hand, has reached levels that remind many Holocaust researchers of the venomous atmosphere that prevailed in Europe before the Holocaust, and which eventually allowed it to happen, if not accelerated and exacerbated it. I believe we have every right to be worried that what occurred might recur.
However, I also believe that we should acknowledge that our efforts are futile, and unless we overhaul them, matters will continue to deteriorate at an accelerating speed. But in order to change course, we need to know in which direction to turn, and for this to happen, we need to understand the roots of antisemitism.
Antisemitism has a very deep root. In fact, it is embedded in the laws of nature; it is one of its foundations. Allow me to explain.
The people of Israel are not like any other people, as much as they would like to be. The whole world treats us differently, and there is nothing we can do about it because the reason for the world’s attitude toward us is buried deep within us, deeper than we can see.
Two forces drive the universe, drive all of existence, all of creation. They are contradictory forces that always operate one against the other. The only way to reconcile them is to be aware of them and make a conscious effort to harness both of them for a higher cause.
On the inanimate level, these forces manifest as darkness and light, spring and fall, or as magnetic forces that pull or push away. On the animate level, they manifest as life and death, and love and hate. On the human level, they manifest as altruism and egoism, giving and taking, kindness and cruelty.
Because they are contradictory, the two forces are locked in an eternal struggle. However, they are of equal power, and therefore neither ever “wins.” Instead, they “take turns” dominating, and as a result, our universe evolves and changes ceaselessly.
Humans are the one exception. In every human being, the inherent tendency toward egoism wins. If we examine the history of humankind, we will see that the motivation behind all the changes that have ever happened was the glorification of its perpetrators or other self-centered drives.
The only people who have ever managed to rise above the innate selfish tendency in human nature and balance it with kindness, as it is in the rest of nature, were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who united “as one man with one heart” and were declared a nation—the Israeli nation—at the foot of Mt. Sinai. However, the Israeli nation achieved what it achieved not for its own sake. It did this so as to become a model nation, a proof of concept, or if you will, a startup nation.
Yet, like most startup companies, Israel’s idea was great, but its product never reached the market. The Israelites operated it for a while but eventually, even they abandoned their own invention and joined the rest of the self-centered world.
Nevertheless, the seeds of love of others, of the commitment to build a society based on mutual responsibility and loving others as ourselves, remained buried deep within every Jewish person, even though they do rarely feel it, if ever. Yet, every Jew carries a hidden spark of love of others, which puts us at odds with everyone who wants to remain self-centered, which is all of humanity, including the Jews themselves. This is why everyone hates Jews, and Jews hate Jews more than anyone.
But for all the hatred and attempts to annihilate the Jews, it will never succeed. Since it is impossible to annihilate a force of nature, it is impossible to eradicate its expressions. Moreover, the more self-centeredness prevails around the world, the more the world deteriorates, and the closer we are getting to another world war. The only way to escape another global cataclysm and another round of punishment against the Jews is if the Jews become what they are supposed to be—a model nation based on mutual responsibility and love of others.
There is no point protesting against antisemites; it will not deter them or diminish their numbers. The only solution to the oldest hatred is to stop looking outward, and start looking at one another. We need to put our heads and hearts together in search of ways to unite and nurture mutual concern despite the deep division and profound hatred among the various factions of the nation. If we do this, if we only try, it will dissipate the hatred of the world toward us and will usher in a new era in the history of the relationship between the Jewish people and the world.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Will Prevent a Civil War”
The tumultuous protests against the planned reforms to Israel’s judicial system seem to be tearing Israeli society apart. Prominent newspapers around the world have not only reported the plan to reform Israel’s justice system, but have actually taken sides. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times urged President Biden to take action against an Israeli government that is “hostile to American values.” At the same time, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “Who’s Threatening Israeli Democracy?” and argued that it is actually Israel’s supreme court that poses the greatest risk to Israel’s democracy.
Indeed, I think there is truly an ideological war here. There are many entities involved, each with its own interest and benefits it wants to procure, but the result might be the division of the country. I think that we are truly in a precarious situation.
I do not think there is any nation more divided than the Jewish nation. When we consider what the struggle is about, the picture becomes even more confusing, since the parties are fighting over ideologies that have nothing to do with the tradition of the Jewish people. Different factions of the nation have adopted different ideologies from other nations, and now they are fighting for them as if they have been their core values since the inception of our nation. It is as if we have taken up ideological wars that were fought in the 19th and 20th centuries, and we are continuing the fight in the 21st century although neither ideology authentically belongs to the Jewish people.
And what is even worse, we are fighting for those ideologies against people from our own nation. In doing so, we are not only deepening the divide within the nation, but we are destroying the one ideology that is authentically ours: love of others above all the differences.
There is a good reason that we tend to adopt social ideologies from around the world. As a nation that has taken upon itself to do Tikkun Olam [correction of the world], it is inherently Jewish to take up all the ills of the world and cover them with a blanket of love for others. This is why we came up with such notions that we must love our neighbor as ourselves, build a society based on mutual responsibility, and unite with one another “as one man with one heart.”
However, if we are unaware of our task, then we still “catch” ideas from around the world, but we do not cover them with love, we do not correct them. As a result, we fight over these ideologies, hate each other for them, but nothing good comes out of it. If this modus operandi continues, the Jewish state, which was established to correct the world, will fall to pieces.
The Jewish people are no stranger to civil wars. In antiquity, we had had several of them, and the worst of which sent us into an exile that had lasted nearly two millennia. When Jews believe in something, they will fight to the death for it, very literally. They do not care who they have to face to make their view prevail, and do not think about the cost. The fact that they might lose the country altogether is no cause for them to stop. At such moments, it is either my way, or no way at all.
The problem here is not so much the destruction of the Jewish state, as it is the postponement of the correction of the world. Without understanding that we must set an example of rising above differences and forging love despite any disagreement, the whole world will not be able to advance toward it.
The hidden reason behind today’s growing antagonism toward the Jewish state has nothing to do with the stated cause of ostensible infringement of Palestinian human rights. The real reason is that the Jews are not doing what they are supposed to do. If they do not serve as an example of unity above hatred, of bridging differences with love, the world has no need for them, and certainly not for a Jewish state.
Even though this anger is unconscious, it is the driving force behind the growing hatred of Jews around the world. The ephemeral pretexts are just that, pretexts, but the reason for hating us is that we hate each other and cannot overcome it. Therefore, the only thing that can prevent a civil war is that we understand what Jews are meant to do, and resolutely follow our vocation.
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The staff that we rely upon in our spiritual work in the ten is the connection of Malchut with Bina; it is the force that we hold on to that does not allow us to make mistakes and fall. When we connect with each other in the ten, we thereby build such a staff, i.e., connection between us. Through our connection with each other, we connect with Bina.
Each one annuls his egoistic desire in something and joins the tiny will to bestow that shines before him. In this way, together we can grasp this force, this concept called the staff (Mate). This means that the will to receive becomes of lower (Mata) importance for us.
Each of us tries to set an example to our friends of how we can hold on to the staff together.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”
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Although only phase four was restricted, the light left the first three phases as well (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 7).
The last, fourth phase is the desire itself, which was reached by the expansion of the first three phases. The desire did not want to be egoistic and differ from the first phase in the opposite direction; therefore, it restricted itself and the light disappeared from it.
Then it took a different development of light as a basis;: it will receive the light but only in order to bring contentment to the Creator. Here it receives oppositeness from the Creator, on one hand, and on the other hand, similarity to Him.
Question: What is this state when the light departs from the Kli? How is this manifested in our world?
Answer: It is not manifested in our world. When the light leaves the Kli, it remains dead. This is similar to how any animate or vegetative body dies. The life-giving power leaves it.
Question: Does the expulsion of light from the Kli occur consciously?
Answer: Yes, the Kli cannot remain in this state, it is ready to sacrifice everything that is in it just not to be the opposite of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/1/23
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Question: Why are we in this current alarming situation?
Answer: This is not happening at our will. You did not choose when to be born, in what society, at what time, with what kind of knowledge to receive, and so on.
You do not understand all this, and, in principle, this is not required of you. You are required only to act intelligently in a specific situation.
Question: What should I do to avoid it being bad?
Answer: To do good for everyone.
Question: Can a Kabbalist predict the future?
Answer: He can only say in which case it will be good.
Question: What is your forecast for 2023?
Answer: I think everything will be fine. Really. We are approaching a state when people begin to understand that otherwise there will be an end. So, I hope it will be good, and for everyone.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Comment: There is a legend that Arthur Conan Doyle once sent a telegram in jest to twelve of the largest London bankers, and, as it was claimed, the most honest. He wrote in a telegram: “All is discovered! Flee!” According to the story, the next morning, all twelve bankers disappeared from London. Everyone turned out to be thieves. And this well-known principle is that everyone is a thief, and even more so bankers.
My Response: Sure.
Question: In what case can we say: “Honest bank, honest banker” and is it even possible?
Answer: The banking system is built on the principle that there can be no honesty. So I can’t imagine how it could be. After all, you’re always thinking about how to win, how to give some interest, and so on. That is, everything is built on winning, and winning cannot be honest.
Question: In what case can this system be honest?
Answer: Only if you are the bank of the whole world, and the whole world will be yours, and you will think only about the good of the world, then maybe something will work out.
Question: So I’m kind of responsible for the world as a bank, and I have to assume that these are not my clients, but my children?
Answer: Sure.
Question: Is this system possible, in principle?
Answer: In principle, it is possible, of course. Why not?
Comment: But this is a completely idealistic, detached from life system.
My Response: We just need to cut egoism out of humanity, and then the normal “meat” will remain that will only care about everything’s existence.
Question: On what principle is this bank based?
Answer: On making everyone feel good, everyone has everything.
Question: And due to what will I live as a banker?
Answer: Due to the fact that you will see how what you do benefits everyone.
Question: And this gives me vitality?
Answer: Absolutely everything.
Question: Will I have something to live from, to support the bank?
Answer: We’ll leave you something.
Question: And this “little bit” will be enough for me?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: Meaning, I will not have an inner cry: “More and more!”
My Response: No. You won’t have anything at all!
Question: What will I have?
Answer: You will have a great, deep, personal pleasure from a well-lived life.
Question: And is it worth all the money? And is it worth everything at all?
Answer: You will have perfect status!
Comment: Today it is clear that the whole system is rotten because it works exclusively for itself—to profit.
My Response: If it will work for everyone, and everyone will participate in everything, then it can be applied and played with forever.
Question: What will be the currency of this bank?
Answer: Happiness, tranquility, and peace of mind for everyone. And the most important common property will be boredom.
Everyone will be bored. Why move, live, do something? Nothing! Everyone walks with dull eyes, they don’t see anything in front of them and that is how they lost the meaning of life.
Question: So what is happiness then? What kind of bank have we built if everyone is bored?
You said, “Happiness. The main currency is the happiness of all.” I want it to be like this. This is the main currency of the bank, and it exists for this.
Answer: I do not know what can be done then. If you take away a person’s egoism, his nature, then he will not have happiness.
Question: Then what can egoism be replaced with so that we still have happiness and there is such a growing one? What is the best way for us, for humanity?
Answer: No, we will not get rid of egoism. And if we get rid of it, then we will fall into such a state that death is better.
Question: How can we turn it around then, this egoism?
Answer: It is only possible when we work in an appropriate healthy team that will work according to the system of Kabbalah.
Question: And what will egoism be transformed into?
Answer: It does not transform. It simply begins to feed on giving, love, and the saturation of others, in the same way a mother enjoys when she gives to her baby.
Question: And this is a likely option?
Answer: This is a possible option. A woman who is breastfeeding enjoys the fact that the baby is sucking on an animal level. It’s the same with animals.
If in this way you feel that you can create such a society so that people feed each other like this, from themselves, then you will succeed.
Question: But all the same, you say that this society is based on egoism, only inverted?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So I get pleasure from feeding others?
Answer: Yes. Or if you find a way, although this is also questionable, to make everyone feel like relatives, but very close and dependent on each other, then it is also possible.
Question: So we have come to the conclusion that a bank that is happy because it feeds everyone, this bank will exist?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/24/22
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The method for exiting the state of spiritual exile began to develop in the sixteenth century; it is called Kabbalah. Of course, Kabbalistic teaching existed before that. The great ideologists following Abraham and his disciples discovered all this and wrote it down. Their books are called the Holy Books of the Jews.
But the fact is that they did not have a clear method for exiting selfishness. At that time, the last state—which began to manifest itself during the time of Aristotle—had not yet been revealed.
Ari is a great Kabbalist who laid the foundations for the method of correction. After him, other Kabbalists began to appear: the Baal Shem Tov, the Magid of Mezrich, and many others. Thus, the number of spiritual guides who described the same methodology, but in different styles expanded, and they could work with people theoretically and practically at different levels.
However, the development of Kabbalah, which went from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the present day, stopped at us. The last of the great teachers was my teacher Rabash. He and his father laid the foundations of the method of correction in action, in its application.
And we who follow them, by implementing this method, hope for an effective way out of the exile in which we and all of humanity are. This is a special exile because that group of Abraham is dissolving into the whole of humanity, if not physically, then morally, spiritually, and ideologically; they are losing absolutely everything.
A part of this group alters the entire methodology, that is, it takes on mechanical actions without thinking that it is necessary to engage in this internally, with one’s own intentions, with one’s heart. This is the big problem of getting out of the last exile.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14
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The fear of the Creator is the feeling that He reigns within me; He controls all my thoughts, all my desires, and everything that happens to me. I feel more and more clearly each time that He determines my whole life.
I am not worried about my life, but whether in this life I am in adhesion with the Creator. I yearn to adhere to Him more and more, and I feel that we are connected together, that He embraces me from all sides, and that I am completely at His mercy.
First of all, we must reach fear, and then we can build love on fear. Without fear, it is impossible to come to love.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is the universe endless?“
The difference between us and the Creator is endless.
Who or what is the Creator? It, or He, is the quality of love and bestowal—the opposite of our quality, reception.
In our oppositeness to the Creator, we perceive a very tiny part of the endless universe.
We are limited as created beings. However, precisely because we are created beings, we can come closer to the Creator—to reveal, feel and understand Him according to our equivalence of form with Him.
In other words, to the extent in which we accept upon ourselves the Creator’s quality of love and bestowal, we will be able to correctly perceive the universe—as the Creator’s true quality of endless love.
Based on the video “Is the Universe Endless?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: There are three types of egoism. There is the usual everyday egoism that manifests in the family, at work, and in our lives when we constantly use each other in a rude way. And there is egoism, which is manifested directly in the ten, in a group of people who want to unite, but suddenly there is hatred, which appears between them.
The third level of egoism is when a person attains the Creator directly and already wants to use the Creator Himself for his own sake, for his own benefit. Do we need to correct all three levels?
Answer: Yes, all these levels need to be corrected and we need to do what is only for the benefit and good of others. A person should rise above himself and act only in for the sake of others.
Comment: But the phrase “for the sake of others” is used by everyone, starting with politicians.
My Response: It means that the words are correct, but the intentions and actions are wrong.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/8/23
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Comment: You say that it does not matter whether a person loves or not, the main thing is his specific attitude, and not something neutral. That if he is for or against something, then he already has some attitude to any object or phenomenon.
My Response: Naturally. The main thing is not to be indifferent.
Indifference is synonymous with the absence of feeling. Suppose I do not notice you, this means that I do not feel you. As soon as I begin to feel you, you will immediately begin to influence me and emerge in some definitions.
Comment: Usually in life we try to get rid of hatred so that everything is positive.
My Response: This is incorrect. You cannot get rid of hatred, you can only overcome it by feelings that are opposite to it, build one above the other: hate above love or love above hate. It is the same with other feelings.
You cannot calm a restless person and simply destroy his anxiety. You must necessarily give him the opposite quality, confidence and so on. It is always like this. Therefore, we cannot do anything with ourselves. We do not understand exactly how to balance all our feelings, views, opinions, sensations, and emotions with their opposite qualities.
Question: How can this be done? After all, you say that all existing qualities are very important and cannot be neutralized.
Answer: I say that they cannot be destroyed, they must not be neutralized, but balanced by the opposite quality.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Transform Hatred into Love?” 2/4/12
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Comment: I watched a movie about an attempt to create an endless system of jobs by developing consumption. In it they say that a concern was created in 1928 that minimized the lifespan of products and even imposed fines. Due to this, they created a permanent consumer basket.
My Response: Let’s say any product that is sold to us will have a useful life of a month, a year, or maximum of five years, and then it will deteriorate. Or I will buy a computer knowing that a year later, on the same day I plug it in, something will turn on inside that will burn it, and I have to throw it away.
Maybe I will be able to even bring this computer to the store and get another, more advanced model for a period of one year, or maybe for 9 months, for a 10% discount.
Let’s say we do it. Then what? What will give us this way to constantly give each other work? After all, if we are closed on each other in this way, it is as if we did not produce perishable things.
It is stupid to deplete the earth. It is impossible to constantly pull out anything we want from it. After all, there is a time when oil, gas, metals, precious metals, and so on may run out. There is a date when we will not have enough water. They are already talking about the times when we will not have enough air. What will you do then, sell air, sell water, until they completely disappear?
Even if nature did not have the task of bringing us to the recognition of a dead end in the process of our development, this path is still completely unrealistic and irrational.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Make a Revolution” 2/10/12
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In the News (ABC News): “New research from New York University found that public school curriculum is falling short in providing “culturally responsive” education, a blind spot that researchers believe could be failing students across the country. …
“‘Culturally responsive’ education infuses the backgrounds, cultures, identities, and lived experiences of the students into the instruction of a classroom. These identities inform a teacher’s communication style, the tools they use in their lessons, and more, according to researchers from NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools.
“For example, educator and curriculum evaluator Sara Carroll-Muniz said in a press conference that when her students were having difficulty understanding allusion in poetry, she instead sought it out in songs they loved.
“‘We’re leaning on a lot of old, white poetry to try to get this message across and it just wasn’t clicking,’ Carroll-Muniz said at the press conference. ‘Hip-hop is rife with allusion … it’s just such a wonderful source for exploring that.’ “
Question: They discovered that a sensory component was missing in learning, and this destroyed all efforts.How do you like the idea that, for example, arias in biology and lyrical songs in higher mathematics are being created? What will happen if we teach and instruct in this way?
Answer: Of course it will be clearer to the students.
Question: So they do not need to make any effort to understand?
Answer: None of this is needed. What for? It should get in easily in a sensory way.
Question: So we must work according to them, according to the students. If a student wants to, let him sing higher mathematics. What do you think of this way of teaching? Do you like it? Would you like to study in such a school?
Answer: I think it would help many people absorb mathematics, physics, and so on. All of this can be transferred to very simple things.
Question: You keep saying that the main thing is not even education, but the process of upbringing. Does it exist in this?
Answer: There is definitely the process of upbringing here. They teach students how to teach others, younger ones and so on.
Question: Can you say that when they sing together in class, then this is a process of rapprochement?
Answer: Rapprochement and adaptation. Of course.
Question: That is, is everything that is transferred to joint singing, to joint action, is collected in a “piggy bank”?
Answer: Yes, of course. Thus, in general, you can achieve a lot of success. But who needs it, just between us?
Question: You believe that it is so good that no one needs it as a result. And if it were bad, then maybe someone would need it?
Answer: This is how things work.
Question: So we do not want our children to rush to school to be willing to be together in class?
Answer: What is the point of this?! There is a thug waiting for them there, beating them, taking away their lunch money and things like that. I know that this is how it goes.
Question: Do we not need such a gentle upbringing?
Answer: We need a different upbringing. One in which the most ignorant students will understand that you need to be in good connection and in good relationships with each other. Otherwise, their society will reject them.
It is the most terrible thing when no one says hello to you, when you are rejected, when everyone laughs at you, and the girl you adored yesterday is puffed up and walks past you. These are all very good educational methods.
Question: So, suppose these are methods of education and upbringing. Do you mean tough methods of upbringing?
Answer: Yes, in the beginning this is what is needed, of course. If I am not connected with the collective by good ties, then nothing will help me.
Question: So are you saying to throw all education out of your head because nobody needs it? I exaggerate on purpose.
Answer: This is not an exaggeration. This is the foundation.
Question: And to start to take care of the connection in the classroom, the real connection, so that it becomes the most essential and important thing? And then add to this all the education, everything, absolutely everything.
Answer: Everything else will come on top of this.
Question: Will they ever want to implement this?
Answer: For this you just need good educators who know how to get into the students’ hearts, correctly distribute such roles among them, and somehow create such an atmosphere.
Question: Should educators themselves relate to each other in this spirit?
Answer: This is still far away, of course. And there is no way we can educate teachers! But maybe, it will be possible to come to an agreement with them so that they first unite in the teachers’ room, and then, in this state, go to the classroom. And then we will get good results in everything: kindness in the first place, mutual assistance, and the desire to study better.
Question: Will we get this too?
Answer: Absolutely, because otherwise we will let others down, and our students themselves will sneer at us. And so on.
Question: That is, our class should be the best, we should all be the best together. Is this also a conclusion?
Answer: Yes, but we should not point out that we should be better than others.
Question: Can educational bodies, ministries of education and upbringing, still take this as a basis?
Answer: No. This will be in real demand when you can pay teachers well.
Comment: To pay teachers, and then they will build the process like this? But they themselves should want this to happen in the classroom, right?
My Response: The point is that it will not last long because they do not have that kind of upbringing yet. You have to spark their interest.
Question: But money does have a serious effect here, doesn’t it?
Answer: Of course material interest does have an effect. That is, there are two components here: material interest and ideological interest.
Question: Can teachers spark each other with ideas?
Answer: I do not think so.
Question: Do you remember your first teacher? I remember you speaking about her with such warmth.
Answer: Oh! She was a special woman—young and married to a military man at the time she was teaching us. We lived on the edge of a military garrison. He often met her on the way back from work. I remember myself waving to him.
She was very, very devoted to us. She loved us.
Question: Maybe this is the key to real success?
Answer: Yes. But then the next year I moved to another school. It was a different life.
Question: If a teacher lives like this loving the class, loving the students… Or will this not last long as well?
Answer: This has stayed with me for the rest of my life. These are childhood experiences.
They gave me an example of what the first teacher could be.
Question: We started with rap, with an attempt to transfer the material to music understandable for a child, and then things will advance. What needs to be done to still have this atmosphere in the classroom?
Answer: If teachers can speak confidentially with children, then they can easily set the children on the right attitude to studies, to life, and to others.
Question: But in this way or another, you say it should go through the connection that exists in class?
Answer: Yes. This is the main thing. This is the basis.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/10/22
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Question: You often say that we do not destroy our egoism because it is our nature, but we destroy its egoistic intention, its egoistic use. What is the difference?
Answer: The most important thing is the intention! The fact is that you can stab a person with a knife with malicious intent and kill him, or you can use a knife with good intent, as a surgeon usually does to cure a patient. In principle, both actions are the same, but the intentions are different.
A person who does not understand the meaning of the actions will think that it they are the same thing, but in fact it all depends on the intention. Therefore, we must understand the intention of each person and judge him only by his intention.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/8/23
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Сomment: Recently, you gave the following definition of a hero: A hero is one who gives all his strength, but does not win, and yet he is a hero. This is completely different from what is accepted in our world.
My Response: All the definitions in our world are opposite to the spiritual ones. In the corporeal world they are based on my victory or my achievement, and not on the victory over myself.
When we watch movies, especially American ones, we admire them and even cry with emotion: “Finally they meet! Finally he achieves it! Finally something happened! Finally he was acquitted!” and so on.
It all boils down to the fact that a hero achieves his dream. It is realized despite all the haters and spiteful critics who wanted to trip him up. He was heading for his goal, for his dream, despite the hardships, and now he has broken through the thorns to the stars!
In principle, this is how the victory of egoism is implanted: I am going on my own, achieving my goal, and as a result, I am a hero.
But in spirituality this is not the case at all. It is amazing how different it is! After all, spirituality is achieved by revealing that you are inside your egoism in a completely wrong state, that your desire to perpetuate yourself, to win, and to prove your case is a purely egoistic desire, which in principle is harmful and deceitful, and that at the same time you are following the lead of your ego, your animal being is pulling you forward!
This is a huge lie that our nature plays with us, and it constantly urges us: “Come on! Do it! Prove it to everyone!” And we obey it all the time like blind kittens. We are slaves of this nature!
Such heroism is extolled in Hollywood films. But these are the most terrible manifestations of egoism because they are detrimental and harmful to others.
In his blindness, a man does not understand that nature is simply playing with him like with a small child: “Come on! Do it! See how you can do it! Well done!” This is how we all are, and we are still proud of it—vanity, pride, and arrogance. What for?!
Where are all those rich and wise, those supermen?!
All this is so petty and does not go beyond the level of small blind kittens, although in principle it looks like we are talking about strong and smart people. But they sit in their egoism and realize the instructions of nature and all the time seek out how they can even better realize their ego. Therefore, Kabbalah laughs at this “Hollywood.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who is the Real Hero?” 1/28/12
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Question: Why is the situation in the world constantly getting worse?
Answer: I do not think it is getting worse all the time. We just start demanding something more from the world because we are developing. If we look at the current examples of world politics, we see that people are already beginning to understand that you cannot throw bombs, you need to somehow talk to each other.
I think the world is sobering up in some ways and starting to understand better how ugly it is and how much it needs to change.
Question: What will happen in five years? In ten? In fifteen?
Answer: I hope it will be good. People will understand that they have no other choice: they will either destroy each other or encourage each other. We live in a state where we have to decide what will prevail: good or evil. The need for this decision is already facing us.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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The Zohar speaks nothing of corporeal incidents, but of the upper worlds, where there is no sequence of times as it is in corporeality. Spiritual time is elucidated by change of forms and degrees that are above time and place (Zohar for All, “VaYetze,” Item 139).
Question: Kabbalah speaks of states that are above time, space, and motion. Can you explain what it is? What kind of change in forms and degrees are we talking about?
Answer: There is nothing permanent or temporary in the universe. We introduce all this with our sensations, our attitude to what is happening. Only the Creator, the upper force, is absolute.
If we change ourselves relative to Him, then we change time, space, movement, and the world in which we exist. We can only speak about this in relation to the Creator.
Question: Can time end?
Answer: If time by itself does not exist, then how can it end? It exists only in our sensations.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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Question: A person can feel his body when it hurts. What happens with the spiritual body?
Answer: Everything we feel in our world, we feel only from some kind of pain, limitation, pressure, and so on, even the most pleasant sensations. Feelings come from the sense of the boundary.
In the spiritual world, however, it is quite the opposite. I rise above the sensations of my body; for me this egoistic boundary does not exist.
As a result, I stop feeling my body and this world in general because I annul the egoistic boundary and rise above it into altruistic qualities. This world begins to gradually dissolve for me. I see it not as material, but as still depicted for me. But in the end it disappears completely.
I have no problem with this, let the imaginary world disappear.
The spiritual body is my qualities associated with others, that is, what I build on the basis of adhering and connecting with others. My spiritual qualities are where I can treat others the way that the Creator treats them.
In such cases, I am not limited as well. My spiritual body does not give me any problems.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Body” 2/23/12
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Question: What happens at the moment when a person choses how to correctly convey information to others, meaning, he is not giving a canned speech, but speaks through his heart? Let us say when you are speaking you give out certain feelings through your words. What is happening at that moment?
Answer: At that moment I exist inside of my words, inside of these actions. At that moment I am connected with the upper rung. From there, the upper energy is passing through me to the one with whom I am speaking. The upper energy is working on that person to the degree that he wants to hear and agree with me. If not, the upper energy will not act upon him even if he listens.
Therefore, everything depends on the relationship between the people. There cannot be any coercion.
Remark: You are doing this consciously, but your student is simply speaking with someone and passing along the information. It is clear that he partly conveys himself.
My Comment: No, it doesn’t matter. The “himself” is to a very small degree, even if it carries a lot of nonsense. In general, he is connected to the group and to me and through this, with the upper rung.
Whatever he talks about it is still manifested more positively in his listeners. In this case he is simply a conduit even if he says something from himself. It doesn’t matter. He has nothing to say from himself.
He is speaking in plain words about something that he heard, and perhaps he still has no clear understanding what notion is instilled in these words. It still conducts our energy.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Conductor of Spiritual Energy” 4/12/14
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Question: Can egoism temporarily take over a person who is not in attainment?
Answer: Yes, it can take over specifically in order to lower a person. The person’s job is to turn that egoism back into an ascent. Twenty kilograms of egoism were added to an individual, and now he must correct it by twenty kilograms of bestowal and love.
Why else would he get such an addition?
Question: What if he plunged into the ego very deeply?
Answer: Do not worry. The upper degree works in the same way as we teach a child to walk: we step back from him and wait for him to take a step toward us. This is the way the upper system works. We do not go far from the child, and this is what is done to us as well, although it seems to the person that he has been completely abandoned.
Question: When a person feels superior to everyone else and neglects them, can he unite with anyone?
Answer: If a person feels superior to others, he cannot be in a spiritual state. This contradicts the qualities of the upper world.
If the upper light influences him, he feels inferior to others, indebted to them, and treats them like a father would treat his son because the son is the central figure and the father takes care of him, and all the attention of the father is directed to him.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Egoism Uses Me” 1/28/12
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Question: You say that the whole development of the world unfolds in our egoistic desire. But if there is no time in spirituality, how did it happen here? In some short timeframe?
Answer: There is no time in spirituality. Development does not occur in parallel in two worlds: the spiritual and ours.
There is nothing at all in the spiritual world, not even the spiritual world itself. There is what you perceive. If perception occurs in egoistic desires, then you feel our world, and if in altruistic desires, for bestowal and love, the upper world.
There is neither our world nor the spiritual world at all. The upper world exists only relative to the perceiver if he perceives his similarity to the upper force, the upper light.
There is no Creator without creation. There is no time, there is no life if there is no one who would feel it as existing.
If the world is something that manifests itself in our sensations, then it exists only relative to us. It has no form outside of us.
We do not know the source of this force. The light descends on me. I can identify this source only to the extent that I am like the light. Then I can say that the source probably has the same quality.
It is impossible to understand. For that, you need to change yourself.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Real History of the World” 1/21/12
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does anyone desire what is bad?“
We should first understand what is desire and what is bad about our desires. What is bad about our desires is that they control us and our intellect.
Desire—or to be more precise, the desire to receive—is our entire essence, and it wants to be filled with pleasure all the time.
What pleasure does it want to be filled with? It does not care, as long as it gets satiated, and so killing and stealing, and the exploitation, manipulation and abuse of others, could easily be what gives it its fulfillment. Positive altruistic actions could also fill our desires, but that is usually not the case.
In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this desire that enjoys at the expense of others and nature is called the “evil inclination.” It is evil in that it cannot take others into consideration.
This desire constantly bosses us around, making us cater to its demands, unaware that it is not actually us. It is a desire that exists in us like a virus or a germ, and it controls us.
We relate to it as if it were us, but it is not us. It controls us from within to our detriment because it makes us follow its demands when we ourselves would wish to develop differently. Instead, it leads us into all kinds of negative situations. For instance, even at the level of our basic health, our bodies wish to simply be healthy yet due to our desire for pleasure, many of us fill our bodies with all kinds of drugs, chemicals, alcohol and smoke in the name of pleasure that our desire constantly directs us to. It does not ask our permission, but it dictates to us what we seemingly want.
Eventually, via the accumulation of life experiences as well as various indirect supporting systems in the environments we encounter, a siren goes off in our intellect: “Wait a minute! What your desire is leading you to is not at all to your benefit!” It discerns that simply following the dictates of our desires has led us to all kinds of suffering and blows. In other words, the intellect emerges in order to balance out the desire to receive’s demands.
The desire belongs more to the animate level within us, whereas the intellect belongs more to our human level. The intellect is cold. It tells us what is right and wrong, but then it becomes difficult to activate in order to control our desires.
We can understand the difficulty of controlling our desire with our intellect from our childhood where our parents told us to be good kids and to study, but we only wanted to play and mess around. Later in life, we can say that our parents were right, but it does not help us at the time when we could have benefited from following their advice.
How can we, throughout our lives, the moment we have detrimental desires, control them with the intellect and balance them out?
Instead of having to live our lives in ways where we run after desires that constantly surface—which we end up paying for and regretting—the wisdom of Kabbalah offers an alternative: a method of reaching an experience of life where we realize our desires beneficially: balancing them out with our intellect in ways that lead to our optimal state.
Based on the video “What Is Bad about Our Desires?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: How can one overcome fear?
Answer: We can overcome fear only through friendship, by coming closer to others. Otherwise, it will overcome us more and more.
Question: What should one do about panic attacks?
Answer: It is possible to deal with them only if we create small societies in which people will support each other. This is the only way we can get rid of fears, illnesses, insomnia, and absolutely everything that imposes the anxiety of life on us.
Question: A person experiences mood swings and is afraid of everything that happens in his life: “What will happen to me tomorrow?” What kind of society does he need that will help him cope with this?
Answer: He must create a society where everyone would understand the need for friendship, cooperation, mutual support, and security. Otherwise, he will have to learn this for a very long time.
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From KabTV’s “Blitz Questions and Answers” 1/6/23
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Question: It is interesting that nothing happens in the present. At least for us. Everything we see, hear, feel, and think is a product of the past.
Since it takes time for the light to reach us, everything we see is in the past. Let us say it takes light eight minutes to get from the Sun to the Earth, so it turns out that we live in a picture where nothing is happening in the present, but everything has happened already. Do you agree with this statement?
Answer: Of course, it is a physical law of many minutes a ray of light travels from the Sun to the Earth.
Question: It is said that the light from the nearest star travels for four years to reach us. So what we see has actually already happened. If we talk about spiritual states, then all states are also predetermined and are revealed only in relation to us?
Answer: There is no speed in the spiritual world. Therefore, all situations and events that were, are, and will be, occur within us. All of them already exist, they are only revealed in relation to a person.
Question: For example, some kind of war, which should take place in a year, already exists in the making?
Answer: It exists and can happen. But whether it will happen depends also on our actions.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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Question: Why does time run faster with age? How does one explain this?
Answer: This is how it works. After all, it is all subjective and happens only relative to our feelings.
If we compare the life of a modern person, which lasts 70 to 80 years and a person who lived in the Middle Ages for only 30 to 35 years, then those 30 years would seem longer than 80 years for us because we have more opportunities to fill this time.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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The construction of the Temple means that the people of Israel created a state between them in which the Creator, the force of bestowal and love, was revealed to them. People existed in the form of this force, and their states were not of this world, but were spiritual ones.
At the same time, a new, more internal, egoistic degree developed unrelated to them, so-called Lev HaEven (the stony heart), which could not be corrected at the moment; it applies to the whole world. Therefore, they began to fall apart; i.e., they could not stay at the level of relationships of mutual bestowal and love.
Thus, they fell from this level of communication and connection, from the level of similarity to the Creator, and from such a height and ideal to a state of relative disunity with each other, which is called the second exile, i.e., Babylonian exile. It is described in the Prophets, in the Scroll of Esther (Megillat Esther), and in other books.
The people of Israel lived in this state for 70 years. The numbers “4”or “400” and “7” or “70” are conventional units of ascents or descents, like time or distance. Everything clearly operates according to the original formula: the creation of desire (egoism) by the quality of bestowal and love, called light, according to the four phases of direct light. This formula comes from here, and then its work extends to everything.
So, when the Jews fell from the level of the First Temple, they were in danger of completely forgetting where they were and what was happening to them, which meant they could become like other nations.
But at this time, spontaneous combustion again occurred when the stormy egoistic figure of Haman appeared, who, like a pharaoh, aroused in them the awareness of their condition. They did a great job working together in order to rise above the level of Haman, to kill this egoism in themselves, and thus rise to the next level, called the Second Temple.
There was no longer such bestowal and love as at the First Temple. If previously the level of “Love your neighbor as yourself” prevailed, under the Second Temple, the level of connection between the people was at the level of “Do not do to the other what is hateful to you.” It is this connection that is called the Temple; it is not the remains of the ruins in Jerusalem.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14
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Question: Were Jews recognized during the time they were in spiritual attainment? Was there any respect for wisdom?
Answer: There was respect, but only from the side of the greatest of this world: Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, such people who understood what it was about.
The Romans, being barbarians, did not understand the wisdom of Kabbalah, while the ancient Greeks partly learned it. In addition, there were many Eastern sages who came to study with the Jews. From there, all the eastern methods developed.
Basically, Kabbalah gave rise to Greek philosophy, science, and partly to the legislations of Roman law.
Nevertheless, the relations between the nations were normal. Each nation had its own attitude to life and to spirituality. No one bothered anyone. Only after Christianity and Islam emerged did all the problems, contradictions, subjugation, and religious wars begin.
The Greeks began to plant their religion in Israel, and there was a Maccabean revolt. But mostly it happened because of the Jews who themselves wanted to break away from Judaism and become Hellenists.
Meanwhile the Romans were barbarians who didn’t understand at all what they were talking about. They didn’t care who you worshiped or what your philosophy was. The main thing was to impose a certain system and collect taxes.
Question: Why do you call the Romans barbarians? In my opinion, it was only in their bottom layer.
Answer: That is what everyone calls them. But this is not a disparaging word. It just speaks of a certain philosophy of life or worldview.
The Romans mastered the tactics of fighting and constantly conquered new lands until, as usual, these lands conquered them. The same thing is happening in our time; first Europe conquered Africa and now Africa is flooding Europe. This is a common move; there is nothing new in this.
Question: What is this category of desires called Romans?
Answer: “Romans” is a very practical attitude to the world. Before the emergence of Christianity, they treated the world as an absolutely materialistic mechanism that works according to these laws. No problem whatsoever! If you want to make gods for yourself, do it, sculpt whoever you want. If you want a horse, make a horse to a god.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Respect for Jews” 1/21/12
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Question: When one of your students drops out of the group, what does he lose?
Answer: The general system suffers, and he suffers. But what can he do? Nothing. Like a child, you give him all the time, show him everything, teach him, and instruct him, but the time comes when he must take independent steps, and if he does not do them or does them wrong, then he must understand that he has already passed his childhood and youth and has grown up, that he has reached maturity and must now advance by himself.
At this stage he must be left alone; he will either advance on his own or not. In principle there is a group and an environment, and, as we know from articles about freewill and the environment, he must already behave consciously, independently, together with the rest, and try to create completely new states, both his own and others’.
Question: Should we leave a person to the mercy of fate? Where is the guideline here so that there is neither negative nor positive pressure on him?
Answer: If he comes to study in our group, then everything else depends on him.
Somehow he was sent from above, he found himself here; all possibilities are open before him—lessons, meetings, meals, and external events. Everything is there to come, study, and join in any activities of the group.
He must become included. There are people who are more sociable or less sociable; this is understandable. But all the same, he was given the importance of the goal and the opportunity to be a friend to all the other hundreds of people who are engaged in spiritual correction. He was brought here, and then he must act on his own.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. I Am Fed Up with Everything!” 5/31/14
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do most of the world and the UN dislike Israel?“
Israel exists in a kind of game, where no matter how much seeming good Israel brings to the world, with the many advances in science, technology, medicine and humanitarian aid, the world increasingly relates negatively to Israel.
We indeed need to receive blows and to be treated badly until we straighten ourselves out toward each other and toward our role in the world—to develop relations of unity above our differences and divisions. If we develop such relations, then the world’s attitude toward us would dramatically shift from negative to positive.
The rising antisemitism and negativity toward Israel can be likened to increasing pressure on a blockage in a pipe, in order to unblock it in order to let an abundance of delight and goodness flow into the world. Indeed, if we Jews positively connect with each other all around the world, then we would unblock that blockage and serve as a conduit of abundance to the world, and when everyone experiences unity, happiness and goodness, then the attitude toward us would shift to revering a people who bring unity, happiness and prosperity worldwide.
Based on the video “Why Is Israel Hated So Much Despite All the Seeming Good They Bring to the World?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: According to Kabbalah, time is the distance between cause and effect. The cause is man’s desire to enjoy. Without it, I do not perform any action. The effect is a direct filling, that is, reception.
After I perform some action and wait until I receive pleasure, a phenomenon called time appears. If my action brought me momentary pleasure, then there would be no time.
Even in our world there are such states. For example, in childhood when a child is playing soccer, time does not exist for him because at that moment he is enjoying it. If I go to work, earn some money, and wait until I get it and enjoy myself as a result, then time stretches.
My Response: Yes. Time is a purely psychological concept, and it does not exist as such.
The fact that we see all kinds of movement around us in nature and measure time by it has nothing to do with time. It has to do with movement. Movement or time are things that are not connected with each other. This is a special merit of Einstein that he demonstrated this to everyone.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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Question: A woman fell into a coma after an accident. The doctors said there was virtually no hope, that it might last a long time, maybe forever. For a while, her children and relatives were nearby, hoping for a miracle. As time went by, they lost faith and slowly disappeared. Only her husband stayed by her side and spoke to her all the time. After 11 months, she came out of the coma. The first thing she said to her husband was: “Thank you for being here with me and telling me these wonderful stories.”
What does a person hear with?
Answer: Clearly not with one’s ears. The vibrations that he and she feel is what they transmit to each other. There is such a resonance.
Question: So, he practically resuscitated her?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Question: Was it stronger than all the medical interventions? She must have been undergoing treatment.
Answer: Naturally.
Question: Can you hold a person this way if you focus on it?
Answer: I cannot say yes and always, but, as you can see…
Question: So you believe this story?
Answer: Undoubtedly. This may well be so.
Question: Can we conclude that we should never lose faith in our material insights?
Answer: As long as a person is in a comatose state, in a coma, we must of course make every effort to stay connected with him and keep awakening all kinds of responses in him.
Question: Where does a person, in this case the husband, get the strength
when he sees that in front of him is just a vegetative state? The person is not moving. Where did he get the strength to keep talking this way?
Answer: Out of nowhere. It was sent from above, that is all. He did not have it in him.
Question: So, he does not have such a steadfast faith?
Answer: No. It can happen to any person; he was cued from above, he acted on it, and it worked.
Question: Can we say that this was a result of his feelings for his wife? Can we say that love has something to do with it?
Answer: It is not necessarily what he felt before. It does not matter at all. It could be that at the very moment she was in that state something suddenly clicked inside him.
Question: And he carried her? As if holding her in his arms the whole time?
Answer: Yes. Was it 11 months?
Question: Yes. Doesn’t it shock you that she heard everything?
Answer: No, it does not shock me. Many people in a comatose state report knowing,
hearing, seeing, and so on.
Question: Can we conclude that where medicine fails strong spirit arises?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Can this be said even about diseases for which there is no cure?
Answer: It is true with any condition. In any state, as long as a person is still alive, you cannot lose hope, and you need to talk to him. To him and to the Creator.
Question: Was this a conversation with the Creator or not?
Answer: No, I think it was an ordinary person. But he really wanted this. There must have been something there, of course.
Question: But the Creator was present in all this?
Answer: Yes. Because this was an unusual situation.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/1/22
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Question: At which point in history did the Jews lose any sense of spirituality?
Answer: I think they had it until the 18th century. Then they completely lost it. Only a few knew about it and the rest did not. Baal Shem Tov tried to revive it, but only to the extent that it worked out. Then, closer to our time, spirituality completely disappeared from their sensations.
Question: You live in a country for which the Jews fought for a long time, and from which they were expelled. Can the past sense of spirituality wake up in those who now live here?
Answer: They will have to wake up! It does not matter in which way, but in the end they will still wake up.
I am not talking about what will happen between now and the moment they wake up. Maybe decades will pass during which they will need to go through all sorts of metamorphoses, but they must come together in the same way as they were in the past—as one man with one heart in a state of mutual guarantee, not only them, but all people in the world who feel the same need and understand that it is necessary.
All these people together will become the brain, the mind of humanity, which will lead all the rest, and will begin to shape them, invigorate, and enlighten them toward universal guarantee, until they reach “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
People are still obliged to come to this, otherwise they will not reach similarity with nature and they will lead themselves to destruction.
The law will still be observed, and the thought of the upper force will have to be realized; there is no doubt about it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What to Expect from the Jews?” 1/21/12
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Comment: The group requires absolute compliance to its rules and discipline, as this is the only way to salvation, is given and a characteristic of cults.
My Response: What does the way to salvation mean? We are not talking about salvation. We are talking about correction. In ordinary society, there is a salvation army or rescue from drowning. We, however, do not have such a word. We have correction.
Humanity must correct itself and get rid of its ego, then it will come to a good life. Until then, its ego itself will be “pushing it with a stick” to happiness.
We talk about it everywhere. By the way, the Torah and all religions talk about this. They all agree that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the main slogan of humanity. They just do not implement it. Kabbalah shows us how it can be implemented.
A cult is a closed organization with a clear, strict, and secret statute, which very cautiously lets people in and does not let anyone out. It has special norms of behavior associated with mysticism and some physical actions, like when people make self-sacrifice or self-restraint, etc.
There is absolutely no such thing in the Kabbalistic group. Everything is only within yourself and only regarding a friend, and then regarding the world with absolute kindness and love.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13
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Comment: During a lesson you said that it is wonderful when you do not have calculations with yourself.
My Response: Calculations should be only in relation to the group and in relation to humanity. What calculations can there be with yourself? This is included in the same system of deception, as if I exist, but no one exists except the Creator.
We create one single common Kli, Malchut, which must feel Him. Therefore, I have no personality. I am only an auxiliary element serving the global soul.
Question: A person does everything based on what is beneficial to him: “This is beneficial to me, and this is not.” Does a Kabbalist do the opposite: “How wonderful that I am not doing this for my own sake”?
Answer: Of course, a Kabbalist rejoices that he does everything for the sake of the Creator. Therefore, it is very important to tune ourselves up here. If your friends around you will think like that and go forward like that, what can be better than this?!
We must try to methodically, calmly, and gradually tune ourselves like an instrument. Months pass, maybe even several years, but all this time you should be making attempts to attune yourself.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Freedom from Myself” 2/15/14
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Question: Can you briefly explain the benefits of egoism? How did it lead us, and to what stage did we reach where it already became poison for us? Has it been helpful all this time?
Answer: Since ancient Babylon, egoism had to be remade. Abraham called for this, but no one could hear him then because there was no point in the heart in people. It wasn’t that it didn’t wake up, it wasn’t in them. It manifested itself only in a certain number of people, in those 10,000 to 20,000 Abraham took away from Babylon.
I give such figures because the great 12th century Kabbalist and philosopher Rambam, a researcher of the era of Abraham, writes in his writings that tens of thousands of people left Babylon with Abraham.
Abraham wanted to correct everyone, but it did not work out because only a few had the primordial point in the heart, the desire to rise above the corporeal level of existence.
We can say that initially it originated in only one person, Adam, and then through him it began to spread like a virus to others. For 20 generations it reached such a state where in Babylon, under Abraham, tens of thousands of people were infected with this spiritual virus. They joined Abraham and he led them away from Babylon. The rest of the Babylonians were left without this point.
As Abraham’s group was isolated from everyone, they developed it in themselves first under his leadership and then under the leadership of Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David.
This continued until the destruction of the Second Temple when they completely fell into the same state as all the other Babylonians who had spread and multiplied all over the world by that time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Evolution of Humanity” 11/16/13
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is there a risk of famine today? Why or why not?“
One of my students asked me about the possibility of global famine, citing a report where almost 90 percent of international food security and nutrition experts surveyed predicted that “without innovation and bold action, global hunger would continue to rise over the next decade.” It is indeed possible, and ancient Kabbalistic sources also state that in our era, we can reach states as horrible as mothers eating their own children. That is how severe it can become.
However, we should not relate to the idea of an impending famine simply in order to fill our storages and our barns with supplies. The fact that we can consider such terrible scenarios is in order for us to seriously concern ourselves with how to avoid such states in advance, and to learn about and deal with the base cause that brings about such crises.
If we investigate the core reason behind not just famine but any crisis that befalls us, then we will find that it is all due to imbalance in human relations, the fact that we are not behaving toward each other the way we should.
How should we behave toward each other?
We need to reach mutual understanding among each other, to establish ties that would help us reach a balanced state. Today, we are doing the contrary, regressing and thus rocking the boat we all share. The world thus naturally heads toward periods of famine and destruction.
The destruction that we can bring upon ourselves should very much frighten us so that we would change our attitudes to each other, and by doing so, change the world. That is the sole reason we can consider impending famine and other crises, and it is also the reason for our experience of crises and suffering in general: to bring about a shift in how we relate to each other, from negative to positive, egoistic to altruistic, and apathetic to mutually responsible.
What could be the catalyst for such a transformation?
I believe that there should be a leader that initiates and promotes it. Our world is tough without someone that human society would accept as their leader and follow, one who would discuss unification and how we could overcome famine and other crises. Of course, it would only work if people would listen to such a leader, and famine would emerge to open our ears to such a person.
Then, after a period of famine, we would be different. We would hold a different attitude to life and to its values. We would no longer underestimate the vast importance of our survival and what it means for us to survive in today’s trying times.
While there have been periods of great famine, wars and other crises in the past, today is fundamentally different because our current era is preparing us for mass awareness of the evil of our egoistic relations, which will spur in us the desire to change ourselves. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, such an awakening is called “the recognition of evil.” It takes an enormous amount of suffering for us to reach a state where we can sense our own nature as evil, to define it as such and to draw the necessary conclusions: that we need to put an end to our rat race of individuals competing against each other for material well-being, and shift to new positively-connected relations where we seek to benefit each other and nature, feeling ourselves as parts of an interdependent and interconnected whole where we each affect one another. We are still not there yet, but that time is nearing.
Based on the video “Is the World in Danger of Impending Famine?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Imagine that you are standing at a crossroads: If you go left, it is for your own sake, and if you go right, it is for the sake of the Creator. How can you choose the correct intention in order to go in the direction of bestowal?
We must yearn for bestowal and try to reach it by all means. Then the Creator will always correct us and teach us how to do it. The main thing is to act together with the friends and look for forms of connection between us that will give us a feeling of coming closer to the Creator.
Let’s create such a unity in which our inner connection will be able to reveal the form of the Creator, His quality, and His character to us. The more we move in this direction day by day, the better we will begin to understand who the Creator is and who we are, what distance separates us, and what we need to do in order to come a little closer to Him.
Every day, every moment when we yearn to connect, we must check whether the form of our connection is becoming more and more true, in mutual bestowal to each other. This is the very first exercise that The Zohar gives us: to connect in a ten and reach such mutual bestowal and mutual connection that approaches the form of the Shechinah.
This does not mean physical distance, but rather a feeling of inner, spiritual closeness.
But we are not required to reach this correct intention ourselves; the main thing is to search for it. The most important thing is the search, the questions, the inner regret that we are not able to come to it. From this, a prayer will be born that will help us reach the desired goal.
The Creator must arrange the desire for us, and He also arranges its fulfillment, the answer to it. We just need to be searching.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/11/23, “Zohar for All. Introduction of The Book of Zohar”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. Do we really practice this in the world today?“
We can realize the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself” in today’s world through education.
Education means filling our media, our schools, colleges, universities, and our cultures, i.e. literally everything that influences us, with examples and explanations of our need to achieve positive connections among us all.
If we do so, then there is hope of reaching positive social values and a whole, pleasant, good and perfect world. If not, then our constantly growing ego—the desire to receive that wishes to devour others and nature for self-benefit—pits us up against each other on a collision course to destruction.
We can understand the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself” similarly to how an ideal family functions. In the beginning of creation, we were a single family. Today, we need to realize ourselves as a single family among several billions of people, which is possible through regular learning of our interconnection and interdependence. We are currently like a family that grew up and lost their connection, and we need to bring them together to talk about it. That is what we need to do today in humanity.
Based on the video “How to Make ‘Love Your Neighbor as Yourself’ a Reality in Today’s World” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: Einstein proved that time depends on the speed of the observer. According to the scientist’s theory, time slows down for things that are in motion relative to other objects. What does Kabbalah say about the relativity of time?
Answer: Kabbalah does not speak about time at all. It says that time should be measured by our actions. The flow of our thoughts and actions, meaning the change of states, is time.
And states can be very fast or slow, whichever you like. We attribute our own subjective feelings to them and call it time.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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Question: Why have we not been able to create a time machine and move into the future so far? And no one got to us from there either, by the way. Could this mean that we have no future at all? How can we understand this?
Answer: I think that time does not exist, and all this is our purely subjective feelings. We must understand that regarding these feelings we have freedom of choice. It is up to us to choose the system of coordinates.
Question: Since you claim that time does not exist, does that mean that humanity cannot create a time machine?
Answer: It depends on which one. If you fly at a speed close to the speed of light, then, of course, you will change your attitude toward those who are not at this speed.
Question: Will it ever be possible to actually put your protein body into a time machine and fly into the period of dinosaurs or forward into the future?
Answer: No, because it has nothing to do with you. How would you move to a state in which you were playing with dinosaurs?
Comment: Suppose, some electrodes were connected to me.
My Response: But this can be done at any time, in any state.
In principle, the past exists in the same way as our current state, and we just need to move into it. And what does our current state mean? This is how we imagine it. That is, you want to say that you wish to imagine yourself in a completely different dimension.
Question: No, I just want to get into some kind of apparatus and fly away to 20 or 100 years ago, like they show in movies. Why is it not possible?
Answer: It cannot be, because it cannot be.
Comment: So, until we create such a machine, this probably cannot happen.
My Response: Not that it has not been created, it cannot be created. You can travel anywhere in time if you switch your brain.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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“One does not die with half one’s desire in one’s hand.” “He who has one hundred wants two hundred” (Baal HaSulam, “Wholeness in Life“).
Question: How can we understand this?
Answer: “He who has one hundred wants two hundred” means that we can never be fulfilled with what we have; we will always lack something. Even if we are lucky in filling our egoism with what we desire, our egoism will immediately give us a new task so that we get twice as much.
After having received twice as much, our egoism immediately puts the desire to get four times more before us. And so on. We are like a dog chasing its tail and trying to grab it all the time, but in vain.
Comment: Suppose I look at a rich person, and it seems to me that if I had at least 10% of what he has, I would be satisfied.
My Response: But the rich man is not happy. And you, after attaining what he has, would also be dissatisfied.
The essence of this is that our gains increase our egoistic desire. And so, one who wants a hundred and gets it, wants two hundred, and when he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred. And so on.
Comment: In principle, this is not so bad; there is something to strive for.
My Response: But at the same time you never have peace. Peace is the root of the Creator. On one hand, we want to be at peace, but our desire for pleasure does not provide it for us.
Comment: And it is still not bad. After all, when a person strives for something, he lives on future pleasures.
My Response: If this is within some kind of restrictive framework that gives him the opportunity to work, earn money, travel, have a good leisure time, and so on, then this is good because it fits into the general life of a man. But still, he is in constant anxiety.
After all, if he cannot always achieve what he wants, it causes him suffering.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/18/22
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It is impossible for the will to receive to appear in any essence, except in four phases, which are the four letters of HaVaYaH (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Inner Observation, Chapter 6).
Question: Why did the Creator create the desire to receive—creation—not at once but precisely through four phases of development?
Answer: The fact is that the Creator wanted the creation to be able to somehow generate itself, control itself, react to external influences, and even learn from previous or future generations.
It is impossible to create a creation in one go because in order to continue to develop it must be changing in its foundation. So from generation to generation it will constantly grow
If it were to be in a static state, it could be created with a single action. But this is a gradual process because creation must evolve all the time.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 8/14/22
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Comment: In everyday life, a person studies for 20 years while a Kabbalist studies all his life.
My Response: Learning is an endless process of absorption, absorbing the material and realizing it. This is an eternal process.
There is not much difference between the science of Kabbalah and all other sciences; it is just that Kabbalah recounts where everything comes from, which is something that other sciences explain partially based on what they have accumulated.
Question: When teaching people Kabbalah, how can one make it beneficial for a person to delve into the material all the time, to search all the time?
Answer: He must feel that Kabbalah speaks about his world, about a force that, as if, through a shell, a sphere, governs all of humanity, the entire universe, and him. It takes him from one state to another, induces thoughts and feelings in him like he is in a very interesting dream called “this world,” “this life.”
It is only necessary to present him the material in an interesting way, intrigue him, and show that he can wake up. He can see himself and everyone else sleeping from the outside because it only seems to them that they were born, live, and die. It is necessary to show that this is happening inside a person, in this dream of his, but in fact he should wake up to a completely different state.
It will happen. I am sure, I am an optimist.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. As Much as Required” 6/13/14
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Donkey Driver,” Item 115
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 50
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Selected Highlights
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does human nature work?“
Human nature is the desire to receive, also called “desire to enjoy,” and it functions by receiving what is beneficial to itself and rejecting what is harmful. Everything in our lives is built upon this calculation where we first try to distance ourselves from harm, and then seek how to draw ourselves closer to what is beneficial.
Human nature also includes a multilayering of systems that work simultaneously on still, vegetative, animate and human levels. One of those systems is our bodily one, which operates involuntarily. If our bodies are healthy, then they know what is good for them and draw that goodness to themselves. After the bodily system, there is the emotional system, which also functions relatively according to instinct. From the emotional system, we move to the mind, and from the mind to the intellect, and so on. That is, we have systems over systems that concurrently work on receiving what is beneficial and rejecting what is harmful.
Such is human nature and the essence of our lives. Our every desire, thought and action operates according to the calculation, “How can we receive what is most beneficial to us and reject what is harmful?”
Based on the video “How Human Nature Works” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Nitzah Mazoz. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Listen to an Audio Version of the BlogDownload:MP3 Audio
https://cdn.kabbalahmedia.info/4YJoXA50.mp3
For this reason, any expanding light consists of four phases in the impression on the vessel (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 6, Item 24).
Question: Where did the four phases come from if there were only two discernments in the light?
Answer: Yes, but we always receive four from two discernments. The second one comes out from the first, then this second, which wants to be like the previous one, makes a third one from itself, and the third, which wishes to implement this change, becomes the fourth one. This is where it ends.
This is HaVaYaH, the four-letter name of the Creator Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey. This is the way He is manifested. And only the very last stage is considered creation.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/1/23
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Question: When spouses are just starting to live together, according to biological processes, hormones support their relationship for the first three years. It is believed that after three years, hormones stop working, and a cooling occurs between a man and a woman, nothing holds them further. Does it come from nature?
Answer: Probably. In past centuries, it may have been different, but nowadays they say that it is, especially on the part of a man.
Maybe from the woman’s side, I do not know. Usually a woman gets used to a man. I don’t think she wants to change everything so much. Today, it is also a little different for women, but still not in the same way as for men.
Question: It’s not a fact that someone wants to change something, it’s just a question that there is no longer a physical factor that holds them back. How can spouses overcome this and continue to live normally?
Answer: Now is a special time—the time of correcting selfishness. And if the spouses are not engaged in its correction, they will not be able to coexist together.
There will be more and more divorces until there are no families left at all. People will converge for a day or two, for a year or two, and disperse. Children will be born not clear from whom and where. The world will come to this because a person will not be able to cope with selfishness if he does not begin to correct it.
And for the sake of correction, you will live with one woman because you will feel that you are kindred spirits with her and it is with her that you can correct yourself. And then all physical problems or cooling will be invisible because in your physical union with her you will feel spiritual unity, and then there will be no problems.
The world is coming to this. And now we are living in a transitional period when there is no such marriage as before, but there is also no new state of marriage as it should be.
But a person will be like that. He will live only in order to improve spiritually, to rise, to feel a higher state, but in no case to remain in this world and this life. Otherwise, there is no point. Otherwise, people will commit suicide, use drugs, and terrible things will happen in the world.
Comment: In principle, such a connection should ideally be.
My Response: No, not at all ideally. A person will feel spiritual needs above the base, earthly ones because in his eyes it will not be worth spending his life on them. We will survive this state.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Preserve Love” 12/19/13
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The three developmental stages of the Jewish people are symbolically called the forefathers—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or the right, middle and left lines. Sometime after leaving Babylon, this society needed additional development, which can only happen when greater egoism is revealed, is corrected, and it is risen above even more.
In the past, Abraham pondered how the absolute quality of love and bestowal could be reached. Later, he revealed this problem and found the solution: there needs to be a constant growth of egoism above which his group, this small nation, will keep rising.
Therefore, the next stage of development required an increase in egoism within this group and the revelation of its second stage (the first was revealed in Babylon), over which they needed to rise.
But it is not that simple. At first, egoism grows and everyone takes it well, falls into it, and begins to work with it. That is, all kinds of selfish motives dominate, influence, and subdue people. They try to rise above them by adhering to the same methodology, the ideology of Abraham, to unite and care for each other rather than for themselves, as much as possible.
The Torah (Bible) mentions this struggle, about the nation going through the Egyptian states, how they fought among themselves and together against their ego, against the Pharaoh, the new level of egoism that continually broke out between them.
Abraham’s group was in Egypt for 210 years. This is a conditional measurement of units of time, just like the four stages of direct light at the foundation for the four-letter name of the Creator, that is, a formula in which there are always four components of successively developing stages.
Therefore, the egoism that manifested in them consisted of four stages, and the time of the Egyptian exile it was called 400 years. In fact, it lasted 210 years (conventional units), and the remaining exiles fell to 190 years.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14
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Question: How does a person’s involvement in the internal processes of the group help him accelerate his progress and even, perhaps, go through spiritual states more painlessly?
Answer: When a person is engaged in materials that speak about the next level of the world, then from there, from that level, the surrounding light shines on him. He gets a little charge.
By being engaged in connection with his friends, he prepares the conditions for the influence of that same surrounding light on him. The most important thing is to work with light, meaning with your next level. To the extent that he aspires to it in study, in connection with friends, in disseminating it, in inspiration, in exalting it, from there the upper light shines on him the quality of bestowal that reigns at that level.
It is in this quality of bestowal that a person begins to rise above the virtues that he has at the moment. This is the principle of spiritual ascent—to attract the quality of the upper level, the radiance of the upper light.
Question: What happens if a person cannot find himself in this system?
Answer: He leaves this method and will return to it no one knows when. He will be given the same awakening again, only the external conditions will be much worse with problems, wars, and sufferings that will help him overcome the difference between the stage he is on and the next one, i.e., between today’s egoistic quality and the next, future, altruistic one.
Question: Have some of us already experienced this separation; have we repeatedly come and departed from this method?
Answer: I don’t know, maybe. Someday you will know, although it doesn’t matter. What is the difference, because when a person is in this method, he is immersed in it. If he goes forward, then he goes; if not, then no. It still does not convince him whether he was already in it or not. It is like he has been reborn every time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Seven Years of Abundance and the Seven Years of Famine” 4/15/14
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In spiritual work, what is this narrow keyhole into which a key must be inserted?
The definition of “narrow” means a lack of Hasadim (mercy). If I have managed to make up for this lack, then I am ready to unlock this lock.
The whole path in front of us is a lock. At every step we need to match a certain key to it, i.e., the quality of bestowal, in order to reveal more and more and thus move toward the goal.
At each stage we reveal ourselves more and more and manifest an increasing quality of bestowal in ourselves, and thus we approach the Creator. And for this we need to find the key that exactly matches the lock.
The lock that hides the quality of bestowal from us is a group, and the key is the relationship in this group, the connection and love between friends. A person should disconnect from himself and stick to ten friends. Ten for me is a spiritual Kli. If I reformat myself correctly to get inside this Kli, I will open the lock with a key and get through to the Creator.
I need to find the key, study it, try to adapt it to the lock, and find out how to insert the key into the keyhole and how to turn it. When I have the strength to turn the key in the lock, I can unlock it.
Just remember that when inserting the key into the lock, you need to keep a very strong connection with your friends. If I connect with my friends and annul myself more and more, then eventually I will be able to insert the key into the keyhole in order to be ready to turn it.
But in order to turn the key in the lock, I need to turn to the Creator and ask Him for the strength to open this lock.
There are three stages of work: adjust yourself to the lock as a suitable key, then enter the lock, and finally unlock the lock.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/1/23, Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Lock and Key”
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Question: There is such a thing as shame in our world. How is the concept of shame, which Baal HaSulam writes about in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, related to the shame that we are familiar with?
Answer: The shame mentioned in Kabbalah arises when a person feels oneself to be the opposite of the Creator. In the world opposite to the Creator, a person feels incongruity with Him, and this is called shame.
The Creator is absolute bestowal. I want to be like Him, but I see that I can’t and I am ashamed. Just like in our world, I want to be like some great man and I am ashamed that I cannot become like him.
Question: Does spiritual shame remain or does it disappear?
Answer: Gradually, as you approach the Creator in your properties, shame disappears.
Comment: It seems that the closer you are to the Creator, the more you realize how opposite you are to Him.
My Response: If you are approaching the Creator in terms of properties, then why should you be ashamed?
Shame is a separate creation of the Creator. The Creator created shame in humans so that we would feel different from the Creator. Thanks to shame, we develop.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22
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Kabbalah & WomenAn insight into women’s inner quest and spiritual developmentHow can a woman tell whether she is yearning for psychological or spiritual fulfillment?
A woman who is looking for spirituality feels that her fulfillment comes from something higher than this life. She has a different kind of desire. She may have a husband and children, a family and a home. All this may give her warmth, but her yearning for spirituality is on a totally different level.It has nothing to do with this world. It is a desire from the “point in the heart,” as Kabbalah calls it. It means that on top of all the physical and human desires, such as food, sex, family, money, power and knowledge, suddenly a new desire awakens in a person. This desire is beyond our world, and it appears both in men and in women.
It was always very common for men. Throughout history, many men embarked on spiritual quests. As for women, we see it only recently. And this search is definitely much more than looking for psychological fulfillment in family or social life.
Therefore, a woman can certainly study the wisdom of Kabbalah, even though it wasn’t the case earlier.
Comment: In the classification of cults there is a condition that the teaching of the group is considered the only true eternal knowledge.
My Response: Do ordinary Judaism, Christianity in all its manifestations and parts, Islam, Hinduism and other movements not think so? So, everything in the world is a cult.
Question: Why do people call something a cult when it is beneficial for them, and something else is either teaching, or wisdom, or religion?
Answer: But they are people! What do you expect from them? They use what is beneficial for them, convenient for them, and raises them above the rest. It is like politics: Today I need to scold someone, so I scold; tomorrow I need to praise him, so I praise him. We do whatever is beneficial for us. This is genuine human nature.
If you do not study Kabbalah, then not understanding how a person is arranged can, of course, irritate you. But when you study Kabbalah, you understand that a person cannot do it any other way, this is how he is arranged, and this is how he must act because egoism compels him.
Therefore, I am in no way offended by anyone who slanders me; such is their nature until they begin to correct themselves. When they finally come to this knowledge, they will see how wrong they were.
I will be happy to teach those that hate me today, and in no case will I remember anything hateful they used to say about me. This is how we are arranged from the very beginning, and we must turn evil into a good inclination. For this we have been given Kabbalah. To the extent that a good inclination, altruism, and the qualities of bestowal and love are formed in us, we begin to feel the upper world, the upper system of governance.
If people do not feel this, then what opinion can they form about Kabbalah and about me? Naturally, anything goes, the main thing is to denigrate, to slander, because by this they somehow justify themselves. It is very difficult for a person to live without justifying himself; it does not even make sense for him to exist. Therefore, all his actions are aimed only at raising himself or lowering others.
I have no complaints about them; they just work according to their nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13
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Question: In some movements they promote not pondering over the group’s teachings. The members say: “It’s impossible to explain, come to us, you have to experience this.”
Answer: That is correct. There are things that you can’t appreciate from afar, even music, until you get used to it, understand it, receive explanations, and get trained. This is the same as culture that teaches a person how to perceive paintings, sounds, dancing, and ballet.
If they take you now to the opera, for example, you will run away from there, because you have a clip-perception. And here in front of you on stage for two or three hours, they will be singing about love, and you will be admiring and crying. You must be ready for this.
Comment: Often such misunderstanding is used as criticism.
My Response: Of course there will be criticism. How is it possible not to criticize what I don’t understand? It is easiest to say: “Ah, it’s worthless, empty.”
Personally I have no complaints about such people. They are just shallow, small people who, without being able to figure something out, talk about it.
Likewise, the lyrics philosophize about physics. But they have nonetheless the opportunity to ask around and understand something in an easy way, but this is impossible in Kabbalah. In Kabbalah, you must see it and feel it, because this attainment is not from our world, not in our senses. We do not have adequate perceptions about what we feel when we acquire spiritual sense organs.
That is why I have a problem explaining this to a person. My parents asked, “What are you doing anyway?” I couldn’t explain it to them.
I am engaged in Kabbalah.
What is this?
This is the science that speaks about the upper world.
And what is the upper world? Is it the world we get after death?
We get nowhere after death.
Where do the souls reside?
Souls don’t reside anywhere, there is no place.
Where then is the upper world?
And it doesn’t exist until I create it with my changed qualities.
“It looks like our child skidded off somewhere. It’s a pity, he gave such hope both for science and business. He gave up science, then opened his own business. Quit business and went somewhere into Kabbalah, and really got enslaved with Kabbalah,” my parents said and they left for Canada.
That is all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13
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The center of the group is not in any of the members of the group, but only between all of them. If we all tried to unite with each other in such a way as to feel everyone together as one single whole, this would be the center of the group, the point of complete connection between us.
Question: In order to concentrate in the center of the group during a workshop, do we need to depict this state you have described to ourselves?
Answer: Yes, of course. After all, when we connect, everyone’s personal “I” disappears, and “We” remains instead of “I.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Where is the Center of the Group?” 5/14/14
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The wisdom of Kabbalah is all about bringing people together.
Human connection holds primary importance in the method, and becoming a Kabbalist means becoming an expert in positive human connection.
For instance, I understand every person I have ever spoken to, and I have spoken to thousands of people. I find in each person some part of them in me. It could be an enemy, an antisemite, a Nazi, a drunk, someone very coarse, a thief or a mobster. I find the same qualities that they have in me. It is not that I am a complete thief that dedicates their life to robberies, but that quality exists in me.
I have to let others feel that I understand them. And it could even be the most terrible criminal: I have to show them that I understand them, that I can somewhat step into their shoes, understand where they come from, and justify that I would turn out the same way given the conditions that they went through. When you relate to a part of other people in you, you can then easily talk to anyone.
Show me any person in the world who I am not included in? We learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah, whether you like it or not, from the very top to the very bottom and in all directions, that you are an integral part of all the souls. Likewise, you include all the opinions and discernments of the souls. Other people should then feel that inclusion when they talk to you.
Based on the video “Does Kabbalah Help People Get Along?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why the Russia-China Axis Is Unlikely to Pose a Threat to the West”
The evident warming relationship between Russia and China has been causing some concern in the West. Also, some media outlets relate to the alliance between the two powers as an asset to China in its struggle against the US for world domination.
Additionally, Iran’s surprise status as a major arms provider to the exhausted Russia has added another partner to the alliance, a partner whose animosity toward humanism, and indeed toward anyone who is not a Shiite Muslim, is unsettling for many. Considering also that there is North Korea with its warm relations with China, and warming relations with Russia, the picture becomes even bleaker.
I am not saying that we should not be worried over what might materialize from such a quadrilateral alliance. I think we need to take whatever measures necessary to prevent the axis from taking shape. At the same time, I think that such an axis is unlikely. Even if it does materialize, at the moment, Russia is too exhausted to pose a threat, and its forces have been thinned down by local wars it has been conducting over the past several years. For this reason, I do not believe it is in a position to face the West.
Besides, over the past year, and especially since the start of the war in Ukraine, the United States and Europe have become much stronger. They realized that they had no choice but to boost their military capabilities, and they acted accordingly. In a sense, the war in Ukraine has benefited the Western bloc compared to the Eastern bloc.
There is another tactic that the West is using against Russia: its own pride. Russia could have gained a great deal, economically and otherwise, if it chose to make concessions in Ukraine in return for favors and support from the West. However, its pride will not let it do this, so it will continue to fight until there is nothing left of its military. The only ones who will gain from this extended slaughter is the West.
As for China, it is unlikely to sever its ties with the West. It has too much to lose, and it is too dependent on the West’s purchasing power to risk its ties with Europe and (mainly) with the US. Although it appears robust, China is currently in a precarious situation having suffered economic setbacks following the zero Covid policy, and now the out-of-control outbreak of the virus. China will continue to maintain good connections with Russia, which provides it with cheap gas, but it will not stretch the rope with its Western business partners too tight. In short, it will continue sitting on the fence.
In my view, the most likely scenario is that the tug-of-war between Russia and the US will continue until either the US or Israel move to unseat the Iranian regime. Without Iran, Russia has nothing more to offer in Ukraine; it has exhausted its military options, its manpower, and its firepower. As a result, without Iran, it would have very few options for continuing its assaults in Ukraine.
In such a state, if the Iranian fanatic Shiite regime comes down, Russia’s supply of suicide drones will dry out, and its main assault weapon against Ukrainian infrastructure facilities will no longer be available. Surprisingly, therefore, a move in Iran could signal the end of the war in Ukraine.
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The more uncorrected our vessels of reception, the more we cannot open our mouths to receive His abundance, for fear of disparity of form, as in “One who eats that which is not one’s own, is afraid to look upon one’s face” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 5, Item 22).
If I do not become similar to the Creator, then eventually, I constantly lose.
Without acting like the Creator, I am immersed in a sense of shame that belittles me, presses me to the ground, and explains how insignificant I am.
I feel ashamed that I am not similar to the Creator, that I am the opposite of Him.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/18/22
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But “The righteous in their land will inherit twofold.” …Not only do they attain the perfection of the pleasures and a variety of possessions, they also acquire the equivalence of form with their Maker. Thus, they come to true adhesion and are also at rest since the abundance comes to them by itself, without any movement or effort (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 21).
We are talking about those people who understand how to receive fulfillment. Therefore, Kabbalah is called the wisdom of fulfillment, the wisdom of reception. If we can receive fulfillment correctly, we can receive everything we want, and, having achieved this, we will be at rest.
Baal HaSulam writes that a person learns not only to enjoy correctly, but also receives an equivalence of form with his maker. That is, these are two types of pleasure, when he receives pleasure both from being similar to the Creator and from being filled with what the Creator gives.
Question: What pleasures does the Creator give? What can we enjoy?
Answer: Being like the Creator. This is the highest pleasure. In this case, a person is filled with constant, absolute pleasure and does not feel any need.
Question: If there is such a technology, and it has existed for several thousand years, then why has no one revealed it and advertised it?
Answer: Because it is against our nature. Even when we advertise it, we do not see that people are eager to learn it. Our goal is absolute fulfillment. But it is reached by the fact that a person must rise above his egoism, and we do not agree with this.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/18/22
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Question: Irina writes: “I have not become a mother yet, but I really want to be. I see how mothers bring their children to our classes. I am a dancing teacher myself. I see how the kids are cleanly dressed, how their mothers admire them. And then I see the news, how men, still boys, kill each other. And I do not understand why? Why were there all these classes, clean shirts, matinees, and school? Why? How should one educate, love, and warm a person so that he does not want any wars and would not want to kill anyone?”
Answer: I understand this young girl. But I do not know how to answer her, except for one thing. At the core of human nature is egoism, which brutalizes, kills, and does everything to destroy us. We need to declare war on this egoism. How to do this is the most important thing.
Kabbalah teaches this. Let’s master this science together and destroy egoism. I have nothing more to say except for these compulsory words. But you will learn everything else from our courses, lectures, classes, and books.
Question: Is it possible to do this at the degree of our world with agreements with some kind of economic sanctions?
Answer: That is worthless!
Question: Will humanity be convinced of this?
Answer: Humanity must reveal that its nature, egoism, is evil. And that is why it cannot do anything good, no good will come out of it. So, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
Question: So those barbaric wars that happened, are they going to be just as barbaric in future?
Answer: Even more barbaric.
Question: And the fact that man becomes more cultured, more knowledgeable?
Answer: All this will only be to his detriment. This is because egoism invents everything: all sciences, arts, techniques, and technologies.
Question: Does no spirituality enter into man?
Answer: No. Spirituality is love for one’s neighbor without any reason.
Question: And we cannot come to this through technical progress?
Answer: No, of course not.
Question: How will humanity understand this?
Answer: It will understand either through light or through suffering. There are two ways. And now they are beginning to open up to us.
Question: But are they both paths that somehow lead to the same path?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So one can be so long, lengthy, and the second is more direct and clearer?
Answer: Yes. Let’s hope that we will see it all somehow. At least the beginning of it.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/27/22
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Kabbalah & WomenAn insight into women’s inner quest and spiritual developmentNature obligates both women and men to attain spirituality while still living in this world.
Women, by nature, are so involved with concerns of daily life that they sometimes wonder if it’s possible to reach spirituality. Kabbalah explains that both men and women – whether consciously or by force – need to attain their spiritual root, from which they descended into our world and acquired a material form.During our existence on this planet, whether in this life or in the next one, we all need to attain our spiritual root and exist simultaneously in both worlds as one.
The sooner we do so, the better, simpler and happier our lives will be. The more we balk from this path, the greater suffering we will undergo, like a stubborn child, who resists his parents’ will, but at the end is forced to do what is required of him.
Our spiritual root is our goal, which we must attain. Kabbalah helps us recognize this root and the purpose of our existence on earth.
As soon as we discover this, we begin to gradually harmonize ourselves with the goal and our life immediately becomes far more stable, peaceful, and secure.
The four stages of transition from one level to another are mandatory according to the condition of the ten Sefirot or the four-letter name of the Creator Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey. The Creator is the entire nature, its four levels of development, and the transition from the previous state to the next one. And so it is between all steps and within each step.
If there is a transition, it must necessarily go through these four, even in the smallest stages of development.
Therefore, there are four states of development, moving forward. The first is a partial exit from the absolute animal state to the human level. Man is a movement toward solidarity, connection, the property of bestowal and love, but still in its initial state.
So it was under Abraham when he led 5,000 people out of Babylon and organized his first Kabbalistic society. That is, this was a spiritual society in which people treated each other as equals although all of them were different, and everyone cared only about each other and society but not about themselves. In principle, this was their ideal.
Upon this basis Abraham led those who were ready to advance toward this ideal out of Babylon.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. History of the Jewish People” 5/4/14
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Question: Suppose your student expresses some Kabbalistic thought in words, and someone else says a similar thing. Could it be identical?
Answer: First, my student speaks about Kabbalah based on the connection through the group with the upper source, with the next degree. Second, when he utters those words, those who are under his influence, whether they feel it or not, receive a special influence from him.
The huge difference between people who speak, teach, and perform is that either this is a person who is only within our world, a smart guy, or someone who is a pipe connected to the upper world and carrying through upper energy into our world.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Conductor of Spiritual Energy” 4/12/14
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Are there any advantages/ benefits to living under a dictatorship?“
In the Soviet Union, people were made hungry and forced to work, otherwise they would be taken to work in concentration camps in Siberia.
People had nothing to do but struggle to realize their life’s bare essentials to survive. That is, the conditions were set for people to engage in and think only about their essentials.
In other words, such a system lowers human beings to the level of animals so that people become easier to control. There are several examples where rulers generate such conditions in order to make societies live like animals, constantly struggling to meet their basic needs. We then become preoccupied with being safe, secure and comfortable, with no lofty aspirations.
If we are relieved from the pressure just to sustain our physical existence, then we immediately start demanding more. We further develop and can no longer tolerate pressure from the ruling systems.
Then, we encounter another problem: How will we act when we can further develop?
Since we are egoists by nature, where we each prioritize self-benefit over benefiting others and nature, then our further development means becoming more sophisticated egoists. We develop increasingly refined tools of trying to satisfy ourselves with no real consideration of others, failing to pay attention to the accelerated path to self-destruction that we pave. In that regard, dictatorship is preferable because it places clear boundaries around society, relating to people like robots moving around a machine.
Therefore, in order to realize our additional freedom in a way that does not lead us to destruction, but to benefiting us all, we need to couple our increased freedom with an upgrade in our education. In other words, we need a higher level of understanding throughout society on how today’s tightly interdependent world is completely different to the world of the past, and how to balance our attitudes with today’s globally-interdependent conditions in order to bring about a harmonious and peaceful change.
We can then change our behavior from being animals to being human beings, knowing how to grow, and using our additional freedom to grow as human beings.
Based on the video “The Key to Prosperous Human Development: Learning How to Use Freedom for Growth” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
This singular thought … is the operator, like the force that operates in the operated. This is because what is merely a thought in Him is a binding law in the created beings. Because He contemplated delighting us, it necessarily occurred in us that we receive His good abundance (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 5, Item 22).
Comment: In principle, everything is not so bad, and we are destined to succeed.
My Response: We are destined to succeed but through a very long way of recognizing our nature and correcting it.
Nevertheless, if He intended to delight us and created in us the will to receive the pleasure that He gives, then we will one hundred percent come to this state.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/18/22
Question: We are on the eve of the new year. Why, when there is a change of year, do people feel some kind of excitement and fulfillment? What is the root of this phenomenon? After all, we know that there is no time in spirituality. Why do people perceive it this way?
Answer: Firstly, there is no corporeal time in spirituality, and there is no spiritual time in corporeality. Therefore, it is not easy to talk about time.
In principle, the concept of time is quite complex. On one hand, this is connected to the coordinates we are in, against what and how we measure time and whether it exists at all. Is it purely our subjective inner feelings or is it really some kind of constant that dictates the course of our existence to us all the time? All this is not simple.
However, the fact that people get excited when the year changes is a common phenomenon that has nothing to do with spiritual roots.
The beginning of times, the end of times, and some kind of times, they of course do exist. But the “New Year” itself was adopted by people only in order to have some kind of reference point.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/25/22
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Comment: According to the classification of sects, it states: “The world is headed for disaster, and only the group knows how to save it.”
My Response: Not just the group but also the Kabbalists who have described it in their books. Therefore, you can turn not to us but to those who wrote it: Rav Kook, Baal HaSulam, Agra, Ari, Rashbi in The Book of Zohar, and so on. This is also written in the Prophets with reference to our time.
Moreover, there are documents that you cannot evade at all. But people turn a blind eye to them saying: “They do not understand anything, they are mystics, a sect.” But it will pass, I assure you. We have no other choice but to keep going and gradually eradicate this antagonism toward Kabbalah among people.
Kabbalah is anti-egoistic, and therefore, it turns out that it is against every person, against their nature. How can one take it when it is the most hated subject, the most despised teaching, that constantly tells him: “You have to change, constantly do this and that.” And you do not want to do these things.
I understand these people because I tell them they have to do something against their desires.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13
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Question: Do the letters that The Zohar talks about express the types of connection between us?
Answer: Of course! Only the connection between us! Without the connection between souls, the authors of The Zohar would not have been able to attain anything. Everything is attained in the network of connections between us.
What do we attain? Forces of bestowal. The totality of these forces of bestowal is called the Creator (Bo-Re, Come and See), which we reveal in the connection between us; it is the quality of bestowal and love.
If we attain this in the form of forces, then this is our desire, a vessel for revealing the light. If we attain an impression in it, the light, then this is the Creator, the light that is revealed in a vessel, in a desire. Other than that, there is nothing.
Everything we read in The Zohar or in all the books of Kabbalists is just the impressions of a person, a Kabbalist, from his attainment of the force of bestowal within his desires, according to the equivalence of qualities. He tells us about his desires, about the force that he attained, about his impression, that he explained in such an external form.
It is possible to express it in music, songs, and beautiful words, or it can be explained in the language of Kabbalah, Talmud, or legends. But ultimately the Kabbalists explain their attainments to us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/11, The Book of Zohar, “Truma (Donation),” “A Persimmon and a Sedan Chair”
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Kabbalah & WomenAn insight into women’s inner quest and spiritual developmentA lack of fulfillment in women has a spiritual root, and can be satisfied only by spirituality.
It is no secret that in our world, women suffer more than men. Every woman, be it a queen or a tribal woman in Africa, is somewhat dissatisfied with her life; she has some difficulty, feels dependent, or is somehow unfulfilled. She wants more warmth and love; she longs for more sympathy and support.It is not that the world is built this way. This inner lack of fulfillment is embedded in woman’s nature, and since the reason lies in spirituality, it can be resolved only by spirituality. A woman will never be fully satisfied or fulfilled except by spiritual attainment.
We see how much deeper a woman’s lack is as compared to that of a man in our world. A man derives pleasure just by looking at a woman. What woman derives pleasure by simply looking at a man? A man has multiple pleasures: football, women, beer, TV and adventures. A woman wants something deeper than that.
Kabbalah explains why our world is built this way. It says that in spirituality, the woman is the one who feels the lack of fulfillment first. She only needs to formulate it correctly and use it to propel a man to reach the spiritual goal, draw the Light from Above and bring it to her.
Presently, we don’t fully understand how it all works. But our task is to follow the recommendations of the Kabbalists and let them open our eyes. We will then see how this great lack that the Creator has given to women in this world – her despair and anxiety, her lack of satisfaction, support, security, lack of warmth and love – how all this can be used in a purposeful way to achieve the spiritual goal. It is from there that the Light comes and fills all the lacks that a woman feels.
Question: How in a moment of hatred for everything can you come to the state of recognizing that it comes from the Creator?
Answer: The Creator precisely gives you this condition. He is not obviously doing it slightly but shows Himself. He must show you hatred, frustration, and failure, so that you can build an opposite attitude toward Him above it: “All this egoism is put in front of me, and now I will be against it, You are deliberately setting me up like this.”
Question: And how can you deceive your egoism and play this game?
Answer: There is no need to cheat. You just walk despite egoism, because that is how the Creator makes it for you.
Question: For example, the Creator presents someone as an object of irritation. How does one treat him at this moment?
Answer: Look at it as a challenge from the Creator. He challenges you: “Well, let me see how you’re going to act now. Can you, despite this phenomenon, relate to Me as the Good Who Does Good or not?” And you must cope with these phenomena, interact with it, but internally your work should be exactly like this.
Question: As a Kabbalist who understands how to work with the system, do you have a different perception than the students? That is, you can somehow do this already at a different level?
Answer: I have the same job, only even more difficult. The Creator presents me with such problems every day that there is simply nowhere to go, we must react to them very quickly and correctly. That is how we live.
Question: That is, some dirty tricks are constantly coming, no matter how ready you are?
Answer: It is not a trick, it is out of love, to give you the opportunity to build a sense of the Creator in yourself. And it is built precisely by rising above these contradictions.
Question: But you can evaluate some negative impact only later when you have already passed this condition. Is it the same with you?
Answer: You fall into this state for a long time, and you cannot get out of it until the Creator, by His mercy, forgives you for not being able to do anything, and pulls you out by the ear.
And I am in this work all the time, not forgetting that “There is none else besides Him,” who is absolutely good. Pictures that are the opposite of this constantly arise in me because my egoism, my nature inverts them, and I must invert them back and thus build a reverse action on my egoism. This will be called the screen and reflected light.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Overcome Yourself” 2/15/14
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some tips for getting the most out of any conversation?“
Even though you think that a person is wrong, tell them the contrary, that you agree with them.
This is a tip that we can learn from hunting animals. A hunting tactic is to show the animal that you have something it is interested in, and then you catch it. This is a male instinct from ancient times.
Showing agreement, understanding and identification with a person’s life opens them up to you. It is not like boxing where they open up to you and then you punch them. But you prepare them to not hold any prejudices against you, and that they will open the windows of their mind and will gradually start listening to you. When they feel that you agree with them, then it helps to awaken the thought that they too need to change their opinion, even if just a little bit—unlike how it originally appeared to them—and then you enter a common opinion.
It is important to note that the principle here is not to let that person feel that you understand them, that you are in their situation, and that you agree with what they say in order to gradually say what is important to you and to draw them to your direction. No. Around 90 percent of the time, when you talk to another person, you should talk to them on their turf.
Based on the video “How to Let Others Open Up to You” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Harli Marten on Unsplash.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do Israelis think of Israeli reporters being boycotted and ignored by Arab fans in the Qatar World Cup?“
Recently at the Qatar World Cup, Israeli reporters experienced strong hostility due to their connection to Israel, which surprised them.
For instance, there was a situation where a Qatari approached an Israeli reporter and told them, “I’d want to tell you welcome, but you’re really not welcome. Get out of here as soon as you can.”
People from all over the world came to Qatar and were greeted with smiles and hugs; and the Israelis were treated terribly. Israelis thought that the recently-signed Abraham Accords with some of the Gulf countries would bring some moderation, but instead the same hatred revealed itself.
Indeed, we will be hated until we become more like Abraham, or in other words, until we show the world that we truly want peace, that we have a tendency toward peace, and that our goal is to bring peace, wholeness and tranquility to the world.
Today, Israel is viewed as a threat to world peace. It is because we indeed have the ability to turn the world to war or peace, and peace depends on us uniting above our differences. Until there will be peace among Jews, there will be no peace in the world, and people will increasingly point the finger of blame on the Jewish people, that we are the ones causing various wars and conflicts.
It has nothing to do with Israel’s foreign relations, i.e. how Israel treats other nations like the Palestinians, but it solely depends on our inner relations. If we treat each other favorably, like good neighbors, within Israel, then our positive relations will extend a heatwave of connection throughout the world. If we currently held such an attitude toward each other, then our reporters would have instead enjoyed a warm and friendly welcome at the Qatar World Cup.
Based on the video “Israeli Reporters Shunned at the Qatar World Cup – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: William Shatner, now 91, played Captain Kirk in the hit series Star Trek. Shatner really flew into space a year ago as a tourist, he was 90 years old then. He hoped that this would be an ultimate catharsis, that he would understand the harmony of the universe. Instead he said that he discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, but is down here, with all of us. He said it changed his view of life’s values and that we shouldn’t dream of any flights to Mars, but should dream of uniting people. He discovered that to him to live means to love others, which is the whole harmony of the universe.
Is it necessary to gradually launch all of humanity out there so that they can take a look?
My Response: I do not know. It is he whose eyes opened.
Question: How can a person nowadays, in this difficult time of war, hatred, and so on, get to the opposite?
Answer: Disappointment brings the opposite. We need to reach disappointment with the notion that we can do something with force and hatred. We must get to this.
Question: But the world has always been ruled by money and power. How will we get there if power and money rule this world?
Answer: When we see that we can achieve nothing good, eternal, and kind either with money or by force, then we will begin to search and reveal that everything is attained only through attraction and love.
Question: And this will be the conclusion?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And if there are a huge number of weapons in the world, and a huge amount of money is printed, if this all is here, will we follow this terrible path?
Answer: I think it is already over. I would like to believe.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/27/22
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Question: In light of recent events, Vera writes this short letter: “I would like very much to talk about the Creator, the cosmos, the world, and the inner state of a person, but there is war outside the window.”
How can a person in this situation think about the Creator, about connection, and about peace, when there is war around him?
Answer: It is said very simply: “Do not judge another until you find yourself in his place.” Therefore, I cannot talk about such conditions. Although I was in the army, it was not the same.
Question: When a person is in a state of grief, when a person is in trouble, perhaps not even because of war, how can he cope with it? Give us at least a few steps.
Answer: Just open our books and, in the state he is in, simply read and grasp what is said in Kabbalah.
This will bring a person closer to the truth, correct him, fill him with upper energy, give him greater confidence, disconnect him from corporeal problems that he wants to solve by corporeal methods, and give him the opportunity to think about the way to solve them in real way.
Question: If there is war outside the window or somewhere around there is war, can our books still help a person?
Answer: Naturally. They are the only ones that can help because when a person reads them, he invites, invokes, and attracts upon himself the upper energy, the light of the Creator, and it lifts him up, saves him, shelters him, and protects him.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/22/22
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Kabbalah & RelationshipsTips on how to build successful relationships based on the spiritual principles and understanding of our natureOur ego is the snake that prevents us from being able to love someone else.
The meaning behind the story of Adam, Eve and the snake is actually very simple. The snake represents the ego that became revealed between Adam and Eve, the man and the woman. And that’s really all there is to the story.
For example, suppose that a happy, young couple falls in love. They hug, kiss and laugh together, go to the movies and the beach. Then they get married and begin living together, and everything is wonderful. They’re in the Garden of Eden.
And suddenly—the snake (the ego) arrives. They suddenly begin arguing. Then they begin taking advantage of each other and making private calculations, such as “How can I get him or her to be the way I want them to be?” This happens to us because the snake (the ego that’s inside us) prevents us from being able to love someone else, and makes sure that our love is egoistic from the start.
Under these circumstances, the closest we can come to love is to surrender our egos in day to day life as much as we can. However, this still doesn’t solve the problem at the root, and does not enable us to experience real, unconditional love. This is where Kabbalah offers another solution: to correct our soul at the root, or to correct the snake that separates us from our partners.
To do this, both partners must realize that there is a goal to their lives that’s above this world. Then they will also realize that they can only attain it by having a partner in life, someone who will go through the spiritual path together with them. This is the meaning of the verse, “Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them.” It means that in order for us to attain the Divine presence, spirituality, we must connect with each other correctly.
Then, instead of taking advantage of each other, Adam and Eve will complete each other. And the snake, instead of driving them apart, will become the driving force that pushes them to reveal the Upper Force – the Divine Presence, or the Creator.
Kabbalah on EducationKabbalah comes to the rescue to today’s education and parenting crisisSibling jealousy is a natural reaction of egoism.
After the birth of a younger sibling, an older child often becomes bad-tempered. He hates a new baby, feels envy toward it, and even tries to hurt it.Thisis a natural reaction of egoism. Parents may try to explain to a younger child how they would like him to behave, but it’s impossible to demand a correct reaction from him. It’s written, “Educate a lad according to his path.” This means that parents have to compensate their elder child for his new position in the family, so that he feels that a good attitude towards the newborn is advantageous for him.
When a younger child is born, a mother feels excited that the family has become larger. An elder child should feel the same. How? For instance, he can receive a present “from” a younger sibling. That is, a child should see that a new baby allows him to derive something positive for his egoism. Otherwise the elder sibling will hate the younger one, as he senses that his mother’s attention is switched to the baby, everyone takes care of it, and not him.
In previous generations, sibling jealousy probably wasn’t so acute, because people lived in more modest conditions, or elder children had more friends with whom they could play and thus paid less attention to their younger siblings. But today, parents need to fulfill the desires of the elder children, showing them that they receive something good thanks to a newborn baby in the family.
Comment: The workshop has an interesting feature. At the moment of its implementation, a person seems to come to some kind of understanding, feels inspired, feels encouraged, and the next day it all disappears.
My Response: It does not matter. Even if it has disappeared from a person, it is still his. Nothing disappears in spiritual development. It is just that something has disappeared at the moment because new egoism has been added.
Nothing ever goes backward, only forward. If something is washed out of your memory, it is because a new, still uncorrected, egoistic mass comes that obscures your previous spiritual attainments.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Cal. Why Workshops Are Needed” 4/5/14
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Question: How does a person relate to the personal opinions of everyone in the group? How important is it to express your opinion?
Answer: What personal opinion can there be? No one has any opinion of their own. My only opinion is that I support the group in its advancement toward the Creator, and by this I support all my friends. My opinion is my contribution to the common yearning to come closer to the Creator. That is it. What else can there be?
There is one single force of bestowal and love in the world, and I need to strive for it. If I am against this, things will get worse. Moreover, the opposition is completely unwise. Neither my freewill nor my special criticality or individuality are manifested by it.
“No, I want to be against the Creator!”
“What do you mean ‘against’? What is the rationality of your action? Why are you against Him?”
“Because I want to be an evil force!”
The evil force is also Him, just like the good force. The adhesion with the Creator is simply an understanding that there is nothing else. Whether you are for Him or against Him, you will still be with Him. Therefore, we do not have any options.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Personal Opinions” 12/28/13
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you tame people?“
Animals can be tamed through positive and negative stimuli. People can be tamed similarly if they are lowered to the degree of animals. If we constantly hold such an influence over people, without letting them develop beyond such stimuli, always holding them under positive or negative influences, then they feel nothing more than those influences. We then provide people with no means of self-criticism but only to run away from the bad and move toward the good. People then become lowered to the degree of animals and behave accordingly.
If, however, we give people freedom from positive and negative pressures, then we provide the possibility of further mental and emotional development.
We can see throughout history that there were periods of slavery, and periods where people fought just to meet their basic needs. Their only problem was how to get food and a roof over their head. However, human progress led to them becoming more capable, providing themselves with food, heat, shelter, family and even a society where they looked out for each other. Then emerged the opportunity to care for their inner fulfillment, and to feel the need to fulfill an additional “something.” They developed arts, music and literature, and this emergence of a new spiritual yearning marked the beginnings of the human being.
Human beings are much more than creatures that simply respond to positive or negative stimuli. We also grow from within, and there is a certain level that our inner growth can reach.
Likewise, it is incorrect to give children incentives for positive behavior and to punish them for negative behavior. We see that even with various prizes and punishments, we cannot prevent children from developing in their own individual ways. One child wants something, and another child wants something else, and they do not really care about how we guide or direct them—through prizes or pressure toward something else. We all have a need to express ourselves.
Based on the video “Can You Tell the Human from the Animal?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Tal Mandelbaum. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Listen to an Audio Version of the BlogDownload:MP3 Audio
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American scientists have made a breakthrough in the research of the process of controlled thermonuclear fusion. For more than 60 years scientists have been struggling with this problem trying to reproduce in the laboratory the nuclear reaction that naturally occurs on the Sun and other stars.
Thermonuclear fusion is a process directly opposite to nuclear fission, which is used in atomic bomb explosions. If such a synthesis becomes controlled, it will open unique opportunities for creating practically inexhaustible and environmentally friendly energy sources that do not produce harmful emissions of carbon dioxide or radioactive waste.
Experts say that one glass of liquid hydrogen—used as fuel for thermonuclear fusion—can provide a house with energy for several hundred years. It is assumed that poor countries will be able to receive virtually free energy in any quantity.
Of course, if this discovery comes to practical use, it will be a great gift to humanity. However, we have seen many times in the past that such great discoveries do not benefit men. There are many people who earn money by burning oil and gas, and therefore, they are not interested in such a discovery.
They will not want to give humanity such a big gift in the form of an unlimited source of energy. Therefore, I do not think that such a revolution in the energy sector can happen before humanity corrects itself for the benefit of the entire world.
There is no doubt that all suppliers of conventional fossil fuels that produce energy today will obstruct this process by all means.
We can talk about it only after the correction of humanity. But then we will no longer need thermonuclear fusion because we will connect with the source of upper energy, which operates in a completely different way. Then we will have no problem with energy, we will draw it simply from nothing.
There can be no success in the practical use of such a source of super-energy like controlled nuclear fusion until humanity succeeds in connecting with each other correctly.
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From KabTV’s “Writers Meeting” 12/13/22
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It is known that profusion of movement pains man, for it is an indirect extension from His essence. However, it is also impossible to remain devoid of possessions and good, for this, too, is in contrast with the root, since the root is filled abundantly. Hence, we choose the torment of movement in order to acquire filling with possessions.
However, because all their possessions and property are for themselves alone, and “he who has a hundred wants two hundred,” it follows that “One does not die with half one’s wishes in one’s hand.” Thus, they suffer from both sides: from the pain of increased motion, and from the pain of deficiency of possessions. (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 21)
Our egoism, that is, our nature, is arranged in such a way that we want to be either in complete rest or to be filled with what we lack. Our entire life is practically in looking how we can be filled with what we desire.
Here we always have two options: either to remain at rest or to enter a movement that leads us to fulfillment. And if you have already decided to move, then you should clearly see the goal in front of you.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/18/22
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Kabbalah & RelationshipsTips on how to build successful relationships based on the spiritual principles and understanding of our natureThe spiritual root of sex is the soul’s unity with the Creator.
In the spiritual world, the soul is united with the Light, and this union is called Zivug—coupling. It constitutes the unification of two parts of creation—male and female, and is the greatest pleasure that can ever be—the soul being filled by the Light of the Creator.
This spiritual coupling also has a branch or copy in the physical world, the world of matter. This is why we are so preoccupied with sex—it is the ultimate pleasure in this world, and the root of all of our desires in this world.
Sex is the basis of all our thoughts, because its root is the soul’s union with the Creator. This union is the final goal of Nature, and everything that happens in the world is determined by the final goal. This is why we just can’t avoid thinking about sex. Our attraction to the opposite sex and to pleasure also come from this final state – the adhesion with the Creator, called “Zivug” (never-ending sexual union).
The pleasure we feel from sex is a perfect example of the difference between physical and spiritual pleasure. We spend so much time and effort thinking about sex, and we imagine that it will give us enormous pleasure, but in fact our pleasure vanishes into thin air the minute we reach the peak of sexual satisfaction. Before we really had time to enjoy this feeling, it is over and we find ourselves once again striving for another moment of pleasure.
This is what happens in our world, because the pleasure that fills the desire immediately neutralizes it. No longer having the desire, we stop feeling pleasure. It leaves us feeling empty, and as life goes on, this emptiness only grows bigger. This is why it is written, “One leaves the world with half his cravings unfulfilled.”
Spiritual pleasure works very differently because being in spirituality means having the ability to receive the Light with the intention of giving pleasure to the Creator, to the One who gives you the Light. Hence, in spirituality, coupling or sex is continuous and eternal, and it only grows stronger all the time. As a result, one feels eternal life and perfect fulfillment that constantly gets bigger. Obviously, this is very different from the pleasure we feel in our world, where we can only feel momentary pleasure followed by emptiness.
This is why it is written that ever since people fell from the spiritual world into our world, only those who attain the spiritual world still feel the real taste of copulation. The true, spiritual pleasure is attained when two opposite parts of creation—male and female—merge together and are filled by the common Light.
Subconsciously, in our souls, we all desire this coupling because we were created for it. On some level, we all aspire to feel the spiritual world because it is the only place where we will find true, lasting pleasure.
“Because the will to receive is not in our root, we feel shame and intolerance in it. Our sages wrote that in order to correct this, He has “prepared” for us labor in Torah and Mitzvot in this world, to invert the will to receive into a desire to bestow” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 20).
Everything that is not included in the desire to enjoy causes us impatience and difficulties. All this does not exist in the Creator; therefore, it is perceived by us as undesirable. And we suffer from this.
Question: Does it mean that we feel shame and intolerance because this does not exist in our root?
Answer: Yes. By feeling our dissimilarity to the Creator, we, accordingly, experience negative feelings.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22
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The need and necessity for the long cascading to this world will be explained below, that this great labor of turning the form of reception into the form of bestowal can only be conceived in this world (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 20).
Question: What is this state called our world, and how come the form of bestowal can only be acquired from it?
Answer: On one hand our world is the lowest of the worlds; it is very distant from the qualities of the Creator, the qualities of bestowal, and exists completely in the quality of reception. On the other hand, by using a mechanism called the Torah, that is, the upper light, which comes to us and makes it possible to acquire the quality of bestowal, we can gradually rise from the quality of reception to the quality of bestowal and thus come closer to the Creator.
Question: But why specifically from the state of our world? What is so special about it?
Answer: Our world is opposite to the upper world, opposite to the Creator. While we exist in it, we can act the way the quality of reception dictates to us. Then, gradually we acquire also the qualities of bestowal. First, we acquire the quality of receiving in order to receive, and then receiving in order to bestow. Thus, we become equivalent to the Creator.
Our world is a special state where we exist only in reception, initially not understanding what real, absolute bestowal is. It is from the opposite state that we can understand what it is. But first we need to fully understand what reception is.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22
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Question: What was your attitude toward Rabash? Was it as a son to a father, that he is a close, dear person to you? Or was it more a feeling that over the years of study you must take everything from him to pass on? What prevailed: the attitude of the son to the father or the student to the teacher?
Answer: Of course, the son. There was a very serious, very clear sense of relationship between us. He felt that my house was his home. My wife cooked for him, washed his clothes, and knitted things for him. It was a very close relationship.
When I first came to him, one evening before classes I saw that his students were passing a letter of Baal HaSulam from hand to hand. It was an article that was later included in the collection “Shamati.”
When I asked him, “Where do I get it and how do I understand it?”, he replied: “The most important thing for you is to achieve the study of “peh el peh” (mouth to mouth).”
For a long time I didn’t understand what these words meant. That is, I heard that this is supposedly a state of study, but I didn’t know what it was, what it is like. Later I realized that “peh el peh” is a single soul when a student adapts to the teacher in everything.
It is very difficult to come to this because there are huge counter forces. It is not just like in a calm atmosphere—we are together and that is it. This is working against huge interference
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10
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Question: Any book leaves a person with a set of impressions. As one reads, a person’s imagination soars and depicts all kinds of things.
You said Kabbalistic books leave the same impression on different people. Did I understand correctly that they give such a clear imprint of certain states that fantasy has no place here?
Answer: Of course not. On the contrary, when a person begins to study Kabbalah all sorts of fantasies gradually disappear, a person becomes very grounded, engages in science, and understands that he exists in a system of forces, and he needs to learn to interact with them.
The more we advance and study man, the less we fantasize. What fantasies?! These are all kinds of electric fields in our brain that affect our biological forms. At the same time, some chemicals get released that also interact with each other, and so on.
That is, there are no feelings. There will be feelings, but only when they become independent of matter. After all, being given something to smell, for example, will produce certain sensations. This shows how much our feelings depend on the processes that occur in us.
While we must rise above these processes with pure logic. Pure logic—after the restriction (screen and reflected light), when I come into contact with the one upper force, with all my strength and scrutiny, and start working together with it on the basis called Zivug de haka’a (coupling).
On one hand, the coupling is a rejection because I reject my ego, but do not discard it, I do not destroy it, but simply push it away to connect with the upper force. And to the extent that I can include my ego, that is, my correctly aimed desires, I include them.
This is a very exact science, there are no sentiments in Kabbalah. It contains precise laws, formulas, forces, and their mutual rapprochement and distancing, and how by connecting with each other at different levels, they form all kinds of shapes: right and left lines. This way, certain feelings are evoked but only to control this process.
We rise from one sensation to another until we begin to feel the Creator. But all these feelings are not in us, not in our ego, but in the quality of bestowal that we develop in ourselves. It is an upper reasoning that is not based on our feelings because feelings come after reason.
First, the mind evolves, which develops self-control, understanding of all actions, and only after that does a feeling from you emerge. This is a completely different level of existence—beyond our present nature.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Recommended Books” 12/12/13
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Question: How can students ask questions so as not to distract everyone from the lesson?
Answer: Students should ask on the topic, what they are desperate for, and for more clarification about the material we are studying. Moreover, asking questions is optional when they need to clarify something.
Even if they do not have such an urgent need, but they understand that this question is now appropriate, then they should ask.
And it will help me to explain. Maybe I myself did not feel that it was necessary to scrutinize more here. We have to work together.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13
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Comment: Let’s say you start a dialogue with a student and can talk with him for an hour. You say that this is for the benefit of the group.
My Response: It is not him I am talking to. What does he have to do with it? He only awakens this topic, this desire, but this is not he himself, and I am, in a way, answering not to him.
I am talking about the group, about the Creator, about the world, about correction, connection, integrity, and about the way to bring it all to one common system in which the entire universe will be revealed to all of humanity. What does the student have to do with it? It is just that the required awakening came through him, and he voiced a question to which I should give an answer.
I do not look at the student at all. Through him, a question comes to me from somewhere, from the general thought of creation, from the common system. I now need to adjust this system a little, to twist a couple of resistors, a capacitor, a coil, an oscillating circuit, and make some adjustments. This is what I am doing.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 12/21/13
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Today the world is in such a state that it is preoccupied with itself and needs to sort out what is happening with it.
When with every day there are more and more destitute, and in developed countries, when all kinds of groups rise ready to destroy everything and everyone even for unknown and incomprehensible reasons, then the main historical currents and all kinds of ideological streams are being obscured.
Moreover, it happening everywhere and is developing more and more every day. What is happening in every country today is virally transmitted to other countries, which are having corresponding problems.
And it moves not only spontaneously, but also intentionally, with the help of all kinds of technologies. We know that. The world is moving toward a state where problems will be everywhere.
Through them, people will begin to understand each other more. And then it will nevertheless be easier for them to make decisions; everyone has the same disaster, the same problems. Each, based on what he feels inside himself, will understand the other better; otherwise, “the one who is full does not understand the hungry.”
By suffering from the same problems, we will no longer look down on each other, but from on our common problem. And although it is not common, but simply the same for everyone, based on this, we will think of it as a common problem, and this will unite us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Land of Israel” 12/16/13
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Any receiver of a present is ashamed when receiving it due to the disparity of form from the Root since the root does not have that form of reception.
In order to correct this, He created this world where the soul comes and clothes a body. Through engagement in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] in order to bring contentment to his Maker, the soul’s vessels of reception are inverted into vessels of bestowal (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 20).
With the help of the mechanism of Torah and Mitzvot [commandments], we evoke the light upon ourselves, and it changes our intentions from reception to bestowal. This brings us closer to the Creator, and then shame disappears.
Question: Why?
Answer: If we become similar to Him, where would shame come from?
Question: But nevertheless, the Creator remains the giver and we are receivers. Why does shame disappear?
Answer: If you transform the will to receive into receiving for the sake of bestowal, then you become a giver, and you do not have any feeling of shame. On the contrary, you experience a feeling of pride.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22
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Question: Alexander writes: “There has been no good news at all in recent months. I can see from my family, relatives, and friends how they turn off empathy. They just do not look at anything, do not listen, and do not start conversations if they are dangerous for their peace of mind. And I understand them. A person cannot live in stress all the time. But if we stop worrying and empathizing, what do we become? What are we turning into? What will happen to us, to the world? Please explain.”
Answer: I think the world is beginning to see the light. The world is beginning to realize where it has driven itself or where it has allowed itself to be driven. And I think next year will be a year of real epiphany. The turning point. When even America and especially Europe will change.
Comment: Everyone is awaiting the next year with horror, with great fear.
My Response: On the contrary, I believe that this will be the year of awakening, the realization that there definitely cannot be a nuclear war. And there can be no war at all. We have already seen this, and we are seeing it now. In general, we have reached a good finale.
Question: But Alexander asks about empathy: will we lose it or will we not lose it? What will happen to it, to empathy?
Answer: No empathy is needed. We must just understand that we have to do everything to give the world the right idea of what is good and what is bad. Everyone should realize that no one has the right to raise their hand against each other. No one has the right to threaten with force. That is when we will see the real world.
Question: What feelings will prevail in humanity, in men, in this new world to which you are going? What will a person think about?
Answer: A person will think only about one thing: how to develop in the direction of good, how he can show kindness to everyone.
Comment: I want it so much! And it seems that it is so far away.
My Response: No. They will come to this, of course. We have nowhere to go. But we need to talk about it more. And try to make it come true faster.
Question: But this point of goodness, connection, and so on, can it awaken in a person in whom it did not exist? He, on the contrary, was completely different, he was a hawk. Can this point manifest itself in him?
Answer: He will get this feeling that this is the way humanity should live.
Question: Where does it come from to him—to such a person?
Answer: From the environment. Through the air.
Question: He will wake up one day, there will be a snap, and he will say: “How did I live?”
Answer: Yes. That there is no other way to live. That you can only live by giving, as it is no longer possible to prove to people that you will not achieve anything by “With a stick to happiness.”
Comment: It usually happens like this: when you try to pressure someone, humiliate someone, it comes back to you like a boomerang, and then a person starts to think. But you are saying that it is also possible in a different way. It is possible that there will suddenly be such a revolution in a person.
My Response: I think there is a very strong accumulation of all kinds of negative feelings in humanity, and they should eventually give their result.
Question: Will they change? Will they become the exact opposite?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: God willing!
My Response: We must have hope!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/3/22
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Question: Why are family workshops or workshops for people who know each other well much stronger than for random people?
Answer: Because people who are interested and mutually connected take part in them. In such circles, there is a complex structure of relationships: between friends, between girlfriends, between spouses, also between interactions of couples, and between the general relationship in a group, in a community.
There are a lot of levels and different systems of relationships and styles; that is why it is very interesting. All this jumps from level to level: personal, family, social, and spiritual relationships, and so on.
We can see amazing combinations between the five degrees that exist in nature: animal, human, emotional, and so on, according to Maslow’s pyramid. Meaning both psychological and Kabbalistic.
Question: Is it worth letting people without a partner into such events?
Answer: No, then there will be no synergy, only with similarity so that everyone experiences the same opportunities.
Moreover, if you put several friendly couples with a couple who is in a bad relationship, you will see that it will come out of there like “God’s little dandelion.” The rest will show an example of their interaction so that they will have to get closer to each other.
I have seen it, how they come out holding hands and they could not look at each other before. And this happens literally in thirty to forty minutes.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Family Happiness” 12/7/13
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Symbols of Tradition Becoming Symbols of Disobedience”
Traditional and religious holidays in Israel are usually times of national unity. These days, Israel is celebrating Hanukkah, a holiday whose essence is the triumph of the Jewish spirit of unity over the Hellenistic spirit of exalting the self. Yet, precisely now, prominent elements in Israel’s society, including the (still) incumbent prime minister, are calling for civil disobedience to protest the policy of the newly elected government before it has even been sworn in, and they are doing it by advancing displays of Christian symbols instead of, or more conspicuously than the Hanukkah Menorah. Despite being a primarily political initiative, this disobedience symbolizes the level of division spreading in the nation, and a divided Israel is a short-lived Israel.
Not only politicians and opinion leaders are pushing for prominence of Christian symbols over Hanukkah symbols in Israel. Santa Claus, elves, deer, and of course, the Christmas tree can be seen in some shopping malls in Israel, and no trace of the Menorah. Universities also place large Christmas trees at the entrance to some of the buildings, either with a small Menorah next to it, or with none at all. Even the Tel-Aviv municipality has asked visitors to its Facebook page which holiday they like better, Christmas or Hanukkah.
Having different political agendas and maintaining diversity of views are the essence of democracy. It is a precondition for the advancement and development of society. Countries that maintain diverse opinions thrive, while countries that allow only one narrative to dominate, whether from the Right or from the Left, become degenerate and sink.
In the case of Israel, diversity is not only a matter of evolution or devolution. For Israel, smothering diversity poses an existential threat.
The essence of the Israeli nation is unity above diversity. The ancient Israelites came from many nations, held different ideas about everything, and were very adamant people. When they came across Abraham’s teachings (or those of his descendants Isaac and Jacob), they learned that if they do not suppress other people’s views, but unite with them despite the differences, they form a bond that makes them stronger and wiser than any biological nation. When enough people had adopted that principle of uniting without suppressing disputes and disagreements, they became a nation, the nation of Israel.
When they were united, their differences complemented one another creating a tapestry of views that did not exist in any other nation. The unity that they had had to form in order to maintain their nationhood above such diversity had to be that much stronger than any other nation.
Nature, too, consists of complementary opposites; this is what makes creation harmonious and evolving. When the people of Israel were united, they were just like the rest of nature, harmonious and evolving, and that was the secret of the success of the ancient Israeli nation.
But when the people of Israel were not united, they immediately split back into the many nations from which they came. This is why when Israel are divided, they strive to assimilate among the nations and not remain Israelis or even Jewish.
However, Israel cannot afford to lose its unity and vanish altogether. The whole purpose of the existence of the Israeli nation is to demonstrate that unity above division is possible, and that it creates a thriving society. If people do not realize that diversity must be nurtured and embraced, they will be embroiled in eternal conflicts, and humanity will destroy itself.
If Israel does not practice unity above division, it disintegrates. At that time, the world hates the Jews for advancing conflict instead of peace. However, it does not blame us because we pit countries against each other, but because the fact that we do not present an alternative to conflict forces the world to engage in the only solution it sees: eternal war. And it blames Israel for it.
Only when Israelis learn that their challengers from within are not their enemies, but their partners to the task of setting an example, they will be able to unite above their contradictions. Until then, Israel and the world can only expect strife and conflict to keep building up.*
For more on this topic, read my books The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, and Like a Bundle of Reeds*.
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In the News (This Is Finland): “‘Finnish Reading Dogs Help Kids Learn and Grow’
“’Reading dogs’ are no ordinary canines. Reading out loud to a dog can give kids confidence, improve their skills and contribute to their creativity. …
“Reading to a dog can be a highly rewarding experience for kids in need of reading practice. ‘The idea is to encourage children with reading difficulties to read aloud,’ …. ‘Dogs will listen contentedly to a child, not caring if the reader makes mistakes or only reads slowly.’
“Kids who read to dogs experience a sense of fulfilment that boosts the children’s self-esteem and encourages them to pick up books more readily in future. …
“’Some children may normally be hyperactive in the classroom, but when they read to a dog, they calm down,’ she says. ‘They understand that they are the ones in control of the situation, and that they must consider the needs of the listener. They also learn to be empathic and interactive. And when they read carefully, they notice that they can actually read quite well after all.’”
My Response: Of course.
Question: Other countries are now adopting this.
How can we become like these dogs—tolerant of the mistakes of others?
Answer: No, this is very difficult. Only animals can do that. Animals have much more patience compared to us.
Question: What is stopping us? After all, we are intolerant even of our loved ones.
Answer: Egoistic desires!
There is inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature. The difference between animate and human nature is huge, and therefore a person has such desires and passions that cannot be compared with animals. An animal just stands on the side of the road. Cows graze.
Question: Why was this point of impatience, this evil, embedded in us?
Answer: In order for us to do a lot in our lifetime. For us to raise this desire even more, higher and higher, up to the level of the Creator.
Question: What desire?
Answer: Desire for everything.
Question: To raise all these egoistic desires to the Creator?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What is the highest desire? To what extent will we grow from this point of impatience for others?
Answer: To want the Creator with the greatest passion.
Question: Does He want this?
Answer: Yes, that is exactly what He wants.
Question: Does He want us to have a passion for Him?
Answer: Yes. “Return, O children of Israel, to the Lord Your God.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/1/22
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Question: It is said that the Creator has prepared the application of efforts in the Torah and the commandments for us in this world to turn the desire to receive into the desire to bestow. How can we understand this?
Answer: There is a tool with which we can change ourselves from receivers to givers so that we strive to give to another, and not receive from him. This is due to the influence of the Torah and the commandments on us.
The Torah and the commandments are a mechanism that affects us and changes us from recipients to bestowers.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22
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Comment: I am hosting the program “Portraits” in which people tell how they came to the wisdom of Kabbalah, what sufferings they went through, and how they suddenly felt that they had found what they were looking for. Everyone is touched. A person cries and is not ashamed of tears.
My Response: It is because the surrounding light (Ohr Makif) is greater than our Kli (vessel). When it overwhelms you, it causes the state of infancy (Katnut), as we call it. The light shines, but there is no place for it to enter. This is when tears appear, and they drip like the release when something excessive is released from the body.
Tears are also shed in spirituality because you cannot contain this feeling, this shock inside you. This is why tears in Hebrew are called “dmaot,” from the word “dam,” blood. Internality is blood, externality is tears. After all, the feeling that something huge is in front of you overwhelms you. The same thing happens at all the degrees!
Question: Why is it said that tears are the state of smallness (Katnut)?
Answer: Because there is no vessel.
The state of smallness is when you cannot fit into yourself the whole great light that is before you. Then the light comes out in the form of tears. There is no other way you can respond to this huge influence on you.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10
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Comment: In the show “Dialogues about Kabbalah,” you said that at some point the student and the teacher become like one blood vessel.
My Response: Yes, of course. In principle, the teacher exists for the sake of the student. This is unequivocal.
What are parents for? They give birth to children, raise them, and die. The next generation gives birth, raises children and dies.
Everything exists for a specific purpose.
This goal does not exist at the level of our world. The goal is higher than our world, in the souls.
Naturally, it is the same in the spiritual world, not a single degree exists for its own sake. Everything exists only for the sake of reaching the final state, the ultimate goal: adhesion of all souls with the Creator.
Therefore, the whole life of the teacher is aimed only at preparing the student.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10
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Question: What kind of gifts should we give to a friend?
Answer: Show him such signs of attention that he understands that you are doing this for the sake of advancing with him to the Creator, to rise together with him.
It can be any kind of gift, expensive or cheap, small, just some kind of token of attention, completely immaterial and insubstantial. It does not matter.
Question: What is the best gift for you?
Answer: I do not need anything material. There is nothing that I would like. The best thing is when the student understands what kind of work I want to see from him and performs it. This is all.
Question: Should he get feedback that this is exactly what you need?
Answer: Yes, I will tell him.
Question: But can you tell him the exact opposite so that the person will not be proud?
Answer: As a rule, I say that I really need it, and I am not lying or flirting. He should be next to me, feel, or even ask me when I need something, for example, to translate something, put together or correct something from the material that the world needs. Nothing else!
If a student wants to please me, he himself must succeed in his advancement, which means to be a teacher, organize groups, and engage in dissemination.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Best Gift for Laitman” 12/21/13
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Question: How do we know when and what question we can ask you?
Answer: It is impossible! To do this, you need to understand what state I am in, what can be revealed, what cannot be revealed, and so on. The answers to the questions are given in accordance with the needs of society, general and personal ones, the needs of individual groups, the world group, and the entirety of humanity.
All this changes like water in a raging sea, it flows and moves in different directions. Everything is unpredictable.
Comment: It sometimes happens that one can prepare for a lesson and just go through the questions. But when we adjust to your condition, the answer can be much more effective.
My Response: Of course. But do not buy me by saying that you can adjust to me, and you will be effective, and so on. To do this, you need to feel what I feel, and be in the same state, direction, rhythm, and movement. Then you will feel that now is the time to ask a question.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you cope with anxiety?“
One of my students told me that when he discussed his anxieties with someone close to him, like his wife or a close friend, then he found that the moment he started opening up to them, the anxiety decreased—even before he received any advice or support.
Togetherness definitely decreases anxiety. There is a saying in the wisdom of Kabbalah that “a sorrow shared is a sorrow halved,” i.e. when we share a sensation, we divide it up, and it in turn becomes more manageable.
Since it is quite easy to see how sharing our experiences lessens our negative feelings, the question is why do we not use this ability more? Why is it so hard for us to share our anxieties with others?
We are indeed afraid of opening our hearts, letting everyone see that we have certain fears and anxieties. In addition to whatever anxieties we hold within, we usually have additional anxieties about sharing them with others, that it might cause others to perceive us as weak. Since society in general values stronger, smarter, wealthier and fitter individuals, opening up our anxieties to such a society makes us vulnerable to exploitation. We thus need to seek a social environment that would not exploit us for opening up, but would rather give us a sense of faith and confidence that it can help us cope with any negative feelings.
A social setting that can guarantee faith and confidence in its members is one that actively draws itself to the upper good and benevolent force—the force of love, bestowal and connection. It is this very same force that awakens negative feelings in us, whether they be fears, anxieties or several other painful sensations, in order for us to draw closer to that force, and we do so by drawing closer to each other.
If we wish to connect with the upper force and let its perfect quality of love, bestowal and connection fill our lives with a sensation of faith and confidence, then we need to emulate such a quality toward each other—giving others a sense of faith and confidence, and for them to do the same toward us. By wanting to positively connect with each other, we then start awakening the positive force dwelling in nature into the connections we create, and we then feel a new sense of faith and confidence wash away any anxieties that we might be holding within.
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Based on the video “How to Cope With Fear and Anxiety” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.
Preparation to the Lesson
| | |
Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Mother Lends Her Clothes to Her Daughter”
| | |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”
| | |
Selected Highlights
| | |
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Human Rights Day Misses the Most Important Right”
Every December, there is a lot of talk in the media about human rights because the Human Rights Day is observed by the international community on December 10. Human Rights Day commemorates the day in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The declaration sets out a broad range of fundamental rights and freedoms to which we are all entitled, such as the right to freedom, equality, dignity, personal safety, education, and work. Regrettably, there is one fundamental right to which all of us are entitled, but none of us has because we are oblivious to it. Nevertheless, without it, we will have none of the other rights.
The thing is that one, fundamental fact determines everything in our lives: We are all connected to each other and dependent on each other. Since we do not know it, or do not want to know it, we violate each other’s rights left and right, without realizing that by doing so, we are corrupting the very fabric that sustains and nourishes us. Therefore, our most basic right, which is just as much our duty, is to feel that we are each other’s lifelines.
Whether we like it or not, we are all in this together. The general law of nature is “One for all and all for one,” and it is inescapable. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we will begin to live accordingly.
We do not exploit our children or deprive them of basic needs. On the contrary, we try to provide them with everything they need, and then some, because we feel them as extensions of ourselves. Likewise, if we felt that everyone around us is also an extension of ourselves, because this is the truth, we would not exploit them.
Right now, we must fight for the used and abused around the world precisely because we feel disconnected from others. Until we solve that sense of disconnection, we will not eradicate exploitation and the struggle for human rights will be futile and useless. If anything, it will benefit only those who gain fame and fortune presenting themselves as the champions of the poor when in fact they profiteer on their tormented backs.
Because the realization of our mutual dependence is essential for mending the ills of human society, I always insist that education for connection is the single most important and urgent initiative that we must take. It must come before anything else because again, if we know that we are dependent on each other, we will not hurt each other and human rights will not be abused anywhere. Conversely, if we are unaware of our interdependence, we will always find ways to exploit one another, and even organizations that purport to fight for the poor will actually be perpetuating their misery in order to increase their own wealth and power.
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An attempt to connect with other people in order to reveal the quality of bestowal and love in oneself, as in the Creator, leads a person to despair that he cannot do it. Accordingly, this state leads him to ask the Creator to connect his heart with other people.
Just sitting and justifying some states that pass through us does not give anything. Many people suffer and are in terrible conditions, but they do not see the right way out of them that would lead to the goal.
Question: As an egoist is it correct to say that my task is not just to justify the Creator for what He does to me, but to come to a “broken heart” when I actively try to acquire the quality of the Creator and despair of not being able to achieve this, and ask the Creator to help me?
Answer: Yes, this is the most correct state. That is why it is said: “There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.”
Question: But how much strength does a person have? It takes years until he turns to the Creator because he is trying to do everything himself.
Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that it may take 20-30 years.
Question: So is this some kind of cumulative process?
Answer: Yes. But do not reassure yourself that it is accumulating. We must go forward and try to achieve this every day.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22
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Question: There is a principle in spiritual work: “Do not give up on mercy.” It turns out that the Creator is waiting until the person cries out. He is waiting for our prayers that will come out of the broken and shattered heart. Who wants to go through such states? Is this the reason that so few people study Kabbalah?
Answer: The merciful and loving Creator about whom it is said that He loves us and wishes only good to everyone. He is the one who brings a person to such states where a person is forced to turn to Him from inevitability and despair.
Why does He have to drive us to this point? It is because we exist in the state opposite to the Creator, in egoism, in the property of receiving. However, the Creator exists in the property opposite to us, in bestowal. Therefore we are polar opposites.
Thus, we can get closer to the Creator only if we change, or try, or at least want to change, our egoistic desires to receive into altruistic desires to give.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22
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In this world, a man rules over a woman, but in the future a woman will rule over a man, as it is written: “A woman will rule over a man.” (Midrash Tehilim).
Question: This is some kind of internal statement. What is “a woman will rule over a man in the future”?
Answer: Of course, we mean human desire, which is called feminine. It will be corrected and therefore it will rule.
Question: Could you explain this phrase more simply: “Today a man rules a woman, and in the future a woman will rule a man”?
Answer: I think that is where we are heading, and we understand that. We see that the world is changing gradually. Women go through all kinds of organizations and occupy various very serious posts.
It is no secret that the woman is superior in the house, and so it is written in the Torah.
Question: And you say that according to this statement, we men will concede to this?
Answer: Men will give in to this. In general, a man inside himself is ready for this. There is a lot left in him from the boy who is raised by his mother. It is in each of us. And that is why I think that all this will come out and be realized by everyone in such a prominent, correct form.
Comment: Now when we see how wars, conflicts, and so on are developing, there is a lot tied to the male part.
My Response: That is why there are wars and conflicts. If women rule the world more, there will be fewer wars, fewer conflicts, and fewer problems in general.
I do not mean the type of women who get out into the streets and scream, but rather the real women who are aware of themselves as wives and mothers. They lead families, take care of families, children, the future, and so on. It is practically not a man’s job; it is more a woman’s job.
Question: Is taking care of the country more of a woman’s job?
Answer: Female, any care is a woman. And any fulfillment of a woman’s desire is a man.
Question: Do you connect it? A woman—the house and a woman—and the head of the country?
Answer: Of course. It is the same thing.
Question: So she suddenly feels everyone as her children? Everything is like her house?
Answer: Yes. Who else can think about it?
Question: Where do you find such women? Please tell me.
Answer: They will appear, and they exist. We just need to give them a place to advance a little. And they are already moving forward today, but the men are still pushing. But it is all a matter of time.
Question: So you are in favor of this?
Answer: Yes!
Comment: There will be a lot of resistance, I think.
My Response: And I do not see a single man who could do more good for the world than women, than women’s governance.
It is not today; it is gradually when all this hubris, pressure, shouting, and so on will come down. When men will not goad women, direct them at each other, and so on. Meaning, both sides need to grow here. But in general, there is in the female character a predisposition to peace, to the convenience of everyone, to proper upbringing, and so on.
Question: How can we educate such women? Will they themselves be brought up in accordance with what is happening? How will they advance? How will they feel what you say, that the world is home?
Answer: We have to do it. This has to be done by us. We Kabbalists, who understand how to act and who are not shy or afraid, who are not ashamed, will say what is necessary.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/3/22
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Question: You say that being physically in a group does not mean that a person is really in it. Does it mean that this is not a criterion?
Answer: Of course. The desire for connection is the criterion.
Question: How should one treat the friends in the group? I do not know if they want to connect or not? A person can sit silently and that is it.
Answer: Yes, it is difficult to understand. But there are various indications whether he is included in the work along with the rest.
By nature, we are all different: phlegmatic, choleric, etc. Is it possible to say that a choleric person is directed forward more than a phlegmatic person? This is just the way they express themselves externally. Internally, both can be with the same desire, but one will be speaking slowly and doing something, while the other will be rushing from corner to corner. So what? How can you evaluate this?
Question: But the evaluation itself is not to bring them under any category. Let’s say there are criteria: an internal group, a young group, and some other layers. Who generally makes decisions, and how is a person’s readiness established?
Answer: I do not know. It is none of my business because it is a group. They have a teacher, this is me, and together with them we analyze the sources, the articles of Rabash, who wrote a lot on this topic. They know these sources and have repeatedly gone through all the articles. Now let them implement them.
I only set general lines or inspire students to take some action. I cannot tell them how to do that exactly. They must do everything themselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Are People Admitted to a Group of Kabbalists?” 12/12/13
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Comment: Sometimes during the lesson you are asked absurd questions that are completely unrelated to the topic, and you patiently answer.
My Response: Because I see that it will benefit the group. This is my only criterion. Nothing else.
If it were up to me, I would be sitting in my room, not going out, and not talking to anyone. Absolutely with no one in the world. I am not interested in being popular or famous. I am not interested in screaming to the whole world to look at me.
I am invited to some appearances, to some famous places, but I do not want to go, only when there is a need for it and it helps disseminate the teaching, only then. Therefore, if I start talking in class or anywhere, it is only when I am sure that it will help the correction.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ask a Kabbalist a Question” 3/6/13
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Comment: Usually when moralizing a person doesn’t help, he can be greatly influenced by the example of others.
My Response: Yes, only by example. That is right. Kabbalah uses it. The whole methodology comes from Kabbalah. That is why we need a society, a group, and friends.
Comment: It is not punishment that works, but an example, as you see the selfless work of others and you feel ashamed.
My Response: Yes. Shame, envy, and jealousy are good qualities. It feels like others succeed more than you, which spurs you on to good deeds.
You do hate, but you hate yourself, your own laziness. Then everything goes through its stages of development in a completely different way. How can we make the world feel it sooner before the blows because we have a very serious rod ahead hanging over us? I pity the people.
Advancement through suffering lengthens time. Imagine if the entire Second World War could have been passed in a week of intensive world congress with good interactions, inspiration, and everything else.
Why was such tremendous suffering necessary? We simply have no idea how to fit all this within ourselves; we cannot imagine it.
Question: Are the impressions we receive from suffering useful or not at all?
Answer: They are useful, but they come in a very painful way. Very small impressions that in practice do not lead to the right conclusions. What right conclusions have we come to after the Second World War? None.
Question: And if it had been a result of a week-long congress, would we have received the same impressions without suffering?
Answer: There is no need for suffering! It is not necessary. Only advancement toward better and better. We should advance only toward goodness.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Living Example” 12/3/13
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Who Created These of Elijah”
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Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Mother Lends Her Clothes to Her Daughter”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why should adults also play every day?“
Playing is a very important means for development. When we play, we develop new relationships and connections.
While it is common knowledge that children need to play in order to develop, which is why we buy them games and put a lot of effort into working out the most suitable games for each stage of their development, it is not so clear with us adults. We do not really like to play. Our relations end up quickly deteriorating into each one of us degrading the other, which ends our playing.
As a result, we miss out on a lot of what we can get out of life. We fail to examine all of our options for development as adults, and we thus put a halt to our further development.
We have turned our daily lives into a prison of sorts. That is, we need to look, behave and talk in certain kinds of ways—and only in those certain kinds of ways—otherwise, we will not fit in with others and gain their respect. Without their respect, we get treated in ways that harm us. We suffer from living in such a prison, but it has become such an integrated part of our lives that we cannot escape from it.
The essence of our playing as adults should be that we treat each other positively even if we do not feel like it, and to teach others to do the same. Playing in such a way would emulate the higher state of positive connection that nature is developing us toward, and we would thus draw positive forces of connection that dwell in nature into our relations, and start feeling happier, more confident, and that our lives are purpose-driven.
Based on the video “Why Adults Should Play” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “How to Conquer Fear – A Kabbalist’s Advice”
Just let the fear go. Don’t think about what will happen in the next moment.
We know nothing about what is truly going on in our lives. It is thus best for us to just let go. We hold such potential within us. Letting go of our fears requires some training, but we need it.
Fear comes from our will to control situations we find ourselves in, and when we cannot control them. When we let go of fear, we then seemingly control the situations from another end. For instance, take one of the most common fears: the fear of death. Our death is inevitable. Accepting the fact that we will certainly die, we can then imagine how the world will continue developing after we are gone, agree with that picture, and let go of any current fear we have.
There are no set steps, however, for how to let go of fear. It is different for each and every person. Some people start thinking along the lines of “What will happen to the world after I’m gone?” “How will my loved ones and my relatives continue their lives?” “What will happen with my inheritance?” and “How will my legacy unfold?” Faced by these questions, we need to make another correction—of our attitude toward life and death, which is behind our every fear.
We should transform our fears into an absolute surrender to the will of nature—the will bestow that created and sustains us—which requires us to make a certain kind of effort. We might still have to go through a lot of frightening moments until we reach the end of our earthly path, so we should try to calm ourselves down.
The laws of nature that created and sustain us, and which we are ultimately being led to discover, are in a state of absolute calmness and rest. We should thus aim to emulate nature’s calmness.
We are calm when we are not worried about what will happen in the next moment. It is a difficult point to express because it is not simply about flowing with the currents of life. On the contrary, we need to rely on the laws of nature that operate on us at every moment, which control everything and everyone.
Since we live within fixed and determined laws of nature that are in total control over our lives, then we have nothing to worry about. Do we want to interfere with the laws that are driving everyone and everything through corrections? Of course we don’t. We then might as well calm down and move on with our lives.
That state of calmness indicates agreement. It means that we agree with the laws of nature, which is quite difficult, because we always want to hold back, check what is happening in nature’s plans, and argue that maybe things should play out a bit differently.
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The branch desires, loves, and covets every conduct in the root, and does not tolerate and hates any conduct that is not in the root.
This is an unbreakable law that applies to every branch and its root (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Inner Observation, Chapter 4, Item 19).
Question: The Creator, who is the desire to bestow and not to receive, is our root. Yet we, who are a branch of this root, do not like to bestow and to unite. Where is the logic here?
Answer: We are the product of this consequence. Here happens the division into source and effect. Our source bestows, emanates, loves, and develops. And we are His consequence. This is why we love everything we receive from Him. We want to receive everything pleasant from Him, but we do not want to receive His qualities.
It turns out that we do not want to acquire His qualities, but we want what He fulfills us with.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 12/4/22
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In the News (South China Morning Post): “A video of a 10-year-old Chinese boy having 30 vials of blood drawn to check his suitability to give his mother a life-saving bone marrow transplant has gone viral on Douyin.
“In the video, which has attracted more than 237,000 likes online, the boy’s eyes are steady and firm as a medical professional draws blood from his arm.
“’He used to be particularly scared of pain, but this time, knowing it was to save his mother, he didn’t say a word,’ the father said. …
“’Because my mother gave birth to me, I owe it to her’ Xuanyi said. ‘I want my mum to accompany me home so that I can be happy every day.’”
Question: It seems like such a simple story, on the one hand. On the other hand, where does this depth and understanding of another’s life in a ten-year-old boy come from?
Answer: I don’t know. This is really a special attachment and responsibility that suddenly manifests itself in children.
Question: Where does it all vanish? We know that there are examples of nobility among adults, but less and less. Where does it all disappear to? What kind of sand does it all go into?
Answer: It disappears into the sand because the impact of the common world, which is completely different, dissolves all these qualities that, in principle, we have.
Question: But is there this nobility in us?
Answer: Yes.
Question: By the way, there is also a secret here of how not to be afraid and how not to feel pain. The boy said: “I wasn’t afraid, and I didn’t feel pain because I was doing it for my mother.”
Is it possible to give some advice for an adult about how not to be afraid and how not to feel pain?
Answer: I don’t know. There might be many words, but it is not likely to be felt. It is a bond between a child and a mother, or could be between a donor and a recipient, or between just friends, or loved ones who feel connected like that.
Question: That is, I am happy when I can give something to someone else. Will this formula ever work in humanity?
Answer: It will work. We have such Reshimot, records. But when? In the meantime, we clearly push it away with all our hands and feet. The fact is that we ourselves create our living environment in such a way that it separates us from our parents, from each other, and so on. In general, it will work, but when—it is hard to say.
Question: And why did we choose such laws of life that push us away from each other?
Answer: They don’t oblige us to do anything. Everyone thinks only of himself. Children do not listen to their parents. They leave home early. And parents understand that children have their own nature, their own way. And that is how we quickly disengage.
Question: It is written in the Bible: “And he shall cleave to his wife.” It is written that one way or another a person must leave the house.
Is it written somewhere that we should come to the point where we will feel good when we give to another?
Answer: In the same Bible there are many such sentences. But it is not meant only for family ties. It means when everyone feels like family. And we will feel like relatives when we become interconnected in one single desire, in one single source, that is, in the desire to give, to help, to unite, which is higher than our earthly life, and in which we remain forever.
And we will want to come to this.
Question: You end almost all our clips with these lofty things, as if calling on a person one way or another to come to this. And then you always say, “I don’t see this happening any time soon.” You kind of add bitterness to it all the time.
Why shouldn’t a person just be given this thought and be kept at it? Is it necessary that this bitterness be, that it is not known when it will be?
Answer: It is so that people do not immediately push us away. If we talk about a kind, bright, good, and sweet future, then people will think that we are some naive, frivolous people and they will shut us down.
Comment: And so, you say: “It’s true.” You say: “And it is not known when this will happen.”
My Response: It will be, but not only through a very serious test— awareness, awareness of who we are and what we should be.
Question: Can we jump over this long period? Can we reduce it as much as possible?
Answer: Only through war, great war, and suffering, otherwise nothing. But I don’t think it will be through war, although this is the easiest and fastest method. I would like to hope that we will get through without a war.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/13/22
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Question: Did the great Kabbalists, whose books are sources of wisdom and ideas, speak about the intolerance of Jews toward each other?
Answer: Of course. Many sources say that the hatred that is revealed between Jews is the greatest in the world.
Question: Could this be one of the sources of anti-Semitism?
Answer: Without a doubt. The basis of mutual hatred, opposition, and intolerance that are embedded in the Jewish character are in the same way the basis of those events that have accompanied the Jewish people for thousands of years and accompany them to this day. This can be seen, among other things, in the example of our [Israel’s] government.
Question: I watched the swearing-in of members of the Israeli government. I was amazed when the representatives of the Arab part of the State of Israel not only did not take photos near the flag but simply left. How is such a state structure possible in which representatives of one part of the population are against the very state in which they live?
Answer: It is not only Arabs but Jews too. This is quite natural for our country. This is a special country that goes its own way.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations, Israel and Its Impact on the World” 11/18/21
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Question: How can we who are so small suddenly move the worlds? You said that when a little child just gives a cry, his mother immediately runs up to him and does whatever he wants.
Answer: Yes, the smallest is the strongest.
Question: Even those who are just starting their advancement?
Answer: But they are doing it! They want to get in touch with the Creator. Yes, they are the strongest.
Even though they do not understand anything, like a baby who is lying in a cradle and screaming. The baby does not even realize that he is crying—he is just in pain, and this is a natural scream. He does not realize that in this way one can call a mother who will come and give him something. He has no understanding of the chain of actions he invokes. He is screaming because it is a natural reaction to what is happening to him.
Question: Can we say that someone who is trying to read, for example, the Torah or Kabbalistic sources, begins to give this cry?
Answer: Yes, of course. But not just to read, especially the Torah. The Torah will not help here. One needs either The Book of Zohar or some other Kabbalistic books.
Comment: But I mean not the external principle of reading, but the internal one—the search for oneself, the search for what is inside me.
My Response: No, besides this, a book that can evoke the upper light most brightly is needed. The Book of Zohar is the most effective one.
Question: That is, your advice is to read without understanding?
Answer: That is my advice because I went through this with Rabash. That is my advice because this is how it works. We used to read The Book of Zohar for only half an hour in the evening before going to bed. And it was just reading without any comments.
There were 20 people sitting around the table with Rabash at the head, and for half an hour we took turns reading: the first one, then the second, the third, and so on. So, we read a page or two, and went home. This is how the day ended.
But when Rabash and I studied alone on trips, in personal conversations or lessons, there was a different attitude. We came to the park, walked around, and then sat down on a bench. I pulled out a book, and we discussed the book or just talked for about two hours. After that, we again walked around and went home. And so it was for 12 years.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10
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Every line of the Torah has such depth. The Torah is infinite, as if the whole sea is in one drop. As Kabbalah says: the whole universe exists in every point of the universe.
Question: How can this be?
Answer: It is like a holographic picture because everything consists of everything. Our world is only now beginning to understand this based on holography. In principle, if there is perfection, then every part of it must be perfect. How can it be imperfect if it must be equal, similar, and completely repeat the whole in everything?
It turns out that the whole and the part are absolutely equivalent. Every person and the whole world are absolutely equal.
Question: Then how did something imperfect come out of the perfect Creator?
Answer: The Creator created the creation not out of Himself, but out of nothing. The will to receive is His imprint. That is, we are absolutely opposite to Him. But our final state is equal to the Creator and perfect. We must reach it by ourselves.
We, as if, go back by the same path and become more and more perfect by returning to the source. Kabbalah and the Torah are engaged in this.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/12/10
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Medium published my new article “‘Gaslighting’ — Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year”
“In this age of misinformation — of ‘fake news,’ conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deepfakes — gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time,” wrote the editors of the leading dictionary in their explanation of their choice, adding that “2022 saw a 1740% increase in lookups for gaslighting, with high interest throughout the year.” Gaslighting, according to Webster’s, is the “psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” This reads like a serious offense, and it is, but it is also the reality of our lives.
Governments and big business practice gaslighting as a matter of routine. This is how they seek to perpetuate their power or popularity. If we want to be able to make free, independent choices, we must make continuous and conscious efforts, and even then, success is not guaranteed.
Gaslighting is an attempt to deny us not only of the rights given to us in the First Amendment, but even of the right, and ability, to practice free thought. Worse yet, it is an effort to deny us free thought while making us feel as though our manipulated thought is actually our free thought, which we have established and cultivated by ourselves and of our own volition.
Surprisingly, the vast majority of people have no real objection to the subjugation of their minds. They prefer convenient obliviousness as long as their lives run smoothly. Thinking is strenuous, and most people prefer to avoid effort when it is not vividly necessary.
But for those who do mind, awareness is not enough. In order to be free from manipulation of their minds, people must build their own minds, their own backbone. They must doubt everything, ask about everything, be ready and willing to change their minds frequently, admit their mistakes, and gradually develop their own perception of the world.
But most of all, they must be willing to suffer the reproach and patronizing of the “gaslighted” majority. Once one has built a strong enough spine, it is possible to face the manipulators and their messengers with confidence.
It would seem like only very strong and determined individuals can do this, and it is true that not everyone can face the scorn of the manipulated. However, people can still be taught and pulled out of the basement where their minds are kept. Even if people are not naturally resistant to outside influence, they can learn how to see the world without the filters imposed on their vision by interested parties.
I am not saying that people should become activists of any kind. Rather, I think it should be internal work, something that a person does without declaring or propagating it. I realize that it is not simple to be active only inwardly, but I am not in favor of external activism in the form of rallies, protests, and demonstrations.
I, too, had to make an effort to develop my own understanding of the world. I disconnected from it, built an inner wall around me, and this is how I lead my life quite comfortably. In this way, even if the outside world attempts to impose a certain view on me, I may see that view, but I do not feel it. I simply brush it off and keep on living as I want.
Initially, it is not easy living this way. You have to build your own world, with your own values, yet function normally in the everyday surroundings. However, once you have built it, you are free: You have an objective perspective from which to look at the world we all live in, and you are free to participate in it or not, and to the extent of your choice.
Question: It is said that the Creator is called the healer of broken hearts. Why is He called that?
Answer: Because He heals hearts and connects them into one big single heart. And the person is only present in this. He is, so to say, a witness of what the Creator is doing.
Therefore, all the work that we do in spirituality is called the work of the Creator (Avodat Hashem).
Question: But does something depend on the person, nevertheless?
Answer: What depends on a person is to be more attentive to what is happening to him, to try with the help of the science of Kabbalah to understand how the Creator is working on him, and how he should react to His actions, i.e., to be just a sensor.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22
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There is nothing so whole as a broken heart (Kabbalist Menachem Mendel of Kotzk).
Question: How can we understand this?
Answer: The heart is a person’s desire. When he sees that with these desires he cannot do anything right and purposeful, this state is the best. After all, in such a state, a person is in a desperate request to the Creator to help him because no one else can help him.
This is called the most whole, best state.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22
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Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony (Heraclitus).
My Response: In general, this is a simple and fairly correct statement. If we take into account that there are only two opposite points and they do not change, they are not in a dynamic state, and each is by itself, then this can be accepted.
However, if there are many such points and they are constantly changing, then this greatly complicates the processes. The system becomes very complex and even somewhat unpredictable.
True harmony is the mutual balance of all components of the general system. That is, it is already a system with the number of parameters that exist in it. Either we have to rely on the fact that we know this system and understand it, or on the fact that some upper force deals with it and brings it into balance. In this case we cannot say anything.
Question: You say that it is not necessary for a person to even know these forces, that it is enough to know the tool that arranges them within a person. What are these two forces, the maximum difference of potentials that need to be connected?
Answer: If we know the general quality of the system, then we do not need to understand its particulars. The particulars sort themselves out.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/18/22
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What is faith above reason? Faith is bestowal, and above reason means it has a higher importance than reception.
In our state, this quality is expressed only as my attitude toward the group because only in the group can I clearly see that in my actions and thoughts I prefer its benefit to my own.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/10, Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “The Importance of Faith that Always Takes Place”
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Question: How is it that friends seem qualitatively better and more successful than you, but they do not consider themselves like that?
Answer: It seems so to a person, but in fact it may not be so. The main thing is how you feel. It is very good when it seems that everyone else is better than you. You have a lot to catch up on. Jealousy and envy press on you, and you have to go forward and develop.
Comment: This is a point that is always somewhere out there, far away.
My Response: Right. That is how it should be. You will not find an absolute point of reference because everything is relative to you. The closer you come to this state, the further it seems.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who to Believe?” 11/26/13
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Question: Whenever people advance toward the spiritual goal, they are interested in the answer to the question: “When? How much more effort does it take? How many more people have to wake up early in the morning every day, study, and connect in order to reach the goal?”
Answer: I do not think it takes millions to do it. People like us should study according to their desires, aspirations, and intentions. The rest will just live and gradually absorb those movements that come from Kabbalah: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “That which you hate, do not do to your friend,” and so on.
These seem to be such elementary things, but they will be the basis of human relations. That is, without talking about anything, without being urged, people will begin to feel that it is necessary.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations, Israel and Its Impact on the World” 11/18/21
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is happiness (in a single line)?“
Happiness is the achievement of mutual connection that leads people to love for each other, i.e. to the fulfillment of the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Based on KabTV’s “Conversations, Israel and Its Impact on the World” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on November 18, 2021. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Medium published my new article “Building a Network of Sensations”
One of the essential properties of civilization is technology. In fact, some measurements may use the advancement of technology as a gauge to measure the advancement of civilization. From the Stone Age to the digital age, technology has marked our progress.
However, over the past several decades, it seems as though technology has shifted from making our lives easier to dominating them altogether. Nowadays, computers not only process data, but almost think for themselves. The advent of Artificial Intelligence has introduced machines that can even paint expressive artworks, write heartwarming birthday greetings, or draft touching love letters. We, on the other hand, seem to be moving in the opposite direction: We know less, think less, and understand less than we did. It appears as if we have been stupefied by our own creation.
However, there is good news in the ostensibly gloomy future of humanity. While our intellectual abilities are shrinking, new sensory spheres are opening up.
By sensory, I am not referring to our physical senses, but to something much deeper than that. Our sensory organs are purely physical, but I am speaking of the ability to sense one another at such depths that we will be able to sense each other’s feelings and thoughts as if we were one person.
Clearly, this process is not a conscious effort to merge our psyches. However, it is happening nonetheless. If you look at the world around you, you will see how uniform it has become. People wear the same clothes everywhere, the majority of the world speaks English, industry is very similar throughout the world, or buys its products from the same few manufacturers, and we have become so dependent on each other that if a single country has to temporarily halt its wheat shipments, it sends the world into a spiral of price hikes.
We are entering the next phase of our incorporation: incorporation of sensations. Humanity is becoming a system of sensations where billions of people will share the same ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
The more this system manifests itself, the more we will become convinced that if we want to steer our lives safely, we must study this shared system, understand its properties, requirements, and how we can become not only its hubs or pawns, but its very masters.
To achieve this, we will need to acquire the properties of the system, to implement them on ourselves. Since that system is a system of connections, we, too, will have to become connected individuals. We will have to feel others and be aware of their thoughts and feelings just as today we know our own. Since today we cannot sense each other as we sense ourselves because we are disconnected from each other, we will have to relinquish what separates us from each other: our egos.
The longer we hang on to our self-centeredness, the more acutely we will feel our separateness and disorientation in life. But as soon as we relinquish that one element within us, everything will become crystal clear. Just as today, we know when we are hungry because we feel hungry, we will know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it because we will simply sense it.
We will not need technology, and today’s most advanced innovations will become superfluous and subsequently obsolete. All we will need is to sense the network of sensations where we live, and they will guide us safely and smoothly through life, which will no longer be arduous and painful.
This is why the Klipot are called “dead,” since their oppositeness of form from the Life of Lives severs them from Him and they have nothing of His abundance (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 17).
That is, the Creator’s desire is to bestow. A person’s desire is to receive. That is why all people are absolutely opposite to the Creator, they do not feel and do not perceive Him. We are all spiritually dead.
Hence, the body, too, which feeds on the yeast of the Klipot, is also severed from life and is filled with filth. And all of this is because of the will to only receive and not to bestow that is imprinted in it. Its desire is always open to receive the whole world into its stomach.
Body means desire, that is, not the flesh, but rather our desire that is always directed at filling itself.
Question: It is written that the wicked in their lives are called dead. What does it mean?
Answer: Although our physical body is alive, we are still called dead because we do not bestow but receive; that is, we are opposite in our qualities to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 11/20/22
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Comment: A well-known parable explains our nature in the most colorful way. Once upon a time there was a poor man, he had a rich neighbor. And the poor man prayed to the Creator: “I want to be as rich as he is.”
The Creator told him: “Please. I’ll give you everything. I’ll give it to you, and I’ll give him twice as much. You will be rich; he will be twice as rich. You’ll have a house; he’ll have two houses.”
Then the poor man said: “Then pull out one of my eyes so that the neighbor will lose two.” And there is another ending: “Then beat me half to death.” There are a lot of different options here.
My Response: Yes. We see this today too in skirmishes, in wars.
Question: Is there still such a thing: “It’s not as scary that my cow died as it is that my neighbor’s one is alive.” Humanity has come up with a lot of such beautiful quotes.
Tell me, why can’t we focus on our happiness?
Answer: You can’t experience happiness in isolation from others. Only in comparison.
Comment: But I was given a house, I have a warm home, I have all the wealth. Why do I have to always notice that he has two houses and suffer from it?
My Response: For this, it is necessary to correct the nature of man. There is no other way!
Question: I will always suffer if he has better and more than I do?
Answer: Yes. This is egoism. I can’t look at what I have, I look at what the other has. And I may have several times more than him, but he also has. And as long as he exists and he has something, that’s what I want.
Look at children as they take toys from each other. You convince them: “You don’t need it, look, you have this,” no, it doesn’t matter. He hides his toy behind his back and demands what the other has. That’s what nature is.
Comment: But I, as a parent, instruct him and tell him the right things. I say, “Give the other…”
My Response: But he doesn’t want to listen.
Comment: He doesn’t want to listen, but I want him to do it.
My Response: It doesn’t matter, the Creator wants it.
Question: Through me?
Answer: Yes, sort off. You’re acting like a Creator here. And it doesn’t help.
Question: So I pick up this formula when I’m a parent, nevertheless?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Comment: I like this formula.
Answer: Because you are no longer a child.
Comment: Yes, but I tell him: “Share with him, give it to him.”
My Response: No, he will hold and cuddle it.
Comment: That’s for sure. But I lead to the fact that I myself continue to be the same as a child. I look: it’s better there, and I’m already nervous.
My Response: That is absolutely right.
Question: This is how we eat ourselves. We just devour everything inside ourselves. Is that what we’re dying from?
Answer: Apparently.
Question: And what should we do with all this?
Answer: Continue.
Question: Until when?
Answer: While we are living.
We still have to spread our idea, the Creator’s plan, and it will work.
Question: What is the Creator’s plan?
Answer: It is for us to rise above our egoistic nature. And it will work.
Question: And then how will I look at my neighbor if I rise above nature?
Answer: As a partner in the implementation of a common plan.
Question: That he, too, is moving toward rising above egoism?
Answer: Yes. We just need to educate everyone!
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/13/22
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Kabbalah & RelationshipsTips on how to build successful relationships based on the spiritual principles and understanding of our natureVirtual relationships are the product of our own imagination.
Many people today create “virtual romantic connections” on social sites such as Facebook. They meet other people, share pictures, and even fall in love with their virtual partners!
The reason we are so drawn to our virtual partners is because the connection we make with them is non-material, detached from physical contact, and even “spiritual” in a way. Since we’re not tied down by any physical limitations, we’re let free to fantasize as much as we want to, to attribute all the best qualities to our virtual significant other, and to raise our connection with them “into the clouds,” so to speak. We convince ourselves of how special this connection is, and that it’s an opportunity to reach beautiful, perfect love.
But unfortunately, it’s all an illusion. Over the Internet, a person’s physical features are hidden and his inner aspects emphasized. One can express himself in any way he wants to, but the problem is that we lose sight of reality as we become unknowingly immersed in this game. We forget that we aren’t dealing with a real person, but with our own imagination.
When we see someone in real life, in person, then we can tell whether they really have certain traits or not, and we can see whether those traits are real. On the Internet, however, we only see a (carefully selected) picture and read a few lines that are more likely than not to be lies – and we go off imagining things that are completely unrealistic. However, the moment we meet our virtual partners in person, this sweet fantasy bubble bursts.
Kabbalah on EducationKabbalah comes to the rescue to today’s education and parenting crisisPractical suggestions on education and for solving conflicts between parents and children.
“Education does not create anything new, but rather reveals what is already hidden within a person.” (Rav Kuk, Essays of the Raiah, p. 100)One can find valuable tips in guidebooks on raising children. A good tip can very often save months or even years of indecision and frustration, and help families out of dead end situations. However, we frequently encounter questions or situations that “catch us unprepared,” and leave us wondering if we are capable of responding appropriately. In such situations, our response typically amounts to a perplexed smile or an obscure hum, covering up our lack of knowledge and great indecision as to what actually is the proper thing to do.
Being aware of children’s developing curiosity and of many parents’ distress, we decided to collect a few practical suggestions in each issue based on the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah, which relate to issues of the soul, to education and to the huge questions of little people. Enjoy!
An Answer to Every Question
Being parents will never be an easy job. In addition to long sleepless hours and concern for children’s support and welfare, we find the most difficult and truly challenging task of all – supplying answers to each question they raise. Surely many of you are familiar with the scenario in which the sweet child opens a pair of huge, curious eyes, innocently looks you straight in the eye, and mercilessly shoots questions relating to the meaning of life and its purpose. In such cases, it doesn’t really matter if you’re a Dr. Spock fan, or a fervent reader of Tracy Hogg (author of the popular best seller, “Baby Whisperer”), you will most probably be left without answers, as the answers to these questions are not found in books.
That is precisely why we have chosen to dedicate the first tip of this section to the question of how to answer those huge questions asked by the little people growing up in our homes. Should we tell them what we think, even if the answer is not so “easy to digest”, or should we evade a confusing answer, and leave them to cope with the question at a future stage in their lives?
Always tell the truth, but be consistently gentle.
“Be direct with the child, direct to the end, otherwise you will not gain his trust, since a child is sensitive to any falseness, as benign as it may be.” (Yanush Korchak).
Above all, realize that children are sensitive by nature. If they detect that anything is being concealed from them, it can disrupt the entire system of mutual trust and respect with their parents. Therefore, if you hold important information or deep insight regarding life, don’t hide it from your children. They are thirsty for that knowledge.
It is always preferable not to hide the truth from children, however, there is no need to burden them with issues they are still emotionally unprepared to handle. Practically speaking, if the truth is not simple, try to simplify and adapt it to the child’s world of imagery, in a gentle and non-threatening way, so as not to pressure them. Remember that every story you tell your children comes to life and becomes real. It is your obligation as parents to be sensitive to the emotional and mental development of your children. Only in accordance with their emotional maturity, will you be able to reveal an additional level of the wisdom of life that you have accumulated over the years.
Therefore, sometimes it is better to wait for the demand for additional knowledge to come from the child himself, so he feels he is not being “pushed” into something he did not even request. His expression of willingness signals you that he is ready to absorb a deeper response. Lend an attentive ear and follow his reaction to the things you tell him, that is how you will be able to ensure that you are not burdening him too much and confusing him.
If you do not know the true answer to questions, don’t be afraid to admit it, but don’t evade your responsibility towards them to search for the answer, together with the children. As Albert Einstein once said, “What is important is to not stop asking questions.”
The Great Rebellion and the Little One as well….
As parents, we tend to give our children quite a lot of advice, but many times, they listen carefully and then proceed to do the complete opposite. For some reason, in most cases, an individual feels the need to do the exact opposite of what was explained to him, and to discover better and more suitable solutions than those that were tried by their parents – to live his own life. Even though it doesn’t always succeed, that aspiration doesn’t seem to escape anyone.
Almost everyone rebelled at some point against his parents. Still, when watching our toddlers grow, one of the things we fear most of all, is that they will do the same.
Where does that aspiration to rebel against the previous generation’s entire legacy stem from? How can we cope with that most efficiently without forcing our opinion and without hindering the child’s development?
Advising through Honesty and Friendship
Kabbalah explains that when an individual is asked to change, naturally he resists, because the aspiration for change did not stem from him, and he does not feel any benefit to be gained by that. The truth is that in most cases he is correct. Why? Because most of the advice we receive from our parents results from the thought patterns they absorbed in their childhood, and suits them – not us. Thus, subconsciously, their advice primarily serves them – not us, therefore it is not acceptable to us.
Likewise, it is important to realize that subconsciously, every parent secretly hopes that his children will continue in his footsteps. Therefore, he inculcates them with his own concepts and values.
In order to create efficient and healthy communication with a child, we need to understand that each new generation has new and different values from our own, ones which do not match our expectations. If we ignore this conflict – between parents’ aspirations and the new level of the child’s development – it will inevitably end in rebellion.
Through the observation of the nature of man, Kabbalists have concluded that the only chance of a child listening to a parent, is if he feels he will benefit from taking the advice. Therefore, it is wise to give advice or an explanation that will provide the child with the feeling that by accepting it, he will personally gain something that is not necessarily connected with the parent. That requires a parent to be honest with himself, and to examine the essence of his advice – he must continually ask himself, “Who is this advice actually serving?”
It is vital for the advice not to appear in the form of “Do’s and Dont’s”, but to cause the child to understand by himself, within himself, what he needs to do. That way, he won’t feel that a certain process is being forced upon his life, but will feel that the idea of change developed independently within him.
Another interesting point that Kabbalists bring up is that within the depths of his heart, each child longs for a true friend. One of his greatest hopes is to discover true friends, even in siblings and in his parents. Deep in his heart, a child is ready for such a relationship with his parents. Therefore, in order to create a true dialog with children, parents need to learn how to become a friend and a big brother. He should try to create mutual trust which is not based on honor or control, but on true friendship and partnership towards the attainment of any common goal, one which is based on unconditional love.
Good Luck!
Kabbalah & WomenAn insight into women’s inner quest and spiritual developmentWomen can change reality by fulfilling their spiritual role in the world.
Women should realize that in their hands lies great power. They are the ones who can change the world. How? By understanding and fulfilling their spiritual role in the world, just as they understand their role in the family.Women naturally know how to organize the family, how to make it all work, how to care for children, husband, and kitchen. They should understand equally well that they have an inner ability to know how the world has to be organized according to its spiritual root. They should also know that they have the power to make the men execute their will.
We see that humanity is becoming a small house, a small village. Men have tried numerous times to lead it, but it hasn’t brought us much good. So the problems that are surfacing today make the women feel that they must come forward. Let us hope that men will listen, yet it is essential that women will know what to say.
Comment: In principle, our world is built on connection. Either way, people gather in some kind of enterprise, around some idea, for example, football, etc.
My Response: They connect by an egoistic purpose—to benefit from the connection instead of letting the other win. Like the Mafia or some organization that needs to be strong in order to defeat others.
If the connection is not directed for the sake of good, peace, love, or revelation of the upper state, then it is contraindicated. In any case, it will lead to a bad result, as we saw in the example of the Soviet Union where the idea of unity, brotherhood, equality, and solidarity was emasculated. In the beginning, they were really calling everyone for this, everyone was considered brothers, equals, everyone was united, there was an urge, and it did not matter that everyone earned one hundred and twenty rubles (very little).
This attracted people, and in the West they could not suggest something equal to this, although they received many times more money. But one received five hundred times more, and the other only five, and this difference spoils everything for a person. But when everyone earns one hundred and twenty, then it is better. If only this idea were promoted…
But this requires a spiritual background. Therefore, the lack of proper education when no one understood how to do this gave its result.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mind of the Crowd” 11/23/13
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How would you define harmony in life?“
Harmony in life depends on balance with the environment, i.e. with the still, vegetative, animate and especially the human levels of nature.
Our lives are a constant quest for such balance, which is very hard to achieve.
We can achieve harmony in life when everyone reaches a harmonious state. All it takes is a single person to knock the entire system out of balance, so in order to achieve a harmonious life, we need to consider how every single person can learn what it means to achieve harmony.
Based on KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on November 18, 2022.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Films as Tools of Propaganda”
The movie Farha is a Jordanian historical drama about a Palestinian girl’s experience during Israel’s War of Independence, which the Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe). The film tells the story of a Palestinian girl named Farha who dreams of going to university, but her dreams are shattered when her entire family but her is gunned down by Israeli soldiers. The film was banned in Israel, but it is still aired around the world on Netflix.
I believe we can expect many more such films, as well as other means of propaganda to be used against Israel, as the wave is only expected to grow. The truth—be it partial, whole, nonexistent, or content related—has nothing to do with the world’s acceptance of such stories. Since the world hates Israel, anything that taps into that feeling gets a standing ovation from critics and audiences alike.
Films are a powerful means of carrying a message. America has been using it since the dawn of cinema. Think of such ideals as The American Dream, the superhero, the wickedness of Soviet Russia, or the romanticism of the Wild West. None of them would have become so entrenched in our psyches were it not for Hollywood and the American film industry.
The fact that the story of Farha is based on legend that was created in order to promote the Palestinian narrative is irrelevant from the perspective of the viewers. They absorb the message just as viewers have been absorbing Hollywood’s messages. The fact that the film is a tool of propaganda will not diminish its impact on the viewers whatsoever.
Israel, too, can produce films that advance the Israeli narrative and present counter propaganda. However, as with everything else that Israel has tried in order to explain itself to the world, the films will have no impact; no one will believe our narrative, and everyone will adopt the Palestinian claims without even bothering to verify them.
That said, since films are a powerful tool of propaganda, I think we can and should use them, but use them to promote a message that will change people’s views about Israel. That message has nothing to do with the Palestinians, but only with ourselves. Because the world behaves toward us as we behave toward each other, if we improve our behavior toward each other, the world will improve its behavior toward us.
The Israeli society is plagued with division and loathing. The country is divided into factions that simply detest one another. That abhorrence projects itself to the entire world, and the world reacts with abhorrence toward Israel.
We may think that our internal relations are an internal Israel affair, but nothing could be further from the truth. Since the inception of our nation, we have been at the center of the world’s attention. The reason that antisemitism has never died proves that the world has never stopped looking at the Jews and condemning them for their sins. And the only sin we have ever committed is in hating one another. When we care for one another and exhibit solidarity and mutual responsibility, the world admires us and comes to learn from us how to unite. When we dislike each other, the world hates us and reproves us for spreading hatred. It does not explicitly state that it is our duty to spread unity, but the fact that it regards Israel and Jews as warmongers proves that it expects from us the opposite.
Therefore, if we want to spread unity, we should direct our efforts toward internal unity, and films are a great tool for this purpose. Just as Farha is a drama story, we can produce films that show Israel as united, and what life in Israel will look like if we are united. Of course, they will be imaginary since we are anything but united, but they would create a positive narrative and enable public discourse that focuses on unity rather than on slander and division.
Because the world’s view of us depends on our view of each other, we are in a unique position to determine the world’s opinion about us. We can choose what entertainment to produce, and what message these tools of entertainment convey. Since every media carries a message and tries to influence its audience, we should consciously direct the messages of the media we consume to portray the message that will help us, and not one that will hurt us. And there is only one such message that will help us: Unity and solidarity among Israelis is the only cure for the State of Israel, and for Israel’s status in the world. As an offshoot of improving Israel’s position, Jews around the world will feel the relief, as antisemitism will subside.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Israel’s (nonexistent) Constitution”
Following the negotiations on the composition of Israel’s new government after the latest general election, the question of Israel’s constitution came up again. Despite having a vibrant democratic regime, where even anti-Zionist parties participate in the election and even in the government, Israel has never managed to agree on a constitution and has remained without one since its establishment on May 14, 1948.
This would not be such a problem were it not for the fact that over the past several years, affairs that undermine the trust of Israelis in the country’s justice system have emerged. The problem is particularly acute when it comes to debates over the authority of the government to legislate vs. the authority of the Supreme Court to revoke laws it deems unjust or unconstitutional.
Some of the ideas concerning Israel’s constitution came from other countries, such as the UK, Germany, the US, and Canada. However, something about those foreign ideas has always felt amiss. As a result, none has been adopted.
I believe there is a good reason we did not embrace any of the Western constitutions. The State of Israel is a Jewish state, and the Jews have had a constitution since their first day as a nation. In fact, only once they accepted the constitution were they declared a nation. If we adopt it now, we will immediately regain our stability and peace.
The ancient Israeli society was based on solidarity, mutual responsibility, and giving to the poor, all of which resulted from caring for others. The motto of Israel’s constitution, and indeed its system of laws, was “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Israel’s authentic constitution was not meant to organize people’s present lives. Rather, it was meant to change people’s nature from self-serving to considerate and caring, and lead them to the very purpose of their lives, namely to love others as themselves.
Ancient Hebrews were taught to live not by laws that follow humans’ ideas, but laws that derive from the most fundamental laws of existence—the laws of giving and receiving, and the ways by which they interact. Since other nations did not formulate their constitutions accordingly, Israel’s governments since its inception instinctively felt that something was not quite right in the proposed constitutions. However, because we have already lost the ability to love others, and did not know its critical importance to our people, leaders felt that no constitution was the right one, although they could not articulate it or explain what was the right constitution for Israel.
In order for Israel to rebuild its society and establish peace within its borders and with its neighbors, Israel must return to its roots. We must remind ourselves of the sublime goal of our people—to bring unity and solidarity to the world through our example—and work on ourselves until we become that model.
Just as during the “inauguration ceremony” at the foot of Mt. Sinai, when we received the Law and committed to obeying it, the people of Israel must first adopt their original constitution—the commitment to love others—and then we will be able to draft a proper constitution. If we reverse the order and draft a constitution before we have committed ourselves to caring for each other, the ego will take over and we will become a tyranny.
If we want to thrive in a free land of free people, we must strive toward one and only goal: to care for others no less than we care for ourselves.
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But the righteous, who engage in Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] not in order to receive reward but to bestow contentment upon their Maker, thus refine their bodies and invert their vessels of reception to the form of bestowal (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 4, Item 17).
Question: What is this methodology Torah and Mitzvot?
Answer: This methodology explains how, with the help of some miracle, of some special upper force called the Torah and Mitzvot (commandments), people can turn themselves from the desire to receive into the desire to bestow. By this they become similar to the Creator.
The Torah is a methodology of receiving light. That is, we can invite upon ourselves the influence of the upper light so that it changes our nature from reception to bestowal. This is what will be called life.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 11/20/22
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Kabbalah & RelationshipsTips on how to build successful relationships based on the spiritual principles and understanding of our natureBy praising her man, a woman helps him develop and strengthens their relationship.
Today the divorce rate is astounding and most relationships are short-lived. Because of this, it is very important for people to find out how they can maintain a successful marriage.
In order for a woman to understand how to best fulfill her part of the relationship, she must understand the nature of a man. Then she will be wise and able to create a lasting and loving relationship.
But how can a woman come to understand a man’s nature? After all, men and women are so different. In fact, the right understanding can come from the right actions. A woman should express her appreciation of her man, letting him know that he is special to her, that he is great—and doing this often! Then she will realize what he needs from her, and what kind of a connection there should be between them.
She will see that a man needs motherly care, praise, and admiration. Despite being masculine, big, and “macho,” a man actually has a great need for sympathy. And if a woman gives this to him, he won’t be able to leave her.
In fact, it’s similar to how a woman acts with a child. She tells him, “You’re wonderful, you did such a great job, you’re big, you can do it, you’re special, you’re the most unique person in the entire world—you, you, you…” And this makes the man remain with her.
But most importantly, she should do this with love. A man desires to hear this all the time, because men really are like children, and they often see a woman as a mother. And even though this kind of a relationship may seem “imbalanced,” it will become balanced out because it will make the man want to “rise up,” to show how great he is. It will awaken his desire to become greater in a positive way, rather than in an overbearing, negative way.
Kabbalah on EducationKabbalah comes to the rescue to today’s education and parenting crisisChildren’s games should teach them how to win by connecting with each other.
Back in the eighties, Douglas Coupland popularized the term “Generation X,” referring to the new generation. This quickly became a hot topic, and a pop culture formed around the notion, seeking to decipher the unique qualities of the new generation.Today, we live at the time of “Generation I”—a generation that is typically concerned with one thing—itself!
Kabbalah suggests that the best way to get from Generation I, where we feel alienated and hostile, to Generation We, where we feel connected, safe and connected, is through a new kind of education. Believe it or not, one of the principal means of education is—children’s games!
The games children play today, in the Generation I, are all about winning by being the fastest or the smartest, or stated simply, “better than everyone else.” To go from this to Generation We, parents can encourage their children to play games where the winner is the one who is best at connecting with others.
From a young age, children will learn about the benefits of being connected with others and will develop a mindset that is harmonious with Nature—where everything is already harmoniously interconnected.
In addition to showing children how we triumph by connecting with others, these games should also show that without such a connection, we fail. The games will show the child that being the best, triumphing, and winning, can only happen when everyone wins. This will help the children make that inner transition from I to We, and they will win-together with everyone else.
Such games and educational systems can pave the way to a new, interconnected mentality, suitable for the 21st century. Our times—of growing globalization along with growing egoism—necessitate that a transition will take place from the “I mentality” to the “We mentality.” Through games that enable such a transition, children and parents alike will learn a fundamental truth: that winning can only happen together with everyone, not alone.
Kabbalah & WomenAn insight into women’s inner quest and spiritual developmentWomen demand the spiritual status equal to that of men.
We are living in a very special time. Children leave home at a young age; relationships between couples are not as close as they used to be. Today, women are in the same social circles and have the same power as men and in many cases even more. As a result, the feeling of emptiness and attempts to find fulfillment and happiness are no longer related to family or even a woman’s professional life.Although it is still important to a woman to be content with her husband, children or grandchildren, as well as with her professional life, this is not enough for her. Her ego is so developed that it breaks through the fences of the family, the work place and even the nation. It wants spirituality.
This yearning for spiritual fulfillment has increased during the last 15 – 20 years. Before the current generation, there were a few cases here and there, but it did not occur by the thousands as it is today.
These days remind us of the times of Abraham, who formed the first Kabbalistic group in ancient Babylon. In those ancient times the women who attained spirituality were by the men’s side. They were on a spiritual level equal to that of the men. The great prophetesses, such as Dvorah, Hulda and others reached spiritual levels even greater than the men’s. People lived in realization of Godliness, and children were taught these truths from an early age.
But after humanity’s decline from spirituality, we rarely saw women Kabbalists. There were a few who reached spirituality, from the times of the destruction of the Second Temple until our generation, but they were a limited number.
Today, however, whether we like it or not, we are going back to that same early state in which humanity was united as one man in one heart. Because of this women have to be on the same spiritual level as men. In other words, the spiritual downfall of humanity that led to the devaluation of the woman’s spiritual status has to be remedied in our days.
Hence, today, we have to answer the demand that comes from so many women. It isn’t just a demand but a true need.
Comment: Victoria writes: “I see that 80% of the main questions about happiness, how not to worry, and how to organize one’s life, are asked by women. Will a woman ever be truly happy in this world”?
My Response: I don’t think so. A woman has a special intuition for what happiness means. To make the world happy means to make it perfect in general.
A woman must get out from under the authority of men. She must not obey the male mind, strength, and spirit. If she starts listening to herself, she will find the right solution.
A woman is the world. A woman is something that gives birth, develops, raises children, and does everything to soften our world.
Question: You said that until everything is perfect, a woman will not feel happy. Does it mean it must reach its ideal form after all?
Answer: Today she is playing what a man taught her: the role of a harsh woman, allegedly striving for beauty, for wealth, or something else. In fact, the depth of a woman’s nature is security and development.
Question: For others or herself?
Answer: Everyone. Otherwise, she will not provide herself with those either.
Question: Does she think in such terms—for everyone?
Answer: Yes. Although today a woman may be very egoistic, a proper upbringing will help her to see the truth that her actual realization can only be in connection, in alignment, and in rapprochement with others. Then there will be peace.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 10/13/22
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Question: What does the reflected light, which is used as a receiving Kli, mean?
Answer: Reflected light is the desire that can reject pleasure. Although it desires it very much, in order to be closer to the Creator and not for pleasure, it pushes it away.
As a result, it turns out that the rejection of the upper light, or the rejection of the desire, or the restriction of the desire, is the condition under which the creation comes closer to the Creator.
Question: The reflected light is the pleasure from bestowal. If I bestow to someone and enjoy it, this is the reflected light. Is it ever felt within a person?
Answer: Of course. Pleasures and sufferings are felt only within a person.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 11/20/22
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why did God create the heavens and the earth?“
There are two forces in existence: (1) the creation, which is the desire to receive and enjoy the light of the Creator, and (2) the Creator, which is the light itself, the desire to bestow pleasure, enjoyment, fulfillment and delight.
While the creation is equal to the light, i.e. wishing to receive the light with an intention to bestow contentment upon the Creator, then it receives the light. However, if the creation intends to receive the light with a self-aimed intention, i.e. to please itself alone, then it is opposite to the Creator. In such a state, the creation feels none of the intended pleasure that the Creator wishes to impart, and instead feels complete darkness, a black copy of the light. Such a state is called “this world” or “our world.”
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” means that the Creator created the qualities of bestowal and reception. Why? It is in order for us to host a combination of these qualities, and to have the ability to exercise our free choice about which of them to use: a desire to receive and enjoy with an self-aimed intention to receive, or a desire to receive with an intention to bestow like the Creator.
Convention in Turkey “Preparation to the Lesson” Lesson 3
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Convention in Turkey “Lesson 3”
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Question: Who breaks a person’s heart and when? Does a person do it himself or does the Creator break his heart?
Answer: The Creator, of course, “There is none else besides Him.”
He does all this, but gradually so a person understands what is happening to him and why. Then we already have some kind of opportunity to manage our states, at least to determine them.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 11/27/22
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After the restriction and the screen that were made on the will to receive, it became unfit to be a vessel of reception and departed from the system of Kedusha [holiness]. In its stead, the Reflected Light serves as a vessel of reception, and the vessel of the will to receive was given to the system of Tuma’a [impurity] (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 3, Item 15).
This is about pleasure and suffering. Pleasures are attracted by the will to receive, and suffering is repelled by it. This is natural.
Since the Creator’s desire is to give pleasure to His creations, we must come to a state where we accept this upper pleasure and are fulfilled with it, but not for our own sake, not for our own pleasure, but for the sake of the Creator, in order to bring Him contentment.
This, in principle, is the purpose of our existence: to be fulfilled for the sake of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 11/20/22
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Question: You explained that we never see people in their true form; that is, our egoism hides who they really are from us. In turn, others also seem to see you not in the form that you are, but in a form they put on you that is comfortable for their egoism.
Where is the truth then?
Answer: There is no truth. There is no real truth; it is always relative. And the absolute truth will be only with the complete correction of all states of humanity when it reaches complete correction.
Right now, we cannot define it. But we know that truth manifests itself only in the property of bestowal and love, that is, in absolute goodness. What is absolute goodness, I do not know.
I can say that in some ways I define it for myself. But it is above me, above my nature; it is when I can put myself in the most objective position, that is, when I am not taking any of my own desires and motives into account, but instead rising above myself, accepting the desire of another, and acting only in his name.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Whom to Believe?” 11/16/13
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Question: Let’s say two people are butting heads. The first reaction of one is to hit the other, to overpower him, and thereby win; it is not like “turn your cheek” at all. How does Kabbalah relate to this?
Answer: Kabbalah teaches that if I am threatened and about to be punched, then I can punch first. And why not? Why should I turn the other cheek? This is not Kabbalah or Judaism at all.
In Judaism it is said: “Kill the one who rises against you, kill him first.” That is, “Eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth.”
Question: It is interesting that in Israel when two people clash, there is almost never a fight. There is no such quality in people here to immediately hit the other in the face.
Answer: It depends on the level of development in people. Greater development suggests that they will deal with it by logical methods and not by force.
I would not say that there are no fights at all. They happen among young people but very rarely. Fighting doesn’t solve anything. You have to convince or defeat your opponent by logic and argument.
In our world, physical strength is not a guarantee of superiority over others. Anyone can carry a gun or use mace or something else in their pocket. Anyone can have more money to show off, say their Porsche or something else.
Convincing others! That is, the use of logic where you kill an opponent with a word; that is strength. And we see this both in the Talmud and in other primary sources. There is no mention of showdowns anywhere, and everything is solved only logically.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Showdown Israeli Style” 10/19/13
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Question: Is the force that arranges the system into a state of harmony above harmony? Is it something above the state that a person sees as ideal?
Answer: The correct interaction of all parts of the system, when each part of it acts in such a way as to bring all the others to mutual equilibrium, is the desired result of development.
The force that a person must rely on in order to reach harmony is a common force that is outside the system. This is the only force. By itself, it is in harmony. It does not need to bring itself to balance or expect any influences in the future in order to be in harmony because it itself is harmony.
Question: What is the point of contact with this force? What should a person pay attention to?
Answer: To the fact that every time he must bring himself into the state of harmony as much as possible.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 11/18/22
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Kabbalah & RelationshipsTips on how to build successful relationships based on the spiritual principles and understanding of our natureRelationships without a spiritual connection cannot survive.
Today it is practically impossible for a man and a woman to maintain a good relationship over time, unless there is a spiritual connection between them. It’s because their egos clash one against the other and destroy their connection. Today there are countless divorces, and most relationships fall apart, because our egos are “on fire,” and they only grow bigger with time. The beautiful verse, “Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them”— simply does not exist in such couples.So what does it take to create that spiritual connection between them, the only thing that can remedy their relationship? Having a spiritual connection means that both partners know the reason for their existence – to embark on the spiritual journey and attain the spiritual goal of life. Then they will have something that truly connects them, they will be in a mutual “cell” together, and the verse “Man, woman, and the Divine Presence between them” will really come true. In other words, they will feel the revelation of the Divine Presence —the Creator.
Kabbalah on EducationKabbalah comes to the rescue to today’s education and parenting crisisUnless children receive the answers they need, they disconnect from parents and live their own lives.
We often see that the younger generation is negative toward their parents and elders, they treat them with anger and respond with aggression to their advice. If we saw this anger as a cry for something deeper, we would understand that, perhaps they are right, because the older generation is not giving them what they need.What do we give the younger generation? They seemingly have everything: snacks, television, or video games. But it is not what the new generation is asking for, not what it wants, not what it is destined for. They lack the answer to the question, “what am I living for?” and it bursts out in the form of violence and anger.
Why is there an older generation and a newer one? Elders need to provide the younger generation with information about life, to pass them wisdom of how to manage in life, to answer the fundamental questions of existence, “Where am I? What for? Why? What is my life all about?”
Unfortunately, more often than not, this does not happen. Most parents never know the answers to these questions themselves. Yet, does this fact free them of the obligation to provide their children with what they need? Of course, not. If parents don’t know themselves, they should also search. Children say, “They had me, they brought me to the world and it feels as if they threw me out here, without any help.” – this is what children feel inside.
Not receiving answers they need, children become disconnected and detached from their parents. A kid comes home, eats something and he has his own life. Father, mother and whatever is out there are like machines that supply their physical needs. Everything else that concerns their soul and other inner needs has nothing to do with them. Who are these people? Dinosaurs or robots around the house that serve him. This is exactly how parents seem to children.
Can it be different? Yes, but only if parents themselves receive a different education.
If the children see that their parents are interested in the essence of life, the reason we live for and how to attain it; if they see their parents develop day by day, children feel that their parents can provide them with answers to any question. They can explain what happens in the world and why, help them understand the crisis and all the problems, so they can relate to the world correctly. Parents can not only explain this but also engage them in this wisdom.
Sadly, if children see and feel inside how miserable their parents are, if they witness them getting divorced, taking drugs, or wasting their time, burning their life out, what kind of attitude can they have towards them?
Children today are very smart. That’s why parents themselves should understand that, for their children’s sake, they must educate themselves.
Kabbalah & WomenAn insight into women’s inner quest and spiritual developmentWomen need fewer conditions to advance spiritually than men do.
Kabbalah states that if a man wants to advance spiritually, he is obliged to marry and have a family. It is his responsibility to fulfill these obligations. Otherwise, he cannot advance spiritually.A woman, on the other hand, can advance spiritually even if she is not a mother or a wife. Moreover, if she has the means for existence, she may also choose not to work. That is, in comparison to a man, a woman is relatively self-sufficient and can grow spiritually without many external conditions that apply to men. Thus, from the spiritual point of view, she is a considerably more perfect creature than a man.
A man has to overcome himself, to constantly convince himself that it’s worth staying on the spiritual path. He is less susceptible to spiritual advancement than a woman, who naturally aspires toward everything spiritual. She is ready to accept, feel and understand all of the spiritual transformations that are happening in her. She yearns for this.
The need for the spiritual ascent is manifested much more in a woman. She feels unsatisfied with our world, disappointed in family and work. A man looks for foolish passions, such as football, beer, friends and so on, and then gets lost in them. He lives pursuing false goals. A woman is unable do this. She perceives emptiness more internally and acutely. She cannot appease herself with such petty goals and temporary painkillers. More often she embarks on a spiritual search and comes to study Kabbalah.
We see this happening all over the world. More than half of the 1.3 million students studying within the framework of the Kabbalah Institute are women.
Question: Did a big transformation take place in the world when Baal HaSulam died?
Answer: Yes, the world took a sharp turn in its development; it has greatly accelerated. I must say that after the death of Baal HaSulam in 1955, it was a period of the Second World War ending and rapid development beginning; the youth, the Beatles, etc., all this went forward.
The next stage took place at the beginning of the 90s: the collapse of the Soviet Union and many changes in the world. All this was preparation for the recognition of spiritual descent and the need for spiritual ascent.
Question: Why did one person influence the entire world so much?
Answer: It is not just one person. It is not a person at all. Why do you think that the world is individual people? These are not people, but a special egoistic mass that needs to be worked on.
A Kabbalist is also not an individual person; he is like a probe, a tube, that descends into our egoistic world and transfers special spiritual energy into it. Thanks to it, the world goes to its originally intended goal in the best way.
When a Kabbalist dies, all kinds of shifts for the worse take place in the world. The world is already on the path of not good, evil development, but it is development nevertheless. This is what happened abruptly, from 1955 onward. It is mutational development, a predatory plunder of nature, the American dream, and so on.
Then, from 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the common market, in general, absolutely everything. To this day, it goes on and on.
