Everyone’s Dancing

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today we will be holding a convention to celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. But when I imagine what will happen there, I don’t want to go. Does that mean I have to rise above reason?

Answer: People will dance there, but you don’t like to dance. There will be delicious food there, but you won’t like it. There will be many children there, and you are not too excited about that. It turns out that there really is no reason for you to go.

Or you can imagine the situation differently: What do I care about the food, the movements people make with their bodies, the songs, the screaming children, and all the people who are there? All of this is the external form of the desire that is being awakened by the Creator. He puts people together who wish to come closer to Him. Out of the entire Malchut of the world of Infinity, He has gathered a group of separate desires in order to unite them in the future. That is why He now gives them this necessity. They don’t even know why things turned out that way. Every person has his own reasons for coming and every person imagines why he is there differently. But I came there in order to join the Creator’s desire, which is hidden inside of them.

You can sit quietly in the corner and constantly try to keep an intention of being connected with their desire. I don’t look for their inner urges, but precisely for the desire that the Creator awakens in them. This is what I need. This need is my soul. After all, I have just the point in the heart and I have to attach these desires to myself, which will give me the volume of the spiritual vessel. Then I will be able to advance.

However, if I don’t make a connection with them, then where will I get the desire, where will I find my soul? Into what will I receive the revelation of the Creator? By myself I don’t and won’t have anything besides the initial point. So should I not go to the convention? Should I let the opportunity go by?

Question: Can’t I watch the broadcast on TV and join in people’s desire that way? Is it really necessary to be physically present?

Answer: This depends on what makes it easier for me to be permeated by their desire and its outburst, and on how many efforts I will make for it. Maybe if I watch it from home, I will receive 50 pounds of desire from them, but if I go there, then even while sitting in the corner, I will experience such great repulsion that I will barely acquire 2 pounds. However, if I prepare ahead of time, and if I start dancing together with them even though I absolutely hate doing anything like that, if I hold the intention inside—why am I doing this?—then it will be very beneficial.

We all work above the desire even though we don’t talk about this all the time. All spiritual work is done above the desire, so the mind will rule over the heart.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
I Suggest You “Join The Good”!
Dance Is The Most Serious Inner Work
A Time For Studying And A Time For Dancing

How Can We Justify The Creator?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah that “there is none else besides Him,” and that the Creator is kind and perfect. But if a person who has revealed that becomes a witness of a murder, how should he feel about that?

Answer: When we see evil in our world, we wonder: “How can it be that the Creator is good and perfect, the good that does good? Everything that the science of Kabbalah says refers to states at a level above the “Machsom” (the boundary between the corporeal and spiritual worlds). Goodness rules only at those degrees. By obtaining the property of bestowal, you begin to understand that the world is beautiful and the Creator is kind.

Below this boundary, one eats the other, both literally and metaphorically. Here, we should not expect good deeds; on the contrary, all of us around the world will feel worse and worse because it forces us to get rid of our ego.

If we were comfortable, the Creator treated us kindly, and life were good, we would remain little egoists, enjoying the small things. Only unhappiness pushes us towards development.

When you cross the border between the corporeal and spiritual worlds, you develop further by your own will. You no longer need problems because you yourself generate the force for your development.
[44833]
From Lesson 1, Convention in Madrid, 6/3/2011

Related Material:
Above The Matter Of Egoism
Learning To See The Good
Difficulties Are The Help From Above

Kabbalah For Modern Times

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Are you familiar with the writings of Kabbalist Isaac the Blind (Rabbi Yitzhak Saggi Nehor, 1600-1235, Provence, France)?

Answer: We study three main sources of the wisdom of Kabbalah: The Book of Zohar, the writings of the Ari (mostly his book The Tree of Life), and the works of Baal HaSulam, the great Kabbalist of the 20th century. Baal HaSulam handed down the entire wisdom of Kabbalah to us in the form most suitable for its publishing and distributing to everyone in the world.

Among all the great Kabbalists, starting with Babylon and to this day, each generation produced many other Kabbalists. But some of them concealed themselves and others wrote very little since until very recently, just thirty years ago, to reveal any part of Kabbalah, one had to receive special permission from Above. Hence, Kabbalists rarely wrote and when they did, it was in a secret form.

And only in the 20th century, when the time has come for the revelation of Kabbalah to everyone so as to correct the collective ego, Baal HaSulam wrote what was permitted to distribute. And we are offering this specific part of Kabbalah to the world.
[44767]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

Related Material:
The Key To The Book Of Zohar
Standing At The Beginning Of Glorious Deeds
Why Was There A Prohibition On Kabbalah Before?

Evil Under The Microscope

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe mustn’t enjoy bad news. Why shouldn’t we come to final correction positively? All we have to do is find the “one bad apple in the barrel of apples,” the 1% of evil in the 99% of good—and start working. It all depends on our realization of evil, our sensitivity to it. And that is the purpose of the wisdom of Kabbalah: for us to develop sensitivity for the realization of evil.

We have to discover evil by milligrams, “under the microscope,” which will be enough to see how enormous and unbearable it is. The sages said that the righteous view the evil inclination as an enormous mountain. In other words, the last drop of evil still seems monstrous to them. Meanwhile, the wicked think their evil is as thick as a strand of hair: “What is there to talk about?”

Thus, everything depends on how conscious you are and what enlargement factor your “magnifying glass” has. Hence, we must never feel good about unrest, hunger, and other problems of the world that keep flooding in. We have to cultivate the realization of evil, and that is what our dissemination of Kabbalah is supposed to awaken in humanity.

What are we disseminating? Our authority? No. The authority of Baal HaSulam? No. The authority of the Creator? Not this either. We want people to learn the authority of the evil inclination, the ego, which runs the show and is the cause of all misfortunes. And if they are calling for overthrowing their governments, they may at least try to understand that we have to shake off the power of this “foolish, old king” in ourselves.

That’s what we are supposed to demonstrate, in order for man to better understand who holds the grip on him and who must be charged for all misfortunes and problems. Our escape from evil is determined by how conscious of it we become. Rejection of evil is the force driving our growth. This is all we need.
[44801]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/2011, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Related Material:
Spiritual Fine-Tuning
Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Us That We Have To Unite?
Being Born Into A New World

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 06.07.11

Shamati #161,The Matter of the Giving of the Torah
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, Truma (Donation),” “The Watchman Says ‘Hear O Israel, Blessed Be the Name of the Glory of His  Kingdom Forever and Ever,’” Item 129, Lesson 6
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 1, Chapter 9, Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 35, Lesson 25
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “The Point in the Heart”
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio