Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 26

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

What Is a Prayer?

There is no happier state in a man’s world than when he finds himself despaired with his own powers, meaning that he has already toiled and did everything he could possibly do, but there is no cure. This is so because at that time, he is worthy of a whole prayer for His help, for he knows for certain that his own work will not yield him the benefit. As long as he feels that he has some power of his own for the work, his prayer is not whole since the evil inclination rushes in and tells him that first, he must do all that he can, and then he will be desirable to the Creator.

It is said about that, “The Lord is high and the low will see.” After one has exerted in all sorts of labors and has become disillusioned, he arrives at a point of true lowliness. He knows that he is the lowest of all people because there is nothing in his entire body that is good. At that time, his prayer is whole and he is answered by His generous hand. The writi

ng says about that, “And the people of Israel sighed because of the labor…and their cry rose.
– Baal HaSulam, Letter no. 57
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Activating The Chain Of Corrections

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why can’t I ask for correction on behalf of all? And if I do, how do I make sure that my plea is for all and that I am not deceiving myself?

Answer: A person pleads from an aching heart. But this is why we are given a mind, the environment, and the Surrounding Light so that we don’t act solely from our egoistic desire.

What I feel within my desire is regarded as a prayer. If I am simply chanting some words while my heart feels something totally different, it won’t help. You may fool somebody else this way, but it doesn’t work with the Creator.

This is why I have such instruments as the teacher, the group, and Kabbalistic texts. All together, it is regarded as the “environment.” I turn to this environment artificially and wish to receive support and additional strength from it. The environment starts influencing me in response, which is called the “environment’s support.”

But if through the teacher I turn to the group, and through the group to the text, then in the end of this chain I come to the Creator who is revealed within this environment. And as a result, I draw His assistance while the environment becomes a means for me. In that case, I receive not just support, but correction.

Everything depends on how I turn to the environment and how I arrange it relative to me: whether I turn to its most internal part or only the external one. The other key is whether I use it egoistically or not. But in the end, everything is measured by what kind of prayer I produce as a result.

If later this plea returns to the environment yet again, and I wish to reveal the Creator there, it means that my first chain of actions was correct. If, as a result of studying, working, and everything I do, I eventually begin to associate my future with the group, with the correct transformed system of ties between us, and look for the Creator as well as for all my future fulfillment there, then I had been doing the job right!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Who Is The Last In Line For The Light?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today I am unable to ask even for my own correction, so how can I ask for the entire world?

Answer: To ask for oneself or for the world is the same thing. Suppose you don’t have enough air. But we all have to breathe, so if others don’t have it, I won’t have it either, and if there is air, it will be for all. It cannot be sliced.

It’s impossible to ask for an individual correction since correction is based precisely on our unification. One can’t ask the Light for oneself because the Light is a universal force of bestowal that dwells between us. If I am an element of an electrical network, how can I ask for the current to pass only through me? It cannot reach me if it doesn’t pass through the entire network.

This should help us comprehend the nature of the global, integrated world which we are beginning to feel now. You can’t ask anything for yourself; it won’t help. If you keep trying to isolate yourself, you will only draw greater blows upon yourself.

Your plea for yourself, your protectionism, “separatism” will help you only in realizing your evil. You will be forced to admit that you are asking incorrectly! And how can this knowledge be passed onto you except by blows? The more you pray about your own well-being, the more you will be beaten until you learn that you can’t ask only for yourself.

You will see that not only does it not help, but it also brings an opposite result. At some point you will realize that fulfillment can be only collective. And if everybody doesn’t receive it, then you won’t get it either for you are the last one in line for it!

Understand what the Creator wants to teach you. And the sooner you will grasp it, the better. After all, if He has to use a number of blows to show you your place in the very end of this chain, how long are you willing to suffer? You’d better learn it fast so you can start living accordingly.

Granted, right now it seems absolutely unreal and undesirable to you. But on the other hand, there is no choice: You will have to come to the same conclusion anyway. So try whatever you may to fool your egoism and run ahead of the blows by asking for the correction of all at least artificially.

During the lesson, let’s ask the Light to come and give us this experience, understanding, direction,and a minimal aspiration for this goal. Let’s do it for pragmatic reasons at least, in order to avoid the blows. After all, everyone receives fulfillment last.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Enjoy Every Moment Of Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf life passes, and there are good and bad states in it, then the entire wisdom lies in our ability to enjoy the unpleasant states as well. This is what we call life wisdom: How to treat what is bad so that to see in it either our attitude to, preparation for, or part of a good state.

In fact, it is truly so, similar to feeling hungry before being satiated or tired before getting much desired rest. It cannot be otherwise. There has to be “darkness” before the “dawn,” as it is written: “And there was evening and there was morning.”

For example, I enjoy the thought that soon I am going on vacation. Then part of this vacation I am experiencing already, right now, although realistically it hasn’t started for me yet.

Then I start thinking: “Do I really need to be on vacation? Or, can I start enjoying it right here and now even more than when it starts?” And indeed, when we actually go on vacation, we don’t enjoy it as much because we enjoy the anticipation of and preparation for it.

That’s what the wisdom of life is. When we use it, we always live in beautiful illusions and enjoy each moment. And this is an authentic approach since we never get fulfilled within the desire. Everything lies solely above it.
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From the Talk with Rachel Laitman, before shooting a TV show 1/19/2011

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One Love For All

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If all that is needed from the creatures is preparation, what principle does it bring into our work?

Answer: All work is done by the Creator; everything comes from Above, and nothing is up to the Kelim (vessels, desires) except for the cooperative preparation of their attitude to the Giver, to the Creator. Everyone exists together with other souls, with all other created beings and the Creator, the Source. This is the only way we should prepare ourselves.

The principle is very simple. We have to discuss it over and over again, think about it, play with it so that we process it better and better in our desires and thoughts. The vital moment here is to use the environment: We strive to establish interconnection, unite as equals with each other. And as soon as we reveal even a drop of this connection, we will immediately be able to establish a connection with the Creator, the Giver. This is what our first spiritual step will be.

Afterwards, having bonded even tighter, we will enter the second rung of connection with the Creator. And so forth at each new step: In the degree of our bond with each other we construct the Kli, the vessel, fit to receive the Creator’s abundance. In our interconnection, we build the intention to bestow to Him.

So it follows that the key is in the environment, the group, the adhesion with mutual intention, according to the principle of, “Israel, the Torah and the Creator are one.” “Israel” is individual souls, desires, that despite their egoism strive to bond with each other and to become equal, unified, as one man with one heart, in mutual guarantee, in love of others as they love themselves. Thereby, we present the Giver with an opportunity to bestow to us; we bring Him our intention: to receive in order to bestow pleasure to Him.

We are as first blood brothers who unify before their mother. She cannot bestow to each of us separately, only to all of us together. Her love is one for all.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Receiving To Bestow

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere always has to be one goal before us: to come to equivalence, adhesion with the Creator. Adhesion is the complete correspondence of properties, when the force of bestowal rules within us.

Our matter, the desire for pleasure, doesn’t change while the method to employ it does: The desire for pleasures must be used to bestow. And to achieve this, we need to feel the desires of others. Only then do we discover that while receiving, we are able to bestow.

A spiritual action seems very odd and not like material acts. Only if we reveal a deep, powerful, mutual connection between us, uncovering the adhesion, camaraderie, guarantee, love, and reciprocity among us, can we interact like cogwheels in a unified system: Receiving what the other wants to give me, I thereby bestow to him.

It turns out the created beings only receive, but first they must disclose that they reside in mutual bestowal and express it exactly in this manner. How do we achieve this?

The Creator, the integral force of bestowal, is present among and within all. Therefore, if everyone nullifies himself and we, together, start desiring to bestow to Him, then by receiving from each other, we will indeed be able to bestow. In this case, nobody receives from the others, but rather all receive from the Creator. Yet there is a condition to it: While we receive from Him, we have to be one.

It can be likened to a mother who has many children and wishes to give love to all of them. When they are willing to maintain mutual guarantee and unity in order to love her back, when they are ready to receive her love only together because they are bonded with one another, then they delight her, and she is happy to bestow love to them, while they are happy to receive her gifts. Such receiving is considered to be absolute bestowal.

Obviously, the created beings cannot do much except prepare themselves, and they are not expected to do more. They only need to prepare the format in which they will receive the Creator’s abundance. They don’t practice bestowal as such, but they do bestow in intention. Having arranged receiving in such manner, they delight the Giver.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Becoming Conscious

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the role of the environment in our work against our nature?

Answer: The environment strengthens a person and provides him with a place to express himself, to do the necessary actions. It’s a place where he receives support and solidarity, the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), and the impressions along the way. The environment is everything.

Nobody receives anything directly from the Creator. We are interconnected within a single system where everyone has his place, like cells in a body, and everyone receives nourishment from this common body. And the life flowing through it is the common force of bestowal, the Creator.

Take our organism for example. It contains three levels of development: the still, vegetative, and animate. And at the same time, with a proper operation which surpasses their own existence they beget a new life: desires, thoughts, passions, feelings, attainment, and understanding. The body lives, and this allows an awareness of life to manifest over it.

Technically, the organism also continues working when I lose consciousness. But I no longer continue being a person in the full sense of that word; I become disconnected from human life.

So, right now our common body operates one way or another; it is complete, but the reciprocity of its parts is only realized on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. This is our world. But the human level, the degree of similarity to the Creator is missing; it is not revealed. And we need to develop it.

We only discover it when we ourselves activate our body with the purpose of establishing a connection with bestowal, the Light, the consciousness that we refer to as the “Creator.” We need to activate all our cells as is, but we also must add the intention to them: the purpose of life.

When we add an intention over the life we now live, we enter the human degree. Then due to this preparation, the Creator becomes revealed to this desire, to this intention that has been added. He becomes revealed in the desire of the human (Adam) within us.

The human manifests in us only under the condition that we unite among us as we understand and realize that the reason we are doing it is the Creator. We want to reveal Him, and He wants to endow us with bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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