But in our time there is an opportunity to soften the path and accelerate the correction of humanity; otherwise, it will catch up with us from behind and hit us with “sticks.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Does a Kabbalist Die?” 11/16/13
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Twenty Years Before The War
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why We Cannot See Beyond the Universe” Our universe, cosmologists say, began with a big bang and has never stopped expanding since. They explain that we cannot see, or otherwise research beyond the universe that inhabits Planet Earth. It is not for inadequate optics that we cannot study […]
My new article on Linkedin “A Mondial Tainted by Death and Corruption – Does Anyone Care?” It is hard to know how many migrant workers died building the soccer stadiums for the 2022 World Cup games in Qatar, but the two popular numbers are 6,500 and 15,000. Either way, no one cares. In addition to […]
The measure of the filling is as much as one can go above reason, and this is called Romemut. There is only emptiness in a place where there is no existence, as it is written, “hangeth the earth over nothing.” You find that what is the measure of the filling, of the empty place? The […]
Comment: When a Kabbalist explains something, a person does not hear the words; he feels you completely above logic. It only appears to him that he is hooked on your words. My Response: I try to convey the material with feelings because, actually, there is nothing but feelings. No matter how it may sound, maybe […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What makes a Jew a Jew?“ ews came about by detaching from the ego, i.e. the egoistic desire to enjoy for self-benefit alone, and discovering the upper world of bestowal and love above the ego. Accordingly, in essence, Jews are supposed to detach from the ego and think in terms of […]
Comment: Your student writes: “Good afternoon, dear teacher! I appeal to you with a request: teach me to talk to the Creator. I have been studying Kabbalah for more than 12 years. My husband died two months ago. We lived together for 28 years. He wasn’t involved in our study, but he was such an […]
Comment: You said that it makes no sense to suppress external factors, for example, enemies, but it is important to change them within yourself. My Response: We have many axes of misperception of reality. First, everything that exists, exists in us. Everything that is perceived by us is perceived in our desire. It is either […]
Question: We often explain the appearance of a person in a Kabbalistic environment and his departure through some events, for example, his fatigue. But surely, he has functions when he was supposed to appear, fulfill his purpose, and then move away, i.e., to realize himself precisely in this way, right? Answer: No. It is just that […]
Question: Is it possible to call accepting the opinion of a friend, even though it is the opposite of one’s own, “faith above reason”? If so, how do I do it without disregarding my own opinion? Answer: Faith above reason means contrary to my opinion, I accept the opinion of a friend and follow it […]
Temperatures are rising, and one colony of ants will soon have to make a collective decision. Each ant feels the rising heat beneath its feet but carries along as usual until, suddenly, the ants reverse course. The whole group rushes out as one—a decision to evacuate has been made. It is almost as if the […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is Ray Kurzweil correct in saying that advances in science will enable man to live forever?“ My question in relation to Kurzweil’s statement is: What is so good about us constantly living all the time? Why live at all if we are never to die? On the contrary, if we attain […]
Restriction means that Malchut of Ein Sof diminished the will to receive in her. Then the light disappeared because there is no light without a vessel (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Restriction and Line,” “Inner Observation,” Chapter 2). Question: What does the principle there is no light without a vessel […]
It is as our sages write: “All the gates were locked except for the gates of tears.” The world asks about this: If the gates of tears are not locked, what is the need for the gates at all? (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 18, “My Soul Shall Weep In Secret”) The gate of tears opens only […]
We should yearn to see a friend as the greatest of the generation in a real, tangible way, which is called “within reason,” as it really is, and not as it seems to our egoism. After all, egoism always wants to feel better and more comfortable, and therefore it instinctively belittles everyone around in order […]
Question: You say that tears are a manifestation of passive participation in correction and a sign of a person’s spiritual weakness. That is, it is a state of Katnut (smallness), a form of protection from egoism that does not give us the opportunity to work with it to bestow. What is passive participation in correction? […]
Question: The 13th part of The Study of the Ten Sefirot describes the system of the universe where all our desires come from even before our world was formed. It also says how tears appear. They symbolize an excess of light. When the light enters the Kli (vessel), and the Kli cannot accept it, it […]
Before building what would become the largest online retailer in the world, Jeff Bezos was a vice president at a fledgling hedge fund. Despite being very good at his job, Bezos couldn’t shake the idea of building a startup that would leverage this rapidly growing thing known as the internet as a way to sell books online. […]
Our sages said that if a person asks the Creator to revive his soul with faith, then such a request is immediately accepted. Apart from faith, we have nothing to ask for, we will receive nothing else. There is no point to turn to the Creator with any other questions, there will be no answer. […]
When we move from rejection of others to a connection above our egoism, then we begin to feel this system of communication between ourselves and everyone else. The connection between you and everyone else is called rising along the degrees of the worlds. To the extent we can reduce the internal distances between us to […]
Since the Creator contemplated delighting the created beings and the light expanded from Him and seemingly departed Him, the desire to receive His pleasure was immediately imprinted in this light. You can also determine that this desire is the full measure of the expanding light (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, […]
If we correctly tune ourselves with our friends and create a substrate from two opposite qualities, a place in which these qualities will be connected with each other, then a third quality, called the Creator or the middle line, will manifest in it. Otherwise, He does not exist and the middle line does not exist. […]
Question: Forbes magazine published the rankings of the highest-paid content producers on YouTube. Twenty-three-year-old Mr Beast tops the rankings with 2021 income of $54 million. Nastya, a seven-year-old Russian emigrant, holds 7th place in the rating; she has nearly 90 million subscribers. And what’s going on in Tik Tok?! Tik Tok stars can charge $500,000 just […]
Question: They say that if you talk with the Creator, it is fine, but if the Creator talks to you, then you should go to the doctor. 😊 Is there such a thing that the Creator is talking to you? Do you hear some kind of voice? Answer: That is true. Both things take place in […]
Question: Suppose a person has a tendency to steal. What action should be taken against him? Answer: Correction. Everyone steals. Everyone! Neither you nor I can vouch for ourselves either. It depends on where, how, what, consciously, unconsciously, or perhaps he was framed somehow. You cannot allow a person to be around such things that […]
Comment: There was a storyteller named Sergei Kozlov. He wrote the fairy tale “Hedgehog in the Fog,” from which an animated film by Yuriy Norshteyn was made. It is considered to be one of the best animations of all times. There are lines like: Today also the Hedgehog said to the Bear Cub, “How good […]
The matter of the restriction explains how an incomplete operation emerged from the perfect operator (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Restriction and Line,” Inner Observation, Chapter 1, Item 9). The fact is that everything in the universe is arranged so that created beings can discover, attain, understand the Creator, come […]
The ARI elaborated on the matter of the first restriction in the first chapters of this book. This is a very serious matter (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Inner Observation, Item 9). The first restriction is the most important matter, since it is about restricting the use of egoism. The entire […]
Comment: In the article “The Last Generation,” Baal HaSulam writes that when the majority of people in the world will be in the quality of bestowal, in the quality of the Creator, then people will stop communicating at all, meaning talking. My Response: They will communicate in a different way, at the level of thought. […]
Comment: During the pandemic, one of the biggest problems was the inability to hug—among relatives, parents and children, and so on. So, in the Netherlands, they turned to the old idea of hugging cows. Whole farms were prepared for cow hugging. The cows were calm, and people would hug them for half an hour. The […]
Question: In what system are the Kabbalistic books of Baal HaSulam described? Answer: Kabbalistic books are always written in a digital system, but the feelings that you experience within you are analog. That is, Kabbalists put feelings inside the digital system. But when people read, let’s say, the books of the ARI or Baal HaSulam’s […]
Comment: You said that if a person did not realize his function in time, then in the future it becomes a burden for them, heaviness and inability to do anything. But there is also a kind of heaviness when he did everything possible, but he was again loaded with additional Aviut (desire). My Response: A person […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Faith Above Reason” Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “The UN May Declare, But Only We Determine” On November 11, the United Nations’ Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) approved six draft resolutions, one of which will “request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” What I think we […]
Comment: It often happens that a person is burdened with some problems and everyone says: “Well done! It means that you are strong since you were given such obstacles!” My Response: No, not in our case. Of course it is necessary to understand these problems as obstacles to an ascent, but in a way that they […]
Comment: The Book of Zohar was written at the intersection of the analog system beginning to move to the digital one. This language should be close to us in our time. My Response: Baal HaSulam wrote an addition to The Book of Zohar, called HaSulam, which means the ladder. There, in parallel with the sensory, fable-like description, […]
Question: The West believes that democracy is the best method of interaction between people with freedom, everyone can speak out, etc. Why are they trying to present this system in such a way? Supposedly, America was built on freedom and human rights. Answer: The fact is that if it becomes unprofitable to keep a slave, he […]
There is no evidence that it was human activity that caused the critical climate changes taking place today. The globe is so huge and complex that it is impossible to prove that by our actions we can influence the deterioration of the climate. We are trying to blame the increased content of carbon dioxide in […]
Question: Are all eight billion inhabitants of our planet part of a single mind? What will they be next? Answer: They will represent a single mind then. But now, when they are broken, there is not any mind. As they unite, a common collective mind will arise that is based on connection, on mutual leveling before […]
Comment: You recently called modern education of children coercive. My Response: Our current education is, of course, coercion. A poor child is given a backpack or a briefcase, and that is it. He goes off to school for half a day. And what does he see there? Suppose young children still have underdeveloped egoism. A child […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the things that are prohibited in the Torah?“ Prohibitions in the Torah relate to our inability to use our ego—the desire for benefiting ourselves at the expense of others and nature—in the variety of ways it can be used, when we are in a spiritual connection. The most important […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Faith Above Reason” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)” Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “Israel – A World Leader in the Wrong Expertise” Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become essential components in the battlefield. In Ukraine, both sides use them extensively to attack and for surveillance, and the US, Turkey, Israel, and other countries have been using them for military assignments. Terror groups, such […]
The whole of reality was emanated and created with a single thought. It is the operator; it is the very operation; it is the sought-after reward, and it is the essence of the labor (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Restriction and Line,” Inner Observation, Chapter 1, Item 8). One thought of the […]
Question: If we look from the point of view of Kabbalah, why should there be the division into a huge number of people? Answer: Because it helps the correction. The fact that everyone makes a small unconscious correction means a lot. Today, with the help of the tools that he invented thanks to his knowledge, one person […]
The boundary between light and shadow is you (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec). My Response: That is right. Question: What does this mean for you? Answer: You make this boundary between light and shadow. If you come to the conclusion that this boundary does not exist, then it does not exist. Then you really become a man […]
Question: There are two kinds of people who perceive Kabbalah one way or another. One type is through attraction to this study, and the other through denial. By trying to undermine Kabbalah, they thereby study it. Is this also a form of connection? Can such people be called disciples? Answer: I would not call them disciples. […]
The word “Kabbalah” is explained in different ways. One of the meanings is transmission, since the language of Kabbalah can be transmitted only in the connection of a student and a teacher. All other languages (Tanakh, Alakhu, Haggadah) you can study by yourself. Of course, you have to get books from previous generations, study explanations […]
The true state of humanity is bestowal and love. How can we get to this, and arrive gradually? By conducting all kinds of seminars, through new literature, new art, new mutual relations, and new examples from all sides. Then a person, as it were, enters a completely different environment and begins cooking himself internally and […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Faith Above Reason” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)” Selected Highlights
Medium published my new article “Space Tourism and the Overview Effect” The overview effect is a cognitive shift reported by some astronauts while viewing the Earth from space. Researchers have described the effect as “a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus.” The most prominent common aspects of personally […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Quitting Israel” The results of the Israeli election had an interesting side effect: dissatisfied Israelis, presumably from the left side of the political map, have begun to explore the possibility of “quitting” Israel. They have set up Facebook groups with titles like “Leaving the Country Together,” where they […]
Patience and perseverance are the two main qualities essential to spiritual work. The Creator tests our devotion, i.e., how much we are attached to Him and are able to sacrifice everything else except Him, as if there is none else but the Creator. We have to test our strength and whether we will be able to withstand […]
One who is reading in the book of Torah—one reads and the other is silent. If two read in the Torah, they diminish the faith above because with one voice and speech, everything is one (The Book of Zohar, “And Moses Assembled,” Item 141). Comment: Two are the good and the evil inclinations in a person. When […]
Question: In the 14th century when the bubonic plague raged around the world, sixty million people died. People died instantly. What is the qualitative difference between those sufferings and the present ones? Answer: The current suffering is practically regulated by man. We have entered a period of development where we can regulate everything: suffering, joy, […]
Comment: You say that before the final correction, everyone sees the same events that are taking place, but in completely different ways. My Response: Seeing events differently does not mean that they happen differently. We don’t feel it, we don’t understand it, but Kabbalists look at the management system (why how, and for what purpose) and see […]
“Death comes to the Blacksmith with a scythe and asks him to sharpen it. He sharpens the scythe in horror, thinking that Death has come for him. He sharpens it and says, “I can’t believe I’m holding a weapon in my hands that has mowed down so many people.” And suddenly Death jumps up to […]
Comment: A girl sued her parents because she was born without her consent. As if she could somehow agree. And at first she even won the court. Below I quote this young girl from her Instagram post: “A few months ago I sued my folks for having me without my permission. And I won. So the court ordered […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What social framework should we develop for a better future?“ We are now entering a completely new framework in humanity, spanning families, towns, cities and nations. Today, nations have become replaced with a new kind of mixture, similar to how separate vegetables turn into a salad. This is especially visible in […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “American Jewry Should Stay Out of Israel’s Internal Affairs” The results of the general election in Israel are very difficult to swallow for many American Jews. Not only did they prefer Yair Lapid to Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, they loathe Netanyahu’s likely coalition partners. The New York […]
Question: Words are power. Can silence be called a force? Answer: Sure. This is especially evident in the family when the wife, for example, is silent. Her husband tries to get her to talk, but she is silent. Is that not power? Question: I do not know, I have not tried that, but it is […]
Comment: I heard of a 100-year-old woman in Australia who said that a long life stems from a calm attitude to any tumultuous life events. She recommends not holding on to grudges and to live in the here and now. She said her motto was: “Don’t worry about things that may never even happen.” I envy these people who […]
Once people made 5-year plans, plans for 30 or 50 years. Today, no one makes any plans at all; the main thing is to live for today and that is it, and then something will turn up. Therefore, if we look from the point of view of the elites or a narrow circle of people […]
Question: Why is there such a thing in nature that if a person commits some kind of offense, he must be punished? Answer: It is not punishment, but correction. Only people punish each other just like that; nature punishes according to its program; therefore, this is called correction. In this way, it urges you to do what you have […]
Spiritual War for the World Only women, once they connect, can change the situation in the world and restore order in it. But unfortunately, women are not actively declaring themselves. Every country has laws that allow women to demand access to leadership in order to properly organize life in their countries. Usually women fight for […]
Question: When Baal HaSulam asked the Creator to bring him down to a lower level, did he clothe in the animalistic mind? Answer: No, it was the mind he had! He needed a higher spiritual level to contact his lower level. There was a big gap between his animalistic body and his upper spirit. It […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it natural for a person to live in frameworks?“ It is natural for us to live in frameworks because we emerged from the animate level of nature, where there is a very clear framework. The animate level has a clear framework of instincts: everything in the animate being’s existence, from […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “When You Fail a Grade, You Must Retake It” Recent studies have shown that there is a “democratic recession,” as one paper called it. Another study moaned, “To the surprise of many in the West, the fall of the USSR in 1991 did not lead to the adoption […]
Nowadays the world is undergoing radical changes that are turning it from the world of the 20th century, which already is in the past, into the world of the 21st century, a new era, with a new structure. We are yet to see where history leads us and what kind of development process humanity is going through. […]
I am not afraid of any criticism. What can they do to me in this world? Everything goes according to the program of creation; what happens will happen. When Baal HaSulam received criticism, he said that it meant that this generation is still unworthy to reveal Kabbalah to, and he stopped writing articles on topics […]
Question: We know that birth is a very emotional, powerful event for a child. After a while, he can already see, hear, smell, and feel. But no one remembers this event. Not only do we have no memories of birth itself but also not of the first two years of our life, the time when […]
This is what I have troubled to do in this interpretation, to explain the ten Sefirot as the Godly sage the Ari had instructed us, in their spiritual purity, devoid of any tangible terms. Thus, any beginner may approach the wisdom without failing in any materialization or mistake. With the understanding of these ten Sefirot, […]
What is the difference between male and female leadership styles and how can we combine them both? If a leader, whether man or woman, does not know about the purpose and program of creation and how to lead in order to progress to what nature requires of us, then nothing good will come of it. First of all, […]
Question: Let’s say artificial intelligence cannot exist independently and invent things. It can think everything through very professionally, but it’s all already embedded in its program. It will never have any independent solution, just a program. And how do we differ from artificial intelligence, from this program? What is not embedded in us so that we […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a crime?“ Defining crime is very problematic. In Russian, there is a saying: “Show me a person and I’ll pin a crime on them,” i.e. it is easy to prove, in a serious manner, that anyone is a criminal. We are all criminals because we make the laws of […]
Question: There is such a thing as a “vow of silence,” meaning abstinence from talking. What is it? What is it used for? Answer: People have long understood that silence is a much more important manifestation of a person than some conversations. That is why they always say that if a speech costs, say, a […]
The spiritual is divided by disparity of form, as the corporeal is divided by an ax… Know that spiritual entities become separated from one another only by disparity of form. In other words, if one spiritual entity acquires two forms, it is no longer one, but two (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, […]
Question: When in one’s spiritual development is a person required to speak and when to be silent? Are there any intervals? Answer: In a person’s spiritual development, one should communicate with the Creator as much as possible, I would say even constantly. That is, one should be in touch with Him all the time: I am to the Creator, […]
Comment: Let’s say you lived and a certain quality was revealed in you. You have begun to develop, have become a great Kabbalist, and have reached a certain point, and now from this point you look at what qualities your experiences have revealed to you so that you can perceive the Creator now. My Response: […]
History knows many women who were pioneers that paved the way and made changes in the world that laid the foundation for a more progressive society. Usually, heroic efforts were required from a woman in order to break through the established stereotypes and go against accepted norms and cultural traditions. Yet, most of history was written by men, […]
Question: You said that there is nothing easier than to actually reveal the Creator. Is this the simplest thing we can do? Answer: Sure. You just have to connect with others, with a small number of people, reach a state where you all get out of yourself, rise above your “I,” and enter into a […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why are gang members so attached with other gang members?“ Gang members are often very tightly connected and have a feeling of devotion to each other, up to a point where they are willing to die for each other. They share a common pride, that what they are doing is just. […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A Nation that Is Not a Nation” A week before the general election that was held this Tuesday, the newspapers Israel Hayom and Haaretz published two separate surveys, both concluding that contrary to the common perception of Israelis as preoccupied with problems of defense and terror, they are […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Is Our Future Eternity?” A student told me he had read that the famous futurist Ray Kurzweil is about to publish a new book titled The Singularity Is Nearer. Apparently, it is a development, or elaboration on ideas Kurzweil had presented in his earlier book, The Singularity Is […]
Question: Is the intention of Lo Lishma a necessary stage of spiritual development? Answer: Of course. Each time it is revealed to us that we are acting with the intention of Lo Lishma, meaning for personal gain. Then we demand the reforming light so that it corrects Lo Lishma for the altruistic intention of Lishma. […]
All attention should be focused on our duty to connect, to go toward unity. This is the correction of the transgression of the tree of knowledge. We can’t hide from it. If we take a closer look, we will see that every person, all nations, and all of mankind generally revolve around this correction. It will […]
Kabbalists wrote about the essence of the soul: “The soul is a part of God above and is not at all changed from the Whole, except in that the soul is a part and not the Whole” (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Inner Observation, Item 3). Question: How can we […]
We should therefore always distinguish two discernments in His bestowal: The first is the form of the essence of that upper abundance before it is received, when it is still an inclusive, simple light. The second is that after the abundance has been received, for by this it acquired one separate form according to the […]
Question: If there is something successful in dissemination and the world takes it “with a bang,” how can we deal with it? Answer: No. We should not experience constant problems, but if the world perceives the dissemination with a bang it does not mean that we have already reached something. We will begin to feel […]
Question: Did Adam make any real mistake? Answer: Allegedly, a real mistake. Adam failed to reveal the universe correctly, which is represented by eating from the tree of knowledge. He ate it egoistically, and therefore he must come to the realization of the unfaithfulness of the egoistic path of development, the egoistic attitude to himself, to […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “When do we consider that a person is criminal?“ Until we completely correct our ego, where we can position ourselves to the benefit of society—which is already a degree like we never saw before anywhere in this world—then we are always criminals of sorts. We are criminals from birth. It is […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on Topic “Intention Before Studying TES“ Writings of Baal HaSulam “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 2, Part 6, Item 1″ Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Time for the UN to Live Up to Its Charter” Last week was the 77th United Nations Day, marking the anniversary of the entry into force of the UN Charter in 1945. The day’s official web page states, “There is no other global organization with the legitimacy [and] […]
My new article on Linkedin “Can Corrupting Art Save Earth?” Since the beginning of the year, there has been a growing trend among climate activists to corrupt art history’s greatest treasures in an effort to raise awareness of climate change. So far, twelve incidents have occurred this year, six of which took place last month. […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Following the Israeli General Election” Perfect timing: on the day of the Israeli parliamentary elections, we began studying Baal HaSulam’s article, “Peace in the World.” Among other things, the article speaks about the interdependence of all people and how the positive or negative actions of each of us […]
Comment: You have created an international community with a large number of people from different countries, in addition, a dissemination enterprise popularizing the Kabbalah of Rabash and Baal HaSulam. My Response: No, I think it is impossible to popularize Kabbalah. Maybe that is how it seems. But that is not my job. I am not a promoter, […]
I think it’s important to have a future that is inspiring and appealing. I mean, I just think that there have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Like why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the […]
There is a special force in our unity. When we unite above self from the state “me” to “we,” we reveal a new force in nature; it is called the “wisdom of the crowd.” The integrality is the one who gives it to us. Even more, this force is above all other forces. We can […]
The state of Lo Lishma is not ordinary earthly egoism. To be in Lo Lishma means to try to be in Lishma, to perform actions of bestowal, and to reveal that for now you are doing them for yourself. The time when I make efforts to rise above my egoism and achieve bestowal but I […]
Question: There is a well known parable regarding judgment taking place above—to hell or to heaven. The famous preacher’s turn comes; he is calm, and suddenly he is sent to hell. He asks, “Why to hell?! Right before me, a reckless driver was sent to heaven.” He is told: “What were you thinking? Everyone was […]
Comment: Surely you always have a certain position that you have to soften and adapt to the public. My Response: Just like with children to whom you only say what they can understand and explain with language, gestures, facial expressions: “This is how this works, and this is how that is. Let us see together. See how […]
Comment: When we have problems, you recommend contacting a specialist, such as a lawyer and so on. My Response: Yes, on the corporeal level we must use the tools of our world and at the same time make spiritual corrections. Therefore, if someone attacks me, and I have some legal opportunity to oppose him, then […]
Question: If you look at human life, most of the time we are silent. What is the spiritual root of this state? Answer: Obviously, we can express a small amount of our emotions in terms of time, momentum, and other parameters. Personally, I do not see anything vicious in silence. On the contrary, as they […]
“One” indicates a single evenness… “Unified” shows that although He performs the multiple operations, one force performs all these (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Inner Observation, Chapter 1, Item 1). The Creator is one. There is no other force in the universe. He is unified because everything that we perceive as completely different, […]
Comment: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam explains that the spiritual essence itself is simple, although it consists of many opposite forms relative to the receiver. Therefore, people began to believe that there are two upper forces: good and evil. Then they saw that they were disintegrating into many more different forces. […]
That should appease your mind regarding the perplexing expressions we often find in books of Kabbalah……, and some that are even foreign to the human spirit (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation”). Question: Baal HaSulam writes of such concepts as, for example, a kiss or copulation, which at first glance are not quite […]
In the program placed into a person by the Creator, there is a huge part called “mistakes of the past,” meaning the area of sensory, social, personal, and family successes and failures. Can you imagine what is uploaded into a person?! It is world that a child does not have, an enormous part of the universe […]
There are a large number of unnecessary professions in the world. A person should be freed from them; otherwise, he will completely pollute the earth. He should be taking through integral education. It is estimated that 75% of working people are engaged in completely unnecessary work. It would be much better if more than 90% of the world’s […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should I try to boost my ego or keep it in check?“ We should know the final goal that we are destined to reach, and that the ego develops within us in order to reach that goal. However, it develops within us in order for us to make correct use of […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on Topic “A Thousand Enter a Room and One Comes Out to Teach” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions”
Know that there is not an essence of a single being in the world, both the ones perceived by our senses and the ones perceived by our mind’s eye, that is not included in the Creator (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Inner Observation, Item 1). The Creator is a general […]
Question: How can you put something into a connection that could affect an ordinary person? Answer: I must invest an altruistic intention in my work and in everything I do. I want people to feel that their salvation is in the connection between them because we find a special upper force of nature in it that can […]
Comment: When a man and a woman start a family, it’s like a fire is burning inside them. But over time every couple begins to cool down. My Response: Then the same fire burns them. This is a normal feeling of nature because plus and minus together gradually destroy each other. The light bulb burns out; […]
Comment: If you look at what is happening, then at this stage you have done much more than the Kabbalists of the past during their time. My Response: I have done a lot at this stage but at a low level. Kabbalists of the past made massive corrections in the spiritual world and prepared it […]
Question: How can you put a spiritual component into media products in a way that could affect a person? Answer: It depends on the intentions. Nothing else. Spirituality means intention. Corporeality means desire. Desire is permanent and meant only to fulfill itself. Inanimate, vegetative, and animal matter, which include man as the highest stage of the […]
Question: In theory, the Creator created creation and gave it a sense of freewill. How is it even possible to give a person a quality that supposedly gives independence, but at the same time the choice of decisions and freedom of will as though they are not programmed? Answer: This quality is created by a […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is the world deteriorating?“ The world is starting to understand where it is. We are starting to agree with the fact that the future will be no better than it is today, and the next generation will be far worse off than we are. We have passed our peak period […]
Comment: Protests continue in Iran. It seemed like it would end very quickly that they would be crushed because the government has strong control, mainly through fear and intimidation. But suddenly the protests are continuing, which began after the morality police killed a 22-year-old girl. People went to the streets. They show footage of women taking […]
Comment: Prayer in the heart arises automatically, that is, any lack that manifests itself: I want to drink, I want to eat, I want, I want. My Response: Every living being, everything that exists, has it. Question: What does the Creator think about this? Answer: Nothing. He Himself awakens these desires and He also fulfills […]
Changed apartments—moved from Sodom to Gomorrah (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec). My Response: Still there is a difference. There is Sodom and there is Gomorrah. Comment: But still, both cities were destroyed. My Response: It does not matter. They were destroyed, but in different ways. Question: Where should I really move to if I want to escape […]
Question: You, as a Kabbalist, are a kind of a substance that consists of desires and intentions. You look just like any other person. How do you build some of your consistent actions in our world? Answer: On one hand I am a teacher; whoever wants to receive the knowledge that I possess from me can […]
Comment: When there is pressure that you didn’t see coming, it seems easier to outlast it than to throw yourself into the millstones of the group. My Response: It depends on one’s level and one’s understanding of his purpose in life. If my goal is to be healthy, then I am happy to go under the surgeon’s […]
Question: When you look at a student, do you know his or her entire path from beginning to end? Answer: What does it matter? It is still very hard to describe, including his freewill and so on. There is nothing obvious. There is a program, but the method of its implementation is concealed. But if […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do we compare ourselves with anyone?“ We are made of a desire to enjoy, which enjoys at the expense of others. This is our human ego, and it gives us a sense of self by comparing ourselves with others. When we compare ourselves to others, we separate ourselves from them, […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Rabash “Hear Our Voice” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World” Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “Nothing Frightens More than Losing Face” Of all our fears, probably the one that is the most intense is the fear of losing face, of being shamed. To most of us, our self-respect means more than anything else. If we lose it, we often prefer to die. No other species […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What I Find in the Wisdom of Kabbalah” A couple of weeks ago, a journalist from the French women’s paper magazine Fémitude wrote me asking if I would be willing to answer a question for an article she was writing about the wisdom of Kabbalah. Her question was, […]
Question: The Torah is written in the language of branches. For example, in the Torah the word “Egypt” (Mitzraim) means “concentration of evil” (Mitz Ra). That is, a Kabbalist feels the evil of his egoistic nature, but calls it Egypt. In our world there is such a country or, say, a place. This is clear. But […]
Suppose you succeed in breaking the wall with your head. And what, then, will you do in the next cell? (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec) Question: The author completely believes that we are in prison one way or another. We are constantly hitting and hitting a wall. Answer: That’s right. The entire history of humanity is like […]
Very often people who are starting to study Kabbalah come with an approach to our world that now we will set up a system, it will start working, and everything will be fine. And then they are faced with the fact that this approach does not work here, and therefore they leave. They rely on […]
Question: If the soul of a person is exchanged, if he is given another one, where does the previous one go? Answer: It does not go anywhere. There are reincarnations of souls all the time; they move from one state to another. In general, there is only one soul in the world, and all that happens […]
Comment: Five married couples who have lived together for over 50 years shared their secrets for a happy relationship. Here is what each couple considers to be most important. Tell us what you think, please. One 81-year-old couple, married for 57 years believe that the most important thing in a long and happy marriage is sharing […]
Question: You speak quite openly about many things. Are you not afraid of some kind of pressure by law enforcement agencies? Answer: No, on the contrary, the more people know me, the more open I am. The more I tell everyone and everywhere how to move forward and how I understand the universe, its movement, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “I want to change myself. What should I do?“ If we understand that the most important aspect of our lives is to be with people who understand, help, love and appreciate us, then we need to cherish such an attitude as much as possible. By doing so, we sacrifice our “I” […]
First, we must know that when dealing with spiritual matters, which have no concern with time, space, or motion, and moreover when dealing with Godliness, we do not have the words by which to contemplate and express. Our entire vocabulary is taken from sensations of imaginary senses. For this reason, the sages of the Kabbalah […]
If I transfer my inner yearning, my cry, into an appeal through the friends to the Creator, then it turns into a prayer. The prayer should come from a few people together, from at least two people but preferably from the ten (from the Minyan). Then the Creator will surely hear it and answer it. […]
Question: Can practicing Kabbalah reduce the number of future reincarnations of a person? Or is their number predetermined? Answer: It does not matter if it is predetermined or not, but we can change and influence them. Question: I have heard that if a person who studies Kabbalah is in a ten and passes away, he […]
Comment: Max watched your video and wrote to ask: “So is it all about me and not the world ?!” My Response: Of course it is all about the person. And what about the world? What is the world? The world is a reflection of you. Comment: But a person cannot imagine that there are no people, there […]
Question: In the future we will be able to control our brains using a computer or smartphone. Does it mean that we ourselves will become robots? Answer: There will be such a connection perhaps partially. At least, it will be possible to give signals and commands through a smartphone or through a computer, and to […]
Question: How can you check if you are in a state of Lo Lishma from which we come to Lishma? Answer: Lo Lishma means that a person strives for the truth. He has heard and theoretically has an idea of what it is, but at the same time, he is still in the intention to receive for […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the basis for negative emotions?“ We should first understand that negative emotions surface in order to change us and bring us to a more positive state. Similar to diseases, they are signs that something is wrong. For instance, if my foot hurts, it is not that there is a […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Other Side of the Coin” A few weeks ago, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented an extremely rare 2000-year-old coin that was stolen and smuggled out of Israel, and returned following an intelligence operation by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the human ego?“ It is a key law of nature that any existing body—still, vegetative or animate—desires to sustain and protect its existence. That is not considered ego. It can be called the desire to live and to exist. The human ego begins where we desire to harm others. […]
My article in Newsmax: “Are Waves of Isolation, Separatism in Europe’s Future?” Following decades of left-leaning governments on the old continent, Europe is taking a turn to the right. Specifically: Italy, Hungary, and Sweden have recently elected new governments, all of which are conservative, or otherwise right-wing. Judging by their platforms, they will focus more […]
There is no escape; after all the twists of history that may still happen, we will all the same come to the decision that we must rise above human egoistic nature and come to bestowal (Lishma). And only this goal stands before us—unlike the material ideal of getting rich and becoming the king of the […]
Thus, in our world, there are no new souls the way bodies are renewed, but only a certain amount of souls that incarnate on the wheel of transformation of the form, for each time they clothe a new body and a new generation (Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”). Question: There is a certain number of souls […]
Question: Does a person have the opportunity to learn about his past reincarnations? There is a lot of speculation on this topic and quite serious evidence that people seem to remember who they were in other incarnations. Is it possible? Answer: No. As a rule, these are all far-fetched thoughts. But if a person really […]
Question: If I understand correctly, the reduction of desire occurred due to the fact that the creation felt itself opposite to the Creator precisely in its intention and not in the fact that it has a desire to receive (Aviut). Is the shame of creation not that it is opposite to the Creator (He is the desire to […]
Question: Can we say that inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature also prays on their own level? Answer: Any creature, even the inanimate, not to mention the vegetative, animate, and human, prays. At the heart of all of them is desire, but only a person who is learning how to do this can correctly direct this desire. […]
Question: What is the mechanism for activating the work of the upper forces in the system when many people pray? Let’s say that a large number of people are beginning to raise a request to the Creator, what mechanisms are activated in this case? Answer: We proceed from the fact that we are one single spiritual […]
Question: What should we do so that on the one hand we don’t get into trouble in dissemination, and at the same time understand that there is a Creator in this? Answer: This is our job. What do you mean, don’t get into trouble? I don’t get into trouble; I don’t specifically speak out against […]
Question: Do you have any protection against physical attacks? Answer: I do have spiritual protection. I am under the influence of the same upper force; what it wants, it will do according to its plan. I am obliged to give out the maximum of what I can at every moment. The maximum! I consider myself […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are disadvantages of marrying your first love?“ Marrying our first love does not guarantee a good marriage. We usually encounter several mistakes, breakages, arguments and perhaps also divorces, and only later, at an age closer to the end rather than the beginning, do we perhaps meet someone and start appreciating […]
Question: Does the speed of a person’s development and ascent to the spiritual world depend on previous lives and reincarnations? Answer: Practically it doesn’t. It depends only on you. Question: Usually people do not have problems with reincarnations; they are fine with this. The only question is whether consciousness remains. If at least something remains […]
Since in Ein Sof it is He is One and His Name One, and since there is no place and vessel (meaning our desire) apparent there at all, no mind of a created being can attain Him, for there is no attainment without a vessel (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter […]
Question: The Creator does not have the opportunity to do what we can do. Why can’t He do this job? Answer: Because then we will not be able to feel what He wants us to feel. We will not be able to consist of the two parts of nature at the same time: receiving and […]
Question: You are saying that it takes 15 to 20 years to attain spirituality. Is it possible to hasten it? Answer: If you have a very serious environment around you, then it is possible. I hope that we are creating a completely new environment for ourselves, which will work very intensively for us. For the first […]
Medium published my new article “Europe Makes a Right Turn” Ulf Kristersson Prime Minister of Sweden arrives at the European Council EUCO, the EU leaders summit while he is passing in front of the European flags and the flag of Europe. He does a stand-up and talks to the media while answering questions from journalists […]
Question: Baal HaSulam wrote The Study of the Ten Sefirot as a textbook for beginners. In addition to the original text and comments on the book The Tree of Life, he made explanations called “Inner Light” and “Inner Observation,” and also compiled “Questions and Answers” to clarify the meaning of words, terms, and spiritual actions. This […]
Comment: Kabbalists write that a person in this world in a biological body (not after death) can attain the state where he changes his nature. My Response: Nothing happens after death. It is because the death of the physical body has very little, if any, effect on the condition of the spiritual body, which we […]
Question: On one hand, according to Kabbalah there is only one soul. On the other hand, they speak of “the reincarnation of souls”; that is, there are many of them. How should one understand this? Answer: The common soul was divided into parts. It is called Adam because in total it should be similar to the […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the causes of monkeypox?“ Not just monkeypox, but all kinds of diseases emerge internally from within humanity as a result of our overblown egocentric desire. The more we evolve, the more the human ego grows, and the coarser the ego we live in, the greater problems we bring upon […]
Question: What is the difference between thought and action? We always judge people by their actions, but thoughts practically produce the same actions. Let’s say a person wants to kill someone, we do not judge him by his thoughts. Answer: In our world, we judge a person by actions, and in the spiritual world by […]
Comment: Before each congress you usually were ill, generally with respiratory diseases. In fact many would be ill. Now there is a period when this passes us by. My Response: Because we have reached another stage where we agree with unification, dissemination, and expansion and where we have come into good contact with an external force and wish it […]
Question: The Kabbalistic term “Lishma” is translated to “for the sake of the Creator.” What does this mean? Answer: It means that all of creation, which is an egoistic desire for its own sake, must correct itself, change itself, as if to turn itself inside out, in order to do everything not for its own sake, […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Rabash “What Is ‘For You Are the Least of All the Peoples,’ in the Work” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should great teachers be rewarded?“ I think it is incorrect to involve other calculations in teaching. It is one thing for students to grade their teachers as a means of developing the students, but not that the teachers receive any public excellence rewards for their teaching. Doing so has nothing to […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The agreement with Lebanon to bring neither peace nor quiet” “Israel’s Supreme Court on Sunday rejected petitions that would have held up a landmark US-brokered deal setting a maritime border with Lebanon, which Washington predicted could be finalized on Thursday,” hailed Reuters on Monday, October 24. But if […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do Israeli Jews rely on American Jews to advocate for them?“ Most American Jews feel no connection to Israel. Even if they talk about it, it does not come from the heart. They do not feel it. We do not feel ourselves as belonging to one another. To begin with, we […]
Question: Does a person born in our world already have an intention? Is he born not just with the desire to receive? Answer: Yes, but they are small, micro intentions. Question: We see that a small child has a desire to enjoy. Yet you cannot even say that he enjoys for his own sake. But […]
To bring a person to the degree of a complete righteous means to show him the most terrible, unjust, awful things in the world, and nevertheless, because he ties all that to the Creator as the only force, the only Creator, he justifies them. It is impossible. Simply impossible! But you must come to this. [304046] […]
Question: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot Baal HaSulam writes that four worlds were formed at a point of contracted space. “Olam” (world) comes from the word “Alama” (concealment). Four concealments, four filters were formed. Why were these filters needed? Answer: The fact is that no one created anything on purpose. But since there is opposition […]
Question: If some deficiency arises in me and I understand that the Creator caused it, should I still add some external words? Answer: Yes. Speak from yourself and as much as possible. And the Creator will understand and translate everything as needed. Question: But this is one layer. Is there an even higher level, to […]
Question: What do you think about the phrase “do not carry insults in your heart”? Answer: This is important. But this is natural. If we accept everything as coming from the Creator and everything that is being played between us is the picture of the world that He is playing, then the attitude toward this becomes correct […]
Question: What does it mean to live one day? Answer: This is correct, live one day. But this is in the sense that today is my day; I make it; I fully receive my impressions from what the Creator gives me and I process them within myself. I constantly adjust myself, my impression, and my reflections of the […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think of the Diderot effect?“ After living a life of poverty and not caring much about material wealth, Denis Diderot received a fancy new red scarlet satin robe as a gift. Afterward, he noticed that his chair was just an old straw chair, and changed it to a […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Rabash “Why Is the Torah Called ‘Middle Line’ in the Work” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What a Canadian psychologist knows about Israel that Israelis do not” Jordan Peterson, a Canadian media personality, clinical psychologist, author, and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, describes himself as a “classic British liberal.” The media often describes him as conservative. Be that as it may, his […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Can Israel Win against Terror?” Since the birth of the Jewish nation, it has faced vicious enemies. Each time, a different villain sought to extinguish our nation. They almost always won, and we almost always lost, but in the end, we are still here and they are long […]
Question: What does “reincarnation” of a person mean? What is being reincarnated? What part of a person disappears and what remains? Answer: Nothing. If a person in this life strives to reach the upper purpose, the upper world, the upper existence, then he must use everything that he has in this world to do so […]
Question: In the material world there are states of birth and death, childhood and old age, and in the spiritual world this is expressed in the expansion of perception. What does the expansion of perception mean? Answer: Each time you don’t die, but, as they say, you change your “skin.” You change all your instruments, desires, […]
Question: Have you always spoken in an eloquent way? Answer: I have always been able to speak beautifully. People were even amazed at my Russian, although I did not study anything specific. However, I have read tens of thousands of books. I have always been very inquisitive. We had a subscription for technical magazines such […]
Question: You have a certain function, you are a link of spiritual transmission. What if this physical connection between you and your students is interrupted? You are a link they cannot do without. Answer: There is no such thing as “cannot.” It will happen! The main thing is the connection between you. If you have […]
Comment: We really want to believe that there is some kind of continuation after death. Something inside us demands it. My Response: If we tried to fill our life with some deep upper meaning, then we would cherish it, fear for it, and try to find out what kind of continuation it could have. But […]
Comment: If dissemination of our method is successful, is this not a very good sign? My Response: No. Dissemination should go well. At the same time, you reveal that you lack one more parameter in this scheme—the Creator. It does not mean that you have failed. On the contrary, due to the fact that you […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your thoughts on freedom of speech?“ There is no freedom in our world, and while our world exists in its current form—running on a motor of human egoism, where we each aim at benefiting ourselves at the expense of others—then we can expect no freedom. Freedom of speech, the […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Rabash “What Are the Two Discernments Before Lishma“ Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions” Selected Highlights
Do not be misled into the thought that the restriction of the light from the middle point caused any changes in Ein Sof. There is no change and absence in spirituality, and all the more so in such a sublime place (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Restriction and Line,” Chapter 2). […]
The upper light is not subject to change and incidents. These above occurrences of innovations are only with respect to the vessels (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter 2, “Restriction and Line”). Baal HaSulam wants to say that there are no changes in the upper light, and all changes occur […]
Question: Some psychologists believe that there are five main neuroses of the 21st century. They classify this as the epidemic of narcissism, in which the pronoun “I” is used more often than “we.” Personal success is placed above caring for others. Is this neurosis? Answer: This is self-love. It exists in every person. How does […]
The workshop is a tool for quickly changing a person’s consciousness, his attitude to life, his values, his adaptation to new and various opinions that previously seemed opposite to his, and so on. The workshop is a very effective form because if you tune in to it correctly, it makes you bow before others, listen to their […]
The world will be receiving blows all the time until it finds the solution. Either we will start listening to the method of integral connection or we will receive all kinds of blows, personal, public, wars, etc., until we understand what needs to be heard. To hear that the only opportunity to live differently lies […]
Question: The pace of change in the world is noted as a problem for businesses, world leaders, and the general population alike. Many are not able to adapt to it and simply cannot keep up with the changing world. Why is there this acceleration? Why are we being pushed harder and harder? Answer: It is to give us a […]
Preparation to the Lesson Shamati #5 “What Beginning in Lo Lishma Means in the Work” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions” Selected Highlights
Prior to the restriction there was He is One and His Name One, and the mind cannot attain Him (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter 2, Item 5). Desire is created by the light opposite to it and is filled with it. We practically cannot understand this state. It is […]
Question: It is very difficult for a person to predict any changes in himself and in the world even if he makes an effort. And as for society, this picture is generally blurred. Why are changes and their consequences unpredictable and hidden from us? Answer: They are not hidden. We simply do not see the […]
Our world has come to its egoistic end today. We have revealed that all of it is a closed system. Once we thought that we could do everything: produce, achieve, expand, and conquer. Suddenly, it turns out that we are alone in the universe, we have nowhere to fly. The Earth is a closed, very […]
Comment: A person can try to justify the Creator to a certain extent until he reaches a critical point. My Response: At each stage there is this critical point, and then it is gone. All people and all objects become absolutely equal for you because through them you connect with the Creator and feel only His […]
Question: You once said: “If you unite, I will be able to explain more.” Do you own the information and you need a formed desire toward which you give this information? Answer: We need desires that will be at the level of what I want to explain. If there are no such desires, then the […]
In the News (CNBC): “Of the estimated 828 million people globally who were affected by hunger in 2021, around three-in-five (59%) were women, according to a report released earlier this month by humanitarian organization Care. “That’s equivalent to 150 million more women facing food insecurity than men. “And the gap is widening. … “According to the U.N.‘s 2022 ‘The […]
Preparation to the Lesson Shamati #5 “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Education as an Antidote for Hunger” This week, the UN, and several related organizations, marked two significant dates: the World Food Day and the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. International organizations for the poor and hungry have existed at least since the end of World War […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can one rise above themselves?“ We can rise above our egoistic selves in a group setting where we conduct various exercises that guide us on how to connect with each other until we receive a feeling that we live in a single system of nature. By learning how to connect, […]
Question: Let’s say a person has some material problems and he asks the Creator to sort them out somehow. Is this normal? Answer: Do you see that it helps? Comment: It probably helps someone, but not someone else. My Response: In principle, no. Question: In Kabbalistic literature it is written more strongly that you harm […]
Question: The topic of reincarnation interests many people, but why is there so little written about it? Answer: It is in order not to pass incorrect information and it is not to try to hide the correct one, but to give a person only what is needed. Therefore, Kabbalists prefer to remain silent. Question: But does the […]
Comment: People feel a lot of states as a result of hearing your words during a lesson and think: “I have discovered something incredible here for myself!” My Response: This is how I reveal the world to them! I sit in front of them and, one can say, open up more and more connections and interactions between […]
Everyone knows that The Book of Zohar is special. This is the only Book that can lead man into the spiritual world. It has become famous because of its unique purpose, and humanity treats it in a special way. A man is born into this world without knowing anything about it. Nature has prepared a very […]
Comment: There is a famine in Brazil. People lost their jobs during the pandemic and found themselves without means of subsistence. They call it the “hunger pandemic.” More than 100 million Brazilians will no longer have meat, dairy products, and vegetables on the table, that is, in very limited quantities. Brazil is one of the […]
The holiday of Sukkot symbolizes joy. This is a wonderful, pleasant, easy, and simple holiday that people love very much. Although it requires advanced preparation, it is nevertheless imbued with a joyful atmosphere. Why? First of all, after self-examination, after receiving the Torah on Shavuot, on the 9th of the month of Av, we saw […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the spiritual process?“ The spiritual process of development means disagreeing with listening to our egoistic desires for self-benefit at the expense of others and nature, and developing a new spark that will be connected solely with the upper force of love, bestowal and connection, called “the Creator” or “nature.” […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Rabash “I Am the First and I Am the Last” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption” Selected Highlights
Each of us has only a tiny power, but this is how it should be before the very end of correction. The desire (Kli) must manifest itself as completely fragmented, disconnected, and broken to the smallest pieces. And if they come together and unite, then they are all included in one big Kli of Adam […]
And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month, is the Festival of Succoth, a seven day period to the Lord. On the first day, it is a holy occasion; you shall not perform any work of labor. [For] a seven day […]
Our world is the smallest. It occupies a very small volume, and everything else is of a completely different nature. Our nature is given to us only so that we can begin to develop based on it. It turns out that it is very difficult for us to understand what this real upper world is that […]
Question: Why is it that the more we disseminate to the world, the more we are rejected? Answer: In this case, you need help because you have to go above what you feel in your egoism. Only then does a state arise in you where you are forced to acquire a second nature opposite to […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “How to fight right” Jews always argue. In our history, these arguments have sometimes led to violence, and even flared such hatred that they inflicted ruin on our nation. Yet arguments, or as we prefer to call them, “debates,” have been a core value in our tribe. They […]
Sukkot is considered gladness, considered “rejoicing Gevurot,” which is repentance from love, when sins become for him as merits (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 97 “Waste of Barn and Winery”). Sukkot symbolizes the end of the spiritual path when all the overcoming, resistance, all the problems we encountered on the path now lead us to repentance from love. All crimes turn […]
Moses had several roles, but his main task was to bring the concept of faith and the method of connecting to the Creator to the people of Israel. Therefore there is no other person or rather no quality or task that is more important than Moses. This is called the Torah of Moses with the help […]
The holiday of Sukkot symbolizes the beginning of the construction of the soul. The soul begins with the quality of the Creator, the quality of Abraham, which is called Hesed, bestowal, an open heart, where everything is directed toward love for the created beings and toward their benefit. But of course in this form it […]
Jacob is the most important spiritual quality, and therefore he is called a forefather. Abraham symbolizes bestowal from the Creator and Isaac the revelation of the desire to receive in creation. Jacob is a combination of two qualities bestowal and reception, the right line and the left, due to the inner work of a person. A […]
The days of the holiday of Sukkot symbolize the stages of building the spiritual vessel (Kli), that is, the soul, which includes seven Sefirot. The three upper Sefirot of the ten: Keter, Hochma, and Bina come to us from above because these are qualities of the Creator that He wants to present to us. From these […]
On the first day of the Sukkot holiday, we receive a new addition to our Kelim: the clothing of the Sefira Hesed in us, which is called Ushpizin Abraham. We are gradually reviving the body of the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which was shattered. And first of all we collect a spiritual Partzuf that is […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think about quiet quitting?“ I think that employees are correct in demanding that they do exactly as their contract states, i.e. that our workplace buys a certain amount of time from us and we devote ourselves to our employers during this time, and also that our employers have […]
Medium published my new article “Tomorrow’s World Relationships” A perfect match? A loving family? Happy children? The pressures of today’s world create a grim reality where successful and lasting relationships are something of a fantasy. We cannot rely on the experience of elders since they lived in a very different world, so we have to […]
A Sukkah is a structure consisting of four walls and a special cover (Shach). Even three walls are enough because if there are the first three phases in the Kli, then the fourth phase Dalet is already being built inside them. The main thing is that there are three walls and a cover. A Sukkah reflects […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Cajoling Jew-Haters Does Not Abate Antisemitism” Earlier this week, I wrote about the new report by the policy planning think tank Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) that revealed the depth of antisemitism on the Left and how dangerous it is. In that post, I intentionally left out the […]
Question: Your teacher Rabash wrote that one should pray to the Creator to help him go above reason. And this work should be in joy, as if he had already been awarded spiritual knowledge. How can you ask for such a thing? What should we do with regular requests that automatically arise within us? Answer: […]
Question: A huge number of people have chosen to resist changes in themselves for centuries. Mostly, this is done by restrictions and isolation as in some types of yoga, self-isolation of countries, etc. What happens to a person or people who limit or isolate themselves? Is this also a change? Answer: It is a certain kind of […]
Question: On one hand there are a huge number of different prayers: for certain days of the year, certain seasons, and holidays. On the other hand, Kabbalah says that you should ask only one thing, for the Creator to give you His own property, the property of bestowal. Why is there so much writing about this? Answer: […]
Comment: We know that empathy is the ability to feel the world of another as our own. We are literally capable of feeling someone else’s pain. Psychologists claim that if we experience empathic pain for a long time, we often become emotionally exhausted. This happens to firefighters, those who work in emergency services, etc. They […]
Question: Does a person exist in a kind of suspended state because there are no defined points of support for him? Answer: It depends on which point of support he is looking for. The point of support can only be the center of the universe or at least the center of the galaxy. We need […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should one try to strengthen or eliminate one’s ego?” We first need to understand what our ego is, that it is our innate desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature. Since it is given to us by nature, we should not eliminate it, but we should rather invert […]
Question: It is written in Kabbalah that if you ask for yourself, you harm your soul. How can I understand this? What does it mean “not to ask for myself”? Answer: The goal of all our prayers has to be to correct myself and to come closer to the Creator. The Creator is the property […]
The space that remained after the restriction was circular (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Part 1). After the restriction, the space remains circular, meaning not in the form of a triangle or some other asymmetric object, but exactly an object where one does not have any special qualities against the […]
All the holidays celebrated by the nation of Israel are derived from the science of Kabbalah. The Sukkot holiday is a symbol of the spiritual Kli. We must build such a form out of our desire to receive that the Creator can clothe in and reveal Himself in it so that we understand who the […]
There is no limit to our gratitude to Baal HaSulam for everything he has done for us, for the efforts he has invested in order to pave the way for us to the palace of the Creator. This is a man to whom we owe everything. And his eldest son Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (Rabash) […]
Medium published my new article “The Facade of Internet Neutrality Exposed” After years of avoiding this sensitive issue, the US Supreme Court finally agreed this month “to decide whether social media platforms may be sued despite a law that shields the companies from legal responsibility for what users post on their sites,” writes The New […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A Hard Awakening – There Is Antisemitism on the Left” The 2022 report by the policy planning think tank Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), titled Annual Assessment: The Situation and Dynamics of the Jewish People, has revealed many things about the current state of world Jewry. Particularly, it […]
Medium published my new article “With a Grain of Salt” FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meet for the U.S.-Russia summit at Villa La Grange in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque US President Joe Biden said Thursday that “the risk of nuclear ‘Armageddon’ is the highest it has […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does ego ruin my life?“ The ego positions us in situations where we regularly want to exploit others. We look at others through our egoistic lenses of how we can use them to benefit ourselves: “How can they do something for me?” “How can I trample on them in various […]
Baal HaSulam gave several commentaries on the Ari’s book The Tree of Life. One is called “Ohr Pnimi” – “Inner Light” and the second is “Inner Observation.” One is more specific and the other is more expanded. In the section “Inner Light,” he explains that the primary reason for the restriction was only the desire for a new form […]
How many people around the world today are in genuine fear and a sense of helplessness? They do not find any justification for their suffering, they do not know what to do, or how to feed themselves tomorrow or in a few months. Some worry about what will happen to their billions, while others do […]
Question: During the Second World War, pilots said that the aircraft was so responsive that while operating it, it felt like an extension of the pilot’s body. A communication system is already being created today, artificial intelligence, by which aircraft will be able to secure the pilot, hear him, even replace him, and read from […]
Question: What does it mean: every moment the world is new? Is it true or not? Answer: It is because the data constantly changes. If we could see how things are changing, then, of course, it would be more understandable for us. Question: Why does a person feel or not feel the changes? Answer: It […]
Question: Our life is no pleasure, but rather an attempt to escape from suffering, which means that in every moment we are looking for an opportunity to suffer less. We think that we get pleasure by buying a new car or a garage, but in fact we choose slightly better conditions. But this still is […]
Question: How does a Kabbalist look at states that seem uncomfortable in egoism? Answer: He simply analyzes them like a researcher who studies himself and tries to assess all his states as objectively as possible, and most importantly, how in each state to achieve maximum connection with the Creator, with the upper force, because everything […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Ushpizin Aaron – Sefirat Hod” Writings of Baal HaSulam “Gatehouse of Intentions” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What advice do you have for women to stay calm after giving birth?“ After giving birth, I think that the best would be for a woman to be among other women, like it was in the days of our grandmothers—that a woman lives among women, in an extended family. Then, she […]
Question: Your teacher Rabash wrote that prayer is a work of the heart and the heart is all the desires of a person. How can a person work with his desires if they are not under his power? How can he control them? Answer: Prayer is an appeal to the upper force, i.e., to the […]
Question: Let’s say a person wakes up in the morning and sees his world has turned upside down. There is nothing left of what was there yesterday. There is a completely different reality to deal with right now. What should one’s attitude be? How can you accept this correctly? Answer: Close your eyes, go back […]
It happens that people fall asleep in the lesson because they are not ready for the load. If they have not studied or do not keep in line with the subject, if it is too early for them to hear such things, then they sleep. It is hard for them. Kabbalistic information does not add […]
Question: America has built an image of the American Dream through propaganda. At some point it was revealed that their authorities were listening to their own citizens, which was followed by a lot of scandals. This gives an example of how much you can build a system of brainwashing, but in the egoistic sphere. Can it ever […]
When The Book of Zohar was hidden from people, which was from the time of its writing in the 2nd century until its revelation in the 13th century, no one called it hidden; they did not know about it at all! Today anyone in the world can freely buy The Book of Zohar and read it. […]
Question: What is holding you in a vice so that you do not move either here or there and act according to your goal? Answer: The importance of the goal. What else is there in this world except to get out of it into the upper world and connect the elements of all the worlds […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does it seem like most of the world hates Israel?“ Whether we know it or not, we in Israel are in a game—that we need to receive blows, and to be treated badly until we straighten out properly toward the upper force. Then, the evil against us will invert into […]
Question: Is there a supreme plan for changing the world? Answer: Of course. The world and all of nature are striving for ever greater balance. Question: And where is it recorded? Is there a plan? Is there some kind of information space or something like that? Answer: Frankly speaking, I have not seen such a […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I stay calm in difficult situations?“ Talk to your friends who have also gone through difficult situations. You will see how it will calm you down and balance you out. It will give you their thoughts and then you will think not only about yourself, but you will start […]
Question: When the Creator draws a person closer to Him, why does He have to lead him through shame and humiliation in society? Why did all the great teachers experience rejection from society? Answer: In order to help them get rid of egoism. And how else? A person by himself cannot aspire to the Creator. […]
Question: It is very hard to identify real changes. On one hand, all levels of nature are changing. On the other hand, there is a possibility that a static state is hiding behind this tricky picture. Let’s say the sun has risen, so what has changed? It rises and sets each day. What really is […]
Comment: Alex writes: “I listened to you in the morning and went to work. But as soon as I drove away from home, I immediately encountered rudeness on the road. At work, they squeeze everything out of you just to make more profit. We never have enough; we are never satisfied. Everyone thinks they are […]
In each of us there are desires of all levels of development: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human. At the human level, within us, there are desires of all types of people that we see in our world. But in fact, this is not the world, this is me. Therefore, there are robbers, liars, good people, […]
Question: If a certain number of your students were in spiritual attainment, would it alter and strengthen the whole process that both the group and the world are undergoing? Answer: The world would also be drawn to this and would understand the essence of our problems or at least it would make fewer mistakes. It would […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What advice would you give a woman whose husband of twenty years left her without saying anything?” I received the following letter from a lady who experienced such a situation: “I’m going through some very difficult times, and I need your help. I’ve been married for 20 years, and I have […]
Comment: I have heard of such cases when a person seems to be terminally ill, doctors predict that he has very little time left to live, and somehow suddenly he is cured. My Response: Firstly, it depends on the person. Secondly, with respect to medicine, there is nothing to talk about at all. Health care […]
The Zohar tells us about what is happening in the spiritual world, about the actions of the bestowal of creation; therefore, we cannot understand it since we are not yet able to perform such actions! We are in our egoistic desire and know only how to receive fulfillment and pleasure and how to act in order to achieve […]
Comment: You once told me that when you watched the movie Indiana Jones, you realized the harm it brings to the world, but at the same time you said that it was a part of correction. You had a twofold attitude on this issue. My Response: What can you do? People have to go through […]
Question: Baal HaSulam kept his disciples at a certain level. And when he died, they fell. How did you manage not to fall when Rabash died? Answer: I was connected with him internally. I just stuck to him and was by his side all the time. After his death, I got up every morning and […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Sukkot“ Lesson on the Topic “Abraham UshPizin – Sefirat Hesed“ Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “Nine UC Berkeley Law Students Sign Illegal Bylaw” Antisemitism is racism, which is illegal in the United States. Anti-Zionism, that is, “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” according to the US government, is a manifestation of antisemitism, and therefore illegal. Yet, this did not stop […]
My new article on Linkedin “The Legacy of a Giant” Today, October 7, sixty-eight years ago, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, the greatest kabbalist and thinker of our time, and one of the greatest of all time, passed away. He became known as Baal HaSulam (author of the Sulam [ladder]) after his Sulam commentary on The Book […]
Question: What is the difference between group prayer and individual prayer? Answer: It is an entire system. The fact is that if we turn to the Creator, then it is very important for us that our prayer be collective and mutual, and that it comes from many people, not from one person. When a person connects […]
