Kabbalah Moments: Preparation For The Congress

Dance Is The Most Serious Inner Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are actions during our meetings when we have to give up all our criticism and simply merge with everyone. How can I do that? I can do it precisely by jumping and singing together with everyone like a child, nullifying myself.

This attitude connects me to the general state, giving me the ability to come out of my limitations and feel a spiritual "wind"! It might seem as though this kind of behavior is reckless, but it only seems that way to us because we don’t recognize the spirituality in it, and that’s because it is the Light of Infinity! We are unable to discern anything in it with our instruments of perception. That’s why it seems to us that it is lifeless or still (Nefesh). However, whether or not we will be able to see the whole spiritual Light of NaRaNHY in it depends entirely on our Kli .

Everything that comes from unity, even the smallest kind, is perfection. Therefore, it is precisely in this manner, through mutual dance when you are jumping together with others, that we have the opportunity to perceive a spiritual sensation.

These dances came to us from the great Kabbalists, especially Baal Shem Tov. Rabash also made us, his students, dance this way. It’s not just recklessness; inside the dance there is serious thought and tremendous work. Suddenly you don’t want it and thoughts "for" and "against" alternate within you with great frequency, evoking horrible doubts. Meanwhile, you continue to jump….

It also isn’t meditation because you don’t disconnect from reality. You are always standing before the question: What am I doing and why? What does this give me, who is making me do this, and who am I jumping together with, what connects us? You go through the entire inner work from beginning to end while you are dancing.

The dance forces you to go through all the different thoughts that exist against it! They are against unity, which you don’t want. Your mind always rises up in battle against this and you are forced to make discernments.

That is why the dance turns into arduous inner work. You come out of it simply drained, devoid of energy. And it’s not because you jumped, but because you went through so many discernments inside. You are dancing inside yourself, in your inner ascents and descents. And the fact that you are externally jumping at the same time is only there in order to awaken these inner states in you.

You are jumping externally, rising and falling, while inside of you there is a profusion of other ascents and descents taking place simultaneously – and that’s the most important thing! Without the external actions you will not be able to make the inner ones. One won’t happen without the other. That’s why the dance turns into a unique means of working. This is why Baal Shem Tov and the first Hassidim, who were Kabbalists, taught these traditions.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/2010, A Lesson About the Role of the Nation

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The Whole Universe Is Between Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the lesson I tell myself that I want to feel what The Zohar speaks about, but I see that I don’t have the true desire for this. How can I attain this desire?

Answer: It’s a problem of our common thoughts. Maybe we aren’t fully aware that The Zohar speaks about our advanced states and the most important thing while reading this Book is our desire to attain those states.

What are our advanced states? It’s when we all unite together and inside the connection between us we reveal spirituality, the common quality of bestowal, the Creator. This is exactly the aspiration you should feel while reading The Book of Zohar. Otherwise all of the reading is a waste and it won’t help us in any way. It will even result in us receiving a sensation of darkness, a negative awakening. There is no choice about the matter: In any case we have to move forward, and in this case we will advance against our will.

Therefore, everything depends on how correctly we will be able to imagine the advanced state while reading The Book of Zohar, meaning how much we will see that it is a connection between us inside of which we reveal bestowal, love, mutual guarantee, and the unification that reigns in all of reality and all the worlds.

Everything becomes revealed only in the connection between us: all of reality, all the worlds until Infinity. We draw the Light of Correction to the degree we desire to reveal this state while reading The Book of Zohar.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/10, The Zohar

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We Hope To See All Of You In November!

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn November 2010 we will be holding an International Kabbalah Convention in Tel Aviv, Israel where all those studying Kabbalah with us in Israel and the whole world will come together. It will be three days of unity!

The main reason why we organize such conventions is that the Kabbalists instruct us to hold meetings and conventions in order to unite. Rabash and Baal HaSulam write about this, but it follows even from the compositions of the Ari and Ramchal, as well as the writings of Rabbi Shimon and Abraham.

Correction takes place only by virtue of a connection among the souls, and connection starts with communication. Yet, there is one idea present in the communication: to attain the kind of unity that is called “the Creator,” bestowal, or the spiritual world.

Within this kind of unity we reveal the worlds (Olamot). They go from being concealments (Alamot) to revelation and therefore the Creator becomes revealed more and more instead of hiding behind the worlds or concealments. In other words, in the connection between us we reveal bestowal and love more and more, and that is called the revelation of the Creator. When this quality becomes revealed between us, we begin to feel that we live and exist inside it, and thus we ascend above the sensation of this world.

The revelation of the Creator can be attained on the condition that we carry out actions within the framework of this world. We start here and then continue the actions in the spiritual realm which becomes revealed in the connection between us. That is why it is necessary for us to meet and unite in this way using all the opportunities that this world has for us, physical or virtual, in order to build closer connections.

We would like to announce this event to everyone and to connect as many people as possible to it without any limitations. Any person from any corner of the world can attend and participate if he feels attracted to this idea. The task of those studying with Bnei Baruch is to prepare this convention, but the convention itself is intended for anyone wishing to attend!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/10, A Lesson About the Role of the Nation

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Kabbalah For Beginners “Rav Kook” – 08.12.10

Kabbalah TV Channel 66’s Kabbalah for Beginners, “Rav Kook”
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Kabbalists On The Essence Of The Wisdom Of Kabbalah, Part 21

Laitman_523Dear Friends, please ask questions about passages from the great Kabbalists. I promise to answer them. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Wisdom of Kabbalah and the System of Mussar (Ethics)

The goal of ethics is the well-being of society from the perspective of practical reason, derived from life’s experiences. But in the end, that goal does not promise its follower any elation above the boundaries of nature.

Hence, this goal is still subject to criticism, for who can prove to an individual the extent of his benefit in such a way that he will be compelled to even slightly diminish his own self in favor of the well-being of society?

The religious goal, however, promises the well-being of the individual who follows it, as we have already shown that when one comes to love others, he is in direct Dvekut, which is equivalence of form with the Maker, and along with it man passes from his narrow world, filled with pain and impediments, to an eternal world of bestowal upon the Lord and upon the people.
– Baal HaSulam “The Essence of Religion and its Purpose

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Today’s Families Need A Common Spiritual Foundation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why are there so many problems in family relations today, and so many people are getting divorced or cannot get married at all?

Answer: Egoism is growing all the time. It is no longer the way it was in previous generations where there was almost no difference between one generation and the next. People continued to live on the same land, in the same village, and the son inherited his father’s profession: If the father was a blacksmith, and the son became a blacksmith; if the father was a farmer, and the son became a farmer too. It was customary to live that way. People passed their clothes from one generation to the next, and so on.

Today a person is new at every given moment! In order to change one does not even need to be reborn. And since a person is new, he cannot stand what he had yesterday. Yesterday I got married to someone, and today when I look at her, I am bewildered. I think, “Is this really the woman I married?! Where is the woman I knew yesterday? Where are her qualities?” I don’t see those qualities today. I fail to realize that the change occurred in me. Meanwhile, I look at her and it seems to me that she has changed, and I am unable to live with her anymore.

No one is at fault here. If our evolving desire does not begin to be corrected, the family will be inevitably destroyed. What foundation should people use to come together? Once we stayed together at the “bodily-social” level: a common household, domestic life, children, chores, and the pressure of public opinion. Yet today no one cares about anything. People have risen above all these limitations; they don’t want anything.

Therefore, people are unable to be in and to create a family, and they don’t want to have children. Problems in the family are escalating and they are impossible to solve if the spouses are not united by the common study of spirituality.

No material activities will keep people together. Only this can save a family, as it is written, “A husband and a wife, and the Creator between them.” We have yet to discover to what extent we require the Upper Force, a higher idea, in order to connect at the level of “man.”

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/10/10, A Lesson On Current Events

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Asking For Forgiveness Before The New Year

Dr. Michael LaitmanBefore Rosh Hashanah (New Year) it’s customary to repent for one’s sins and ask for forgiveness.

From Rabash’s article “Request for Forgiveness”: If a person asks the Creator for His forgiveness, it means that he realizes the true reason for his sins. If he lacks complete faith, then he prays to the Creator to give him power to obtain faith in his heart.

Herein lies the difference between someone who has already obtained faith (property of bestowal) and thus is called “Israel” (aspiring towards the Creator) and someone who hasn’t obtained faith and thus is called “Gentile” (“stranger,” meaning the one with a different set of desires since the desire [Ratzon] comes from the word Aretz [land] and therefore, “Gentile” is the one who doesn’t aspire towards the Creator).

Those who attained permanent faith are able to tell the difference between two levels of spiritual development and bless the Creator for being able to ascend from the level called “Gentile” to the level “Israel”: “Thank you, my Lord, for not making me a Gentile.”

A “stranger” is a person who acts for his own sake; “Israel” or “Yehudi” is the one who wants to unite with the Creator in order to bestow to Him. Both parts are present in each person: the uncorrected part (where egoism rules) and the corrected one (where the property of bestowal governs).

This constitutes the difference between a “stranger” and “Israel” and is an indicator of all our sins. We have to always keep to the middle. This type of self-analysis signifies the beginning of a New Year (new change).

Everybody has to feel like a “Babylonian” who faces the choice of where to go: follow Abraham and become “Israel” (the one who seeks the Creator, the quality of bestowal) or follow the path of the rest of the world, the path of egoism.

Everything is measured only relative to the property of the Creator (bestowal), that is, the extent to which we want this property to control and direct us in everything we do, consciously or not. We have to imagine the Creator only as an internal force that governs a person, rather than as an external influence.

It is obvious that a person sins not by having egoistic desires since he was created this way. However, if he chooses to stay within his egoism, then it is called a sin. The first time it happens it’s not called a “sin” (as it is said about Adam HaRishon’s sin); it is only the first clarification of the action, its cause and consequence. But when I have already revealed my sin (ego) and agree with its governance over me, then it means that I’ve “sinned.” This is a test that shows what I really strive for.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/10, “Preparation for Repentance”

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A Guide To The Book Of Zohar: The Entrance To The Spiritual World

Dr. Michael LaitmanExcerpts from my future book, A Guide to The Book of Zohar

In our world we are born and grow next to adults who love us. We don’t understand what they demand of us, but we follow their example. We mimic all their actions and words without understanding their meaning; understanding comes afterward. This is arranged by nature: We learn from participation rather than with our minds.


This is the most natural means that allows us to learn about the world we exist in, and this is how we enter the spiritual world as well. The same system is prepared for us: We have a spiritual “father and mother” who present the text of
The Book of Zohar to us.

Even if we don’t understand what we have read, the reading itself along with the desire to understand and an aspiration to grow spiritually develops us like babies, and we gradually begin to perceive the text. All the names and titles that we don’t comprehend at first gradually become clearer. We start to understand the language of the spiritual world just as we learned our corporeal language from our mothers.

Therefore, it is necessary to know that “not the clever one learns” and attains the spiritual world, but only those who insistently refuse to leave The Book of Zohar and try to come back to it time and again in order to reveal and understand what it is trying to tell them.

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.12.10

Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “And You Shall Know the Day and Return to Your Heart”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shoftim (Judges), Item 11
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 22, Lesson 13
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“Kabbalah Today,” A Lesson About the Role of the Nation
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