The development of humanity leads to the growth of egoism, individualism, and the desire to gain as much as possible at the expense of others. At the same time, the modern world strives for integration, and therefore, whether we want it or not, we must move toward connection and mutual integration between everybody. But we do […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should I stockpile food in the case of shortages?“ I think that doing so is useless. Food shortages and famines do not happen in order for us to fill our storage, barns, kitchen drawers and whatnot. We rather need to understand how we can realistically make sure that the world will […]
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself (George Bernard Shaw). My Response: This is not an easy task. Question: Let’s say “finding yourself” is more or less clear: finding yourself in a profession… What do you mean by the words “creating yourself “? Answer: Creating ourselves is what we are facing. In […]
The Memorial Day of Baal HaSulam, Rav Yehuda Ha-Levi Ashlag is a special event. After all, it is dedicated to a unique person, a very special soul who descended in order to connect us with the Creator. He no longer needed this work for himself, just for us. Baal HaSulam opened the path for the possibility […]
Repentance (Teshuva) is the main content of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) because this is the main thing we need to do to return to the place, to the state, in which we existed before the sin of Adam. This is our goal and purpose, our duty to return to exactly the place where […]
Comment: Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, the day of judgment, the day of forgiveness. It has many names. It is the most important day and even secular Jews in Israel celebrate it. On this day, highways are empty and children ride their bikes peacefully. Everything stops. People scan the year that they have […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do we have a nature that rejects what is harmful and absorbs what is beneficial?“ Human nature is the desire to receive pleasure, which wants to receive what is beneficial and push away what is harmful. Such is the essence of our nature, and everything else in our lives is […]
Question: You said that a person does not feel most changes. Can a person somehow influence this process? Answer: In no way can a person influence what one does not feel! He has no approach to this. Therefore, we are completely powerless here. Question: In principle, a person does not feel any science. But he goes […]
Comment: It is said: “When you’re sick, you should see a doctor. He is given the right to treat.” My Response: This was not said about our doctors and not in our time. It was about the times of Hippocrates and Avicenna, about the times when there were great Kabbalistic sages among the Jews before […]
Without Rabash’s articles, we would not know how to properly attune ourselves to the goal and to connect with Baal HaSulam who gives us academic advice from a great spiritual height. We are not able to extract the details for our connection from there in order to take even one step in practically implementing it. […]
Baal HaSulam had students whom he was holding at a spiritual degree. When he died, they fell from it. The same can be true for our students. Now they are at a certain degree, but when I will cease to exist…I do not even want to think how this can continue. Naturally, the force that holds […]
In the process of spiritual development, there is a special state called Yom Kippur (from the word “kapara” – “redemption”), which means the correction of all sins for which a person repents and asks to be corrected. After all, it is clear that we ourselves cannot correct anything, and the sins we have committed are not ours […]
In our connection with our friends, we are looking for and want to grasp the Creator like radar captures the right wave. Therefore, we need to create such a connection that will have the qualities of the Creator, that is, mutual bestowal between us. If we have all achieved mutual bestowal, then we are definitely […]
In the Introduction to The Book of Zohar, Baal HaSulam writes that although it seems to us that everything is happening before our eyes, it is clear to anyone with reason that all these pictures exist solely inside our brain. Only when we manage to achieve such an understanding will we begin to gradually approach […]
A person must reach a state where the very act of prayer fulfills him so that he does not need any reaction to it. If I have a connection with the Creator and I pray to Him, pour out my heart and my entire soul to Him, and give Him all my hopes and aspirations, […]
If I annul myself before the friends, it already indicates that I have faith in the Creator. Therefore, by annulling ourselves before the friends, we can come closer to the Creator. After all, the Creator does not exist without created beings. If we connect, then our connection is called the Creator. We create Him ourselves and […]
Question: Do you have no fear of suddenly stepping somewhere aside? Answer: What kind of fear can there be? Fear of what? That something will lure me somewhere? What can attract me?! Give me any people, even the smartest, or give me any other method in the world. And then what? Would that attract me? […]
It is better for a person engaged in Kabbalah to be in a state where he feels that he is not connected enough with the group. Then he will at least have a clear understanding of what else he needs to do. It is very important. It is better to feel yourself always lagging behind […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can Israel have more condemnations from the UN human rights council than all other countries combined?“ It is because Israel is responsible for everything that happens in the world, everything bad and good. We determine the attitude of the upper force of nature in terms of how it relates to […]
Preparation to the Lesson Baal HaSulam Memorial Day Baal HaSulam “The Prophecy of Baal HaSulam”
Question: How are you able to perform your function and at the same time rely on the Creator, meaning, advance as if by yourself and in parallel with the Creator? Answer: And how can I perform my function if I don’t rely on the Creator? Where does my strength, knowledge, and opportunities come from? Where do […]
Question: If a student did not cross the Machsom (Barrier) during the teacher’s lifetime, what are the chances of crossing it later? Should he do it during the teacher’s lifetime? Answer: Of course it is desirable. But this can be done only through similarity of qualities, which means dedication to the path, “adhesion” to the […]
Question: What signs indicate our progress in reading The Book of Zohar and in spiritual work in general? Answer: The most obvious and strong sign of progress in reading The Book of Zohar is a feeling of greater need for connection with others. Another sign is that I feel that for some reason that The Zohar […]
Question: Déjà vu is a state when a person clearly feels that he has seen or heard something somewhere before. How does this happen? Answer: The fact is that when the brain begins to compare different things, it seems to a person that this has definitely already happened, and this, and that, and one begins to embed one […]
Question: They say that when mobile telephone communication appeared, Israel ranked first in terms of conversation activity. Not because there was a need to communicate, but simply by talking to each other. Answer: Yes, Israelis like to chat no less than others. Of course, they cannot be compared to Italians or Spaniards. There are probably statistics about which nation […]
The main thing in reading The Book of Zohar is the intention. After all, by reading this Book, we attract the greatest light, if we are able to do it. In everything written by Kabbalists, there is no stronger light than in The Book of Zohar. That is why it gained such fame and popularity, and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the biggest problems faced by humanity, and how do we go about solving them?“ Following a string of heatwaves, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin that “We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.” The problem is […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Rabash “Sometimes Spirituality Is called ‘A Soul'” Writings of Rabash “Sometimes Spirituality Is called ‘A Soul'” Selected Highlights
Question: The speed of change in the world is constantly increasing. This is visible to the naked eye. Changes have a huge number of different manifestations: evolution and revolution, deterioration and improvement, progress and stagnation, acceleration and deceleration. Who or what is changing the world? Answer: Evolution. Question: Darwin said that evolution is a process. […]
Question: During Rosh HaShanah, a person decides to start a new life, and despite the fact that he needs to rise above his nature, he nevertheless wants to check all his qualities within ten days before Yom Kippur. Comparing them with the qualities of the Creator, he sees that he cannot be like the Creator […]
Question: Kabbalah says that it does not matter what religion you belong to. But we know that there is none else besides Him. If I study Kabbalah and I know that there is none else besides Him, how can I be in a different religion? Answer: I think the problem is that you consider Kabbalah to […]
Question: What does Yom Kippur mean? Answer: Yom Kippur – “Ki Purim,” as the day (Yom) of Purim. “Kippur” is “Redemption,” “Purim” from the word “Pur,” which means fate. Therefore, Yom Kippur shows all our transgressions, which we must gradually correct. From Yom Kippur to Hanukkah, we correct our bestowing desires to be only in […]
The departure from this world of a great sage, teacher, and spiritual mentor is a special day. After all, he rises another degree higher and shows us that we should follow him. We see that each of the great Kabbalists has taken a step forward in his own special way and brought the science of […]
All the nations of the world celebrate the New Year as an ordinary corporeal holiday, and only the Jews have a special celebration as we celebrate the creation of Adam. This is a very significant date. Five days before the New Year (Rosh HaShanah), the creation of the world took place, and on New Year’s […]
My new article on Linkedin “When Nature Speaks, We Should Listen” Hurricane Ian left a trail of devastation that will take weeks to assess, years to repair, and who knows what new adversities will happen in the meantime. According to scientists, climate change likely did not cause Ian, but it did intensify it. Unless we […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Far Right Is Close to People’s Hearts” Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy right wing party has won Italy’s general election, and left wing media in Europe and beyond are up in arms with worry. CNN described Meloni’s party as “the most far-right government since the fascist era […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “On the Possibility of Nukes” Last Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four regions in Ukraine. A day later, Ukrainian forces recaptured the key city of Lyman in the region of Donetsk, one of the annexed regions. In response, Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia’s region […]
Comment: You said that drama makes a person go through all the experiences himself, but comedy does not. My Response: But in comedy you can go through more states than in a drama. In a drama, you stand still, freeze, and kind of stop. In humor, on the contrary, you roll forward and can go […]
Question: Why do we read The Book of Zohar? Answer: We use it as means of spiritual advancement of the group. First of all, the acquired desire manifests itself in the form of a certain group of people. Individual broken desires appear to each other in physical form and, because of this, are able to […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What advice would you give to someone who just won the lottery?“ To build something good for children and the elderly. Children and the elderly are always in need of support, so giving the money in that direction should give the lottery winner a feeling of satisfaction that they contributed positively […]
Question: In one of the articles we studied, it was said that it is safest to be in a society that has nothing to do with your views at all. But from the point of view of Kabbalah, we can receive the importance of the goal most of all from people who are close in […]
Question: How does a Kabbalist attract spiritual reality to himself? Answer: He does not attract it. He needs to build it in himself. Spiritual reality does not exist! There is no spiritual world, there is no heaven, hell, there is nothing! You have to create all this yourself. Then it will exist. The one who […]
Question: Baal HaSulam wrote the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” in which he explains each phase in great detail on dozens of pages. This is the basis of all Kabbalah. The language of Kabbalah was revealed from nature itself. For the first time it was attained by the great Kabbalist the Ari. Is it […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will Russia’s attempt to invade Ukraine and the subsequent consequences show that war is a 20th century idea that is no longer feasible in a financially interdependent and globalised world?“ Today, we have more interdependence between people, societies, cultures, economies and countries than ever before. And the ongoing Russia and Ukraine […]
Question: The Jewish New Year has come, the 5783rd Rosh HaShanah. At the time when it all started, there were no Jews. But it is called “Jewish” and Jews celebrate it. The global question now is whether this the Jewish New Year or is it the World New Year? What would you call it? Answer: All those […]
Question: You say that there are my inner desires that I consider to be outside of me. But I see a certain picture of the world outside. How should I relate this picture to desires? Answer: In no case should you start doing this! When you cross the road, do not think that the cars […]
The Book of Zohar has been revealed only in our days because in our development we have passed the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels and have reached the human level (human— Adam, from the word “Edomeh,” similar to the Creator). Therefore, today we feel crisis, helplessness, despair, and disappointment in our lives. That is why […]
Question: When a person studies Kabbalah, he is sometimes squeezed through all sorts of states, as if through a grater. How can we relate to this with humor? Answer: Nothing can be done. You can’t really relate to this with humor when you are greatly torn. If you associate yourself with this state, that this is […]
Question: You gave an example of how a person neutralizes what is above him because a person’s egoism does not allow him to see something better. Is that why we do not see many things at all? Answer: Of course. Our egoism hides them from us. There also are things that are given to us […]
Question: What is the benefit of studying The Book of Zohar nowadays? Is it necessary to study it in order to reach spirituality? Answer: Yes, now the time has come to study The Zohar. I have been waiting for this for a long time because we needed preparation. Now we have reached a state where a […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will AI-powered translation bring people closer together beyond languages?“ I think that it would go the other way and bring about more harm, because we need to listen to each other’s hearts, to communicate from heart to heart rather than from mouth to ear. Unless we correct ourselves, developing positive ties […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)” Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Importance of Society” Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “Reflections on Self-Hatred” One of the things that election campaigns in Israel highlight is self-hatred. Some parties in the Israeli parliament are overtly and explicitly anti-Zionist. That is, they oppose the very existence of the Jewish state. The fact that they even exist proves more than anything the freedom of […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Always with Me” Thirty-one years ago today, my teacher and mentor RABASH passed away. This post is dedicated to him because everything I know, everything I understand, everything I teach, and everything I do I learned from him, and my life’s goal is to continue his legacy to […]
My new article on Linkedin “Italy Turns Right, but Is It Right for Europe?” “The right-wing alliance that won Italy’s national election will usher in a rare era of political stability to tackle an array of problems besieging the euro zone’s third largest economy, one of its senior figures said on Monday.” This is how […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will AI replace teachers in the future?“ In Tel Aviv schools, a pilot was launched in order to overcome a severe shortage of teachers with the help of virtual glasses and AI. In practice, it means that computers will replace some of the teachers. A computer can replace certain aspects of […]
How should people change so that there will be no more wars? First of all they must see that wars cannot bring any solution. They also need to receive a clear explanation that the program and purpose of creation, the structure of the world, and the force of nature that dominates the world are all […]
The anti-egoistic screen is first of all the force of connection between the friends in the ten and then between us and the Creator. It is built upon the fact that we want to rise above our egoism and unite. If we invest efforts in connection, then in this way, we begin to build a […]
Question: All the time you say that the world has become one and that we need to understand this. Should there be a national, racial, or state identity? Or, since the world is one, should all this be brought to a single equivalent? Now history is constantly being rewritten for the sake of the leaders and […]
Question: What do you mean by the concept of raising a new person? Answer: Raising a new person is the most important thing, it is so that he understands that humanness and connection are the most important things. And according to the scope of our connection, we can judge the development of society. Comment: We are […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is happiness internal or external?“ Everything we sense is internal. No one else senses what an individual senses, and if someone senses something and tells another about it, which the other person cannot adequately relate to as part of their feelings, they then do not know what they are talking about. […]
Comment: They say that in nature there is a kind of convergence of celestial bodies and displacement of orbits. My Response: Naturally! It really affects us physically with all kinds of problems: solar flares, the earth’s magnetic field, reverse polarity; who knows what can happen here. We depend on it very much. Basically, our body is a […]
Question: When we are all singing together, a person seems to enter into a common wave. Is he actually included in some level of connection with others or is it just our imagination? Answer: The fact is that our common desire draws the surrounding light, which gives a certain illumination, and people feel that they […]
Comment: You once said that a person should use the light of confidence that occasionally shines on him. My Response: This happens when the group provides him with their support. When he feels that he is walking with his friends, they support him all the time, and he has something to fall on. Question: Is isn’t the […]
Rosh HaShanah is the time to ask forgiveness from the Creator for your crimes. In other words, I feel that I do not have a sense of the importance and greatness of the Creator, and I apologize for this. After all, if I felt the greatness and importance of the Creator, then of course I would […]
Question: Let’s say some scoundrel teases me, laughs, and mocks me. Should I say that the Creator sends me this and I justify Him and do not take revenge? Answer: When others mock you, when you are in such a hostile environment, but you perceive it as coming from the Creator, then this state is […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is money evil, or is it just a myth?“ Money is the universal equivalent for effort. It is an indicator for our personal exertion that shows the extent to which we succeed by using the special talents we receive. For instance, money can somewhat measure whether one person is smarter, more […]
Question: How can we love the Creator more and how can we respond to Him? Answer: The only thing I can say for sure is that one person is not able to do anything. There should be at least one more, and even more desirable, the ten. If they work on their connection in this […]
Question: Did you have a choice to follow the spiritual path or not? Answer: There is no choice. This is destiny, and that is it. Question: How can one distinguish whether a person is going through a state of burdening or if he already is at the exit? Is it written in the system? Answer: In […]
Comment: Let’s say you watch the news and realize that the world is heading toward certain things; in other words, man is just doing stupid things and making unnecessary actions. My Response: Why are they unnecessary? These are not stupid things but stages of growth. Humanity must grow. Question: Are you not annoyed by these stages […]
In The Zohar, just like in the Torah, there is no requirement to read necessarily in order; you can open the book anywhere you want! It is like Psalms; you open somewhere, on any verse, and you read it. You can even start from the middle. The main thing when reading holy books (written by those […]
Over the past 20 to 30 years, amazing changes have taken place in the world! Today, through the Internet and television, you can go anywhere. You could not do it some time ago. Once, a book I published was bought by a maximum of 1,000 people and there was no way to send it to another country […]
Question: What is deja vu? Is it a burst of memories or some kind of recorded program that a person sees? Answer: There is nothing supernatural about deja vu. It is just how our brain digests everything. We do not enter either the past or the future, we are in the present all the time. […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is Kabbalah in one sentence?“ Kabbalah is a wisdom that explains the single force of nature, which determines everything, and which exists and acts in every person and in the whole of humanity. Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on the article “The History of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” by […]
Rosh HaShanah is the beginning of the new year according to the Jewish calendar. Like any other nation celebrating the new year, we hope that it will bring us a good renewal. The Rosh HaShanah holiday is preceded by a period called Selichot (Repentance), when we make a critical analysis of everything we have done […]
Medium published my new article “Change Is the Only Certainty” The world is changing very quickly, and the pace seems to be growing exponentially. On the one hand, each new technology, and there are countless of those, promises to make the world a better place. On the other hand, new technologies are used almost invariably […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the qualities of a righteous person?“ At the outset, it is worthwhile clarifying that what people commonly think of as righteous—as people who give of themselves for the betterment of others, e.g. people who give money, clothes, and food to the needy—such people are not actually righteous. Why? It […]
The holidays that come with the beginning of the Jewish New Year symbolize the entrance of a person into spiritual work. In fact, this entrance begins much earlier, during the preparation period. This is why the month of Elul means “I am for my Beloved and my Beloved is for me.” That is, a person […]
The difficult situation in the world, the pandemic, and the war led to a sharp increase in inflation, which has not occurred for many years. Today this subject worries many people who are forced to reduce their spending and change their places of work. The most disturbing thing is that we do not really understand […]
I am very glad that we have such groups that are able to come closer to each other. I am sure that you will be able to reach any spiritual heights and complete adhesion with the Creator. This is all happening before our eyes, literally in our time. This is why we are called the […]
Comment: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot Baal HaSulam explains how creation, our desire, was created according to the four phases of direct light. We study it as the anatomy of the creation of desire. The first phase is called the first expansion or Hochma. The second phase is the first intensification or Bina. The […]
Question: People love humor; it helps to perceive everything more easily and with irony. Is this the closest feeling to spirituality? Answer: No, it is not the closest one, but people who are in spirituality love humor because it contains a comparison of two opposite qualities, which is the very thing on which spiritual development and […]
Question: What are the Moon and the Sun in relation to our perception? From the point of view of Kabbalah, what is the Earth in relation to these two objects? Answer: The Earth is the receiving part. It receives the light of the Sun; it rotates around its axis and each time exposes its other side […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will AI ever replace the judicial system?“ Scientists in China have created an AI judicial system has been shown to prosecute with 97% accuracy from tests at the prosecutor’s office in Shanghai. It was trained on 17,000 cases, and the system was found to arraign on charges of fraud, gambling, dangerous […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Crown the King Over Us” Writings of Rabash, “What Does the Rule ‘Love Thy Friend as Thyself,’ Give Us” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you judge someone fairly?“ You judge someone fairly by being an intermediary between the Creator and the world. The world can bring any charges against the Creator, and a fair judge can acquit everyone of almost all of these charges. That is, a fair judge should be neither a […]
The beginning of the year (Rosh HaShanah) is called terrible days because we go through very drastic changes. We are working against the great, terrible, genuine egoistic desire with the help of the great and terrible force of the Creator. This is the beginning of correction at its initial point where the will to receive […]
The most important commandment of Kabbalah is “love your neighbor as yourself.” If we get closer to this, then along the way we will begin to feel more and more similar to the upper force, the Creator, and He will begin to reveal Himself in us as one single great force. We will begin to […]
Comment: You are always saying that the connection should be kind, from the level of love. My Response: There should be mutual complementing in society of everyone to everyone to such an extent that everyone could express themselves and everyone would perceive it correctly. Nothing else. No one forces you to be like everyone else, to […]
When reading The Zohar, it is essential by all possible means and most importantly in your thoughts, to clarify for yourself that now you are entering the office where you will ask and you will receive, but on condition that your request is correct. It is desirable for a person to perceive that he is given […]
Reading The Zohar, we come across some definitions that we do not understand. Gradually we will get to know them, but in fact, this is not even that important. You can compare it with a little child who sees a lot of unknown things around him and faces something new all the time. He does […]
Comment: Revenge is a thing a person is ready to devote his whole life to. My Response: Revenge is the biggest treat for egoism. There is no greater pleasure for egoism than the triumph over another egoism that humiliated it that now it pays back a hundredfold, and thereby proves its victory, its superiority, and its […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Crown the King Over Us” Writings of Rabash, “They Helped Everyone His Friend-4” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do you think you have the qualities to be a judge? Why? What qualities are important?“ A true and fair judge is an intermediary between the Creator and the world. The world can bring any charges against the Creator, and a fair judge can acquit everyone of almost all of these […]
Comment: Researchers have been studying the effect of joining the majority for a long time, meaning when you choose what the environment chooses, when you choose what your relatives and friends approve of and what is in fashion, it is like you do not have a particular opinion. Researchers note that it is often the fear of missed opportunities […]
Question: What would you give as the most important advice to a country that decides to rise from complete disorder, from the state it was in, it wants to become different, happy? Answer: First of all, it is necessary to educate an interconnected, good society, and everything will go from here! They will be blessed for […]
Comment: You say that humor is especially inherent in Jews. My Response: Jewish humor where people laugh at themselves is welcomed in Kabbalah, and therefore, it has penetrated into all Jewish literature, art, and worldview. To some extent, this is also the case with the British. I have not observed such a feature in other peoples. […]
Question: How can one determine if he is making correct efforts? Answer: Do what is good for the group. This is the only correct way to check. However, there is no indication inside of you. It is only for the benefit of the group. Then you are able to know clearly (if you are capable […]
My new article on Linkedin “New Antisemitism: Mutation of a Long-lived Hatred” After publishing The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, I felt that while the explanations in it covered the history of the Jewish people, the book did not address current expressions of the oldest hatred. In light of the exponential rise in antisemitism since […]
From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/25/22 Almost every culture celebrates the beginning of the year. Each tradition has its own customs, meals, gifts, and inner meaning. For Jews, celebrating Rosh Hashanah (the beginning of the year) comes with symbolic foods and a day of judgment. This judgment is the heart of Rosh Hashanah. We […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “When Nationalism Serves Humanism” These tense days, the situation in Israel is exacerbating the social rifts and divisions in the country. While some people decry the loss of national pride, others warn that Israel is becoming a nationalistic, racist state. Is there a healthy dose of patriotism and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who was The Zohar written for?“ The Zohar was written for people who want to reach life’s peak, the purpose of creation, and strive to change their intention from our inborn egoistic one—reception for personal benefit alone—to one where we bestow, love and positively connect to others. The Zohar provides the […]
After all the suffering that the Jewish people endured, including losing a third of its population in the Holocaust, we still continue to develop in our egoistic desire to enjoy and do not want to think about the causes of the destruction that occurred. The heart becomes harder and harder and it cannot be softened even by […]
The light of Hochma is regarded as the emanated being’s self and vitality. The light of Hassadim is only regarded as light for corrections, for the completion of the emanated being (Baal Hasulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1). Question: How does a person experience these two lights? Answer: Initially, […]
The task of Kabbalists is to tell people, to educate them, that they can reach a state where they begin to feel the upper world, the upper force, the Creator, and themselves in this state. This is why we study. But the problem is that learning takes place inside a person when he begins to […]
There have only been about a half dozen genuinely important events in the four-billion-year saga of life on Earth: single-celled life, multi-celled life, the differentiation into plants and animals, the movement of animals from water to land, and the advent of mammals and consciousness. The next big step should be the idea of interplanetary life—an […]
Question: You said that not everyone has the left line. What is the advantage of having or not having it? Answer: In principle, everyone has a soul consisting of two parts: the quality of bestowal (right line) and the quality of reception (left line). However, it can be that there is no third line in […]
Today we see how quickly everything is changing. We are trying to tell people about the world they are entering, the kind of world that is descending upon us, that it is completely new and has never existed throughout the history of mankind. The network descending upon us is the clear governance of the Creator. But […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do we need technology even though we know it will harm us in the future?“ We initially take examples from nature, that what we see in nature we also wish to implement, and in so doing, we need naturalists and scientists who are interested to recreate what is in nature […]
Question: Jews have a very insightful humor that is understandable to an ordinary person. For example, Russian satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky had such a mindset that he did not just make stupid jokes like a bunch of other humorists, but rather he very subtly, competently, and sensitively notices everything. Is it because he is Jewish? Answer: Without […]
Kabbalah has been revealed in people since the time of Adam, the first man (Adam HaRishon). Adam attained the spiritual system and even described it in a thin book. The main thing is that he explained a very simple principle to his students: Humanity is divided into separate individuals, and if they unite against their […]
We need to properly prepare dissemination among the people. I hope that big changes will begin to take place in the people in the near future. An individual will become more independent of himself and will be able to hear that he has a real purpose that religion calls “love your neighbor.” It actually this that […]
Question: Suppose some acute situation arises somewhere nearby, in a city, in a country and then all over the world. To which of them should I direct my attention first? I can watch the news in a purely detached way: “Oh, well, yes. They are blowing up there, they are shooting there. Well, it’s bad […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Rosh HaShanah“ Writings of Rabash, “Letter 11” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Iranians Are Waking Up” Despite obvious risks to their safety and decades of oppression by Islamic orthodoxy, young Iranians are saying “We have had enough!” The protests began following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody. She was allegedly beaten unconscious by the Guidance Patrol, […]
Comment: It is said that the Creator is good that does good. This is what Kabbalists have attained. They do not know who He is in relation to other created beings. His actions are determined in this way only in relation to us. My Response: Kabbalists, who have already revealed the Creator, characterize Him as […]
Question: You said that the Klipa sort of stretches time. What does it mean? Answer: In our world it is an opportunity to stretch or shorten time. Question: But there is no time in spirituality. How does the Klipa work there? Answer: In the spiritual world, these are states. So do not worry, we can still […]
Humanity has already passed through various social formations in the process of its development: capitalism, socialism, etc. It has yet to come to the state of the modern world where it is clear to everyone that some more developed form of society is needed, but it is unclear where to go further and how. We have […]
In the News (ZME SCIENCE): “‘Scientists say the human brain resembles the cosmos’ “Both neural and galactic networks have the same structure, pointing to a fractal universe. “Side by side pictures of brain cells and a cosmic web of galaxies make it difficult to tell the two apart. So it can seem that the universe […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is your review of the NGL app?“ One of my students recently asked me about a phenomenon related to the NGL app: that it lets its users express their opinions anonymously, and it became a place where people curse, threaten and express themselves in the most aggressive ways possible. It […]
Comment: It happens that after a lesson on the The Study Of The Ten Sefirot a student would say: “I have been sitting in a lesson on TES for two hours and I do not feel anything, although I try very hard.” My Response: You cannot do anything. He may sit for two more hours or […]
Question: There are several stories around The Book of Zohar. Which of them is reliable? Answer: It is unknown. Since this Book was hidden for a long time, I do not believe in any assumptions, except for what real Kabbalists say: the Ari and Baal HaSulam. Rabbi Shimon is buried on Mount Meron. This is […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is there so much hate towards Israel?“ The source of the hatred against Israel is that we, the people of Israel, reject and hate each other. And as much as we hate each other, the nations of the world hate us even more. If we related to one another more […]
Medium published my new article “Nature vs. Human Nature” One of the latest forms of weapon that superpowers are racing to develop is hypersonic missiles. China, Russia, and the US are all developing missiles that can fly at more than five times the speed of sound (more than 1 mile per second), making them very […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Peace Is More than Nonviolence” Today, September 21, is the International Day of Peace. The UN General Assembly has declared that this day is dedicated to “strengthening the ideals of peace, through observing 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire.” Considering the global ambiance of violence currently prevailing around […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it wrong for a mother to steal baby food when not having enough money for it?“ A broke mother stealing baby food is a clear example of a situation where a person has no choice. Such a state is terrible, and it is a shame that it could play out […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should Jews be considered a nation?“ “Love your friend as yourself” makes Jews a nation. In other words, what makes Jews a nation is loving every Jew. Among Jews is where the unifying process in humanity begins, and then the whole of humanity will also unite. We need to discover that […]
Ein Sof then restricted Himself in His middle point, in the very middle, restricted that light, and drifted to the sides around that middle point (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol 1, Part 1, Chapter 1). In order to give the creation an opportunity to exist in its original state, the Creator had […]
Question: If the entire nation of Israel adopts the structure of Bnei Baruch and establishes completely different relationships and interrelations between people, what do you think would happen? Would this in some way bring us closer to correction? Answer: Israel cannot accept such a system because it is for those who consciously go against their egoism to similarity […]
You should know that separation in spirituality occurs only by means of disparity of form. … Just as corporeal entities connect and separate through proximity and remoteness, so spiritual entities connect and separate according to their difference and equivalence of form. The disparity of form separates them from one another, and the equivalence of form […]
There are nothing but five worlds (concealments) between us and the world of infinity. I must overcome this concealment. Who is concealed from me? The force of the giver, bestowal, and love. I have to reveal it according to my equivalence of qualities with the very force of bestowal and love called the Creator. How […]
Question: Do I understand correctly that integral education is the creation of a network that can later absorb the upper light coming through other people? Answer: Of course! Certainly. If an equivalence to nature arises in you, then you already have replenishment from above, and the whole huge integral nature acts in unison with you […]
Integral education is a system of knowledge, skills, and exercises that form connections between people in accordance with the upper governing structure, which, like a network, begins to unfold in our world. Our incongruity with this network manifests itself in us as all kinds of crises, from small, private, to universal, global, and including everything […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does the brain solve problems while we sleep?“ Our brain never stops running. It only completely shuts down when we die. While we sleep, we do not absorb external interfering impressions from our five senses, and so our brain organizes the various impressions it previously received according to an assortment of […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “When Will Leaders Mean What They Say?” When we look at all the promises that politicians have made, and broken, it makes us doubt the purpose of giving any weight to their statements in the first place. It would be difficult to find one statement, or even a […]
It is perplexing, for since there is neither Rosh nor Sof there, how is there middle? Moreover, are we dealing with a corporeal matter here? (Baal Hasulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol.1, Part 1, Chapter 1) Naturally, we are not talking about anything corporeal. We are only talking about qualities. The Creator has, as […]
Question: Once we were all connected. This quality of unity began to gradually disappear. Did we finally stop feeling these connections? Answer: In fact, the loss of the feeling of connection occurs only with respect to us, the created beings, and the states in which we exist. We even see from our world how we […]
Before reading The Book of Zohar, we must attune ourselves so that this reading will benefit us. The Zohar speaks about the correction of the soul, i.e., about the correction of the connection between us, and that is why, while reading it we must try to make the corrected states described in it come true in […]
Some people do not like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster (Elon Musk). My Response: Naturally, either change or a disaster, this is when we will do something. Question: So should I have a feeling that if I do not change, there will be a catastrophe? Answer: Yes. Question: […]
Question: There are different types of connections between people in the world. What is the difference between them and Kabbalistic connection? Why don’t they work the same way as in Kabbalah? Answer: Because that is not the kind of connection that attracts the upper light. There are many connections in the world. Various socialist, national […]
Question: If I begin to feel inside everything that happens in my daily life, is this a sign of progress as a result of reading The Book of Zohar? Answer: No. When I read The Book of Zohar, there is no everyday life for me. I have an embryo of the soul, a point in […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why can we not access all of our memories?“ Everything we go through in life will have to surface from our memory storage at some point. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we will use our every life experience. We will then also understand that everything happened to us for a specific reason. […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Rosh HaShanah” Lesson on the Topic “The Nation” Selected Highlights
Remark: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot Baal HaSulam explains that the light gradually restricted itself and receded in four stages until creation was in a place where there is no light at all and there is only a desire to receive. My Comment: Detachment from the Creator means a gradual cessation of the feeling […]
There is no perception or thought in Ein Sof whatsoever, since this matter is above our mind (The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter 1). We cannot attain the Creator with our earthly mind. Therefore, the entire wisdom of Kabbalah is based on the methodology according to which a person changes his mind, […]
Question: We are, in principle, aware that nature is harmonious. Even at school, we study all kinds of food chains and we see how one is connected to the other. The science of bionics was based on this where I look and seemingly copy what I see in nature. For example, helicopters were probably created […]
Question: In our world, we produce some products, for example, phones or appliances, and everyone use them. Why do we not have the same attitude to Kabbalah that it is the “production” of some kind of force and we are using it? Will there be any inclination toward Kabbalah? Answer: There will undoubtedly be an inclination […]
The Book of Zohar was written for people who want to reach the purpose of creation and strive for the reflected light to the purpose of creation, to the source. After all, without the light it is impossible to correct our desires and reveal the Creator in them. Therefore, The Book of Zohar, like the entire […]
Medium published my new article “Microdosing — There Are Better Ways to Boost Creativity” By Alan Rockefeller — Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83445198 I have been told that there is a new trend — to take small amounts of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin-containing mushrooms, and other hallucinogenic substances to improve creativity and output […]
Medium published my new article “The Limits of Technological Development” The evident contrast between the actual reality and the life we could be living is becoming increasingly painful. It is painful because we could be living in paradise. Instead, we are making our lives hell on earth through our own doing. On the one hand, […]
Prayer is an appeal to the Creator, which is called raising MAN, (female waters), that is, the burning desire of a person, which he raises from himself to the Creator. Of course, then the Creator will be able to answer his request. Prayer is a genuine request of a person to the Creator, the Creator […]
Since the whole world is in mutual connection, and I am just a small cogwheel in the general system, I am obliged to take care of everyone, and not just in words, but in deeds. After all, we must rise above all our differences and connect. We are all very different, but it is like […]
Question: There was a story on a Russian website that listed who betrayed whom and how, and how it ended up. There were literally two thousand comments in an hour, which shows that there is a feeling in humanity that betrayal is terrible. An example was given of Jack London; he was macho, washed gold on rivers […]
Question: You said that Rabash taught you the principle of opening a book to any place and to start reading the source. Why is it often used? Answer: When I have a few minutes of free time or I want to renew my thoughts, I take some source, open it randomly, and start reading from any paragraph. […]
Question: You say that everyone has their own purpose. How can Jews see Arabs as an important element; they are not just brothers for them, but enemies as well? Answer: I do not think this is a serious feud. There can be no great enmity between these religions. I know from the sources that there should be […]
Question: Is being present at the lesson bestowing to the Creator? By the fact that a person comes to a lesson, is he bestowing to the Creator and bringing Him contentment? Answer: Not necessarily. Absolutely not. It is said that study can be either the elixir of life or the potion of death. The study […]
My new article on Linkedin “The Age of Unhappiness” A recent article on the global analytics and advice firm Gallup revealed that unhappiness is rising around the world. According to the article, the situation “is concerning because unhappiness is now at a record high. …People feel more anger, sadness, pain, worry and stress than ever […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Abraham’s Wisdom” “The greatest among the giants,” this is how the sages referred to Abraham. Why did they refer to him this way? What did Abraham discover that others did not? This post is about the biblical Abraham, who deciphered the code of nature. Animals do not ask […]
Our entire work is to understand and feel, that is, to reveal the general system of all of humanity and how much we are connected and dependent on each other. It seems to us that we are not affected by what happens on the other side of the earth, whether in Australia or in America. […]
Question: Does the law of equivalence of forms operate not only on the spiritual level but also on our level? All devices are created according to this principle. Answer: Absolutely everything! This is the nature we exist in. Question: Does it mean that I have to tune something inside myself to the wave that the […]
Question: If Kabbalah or even integral education is torn away from all other types of connection and it is explained to a person that light is attracted in it, what kind of light is it? Answer: Force! The force of global connection is what is attracted, nothing more. It is called light. The connection is […]
Question: Our time is filled with disinformation and lies. It is said that disinformation arises in conditions of political disillusionment, economic crisis, or social turmoil. Today all these factors are evident. In addition there is the Internet where lies can be manipulated. There are companies that can promote it and shape public opinion. There is a […]
When we read in The Book of Zohar about the structure of upper systems, we must always—and this is the most important thing!—think about where these systems are located. They are in each of us. We have to reveal them. When I listen to the names of Partzufim, Sefirot, and various actions—Atik, Arik Anpin, the Parsa […]
What does The Zohar teach us? It is known from the science of Kabbalah that the Creator created one desire within which all further development takes place. This one desire includes a huge number of private desires connected to each other in a single system called Adam, a common soul. Then according to His program, the Creator […]
Question from Facebook: Is a state where all people gradually come to the one Creator and peace and love prevail on our planet, a kind of utopian, idyllic world possible in our world? Or is it impossible? Answer: Of course it is possible. I am sure it can even happen in our time. Everything depends […]
In spiritual work, the main thing is an inner feeling. Gradually, everything is transforming. Physical meetings are becoming less frequent and virtual meetings are becoming more frequent so that people feel each other more through big screens. A person may still need some kind of visual representation, but in general, he will move to virtual […]
Spiritual love is felt as an ascent above oneself and an exit into infinite space where there are no restrictions, where you cease to feel yourself because you live in others, and the Creator fills you. That is, you, others, and the Creator are together in one single whole without movement, space, boundaries, and time. […]
Question: What is the danger of speaking critically in the Kabbalistic community? Answer: First, different critical thoughts arise from within each person. This is natural because our egoism is constantly working, constantly growing, and constantly arousing a critical attitude in us toward the world, except for those who are truly close to us. Relationships in […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The System of the Golden Question” My friend and student Semion asked me about something called “the system of the golden question.” He told me that in 1994, Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, had decided to leave the hedge fund where he was vice president […]
Is there life after death and can it really be called life? This is a question that worries many. I would put the question in a different way: Can we call our reality in which we are now life, exactly? It is written that it is not called life. How do we know that we live? We […]
Comment: Ar (this is how he abbreviates his name) writes to you : “I constantly listen to your videos. Tell me please, why do you always say that only Jews will change the world? Why take such a big responsibility on yourself and on the nation? Who gave you such authority at all? Do not tell […]
Question: What kind of relationship between friends in the group can be called a Klipa? Answer: In a group, there can practically be no relationships such as Klipa. Klipa is envy, jealousy, rejection, unwillingness to help, i.e., all properties that deny the soulful, spiritual, heartfelt fusion between people. Question: How does the Klipa work in general? What […]
It does not matter from which part and exact place we begin to read The Zohar. Even if a person hears a lesson for the first time, it doesn’t matter at all. “There is no time in the Torah“; it talks about spiritual states and all this happens inside us, but we do not feel […]
Question: If the nations of the world on a subconscious level treat Jews negatively, to as if push the Jews because the Jews are not doing their job, then why is there a less than inadequate reaction on their part to you and strange comments made, although you, on the contrary, are doing this work? […]
In the News (“Flawed AI Makes Robots Racist, Sexist”): “A robot operating with a popular internet-based artificial intelligence system consistently gravitates to men over women, white people over people of color, and jumps to conclusions about peoples’ jobs after a glance at their face. “The work, led by Johns Hopkins University, the Georgia Institute of […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Fight or Flight” If this incident were not confirmed by the airline, it could easily pass for fake news. Apparently, two pilots flying a commercial flight full of passengers faced the “fight or flight” question mid-flight in the cockpit, and chose “fight.” According to an AP report, “Two […]
Medium published my new article “Armenia-Azerbaijan Flare-Up — Reminder of Precarious Times” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addresses parliament following an escalation in hostilities over the Nagorno-Karabakh region along the border of Armenia with Azerbaijan, in Yerevan, Armenia, September 13, 2022. Tigran Mehrabyan/PAN Photo via REUTERS Two years after the latest ceasefire between Armenia and […]
Question: A 1.4 magnitude earthquake that occurred recently in Berlin during a performance by a British rock band. There is speculation that the people jumping and dancing at the concert caused the earthquake. Can people jumping, dancing, and clapping cause earthquakes? Answer: Of course not. But if we all want it at the same time, then […]
Our perception of the world and the feeling of life is contained in desire. Desire is the only thing that was created. It lives in itself and feels everything within itself. It feels in two formats. Part of the picture is presented to it as itself and the other part is in the form of […]
Question: Where is the line between destruction and education? Let’s say a person has some qualities that he uses to the detriment of others. Answer: As long as people have all kinds of egoistic problems, they act in this way. What can we do?! People are like people. Do you think they have been changing […]
Question: What is The Zohar? Answer: “Zohar” means the “upper radiance.” This is the light of the level of the head of the world of Atzilut, which is Arik Anpin. The book is named after this glow because it speaks about the source, which through many different filters, gradually reduces itself and affects us. Question: […]
Question: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam writes about the miraculous quality of the singularity of the Creator. What kind of singularity are we talking about? Answer: The fact is that in all His actions the Creator is absolutely good. He only gives and bestows; He only thinks and intends to do […]
Question: There is constructive stubbornness and there is destructive stubbornness. Is stubbornness a good property in Kabbalah? Answer: Yes, it is good. Every property has a direct and a reverse side in its expression. In diligence there is also a negative side, you can get stuck into something and keep hammering at some completely needless thing. […]
In Ein Sof it is a “simple desire” because He is One and His Name One. The light in Ein Sof is called He and the will to receive is called His Name, and they are simple unity without any form of separation (Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter 1). Question: What does […]
When it rose upon His simple desire (30) to create the worlds and emanate the emanated beings to bring the perfection of His deeds, His names and appellations to light, which was the reason of the creation of the worlds (Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, Chapter 1). Question: Does this mean that the […]
After the creation of Malchut of the world of Ein Sof, nothing else changed. This is the only form in reality, the Malchut of Ein Sof, in which desire and light are in perfect fusion, harmony, and unity according to the principle: “He and His name are one.” All other states represent a kind of […]
The flower buds are the patriarchs, who entered in thought and entered the next world, Bina, and were hidden there. From there, they came out in concealment and were hidden in the true prophets. Joseph was born and they hid in him. Joseph entered the holy land and erected them there. As it is written: […]
Question: Can you give a clear example of the difference between slander in spiritual work and slander in dissemination? Answer: I should treat my friend like I treat my child whom I love and want everything to be fine with. Of course, I can say that he is lazy at school or sometimes fights with his […]
Question: What should be done if a person hears slander against someone? Answer: Say that you do not want to hear it, cut it off, and in this way you will teach a friend to do the same. This is a great correction for the group. Question: If women are discussing someone, is it natural […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Purifying the Heart” Lesson on the Topic, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation” Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “The Dead Silence of American Jewry on Iran” While Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister, his disapproval of the Iran deal placed him at odds with the majority of American Jewry, which supported it. Their criticism of the State of Israel, they claimed, was not because of their dislike of Israel, […]
Medium published my new article “Rising above the Differences” Every international conflict that is currently unfolding proves the same point: Aggression does not pay. We have become so dependent on each other that there is simply no way to tip the balance in one place without tipping it throughout the system, namely worldwide. The coming […]
Question: How can we get up immediately when we are falling into Klipot, so we won’t remain in them for a long time? Answer: There will always be various problems between friends in the group. But if you are connected with the group and clearly understand that everything depends only on the connection with the […]
Question: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot it is written that at the beginning of creation there was no free space in the form of empty air. Here we do not mean material air, but two categories of light in every desire: the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim. What are these two […]
Comment: Psychologists say that aggression is a part of a person that one cannot get rid of. My Response: Yes. There is no way. Comment: They say that its origins are in the animalistic past of humans. My Response: In egoism. Question: Psychologists say that aggression comes from the desire of living beings, animals, and […]
Comment: There are a lot of different names in The Book of Zohar, but Baal HaSulam, especially in Talmud Eser Sefirot, has more unearthly terminology. My Response: What is the difference? This is just a description. We have four languages to describe the spiritual world: the language of the Torah, the language of the Talmud, […]
Comment: You said that envy is a good quality that advances us in Kabbalah. My Response: Yes, if envy is good, it creates a group, and if it is bad, it destroys it. It depends on what kind of envy it is. If I envy the way others study, then I myself want to study […]
Question: Is it correct to treat all states as spiritual, for example, conditions like drowsiness, poor health, or apathy? Or are the real spiritual states only those that occur in the work of the group? Answer: Absolutely all states are spiritual, the question is whether I can influence them. Question: What states in this scenario […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Purifying the Heart” Lesson on the Topic, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation” Selected Highlights
It is impossible to talk to the Creator the way we talk to people with whom we have a common feeling and the ability to hear each other’s voices. With the Creator, we need to find a channel of communication: “I to Him, and He to me” so that we can “hear,” understand, and feel […]
Question: You once said that the Klipa works in a reverse form. If it did not exist, would we not be able to withstand the unity in the group, the quality of bestowal? Answer: Yes. As an egoist, I cannot withstand the state where I have to work without any benefit for myself. Therefore, there is […]
Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor in it in vain. The Creator must build the structure of our soul, not us by ourselves. So how can we enter this house built by the Creator? On what foundation does it stand? The entire foundation of this house is my ten. This is as […]
Question: What does a person discover for himself when he enters The Book of Zohar? Answer: A person begins to feel the immense world that this book tells about. The world suddenly opens up in front of him from all sides, like a spherical screen. Moreover, it does not just move apart like a screen, […]
In the News (RT): “A mother who helped her son cross the finish line in a 10kms race as he looked set to collapse from exhaustion has cost the runner a silver medal. “Artem Burtsev led the event in the Russian Far Eastern region of Yakutia for most of its duration. “Nearing the end, however, he […]
Comment: Sometimes what you said yesterday seemed like it was the most important to us. But then soon after, you are already attaching importance to another process, then the next one, and so non-stop. Then it seems: “Where do we go”? My Response: This is because a person who is at the beginning of the […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Purifying the Heart” Lesson on the Topic, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation”
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s a good relationship tip that sounds like a bad tip?“ Agree to have arguments on a schedule. For example, agree with your partner that every Friday, you are going to have an argument—to tease and to poke each other. We do such actions subconsciously anyway. They are natural. Nature itself […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Queen Elizabeth II – a Model Monarch” Queen Elizabeth II was an exemplary monarch. She lived through very significant and complicated times in history and kept England stable and on course. I think Britain should be proud of her representative. If we are looking for a model of […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What I Wish for Israel’s New Chief of Staff” Herzl “Herzi” Halevi, the current deputy chief of staff, will soon become the 23rd chief of staff of Israel. Congratulations. The Israeli army faces countless challenges, from terrorism through conventional warfare, to nuclear weapons. On top of it, it […]
Question: The Klipot remain with us until the end of correction. How can we protect ourselves from them? Answer: Only by getting closer to the friends, only when a person clings to his friends and wants to be one with them. There are no other means because the Klipa is the desire to move away, […]
Question: Usually, we rise after falling into the Klipot. Is there a state when you fall into them and can’t come back? Answer: No, this practically cannot happen because the Creator, the upper force, takes care of everyone and raises everyone anyway. So it doesn’t matter if one fell or didn’t fall. It is also […]
Question: You once said that corporeal love is just a hormonal craving to calm the “evil inclination” and that there is no love within our framework. Did I understand correctly? Answer: Love is a mutual attraction based on the ascent above mutual egoism, rejection, and hatred that arises in people who consciously work on it. […]
There are two states to that rose: 1) Katnut—the beginning of her formation, in which there is only the Sefira Keter in her, in which her light of Nefesh is clothed, and her bottom nine fall outside of Atzilut, in the world of Beria. 2) Gadlut—when her bottom nine rise from the world of Beria […]
In the News (NPR): “China’s government banned effeminate men on TV and told broadcasters Thursday to promote ‘revolutionary culture,’ broadening a campaign to tighten control over business and society and enforce official morality. “President Xi Jinping has called for a ‘national rejuvenation,’ with tighter Communist Party control of business, education, culture and religion. Companies and […]
Question: A lot of people write to us about the fear that permeates everything, that there is fear for oneself, fear for loved ones, fear for children, fear of death. Moreover, the situation cannot be changed and it is frightening. The main question is how to overcome fear. Is it possible? Answer: Let go of […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it human nature always to fight?“ Yes. Human nature makes us want to rule over others, that by nature we do not like other people thinking and behaving the way that they do. There is a chance that we can rise above human nature, but it depends on society’s maturity, […]
Question: What is the “greatness of the Creator“? What does “His greatness is concealed from me” mean? Answer: This means that you do not feel Him, do not see Him, do not understand Him, and cannot influence Him in any way. Accordingly, He seemingly does not influence you. Question: Does it mean that a Klipa […]
Question: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot, it is said that at the beginning of creation in the upper light there was neither beginning nor end. How can we understand this? Answer: There was no time; that is, nothing was changing. In order for time to appear, it is necessary for the desire to feel itself […]
It is difficult for beginners, for they perceive matters by means of corporeal boundaries of time, space, change and exchange. However, the authors only used those as signs to point to their upper roots ( Baal Hasulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol.1, Part 1, Chap.1). Here it is necessary to clarify that we […]
Comment: A friend writes: “I have been with you for two years, and I can no longer listen or hear about the correction of the heart. I don’t understand what it is.” In general, many people write asking for specifics. That is, they understand the specific programs of politicians; they understand economists who create certain precise […]
From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 9/9/22 This weekend, more than a hundred friends are gathering together for the 2022 Kabbalah Retreat in the Catskill Mountains in New York, and more than two hundred friends will join them online. I would like to express my wishes for the success of the retreat. These are great […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “I Trust Liz Truss Will Be a Good Prime Minister” This week, Mary Elizabeth Truss, aka Liz Truss, was inaugurated as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the third female prime minister in Britain. She begins her term at a challenging time for the UK. The British Chamber […]
My new article on Linkedin “The Real Responsibility that Israel Should Take” A few days ago, the Israeli army stated that after a prolonged investigation, it reached the conclusion that an Israeli soldier likely fired the bullet that killed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. “There is a high possibility that Shireen was accidentally […]
Question: Your blog says that a Klipa is a simulator for studying truth and lie. It shows us all kinds of errors and inaccuracies. Can you explain with an example how to receive spiritual knowledge from one’s mistakes? Answer: If we really want to reach knowledge of the inner nature, to find out how it […]
Comment: In our world, no matter how hard Kabbalists tried to hide spiritual knowledge from the impure, wrong intentions of people, nothing helps; even the ancient Greeks spoke about this. Somehow all the same, knowledge reaches the egoists. My Response: Because the ancient Greeks were at the level of the same egoists; Kabbalists, however, are […]
Comment: Recently an experiment was conducted: Two beautiful girls stood passively in front of a table, and on the table were cosmetics, jewelry, food, and paint. Spectators came up to put necklaces on the girls and apply makeup. Suddenly someone poured red paint, similar to blood, on one of the girls. Then it erupted with tearing the […]
Question: It is said that the Creator created one against the other. There are holy worlds, meaning, our intentions for the sake of bestowal, and there are impure forces or Klipot. Without these impure forces, it is impossible to reveal the correct intentions. And this, in principle, corresponds to Hegel’s law of dialectics—the law of […]
These five lights are the light that the Creator created on the first day. Adam was watching it from the end of the world to its end (Zohar for All, “The Rose“). Question: Why does it say “from the end of the world to its end” and not from beginning to end? Answer: In our […]
Our time is an amazing time! This is a completely different stage in human development. We are explaining to people that we have nowhere to go. We are all against a single nature that affects us. Imagine that some evil spaceship, a huge flying saucer, came to Earth, like in Hollywood movies, and is hovering […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will AI gain independence?“ AI has no point of independence. It is not a created being. In every created being, there is a divine part from above that lets it rise above its current abilities to higher degrees. AI has nothing of the sort. If we truly wish to advance beyond […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Money Should Not Be an Incentive for Better Teaching” I recently wrote about the teachers’ crisis in Israel and how I think it should be resolved. I am pleased that the teachers’ union has reached an agreement with the Ministry of Finance and that the teachers will receive […]
In the News (Barking Up the Wrong Tree): “A survey of 75,000 college students showed that, on average, if you want to know how often a student drinks, just ask them how often they think their peers are drinking. (Oh, and be careful about correcting their beliefs with data because this will cause the ones […]
Comment: Many students go through states where they are unable to get up, they oversleep and do not come to the lesson. My Response: I also went through such states; I stayed in bed and could not move. So what? Everyone has to go through them in order to understand one’s true nature. You must […]
There is nothing but love within the Creator. However, the Creator creates various conditions within the desire to receive that should help us understand what love is and attain love since it is something totally incomprehensible for us. Love is something alien and unclear for our egoism, something that goes against our nature. How is […]
Concealment pertains to where one wants to see and understand but does not see or understand. At that time, we can say that something is hidden from him. Moreover, the measure of concealment is measured by the need to know. Hence, when a person has no need for knowledge, it cannot be said about that […]
Question: What does your statement mean that a person who has a “point in the heart” will never understand The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)? Answer: A person who has a point in the heart and develops it will understand TES only to the extent of his spiritual development. And while he is not […]
Question: The entire reality is light and Kli, Creator and creation, the other and me. Why does The Zohar seem so complicated and confusing? Answer: The Zohar seems complicated and confusing to us because we have not reached a unified picture. We have “me” and “the world,” my desires, my thoughts, and the forces operating in […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Speaking with the Creator” Lesson on the Topic, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 2, Item 16 Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Would it be better if we could live forever?“ If we could live forever in our world, which is impossible, then we would detach ourselves from the purpose of life. The purpose of life is, as it is written, “You shall see your world in your lifetime” (Berachot 17a). In other […]
For this reason, I will make an effort to give every word its spiritual identity, detached of space, time and change. It is upon the readers to memorize the meaning of these words thoroughly, for it is impossible to repeat them every time (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Part 1, Restriction and […]
Question: What are the types of Klipot? As far as I know, there is an Egyptian Klipa, which your teacher Rabash calls general, and there is the Klipa called Amalek. Answer: Yes, Amalek is an abbreviation of “Al Menat Lekabel“, which in Hebrew means in order to receive. It is the Klipa called Amalek that […]
Comment: A gift is a manifestation of love. In any case, whatever the gift is, it is the love and not the object itself that we give. My Response: Yes, of course. Question: How can you give love without an object? Answer: By a thought, by an intention. How else? To do this, you have […]
In the News (Stanford Business): “A Global Look at the Connections Between Happiness, Income, and Meaning” “Wealthy people may be happier. But a new study finds that money can’t buy a sense of purpose. “‘Humans think happiness is this one thing: You’re either happy or you’re not,’ Jennifer Aaker says. Of course, it’s not so […]
Question: You often emphasize that dissemination is more important to us than to the world since we build ourselves through it. Yet sometimes it is the other way around and you say that it is more important for the world. What is dissemination for? Answer: Since all of us, all of humanity, are interconnected by […]
Question: When you are asked a question, you answer according to the following principle: first you answer once, and, inside the same answer, a second time. Why is the answer arranged like that? Answer: Because first I have to answer the question itself, and the second time I have to answer in general where this […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Speaking with the Creator” Lesson on the Topic, “Connecting the World in the Last Generation” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 2, “Inner Observation,” Item 9 Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do we know what is true and what is false?“ We cannot know what is true and false. The only one who knows what is true and false is the upper force. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, “nature” (“HaTeva”) is the same as “God” (“Elohim”). It is the upper force […]
My new article on Linkedin “Reply to a Bereaved Wife” A student of mine wrote me the following (abbreviated) letter: Dear teacher, I would like to ask you to teach me how to speak with the Creator. I have been studying with you for more than 12 years, and about two months ago, my husband […]
Medium published my new article “To Increase Tax Collection, Japan Encourages Alcohol Consumption” If this were not a true story, I would think it is a bad joke. Japan’s National Tax Agency (NTA) has launched a campaign called “Sake Viva,” which encourages young people to increase alcohol consumption. “Over the last decade,” explains Biswarup Bose, […]
Question: Why does the Klipa (shell), which is an intention to act only for one’s own benefit, not let us reveal the Creator and knowledge about the universe? Answer: The Klipa protects all spiritual knowledge. Unfortunately, corporeal knowledge remains open to us and we can use it for our own sake and to the detriment […]
Comment: Your teacher Rabash writes in one of his articles that the Klipa (shell or peel) is “the will to receive in order to receive, and this separates a person from the Creator. He feels that he is the master of his destiny and there is no other power in the world except himself.” My […]
Before the worlds were created there was only Ein Sof. There was no “vacant place,” meaning a place of dearth that would qualify for corrections. (Baal HaSulam, Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Part 1, Restriction and Line) While the upper light was filling that place, which is the primary state of all creation, […]
Question: Why does Rabash write that “one who follows the path of the Creator creates the Creator?” Answer: Indeed, it sounds very strange that а man creates the Creator. But in fact, it is so both in the internal and external sense. There are 3,800 different religions and beliefs in this world and they were […]
Question: It is believed that all revolutions in the world proceed according to a certain plan. Special services under the guise of terrorists attack somebody. Is there any limit to this technique? Answer: What difference does it make in what form this is determined in our world? Hot spots are everywhere. So many weapons have amassed that […]
Comment: Until a person overcomes financial dependence on material work, it is very difficult for him to adjust to spiritual work. He can agree with you from afar: “Yes, you are saying an interesting thing, but I have a salary and I feel very good.” My Response: I do not think that the financial channel […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Have we crossed the point of no return in terms of damaging the planet?“ There is no such point. We need to trust that our thought, which is our greatest quality, can change nature. We only need to understand the direction to which we should aim our thoughts. What should we […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “After 125 Years, We Still Do Not Understand Zionism” This week in Basel, Switzerland, Israel is commemorating the 125th anniversary of the 1st Zionist Congress. At the conclusion of that congress, Theodor Herzl, who organized the conference and was the driving force behind the Zionist movement in its […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Who We Are without Our History” September 1st is the beginning of the school year in Israel. Beginning this year, Jewish Israeli students will not learn about the history of the Jewish people during the period of the Second Temple, its destruction, the Great Revolt of Judaea, the […]
It is seemingly perplexing, for it speaks of the time before the worlds were created. Thus, which reality exists here, that the upper light should fill? The thing is that all the worlds and the souls that exist and that are destined to be created with all their incidents until the end of their correction […]
Question: As a rule, in order to exist, a person needs a job. With the money earned, he can eat, buy clothes and shoes, pay for the Internet, and so on. Therefore he cannot imagine himself without a job. The main fear of a person is to lose his job. When they lose it, many […]
Question: Why is nighttime the most productive time for mental activity? In principle, Kabbalists always studied at night when the concentration of thoughts is much clearer. Answer: Firstly, it is physiologically conditioned because a person feels that during that time he has nothing else to do and he can concentrate on some work while everyone […]
Question: If my wife is a part of me, is it possible to judge a friend by his wife? Answer: It depends on the couple. If you and your wife have lived a long time together, but you are an ordinary earthly couple, then this is immediately felt. If you are a spiritual couple, it […]
Question: If we open the curtain and remove all the tinsel that people are attracted to, if we completely take away everything that they chase all their lives, then what is left in their lives? People need some goal, don’t they? Answer: Then you would have to clean out this entire world and leave only […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “When should I tell the truth and when should I lie?“ I recently received the following letter: “Hello, Dr. Laitman, my name is Avi, and I’d like to share a problem that I’ve been dealing with from a young age. Since I can remember myself, I hated to lie, even when […]
Medium published my new article “Quiet Quitting — a Step toward a Better Balance” The signs have been there for a long time, but the lockdowns have given them a major boost. Now, “quiet quitting” is a major problem for employers, especially since many people still work from home, blurring the boundary between work time […]
How can we develop such sensitivity within us that we will understand that if we hope to build our soul without the help of the Creator, then we are taking a long, circuitous path? We will feel that we are taking a long path each time, and this will push us to look constantly for […]
The stony heart does not let us connect with friends. But there is a hole inside the stone through which I can connect with everyone. It is the stony heart that opens the path to the Creator for us. After all, if it were not for it, I would not even know that there is […]
Question: How can one understand what infinity is? Answer: Infinity is in time or in place depending on what basic definitions we use for it. In principle, infinity is something that has no end. If I want to talk about some process that does not have an end, then I call it “infinity.” Comment: In our world, […]
The evil we see in the world is a projection of our own qualities. Therefore, if I am strongly impressed by this evil, it is also beneficial, because to the same extent I will have more willingness to get rid of it. The only thing that is required of me is to recognize that all […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What should be one’s dream?“ Our dream should be to achieve a positive social connection where mutual care, support and encouragement abound in society.
Question: How is a question formed? Where does it come from? Is the person who asks you a question just an irritant that allows you to give out information? Answer: Yes. Question: How should one prepare for this? How can you ask a question correctly? Answer: The question, in fact, is to cling to me and make […]
Question: There are different calendars for measuring time: the Gregorian, Chinese, Jewish, etc. Why does everyone use exactly the same calendar all over the world? Answer: It was simply accepted by the international committee. But did the Chinese live by this calendar, or India, or South America? No! If you take any of the Arab […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is it true that stubbornness is a characteristic quality of Jewish people?“ Max Nordau, one of the Zionist movement’s founders, was quoted as telling Ze’ev Jabotinsky that “logic is a Greek art and Jews can’t tolerate it. The Jew learns not by way of reason, but from catastrophes. He won’t buy […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “I to My Beloved and My Beloved to Me” Lesson on the Topic, “The Importance of Dissemination” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 6, Item 12 Selected Highlights
Comment: It seems to us that in ancient times people were primitive. But you said that they were clearly aware of the connection between them. My Response: In what way were they primitive? Twenty generations of Jews before and after Adam, ten before Noah, and ten from Noah to Abraham were not primitive. They were […]
Comment: You once said that the world should be afraid not so much of catastrophes and environmental pollution as of unemployment that as soon as the world will be flooded with unemployed people, there will be chaos and a catastrophe worse than an external catastrophe. My Response: The fact is that the countries will be obliged […]
Comment: We believe that people who lived a thousand years ago or even more were very primitive, and now we are so cool. Actually it is the other way around. My Response: No, in Europe people were indeed really primitive. Look what was going on there in the Middle Ages, the way they lived, all […]
Question: Is it possible to say that the Klipa (peel) represents obstacles that need to be overcome before acquiring spiritual knowledge? Answer: Yes, it is not just obstacles. They are specially designed in such a way as to protect the fruit. Therefore, a person who wants to reach the inner filling of the fruit must […]
Medium published my new article “Alone Is Not Always Lonely” It seems like social media, pandemics, and modern life have made us isolated people, more alienated from each other than ever, and enjoying mainly our own company. People’s conversation time has been declining for nearly thirty years, and even video calls cannot reverse the trend. […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Mikhail Gorbachev – a Personal Impression” The passing of Mikhail Gorbachev reminded me of a brief conversation I had had with him. Even before I met him, I had the impression that he was truly a different kind of politician. He was not inherently bad; he understood people […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is globalization reversible?“ This question came up recently when one of my students mentioned the German government’s preparation for an energy crisis following a reduction in Russian gas supplies. Germany’s Minister of Economy discussed gas as a scarce resource and called upon the Germans to save as much electricity as possible, […]
It is said that “Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor in it in vain” (Rabash, “What Is, ‘There Is No Blessing in That Which Is Counted,’ in the Work?”). This means one should not expect that a person can build his own soul, Temple, or house of holiness in which he will reveal […]
If you look at the entire history of mankind, it is clear that people have always strived to improve the conditions of their existence in human society; meaning, they were looking for how to exist together. Wars ended and peace was established for a short time, but then they started again. And until now humanity does […]
Know that before the emanated beings were emanated and the created beings created, an upper, simple light had filled the entire reality. … It refers to the light that expands from the Creator Himself. Know that all the names and appellations that appear in the wisdom of Kabbalah are not at all in the Creator […]
Question: How were the interconnections in ancient Babylon arranged? What were the people doing there? Answer: It was an ordinary, primitive society. They lived very simply. Babylonians ate mainly fish, as they lived in a valley at the confluence of two rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates. They grew buckwheat and some wheat. In principle, […]
Question: What do you mean by fruit? Answer: In our world, in order to get the fruits of plants, it is necessary to grow a tree for a long time, to perform certain manipulations on it, to care for, to fertilize it, to water it, and so on. And when we reach the full ripening […]
Comment: If you look at how society as a whole has developed, then, in principle, people have always been busy plowing fields, etc. They always engaged in physical labor. My Response: And now the work is different; it flows into spiritual work. We can do everything else effortlessly with the help of automation, machinery, 3D […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can drug addicts be cured?“ A global solution to drug addition depends on society at large. We first need to build society so that it is based on ties of mutual consideration, support, encouragement and positive connections, such that people would not want to disconnect themselves from society. We would then […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Living In a World of Intentions” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From the Mouth of a Sage” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Who gave you the right?” Once a week, filmmaker Semion Vinokur interviews me on a program called Novosti (News). In the program, Semion asks about current affairs and presents viewers’ comments. In the previous show, he presented a poignant question from a viewer who called herself (or perhaps […]
There is nothing to correct in each of us; the problem is not in each one individually. The main thing is to correct our connection so that all the minuses and pluses in us, all the bad and good qualities that are in each one, reach mutual completion between the friends. This is called mutual […]
Until we clarify our desire to enjoy and do not reveal a whole system of connections and its constituent properties, it seems just a desire that does not represent anything special. But when its depth begins to unfold, we see how complex this system is. Thus in quantum physics, scientists penetrate deeper and deeper into […]
Inner work begins with our desire to get out of ourselves, to connect. And the way out of the connection is measured by how much it contradicts our desire and what forces interfere with the connection and fight against it. These resisting forces just serve as help against us because they show a person where […]
The melodies of Baal HaSulam are filled with spiritual meaning. It does not matter in what style they are written because he has put spiritual content into them. If it were not Baal HaSulam, then the same notes would no longer be perceived in such a way. There is nothing in the notes themselves and in […]
Comment: I read an article in which our current period is called “interesting for a historian and sad for contemporary man.” My Response: It’s interesting because everything is developing very rapidly. “Sad for contemporary man” depends on for whom. Question: It says that in addition to all the troubles, wars, and natural disasters, long-term friendship is […]
Question: How can I hate bad qualities that are outside of me? How can I hate them inside myself? Answer: It is done gradually. It is very difficult. It takes years because we are going through the most difficult period of internal formation. After all, the universe existed for billions of years before the inanimate, vegetative, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What should I be grateful for?“ In the morning, we should be grateful for waking up, that there is light, air and an entire day ahead of us. In the afternoon, we should be grateful for having been through half the day already, and that soon we will finish the day, […]
My new article on Linkedin “Why We Do Not Remember the Moment of Birth” Humans are emotional beings. Feelings guide us, determine our thoughts, our decisions in life, and our judgment. Whatever we do, we do it to feel good or to avoid feeling bad. Feelings are so central to our being that they even […]
My new article on Linkedin “The Answer Is Clear If We Ask the Right Question” In the end, what everyone wants is to have a good life. A good life means more or less the same for everyone: a decent place to live, food on the table, good health, education for the children, and most […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does Israel really want peace?“ The problem is that the Jews in Israel do not understand what it means to make peace. Making peace means coming closer to all other Jews and convincing them to come closer to each other. It might seem that the Jews in Israel do not need […]
The great Kabbalist the Ari and his successor Baal HaSulam described the entire structure of the universe. For them, it was a reality they attained and for us, these upper roots exist as if in potential. When we begin to read the texts of The Study of the Ten Sefirot with the correct intention and correct […]
Question: What is a Klipa in spiritual work? Answer: Klipa in Hebrew means “peel.” Let’s say that if we want to get to the center of some fruit, we need to clean its outer part, which is called a Klipa or peel. It is not just a peel. It allows the fruit to grow, mature, […]
Question: When does faith turn into attainment? Answer: If it is faith above reason, then it becomes a vessel (Kli) for attainment. After all, the light of Hassadim is called faith. Faith above reason is a quality of bestowal that reigns over the will to receive. The will to receive with the intention to bestow […]
Question: Is there any similarity between the Tu B’Av holiday and Purim? Answer: Yes, of course. Both holidays speak of the highest possible condition. Question: Could you give a short formula of love? Answer: The formula of love? Don’t know. I think it’s H₂O. Question: Just like that? Answer: Yes. The most important thing in […]
Comment: I have seen how people who study Kabbalah change. They begin to look at the world more broadly, understand its interconnectedness, and treat the world as a laboratory. My Response: Sure. The paradox is that we are not moving away from the world. On the contrary, we go into the world, we get closer to […]
People who are revered as gods lose their human features over time (Jerzy Stanislaw Lec). Question: When we worship people as gods, what does it do to people? Answer: By doing this, you are doing them a very bad service: you harden the heart and egoism increases. You as if convey your egoism to them, impose […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Unless the Lord Builds a House, Its Builders Labor in It in Vain” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From the Mouth of a Sage” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 6, Item 1 Selected Highlights
More and more problems are revealed in the world as a result of the lack of communication between us that is revealed from above. The upper governance wants to show us how our connection is flawed and how insufficient it is for the revelation of the upper light, the upper force, the Creator between us. […]
Question: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam writes that the authors tried to use all the words of our world to designate and explain some upper roots. What does “upper and lower roots” mean? Answer: The point is that Kabbalists describe the states that they themselves experienced because they acquired new possibilities […]
In the News (boredpanda.com): “Photographer And His Wife Plant 2 Million Trees In 20 Years To Restore A Destroyed Forest And Even The Animals Have Returned” “’The land was as sick as I was – everything was destroyed,’ Salgado said in The Guardian back in 2015. ‘Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees. Then […]
Question: Very often disagreements arise between several friends in a group, sometimes even of a purely corporeal nature. Is it possible for a person to insure against this? Answer: No. Not in any way! We need to increase disagreements. A person will have the strength to overcome them if he has a strong ten that will […]
Question: How did it happen that people were able to carry accurate time throughout history? We know exactly how many thousands of years have passed since this or that event. How was it measured? Answer: In Judaism, it is measured very simply and there is no problem with this! But when you look at some other […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Could the Large Hadron Collider reveal the secrets of the universe?“ These expensive toys will not let us solve the universe’s deepest secrets, because they do not research in the same dimension as the force that controls the universe. We do not find the force controlling us, the universe and nature […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Unless the Lord Builds a House, Its Builders Labor in It in Vain” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Time to Act” Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “We Could Be Looking at Another Wave” It may not seem like it now, but I have a feeling that we are headed for another wave of Covid. The story with Covid is not over yet; in about two months, around November, we will see another wave of Covid in […]
Nature is out of balance. Unimaginable phenomena occur in the world. Poisonous rains fall all over the world, terrible droughts occur, and the most interesting thing is that there is no explanation for this. It just happens that way, for no reason. Therefore, we need to understand that the reason is in us, in people! […]
Comment: You said that primeval people who lived in caves felt like a pack, as one. My Response: The fact is that they had instinctive connections with each other; they lived according to their own laws. But animals also have their own laws. These laws are correct, natural, and innate. Animals spare each other and […]
Question: Is it possible to feel the Creator and the upper world before a person reveals the first degree of spirituality for himself? Answer: How could this be done? What would you feel it with? How is any sensing device arranged? It has a certain photosensitivity, i.e., sensitivity to certain waves or frequencies. It may […]
Comment: You once said that classical composers, even Bach, were far from spirituality, that, in any case, their music cannot be considered spiritual. My Response: Their music is not spiritual because it does not come from a sensation of the opposite properties of giving and receiving, but flows only in the single property of receiving, and […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, Convention Summary: “Hitkalelut (Incorporation) in a Ten” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator-1” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator-2” Selected Highlights
World Kabbalah Convention “Preparation to the Lesson 3″ World Kabbalah Convention, “Deriving Joy from Unity with the Creator,” Lesson 3 Selected Highlights Lesson 3 World Kabbalah Convention “Preparation to the Lesson 4” World Kabbalah Convention, “Embracing Humanity Through Bestowal and Joy,” Lesson 4
My new article on Linkedin “The Omen of Financial Hardships” The recent study by Gallup and West Health, which found that rising healthcare costs have forced nearly 100 million Americans “to delay or skip healthcare treatments, trim regular household expenses or borrow money,” could bode ill for Jews. Since the turn of the century, antisemitism […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Unwise Smartest People” A famous Israeli singer recently wrote on social media that Operation Breaking Dawn, the three-day military campaign in May in which Israel fought against the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, may have been a military victory, but it did not solve anything. Other than […]
Medium published my new article “On the Borderline” There is a reason for the apocalyptic talk that is so prevalent these days. The threat of the Russia-Ukraine war turning nuclear at the beginning of the war, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station that has become a center-point of contention, the growing tension between China and Taiwan, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is the world becoming more godless?“ We live in times of ever-growing concealment from the upper force, which is why our world seems to be getting darker from one day to the next. That is, we increasingly find ourselves in wars, struggles and anxieties with no end to them in […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Teach Your Children Well” A few days before the beginning of the school year in Israel, the feeling here is that the education system has seen better times. Many teachers are quitting, especially the young and more gifted ones, and few are filling the blanks. A teacher’s salary […]
We must remember that the entire wisdom of Kabbalah is founded on spiritual matters that do not take up time or space. They are not subject to change or absence and all the changes that are spoken of in this wisdom do not imply that the first form becomes absent and is replaced by a […]
Question: What would happen if all Jews leave Europe? Answer: I do not think this is going to happen. When the Jews in France wanted to leave (there were half a million of them there) the newspapers wrote that France could be shut down. Meaning, their participation in the management of industry, science, and art is such that […]
Question: You said that in everything one should see the manifestation of the Creator, except for “leave.” But is “leaving” an inner feeling? After all, you are not being kicked out. Answer: “Leaving” is an inner state when you are dragged all over the place seemingly by your personal thoughts, decisions, conjectures, and so on. […]
Comment: Oleg wrote to you: “Still, it’s scary to die. I’ve been watching your shows non-stop for almost a year now. It’s like a drug. While I’m watching, it’s not scary. But as soon as I leave the computer, I just return to my family, news, illness; it’s scary right away. The transition is scary […]
Question: When you studied Kabbalah, you did not have a group; there was only a teacher. How did you hold on to the importance of the goal in order not to regress in any circumstance? Answer: It is a different path without a group. It is much more difficult and less effective. After all, I […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will war ever stop?“ War will stop on one condition: that we will want to determine connection as being better than separation, and love as being more important than hatred. In such a state, there will be no “mine and yours,” but everything will belong to all of us equally. While […]
The book The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) is a commentary by Baal HaSulam on the Ari’s work The Tree of Life (Etz Chaim). It practically explains the entire basis of Kabbalah from beginning to end. The book of the great Kabbalist of the 16th century: Ari’s The Tree of Life, of course, is not easy and […]
Question: Is there such a thing as absolute, unconditional love? Answer: Ideally, of course there is. Someday we will definitely come to it because it is the goal of our development. Nature will lead us to this. And how it will lead already depends on us. Question: Do you mean it is achievable for a person? […]
Comment: You recently defined that the student can measure his progress by the extent that he tries to adhere with what the teacher tells him, meaning, the degree to which he replaces his opinion with that of his teacher’s. My Response: This, however, is not an easy combination, it is not easy for a person to […]
Question: Why is it that no method accepts criticism of its so-called guru? Answer: This is certainly incorrect. After all, we are engaged in the correction of man. Let him do anything he wants, just do no harm. Therefore, there are two very interesting laws in Kabbalah. The first condition: You can do everything you […]
Question: If the Jews must gather in one territory, in Israel, should something then replace this force that they transmit in other places? Or should some new form of interaction be built? What will it be? Answer: I think it will be the spread of the Jewish ideology, the Jewish mentality, the outlook on the world, […]
In the News (“A renowned orchestra proves that companies can thrive without a boss”): “A curious game of musical chairs happens every time the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra gets together. After every piece, the musicians shuffle positions, where a violinist in the front might move to the back so another violinist can take center stage. Unlike other […]
The technique will be so perfected that a person can do without himself (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec). My Response: I do not think we will live to see this and in general that such a state will exist because we cannot do without our inner, spiritual selves. Otherwise, who are we? Are we only going to work for […]
On one side stands the Creator, on the other side I am, and between us in the middle is this torn, disassembled world. When I collect it more and more, like in a kaleidoscope, I gradually reveal the attitude of the Creator toward me. Question: Is it good? Answer: For this, I need to make myself […]
Question: Why are people always eager to lose weight? Answer: Because weight-loss products are more expensive than weight-gain products. And so, someone is profiting from them. Question: But in reality, what is the problem with being overweight? Answer: It is very easy to get fat from today’s products, but it is very difficult to lose […]
In the News (BBC News): “‘Indian doctor duped into buying “Aladdin’s lamp” for $41,600 “Two men have been arrested in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for allegedly duping a doctor into buying an ‘Aladdin’s lamp’ that they promised would bring him wealth and health. “As part of the con, they even pretended to conjure […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think of the US-led air defense alliance with Israel and Arab countries?“ Such agreements are unreliable in the long term because lasting peace requires the Jewish people to first and foremost develop peace among each other. Until we establish peace among each other, then these agreements are made […]
My new article on Linkedin “A Changing Reality or a Changing Perception of Reality?” A recent study by Gallup and West Health has found that “rising healthcare costs have compelled nearly four in 10 Americans in the past six months to delay or skip healthcare treatments, trim regular household expenses or borrow money. That translates […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “How Israel Should Respond to Iran’s Nuclear Politics” If there is one consensus among all the political parties in Israel, it is that a new nuclear deal between the US and its partners and Iran is bad for Israel. I do not dispute this view, but I think […]
Question: What should keep a Jew in Israel? Suppose I am repatriating to Israel from South America or Europe. And here I come across absolutely absurd things: a very expensive life, threats to security, an absurd political system, in general, a lot of things that are not really difficult, but simply incomprehensible. What should keep […]
In the News (ABC News): “Nine European countries said Tuesday that they have seen ‘no substantial evidence’ to support Israel’s allegations that six Palestinian civil society groups are terrorist organizations and would not change their policies on supporting the groups. “The rare joint statement was a major rebuke of Israel, which backlisted the groups as […]
There is a popular saying in Latin America: “Children and drunks always tell the truth.” Why do we lose this sincerity and truthfulness as we grow up? Why does a person develop toward lying? It is because our mind develops in order to protect us from the harm that we can do to ourselves. Since […]
Question: What is the difference between what the science of Kabbalah offers humanity and what ordinary education teaches about loving each other and being good children? What is our know-how? Answer: Our know-how is that we need to create groups in which people would communicate with each other and begin to feel that by getting closer they […]
Question: In our life, as a rule, if a person did something wrong, it is customary to apologize. How are things in Kabbalah? After all, a Kabbalist, in principle, understands that everything that happens is beneficial. Answer: If you cause obvious harm to a person, then you are obliged to apologize to him. We have […]
Comment: You told me how your teacher Rabash was patient with his haters. He tried to justify everyone because he perceived everything as an interaction with the Creator, as a common system. My Response: Yes, but all the same, in interaction with the Creator there are such images that are pleasant, decent, and noble and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “When should parents support their child, and when shouldn’t they?“ The support we receive from a young age builds us for life, so it is imperative that children receive support. However, together with the support, children need to understand that we give them support in order to progress them, i.e. that […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “600,000 Souls” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 5, Item 1 Selected Highlights
Medium published my new article “No Confidence? No Happiness” We feel confident when we are hopeful about the future. When we have something to look forward to, we have a reason to live. If we lose it, we lose hope, happiness, and might even become suicidal. The future is more important to us than the […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Hidden Cause Behind England’s Water Shortage” Despite the recent torrents in London, this summer, England has been experiencing a serious drought. But not only England, most, if not all of Europe has been experiencing a sweltering summer with gigantic forest fires that have consumed countless homes in […]
In the News (The Express Tribune): “Morimoto first offered his services in June 2018 after posting a tweet that read: ‘I offer myself for rent, as a person who does nothing. Is it difficult for you to enter a shop on your own? Are you missing a player on your team? Do you need someone to keep a […]
Question: The European Association conducted a study of the parameters of Jewish communities’ life in 12 European countries. Security, the fight against anti-Semitism, religious freedom, government support for Jewish communities, and provision of cultural development were studied. Based on these and many other data, they have built a rating system and determined that Belgium and […]
Comment: In the Ari’s methodology there is not a single word about love, about unification. It is a purely dry language of Sefirot. My Response: Yes, the Ari says almost nothing about feelings, only about actions. But this is conveyed in the language of Kabbalah, the so-called language of the Sefirot. Besides this, there is also a […]
The Creator is the Nature surrounding us and nothing more. Write “Nature” instead of the Creator, but still with a capital letter, so as not to attribute it to something purely mechanistic. The Creator is the upper degree, the upper light, and the quality of bestowal in relation to us, who represents the quality of […]
Question: What does it mean: “One should see the manifestation of the Creator in everything, except: “Leave”? But is “leave” also a manifestation of the Creator? Answer: Yes, the Creator specifically says to obey Him in everything, except for one thing: when He allegedly offers you to leave. A person often has the feeling that, […]
Question: Do you think there may come a time when students will be able to see you as a friend? Answer: I would like that, but it is unlikely. I do not see this yet, and I am afraid of spoiling the energy for the students that gives them a special idea about me. The […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Shofar of the Messiah” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do bacteria defend themselves against viral infections? If so, how?“ There is research showing how bacteria defend themselves against viruses. One of my students who was impressed by such research recently asked me how such tiny bacteria could be so smart in order to mobilize against various viral predators. In terms […]
Medium published my new article “If I Had a Billion Dollars” A few weeks ago, someone bought a Mega Millions ticket at a Speedway gas station in Des Plaines, Illinois. That ticket turned out to be a single winner and the owner won USD 1.337 billion. A student asked me about it. He said that […]
We live in a world where it is very difficult, almost impossible, to distinguish truth from lies. What tools do we have for correctly evaluating this? What is truth from the point of view of the science of Kabbalah? Truth is a good attitude of one to another. Any other relationships is more or less close to […]
Comment: Baal HaSulam writes that the Ari’s book The Tree of Life (Etz Chaim in Hebrew) is identical in its importance to the Torah that was given to us on Mount Sinai. One can imagine what the Torah means for all humanity. Today, all culture, art, painting, all religions, and all science are based on it. […]
Question: What can help people on the way to absolute love? Can you formulate some tips? What will help people? Answer: An example, only an example. Nothing else. An example of how you give in to others, how you are ready to get closer to them, how you appreciate them. Moreover, you should be constantly talking […]
In recent years, new technologies in medicine have been developed that make it possible to extend human life to limits that previously seemed to be fantasy. But is there any point in extending life to 200 years? A thousand years ago, people lived for 20 years and this was considered normal; today life expectancy is already […]
Comment: There are people who perceive your words as the truth, and there is a category of people who think: “He said it so many times and where is it?” My Response: The fact is that everyone should agree with the truth. Not consent a priori like with some guru. For example, the Dalai Lama […]
The world is facing a great struggle of man, people, nations, countries, and civilizations working against each other, which will be until they submit to a rational Kabbalistic method that does not require some kind of admiration for us Kabbalists and our elevation above them; nothing like that! Come and be the most important person; […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Shofar of the Messiah” Selected Highlights
Question: In the chain of Jewish holidays, Tu B’Av (Day of Love) occupies a rather modest place although, judging by the name, it is a very high holiday. What is the essence of this holiday that is hidden at the moment? Answer: Tu B’Av (Day of Love) is a celebration of rebirth, birth, unity, and […]
Comment: Baal HaSulam writes that the singularity of the language of the Ari is that his words cannot be materialized. After all, when I read a story from the Torah, for example, I begin to imagine people, animals, some wars and events because the Torah is written in the language of branches. And when I […]
Question: Why does each nation have its own musical instrument, and each one works with notes in its own way? Where does it all come from? Answer: All nations have a different structure of the soul. There are twelve main types of souls; these are the twelve sons of Jacob or twelve parallel ways of […]
Comment: You say that on the spiritual path everyone goes through absolutely the same states. My Response: But in our life everyone also goes through the same path. Nevertheless, different people go through different lives. Comment: But a person passing through spiritual states can get stuck in them for a long time. My Response: It […]
Comment: When you teach certain levels of the Study of Ten Sefirot (TES), it is hard to understand at first, but later these layers become revealed. My Response: I teach very simply since I give elementary information. It is just that today people are not able to comprehend it and they do so even less than […]
Comment: I read an article entitled “The World of the Future.” There was nothing new in the beginning of the article. It concluded that all predictions about the future world boil down to robotics that people will be completely removed from production and will receive a basic income for necessities and some form of entertainment. The […]
Question: In a situation where your words cause a student to refute them and he tries to as if win a dispute, why does it give you the opportunity to say more than if the students listen to you in a state of admiration? Answer: A person who develops a critical approach has some thoughts of his own. […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the best ways for me to support someone?“ The best way to support someone is by dressing in them out of love. We need to make an image out of ourselves that the person in need would willingly accept and perceive positively. There is a saying about this in […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Handmaid Who Is Heir to Her Mistress” Selected Highlights
If we do not acquire the quality of bestowal, we will constantly suffer and simply will not be able to continue such an existence. The quality of bestowal is the only salvation for us and it can raise us above egoistic desires. After all, if you only feel the desire to receive, then this is the […]
Medium published my new article “More People Are ‘Autistic’ because More Connection Is Required” Today, more and more people are diagnosed on the autistic spectrum. According to statnews.com, “CDC researchers reported that autism rates in the United States increased from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 54 in 2016, and the rate […]
My new article on Linkedin “The Psyche of the Jewish Antisemite” For the past 19 years, a Jewish man has been protesting outside a Michigan synagogue nearly every Sabbath. What began as protesting against policies of the State of Israel has gradually morphed into signs that read “Resist Jewish Power,” “End Jewish Supremacism in Palestine,” […]
Question: What makes the spoken Kabbalistic language different from the written? Answer: Spoken language, unlike the written language, can convey much more, on one hand, and on the other hand, written language can convey more than the spoken language. After all, written language is not just the language we use today; there were many other additional […]
Comment: Prices have risen in Israel for the first time in a long time! Basic bread has increased by 36%, and there have been sharp jumps in the price of eggs, dairy products, water, oil, energy, and so on. It should not be like this—these are essential things. The state should give away all the money, open […]
Question: It is written in the Torah that the world was created with the letter “Bet.” Why? Answer: The Torah begins with the word “Bereshit” – “in the beginning.” The letter “Bet” with which this word begins is a special letter. And although it has a hidden meaning of its outline, our world, which is […]
A person’s desire for the Creator is usually indicated as a black dot, line, or circle on a white background of the upper light. When there is a mutual influence of a person and the Creator, to the extent that they can complement each other, a person with his desire to feel the Creator and […]
There are many different methods to draw the surrounding light on yourself, even when you are alone. The more so when you are in a group by studying and any kind of work for humanity, but only real, correct, work when you disseminate Kabbalah and help people. Light leads a person to the realization of the evil of his […]
Question: Are there periods when a baby senses everything from end to end? Answer: No, this has nothing to do with the corporeal body. This is said in a spiritual sense, when an infant is called a person who is ready to rise above itself and become included in the upper domain because one is completely ready […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How does a good supportive connection work?“ A good supportive connection works when we share the good and the bad with others, and then we feel the burden from the good and the bad as more moderate and bearable. By doing so, we gain the strength to continue living. There is […]
Question: We’re talking about true love. There probably is such a thing as true hatred, true confrontation. How can one work with this second part that goes along with love? Does a person need to pay attention to it? Answer: Yes, it is necessary because all the negative qualities arise in us precisely so that with their […]
In the News (“Harvard Developed AI Defines the Shortest Path to Human Happiness”): “Researchers have created a digital model of psychology aimed at improving mental health. The system offers great personalization and recognizes the shortest path to a cluster of mental stability for any individual. … “Deep Longevity has published a paper on Aging-US outlining […]
Comment: A few thousand years ago, the spiritual method was such that a person could reveal the upper force through great suffering and their justification. Since the time of the Ari, another method became relevant—the need to develop the screen. There is no longer the need to suffer because that method did not affect the increased egoism. […]
Question: Baal HaSulam who based his methodology on the system of the Ari, wrote that when one pronounces the names of lights and Kelim (vessels), the person evokes the surrounding light because he seems to remember what is written about his soul. What does this mean? Answer: The fact is that a person wants to achieve such […]
My new article on Linkedin “Connection Begins with Respect” Gil Tamary is a well-known Israeli journalist. A few weeks ago, he sneaked into Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, defying an entry ban on non-Muslims. The stunt made the Saudis so angry that they tracked down and arrested the man who helped Tamary into the city, and […]
Medium published my new article “Poison Rain, the New Reality” A wave of studies released this month declare that we have polluted the air to the point where even rain has become poisonous. Moreover, these studies “argue [that] the presence of forever chemicals in our hydrosphere [is] at values that exceed key guidelines [which] means […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Climate Gone Mad” A few days ago, the papers warned that Europe is facing the worst drought in 500 years. They described the dry and hot weather and the fires that broke out all over the continent and spoke of an apocalypse. Today, they are reporting flooding in […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do people need support in their lives?“ The world operates according to forces that are outside of our perception and sensation. Reality is much broader, profound and complex than the way we are built to perceive it. Therefore, in relation to everything we do in our world, and in every […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “His Legacy Is Our Duty” This month, eighty-two years ago, one of the founders of the State of Israel, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, passed away. Jabotinsky was a gifted poet, a celebrated author, and an eloquent orator. But most of all, he was a Zionist leader who had fought his […]
Medium published my new article “Climate Gone Mad” A firefighter walks past the flames of a forest fire near Belin-Beliet. French officials have warned that the forest fire could spread further in the southwest of the country. Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH / Reuters A few days ago, the papers warned that Europe is facing the worst […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic, “The Ways of the Lord Are Straight” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 3, Item 11 Selected Highlights
Medium published my new article “The Ultimate Pleasure” Scientists discovered that an ant exposed to heat during an activity with other ants behaves as if it does not feel it. It continues with all the other ants as if it feels nothing, and changes course only when all the ants do so. The same is […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Devoid of Jewish Identity” The national Jewish identity and the fear of losing it has become a question that troubles many people in Israel. On the one hand, there is no fear that we will lose our identity even if we want to since the hatred of the […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do you think Israel is broken? If yes, how can we fix it?“ We have long been broken. We face alienation and generally negative relations toward each other, and it is indeed a problem. We need to reach a state where we take care of each other, to explain to ourselves […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Truth, Love, and the Connection between Them” “The truth is in the eyes of the beholder,” says the famous maxim. In the age of fake news, it is more difficult than ever to tell true from false. So how can we decide whom to believe? How can we […]
Question: There is always some kind of struggle and mutual rejection between us. How can people introduce mutual complementing between them and begin to actually coexist together, really together? What role does the concept of true love, which you always talk about, play in this? Answer: People need to be taught. They need to be constantly […]
Question: The Ari described the system of relations between souls. It is called the system of lights and screens. Did he, in principle, do something that no one before him had done? I mean, were the language, the approach, and the system itself new? Answer: Everything was new: the system, the methodology, the approach. The Ari […]
Make an effort to connect with your friends and you will feel that in the gap between you there is no room where the Creator can be revealed. When we come closer to each other we do not narrow the space by doing so, but on the contrary, we discover the space for the revelation […]
Question: Were there any other methods before the teaching of the Ari beside the method of suffering? Answer: No. Mostly, it was about the method of suffering, which allowed people to rise above egoism, because we feel bad in it. A person even deliberately drove himself into egoistic suffering in order to force himself to […]
Question: What kind of results would you like to see from your work? Answer: As a result of my work, I would like to see the world beginning to understand the true state of things, understanding what I am writing about in the blog where the same thing is constantly repeated. I already do not know what […]
Question: Letters are forms of interaction of two opposite forces of reception and bestowal. Will the extent to which I can balance my egoism within myself with the light, with the quality of bestowal, that influences me and pass it on to the other already be a letter, a word, or a sentence? Answer: Yes. […]
Kabbalah is the science of how to reach the revelation of the Creator in our world, to feel and grasp Him to such an extent that you can pass it on to other people and to the next generations. Kabbalah teaches how to perceive reality that we cannot feel with the five ordinary senses. But […]
Comment: In ordinary life we often do something not for pleasure but out of necessity. And we sometimes even force ourselves, let’s say you need to feed your body or do basic home maintenance. My Response: No, it is necessary to receive pleasure, and not deny it. Let’s say I’m thinking about the spiritual, about the […]
If I rise above the claims of egoism, which convince me that this work is meaningless and the spiritual path is not for me, then it means that I am going above reason. And so, “penny by penny joins in a great amount”; that is, all the overcoming accumulates to a certain measure necessary in […]
We need to unite among us, and as soon as we reveal that we really want to unite but are not able to do it, this will be the state of “Ruined Jerusalem,” the ruin of the Temple. We strive to unite and do not know how to do it, and therefore, we cry and […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why does crisis bring people closer?“ I recently received a letter from a lady who explained that she and her husband had to move into their basement after their house got destroyed, and they felt liberated as a result. In her words, she wrote that “caring for others supplanted all thoughts […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Don’t Panic, There Is Money Behind It” A new TV series in Israel, titled Don’t Panic, examines if Israel is prepared for events of mass destruction such as earthquakes, tsunamis, or a leak of poisonous gas. Not surprisingly, the series concludes that Israel is unprepared for any such […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can we deal with negative emotions?“ Negative emotions awaken in us first in order to signal that we have to advance from where we are to a better place. That better place is an essential change in human connections, which ultimately comes down to mutual relations of love. We currently […]
Medium published my new article “Why Longevity” Engineers at MIT and the Technical University of Munich have designed a new kind of fuel cell that converts glucose (sugar) into electricity. The device is about 1/100 the diameter of a human hair. The sugary power source generates the highest power density of any glucose fuel cell […]
My new article on Linkedin “ The Clash between Islam and Judaism ” The never-ending clash between Israel and the Islamic world is far deeper than a dispute over land or territory. The ultimate purpose of Islam is to rule the world. It may take years, decades, centuries, or millennia, but the ultimate goal is […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Bring Back the Pioneer Spirit” When I came to Israel in 1974, I was sent to a hotel that accommodated new olim (Jews who had just immigrated to Israel). Each family was given a room and we slept, dined, and learned Hebrew there. One day, I found out […]
Medium published my new article “How Close Are We to a Nuclear World War?” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the media prior to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in New York City, New York, U.S., August 1, 2022. REUTERS/David ‘Dee’ Delgado In reference to the war in Ukraine, the tension between the Koreas, […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Bad Times – Opportunities for Correction” Today is the 9th of Av according to the Hebrew calendar. On this day, the First and Second Temples were ruined and the people of Israel were exiled from their land. It happened centuries apart, but on the exact same day of […]
Medium published my new article “A New Beginning for Latin America Is Possible” I feel great sympathy for Latin America and my students there; the socioeconomic turmoil they are experiencing saddens me and I share their concerns and pain. While the whole world is experiencing more difficult situations, Latin American countries do not anticipate a […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “On Righteousness and Being Righteous” Sadio Mane, who was one of Liverpool Football [soccer] Club’s top players and top earners, with a salary of £150,000 per week, was once spotted carrying an iPhone with a broken screen before a game. When asked about it, he said, “Why would […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is consciousness?“ Consciousness is the energy, matter, information and qualities that we receive and that forms in us when we connect to the general collective volume of information. There are forces that we receive from outside of us, and these forces form the picture of our world. If we connect […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Age of Togetherness” Why does it feel more and more like humanity is the bully in the neighborhood? Between nations, in personal relationships, with coworkers, among peers at school, and toward nature, we are as clumsy as an elephant in a china store, breaking everything we touch […]
Medium published my new article “Success Begins at Home” A recent study conducted by the Israeli Ministry of Finance has found, unsurprisingly, that where you live has a major impact on your chances of success. The study found that people who live in disadvantaged areas of Israel have lower chances of academic and financial success. […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The odd synchrony between new eras and revolutionary kabbalists” This week, we commemorate the anniversary of the passing of the great kabbalist Isaac Luria, known as the Holy ARI. It is therefore a good time to reflect on an odd synchrony between his arrival and the global events […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “I’d Rather Die Than Live” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 21 Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 1, Item 5 Selected Highlights
Question: In the article “The Freedom,” Baal HaSulam writes that there is a foundation in every person, that the root of his soul that does not change. Is this foundation somehow related to the Reshimot? Answer: This is the basis of all Reshimot over which all kinds of changes and actions take place. The very […]
Question: How can you develop a spiritual gene? All recorded states exist in potential. How can I activate and accelerate them? Answer: This is what we are doing within the framework of our Kabbalah education centers (KabU). In principle, all this is done using simple techniques. It is necessary to study the system of the universe […]
Comment: When you enter a state of unity at congresses or gatherings of friends, you feel that you are constantly analyzing how immersed you are in this process. My Response: This is not euphoria but very serious states that you will begin experiencing as your real life, while everything less important will be “hanging” somewhere below and […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Parallel Universes in Israel” Recently, it seems as though Israelis live in parallel universes. Everyone seems to have their own perception of reality, and anyone with different views is regarded as shortsighted, misguided, ignorant, or plain dim-witted. The government has been dissolved because of such disagreements; the police […]
Medium published my new article “Redefining Happiness and Security” For many people, happiness is a feeling that they are loved, accepted, and safe in their social environment. We feel secure when we have a positive image of the future. An optimistic feeling about the future gives us a reason to live. If we lose it, […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Opening the Locked Gates” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 20 Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 4, Chapter 1 Selected Highlights
Question: In what prayer should those who are physically gathered in the Arava and the entire world Kli be? Is it to dissolve not in this beauty surrounding us, but in another beauty—in a friend. Answer: The most important thing is to annul yourself after all. Annul and throw yourself into the arms of your friends […]
Comment: In one of the lessons, you said that the whole reality was created so that I could give it up. Answer: That is right! Because your egoism shows you the true reality and demonstrates all your inner states so that you rise above them. Question: We usually perceive life differently. Any person looks at this […]
Comment: Please explain the popular expression “Beauty will save the world.” My Response: Beauty is a vessel for the revelation of the upper light, that is, the greatest revelation of the greatness of the Creator that corrects and fills everything. Therefore, the most important is the vessel. But beauty is not in how we understand […]
Question: What are Reshimot (spiritual information) and what is recorded in them? Answer: “Reshimot” comes from the word “recording – Reshima, Roshem.” It is what differentiates any desire from all other desires, any intention from all other intentions, either in the positive or negative direction. These recordings always remain included in the matter. There is a matter with […]
Question: You have been practicing Kabbalah for more than thirty years. What is the confirmation for you that you are on the right path, and this is the goal of your life? Maybe you are at the degree from where you draw confirmation that this is the truth? Answer: Firstly, I draw confirmation from my […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does God have feelings?“ The Creator’s feelings are limitless. However, we cannot discuss them because our perception and sensation of reality is encased within certain limits. Based on “Ten Blitz Answers about the Creator” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 21, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: What is the meaning of: “Don’t take up space and then I’ll be in everyone”? Answer: The concept of not taking up space actually means not taking up space with your ego. Then I exist everywhere, in all space, in the whole universe. I reach a level when physical space does not exist because […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the best proof that God exists?“ The fact that we exist. Based on “Ten Blitz Answers about the Creator” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 21, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Question: How can you give up this world, meaning, use it not for one’s own sake? Answer: And what is there in it that you don’t want to give up? What’s holding you here? Comment: Actually, nothing holds, but there is some kind of fear. My Response: It is because you don’t know what you […]
Question: You always emphasize that you can pass some information about spirituality to another person in the form of a book. Let us say he looked at, read, and closed the book and that is it. Does it make sense to pass this information? Or is there nonetheless some inclusion happening in him? Answer: If […]
Question: If the Creator reveals His endless love to us, then we will begin to neglect Him, and therefore, as protection, He gives us blows and rejects us. Why is it necessary to do so? Answer: This is done on purpose so that we change our state. This neglect is the result of a new […]
Question: Do you have a fear of death as such? Answer: No. I think that people who start studying Kabbalah generally lose their fear of death and even develop a desire for it. It seems to them that there is a desire for physical death, but in fact, it is not. It is a growing desire […]
Question: What did Rabash introduce into his texts that they again and again bring me an inner trembling that cannot be endured?! Answer: You can communicate with a person at different levels of desires but with the Creator only if you give yourself completely to Him. From above, we are never given a half but […]
Question: How can one form the request to cancel the egoistic shell and exit to the real internal connection of the hearts? What is this request? How to express it? Answer: This is a question that has no answer. You yourself, by your own efforts should get close to feeling how you need to ask […]
Question: You said that one needs to lose oneself in the friends. How can this be done? Answer: Losing yourself among friends is, of course, not easy, but this is what we must do. It is when your egoism disappears, and you feel only your friends but not yourself. Rabash writes about this in his Letter […]
Question: We have always felt dependent on the men’s group and it is with great trepidation that we are now revealing that the men’s group also depends on us in some way. We want to find the place where we need to apply our effort, something that depends solely on us. How can we come […]
Shattering is indeed an opportunity for correction. And therefore, when Kabbalists saw the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, everyone wept and the greatest sage Rabbi Akiva laughed. He was sure that now there was an opportunity to start building the Temple, that is, a place for the revelation of the Creator […]
We feel how far we are from each other and nothing attracts us to connect because we feel the taste of dust in this connection. But if we try to bring a new taste to this state, then this will bring us much closer to each other. How can this connection be revived and instead of the […]
My new article on Linkedin “The One Thing AI Cannot Give” A new pilot at a school in Tel-Aviv aims to overcome one of Israel’s biggest challenges in the education system: the shortage of teachers. Instead of human teachers, the pilot uses a virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI) system that replaces some of the […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Blinded by Hate” There is a new “weapon” that Palestinians use against Israelis: blinding lasers. Every night, residents of a certain Palestinian village direct strong lasers into the eyes of Israeli drivers in order to blind them and hopefully cause them to make an accident. So far, there […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What a Summer of Exclusion Feels Like” A common form of bullying among children in Israel is exclusion. A few days ago, yet another sad story surfaced on Israeli media, describing the social exclusion of children who are going through the summer vacation without any friends because they […]
Medium published my new article “Hunger Is a Rolling Snowball” The rising inflation around the world and the foreboding food shortage has created a snowball that is rolling down the mountain straight toward us. No one is safe. Some countries are more vulnerable than others, but everyone is in harm’s way. We have the power […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “ How hard is it for a person who isn’t a Jew to understand the Torah? “ Understanding the Torah requires study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is open to everybody regardless of religion, nationality, gender or age. At the outset, the Torah appears to be a historical tale, but […]
Question: It is very difficult for us to break through all the actions and external forms to the feeling of one inner heart, one soul. Physically, this is much more difficult to do than virtually. How can we enter into the feeling of one soul, one heart, and raise a prayer from it despite all […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Right, Left, and Tired” It is election time in Israel, again, the fifth campaign in less than four years. It is said that Israel is divided between three main factions: Left, Right, and Tired, too tired to care. Yet, the political situation points to a deeper problem: division. […]
Question: For the first time in a long while, women take part in the morning lessons and ask questions almost on an equal footing. This did not happen before. And now they are creating their own women’s Arava convention. How did it happen in our lifetime that women are pulling ahead? Answer: The fact is […]
Question: Now, at the very beginning of the congress, we feel great trembling of what awaits us. We do not know what it will be yet, but we expect it to be something beautiful, strong, and powerful that we will enter into. We feel that the Creator has been helping us all this time. He […]
All of reality is ticking like a wound-up clock according to a determined program, and everything that is going to happen is bound to happen. We just need to establish the correct attitude to what is happening. But through this more correct or incorrect attitude we, in fact, look at the world, and depending on it […]
Indeed, there is a prayer for it—that the Creator will help him by making him feel the love of his friend and make his friend close to his heart (Rabash, Letter No. 40). I would say it in other words: when there is no distance between me and a friend, we have become so close, […]
Question: We are very eager to love our friends and to work in the center of the ten. How, based on this, can we pray for all the friends in Arava? I know you are saying, “You must try.” Maybe you can share your experience because we are going through a new state? Answer: Prayer can […]
Question: Do I connect with my friends at this convention physically the way we did at the convention in Arava? Answer: Today we have much more opportunity than before to connect spiritually. Previously, many people came to us who did not know at all where they were going. Among them were those who were not in […]
Question: What should be the main task of women during this congress of connection? How do we pray? How do we keep the intention? How do we help the men? How can we be in a unified state? Answer: Women really know how to pray, they know how to ask. It is very important that they […]
It is impossible to understand the Torah if you do not study the science of Kabbalah. Everyone knows this book that seems to tell the story of some people (like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and about events that took place in ancient times with the people of Israel. The Torah is written in such a way […]
And after the restriction, when the vacant space remained empty Precisely in the middle of the Light of Ein Sof, A place was formed, where the Emanations, Creations, Formations, and Actions might reside (Ari, The Tree of Life). The desire created by the Creator was freed from everything that created it and began to feel […]
My new article on Linkedin “Is the World Getting Worse or Is It Only Our Perception?” If we follow the news today, we see a world about to collapse, as if we were experiencing the worst time ever. Therefore, we are able to believe that our grandparents were right, longing for “the good old days.” […]
The Creator did not create a flawed creation but created it in a completely perfect state, and the creatures need only to reveal this. We must study from Kabbalistic books what connection means and imagine what our corrected state should be: our behavior, thoughts, desires, and how it differs from what it is now. But […]
Today we live in a world of global interconnections. The war in Ukraine resonates all over the world and in all that we do from buying bread, lighting gas on the stove, or starting the car. This conflict affects everyone personally even if you are physically very far away from it. We are given a real […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think of U.S. officials who said Monday the bullet that killed veteran Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh was likely fired from an Israeli position?“ I heard about CNN reporting that IDF soldiers shot the Al Jazeera reporter, Shireen Abu Akleh, as a targeted attack, which is uncanny […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Specter of the Forebear of Palestinian Terrorism Lives On” A documentary series on the Palestinian Arab nationalist Mohammed (aka Haj) Amin al-Husseini was recently broadcast in Israel. Al-Husseini was the leader of the Palestinian Arabs in the years preceding the establishment of the State of Israel. He […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How might being kind and showing you care about someone, including a stranger, make a big difference in the person’s life?“ One of my students told me a story about a young man who was hospitalized on the verge of death. He wrote a “Farewell to the World” post on Facebook, […]
My new article on Linkedin “Not Gonna Lie” NGL is a new and quite popular mobile app. Its letters are an acronym for “Not Gonna Lie,” and the app presumes to offer “a fresh take on anonymity.” According to the creators of the app, “anonymity should be a fun yet safe place to express your […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Bad Neighbors Should Part Ways” A few hours after US President Joe Biden departed from Israel, Islamic Jihad fired several rockets at Israeli cities. Israel’s automatic response was to retaliate with bombs at empty warehouses that harmed no one and caused little damage. In this usual scenario, Hamas […]
Question: The Creator does not change His attitude toward a person depending on his actions. This is indicated by many sayings from Kabbalistic sources; for example: “I do not change My Name” (“Ani HaVaYaH lo Shiniti”), that is, I do not change the laws of nature. What does it mean that the Creator is constant […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” “Inner Observtion,” Chapter 10, Item 1 Selected Highlights
Comment: You recently said, “First there was the word, and it was the word of God.” What was the first word? My Response: “Bereshit.” There are Kabbalistic explanations for the word “Bereshit” that take thousands of pages. Thousands of pages! Entire treatises explain what Bereshit means. Because this word “Bereshit” contains absolutely everything! Apart from it, […]
Question: What is the main function of Reshimot? Answer: The main function of Reshimot is an informational record of all your future states. However, this is just a record. How it will be manifested within you depends on you. When you begin to enter these states with your senses, the way you will feel this […]
Question: Are prophetic dreams a certain kind of attainment? Answer: Prophetic dreams, which many people like to talk about, have nothing to do with Kabbalah. A person cannot fall asleep, wake up, and remember his dream, as it is said about the Pharaoh and other characters in the sagas of ancient Egypt. In fact, none […]
Comment: According to some studies, ultrasound radiation is harmful to the condition of the unborn child if it is conducted in the early stages of pregnancy. My Response: Any phenomenon that we artificially evoke in nature is ultimately harmful to us. We must live in a natural way, the way we were created, without especially […]
And He restricted that Light, and drew far off to the sides around that middle point. And there remained an empty space, an empty air, a vacuum Precisely from the middle point. And that restriction was equally around that empty, middle point, So that the space was evenly circled around it (Ari, The Tree of […]
Question: “World” is from the word “Olam,” “Halama,” meaning, concealment. How does concealment reveal perfection? Answer: In order to fuel the desire to attain the Creator in the created beings, the ladder-like system of worlds was created, by which the created beings gradually ascend and attain the Creator, which means perfection, eternity, the universality of the upper force […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: ‘Israel’s Price Hikes Expose Its Many “Inner Countries”’ Over the past several months, there have been price hikes in almost every product and service in Israel. The price of gasoline is already almost double that of the US, the price of electricity has jumped 9.6 percent, water by […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the meaning of the image of God?“ Our attitudes to certain people and things lead to various images and behaviors. We depict the image of the Creator in His attitude toward the created beings. We can do so in relation to the inanimate, vegetative and animate levels of nature, […]
My new article on Linkedin “Normalization Is Politics, Not Peace” After opening the sky for Israeli airlines to fly over Saudi Arabia, some people are talking about normalization. Yet, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, who is leading his country’s reforms and modernization, stressed that normalization with Israel will come only after Israel and […]
Question: Some psychologists list basic conditions needed for the happiness and health of a child. The first condition is that the parent should be a source of information for the child, and not a tablet or a laptop. I cannot imagine how it is possible today for a parent to become a source of information. Do you think […]
In the spiritual world, as well as in the material world, there is also a state of “sleep” during which a reboot happens. The lights that existed in the full Partzuf manifest in the most minimal form. And there can be many such states during the day. After all, the states that you experience during the […]
And when upon His simple will, came the desire to create the worlds and emanate the emanations, To bring to light the perfection of His deeds, His names, His appellations, Which was the cause of the creation of the worlds, Then the Ein Sof restricted Himself, in His middle point, precisely at the center… (Ari, […]
Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality, (Lord Byron, “The Dream”) Question: People have long been interested in the nature of dreams and dreaming. What is a dream from a spiritual point of […]
Question: How often do you yourself have to act as if you have the importance of the goal when you do not feel it, meaning you are in a certain state? Answer: It sometimes happens to me that I am in complete disgust from everything, I am ready to give it all up, and then […]
The altruistic-egoistic system of our world is built in a very interesting way: altruism within egoism. The ego dominates everything, but there is a small altruistic system inside it; thanks to which, egoism is constantly developing. Otherwise, it would remain at the same level. Were it not for the quality of bestowal within egoism, we […]
Kabbalah is the wisdom of connection of all people into one single image called “Adam.” Comment: You are aiming to spread this wisdom as widely as possible. But there are 1% of people who are predisposed to it and 99% who are not predisposed but kind of sympathize with it. My Response: They sympathize involuntarily […]
Comment: Supervised drug injection sites have opened in New York City. Here drug addicts can legally inject drugs and seek help from a doctor. Basically, their model is that if you are still going to use drugs, let us teach you how to do it safely. This is what the organizers say. We are talking […]
In the News (Financial Times): “‘Japanese start-up wants to cause real-life pain in the metaverse’ “H2L’s technology replicates the sensation of touch by using electrical stimulation to manipulate the arm muscles and mimic sensations… “’Feeling pain enables us to turn the metaverse world into a real [world], with increased feelings of presence and immersion,’ said […]
My new article on Linkedin “For Hezbollah – a Tough Hand; for Our Brothers – a Soft Heart” The Jerusalem Post just reported that Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan has asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the UN Security Council “condemn the Hezbollah drone operation targeting the Karish gas rig in Israel’s territorial waters […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Biden Will Not Bring the Messiah, Do Not Build on Him” The Israeli public prepares for travel disruptions in getting to work or reaching family summer vacation destinations as the July 13th three-day visit of US President Joe Biden nears. Major arteries will be closed to public traffic […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “To what do you attribute the recent upswing in violent attacks against Jewish people?“ The core reason for hatred and attacks against Jews is that there is no mutual responsibility among the Jewish people. The foundation of the Jewish people is ideological, not biological: that we once united according to the […]
Medium published my new article “Shinzo Abe — the Assassination of a Good Man for the World and for Israel” Japan’s national election, the Upper House election, July 10, 2022. Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan, dies after being attacked during a speech in Nara City, Nara Prefecture. The remains of Shinzo Abe. Voters […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Curse of Re-elections” “As long as the laws of society are not satisfactory to each and every individual in the state, and leave a minority that is dissatisfied with the government of the state, that minority conspires under the government of the state and seeks to overthrow […]
Medium published my new article “The G7 vs. China” In 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping, launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The idea was very similar to that of the game of Monopoly: whoever owns more property, has more power and gains more wealth. Without much fanfare, China began to finance massive infrastructure projects […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Israelis Need Only One Passport” There is a strange phenomenon that is probably unique to Israelis, or perhaps to Jews: purchasing an alternative citizenship. For some years, it was possible to legally purchase a Portuguese citizenship and get an EU passport, if you met certain conditions related to […]
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Going Above the Arguments with the Will to Receive” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From My Flesh I Shall See God” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” “Inner Observtion,” Chapter 3, Item 1 Selected Highlights
Preparation to the Lesson Lesson on the Topic “Going Above the Arguments with the Will to Receive” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “From My Flesh I Shall See God” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” “Inner Observtion,” Chapter 2, Item 1 Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do economic crises happen?“ Economic crises happen in order to lead to the truth, that a well-oiled economy with a high standard of living for all is not the reason we are here. What is the reason for our existence if not for us to have it good here on […]
My article in Newsmax: “Integral Solution Needed to Address Root Cause of US Violence” America hardly recuperates from the shock of a mass shooting in a certain city when a new incident takes place somewhere else. Seven people were killed and more than 30 wounded in the shooting perpetrated by a 21-year-old suspect at a […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Curse of Re-elections” “As long as the laws of society are not satisfactory to each and every individual in the state, and leave a minority that is dissatisfied with the government of the state, that minority conspires under the government of the state and seeks to overthrow […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will Jews and Arabs ever live with peace and tranquility in Israel? It is a shame that Jerusalem, which means “city of peace,” has not experienced peace in the last 75 years.“ Indeed, Jerusalem means the “city of peace” (“Ir Shalom”), and it is the center of the world’s spiritual force, […]
Question: Is real egoism located in the masses who do not have to correct themselves? Answer: No, the biggest egoism exists in a few people who are aimed toward spirituality, but precisely they correct it. If we look at this in the form of a pyramid, then at the top, in terms of quantity, there […]
If we could see how much we influence the fate of mankind with our personal subjective actions, how it goes toward the realization of the purpose of creation, then we, of course, would not be so indifferent, but we would understand the responsibility that each of us has. But without seeing, without understanding, and by not listening […]
Comment: They write to you: “How can we change our attitude toward each other if the whole world is squeezing one another for money? Perhaps money, the cause of all selfishness, should be eliminated?” My Response: No! in no way! Money is the universal equivalence for our efforts. Not just our efforts but our personal […]
My new article on Linkedin “At Highland Park, the Murderer Went for Jews” Four of the seven victims of the Highland Park mass shooting were Jewish, and probably many of the dozens who were injured. According to a JTA report, “Although local authorities have not yet said whether they believe the shooter’s motivation was antisemitic, […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can we live in a disease-free world?“ It is possible to live in a disease-free world on condition that we take care of human connections. Human connections, i.e. the attitudes we hold toward each other, our relationships, are the higher source of all good and bad that we experience in our […]
Question: We are constantly being pursued by various kinds of crises, and the most basic question that remains to humanity is: “Where and, most importantly, why should we develop at all?” Answer: In the paradigm in which we are now, we have absolutely nowhere to move. There is no point in continuing to develop like […]
Question: Maggi writes: “Explain to me why the closer a person is to power, the further away one is from harmony? Why did the almighty God create us in such a way that a taxi driver understands better what harmony is than a president?” Answer: 🙂 Undoubtedly! This is because a president is being corrupted. The king, […]
Question: How can we build the image of the Creator? What is His image? Answer: When good is manifested between people, there you can reveal the Creator. Comment: Good sounds somehow abstract. After all, everyone understands good in their own way. My Response: It is not about good for you, but about good for others. When you […]
In the News (Psychiatric News): “The sobering side of the neurobiological revolution is that behavior is largely determined—with little or no room for free will—by the psychological, physiological, and evolutionary forces science is now decoding, says Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D. “The message that neuroscientist, primatologist, and best-selling author Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., carries about the neuroscientific revolution of […]
Question: Who is the driving force behind the changes in the society of the future: leaders, youth, scientists, or people? Answer: Education that permeates all layers of society. It should be built in such a way that everyone cares about the balance between reception and bestowal. All people are created as different, and therefore, everyone […]
Comment: Governments of different countries allocate a total of almost two trillion dollars a year as state subsidies to businesses that are harmful to the environment, to the climate of the planet, and that pollute nature. This brings the extinction of humanity closer. On the other hand, the same countries that sign all the manifestos […]
There are stories in the Torah in which some bad characters are hung in trees. As a rule, they are hung because they did not deserve better. We are talking about the fact that a person has exhausted the good attitude that he was probably supposed to receive from our world and he must be done […]
Comment: Alexey asks: “Michael, it is not evident that you love people. But on whom then does the world rest?” My Response: On whom does the world rest? Does the world rest on people? The world hardly tolerates these people; it suffers from them. They sit on it like flies and gnaw it from all […]
Question: Kabbalists very often used the term “tree” in their writings. It is clear that they were not writing about the tree as we understand this term in our world, but about the spiritual levels and states. What does the Tree of Life mean in relation to the spiritual development of a person? Answer: The […]
Comment: Scientists consider water to be a kind of force that transmits information and cultivates life. They say that research about water encourages us to think about who we are, why we came here, and where we are headed. After all, there is a reason why a human body consists mainly of water. The effect […]
Question: Why is man the disturbing factor of water? Answer: Humans are the most egoistic element of the universe. That is why it is such a disturbing factor. Everything depends on him and he depends on everything. On one hand, he is the most sensitive to external influences, and on the other hand, he is an energy […]
Today we are at the last stage of development when human society moves from an animal, egoistic society, which developed like all previous forms (still, vegetative, and animate), to the development of the next degree, I would even say, dimension, as it is opposed to all previous forms of nature. The previous forms of nature […]
Question: You have repeatedly said that if a person does not listen to at least an hour of a lesson a day, then this, in principle, is a day thrown out of life. If we take our typical day, what things have to go through it in order for it to be effective? Answer: During […]
Question: What are the key points of the development of humanity, in which it has the opportunity to make some kind of choice? Answer: The main point is the search for one’s own path, which started several thousand years ago by representatives of the nations of the world in ancient Babylon. As a result, they realized that […]
My new article on Linkedin “Growing Up with Roe v. Wade” Being the child of two doctors, the dedicated kind, who bring their work home, and with my mother being a gynecologist, I often witnessed first hand the complexities that come with a decision to terminate a pregnancy. My mother, who was often asked to […]
My new article on Linkedin “The Appeal of Evil” Following the rise in terrorist acts and violent crimes in Israel and the world over, the Israeli newspaper Ynet published an in-depth analysis on the topic of human brutality. The analysis tried to understand what causes certain people to become particularly evil, and if humanity can […]
Medium published my new article “Toward a Fiery Turmoil” Abortion rights activists demonstrate outside the United States Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., June 25, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein Roe v. Wade is overturned and protests erupt, gun laws are revisited, war rages in Ukraine, Sri Lanka’s economy collapses, bank runs in China, escalating tensions between the […]
The tree of knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the special governance of the Creator when the Creator gradually transfers his qualities to the created beings. This is exactly the same as we behave with young children by awakening all kinds of questions and curiosity in them, as a result of which they develop and thus […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do old people and teenagers have in common?“ As a part of a school project, twins from the 10th grade met with a 77-year-old woman, keeping her company. The project ended a long time ago, but the connection that became established between the twins and the 77-year-old woman grew stronger, […]
My new article on Linkedin “Of Pope Francis, and of World War III” Last week, a conversation with Pope Francis was published, in which he related to the Russia-Ukraine war as the start of World War III. In a conversation with the editors of European Jesuit publications, and which was first published by the Italian […]
In each of us, in a hidden form, are all the desires that will manifest themselves on the path of personal development from this moment to the very end of correction. The question is how to reveal and realize them in practice to accelerate one’s development. Each person is like a baby in whom vast forces […]
Medium published my new article “Why Does Violence Increase in Society?” Year after year, violence in society surges. American concern over crime and violence is at its highest level since 2016, with 53% of Americans worried “a great deal” about it, according to a recent Gallup poll. This makes it one of the top national […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Israeli Ideology and the Next Revolution” With all the turmoil happening around the world, it makes one wonder when and where the next revolution might take place, and what ideology it will promote, if any. There is a difference between a coup and a revolution. In the […]
Medium published my new article “The Complexities of the Connection between Looks and Happiness” With teenagers and young adults spending much (too much) of their time on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms, the flood of videos of attractive young people shapes their views on how they, too, must look. With their body image […]
Question: Elon Musk bought the social network Twitter. As you know, he is a supporter of total freedom of speech. But the EU authorities said that there should be no particular freedom here. He must comply with the laws adopted in the EU, otherwise his social network will be fined or even blocked in a […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Alternative Network to ‘The Mapping Project’” The Mapping Project is an undertaking closely resembling what was done during the Nazi era when Jewish businesses were singled out and marked in preparation for the Kristallnacht pogroms in 1938. The project—a database recently launched for Massachusetts which includes the […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why is Israel politically unstable? Can we expect a clear winner this time?“ The reason for Israel’s political instability today is that we have reached a state where we hate and cannot come close to each other. Since this flaw has become revealed, now is the time to fix it. First […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will severe food shortages affect the United States in coming months?“ As we develop without taking the meaning of our lives into consideration, then anything is possible. Why not? We need to understand that we cannot kid around with these things. How is not considering the meaning of our lives connected […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you prove to your spouse that you love them?“ By conceding to them. When one spouse concedes to the other, then the other spouse will feel that concession, and will also want to concede in return. Such mutual concessions become a place for love, as is written, “man and […]
Question: I live in this world and I am connected with other people. How much do my wrong actions influence other people’s punishments? Answer: They do. I cannot explain how much, but they do. And their incorrect actions influence you. Question: Let’s say I understand the laws of nature, I try to observe them, I make […]
Question: Memory is not the only brain function based on the holographic principle. Scientists have come to the conclusion that vision is also holographic. Moreover, the visual centers of the brain show an amazing resistance to surgical intervention. Although 90% of the visual cortex of the brain was removed in experimental rats and 98% in […]
Question: What is the difference between the current distorted state and the corrected state that we have to come to? Answer: Our current state is corrupted, temporary, and unstable. It gives us suffering every second because it forces us to come to global harmony. Global harmony is when all parts of nature are interconnected and […]
Comment: Alesya asks: “You say that it is necessary to bow your head before the Creator and say: ‘I agree.’ But how do you agree with what He is doing? It is Him who is doing this! Is it really impossible to treat us in a different way, in a kind way?” Answer: It is […]
Question: Once our lives were mainly based on physical communication, and there were psychologists who corrected this communication so that it would not be painful. Then this was blocked for us, and we began to master virtual communication. New experts appeared who specialized in communicating correctly virtually. But now we have a certain disruption, a failure […]
My new article on Linkedin “He Who Starts a War – Loses” Speaking about the Russia-Ukraine war, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently told a German weekly newspaper, “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years.” As I have said several times, this war is not like any war before; it is […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A Good Word for the Teachers” When I was in junior high, I looked in awe at straight A students in the grades above me. They were about to finish high school and become teachers, too. They could have gone anywhere. They could have gotten scholarships to any […]
My new article on Linkedin “Occupy Rothschild, Again” In 2011, the Israeli “chapter” of the Occupy movement began its activities with a huge rally in Tel Aviv, and went on to “occupy” Rothschild Boulevard for the next several months. The media was all for it, and so were the people. The causes were just, and […]
Question: Kabbalists who have attained the Creator describe it in their books. Can this be an instruction for us? Answer: Of course. Kabbalists tell you what you should do in your desires, how to adjust them in order to feel the Creator. Question: Will everyone have personal feelings? Answer: Everyone’s feelings are personal, but you will […]
Question: Any person feels that there are some good periods in life and a streak of failures. What does it depend on? Answer: It all depends on the upper governance. When it descends upon a person and gradually awakens step-by-step, state-by-state, then one no longer knows how to act. One sees that he has caught […]
Question: What happens to my sensations in the five corporeal sensory organs during spiritual attainment? Answer: Our corporeal sensory organs are so small that they become almost invisible. What do you have left of your childhood? You sometimes remember maybe some episodes and that is it because everything is suppressed by other bigger impressions. Question: […]
Question: The world is constantly evolving, and we no longer need to explain to people that the world is global. They see it themselves. But their question is: “What is next?” How can we compensate for this? Answer: We do not need to think about the whole world, we are not able to grasp it. […]
Preparation to the Lesson Shamati #184 “The Difference Between Faith and Intellect” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” Chapter 3, Item 2 Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “UNRWA – Feeding the Fire of Hate” UNRWA is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. It was established on December 8, 1949, and began to operate on May 1, 1950. Its mandate has been obscure from the very beginning, though it did […]
Preparation to the Lesson Shamati #219 “Devotion” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom” Selected Highlights
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Defiant Israeli Tourists Ignore Warnings” The Israeli character loves risks. It makes every daring experience like a movie full of action, filled with inexplicable pleasure, and provides a sting without which there is no feeling of life. It explains why despite the stern travel warnings and frequent reports […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why Iran Gets Away with Anything” The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has recently admonished Iran for not cooperating with the agency after traces of uranium were found in several sites in Iran. In response, Iran disconnected some of the IAEA surveillance cameras that the agency uses to […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do we find nature beautiful?“ Nature has no need to change. The still, vegetative and animate levels of nature that we see surrounding us are in no need of correction. Only we at the human degree need to change ourselves from living according to our inborn desire to enjoy at […]
My new article on Linkedin “The Wealth of a Nation” The full name of Adam Smith’s celebrated composition, The Wealth of Nations, is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. A few years ago, Israel found a wellspring that is bound to cause great wealth: natural gas, and plenty of […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How objective can perception be?“ Objective means having no self, national or even global interest, but that we direct ourselves solely at the purpose of the higher nature. We should constantly calibrate ourselves to be objective, i.e. to be free of whatever we feel at a given moment, as if we […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Should I size up people when I meet them?“ When we meet someone, we hold two images within: One is our impression of the person we meet, and the other is our own image. We then start comparing how much our thoughts, desires and expectations meet what we want in relation […]
Question: Is there such a concept that a person can punish the Creator? Answer: Yes, by the fact that he does not rush in full force to the purpose of creation. This can be regarded as a punishment for the Creator. Like a child who does not want to develop, he upsets his parents a lot by […]
Today, many people have no work, they have nothing to do. What they should be occupied with is a new ideology, a new form of consciousness. It is necessary to educate people to be people, that is, to unite into one single good humanity, thereby attracting an internal good force, which is the basis of […]
Question: Our world is being quietly engulfed by an epidemic of autism. According to statistics conducted in the United States, the number of autistic people has increased more than 10 times over the past 40 years. And according to forecasts, this number will only increase. What is this phenomenon? Why is autism taking on such […]
Question: Are there any punishments from past incarnations? Is there such a thing that a person drags baggage because of some bad deeds in past lives? Answer: In principle, yes because our material life and death do not end anything and do not start anything. We should perceive this reality as a continuous movement of […]
Question: Are there rewards and punishments that come directly from the Creator, and not through the surrounding nature, people, and society? A person simply feels that the Creator is sending him something. Answer: Yes. But for this, a person must adapt and place himself under the control of the Creator, then he will feel it. […]
Question: Sometimes a person feels that he did something wrong and immediately received punishment, and vice versa, that he did something good and immediately received some kind of reward. But in most cases, there is no such direct connection; it is concealed. Why is one not shown directly that there is punishment for bad deeds? Answer: A […]
Question: A viewer asks, “Humanity has come up with all kinds of holidays, but there is no holiday named “The Meaning of Human Life Day.” Why? Does it mean no one needs to find out what the meaning of life is? Answer: “The Meaning of Life Day” would be a day of mourning, not a […]
Question: Where does a person’s feeling that everything is divided into “I” and “others” come from? Answer: From our egoism. Our soul is divided into two parts: the inner part, which I feel as myself, and the outer, which I feel as the outside world. These two parts are separated in me by an egoistic […]
Question: There are a huge number of people around me in this world. Some of them are talented, rich, and happy, and some, on the contrary, are poor, unhappy, and sick. I really feel like saying that the former people were rewarded by the Creator and the latter were punished. Is it right to reason […]
Question: Let us consider the action of unification in both the corporeal and spiritual context. Suppose, on the corporeal level, people do some kind of a common action but at the same time they do not feel any deep connection. And what happens in parallel in the next segment even if they may not feel […]
Comment: They say that supposedly there is energy around us that feeds us, and due to this, we can even get by without food. My Response: A person can, of course, receive nourishment also in this way. What is the difference? But what does it give him and what does it lead to? Anyway, I […]
Question: In principle, nature and the Creator are one and the same thing. Nature constantly generates all of mankind and develops people. At a certain time, does each person have some opportunity to develop spiritually, to reveal the Creator? Answer: Yes, in principle, everyone has such an opportunity. Yet very few people catch it and notice it. But […]
Question: Igor writes: “Could you explain to me in simple language what unity is?—the one that you call for all the time, the type that you talk about in every clip, article, broadcast everywhere. Just do not use phrases like “good connections” because we already see that this is from the realm of fiction. Unity […]
Question: From where does the sensation of inner emptiness come to a person? Answer: Desire is constantly growing within us. It has to grow to the state where you will demand the light, moreover, in the size that exceeds our world. Then unwillingly you will have to exit the framework in which we live and […]
Question: What is the quality of water? Today, as a result of studying genes, scientists have come to the conclusion that 75% of genes are made up of water. What is this special quality water? Answer: There is a lot of research on this topic. According to Kabbalah, water is the quality of Bina, bestowal, […]
Question: They say that water has memory. What is this phenomenon? Answer: Water has special characteristics. We know its properties such as its freezing point, dew point, as well as others, without water life on Earth would be impossible. We are completely adjusted to these properties because they are the most basic for us at the […]
My new article on Linkedin “Time for the Next Impact” In the first wave, Israel went into a strict lockdown. It was nothing like the curfew that we see in China, but still, businesses were closed and people’s movements were heavily restricted. In the second wave, the lockdown was not as strict, not all businesses […]
Medium published my new article “Understanding Social Impact” Humans are social beings; this is how nature created us. As such, the society we live in has a decisive influence on us. We already know about mirror neurons and other mechanisms of social influence, but there are other forms of social influence, as well. For example, […]
My new article on Linkedin “Queen Elizabeth and the Eternal Kingdom” “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service.” Those were the words of commitment of then princess Elizabeth before becoming the Queen, and the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Debunking the Myth that America Loves Israel” Americans have probably long known this, but for Israelis, the realization that America may not be our best friend and faithful guardian is somewhat of a shocker. Now, for those still in doubt, a new book by Distinguished University Professor of […]
My new article on Linkedin “Every Boom Has Its Bust” “US Bonds Flag Recession Risk,” says today’s headline on Bloomberg.com. “Futures Put S&P 500 on Course to Enter Bear Market,” reads today’s headline of The Wall Street Journal. Other newspapers, too, devote their business sections to the worsening economic outlook, and everyone seems alarmed, and […]
Question: Researchers believe that a person himself can create fortune with his positive thoughts, words, and actions. Do you agree with this? Answer: A person can create a certain matrix around himself: this is good, this is bad, this is better, this is worse, etc., and thus determine his state. There is nothing absolute about […]
The ten is a spiritual Kli. Due to the fact that everyone at least in some way nullifies himself before others striving to achieve a common, mutual inclusion, we bring our qualities into some similarity with the Creator. The Creator completely nullifies Himself and if we unite through mutual self-nullification, in this way we build […]
Medium published my new article “The Desire to Make It Big” We all want to succeed, to achieve things. That is what society instills in us from a very early age. Some people end up being very successful, and some simply shuffle along through life. In this endless quest, few stop to think: what should […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Disinformation in a World without Truth” Not long after the announcement that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is setting up a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), its intended czar, Nina Jankowicz, announced her resignation. Several days later, the Biden administration announced the disbanding of the entire board and […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Mass shootings are the symptom, not the illness” The recent barrage of mass shootings has emphasized the need for less tolerant gun laws and for other restrictive measures. While it is obvious that mentally unstable people should not be permitted to carry or own guns, it is also […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How well is Israel fighting against terrorism?“ After a terrorist attack during Israel’s Independence Day this year, where people were axed down and murdered by two terrorists, there was a general sense of fear throughout the country, and it prompted one of my students to ask me about whether there will […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is a fully realized human being?“ A fully-realized human being is one who develops and attains the degree called “human” through one’s efforts. There are four degrees in nature: still, vegetative, animate and human. The lives we are born and raised into are still not the fully-realized human level. In […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What’s the point of fighting wars anyway? Why don’t we just negotiate things?“ I very much hope that in the current Russia-Ukraine war, we will learn that there is no point in fighting anymore. The wars where we detach from the other side, and kill and bomb them with brute physical […]
Question: Can there be a streak of failures both for a person personally and for the whole of humanity? Answer: Yes, for countries, nations, and the whole of humanity. There are certain good and bad dates for every person, every nation, every country , and for all mankind. That’s why we distinguish different days of the […]
Comment: “Luck” in Hebrew is “mazal,” which means “drops”—from the word “nozel,” “drip.” My Response: Luck seems to be dripping from above. It comes unexpectedly. A person does not even suspect that luck will fall on his head and suddenly it manifests itself. Question: If a person prays to the upper force for good luck […]
Comment: The holiday of Shavuot is the celebration of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. It is also called the Harvest Festival. It turns out that all laws, all morality, all spiritual practices, and all religions start from this point—from Mount Sinai. My Response: There is an offer from above, a revelation to […]
Medium published my new article “Getting High on the Power of Life” A survey by the Israel Center on Addiction has found that “One out of every seven Israelis suffers from some form of addiction.” Over the past five years since the last survey, some half a million people have joined the ranks of the […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What Can Make Us Caring” The events of the past few months, and in fact, the past few years, teach us a very important lesson: If we want to survive, we must learn from nature how to do it, since if we follow our own ideas, we will […]
Comment: Humanity is a huge organism. A person cannot be lucky or happy alone, but only so in connection with other people. But in fact we see that most people are unlucky and unhappy. My Response: Only because we have such a relationship with each other. According to the science of Kabbalah, if we treated each […]
Question: Everyone knows that Zionism is a Jewish national movement that sets the goal of unity and rebirth of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. Kabbalah is a method of revealing the Creator to the created beings in this world. What is the connection between them? Answer: They have one goal: to gather […]
Question: Academic Vernadsky wrote that he was aware that he was destined to disclose to humanity new knowledge about living matter. To what extent should each person reveal their mission in relation to the general system? There are scientists who somehow perceive and feel this. Answer: In principle, each person should fully discover their purpose. One must […]
If we understand that our salvation is in unity, then everything will be fine. If not, nature will punish us long and painfully until we agree. And we will agree because we have nowhere else to go; we really do not like it when it hurts. We will be hit by hurricanes, snowstorms, droughts, volcanic […]
Question: Scientists claim that the electromagnetic field of the Earth is the only field that has memory. To what extent do we, as humans, influence this field? And why is the influence of the electromagnetic field of the Earth on all living beings so enormous? Answer: Do you know who we are? We are a […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can American and Israeli Jews stay together?“ A recent survey of US and Israeli Jewish millennials conducted by the American Jewish Committee shows that roughly a quarter of the respondents in the US have been forced to hide their Jewishness due to the anti-Israel climate, which also made roughly a quarter […]
Question: Why is it happening that luck depends on the correct connections with other people? Answer: It is because luck is the correct connection. Everything that we receive, we receive through people. Even if something comes not through a person but through the inanimate, vegetative, or animate nature, it still depends on people. Therefore, if […]
Question: Most people believe that luck is something random that happens for some unknown reason. About seven percent regard luck as something beyond our own control. Do you think luck depends on the person? Answer: Yes, luck depends on the person as far as it is in his power. After all, we can project luck for […]
Medium published my new article “America’s Baby Formula Crisis: Food for Thought” America faces an unprecedented food shortage in its most tender spot, babies. The infant formula shortage in the U.S. has activated a Cold War era law to prioritize and speed up its production. In addition to it, U.S. Air Force flights have transported […]
Question: Is it by chance that Earth is the third and only planet in the solar system capable of sustaining biological life? Answer: There are certain natural conditions on Earth for creating life the way we perceive it in our sensations. These conditions are ideal, although they change within a certain framework. There are no […]
Question: Many researchers in the field of psychology say that lucky people are extroverts who are charged with positive emotions from communicating with other people, from making new connections. Is there a direct connection between luck and communication with other people? Answer: Yes. In general, humanity has long understood this: if you want to be […]
Question: When a person attains the upper force, the Creator, do other people disappear from his sensation? Answer: They are like a link between him and the Creator. This structure always remains. This means that you and the Creator exist, only you also include all other people. You will begin to feel them as your […]
Question: Is a person with spiritual memory no longer afraid of any cataclysms? Answer: No, he is afraid. If he still exists in the body, then he cannot go anywhere. Kabbalists get sick and suffer physically just like ordinary people and even more so. We can say that they feel all cataclysms before other people: […]
Comment: Today the world has taken on a global dimension, where people feel that they are somehow interconnected. Kabbalah is called upon to completely change values and priorities and arrange them in such a way that human relations are built on the principle of “love your neighbor as yourself,” mutual support, and so on. My Response: […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 2, “Inner Observation, Item 58” Selected Highlights
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World” Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 2, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 5, Item 51 Selected Highlights
My new article on Linkedin “Waving the Flag of Jewish Unity” Jerusalem is a city like no other, there is a constant source of tension about its sovereignty. So, an event such as the Flag March, which celebrates the city’s 1967 reunification, drew requests from both the U.S. Administration and the European Union to re-examine […]
Medium published my new article “When Robots Take Our Jobs” What will we do when robots take over our jobs? In many areas of the labor market, this is already the case. From cashiers to lawyers, computerized machines are replacing humans at an alarming rate that is only accelerating. It will not be long before […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The truth about the Jerusalem Flag March” The Jerusalem Flag March that Israel holds every year on Jerusalem Day took place this week. As is the case almost every year, there were heated debates over the course of the march, should it go through certain parts of Jerusalem […]
Question: Anya asks: “When will the Third Temple be built? I sincerely believe that then silence will come, and we will understand that it is forbidden to kill each other, hate each other. I so want peace to come. Tell me, your nation built the First and Second Temples; it was a happy time, wasn’t […]
Medium published my new article “Beyond Gun Laws” U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pay their respects at a memorial at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest U.S. school shooting in nearly a decade, in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 29, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst […]
Medium published my new article “Globalization Needs Urgent Fixing” In an interview for CBS News on March 8, 2009, during the financial crisis that became known as the Great Recession, then Wachovia Corp. economist Mark Vitner said that untying the world’s entangled economies is “like trying to unscramble scrambled eggs. It just can’t be done […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you find the strength to forgive?“ How can we find the strength to forgive? We can find the strength to forgive when we understand human nature, and that our nature compels us to be the way that we are. It is written about this, “Go to the Craftsman who […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is my role in my nature?“ We all live within a nature that is round, closed, whole and complete, with endless degrees and interactions and interconnections between its parts. We are parts of this immense system and cannot digest its wholeness, greatness, perfection and eternity. However, nature is a perfectly […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Where will love take you? To what extent will it influence people?“ If you start loving and caring about everyone and everything in nature—the still, vegetative, animate and human—according to the law of love, then you will see the immense influence it will have. First, you will receive great satisfaction through […]
Question: How are Jews connected with the development of humanity and with the current period when the question of the meaning of life is particularly acute? While nature more or less stroked humanity on the head, it forgot about the Jews. Today, when we have nowhere else to run, again all attention is directed at […]
Question: Is there any connection between the ten Egyptian plagues, the ten Sefirot and the Ten Commandments? Answer: Yes. Everything is divided into tens. Question: Why were there exactly ten plagues? Answer: Because this is an absolutely complete impact, good or bad, of one on the other: the Creator on the creation, the creations on […]
Question: A person has standards of perception, initial attitudes. Through development, he must somehow change them. One can tune in to a certain picture of the world and by working hard can change it in accordance with the purpose of his own development. What are the tools that change the picture of the world in accordance with […]
These loose ties—language, religion, and history—are important values, and no one denies their national merit. However, they are still completely insufficient to rely on as a basis for the independent sustenance of a nation. In the end, all we have here is a gathering of strangers, descendants of cultures of seventy nations, each building a […]
I am convinced that the whole cosmos is united both in the material and spiritual sense. Within the universe there is a centre (jezgro) wherefrom we receive all our strength, all inspiration: it attracts us; I feel its power and values which it emits to the whole of the universe and thus keeps it in harmony. I […]
Comment: It is written in the sources that Pharaoh is a quality of the Oref (back of the neck), narrow-sea (Metzar-Yam). When the upper good descends to the lower ones, Pharaoh sucks it out through his question: “Who is the Creator that I should listen to Him”? My Response: The problem is that when a person […]
There is no redemption of the body without redemption of the soul. As long as the majority of the people are captive in the foreign cultures of the nations and are incapable of Israel’s religion and culture, the bodies, too, will be captive under the alien forces (Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of […]
Question: The Creator is the force that created us, that affects each of us through the ten or even through all of humanity. Does it mean that there is no direct influence on an individual, although everyone feels it personally? Answer: One person as such does not exist. He always has a connection with the […]
Question: What efforts should each person make? Answer: Efforts to unite. It’s the simplest thing! At that, you do not have to think about bestowing to the Creator, about sublime matters and upper worlds. You just need to know only one thing: the correct connection between people reveals the upper world. That’s all. Let’s start […]
Question: Today’s children are not taught correct relationships in schools. How will we come to this? Answer: Through the blows of fate and very serious blows at that. Nature will not forgive our separation, not according to any principle whether national, religious, social, political, or economic—no matter which. No separation! Neither into classes, nor into […]
The development of artificial intelligence has led to interesting opportunities where a computer can create a picture in the style of a famous artist on a topic set by a person verbally. The project is called DALLE-2. The results are of such high quality that many artists and designers may lose their jobs in the […]
The ever quickening advances of science made possible by the success of the Human Genome Project will also soon let us see the essences of mental disease. Only after we understand them at the genetic level can we rationally seek out appropriate therapies for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disease. Knowing “why” (an idea) […]
In the News (“Scientists prove it really is a thin line between love and hate”): “Love and hate are intimately linked within the human brain, according to a study that has discovered the biological basis for the two most intense emotions. “Scientists studying the physical nature of hate have found that some of the nervous circuits […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “They Can Impose War; We Must Impose Peace” We are living through a very tough time in Israel: Relentless terrorist attacks are spreading fear and increase tensions with our Arab neighbors and division among ourselves. There is, of course, the temporary solution of separating the two communities, but […]
Medium published my new article “Polarization and Anti-Social Networks” Day by day there is more division and polarization, more anger and hatred, which is weaponized by an increased flood of information on social media. That is the conclusion of a recent study revealed by Yale University. But is anyone really surprised by the discovery? According […]
Medium published my new article “An Elevator to the World of Tomorrow” Whenever the world experiences a great upheaval, a desire arises to forge good bonds between all people. Whenever a country goes through an internal crisis, the desire arises to unite all parts of the nation. And yet, despite all this, life continues to […]
Preparation to the Lesson Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Foreword to The Book of Zohar“ Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 2, Chapter 2, Item 1 Selected Highlights
Comment: Viktor Frankl, physician and psychotherapist, survived inhumane conditions in four different concentration camps including Treblinka, Theresienstadt, and Auschwitz. He and others survived thanks to his theory of how to survive in inhumane conditions. But the most interesting thing is that he did not try to test it himself, but passed everything on to other people. He […]
Comment: Scientists from Brazil, Spain, and the UK observed a group of howler monkeys in the forests of Mexico and Costa Rica. These are monkeys that lead a low–activity lifestyle, and the main thing for them is not to move. They are herbivores, they feed on leaves. Yet, they actively play. Scientists thought: “Why would […]
Question: The philosopher-enlightener Voltaire described the idea of achieving universal peace as an armed overthrow of rulers because they are not interested in preserving peace. Or it could be done by a revolution from below when enlightened rulers establish peace in the interests of the people or the nation. Can peace be established either by […]
Question: People who are engaged in spiritual development are trying to move to Israel, they seem to be drawn to this land. However, we do not see that by coming here they become more spiritual. Does it mean that the land does not have an effect on them? Answer: And it should not. After all, […]
Comment: You are asked the question: “Please explain how it can be that the pilots who dropped atomic bombs on Japan did not regret what they did until the end of their lives and they lived for 80 to 90 years or more. Despite the fact that they were shown all these horrors, the consequences […]
Question: Who goes through the plagues of Pharaoh? Answer: A person who has not yet freed himself from his egoistic intention goes through ten Egyptian plagues. He feels these plagues as punishment in those desires that have not yet been corrected by the intention for the sake of the Creator. Question: How can I not […]
Question: What is the miracle of exiting Egyptian slavery? Answer: The miracle is that, in principle, it is impossible to exit slavery. We were born and exist in an intention for our own sake, and only thanks to the help from above, the help of the Creator, this intention can turn into an intention for […]
Comment: There is a serious initiative founded called the The Giving Pledge that aims to foster a culture of philanthropy among the world’s wealthiest to tackle the world’s biggest problems. It has more than 230 participants. Co-founder Bill Gates said, “I’ve always believed that if you’re in a position to help somebody, you should do it.” And […]
Question: In Israel, an experiment was conducted with selecting drugs according to the molecular genetic profile. It turned out that there are people with cancer who do not respond to any known medications. There are known cases in the history of medicine when a disease acquired a drug-resistant form, for example, tuberculosis. Why is it that […]
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who is a spiritual person?“ A person with spiritual attainment is one who starts feeling the upper reality of love, bestowal and connection, and who lives in that reality. It is a person who rises to a level of connection with the reality beyond everything we know and feel in our […]
Medium published my new article “Humanity Restructured” A war in Europe that is lasting longer than anyone expected, and whose end is nowhere in sight, a virus that mutates and easily outsmarts scientists, seemingly unstoppable inflation, supply chains incorrigibly broken, and other worldwide crises are pounding humanity. But the blows do more than pain us; […]
Question: Why does the connection between mother and child during childbirth occur precisely through pain? Answer: Pain is necessary because, during natural childbirth, a huge number of hormones, antibodies, and all that we do not even know about are released. Medicine is just beginning to touch the study of this area. But with a cesarean […]
Question: What does “the world outside of you undisturbed by you” mean? Answer: This is a world into which you do not contribute any of your qualities. You will be able to feel it as it is. Now, when I feel something, I feel in accordance with my senses, with those waves and impacts that I […]
After the Big Bang, due to the outspread of forces, a certain area began to form and a place appeared, followed by the universe. This place began to fill up, i.e., some properties of force began to manifest in it. Naturally, the fact that we are talking about the past at all is a very […]
Question: What does the name of the Pharaoh’s daughter “Batya” (“Bat of Yod-Hey“) mean? Answer: This is the name of the force of the Creator. This is not a woman or a girl who pulled Moses out of the Nile, but a spiritual force that was manifested inside the soul. This force is called “Moses […]
Question: An 11-year-old student listed ten reasons why children do not want to go to school. I would like to hear your opinion on each of these reasons. The first reason is the teacher. When you first come to school, immediately they try to instill fear of the teacher in the students. Should one be afraid […]
Question: What is the correction of our thoughts? Answer: To become similar to the single thought, the unified field, that is called the Creator. This thought should work for connection, for the integral orientation of the system, so that all the desires, everything we do in our world, in our life would be directed to the […]
“Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” Such questions arise when a person really wants to come closer to the Creator. There is only one answer: “I consider this necessary for me,” or as it is written: “Blunt its teeth.” When no matter how many times I try to answer this question […]
Question: All diseases, in principle, are inherited through the maternal side. A man, even if he has some kind of disease, somehow does not pass it on to other generations. Why is this so? Answer: We should look at diseases as a recovery process and not just a disease. Therefore, a woman who passes to […]
Question: It is written in The Book of Zohar: The quality of Pharaoh lies within reason, and there is no way to get out of his control by reason, but only by the force of faith above reason. What is this force of faith? Answer: It is bestowal above reception. If a person wants to move […]
Comment: Today a well known word is “bullying.” This is when some unfortunate person is bullied or harassed at school, in institutions, or on the Internet. In France, a new law will fine those guilty of bullying 45,000 euros and imprisonment for three years. Teachers or students, it doesn’t matter. And if it is proved that […]
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Fighting for Independence”
Two days from today, Israeli Jews will celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. On that day, in 1948, while still repelling the charge of six Arab armies and immediately following the departure of the forces of the British Mandate, the leadership of the Jewish settlement in Israel declared the establishment of the State of Israel. Since that fateful day, we have not been independent. Moreover, we have yet to learn the meaning of the word, in its true and deepest sense.
In order to be independent, we need to learn what independence means and what denies us independence. According to Webster’s Dictionary, being independent means that you are a) “not subject to control by others,” b) “not requiring or relying on something else,” c) “not requiring or relying on others (as for care or livelihood),” and other, less significant definitions.
These definitions leave the most important aspect of our freedom untouched. Worse yet, in today’s world, Webster’s definitions of independence are impossible to carry out; we are all dependent on each other, living in an interconnected and interdependent world.
We could try going to the woods to live there independently. Some people do it, but for their perceived freedom, they give up every bit of amenity that civilization grants us, but even then, they are not really free. Besides, is it worth relinquishing the comforts of civilization for the sake of declaring yourself free? Clearly, most people do not think it is worthwhile.
So what does it mean to be independent if we are forced to be dependent on every thing and every one, and have no choice in the matter? Being independent means redeeming ourselves from the sneakiest, yet most powerful enslavement: to our own egos.
Like it or not, we cannot resist our ego. If it tells us to do something, we will do it. If we decide to go against it, it will be our own ego pretending to go against itself, manipulating us into doing what it wants.
Therefore, independence means liberation from our ego. How can we achieve this? If we think of others rather than ourselves, we will have become liberated from our egos.
Think of a mother who loves her child. She does not think about what she needs unless she needs it in order to enable her to keep tending to her child. She is not free from her ego because in her perception, her child is a part of her. Nevertheless, if we were to feel like this toward people who are unrelated to us, and toward whom we have no ulterior motive, that would be liberation from our ego, and then we would see how difficult it is to truly be free.
The State of Israel, returning to our subject, will win its independence only when Israelis are an example of independence from the ego. The Jewish people became a nation when they rose above their egos and united “as one man with one heart” at the foot of Mt. Sinai 3,800 years ago. Immediately after, they were given the task to set an example for the rest of the world.
Until the establishment of the Israeli nation, there was no precedent of a large collective of individuals from vying tribes and nations uniting above their differences for the sake of forming a new nation whose supreme value is love of others. But the people of Israel achieved it and therefore became indebted to the world to lead it toward independence from the shackles of the ego.
I think it would be wise to contemplate this idea this coming Independence Day. If we regain our independence from the ego, we will regain our respect from the world and the acceptance of the nations. We cannot be freed from our obligation to humanity to set an example of liberation from the ego. As long as we display division and self-absorption, we will be regarded as pariahs. But if we are true to our vocation, we will love each other and the world will love us, because we will show the way for them to love each other.
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My new article on Linkedin “We Need a New World”
A student wrote me saying that today, many people believe we need a new world. He asked, “If you had a chance to build the world from scratch, where would you start?” I answered him that I would begin with one country, one self-sufficient country. Then I would ask for some time to develop people, to develop the society.
The problem is that we are like little children who expect the world to work the way we want it to work simply because we want it. It doesn’t work this way. For things to work the way we want them to, we need to learn how to make them happen, how to do it properly.
By learning, I do not mean that we should learn about the world, but about ourselves. We need to change ourselves so we can build a world where we will accomplish what we want without polluting the air, ground, and water, eliminating entire species of plants and animals, and eventually destroying ourselves.
The change we need to make in ourselves concerns our relation to society, the importance we attribute not to ourselves, but to the society we live in. In other words, the connections between us should be our main focus, as opposed to our current disposition to focus on ourselves.
Only once we change ourselves, the products we create will be contributory to the world as a whole. As our mindset will change from narcissism to mutual consideration, everything we do will aim to serve everyone rather than only ourselves.
This does not mean that we will not have personal items or that we will not need personal things, but the way we make and use them will inherently incorporate the thought about the common good. As a result, we will not need to worry about making sustainable products or environmentally friendly production processes because it will be our nature to work with everyone’s benefit in mind.
In other words, the degree to which we elevate humankind is the degree to which society will rise. The success of a country does not depend on technological advancement, mode of governance, or educational paradigms.
The success of a country depends on the extent to which people keep the common good in mind. Social cohesion and mutual responsibility are the sole factors that determine the fate of a nation.
Once we have built one such country as a role model for humanity, it will be possible to emulate it throughout the world. This was my reply to the student who asked how to build a new world.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why hasn’t COVID-19 ended yet?“
COVID-19 has not ended yet because we still have not responded properly to the virus.
How were we supposed to respond? We were supposed to connect with each other, i.e., to come closer together and become a bit more humane and courteous toward one another. If we would have done so, then we would have weakened the virus.
We have to understand that COVID-19 is no ordinary virus. It is a virus that demands of us to change our attitudes toward each other for the better.
It might seem outlandish that the virus would know about how we relate to each other, but it indeed knows and includes everything. First of all, it is a living particle. It is not on the still or even vegetative levels of nature, but it is on the animate living level—just like us. It has intellect and emotion, and it perceives and influences the environment. It connects with other particles, enters the human body and takes control over it.
In short, the virus is much smarter than we think, and only when we make a significantly positive shift in our attitudes to each other will it go away for good.
If we wanted to check this in practice, then we could take one country or state—say, for instance, the State of Israel where I am living—and we could decide that we treat each other courteously, that we help the needy, the elderly and children—we think about others and try doing good. We should alleviate the situation where we become approached with questions such as, “Why didn’t you do this or that?” but we each make an attitude shift: we seek out where we could add in our positive attitude toward others, to show them that we truly wish to benefit them. If we do so for even one month, then afterward we could check what happened with the virus. Would it still be around or not? We could then also review other phenomena in our society, for instance, the amount of deaths by car accidents and other such problems in our society. It is very easy to review such results. Everything is in our hands to impact a positive change in the world.
Based on the video “Why Hasn’t COVID-19 Ended Yet?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash.
Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 4, Item 20
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Why do people constantly compare their achievements, for example, who has something that is more beautiful or better?
Answer: Because it is a symbol of power, wealth, or height. After all, this is why egoism values people. How can you know what kind of person I am? I can be a great sage and sit somewhere in a corner in rags. Or I can be a great ideologist and at the same time be very modest and humble.
When people put themselves on display, it is clear why this happens. Everything is moving toward a common recognition of evil. This serpent must come out completely, show itself in all its metamorphoses and guises, and manifest itself so that every person will see how much it is devouring him from the inside.
Only then will it be possible to talk about correction.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Whose iIs Better?” 4/24/10
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My new article on Linkedin “A Weekend of Worldwide Unity”
This past weekend, my students from around the world convened online for a weekend of profound unity and love. Transcending distance, culture, faith, ethnicity, and gender, they gathered in sessions and workshops, meals and celebrations, and rejoiced in their shared desire to bond. More than 6,000 students convened on the platform they have built themselves, and which they named Arvut (mutual responsibility). They spoke in dozens of languages, all with simultaneous interpretation, and talked of nothing but love and responsibility for one another.
Unity will determine the fate of the world. If we establish it, we will reverse the trajectory of enmity, aggression, and violence. If we shun it, the world will plunge into another war.
This weekend, we discovered once again that when there is a will to unite, there is always a way. The differences did not divide us. On the contrary, they brought us that much closer.
As a teacher, my greatest joy is to see my students accomplish themselves. This weekend, I was given a demonstration that my students have accomplished a great deal.
Indeed, this convention was the most powerful, intense, and serious of all the conventions thus far. My students proved that they are willing to fight for the unity of the world, to rise above their own ego, unite, and share that unity with the entire world.
There is nothing that the world needs more than unity. Accordingly, there is no greater gift that we can give to our fellow human beings than our unity and the invitation to join in.
Unity will determine the fate of the world. If we establish it, we will reverse the trajectory of enmity, aggression, and violence. If we shun it, the world will plunge into another war.
Great transformations lie ahead, whose nature depends on the degree of our unity. I hope and pray that humanity will join the unity we have achieved this past weekend, and raise itself from the nadir of abhorrence to the zenith of love of others.
Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Wheat Storage with Jordan Will Not Yield Good Crops”
According to World Israel News, as well as other papers, an AP report writes that Jordan’s king, Abdullah II, proposed that Jordan and Israel will set up a joint wheat reserves and a food storage center. The purpose of the center is to offset “the negative repercussions of the Russian war in Ukraine,” since the two countries “account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which countries in the Middle East rely on to feed millions of people who subsist on subsidized bread and bargain noodles.” Regrettably, I have never seen a connection with Jordan, under this king or the former, that yielded anything good for Israel. I have no faith in his “good intentions.”
Until today, and I have no reason to believe that it will change going forward, anything that we have given King Abdullah has been used against us. As it happened with the water and electricity agreement, so it will happen with the wheat, and with everything else we will include in that “joint” storage.
Despite the warm welcome that Israeli president Herzog received in Jordan, the voices coming from there now are the complete opposite. They will turn against us in an instant.
I can understand Abdullah’s interest. Such an agreement will give him power among the Arab states, but I do not think it is our job to give him that. The better we relate to him, the more we strengthen his negative attitude toward us.
If we lived in a corrected international relationship, it would look very different. There would not be exploitation but real partnership. We would still establish joint ventures in agriculture, water, and energy, but we would do so with a very different aim in mind: not to exploit but to strengthen the bonds between us. If that were the motive, I would be all for it.
As it is, when we give and give and give, and see only hostility in return, I see nothing good in this relationship. Jordan wants to get the most from us, give nothing back, and gain respect among our enemies. I do not see why we should go along with it.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What causes mental illness?“
Egoistic human nature—the incomplete and broken self-centered desire—is the cause of all problems, including mental illness.
It functions with a significant fault by trying to satiate itself at the expense of others. By doing so, it devours both itself and others. This faulty functioning of our desire is behind our every illness—mental included.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, as egoists, we are opposite to nature’s altruistic form, and this opposition between us and nature gives us to every illness, problem and pain.
If we could perceive nature in its wholeness, then we would perceive nature functioning by laws of love, bestowal and connection. Therefore, the more we are opposed to nature’s laws, the more we enter into dissonance with them, then the more we experience nature’s completely positive force, which we dwell within, in an increasingly negative way. As such, the more we egoistic we become in our development, the more illnesses and suffering we experience.
Curing mental illness, as well as every other problem and pain, at its root would thus involve correcting our egoistic human nature: positively connecting with supportive, encouraging and loving attitudes to each other above our egoistic drives, and by doing so, aligning ourselves with nature. We would then experience nature’s completely positive force in a positive way, elevating ourselves to a newfound harmony, peace and balance with each other and the world.
Based on “Close-Up, Is Frankl right?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 8, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Varun Gaba on Unsplash.
Question: If a person asks God to change His attitude toward him, is that also idolatry?
Answer: Yes, this is a wrong idea about the Creator that He is supposedly acting badly now, but if I ask Him, everything will be alright.
Comment: But we all ask in this way.
My Response: Here is the problem. What are we asking for? Am I asking the Creator to change or for Him to change me?
Comment: Usually the scheme is simple. There are problems and a person turns to the Creator so that He would change His attitude toward him and remove the problems.
My Response: That is, now He is bad, and when I ask He will become good. Or should I ask that I change and see that His attitude toward me is excellent? After all, if He changes me, then I will stop seeing problems. Therefore, I must ask not for them to be removed, but for me to be corrected.
How can this be? I see myself from morning till night surrounded by negative forces affecting me and I must ask to see these actions as positive. For that, I must change.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/5/22
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Question: How can Pharaoh, the negative force in us, bring people, who want to attain the Creator, closer to His revelation?
Answer: The Pharaoh’s force only seems negative to us. In fact, it kind of teases us and brings us closer to the Creator.
It awakens egoism in us and draws us forward, ostensibly for egoistic fillings. When we get closer, it suddenly turns out that we cannot reveal anything and anyone with the help of egoism. We remain as if with a broken trough.
This means that we come to attain the Creator through the realization of the evil of our nature.
Question: Pharaoh means working within reason when a person wants to understand the whole process with his mind. What is wrong with that?
Answer: That is not the point. There is neither good nor bad in this. But it is impossible to understand this process with your mind, just as it is impossible to see the spiritual world with our eyes. We understand that our vision perceives only a certain amount of information at a certain frequency and nothing else. Proper tuning is necessary here, and it is achieved through diligence.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 4/14/22
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Comment: Michael writes to you: “In a quiet, peaceful time I could agree with you that it is necessary to embrace your enemy and that love is above everything. This is what I used to do by the way. But now I see how impossible it is. Man cannot do that. You will never embrace a murderer or a rapist in your life. You will not hug them! So why are you talking about it?”
My Response: I am not saying that you must physically hug him. Even internally you cannot hug him. But you should try to imagine that you have descended to his level, because if he is a murderer and a rapist, then he is below you. Yet, you descend in order to somehow get in touch with him, to understand him in some way.
Question: So, in fact, contact is impossible, right?
Answer: No? Then you will not do anything. You must understand that man was programmed this way from above. After all, we are talking about Kabbalah, about Kabbalistic correction.
We must understand that a person was simply directed in this way. With all his egoism and inclinations, it is not his fault. The Creator arranged it all for him, the kind, almighty, and loving Creator. Therefore, we still have a great deal to correct in our understanding.
Only when you descend to his level and realize that everything that is in him comes from the Creator and this is depicted before you and within you so that you correct your attitude to what is happening and to the Creator, then you will be able to somehow come closer to him. You will not be able to hug him yet, but you can come closer to him and start correcting this condition together with him so that in the end you would be able to understand him, because it does not depend on him.
This is all the fault of the Creator who did it and did it in order to correct you so that together you can rise to the level of mutual understanding and then to mutual love between you for all of humanity, for the entire universe, and thus to correct everything.
Comment: What an impossibly difficult science we are engaged in!
My Response: This is not science. This is nature! Otherwise, we will not do anything!
Comment: It requires turning the guts inside out, washing the entire heart, and clearing the entire mind.
My Response: When you do it constantly for a long time, you reach it. People will go through these wars. These will be internal wars, wars of the Messiah. And everything will work out.
Comment: You understand, don’t you, that we are talking about a loved one, about someone dear who is no longer with us.
My Response: All relatives and friends will suddenly manifest in such a way that you will not see anyone who would be more distant from you than the closest one. And the most distant ones will turn out to be the closest.
Everyone will turn out to be absolutely close and absolutely ugly. And suddenly, you will have to love them and just adore them. There are real wars ahead; they are called “the wars of the Messiah,” the wars of liberation from our egoism.
Messiah (Mashiach)—from the word “Limshoch,” to pull out— is the one who pulls us out of our egoism. We stop looking at the world egoistically, we stop blaming people for it. We must relate this to the Creator and correct our attitude to Him from absolute hatred to absolute love.
Comment: Can you imagine! You say: “He is to blame for everything, He did everything, He is the main enemy of man.”
My Response: If this is how I perceive the world, then yes.
Question: What if it is the other way around?
Answer: If it is the other way around, then I must turn myself upside-down again; in the end, I must correct myself and there is no evil and harm in the world except for myself, my egoism. I have to correct it into the quality of absolute love where I see everyone as my enemies and haters and correct them into everyone I see loving and loved.
Question: Does it mean that I correct myself and they become loving and loved?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: That is, everything is aimed at making me sort myself out.
My Response: Yes. There are still things to do ahead of us.
Question: You say that there are serious wars ahead. In any case, are we being prepared for them, or will we be thrown unprepared into this scorcher?
Answer: No! Who is there to throw? It is like throwing a baby into a real fight.
Question: Are we being led to them one way or another and we will come to this already wanting these wars?
Answer: Yes. We will understand their necessity.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/17/22
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Chapter 4, Item 18″
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Lesson on the Topic “The Spiritual Leadership of the Bnei Baruch Organization
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Selected Highlights
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Question: When we go beyond the limits of material existence, should our development stop?
Answer: It should stop, but, in principle, by itself it is infinite. In Kabbalah, we study another additional stage of our development that is available to us.
With the help of Kabbalah, we can reveal our next existence, so to speak. Just as our stay on Earth ends after 70 years of life, so the unfolding spiritual existence ends with 125 degrees of spiritual development.
Then there is some other line that we do not perceive, but we see that this line exists, and, as Kabbalists say, it is also moving away. It will become clear to us only when we begin to approach it.
Now humanity has developed to the condition where we ask about the meaning of life, in fact, about the border of the volume in which we exist: “And what is beyond its border? There must be something.”
Nature is infinite, continuous, eternal, beyond time, space, and movement, we reveal this even with the help of our sciences. Therefore, we cannot say that there is a border somewhere and that is it. No.
Even our minds and our feelings are not connected to our bodies. What does it all transfuse into, pass into? It means that there is a transformation of one kind to another.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Is Frankl Right?” 8/8/10
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Comment: Kabbalah explains all the sections of the structure of desire and you see how it works.
Why can’t people understand and accept that you just need to reconsider many things and rebuild your life? It is more pleasant for them to live in some kind of abstract mass, that there is a big world, that there are prospects beyond the horizon. It could be an adult, maybe even an elderly person who has lived his life, but still thinks like a child.
My Response: There are no prospects today, I do not see people who still live with them because the world knocks them out of all prospects. Everything changes so unpredictably quickly, everything closes and opens so that a person cannot plan anything, and therefore lives case by case, so to speak. In addition, the new generation is very special, it has completely different views and approaches to the world.
Question: What does this click, this transition to a new understanding, depend on?
Answer: It depends on the recognition of the need for this transition, the recognition of evil, when I can no longer live like this, in the present state.
After all, a person comes to our community because he believes that without attaining the cause, the purpose of the world, he has nothing to do in it, there is no point in existing, “I must understand, I must realize, I must figure out why I live at all, why everything exists, what meaning each of my actions and each of my days has; I cannot just live like that, I need meaning, purpose, fulfillment, otherwise I do not have the energy for movement.”
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Forecast for the next hundred years” 12/10/09
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Question: Alexey writes: “It seems like we used to live in perfect harmony, and suddenly everything was over. We live separately, we try not to run into each other in the hallway or kitchen. We already understand that all conversations boil down to war. We met in Kyiv and got married in Omsk. We have constant accusations and war in our house. I don’t know what to do.”
How can we set up this household unit?
Answer: They must live for the future, not separating from each other, but creating something together in common—a family. There is no escape from this.
Question: And when eyes are covered with resentment and hatred, how can we come to the fact that we have a future?
Answer: Even in the case when a person who is in front of you is against you, you need to help each other to become friends, to be loving.
Question: They say that they lived in perfect harmony. How can they return to it, soul to soul? What does your constant offer mean to them: “Love will cover all transgressions”?
Answer: It means that they can raise themselves to the next level of existence. Because by overcoming hostility, even hatred, they strive for mutual connection and even love. And in this love they perceive the Creator because He is common to them.
There is nothing else left in common. And therefore, through such an action they can reveal Him, that is, a special property, a special feeling, the center of the world.
Question: Are you saying that this property, the Creator, must manifest itself between them?
Answer: I think that it must manifest itself because it comes precisely for this purpose from above.
Question: And their division and hatred comes from above?
Answer: Separation and hatred come so that they try to connect with each other and find in themselves everything “against” and then everything “for.” And when they collect these fragments inside them, they will suddenly feel how they put together such an interesting puzzle that they will discover a single force, a single property, a single matter of nature.
Question: And then will this connection between them become real?
Answer: Yes. And besides, they will discover a new life in this connection, a life already spiritual.
Question: So you are saying that this separation has been deliberately imposed on them?
Answer: Of course.
Question: That is, it was induced because they were already capable of connection?
Answer: That is why it all happens in our generation. And if they could not come to a mutual connection, then there would be no such thing. This is precisely because we in our generation can do it.
I wish them to rise above their egoism, which blinds them, and to understand that in fact it is the Creator who pushes them toward love.
These are already the beginnings of the next state of humanity when people will discover the absolute inconsistency in the previous level, as different in all respects. And now at this stage, they must unite.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/10/22
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Question: The Talmud says that the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved. Why is she created as if from the middle?
Answer: Because the female part is created from the middle of the spiritual system Zeir Anpin, which represents the male part. But this does not mean that she is a consequence or an unnecessary appendix-type addition in relation to the male system.
On the contrary. Coming from the male part, she really grows up to his level. The Talmud speaks about this based on Kabbalah, from the knowledge of the inner part of nature. This is how our souls develop; first the male part of the soul, and then the female part. It has nothing to do with our bodies.
But from the examples of our world, we see that, on one hand, a woman, according to her nature, is in need of support, attention, and guardianship by a man. On the other hand, thanks to this care and attention, she grows to a level equal to him.
Then she can give him something that he himself will never achieve.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Siamese Twins” 9/19/10
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Question: Why was gold always an important asset for Jews?
Answer: And where hasn’t it been? It has been so in all ancient cultures. Do we find anything other than gold in Roman, Greek, Egyptian, and Persian excavations or anywhere else?
As for the Jews, they have long been engaged in currency transactions because in all countries, wherever they lived, they were connected with each other. Their having one language, one mentality, allowed them to communicate closely with each other. That is when they turned trade into a global, integral business. Naturally, small pieces of gold were convenient to exchange.
But then states began to print gold coins. Then they were replaced with other metals. The main thing was to have a state stamp. Surely, they should not have stopped using gold. But egoism does not want to recognize boundaries, and therefore, people filed coins and cut-off corners from them. And eventually, gold was replaced with another equivalent.
And among Jews, if something was valued, it was mostly silver, silver candlesticks and items related to religious worship. And only those who were engaged in international trade were interested in gold.
Question: What is the spiritual makeup of gold and silver?
Answer: What is so spiritual about gold or silver? Nothing.
The spiritual root of gold is very simple. It represents egoistic power and authority. Silver is much less. Therefore, silver cleanses, and gold does not react with anything, it is a dead metal.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Dollars, Gold or Diamonds?” 4/21/10
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To come to complete transformation and exit to the next level, humanity must reach the state of revealing a terrible evil: when people will literally devour each other, children and parents will hate each other, man will live in a house among his haters, among the most ardent enemies. We will reach such a state so that we force ourselves to look for a way out of it, a real way out, i.e., to rise above our nature and not just embellish it.
Nature will force us to deal not with all sorts of small compensations and small improvements, but to reach a complete crisis where we cannot do anything with it in education, upbringing, social relations, broken families, drugs, depression, technology, or financial affairs.
The crisis will cover everything that man does. And regarding the surrounding nature, there will be an ecological crisis. When all this begins to put pressure on us from the outside and from the inside, from all sides, then we will feel that we are obliged to do something.
Only then will we realize that there is an exit to the outer world: a small hole in the sphere in which we exist. This way out is in changing our egoistic nature.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Unwanted Children” 11/28/10
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“What Is The Meaning Of Life And Why Are We Here?” (Quora)
A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.
It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better (Ecclesiastes 7:1-3).
In general, Kabbalah teaches that a person should think about what his life amounts to. King Solomon reached the answer. He was at a very high kabbalistic level.
Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) is a great book written by him from what is called the left side of creation (kav small, left line). King Solomon reveals the questions one should ask oneself and the required search for answers, otherwise one’s life would be meaningless.
When King Solomon says, A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth, he means the day of death of the ego in a person and his ascent to the next degree. King Solomon achieved this, therefore he is considered the wisest of all. That is, he absorbed the entire light of wisdom precisely because he prepared himself for spiritual ascent.
The Book of Zohar has a whole chapter dedicated to Ecclesiastes. It reveals what is written in the light of Kabbalah, the light of the entire structure of the universe, and explains how a person should enter Ecclesiastes in order to see this world, this ascent, and this perspective through the eyes of King Solomon.
True perspectives are being revealed before us. It turns out Solomon was right to say that sorrow is better than laughter because in this a person sheds his former shallowness, pride, and empty fulfillment to arrive at total devastation. Before that, he never questioned the true meaning of life. He simply existed like a small animal. But once he arrives at this question, he must find an answer to it.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Summing Up” 4/7/10
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Comment: Irina writes: “Hello Dr. Laitman! It so happened that my husband and I moved into the basement. Our house was destroyed and no longer exists. We are both studying the science of Kabbalah and have heard from you repeatedly that the Creator is good and does good. It was only after this real devastation that we felt a state of liberation. Caring for others has supplanted all thoughts of self. And we realized that this is the only way to feel the Creator’s care for us. I myself cannot understand how it happened. Could you explain this condition?”
I honestly expected her to say: “And then we started hating the Creator.” But suddenly she writes: “Unexpectedly, we felt liberation.”
My Response: They have already skipped the state of hatred and have come to a state of liberation and caring for others.
Question: How does this happen?
Answer: This is an inner quality of a person when he tries to escape from suffering, fear, hatred, and all negative qualities based on his desire to feel good.
And as a result, he suddenly gets into such a state where he cares about others. He sees that by becoming more connected with others, he feels good. And the Creator directs him in this way— directs and directs. And he is already thanking the Creator for all the evil that He has caused him. How can this be?
He no longer feels that it is evil. He feels that it is the loving Creator who has directed him to the real good in this way. Only this feeling covers everything.
Question: So this is actually the future of all states of hatred, fear, and pain?
Answer: Yes, when you get rid of the material and feel only this state of spiritual fulfillment, by helping others, you fill yourself and you don’t need anything else in life. This is a spiritual state. Suffering can lead to this.
Question: Precisely suffering?
Answer: If the Creator directs you correctly, then you can reach this.
Comment: If such states are the future of all suffering, all hatred, and so on, then you’re able to justify everything and say it led me to this.
My Response: Yes. People go through very special states. Especially today.
Today, even people who do not study and are not with us go through many states that are close to the spiritual and they prepare themselves for spiritual integration into a common system, into a common Kli, to transition to a different mindset.
Question: When I have concern for others, will I be filled with this?
Answer: At first you will be filled with it, then you will run away from the problems of coming to connection with others. And then you will just do it because the Creator provides you with such a state and you see in it that your mission is to tell the world through your actions how good the Creator is in everything He does to us amid all these horrors.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/17/22
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Question: How is the incurability of mental diseases connected with our egoistic human nature?
Answer: Our egoistic nature is the root of all problems. Or rather, they are based on desire, something that is not our biological matter, but the human nature in us.
This desire is split and functions in such a way that it devours itself, devours others, seeks to satiate itself at their expense. So the problem of all diseases, including psychological ones, lies in such improper functioning.
This follows absolutely clearly from Kabbalah because by living only for ourselves in an egoistic way, we are opposite to the light, and this gives rise to all diseases, problems, and suffering.
The opposite of light is the opposite of that upper, general force of nature that can be called Creator, nature, or light. It acts only for the sake of bestowal and love, and the more opposed to them we are, the more we enter into dissonance with this force.
As a result, this good power of nature gives rise to completely opposite consequences in us.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Is Frankl right?” 8/8/10
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Medium published my new article “Are Rivers in the Sky Flooding the Earth?”
“When temperatures in Antarctica soared to 38 degrees Celsius above normal — around 70 Fahrenheit — in March, a teetering ice shelf the size of Los Angeles collapsed,” wrote CNN. “The heat rushed in through what’s known as an atmospheric river,” the story continued, “a long plume of moisture that transports warm air and water vapor from the tropics to other parts of the Earth. … these ‘rivers in the sky’ — which dump rain and snow when they make landfall — are also causing extreme temperatures, surface melt, sea-ice disintegration and large ocean swells which are destabilizing ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula.” Every time disaster strikes, we search for its immediate cause. This is how we avoid acknowledging the real cause of our adversities: human nature.
It is not only the climate that is becoming inhospitable. It is also the disappearing forests and the raging plagues that are telling us, “You are the menace! You are the plague! You have worn out your welcome!” Scientists warn that if we do not curb global warming, we will lose our coastal cities. I think it is far worse than that: Our entire planet will become uninhabitable for humans through our own making. Earth seems to be disgusted with us.
We are told that this is happening because we pollute the air, water, and soil, destroy forests, hunt other species to extinction, and extract from the earth much more than it can give without collapsing the entire ecosystem. These are certainly flaws in our behavior, but there is a reason we behave this way. Our prime crime is our attitude toward each other.
Whatever harm we do to Earth, we do it ten times worse to one another. The harm that we inflict on Earth is part of our efforts to inflict harm on other people and nations; it is another facet of our battle against each other. If we stop fighting each other, we will also stop destroying our common home, and nature will recuperate and become friendly toward us once again.
Granted, it is not easy to stop fighting one another when mistrust and hostility reign supreme. From nations to individuals, aggression and intimidation dominate, and indeed define our relationships. Yet, since Earth is already driving us out, we have no other choice but to change, if we want to survive.
It is a learning process, but it must begin with acknowledging that our problem is not that we are burning too much fossil fuels, eating too much meat, or soiling the ground and water with plastics. Our problem is that we are doing all those harms in order to hurt and destroy others, to overpower and subdue, to take pride and cater to our egos.
Once we acknowledge that our egoistic attitude to others is our root problem, we will be able to deal with it. We will teach ourselves to rise above our egos and work together. However, first we must stop deluding ourselves that rivers in the sky are drowning us. We are drowning in egoism, and this is our real problem.
[Photo Caption: Satellite Images Show Conger Ice Shelf’s Dramatic March Collapse Where: Antarctica When: 29 Mar 2022 Credit: NASA Earth Observatory. It is relatively common for ice shelves in Antarctica to spawn icebergs. It is less common for an ice shelf to completely disintegrate. In March 2022, an ice shelf in East Antarctica did both. The collapse has reshaped a part of the Antarctic landscape where coastal glacial ice was once thought to be stable. The change happened fast. At the start of March 2022, the floating shelf fed by the Glenzer and Conger glaciers was still intact. ,By the middle of the month, it had fallen apart. This image pair, from 9 January and 23 March acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8, shows the shelf before and after it disintegrated. “The whole shelf collapsed in just around two weeks,” said Christopher Shuman, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County, glaciologist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The icy remnants of both glacial shelf ice and adjacent sea ice dispersed from the waters around Bowman Island within weeks. “All of this took less than a month,” Shuman said. “It was quite the blowout.” The loss of an ice shelf is problematic because it can indirectly contribute to sea level rise. “Ice shelves are essentially the ‘safety band’ holding up the rest of the Antarctic Ice Sheet,” Walker said. When they collapse, the ice behind them can more quickly flow into the ocean. “And that is what raises sea levels.” By Antarctic standards, the ice shelf and glaciers that it held back are relatively small, so the impacts from the collapse are expected to be minimal. Scientists are more concerned about the location of the collapse. “All of the previous collapses have taken place in West Antarctica, not East Antarctica, which until recently has been thought of as relatively stable,” Walker said. “This is something like a dress rehearsal for what we could expect from other, more massive ice shelves if they continue to melt and destabilize. Then we’ll really be past the turnaround point in terms of slowing sea level rise.” REUTERS]
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Question: You constantly say that the first step in implementing the Kabbalistic methodology is the most difficult, and then everything goes smoothly. Why is the first transition so difficult?
Answer: Because the first transition is a cardinal change, the change of one’s nature to the opposite—from egoistic to altruistic—and all the other steps are just ascents in an altruistic way. That is, they are already similar to each other and you do not change inversely.
Question: In your feeling, when you experienced this yourself, how wonderful was this transformation?
Answer: It is impossible to convey in words how your perception of the world, worldview, world outlook, and world existence change, because there are no such means in this world.
Question: But you said that all changes occur in sensations, that is, not so much in matter, but in relation to everything else. Does it mean that at the level of matter everything remains the same?
Answer: What does it mean “the same”? If the same exists subjectively in relation to you, then what does it mean that everything remains the same? How can it be?
Matter is desire. Desire functions in a completely different way. That is, there is inanimate, vegetative, and animate matter; this is our entire world including everyone who is in it, including people, and the next level is human matter.
Human is Adam, from the word “Domeh” (similar to the Creator). You begin to own this matter, it becomes yours. When a desire takes the form of Adam (similar to the Creator), you feel the next degree in it.
Comment: You often give the example that people expect something that is somewhere beyond the horizon, but all real changes are happening here, now, at this moment.
My Response: Yes, because there is nothing beyond the horizon. You are in a certain desire, you need to change its application, its form, from “for yourself” to “for others,” to bestowal, to outside of yourself. This is what you need to do.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Spiritual Perception” 3/11/09
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Comment: Vladimir writes, “Dear Michael Laitman! I wanted to share my thoughts with you. My friend’s son is fighting in the current war. Recently I tried to do an exercise to imagine myself in the place of that friend. And I could not stand this exercise. Five minutes later, I found myself in a state of shock. After all, we exist in the same space with smartphones, this is a miracle of the 21st century, without which it is impossible to imagine modern life. And this item is on the table. Any call makes my heart skip a beat! My hand becomes like lead and the horror strikes with the fact that on a familiar number you might suddenly hear someone else’s voice, ‘Your son…’ And so on, second by second, day by day, I could not imagine it.”
Tell me, please, what kind of world do we live in? Before you really could somehow exist in these pauses, even terrible, terrible ones, until, God forbid, something happens; time went by, you lived. And now, the distance from the shot to the sensation has shortened so much.
My Response: I understand that.
Question: What is it? Tell me, why is this given to us today?
Answer: So that we can experience all this and determine how we really live, how we create our reality.
Comment: Our reality is like this.
My Response: So let us place all the people who command our reality in this reality.
Question: Those who are twisting all this, let them have such a feeling?
Answer: Yes, so that they sit in the room and wait for the phone call. And so that they have no opportunity to change anything! Leave them that way for a week. And then see what happens to them.
One should feel that these are his own children. It does not matter that his real kids are in London.
Question: Will the prayer of parents arise from this state?
Answer: Yes, it is natural. Even if they do not understand, the heart itself will react like this: “Please do not let anything happen to them!”
Question: And where is the Creator’s answer to all this? Let everything be over, that is enough! How long can we be imposed on?
Answer: The Creator will bring them to a state so that they actually turn to Him, and so that they do everything in this world that depends on them so that there is no war.
Question: You say “they,” do you mean practically all people?
Answer: All people, mainly parents, on whom this decision depends.
Question: So until this prayer is raised with sufficient force, it will continue, and we will be brought to prayer all the time?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/21/22
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Medium published my new article “What If We Rewind the Clock?”
The University of Cambridge magazine announced that Cambridge researchers have found a way “to rewind the clock on human skin cells by 30 years.” The body of the story is slightly less promising, explaining that the researchers were able “to partly restore the function of older cells, as well as renew the biological age,” and that “in experiments that simulated a skin wound, the partially rejuvenated cells showed signs of behaving more like youthful cells.” Although the researchers believe that “the findings could eventually revolutionise regenerative medicine,” I am not so certain. Moreover, even if they do, it will go against nature, and clashing with nature is never advisable.
Regenerating cells could help with some injuries or medical problems, but it will not work for the whole body. We will not be able to make ourselves thirty years younger, and any attempt to do so will bring upon us malfunctions and diseases that will prevent us from achieving it.
Besides, I would not want to perform such a procedure on myself because I do not believe that starting over is such a great idea. We may think that the experiences we have gained over the years will help us if we are young again, but they will not; we will not be any wiser.
Our bodies are not meant to live forever. They are here to serve as vehicles for achieving much more than physical existence. Real life exists not in the confines of the body, but in the connections between people, connections on every level: body (which we already have), mind (of which we have some), and spirit (of which we have none).
Because spiritual life is about connections between people’s hearts, where their desires and aspirations become intertwined and they feel each other without words, they are not confined by bodies or time. They do not need to rewind the clock because there is no clock to begin with.
Being able to rejuvenate our cells means that we will continue to live in perpetual fear of death and suffering. It confines us to our ego and keeps us jailed in our bodies. Being able to connect with all of reality on the spiritual level means that we have risen above our egos and broken through the partitions that make us feel apart.
For such a person, physical time is meaningless. Instead, there is an eternal flow of desires and feelings that continuously form new connections and new experiences.
To rise to that level, we need to invert our focus from catering to our egos to nurturing and improving our connections with others. If we work on it with likeminded people, we will be able to gradually lift these connections to a level where the body becomes meaningless and people begin to feel one another regardless of location or physical presence.
Once we achieve it with one person, we can replicate it with everyone and everything; we discover a part of reality to which we have not been privy. At that time, we rise above time. It turns out that surprisingly, the key to achieving immortality is not in biology, but in our connections with each other.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Surprising Reason that American Jews Hide Their Identity”
A recent American Jewish Committee (AJC) survey has discovered that while slightly more than half of American Jewish millennials feel that Israel is very or somewhat important to them, nearly a quarter said that antisemitism has caused them to hide their identity. The survey also showed that more than a quarter of American Jewish millennials approve of distancing themselves from Israel “to better fit in among friends,” and a little more than a quarter said that the anti-Israel climate in the US is making them “rethink their own commitment to Israel.”
These “disturbing trends within the U.S. Jewish community’s younger cohort,” as the survey referred to them, will gain momentum and overtake American Jewry unless we Jews, and especially in Israel, know our place and role in the world. If we recognize why we are here in Israel, the whole world will recognize it, too, and respect us. If we do not, the whole world, world Jewry included, will condemn us and exclude us from the family of nations.
The fact that it has been nearly four millennia since the founding of our nation and the assumption of our role to be a light to nations does not mean that we have been relieved of our duty. We became a nation by espousing and fighting for unity above all our divisions. Because we succeeded, we were ordered to set an example to the world. That order has never been revoked, and the “anti-Israel climate,” as the AJC survey calls it, is the result of our negligence in carrying out our duty.
The formal establishment of the State of Israel, through the November 29, 1947 vote in the League of Nations (the precursor of the United Nations), was a precedent. It was, and still is the only case in history where the world’s nations debate, vote, and agree on creating a new state. But if the vote that went so well in 1947 were to be taken now, no one would vote in favor of establishing a Jewish state. After seventy-five years of negligence and contempt for our only duty—to exert to unite above our divisions—the world has lost its patience with us, hence the anti-Israel climate.
If you look at our history, and I have written two books about it (links below), you will find that all our major catastrophes were preceded by prolonged periods of division and internal hatred. Our sages in antiquity did not blame foreign enemies for our downfalls and exiles, but corruption and division that emerged from within.
They do not blame Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, for the destruction of the First Temple and the expulsion of the Jews from the land of Israel. Rather, they blame our own corruption and bloodshed, particularly among the Jewish leadership of the time.
Likewise, our sages do not blame Titus, the Roman general who later became emperor, for destroying Jerusalem and the Second Temple, and expelling the Jews. Instead, they pin it on baseless hatred among us, Jews. Our sages assumed responsibility for our woes, the complete opposite of today’s approach, which depicts us as helpless victims, when in fact we could have opted to unite in the face of adversity but failed to do so.
Today, as it happened every time in our past, Israel will not win the approval of the world until it raises the value of unity above all other values. Regardless of political opinions, culture, origin, tradition, or education, unity among Jews must be the prime value in the Israeli society. Otherwise, everyone will turn against us, as is happening now, including Jews around the world—either in order to protect themselves, or because they, too, will feel that Israel is not a country they can or want to sympathize with. They may find other justifications for distancing themselves from the Jewish state, but the real motive will be the division, partisanship, and hatred among the Jews in Israel.
Until we return to our core values of love of others, mutual responsibility, and connection above all differences, we will not have the approval of the nations to live in Israel and maintain a Jewish state here. We will continue to be pariahs in Israel, and pariahs in the world. If, however, we reassume our duty, everyone will accept us, respect us, and justify our presence here. We will not need to fight for our national survival since we will have no enemies, not even the Arabs. In such a situation, world Jewry will rally behind us and strengthen our unity even more, and we will truly be a model of unity, a light unto nations.
For more on the linkage between Jewish division and its impact on Jewish history, see my books Like a Bundle of Reeds: Why unity and mutual guarantee are today’s call of the hour, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism, Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord.
Our mind and perception of reality are limited by our body, by the way we have been created.
Kabbalah has been talking about this for 3,500 years, and even earlier, because the first book on Kabbalah appeared 5,700 years ago. Kabbalah explains that everything is attained in relation to man, and one must constantly remember this.
Therefore, we cannot talk about what goes beyond the scope of our perception and occurs beyond the boundaries of tangible, rational attainment. A person has no more than what he attains tangibly, rationally. And this should be defined, first of all, as attainable in our earthly mind, earthly sensations, earthly perception, and nothing else.
That is, the device with which we attain, feel, realize, think, check out, and achieve results—this is how I, a man, was created.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, The Will of the Universe” 11/28/10
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Question: How can we understand that Pharaoh is the other side of the Creator?
Answer: If the Creator is good, pushes us toward goodness and unity, wants to raise us, and leads us to a state above the entire nature, then Pharaoh does the exact opposite, He pushes us down, does not allow us to grow as a people, and wants a simple, ordinary, limited, beastly life for us.
Pharaoh is, so to say, equal to the Creator by module. He is just the other side of Him.
Question: Does it mean that as much as the Creator is great, so Pharaoh is great also?
Answer: Yes, but the difference between them is that with the power of Pharaoh one can act for oneself, and with the power of the Creator, for the sake of others.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/14/22
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Comment: It is written in the Torah that the Creator says to Moses: “Come unto Pharaoh.” He does not say “Go to Pharaoh to fight with him.”
My Response: Moreover, Moses does not want to go to Pharaoh at all, he is afraid. But the Creator says: “Do not be afraid, I will go with you.” He seems to reassure Moses: “There is nothing to be afraid of, let us go together.”
In fact, this is not a good approach because, from then on, Pharaoh begins to attack Moses and even the Creator, and says: “Who is the Creator that I should listen to Him”?
Question: What does “come to Pharaoh” mean? How does a person feel it?
Answer: A person wants to turn to the Creator so that the Creator would help him rise from his egoism to the level of bestowal, love, and altruism. This is the way out of Egyptian slavery and escape from Pharaoh.
Question: How does this process happen? Does a person hear a voice that says to him: “Come to Pharaoh, let us go together”?
Answer: There are not any voices here. Do not make a psychological problem out of Kabbalah.
Pharaoh is your egoistic state. To resolve it, you must take it, place it in front of your altruistic state, and correct one with the help of the other. You are prepared to use the quality of bestowal and love to correct the quality of reception and hatred.
Question: But we do not have the tools to feel it. It is like a child inside the mother who cannot understand whether there is a world, space, time, or movement. Can it be that it is the same here? You say some words, but there is no volume in them. How van we get these feelings?
Answer: You can get the feelings only if you start trying to reveal this within yourself.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/14/22
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “No Safe Place for Jews, Unless We Create It”
As the State of Israel marked Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), thousands of Muslims gathered at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and chanted slogans calling for the massacre of Jews. It raises the harsh question of whether Israel can still be considered a shelter for Jews at a time when multiple reports find record-high numbers of antisemitic incidents globally.
An estimated 150,000 Muslim worshipers took part in mass prayers on the Temple Mount by the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on May 1. Some used the occasion to march and shout “Khyber, Khyber al-Yahud”—a call for the annihilation of Jews, like the mass murder that occurred in the Khyber battle of 629 CE.
It is bitterly ironic that this happens after decades of immense efforts to curb antisemitism following the Holocaust, and in Jerusalem no less, the capital of the Jewish state, the same state conceived as the homeland and safe haven for those escaping hatred and persecution for no other reason than being Jews.
This should remind us that it’s useless to look for a place where there are no Jew haters because we will find no such place, including Israel. Instead, we should be looking for the way to transform the hatred between Jews into love, and to build a common place of connection between us. By doing so, all the evil and rejection against us from the nations of the world and from our neighbors would be replaced by good.
We need to understand that if not for the hatred of the nations of the world towards us, we would have ceased to be a distinct people long ago. That is to say Jews, the smallest of minorities, and the most prominent, would have vanished among the nations. Unfortunately, we behave like brothers primarily in times of trouble. Only when pressured by hatred against us are we forced to be close to each other.
This is so because, according to our roots, we were not founded on the common denominators of residential area, family relations, origin or color, but as a conglomeration of different peoples. Therefore, there is no natural inclination and closeness between us; we need to work on it consciously. No less important, we must not wait for others to compel us.
As Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, Baal HaSulam warned back in 1940 in his writings, “Even the little we have left of the national love is not instilled in us positively, as it is in all the nations. Rather, it exists within us on a negative basis: It is the common suffering that each of us suffers being a member of the nation. This has imprinted within us a national awareness and proximity, as with fellow-sufferers.” And added, “Its measure of warmth suffices only to an ephemeral excitement, but without the power and strength with which we can be rebuilt as a nation that carries itself. This is because a union that exists due to an outside cause is not at all a national union.”
We have no alternative but to rise above our differences and unite. The phenomenon of antisemitism is revealed in the world as a natural response to remind the people of Israel why it exists in the world. Our only option and shield for defending ourselves against hatred is the implementation of our role as “a light unto the nations,” which can only be achieved through our unity. Plain and simple—only to the extent that we connect with one another above the rejection and hatred between us will we be able to enjoy peace and quiet.
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Medium published my new article “Despite Militant Tone, Nuclear War Not Likely”
On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held a press conference in Poland following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was the first time the US admitted that its real goal is not so much to save Ukraine as it is to weaken Russia. Austin said, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” He also added that Russia “has already lost a lot of military capability. … And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”
The following day, Austin hosted a forum in Germany with representatives from nearly forty nations. At the forum, “the German government … agreed to provide 50 Cheetah anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine. The British government also agreed to provide Ukraine with anti-aircraft capabilities, …along with Canada’s offer of eight armored vehicles.”
Moreover, according to the announcement by the Department of Defense, “a decision was made to extend the forum so more work could be done. Going forward, Austin said, there will be a monthly ‘contact group’ to further discuss how best to assist Ukraine. ‘The contact group will be a vehicle for nations of goodwill to intensify our efforts, coordinate our assistance, and focus on winning today’s fight and the struggles to come,’” Austin concluded.
According to The Wall Street Journal, in response to the American moves, Russia’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, said “the West was engaged in a proxy war with his country that could escalate into a global conflict with nuclear weapons. ‘The risk is serious, real. It should not be underestimated,’ …Lavrov said in a Russian state-television interview.”
Despite the militant tone and growing tensions, I do not believe an all-out world war is imminent, or in the viability of a nuclear confrontation. At the end of the day, the Russians, too, understand that using nuclear weapons leads to a no-way-back situation. Such a scenario could devastate them so tragically that they will not be able to recover.
Also, considering the fact that Russia consists of countless different nations living under Moscow’s rule, if it were to collapse, it would disintegrate and not much would be left of it. I do not believe that Russia can venture down that road.
Moreover, even if Russia were to use, or attempt to use nuclear arms, it would find that it promises more than it can deliver. It can devastate entire cities, or even an entire country, but it is an irrepressible and unmanageable weapon. Therefore, I do not think that this is what will help Russia stand up to NATO.
What may happen is that Russia will position its forces on the borders of Ukraine and maintain the tension between the two countries. In this way, there will not be an active war, but rather a constant tension between the two countries, from which the US and Europe will benefit.
As a result of the conflict, I think there will be more balance in the region. It may be a terrible price to pay, but for the world, a tense balance between Russia and Ukraine is the best solution at the moment. It will weaken both countries and lead to greater balance in the world once the active hostilities subside. In the end, I hope, the parties will grow too tired to keep fighting, and exhaustion will impel them to find a path for peace.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is any human really free?“
We have no free choice at our current level of existence. Decisions are made, either consciously or subconsciously, somewhere in our subconscious based on certain instincts, habits and social influences. And even if we accidentally choose something, it is also not freedom since we choose by chance instead of deciding by ourselves.
If we are given the opportunity to make a free choice at our current level of existence, we would not know what to base it on, where to lead it, and why we would choose one thing over another.
Our current understanding of freedom is to seek minimal pressure from undesirable extraneous sources. It is thus not freedom as a category.
Freedom is when we are positioned between two natures, two universes, corporeal and spiritual, i.e. when we can act based on the practice of receiving for our own sake (the corporeal nature), or bestowal and love for the sake of others (the spiritual nature).
Between these two natures, we have the opportunity for freedom. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is a specific inner place called Klipat Noga (the Noga shell). It is a very special and subtle point-like state that is located between two universes. In between them, we have a choice of where we can go, but the moment we have made the choice, we then have no freedom neither here nor there.
Based on KabTV’s “Close- Up, Dissenting Opinion” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 29, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Comment: Lyudmila asks about how to cope with the shock of so much hatred that has been revealed? She wonders if we are strong enough to cover this mass of disclosed evil?”
My Response: No, you do not have to do it. You do not have to cover anything, you do not have to deal with anything. We should just try to love. Otherwise, it is impossible to get out of this state.
Now a lot of evil has been revealed, and we have the opportunity to reveal goodness.
Question: And if we did not have such an opportunity to reveal goodness, to reveal love, would evil be revealed?
Answer: From where? We must approach a feeling of goodness and love in advance, gradually, slowly, in order to begin to feel that in fact, there is evil and hatred between us, and then consciously extract the property of love and connection.
Question: If this evil had not been revealed, would we not have been able to obtain this love today?
Answer: Yes, of course.
Question: So it turns out that we are already able to extract it?
Answer: We are capable of it. We have to. Otherwise, it would not open. We must be prepared for this.
Question: Is there any law in this?
Answer: The law is absolutely clear, there is such a sinusoidal, periodic component here.
Love and hate, love and hate, this is how it should periodically manifest itself, overlapping each other, and grow, grow, and grow.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/14/22
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In the News (Popular Mechanics): “It sure looks like Jeff Bezos has plans to cheat death.
“The founder and former CEO of Amazon has reportedly made an investment in the freshly launched Altos Labs, a biotech startup focused on ‘cellular rejuvenation programming to restore cell health and resilience, with the goal of reversing disease to transform medicine’ … . With $3 billion in backing on day one, Altos Labs has hit the ground running with what may be the single largest funding round for a biotech company, according to the Financial Times of London.”
My Response: Naturally, he cares about this. He will take care for himself.
Question: What do you think about this aspiration of people? He probably explains it beautifully: “I want people to live longer,” and so on.
Answer: Why do people need to live longer?
Comment: Man wants to live longer.
My Response: Why? He does not know. But he wants to. Let him answer this first: “Why do you need it?”
Let’s say I have the elixir of life. You take one drop and you will live another 100 years. Then you will come to me again. And then what? How will this help such a Mephistopheles?
Question: Do you think that a person’s hand will not shake when he takes this drop in order to live longer? Or do you actually want that his hand would shake, and he would think: “Why? What will it give me?”
Answer: The instinct to live is very strong. If I know that I am now in charge of my life and death, then I think that everyone will agree for yet another round.
Question: To live more, to suffer for another round?
Answer: Only the fear of death, its inevitability, and the unknown will make a person live. That is, nothing good.
Question: Are you saying that the fear of death will make a person live and not the purpose of life?
Answer: It is natural. What purpose of life? There is none. The purpose of an ordinary person’s life is to escape from death. Why? “I am afraid.”
Question: How should it be?
Answer: I have seen many elderly people, old people who agree with death: “Now I am going to lie down and I will not get up, and it is good.” A person gets tired of life. Why continue the same thing tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and again?
Question: If you find the purpose of life, then is it justified to live longer and longer? I have found the purpose of life, I want to reach it.
Answer: Then, naturally, you have all the incentives. If your purpose in life justifies prolonging your life, prolong it. Come to the cashier, write a request, and take the elixir.
Question: Should the purpose of life be unattainable? Very elevated? Or are we talking about even an ordinary purpose of life?
Answer: You write a request, and we will see. We will make a decision. Let’s give him two years or 20 years. Or maybe 200 years.
Question: For what purpose of life will you personally approve 200 years and give the elixir? Say, somebody came to you and said: “I have such and such purpose of life.”
Answer: I would not give anything to anyone. Absolutely nothing to anyone. Whatever you have, keep within this deadline.
Question: What purpose do you accept as the purpose of life?
Answer: To be able to do more for people. This is not easy. To reach such a decision and then implement it. I hope we will have enough time.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/10/22
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Question: Victoria writes: “Dear Michael Laitman, from your explanations it seems we can feel true love only for the Creator. Is that true? What about us? Are we destined to live without love?”
Answer: No, why? We will love each other to the extent that we see each other as a partner, a companion, and a friend in reaching love for the Creator.
Question: How can we understand this “reaching love for the Creator?”
Answer: I have to establish such relationships and states with other people who are both close and distant and with absolutely everyone regardless of what kind of relationships I have with them, until they all eventually give me the opportunity to feel and explore the Creator.
Question: When you say “the Creator” what do you mean?
Answer: The very feeling of love, connection, mutuality, getting closer to each other, and adhesion.
Question: Should this be our goal? And do we need to constantly move toward it?
Answer: Yes. We must constantly move toward it. Moreover, the Creator by Himself does not exist. A feeling exists of getting closer to others, which arises from a mutual attempt to reveal the quality of love and bestowal.
Question: Do you call this feeling the revelation of the Creator?
Answer: Yes. The Creator is love. This has nothing to do with love for a man, a woman, a child, no matter who or what. This is just love for everything that I would say, feels like it exists outside of me.
Question: Is there love only outside of me?
Answer: Yes.
Question: I do not have it within me. And is it right to say love is only outside of me?
Answer: Within me it is egoistic and predetermined and I must rise above it to feel the true love.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/14/22
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What determines that some people suffer more and others less? It is from the inner basis of a person, from his place in the general system, because he is as a certain cornerstone in it responsible for the entire system, and therefore, he must be pushed more sharply toward correction.
There are no dealings with individuals as is commonly believed. Never! Because the system is general. Only the inclusion of a person is taken into account.
None of us live on our own. Can a single cell exist in the body on its own? If it lives only for itself, then it turns into a cancer cell. It must give itself completely to the whole organism. Only for its sake does it exist, by its order it dies, by its order it functions without any thought of itself.
And then—this is a paradox—if everything in the body exists only for the common life: the heart is not for itself, the lungs are not for itself, all parts of the body are not for their own sake, then the whole organism really lives and functions successfully.
Imagine what a balanced system it is! It is like you are hanging in the air and everyone has to think about everyone. As soon as somebody thinks of himself, everything collapses, you fall.
We exist in exactly such a system. It turns out that by taking care of each other, we come to a state when we rise above the level of our existence.
What is the paradox? If my animal body exists and thanks to it I exist as a human above my animal body, then when I consciously connect with other people into a single harmony, I will begin to feel my existence at a higher level, at the level of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Partnership Agreement” 4/7/10
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Ukrainian Jewish Legacy”
Beyond the headlines of the deadly war in Ukraine from which a large number of Jews are fleeing to Israel, lies a unique and rarely told story about the remarkable contribution of Ukrainian Jews to science, art, politics, culture and education in the history of Israel and the world.
Throughout the years, many Jews who were born and lived in Ukraine imprinted their unique world-class talents in many areas. Among the most prominent names of Ukrainian origin are Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer, known as the “Baal Shem Tov,” who was the father of the Hasidic movement. Some of his famous students include Rabbi Nachman of Breslav and Menachem Mendel of Kotzk. Among other names on the list of influential Ukrainian Jews are former Israeli leaders such as Golda Meir, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Moshe Sharet, Yitzhak Ben Zvi, and Levi Eshkol.
The world of literature is also replete with spectacular landscape descriptions of the green hills of Ukraine. Nobel Prize-winning author S.Y. Agnon was inspired by his hometown Buchach. Aaron Appelfeld wrote enthusiastically about Bukovina, and Bruno Schultz about Drohobych streets.
Ukraine is beautiful. I remember traveling from north to south—from Russia to Belarus, and from Belarus through Ukraine to Odessa, which lies on the Black Sea coast. There is not much difference in the transition from Russia to Belarus. Everything looks almost the same, filthy and broken. In the air it was noticeable how neglected everything around us was and that no one seemed to care much about the roadside villages. But from the moment we crossed the border and entered the territory of Ukraine, we immediately rubbed our eyes. We saw a new and clean place; even poor villages were well taken care of to preserve everything they had and to repair anything that was broken.
I remember it as a beautiful area, the climate was comfortable, the soil was fertile, everything was blooming, the conditions were relatively good and there was room to accommodate millions. Although Jews have lived in many countries in Eastern Europe, many of them were drawn to live in Ukrainian cities and villages, being pushed into the “borderline—the meaning of the word “ukraina.”
The Ukrainians were a very rural and land-loving people, and the locals always expected the Jews to bring development in science and medicine, in culture and the arts. At the same time, Jews experienced great antisemitism and many pogroms throughout their history in Ukraine. This pressure built within the local Jews a unique approach to life and to overcoming adversity through hard work—a kind of willpower and impulse that made them pioneers.
Even today, although we Jews have immigrated to Israel and established a national home, we still feel the stress of antisemitism pressing upon us from the global village. From every direction we are being increasingly pressured, and this is true both for Diaspora Jews and for Jews in Israel. Wherever we flee, we are always blamed for being Jews.
This pressure upon us needs to lead us to apply our willpower to a new kind of overcoming—the implementation of the correct method for forging Jewish unity to reconnect the essence of the Jewish people that we have lost in the useless quarrels between us. If we will re-acquire the knowledge and wisdom found in the connection between us, in our unity, we will then be able to give the world an unparalleled blessing, the breakthrough of lasting peace, tranquility, and fulfillment, the light humanity so desperately needs. And this gift to humanity will be the most valuable and lasting contribution of the Jewish people to the world—a true enlightenment in times of darkness.
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My new article on Linkedin “The Bully Is a Victim, Too”
One of the most painful, yet often undetected social phenomena among children is ostracism. Usually, it happens when a leader in a social group, such as a class or a sports team, picks a child as a target for exclusion and turns the rest of the group against the victim. To the child, it is a horrific experience that can scar a young soul for life. Worse yet, a bully who behaves this way feels emboldened by it and is therefore likely to repeat it either toward the victim or toward other children. To cure this social ailment, we need to understand why bullies behave this way and how we can help them adopt more positive patterns of behavior.
Bullies target children they perceive as weak, who do not stand up to them, or who are socially isolated. The bully’s goal is not so much to make the victim feel bad, as it is to make the bully feel good about himself or herself.
Often, bullies come from homes where they feel insecure. They may be suffering from physical or emotional abuse and feel trampled on at home. To compensate for their sense of inferiority at home, they need to feel superior elsewhere, and that other place is likely to be school or a sports team, or any social setting where the bully participates.
Compared to other forms of bullying, the problem with exclusion is that the bully “recruits” the rest of the group to gang up on the victim, leaving the victim socially isolated and without emotional support. For a child, such a situation can be devastating.
To tackle the phenomenon, it is not enough to punish the bully. A punishment might stop the bully from continuing to harass the victim for whom he or she was punished, but it will not stop the bully from looking for other victims because the need to bully will continue. Worse yet, it might make the intimidator continue to bully, but in more stealthy and sinister ways.
Therefore, it is essential to understand why the bully behaves this way, and provide the compensation for the lack that the bully needs in more constructive ways. Instead of the bully seeking compensation by him or herself, the society should offer the compensation in a manner that fills the bully’s emotional deficiency and does not hurt others.
Human nature requires us to feel good about ourselves. If there is a place where we feel inferior, we will not rest until we compensate for it. Therefore, if a person feels loved and supported, he or she will never feel inferior, and will therefore not wish to make others feel unloved or excluded.
The solution to the problem of bullying, therefore, and especially that of ostracism, lies in the hands of society—to create a warm and loving environment for all the children where they can grow and express their unique qualities in a socially-constructive manner, for the benefit of all of society.
If children work together on projects that require everyone’s skills, they will learn to rely on each other, trust each other, and delight in each other’s talents. Most importantly, they will come to care for one another. Instead of envy, their sense of interdependence will bring them to support each other as each child’s unique abilities benefit the entire group. When all the children cooperate in this manner, they form a harmonious society where each individual is fully satisfied and at the same time cares for the rest of all the members of the group.
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Preparation to the Lesson
| | | |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 31
| | | |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”
| | | |
Selected Highlights
| | | |
Question: War is inevitable in the inner world of a person. He will always be at war with his egoism because the evil inclination is what the Creator created. But is the manifestation of war in the corporeal world necessary?
Answer: If we do not allow the internal manifestation of wars, then we will reach an external balance as well.
Question: Of course, it is easy to talk about wars and write books when sitting in the laboratory. But when there is shooting under your window and your relatives are dying, how can you behave in such situations?
Answer: The most important thing is education. We have already talked about this many times in our conversations.
Unfortunately there is no education in our world that would completely direct a person only to searching for the middle line between the right and the left ones.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/1/22
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Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai [author of The Book of Zohar] was revealing the secrets of the Torah, and friends were listening to his voice, connecting with him, and each contributed his part to this unity (The Ramchal, Adir BaMarom (Mighty on High), 24).
Rabbi Shimon and his nine disciples had such a strong desire to attain the Creator in all states of their interaction that they managed to create a mutual inner connection between them. This means that “friends were listening to his voice, connecting with him.”
They were reading passages from the Torah, each of them reacted to these texts, described their feelings, and completed the others, and one was responsible for writing down the words of all the disciples.
Since they were connected with each other, they expressed their impressions from the common source, the Creator, whom they were attaining, feeling, and thus could analyze, verify, influence Him, and receive an answer from Him.
That is, their impressions from this common source is a very serious study of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 2/15/22
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Question: Today, technological innovations and inventions allow most of the things done by people to be done with the help of machines. Robots and automated systems are increasingly replacing humans.
Driverless cars and drones delivering food and medicine to houses no longer surprise anyone. In many countries this is already being tested. But this frees many people from working. What should we do with them?
Answer: The number of people released from work should be very large in order to make it easier to convert our egoism into its opposite, altruism, the quality of bestowal and good connection. After all, it is divided by the number of carriers of egoism. And so it is relatively small in each of us.
If we had the strength to resist our nature, then, of course, we could be like Adam and Eve. We would not need to be divided into eight billion parts.
Since we are very weak but still must convert our egoism into a good connection between us, by changing our attitude toward the world, that is, practically changing the world, we need this great number of people.
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From KabTV’s “Virtual World” 2/9/22
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He who wants to get to the source must swim against the current (Stanislaw Jerzy Lec).
Yes, of course because that’s where it comes from. Everything comes from the origin. Therefore, one must always swim against the current in order to get to the sources.
Question: Why is it necessary to always fight in order to reach the source?
Answer: Initially, our nature is such that it was created precisely against. The Creator is the source, and in order to reach Him, one must always be in an inner struggle.
Question: Is that why we are hardly heard when we say: ”The world must be united. The world must be united.”? Does it mean that we are trying to direct the world to its roots?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Don’t we want to swim against the current?
Answer: No. We naturally run away from it all the time.
Question: Will we have to swim against the current?
Answer: It is better through education than by suffering. So we need to try to make people understand that we must take this together.
Comment: “Let’s join hands, my friends, so as not to disappear one by one.”
My Response: That’s right. By the way, the words are beautiful.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/3/22
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Question: Are Kabbalah, Judaism, and Jews different things?
Answer: No, they are parallel. For the Jewish people, Judaism is a common religion. Next to Judaism, there is a slightly different trend, called Kabbalah.
Kabbalah lies at the origin of the Jewish people. However, it has been in a semi-concealed state for centuries.
Question: You have been practicing Kabbalah for fifty years. During this time, have you discovered the origin of the universe? Do you understand what is happening in this world?
Answer: Yes. This is exactly what Kabbalah engages in.
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From KabTV’s “Meetings with Kabbalah” 1/5/22
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There must be disagreements. After all, then we have the opportunity to make efforts precisely in the place of conflict to rise above the differences, not destroy them, as they try to kill the enemy in our world, to break him, but to complete each other.
Completion is always expressed in mutual bestowal, in the attraction of the Creator’s quality between the feuding parties, between the creations. This is the only way to achieve the right completion, which means peace.
Therefore, the Creator awakens all wars and problems in order to give us the opportunity to correct them in the form of mutual completion in the middle line to establish peace between us due to the fact that the Creator will be revealed between everyone. And this will be the end of all wars in the world.
Until then, wars and conflicts will not end, and we will have to learn better and better how to reach the middle line so that “Creating peace above and bring peace to us.”
Usually the problem is that neither side can, in its egoism, establish the correct cause of the dispute, which consists in the lack of revelation of the Creator. And if we know that all conflicts are designed to give us more desire, opportunities, and abilities to reveal the upper force, then we will already act in the right direction. And then new conflicts will arise, more and more, but they will guide us more and more correctly and more precisely to the revelation of the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/22, “Winning the War (against the evil inclination)”
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How Can Military Conflicts Be Avoided?
Rise Above The Oppositions
We all come from the same root, from one unique and unified upper force. Even the disputes that flare up between all the inhabitants of this world at all times—those that are happening today, those that happened before us, and those that will be after us—also come from the upper force, because there is none else besides it.
The Creator created this dispute in order for us to reveal all the differences that exist between us in all the forms: in good and evil, bitter and sweet, truth and lies, light and darkness. We are able to feel and take into account only differences, and on their basis we determine connections and contradictions in order to cover all crimes with love.
This is impossible without the dispute that is revealed between the opposite sides. The more our oppositeness is revealed, the greater the differences between our qualities, the more we have the opportunity to understand creation, to feel ourselves, and finally to feel the Creator, to whom we all are opposite.
All these clashes and disagreements between us do not exist by chance, but are specially created by the Creator so that we would be able to feel and know Him. Therefore, the dispute is necessary for our existence. If there are no disputes, differences, and feelings of contradictions, we do not feel that we exist.
The entire difference between alive and dead, which gives a sense of life, exists only through disputes. The Creator created the entire creation as the opposite of Him, and the feeling of this opposition gives us the opportunity to exist and turn it to be in our favor, directing the desire to receive toward bestowal. The combination of these two opposite forms allows us to understand creation, ourselves, and the Creator.
Therefore, there is no choice, we have to always come from darkness to light each and every time, at each and every degree, and in each and every state, reveal contradictions. It is exactly by connecting contradictory sides that we attain the essence of creation and understand why the Creator created us with such qualities.
This is why the dispute is now flaring up in the form of a war. This war is special, it is not just a simple corporeal quarrel, but much more internal in comparison with all the previous ones. This is a war of a new kind for the ideology that the Creator wants to instill into humanity so that we can feel and attain the forms of nature created by Him and to eventually attain Him. We are like clay in the hands of a master, and we come out with a new mind and feelings.
“Peace” (Shalom) comes from the word “perfection” (Shlemut). The world is the name of the Creator, the connection between all the disputing parties, which, would seem, is impossible to bring closer to each other even by a millimeter.
Then suddenly we see that there is a special code, a method, of making peace. It is impossible to bring the conflicting parties closer together directly, but through the upper force everything suddenly adds up for the joint existence. It cannot be in any other way! The upper force could not reveal itself between us in any way other than inside this dispute.
It is necessary to come to peace (to perfection) from the dispute. One thing is impossible without the other, and therefore everything begins with confrontation, with the recognition of disputes.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/22, “Winning the War (against the evil inclination)”
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Question: Igor asks: “Is Armageddon, the war of Gog and Magog happening now?”
Answer: In general, it is happening all the time. But there is no such state for us to feel it in ourselves so we see what it is, what it is for, in the name of what, and so on. So we say that it is not happening yet and it will be in the future.
But in principle, this is an awareness of the state we are in and the state it is desirable to come to, the state we are finally coming to.
Today we cannot imagine the future correct state. It is worse than Armageddon. So, we must be led to this state by being consistently taught, and having all our insides revealed and shown to us.
Question: Wars, hatred?
Answer: Hatred and wars, there are many ways to explain to a person who he is and why he still needs to go through negative feelings. Only then will we begin to appreciate the state of truth, love.
Question: Tell me, please, will we be grateful for the terrible conditions that we have passed through?
Answer: We will hold on to them because if they disappear, then the right and useful states will disappear. Nothing that is done goes unnoticed. We must absorb it all.
Question: That is, will I be grateful even for all this?
Answer: So it is said: A person should bless both good and evil.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/22
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My new article on Linkedin “World War III Has Begun; How It Unfolds Depends on Us”
We think of the Russia-Ukraine war as a local conflict, but it is much more than that; it is a global war on multiple fronts. The war is not only a military conflict; it is also an economic war of attrition. With skyrocketing gas prices and shortage of staples, people all over the world are feeling the consequences of the war.
This war is transforming the entire modus operandi of humanity. Since the dawn of time, we have been accustomed to living by the motto, “survival of the fittest.” By and large, the rule was that the strong determined the rules, and the rules were often abusive toward the weak. Now, it seems like a new mindset has set in: Wanting something and being strong enough to take it does not mean that the world will accept it.
The war, therefore, is being fought on the inside no less, and perhaps more than on the outside. Our very makeup is changing from abusive to cooperative, from narcissistic to altruistic.
It hurts, and it will not happen without a struggle, but it is irreversible. This is the path of our evolution toward the purpose of our creation—to encompass within us all of creation. To do that, we must come to care for it, just as a mother encompasses her child through her maternal love.
The struggle to transition from our current uncaring and mean approach to all creations but ourselves, into wise and compassionate beings is called “the war of Gog and Magog” or Armageddon.
Since the war is about our inner makeup, we can fight it within us. If we object to struggling with ourselves over who will rule—the ego or love—the physical reality will force us to choose love nonetheless. However, it will do so by hurting us in a very physical way.
The war in Eastern Europe is nothing compared to what we might have to endure if we resist the process. The horrific descriptions of our sages and prophets hint at it, and we would not want to live through it.
Alternatively, we can fight this war within us without firing a single bullet. The choice is in our hands. All we need is to continue in the same direction that nature is already leading us: toward connection. If we make an effort to care for one another, even though initially we don’t, then we are moving in the right direction. If we try to resolve conflicts not with guns or even legal battles, but by strengthening the care and friendship between us, then we are saving lives and sparing torments from countless people.
In conclusion, let us try to rise above the hatred and see the human on the other side, who suffers too. Let us think that this war was given to us so we would think about each other more than we have so far. After all, were it not for this war, we would not notice one another. Now that it is here, we are no longer indifferent. Although our feelings are currently negative, now that we are aware of them, we can work on them together and turn them around. These are the wars of the Messiah who moshech [Hebrew: pulls] us out of the ego, and into mutual love.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Purim“
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Peace”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: Why do all biblical stories of the Torah place such emphasis on war? There are always some conflicts going on in it.
Answer: Because war is a natural state of the world that consists of two opposing forces.
Bringing these forces into some kind of balance with each other, into some kind of more or less correct interaction, so that we can benefit from the fact that they are opposite and at the same time work together for some one purpose–this is peace.
Question: Yet, on the other hand, it is written that the entire Torah is the law of love. Where is love there?!
Answer: The Torah explains to us how we can constantly try to hold both forces so that they work for one single purpose. Then there will be peace.
In other words, the Torah is an instruction on how to balance the two forces of nature within a person and how to correctly direct them so that there is peace in the world.
“Army” in Hebrew “Tzava,” “Tze,” (exit) and “Bo” (entrance), means alternate exits of a person from under the control of egoism and entrances into it.
The same thing happens at all levels. All we do is feel one or the other force influencing us, and try to maneuver between them.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/1/22
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The main function of a judge in the period of judges was to judge one’s own attributes: to know when they were good and when they were not, and in what exactly they were good or not good, and to thus move forward to correct himself, to pray, and to turn to the Creator so that He would give the property of bestowal and love and raise a person above his egoistic nature.
The image of an ideal judge is that property in a person where he can be absolutely detached from his egoism, dominate himself to a certain extent, control himself, and turn into a greater quality of bestowal and love.
Therefore, first of all, the judge had to determine what is good and what is bad. And then rise above what is bad to the level of what is good.
Question: Can this be nurtured in a person or is it inherited?
Answer: It can be developed in a person.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 1/11/22
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Question: The word ”Kabbalah” is perceived by many as something mystical. All the people shouting that they are engaged in Kabbalah from Madonna to who knows who, are they really engaged in Kabbalah or in show business?
Answer: Of course it is show business. Kabbalah is a teaching about the revelation of the Creator to a man in this world. Anyone can practice Kabbalah. But in order to actually achieve results, one must get into it very seriously.
Question: If this is so, then why don’t all Jews without exception study Kabbalah?
Answer: Firstly, it was once forbidden to engage in it because people were not sufficiently developed. But starting from the 14th to 15th centuries, Kabbalah had already been allowed to be practiced. Great Kabbalists such as Rambam and Ari wrote about this. And in the 20th century Kabbalah was revealed to everyone so today anyone can study it.
But the fact is that there are many impostors who created show business around Kabbalah and made a lot of cheats: Kabbalah and medicine, Kabbalah and spells, Kabbalah and the pulse of de-nur, or whatever. This is nonsense! They are fairy tales for the people to keep them in line.
Question: So the people invented it for themselves?
Answer: It was not the people who invented it, but their leaders.
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From Kab TVs “Encounters with Kabbalah” 1/5/22
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It must be understood that all disputes flare up between us not in order to hush them up, but in order to strengthen our unity despite all the differences. Conflict is resolved not by erasing our differences, but by rising above them.
This is much easier than the way we try to resolve conflicts in our world. We think that it is necessary to eliminate the contradiction, and therefore we want to defeat the enemy and prove to him that we are right and that he is wrong. And he, for his part, tries to prove the opposite.
But we will never come to peace this way! The method of Kabbalah uses exactly the opposite approach where we realize the reason for our dispute and neither one tries to force the other to accept his opinion. We want to reach a connection over these differences so that love covers all crimes.
Crimes and disputes will remain, and we will increase our love and unity more and more. As a result, the disagreement will be revealed in full measure, above it the complete unification will be revealed, and both will exist simultaneously: the strongest desire and the largest contraction and the screen. And then the full revelation of the Creator will take place. This is the method of Kabbalah.
It won’t work otherwise! If we want to stop wars, then we must understand that there is no other solution, only mutual replenishment on top of disagreements.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/22, “Winning the War (against the evil inclination)”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How can I become more empathetic?“
A student at a school approached his teacher, because he saw a girl who had come to school in a torn coat. Since it was winter and her coat was inadequate to stand up against the cold weather, the student suggested a trade setup where anyone could give whatever they wanted with the aim of making sure that every kid in school would have an umbrella, boots and a coat for winter. The teacher was very moved, shared the idea with the parents, and it was set up in two hours.
A question that arises from this heartwarming situation is why are we all not as sensitive as that child? Obviously, we would find ourselves in a much more positive reality if we were.
We adults are bigger egoists and are much more inclined to pay attention only to what is ours. We have been created in such a way where we feel increasing detachment from each other in order for us to develop a sincere prayer for help: to have our hearts opened so that we can feel others similarly to how we feel ourselves.
By reaching such an inversion of how we feel reality, then we would feel connected, close and understanding of each other. We would then all feel like one body. We would have no holes in our coats, and would feel ourselves as parts of the upper world—of love, bestowal and connection.
Based on the video “How to Become More Empathetic” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
Why does the question about the meaning of life arise in a person precisely at the moment when he seems to have achieved everything? It is because he no longer has goals; all landmarks are lost and our world cannot give them to him.
We are specifically designed in such a way that we begin to rise from the level of our world into the next dimension.
But a person does not see it. He sees that this is our time, this is our generation, these 50 to 100 years are a very short historical period. We were always running after all sorts of achievements, money, power, fame, notability, and did not think we were mortal. Various goals within life overshadowed the final zero result for us: “It doesn’t matter. The main thing is that today I can play myself.”
And now we come to the conclusion that it is impossible to play ourselves during this life. I cannot! Like a prisoner who sits in a cell, he is served good food and he hears the gallows being made for him in the courtyard.
What can he do? Just drink from hopelessness. Can he have fun if he constantly hears this knock? As soon as the gallows are erected, he will be led out and hanged.
In such a state, when the final state of our existence is clearly manifested before us, we do not understand what to live for.
When we face the question of the meaning of life more than life itself, then there is a reassessment of values, and the result is very important to us. Here humanity comes to such a state: if this life ends, then it is itself worthless.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Summing Up” 4/7/10
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We don’t need to worry about how to reconcile a dispute or resolving all disputed issues. Don’t be like a kid trying unsuccessfully to fit a cube into a round hole and not realizing that one will never fit into the other.
A dispute is not given in order to extinguish it, as we try to do in this world. It is impossible, and therefore we come to wars. After all, it is impossible to prove to another that you are right and to come to reconciliation. Disputes are given to us from above, and therefore, we are incapable of resolving this higher contradiction in any form here in our world at our level.
We only need to know that these conflicts show us our condition and how wrong our approach to them is.
The world is concluded between the Creator and the creatures; that is, over the dispute, the name of the Creator, the good who does good, is revealed. It turns out that we are at war not with each other, but with the Creator. And peace reigns when everyone reduces the egoistic intention to their great desire to receive and one desire reigns in the world—the desire to bestow.
And then all goodness and pleasure is revealed in the world.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/22, “Winning the War (against the evil inclination)”
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Question: In principle, do all four spiritual covenants manifest themselves when a person already has attainment of the Creator? And before that can any unions be made in the group?
Answer: In a group we create such qualities among ourselves that help us stick together and do what Baal HaSulam and mainly Rabash talk about. In his articles Rabash writes about the group, about the union, and about our movement toward connection, within which we really attain the Creator.
Comment: We also sort of make agreements in the group, for example, to come to lessons on time, to meet, and to participate in congresses. But all these are egoistic agreements, which sometimes we follow and sometimes not, in contrast to the union with the Creator. After all, if you have already agreed with Him, then it is forever.
My Response: It should be the same in the group. Rise, but do not fall.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/28/21
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From Ivan Ivanov: “Michael Laitman, please comment on the state when peace will come between brothers.”
My Response: When they feel that they are brothers! And this state does not exist today because there is huge individual egoism between them.
Moreover, this egoism is not the same; one is because of one thing and the other is because of something else. And so they do not meet even in their egoism one against the other. Therefore, they are wrong.
That is, there is no real war. Hatred does not really manifest itself. In some way, here and there they brush against each other, but they can immediately remember that they are close.
Question: And what should happen to make them really feel like brothers?
Answer: These people—they must develop.
Question: To become human?
Answer: Yes. And then they will be able to realize what they are here for, who they are, and so on. They just want a quiet, peaceful life. I am not saying that it is wrong, unfair, or maybe low—no. But this suggests that they need to develop.
Question: And if I develop into a human, what will I want?
Answer: If you develop into human, then you will want human, higher relationships, and corrections that will vibrate like connections in hearts, in thoughts, in understanding, and in clear penetration into each other so that we can see through each other and understand where else we do not connect.
We do not have to be equal, but we have to complement each other properly. Through such penetration into each other to see where I can complement my neighbor and he can complement me in order to create an absolute sphere together in which we will reveal the Creator—perfection, perfection from two opposites that, in general, cannot connect.
Question: Is this the state of true brotherhood?
Answer: Yes. That is what we need to look for and not to run after each other with machine guns. In general, all the hatred—it will later be revealed what it was for.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/28/22
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is love at first sight sustainable?“
Love at first sight is not true love, and it is thus unsustainable. True love, rather, has a different foundation, infrastructure and cause.
To love is the meaning of life. There is nothing greater than love.
When love fills us, we are alive. When love disappears, it is worse than death.
Love is when we have something that we can do for another person, and it fulfills and enlivens us. There is no stronger emotion than love.
Why does love fade away? It is because we have to renew it. Love is like a pet that we need to constantly feed. By doing so, we can continually renew our love up to a point where it can be felt endlessly.
Based on the video “Love in the Movies – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What could humans learn from fungi?“
Israeli researchers discovered how a fungal network manages the exchange of nutrients between trees. Fungi connected to tree roots communicate the transfer of minerals, nutrients, water and carbon, while the trees funnel their carbon to the fungi in return. The researchers also found that the fungal network serves to strengthen and recover trees that developed certain problems.
Therefore, one thing we can learn from fungi is that there are complex and smart connections in nature. Among us humans, we actually have much more complex and profound connections, but due to our egoistic nature, we have no idea how to approach them. Fungi and trees, however, use their connections to their mutual benefit because they contain no such ego.
However, nature made us human beings with the ability to connect two opposite qualities, the negative egoistic quality of humans and the positive altruistic quality of nature. It is so that we can correct our egoism into its opposite—altruism—and by doing so, reach nature’s higher degree. And for us, nature’s higher degree is one of love, bestowal and positive mutual connections among everyone.
On one hand, fungi have a certain awareness of something missing in the ecosystem, and pass on certain forces to complement it. Among us people, on the other hand, we can see opposite examples, such as people continually amassing more and more wealth to a point where they do not know what to do with all of their surplus, while others starve to death.
We would thus be wise to learn from fungi about the intricate connections in nature, and that we can positively realize our interconnections by prioritizing the benefit of others over self-interest. Our eyes see an egoistic reality, but behind the scenes, from the perspective of nature itself, is an altruistic reality, and if we filled our connections altruistically like nature, then we would experience harmonious, peaceful and whole lives.
We would then gain nature’s wisdom. We would understand how the intricate connections in our reality work, and how we could maximally benefit our lives by mutually complementing each other through positively realizing such connections.
Based on the video “The Wisdom of Fungi” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Question: What does it mean “not to eat the bread of shame”?
Answer: The bread of shame is when I receive for my own sake.
Question: If I manage to annul myself, can I give fulfillment to a friend?
Answer: Yes. If you annul before your friends, you can already start fulfilling them.
Question: Is it possible to use the state where I am higher than my friends to pray for them?
Answer: Yes. But we need to check that it does not come from my arrogant attitude toward them.
Question: How does the group help us bring ourselves to the greatness of the Creator?
Answer: It helps in a lot of states. I must take an example from my friends, implement my properties of bestowal on them, etc. This is our job.
Question: Will self-annulment of everyone in the ten eliminate the friction between us that we myust rise above in order to advance on the path?
Answer: It will happen.
Question: Can the ten exhausts its strength as a result of a strong desire for connection?
Answer: Maybe, and then it must ask for strength from the Creator.
Question: I understand and even feel that I must annul myself in front of my friends for spiritual advancement, but it is not so easy to annul. So how do I pray to the Creator?
Answer: Try to annul yourself. If you cannot annul, pray; the Creator will help. That is it. May God help you!
Question: It is unclear how to give an example to others without hiding my flaws?
Answer: The fact that you have flaws and you still want to give a good example—this is a perfect example.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4
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Question: If I see the contribution of the friends, their work, does this mean that there is already a mutual guarantee? Is it my job to see it?
Answer: If there is a mutual guarantee (Arvut), then you are implementing it. If you are in mutual guarantee, each one of you nullifies himself with respect to a common goal and you form this common goal, that is, the property of mutual bestowal, mutual connection, and then you will gradually begin to feel the Creator in it.
Mutual guarantee is the Kli (vessel) in which we move forward and will be able to feel the Creator to the extent of our common unity. Therefore, the Creator says: “You build Me.”
Question: What are the practical conditions for building a vessel of mutual guarantee?
Answer: When you try to create conditions that exist in the spiritual vessel (Kli) between desires and intentions in your group, physical or virtual, then you create the Kli, that is, the soul.
You should think more about it and discuss it among yourselves so that this subject becomes closer to you.
Mutual guarantee is necessary precisely for each one of you to demonstrate to the others the greatness of the property of bestowal, how important and necessary it is, and how much one must be afraid of falling into egoism.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Working in Mutual Responsibility” Lesson 6
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A group of ten is higher than any sage or Kabbalist because it is a collection of small, goal-oriented people who do not yet understand where they are and what to do. But they are striving for one common goal and have gathered together.
Therefore, their connection is higher in spiritual construction than one great Kabbalist. This is true because they build the Creator within themselves. Their state is more promising, and therefore the Creator engages with them more.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4
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Question: When a person loves the Creator, does self-love automatically disappear or does it still remain?
Answer: To the extent that a person loves the Creator, his love for himself gradually decreases and he does not have any thoughts about himself.
Look at the mother who is completely devoted to her baby and thinks only of him. She has no thoughts of sleeping, eating, or doing anything else. She does everything necessary, but only to be above him all the time.
This is how we should treat all people in the world. And then through them we will begin to relate to the Creator in the same way. And if we do not achieve such a relationship between ourselves and with the Creator, then we will be going through tremendous suffering.
Comment: But humanity has been suffering throughout its history.
My Response: What are our sufferings? From the fact that he received a little, stole a little, walked around a little, and the like. This is not suffering.
We are talking about suffering that we are distant from each other and relative to the Creator. They will bring us closer to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/14/21
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Question: Despite the fact that now schools are trying to separate boys and girls does this remain at the level of our bodies, our animal egoism, and in the end it will not work?
Answer: This will have some kind of effect, but it will not correct a person and will not make him right in society. It will not lead to the correct mutual relations between men or between men and women. They will get some examples. There may be fewer distortions, but there will be no corrections.
In any case, separate education is better. But we must be careful about what is presented within this framework that students will take an example from.
Question: Is it impossible to build something within the framework of our usual life correctly if there is no spiritual determinant?
Answer: It is still good. When a boy receives an example from adult men, this is a completely different world for him than if he looks at women and subconsciously captures their goals, their outlook on life, the world, and their relationships with each other. This involuntarily distorts him, affects him at all levels—genetic, chromosomal, etc. All his behavior becomes effeminate. This is not right.
Look at what’s happening with men today! They do not want to leave their mothers, they stay at home until the age of forty. Or they get married, have children, and quickly run back to their mother. And then they find themselves another mother in the form of a wife.
So until the end of their lives they themselves remain children. This is all because women are engaged in the education of men, young lads, and boys. Therefore whole generations and even the entire civilization today is such that the female image turns out to be dominant, influencing, organizing, and determining. And there is nothing we can do about it.
Unless we now begin to build the structure of our world with the help of Kabbalah, similar to the upper world that is revealed to us, we will see our generation even more distorted.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up, Generation of “Lady Gaga”” 3/10/10
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Today everyone is asking the question: Will there be a war in Ukraine or not? I am not a politician, but a Kabbalist, and I look at everything only from the point of view of the global correction of the world, in which all nations will one day come closer and unite. And in this form we will achieve peace and perfection in our existence on the globe.
According to this conflict between Ukraine and Russia, we can see how much each nation and each country will have to correct until we can mutually connect with each other in a proper and kind form.
That’s why I don’t want to examine politics. It is obvious that there are no one who is right in this dispute because we are all egoists and everyone must correct their egoism until we all unite in a friendly way. And before that, we will be haunted by wars and problems. If we do not think about correction, about covering all crimes with love, then there will be no good life.
But still, I think that gradually we will understand that problems between nations cannot be solved through wars. These wars between countries and people will take a new form. After all, we already see that it is impossible to use nuclear weapons or chemical weapons. And then what remains? Fighting each other with sticks and stones again?
In the modern world, there can no longer be a war in the form that it once was. Almost everyone already agrees with this. No one has such a force at their disposal with which it would be possible to come out victorious in the war.
Therefore, I think that humanity will begin to conduct an internal audit of its thoughts and perception of reality, and will realize that we must move to a new phase of confrontation. It will be a confrontation not between us, not between these or other neighboring countries, but a confrontation with ourselves, a war with our own nature.
And I think that we have already come close enough to a state when it will be possible to talk about it and find understanding among people that correction is required precisely in relations of a person to himself and to others. This is the only way to achieve balance and harmony between all people.
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From KabTV’s “Conversation with Journalists” 1/17/22
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My new article on Linkedin “Russia-Ukraine War: The Pandora Box is Open”
The ramifications of this war run much deeper than the impact it will cause to those directly involved in the conflict. It will reshape the world, as it is likely that other latent frictions between countries and territories will be activated as a consequence of the Russia-Ukraine situation. This war just opened an era of wars, small and large, between different peoples.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently said that this war could easily become “the biggest war in Europe since 1945”, and I agree. If countries with similar backgrounds cannot reach agreement between them, then how much more likely it is that several countries that have big differences and ancient conflicts may easily slip into war for no apparent justifiable reason.
On a personal level, it saddens me to see how fate turns around and once again we find ourselves at war. I am sorry and restless since I have many students in Russia and Ukraine who are under threat and feel how the deteriorating situation is affecting them and the whole world. In Israel, too, I have many students who follow with concern what is happening in Eastern Europe, anxious about the fate of their family members and friends.
My hope is that the manifestations of hatred between the Russians and the Ukrainians will stop soon, two peoples who have lived side by side throughout history. If it were still possible, I would give everything I could to silence, calm down, avoid the escalation, but this is impossible for now.
There is not much that we can do at this stage. We can only long for peace and a ceasefire, talk about all parties showing restraint. The parties in conflict could follow the example of the Native American tribes who buried their hostility in a ceremony during which previously warring tribes agreed to settle their differences and live in harmony, and sealed their agreement by the chief of each tribe burying a war hatchet in the ground.
Such a scenario does not look realistic under the current circumstances. Thus, above the forces of hostility, above the egoism and control as the driving forces of all the conflicts in the world, we can only raise a global prayer for peace, asking that we all get along with everyone. Because only in the power of connection and in the connection between our hearts, can a great positive force arise, a force that is able to unite all parties, to reconcile the haters, to awaken the truth in us all that we all belong to one soul. As it is written, “He who makes peace in His heights, may He make peace upon us…” (The Book of Job, 25:2)
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Highlights from a Meeting with David Rosenthal”
David Rosenthal is a respected political analyst, journalist, and columnist in various Israeli and international media outlets. Every so often, he interviews Dr. Michael Laitman on various topics. Below are some of the key points from their latest talk, which took place Wednesday, February 16, 2022. The questions and answers below summarize some of the main topics.
Mr. Rosenthal: How do you see the state of the world at the moment? Where do you think it is headed?
Dr. Laitman: Indeed, we are at a critical phase in the development of humanity. However, for humanity to develop, nature is pressing us in various ways. This is why we see so many conflicts around the world, along with volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, and other global problems all happening at the same time.
While these crises are here in order to push us to the next level of development, they do not lift us there, but only force us to get out of our comfort zone. This is why it is so important that we take the initiative for our development into our own hands, since when nature does it, it employs very unpleasant ways.
Either way, the 21st century will be a century of great lessons. The question is how quickly, easily, and pleasantly we want to learn those lessons. We can come to a state where everyone is satisfied—from individuals through organizations to societies and governments. It may seem impossible since each entity has its own interests, which often clash, but I believe we will discover how to rise above our differences and find a common unity that makes personal interests feel inconsequential.
I anticipate that humanity will want to find the method for achieving this, and then we will all finally be happy. Although people are still egoists and in constant conflicts, we will gradually come to that state.
Mr. Rosenthal: Do organizations play any role in overcoming the raging ego?
Dr. Laitman: Their importance is that through various organizations and governments that want to impose their will on the public, we are discovering that there can be only one solution: to rise above all of our demands of others and come to some sort of equilibrium where no one demands anything of anyone. My words may not be very clear right now, but humanity is approaching it and will soon discover it.
Mr. Rosenthal: How will climate change influence us? Will it continue to be a problem?
Dr. Laitman: Yes, I have no doubt it will. The problems we are currently facing are only because of us, to make us improve our relationships with one another. This is how we should see it. Therefore, if we make our relationships friendlier and calmer, we will pacify all of nature, including hurricanes and other storms, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and all the disasters plaguing us on land, at sea, and in the air.
The thing is that we, humans, are the center of creation. Therefore, the more we spoil our connections, the more we disrupt nature. When nature shifts off balance, we see an escalation of natural phenomena and they become natural disasters. This is why we say that they are signs that we need to improve our relations. When we improve them, we pacify the center of creation, which in turn pacifies the entire planetary system and the natural disasters stop occurring.
Mr. Rosenthal: On another topic: What about antisemitism? Will there be a time when it subsides?
Dr. Laitman: Antisemitism usually eases after great troubles for the Jewish people. However, we must understand that the reason for antisemitism is that the people of Israel themselves do not do what they must do in the overall system of humanity. If the people of Israel connect among themselves, they will immediately placate the forces that erupt against them.
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*From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 2/24/22*
The war between Russia and Ukraine leaves me bewildered, uneasy, and mainly worried, very worried. I have many students in both countries, and I care deeply for all of them.
These two nations that have lived side by side for so long, have so much in common. They have been through a lot, but I didn’t think that they would end up in an all-out war. As unfeasible as it may seem today, the only solution is still to rise above our egos and unite, since in the end, it is only the ego that sets the tone in this conflict.
Unless we, all the people, not only those in the embroiled countries, rise above our egos, the war will spread to other countries and will have horrendous consequences. As former deputy commander-in-chief of NATO Richard Sherriff said, the situation “could turn into a catastrophic war… on a scale not seen in Europe since 1945.”
Precisely because two nations that have so much in common—religion, intermarriages, and more—are emphasizing what divides them, I see the situation as ominous to the entire world. They are building a wall between them in their hearts, which will be very difficult to break down later.
But for all the hatred that is now erupting, in the end, we will have no choice but to rise above it and unite. Despite the agony and exploding rage, the war will hasten our realization that our only chance for happiness is not through destruction of others.
Negativity has never produced positive results. This is why eventually, all the parties will succumb to exhaustion and despair, and agree to try the path of mutual consideration, and even mutual concern. I hope and pray that it will come soon and with as few casualties as possible.
When my teacher, RABASH, passed away, he left behind many notes where he wrote down his thoughts. After some years, I published them under the title Assorted Notes. Below is one that seems particularly pertinent today, and which I titled “Love of Others”: I look at one tiny dot, called “love of others,” and I think about it: What can I do to help people? As I look at the public, I see people’s suffering, illnesses, pains, and the suffering of individuals inflicted by the collective, meaning wars among nations. And besides prayer, there is nothing to give.
Preparation to the Lesson
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*Writings of Rabash* “Love of Others”**
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Lesson on the Topic “Everything Is Obtained by the Power of Prayer”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: How can we create an artificial relationship template that will force us to demand to actually feel the friends?
Answer: You should talk and communicate with each other more. You can even write down what you are talking about. And you will gradually develop a common language. You will begin to understand each other more and thus get closer to each other spiritually and internally. Everything will come from this. You will begin to feel the Creator. So you need to work on it.
Question: Is it possible to outline a certain format that we would like to implement?
Answer: You can agree on mutual guarantee between each other, then fulfill it, and each time correct this agreement, make it ever-growing. Please, do it!
You are mature people and you must understand what state you are in, what you should come to and build your rapprochement to the correct state step by step.
This is serious work for both men and women. And the Creator helps us by alienating us, dividing us, and thereby promoting unity. Both in this and in that direction, a little bit of plus and then slightly increased minus, then more plus than minus, and after that more minus than plus. And so we go, gradually increasing the amplitude.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Asking the Creator to Fill the Place Between Us” Lesson 7
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Question: If a friend does not bring the spirit of joy to the group, does it mean that he is not working?
Answer: That is correct. He is not concerned about the group or thinking about his friends. The right attitude toward friends is first of all to encourage them.
Question: If a friend admits that he does not envy anyone in the ten right now, how can he advance? How can the group help him?
Answer: We need to work on him. There is nothing you can do here. Give him an example, talk to him, maybe do something else.
You need to increase your connection. The more you work with each other, the more it will affect him, and you are yet to see what will become of him.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4
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Question: How can we reach the feeling that the Creator fills the whole world and act this way toward our friends?
Answer: If we connect with each other in the ten, then we will feel that the Creator fills the whole world.
We need to create our personal Kli (group vessel) and achieve such a connection between us that we begin to feel the revelation of the Creator. This is the most important thing. Everything else is only transient.
It is very important to unite in such a way that the Creator, the quality of love and bestowal, begins to manifest between us. And it will be revealed above our egoism. This is called faith above reason.
Question: Every path involves calculating the start and end point and identifying the shortest distance. What is the meaning of faith above reason in this trajectory?
Answer: If you go by faith above reason, then you take the shortest path from Malchut to Bina. And all this is done only by annulling and submitting yourself primarily to the group. To the extent of your submission to the group, you call upon yourself the illumination of the upper light, which moves you forward.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Going with Faith above Reason” Lesson 5
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Question: What are the spiritual needs for which a mutual guarantee (Arvut) is needed?
Answer: We must build a spiritual Kli in which we can feel the upper world and the Creator. To do this, we need to be in connection with each other.
Correct connection is called mutual guarantee. The ascent of each individual above his egoism is called “faith above reason.”
Maybe you need to listen to the same lesson several times, try to collect what is said in its different points, and then you will have an inner understanding, knowledge, and feeling.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/9/22, “Working in Mutual Responsibility” Lesson 6
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Question: What can we fill our neighbor with? What can we bestow?
Answer: There is only one thing we can do for our neighbor. He is striving to rise to spirituality and this is what we wish for him and want to help him in this.
I don’t need to take him to a restaurant! I need to help him in his spiritual ascent because that is all he wants. And that is all I want. That is why we are together.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/6/22, “Approaching the Creator Through the Network of Connections Between Us” Lesson 1
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Why We Do Need So Many People in the World”
At the start of the 20th century, the world population was roughly two billion people. Today, it is roughly eight billion. Of those eight billion, most are poor, and over a billion people are hungry to the point of starvation. Providing for so many people at a decent level seems too formidable a task for Earth. Moreover, each day, more bots, robots, and automatic machines are replacing human jobs. Humanity is producing enough to provide for everyone, so the question is why we need so many people. Would Earth, and humanity, not be better off if we were only four billion, for example?
The truth is that we wouldn’t be better off; we would be much worse off. There is a good reason for the exponential growth in humanity’s population over the past century or so.
When we look at people, we see faces and bodies, human beings, and nothing more. But the truth is much more complicated and intricate than that. Try to imagine any animal without relating it to its environment, and you will realize that it is a lost cause. The shape, color, behavior, size, longevity, and every other aspect of its existence derives from the environment where it exists. Animals are not isolated from their environment; they rely on it, follow its laws, and at the same time make up the environment that sustains them and of which they are a part.
Humans, too, make up a system. We think of ourselves as isolated individuals, but we are actually parts of a global human society. We influence it, it influences us, and almost everything that is true for the animal kingdom is true for us.
There are only two differences between animals and people, though they are fundamental differences. The first is that people are inherently mean and selfish, while animals are not. The second is that our desires grow and intensify, while those of animals remain largely the same. While we want more money and power the more we have of them, animals settle for what they have once they have had their fill.
Worse yet, from generation to generation, we are becoming more greedy, domineering, and narcissistic. Conversely, animals’ “aspirations” do not change from generation to generation: Give them enough grass, or enough game, and they are happy campers.
The reason why our desires grow while those of animals remain the same is that an increased desire makes us accelerate our development. Eventually, humans are not intended to perceive only the physical existence, but to penetrate through it and perceive the connectedness and interdependence among all of us not only intellectually, as I am explaining it here, but in the senses, just as we perceive the physical world, if not more so.
Our constant desire to search, explore, discover, and learn stems from our aspiration to know the deepest levels of reality. That knowledge is the sole prerogative of humans since only people develop such profound desires.
As our desires grow, we must learn to direct them toward discovering the purpose and structure of life. New desires first appear on the crassest level, and we must cultivate them, raise them to the level where they enhance our perception of reality.
Because these desires are so intense, we need more people to “share the load.” As just said, although we feel isolated, we are in fact one system. Everything we think is ours is actually part of the system of humanity and all of humanity shares it. Therefore, our desires are also not personal, even though they feel as such.
Every time we elevate one desire from the corporeal level to the higher levels of perception, we influence all of humanity. And every time a person dies, the burden of elevating our common desire grows heavier on all of us.
This is why the life of every person is precious. It determines the pace of advancement of all of humanity. If we realized how deeply we are connected, and what harm we cause by mistreating other people, if we felt it as it really is—that we are torturing ourselves—we would not dare mistreat each other or leave one person uncared for.
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My new article on Linkedin “Play Your Way Ahead”
Why do little children play even when they are sick? How come grownups hardly ever play? Playing is no laughing matter; it is the single most important tool in our development and growth. Lion cubs play hunting games. Fawns hop, run, and chase each other in what looks like their version of “tag.” Each species plays the games that develop its survival skills. It may seem like carefree fun to us, but playing is essential for the survival of the young, and the survival of their species.
Children, too, play, and for the exact same reason. For children, learning survival skills means imitating the grownups around them. This is why children play at being parents, doctors and patients, and other meaningful persons in their lives. By mimicking their behavior, they learn the skills they will need later in life.
Today, the meaningful persons in our lives are very different from the ones that children knew before the advent of the internet. Today, those meaningful others can be, and most often are, people we do not know, who live very far away, and whom we will never meet. But because these people have made a name for themselves and became media idols, children imitate them the way they would previously imitate the most influential figures in their lives.
On the one hand, this openness to the world exposes children to values and ideas they would never have encountered otherwise. On the other hand, it makes them susceptible to negative influences that parents cannot monitor because social media enables anyone to consume any content, and parents cannot control what their children see on their mobile phones.
As it is with children, so it is with grownups. Grownups’ games, even if seemingly harmless, such as computer sports games, do not develop them. They serve a different purpose: to pass the time and numb the mind. It is the opposite of development.
To ensure the proper development of children, and the continuous development of teenagers and adults, we should mind the games we play. As children, we need to learn more technical games in order to hone technical skills. For adolescents and grownups, the games should revolve around human communication, in order to polish our communication skills.
Only when we learn to communicate and collaborate with different mindsets and different viewpoints can we thrive in a diverse society such as the human society. A society where people do not play is a stagnant society and its days are numbered. A vital society is one where people change and develop, and this can happen only if they play games that challenge them to develop and grow.
Challenging ourselves to connect with people from other cultures and perspectives, and bonding with them above the differences enriches us and enriches our partners in the game. If we want to develop in life, learn, grow, yet stay as vital and as vibrant as children our entire lives, we must never stop playing.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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*Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to Study of the Ten Sefirot*,” Item 10**
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Selected Highlights
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Question: A woman feels that she gives a lot at home and to the family. All that giving makes her feel that she gives and gives, but has nothing, that she has no air to breathe and that she does not receive anything. How can this be explained?
Answer: There must be mutuality. The family members need to learn what they are doing in order to receive from her so that she feels that they receive from her and thus fill her as she fills them. This is something that we need to learn since we lack the common feeling.
This is what usually happens in relations between a husband and wife; each one thinks that he or she gives to the other, but does not receive anything, or does not understand what he or she receives.
Question: Is there perhaps an exercise that each of us can do in order to advance?
Answer: We need to learn every day, constantly, since it is about a person’s attitude to life. During our life, from the moment we were born, we receive tips only as to how to develop our ego, that is, a one-way system. What we need is to constantly see the mutuality in our relations, how we connect between us. And actually, in the middle, between us, we need to reach such relations in which we do not need anything from each other.
We need to develop give and take relations so that, besides the ability to give to you, I receive from you only in order to show you how I feel, since I need you.
Question: What do we actually give to each other?
Answer: Only a desire; each one gives others a desire, and thus we develop good and right connections between us. In fact, none of us needs anything except the right attitude.
Suppose everyone has everything, but one needs someone to give to, someone to care about, and from whom to receive mental fulfillment. I need to look at the other and try to give him the feeling of participation on my part in order to fill their desire. My participation is not in a material sense, this is not important, but rather, it is mental fulfillment. By doing that, we will feel that there is not only a connection between us, but also a relationship in which we cannot live without each other.
Today we already feel mutual dependence between us, and we are going to reach a state in our evolution in which each one really feels that he needs all the people in the world in order to give to them, to open their hearts, and to give them his care. And what will the person himself be filled by? By the fact that others are ready to receive from him and vice versa. Then we will reach the state in which we will all truly provide each other with unlimited fulfillment.
From Kab TV’s “New Life” 10/31/21
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the lessons learned from Squid Game?“
The screenwriter and director of Squid Game have been noted as saying that “such is our world” in relation to the setup where people become willing to kill other people if placed under conditions where it is either their life or another’s life.
I would take it a step further: that our world is worse than what is presented in Squid Game. In our world, we wish to kill others without playing a game in order to do so, knowing in advance that we will kill them, and not as it is in Squid Game, where players agree to play a game according to certain rules.
If we were to remove the filters that cloud human relations, we would see that we are killing each other. Imagine, for instance, the horrible phenomena we would see if everyone’s thoughts became revealed. Thankfully, however, we have been given a gift of being able to each keep our thoughts to ourselves, so that we would be spared from such a terrible vision.
The main lesson that Squid Game might open up is a view of how human nature works: that we each prioritize self-benefit over anything else, up to a point of killing other people if we are placed in a situation where it is either us or them. However, such a lesson is only a small part of what we truly need lessons in today: the need to transform our nature so that we prioritize positive connection to each other and to nature. The more we develop without undergoing such a fateful transformation, the more we will suffer; and the sooner we take steps to transform our nature in order to positively connect with each other above our self-centeredness, then the sooner we will experience a new harmonious and peaceful world.
Therefore, the main takeaway from Squid Game, which shows the evilness of our egoistic nature, should be paralleled with a serious endeavor that aims at clarifying what human nature is, how it works, why we create such shows, and whether they correctly portray our condition. We will be able to understand that we watch Squid Game and similar forms of art and entertainment because they portray the egoistic qualities that make up our current nature.
However, such viewing should be accompanied with an explanation of the need to change this nature if we are to shift our lives to a positive course, a world of happiness, balance and peace. Then, instead of identifying with our egos, we would start seeing our egoistic attitudes to each other as masks that hide a much better life from us, and we will then start feeling a desire to exit our egoistic state, and develop a completely different attitude to each other, to nature and to life in general.
Based on the video “How Squid Game Portrays Human Nature” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur.
My new article on Linkedin “We Can Still Lift Up the World”
There have always been clashes in humanity. There have been clashes between countries, between North and South, or between regimes and ideologies. But the clash today is deeper. It is a clash of nations that are unwilling to accept one another as they are, and want to oppress one another. Yet it is not too late to lift up the world from its decline, and we, the people who understand the value of diversity, are the only ones who can do this.
To build a peaceful world society, we need people to appreciate diversity. Only people who seek connection above differences can build a society that grows stronger the more it becomes diverse.
Everything that has survived the test of evolution comprises opposites that complement each other. From the atomic level to the most complex structures in the universe, everything consists of opposites that collaborate to create a strong structure where one element compensates for what the opposite element does not have. Therefore, if you destroy your opponent, you also destroy yourself.
As long as we maintain the attitude of “Only I am right,” the world will continue to deteriorate. It makes no difference who is right. An approach that does not include all parties, claims the sole right to the truth, denies its opposite, its counterpart, thereby voids its own existence.
Think of “day” without “night,” “love” without “hate,” “spring” without “fall,” or “kindness” without “cruelty.” None of the “positive” terms would exist if their “negative” opposite did not exist. Likewise, our entire world would not exist were it not for the balance between opposites that complement each other and compensate for each other’s “shortcomings.”
As precarious as the current situation is around the world, it is also an opportunity. Now we can circulate the idea that only by accepting, and even embracing our opponents, can we ourselves thrive. The growing political tensions make us attentive for any sign of reason, and the sound of reason today must declare that war to the end means the end of everyone.
I hope and pray that in this war, reason will win.
Comment: The story of the founding of the ancient Olympic games includes the creation of the Ekecheiria, the Olympic Truce, which allowed the Games to be held without attack and its participants to travel unharmed through warring territories. The Greeks saw the the Olympics had potential for promoting peace among their often warring city-states.
“This potential was especially important to Pierre, baron de Coubertin, and his predecessors in the modern Olympic revival who believed strongly that the Games were capable of advancing international understanding and the cause of world peace. The Olympics have played that role with marked success, especially among athletes and spectators, if not governments. Emphasis on a kind of Olympic peace has become a major feature of modern Olympic ideology. In the year 2000 Olympic officials established the International Olympic Truce Foundation to encourage the study of world peace and the creation of progress in its pursuit. The foundation is headquartered in Athens and has endeavoured to institute a new kind of official Olympic truce that would, unlike the ancient version, persuade countries not to wage war during the Olympic Games” (Britannica).
This means that at the time when the Olympic Games are held, no one is at war with anyone.
And for the first time in the 125-year history of the existence of the International Olympic Committee, 20 countries refused to sign the UN resolution for observing the Olympic Truce during the Games.
My Response: This only shows what humanity is slipping into, that this is a terrible state of people and countries and how they treat each other, with such meanness, with such treachery.
This speaks of our time, of the huge egoism that has developed in humanity that we cannot curb in any way. We need only the special upper force for this.
Question: So you think it is going to get worse and worse? Will 30, 40, or more countries join?
Answer: Absolutely! Of course! This is all pure bluff.
Question: What does it take for a coup to happen suddenly at some point?
Answer: It will not happen. This will lead us to the fact that either we will bow our heads, accept the upper governance, and agree to be governed by an absolutely benevolent upper force, or we will not need the Olympic Games at all.
No one will escape. We will plunge into such wars… they say there have already been such periods on Earth.
But today is a special period because we have the opportunity to overcome this insane leap of egoism and rise above it.
Question: Is that why these crises occur?
Answer: Yes, of course, to show us in advance what can happen and to still push us to overcome these egoistic crises.
Question: Does it surprise you that, on one hand, athletes are sent to compete together, hug, shake hands, and on the other hand, these same countries refused to sign a peace agreement and say that it means nothing? They sent athletes, ok, they did that for peaceful sports, games, and we will wage war. Doesn’t this coup seem strange to you?
Answer: This is the duplicity of our world. Man is like that internally.
And according to the time, he is once like this, another time like that. I hope, again, that today’s state will lead to awareness and to the understanding of the cruelty and irrationality of our egoism.
Question: What will become of these Olympic Games if this turn you are talking about happens?
Answer: Then the games will turn into a festival, a celebration. And the celebration will consist not in someone defeating someone, but in friendship truly winning.
Truly! So that everyone in their sport demonstrates their desire to show friendship, connection, love, mutual understanding, and closeness to others through their sport.
Question: Without any duplicity?
Answer: Certainly! But I do not know how to do it. Let them search. We will give awards for this.
Question: Specifically for this? Not for those first places that were snatched in the fight?
Answer: Of course. Not for playing dirty tricks or using all kinds of drugs and means!
Comment: That is how it is today.
My Response: Yes, these are today’s games, and in this case, it is better to shut them down.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/31/22
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Question: How do you manage to annul yourself in front of your students like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma?
Answer: What can I do? You see how you are forcing me to adapt myself to you. Unless it is in serious contradiction with the teachings of Kabbalah, with advancing, I annul myself before you. If you want to study something else—please. I may gradually correct this, but in general, I follow your requests and desires.
So it is written: “Train a child according to his way;” that is, as he wishes. You educate him, but in a way he can perceive. We must find an adequate approach to everyone so that they can get hold of the material. Do not present it by force but in a wrapping he can accept and swallow.
Even such a great Kabbalist as Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma could not do anything alone and was completely dependent on his students. They were small, but there were many of them, and they wanted to come together for the upper goal. And he was ready to always be with them because only together can people reach heaven. This is what we hope for.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “Who Is a Jew?”
“Jew” is not a bad word. There is no need to be apologetic for using it, was the claim of the German Jewish community after the leading dictionary of German language Duden added an explanation to their standard definition stating that the term “Jew” (Jude) might often be perceived as derogatory. This clarification was later removed because German Jews decided that it would only “solidify the term as discriminatory.” However, such controversies over terminology will never erase Jew-hatred, but only highlight it.
In order to skirt the issue and avoid possible negative connotations, many Jewish communities around the world define themselves as “Hebrews” or “Israelites.” Similarly, the British football club Tottenham recently urged fans to stop calling themselves the “Yid Army” (from Yiddish, referring to their particular large number of Jewish followers), as they don’t want to identify with terms that could be considered offensive. But tiptoeing around words will never ease antisemitic views because hatred against Jews is not a problem of semantics, it is a human problem.
Antisemitism stems from the depths of the network of connections between all human beings in the world. These connections are invisible spiritual connections, but they are deeply felt in the subconscious of the human race. At the level of this network, Jews have a central role to play in humanity: to act as the connecting factor between the other peoples who feel natural separation from each other.
If the Jews do not fulfill this role by first becoming united between them in one heart so that the connecting force between them binds all of reality as organs in one body, then they arouse negative forces against them, inviting a hostile antisemitic response.
Therefore, instead of dealing with superficial explanations of whether or not the word “Jew” is derogatory, Jews should put into practice and enact the deeper meaning of the term which has prevailed throughout generations: “Jew” (from the Hebrew word Yehudi)–Yechudi means unique and unified.
The Jewish people are not a people like other nations, founded on the common denominators of residential area, family relations, origin or color. The followers of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation, were instead a conglomeration of different people whose one common denominator was a shared ideological basis. This special group would later be called “Israel,” which is derived from the phrase Yashar-El (Straight to God), i.e. a desire directed straight to the power that manages reality.
Based on this principle, according to the sages a Jew is every person in the world, regardless of race, gender, language or nationality, who longs to be united with everyone above all differences. A Jew is one who strives to unite the whole of humanity and the whole of reality with the primary force of nature, the Upper Force.
Therefore, only a Jewish community that learns to unite, to transcend all the differences that grow and separate its members, will feel how prejudices and negative attitudes toward it are reversed for the better. Then, even without words and definitions, a new meaning of being Jews will be felt in the hearts of those who oppose them, and animosity will be transformed in appreciation.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How important to development is a father figure?“
In the words of Sigmund Freud, “I could not point to any need in childhood as strong as that for a father’s protection.”
The importance of the father figure is embedded in nature and our biology. A child who grows up with a distorted fatherly presence, whether the child experiences abuse or neglect from the father, leads to certain distortions that become part of them for the rest of their lives. On the contrary, a child who grows up with a positive father figure accordingly absorbs a positive influence. In our times, since the human ego has reached overblown proportions, in order to be a positive father figure to a child, men need to undergo an educational process that gives them the ability to rise above their egoistic drives and consistently exercise an altruistic attitude to other people, including their family.
If speaking in broader terms, then we can also say that humanity’s lack of feeling for its “Father,” i.e., the Creator, the upper force, is the cause of every problem that we experience in our lives. If we felt the caring attitude of our “Father”—the Creator, the upper force—which begets and cares for us at every moment, then we would bear witness to a completely different, positive, harmonious and peaceful world. However, it is impossible to feel such a presence with our inborn properties, because we would then possess no free will. We would feel the full love of the Creator, but we would also be subordinated by it. We thus have no such feeling, and it is in order to be able to act freely, i.e. to develop a similar attitude among each other in society as that of the upper force toward us. Until we do so, we will keep finding ourselves in a world that is full of increasing problems and crises.
Based on the video “The Importance of a Father Figure” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.