Baal HaSulam’s Memorial Day

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Letter #39: “… Know that since the times of the Ari and to this day there was no one who could understand the Ari’s method to its very roots. And behold, by the upper will I have merited the reincarnation of the Ari’s soul, and it wasn’t for my good deeds, but by the desire of the upper one.

“It is concealed even from myself why I was chosen for this wondrous soul, which not one man has merited since the time of the Ari’s death and to this day. But I cannot say any more about this because it is not my custom to talk about miraculous secrets….”

Baal HaSulam did not reveal the upper secrets not because it was against his rules, but because we simply don’t have that possibility…. Nevertheless, from his compositions we see how special this person was, that he was sent to us from the heavens. This soul was destined to unite us within the upper system. I don’t even know what to call him. This is not a “person” and not a human force. It’s not the kind of soul that might be present among us and that we might be able to become similar to or come closer to.

I remember this from the time when I was next to my teacher Rabash during his life in this world. You are next to a physical body: You take it to the sauna, to the sea, take a walk next to it, take care of it in a hospital after surgery, but all of that is just a body. Yet the soul that is inside is something completely separate from you and you cannot touch it in any way no matter what you do. It is in a different dimension and there is no connection between it and the body.

If I felt this way next to Rabash, then it’s impossible to even imagine how he felt being next to his great father, the man who wrote Talmud Eser Sefirot, the Commentary to the Book of Zohar, and who was able to explain any word written in the holy books in the language of hints or legends through the language of spiritual attainment. This simply wasn’t a person!

We have been granted a great honor in that we can be at least slightly related to his revelations and to the extent of our limited understanding, uncorrected desires, and lack of spiritual attainment, to nevertheless start realizing his method. We have to be infinitely grateful for that and be aware that a special privilege has been given to us which we do not even understand yet—a connection with such a great soul.

It’s like a baby who is born a prince by inheritance and who does not seem to deserve such an honor by any measure. That is how we have now been born and have merited to belong to the special souls who were chosen out of all humanity, who at least know what is happening to them, who understand the cause and the effects, the entire process, and everything taking place in the world. And thanks to them, we do not remain miserable blind men.
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From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11

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Like A Caring Mother Unnoticeably Watching Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanAfter Baal HaSulam made his great discernments: what is the Creator’s desire, the goal of creation, and the ways to attain it, he descended to us and explained it, and all that remains for us is to tune into his method. We have to try to understand it with our mind and feel it with our heart so the Light would pass through us and fill us, allowing us to understand the inner essence of his words.

Let every word he wrote start to come alive in us like an inner mechanism, a means, a vessel that will start working in us in a way that we won’t have to think. We don’t have to plan anything. This teaching will just start to live in us and carry out actions through us, by virtue of us annulling ourselves. This is the work of Galgalta ve Eynaim, which annul themselves for the sake of AHP, absorb its desires, and on the other hand, they unite with the Light and it begins to act through us.

We are not aware of what we are doing and we do not know what we have to do. But the Light aims us and carries out everything. It is written, “I am the first and I am the last” and “There is none else beside Him.”

The whole world annuls itself in this way. But if we annul ourselves relative the Light’s actions with our own efforts instead of simply being governed by the hand that drives us from the inside, like a puppet into which a puppeteer’s hand is dressed, then this is a very big difference. By annulling ourselves out of our own free choice, we come to feel this hand, which controls the whole world through us. From this hand we learn all of its customs, the whole game, the whole program. We begin to recognize Him, the one who governs, the upper force.

The whole world annuls itself, having no other choice. But we have to annul ourselves by our own desire, and if we do so, we will be able to become similar to Baal HaSulam, who did the same, and to other Kabbalists. By virtue of that, he went from being a simple slave of the Creator to a loyal servant through whom the entire wisdom flows, allowing him to attain Malchut of the world of infinity and become included in it in order to feel the entire universe and the entire Light filling it.

We have to be grateful to the Creator for sending us such a great soul. Baal HaSulam writes that he could not stand to watch people’s suffering any longer. But this does not mean the small egoistic suffering. After all, we are not looking for a better fulfillment for our body, like a greener meadow for our cow, but we want to know the one who governs us and makes everything move.

We want to understand, meet, and reveal Him so His mind and feelings would dress in us, to unite with Him so our heart and mind would merge with Him. Then all of creation, its goal, all the worlds that the Kabbalists tell us about, and even what is even higher than them and what we don’t even have a name for—all of this will become our real sensation and fulfillment. This is the state that this person prepared for us.

In all of our history there is no one who is dearer and more significant for us. Obviously, we are unable to measure the true height of every Kabbalist. They are all holy for us. But Baal HaSulam did for us what no person has done throughout all of history. And therefore we are proud of having a spiritual father of this stature who cares about us. We have to feel how with each passing day, as we advance further, he follows us and rejoices at every step we take, one step after another.
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From a talk at the meal devoted to Baal HaSulam’s memorial day, 10/8/11

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Everyone Is Waiting Just For You

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe souls included in Malchut of the world of Atzilut awaken it through their requests to pass to them the Light that Reforms. Thus each soul builds itself.

When our souls ascend to Malchut of the world of Atzilut and connect to it, they reveal there a whole, complete system. Malchut seems poor and miserable only relative to each of us—this is how we see it.

However, when we connect to it to the extent that we want to bestow to it, we attain this bestowal and discover that all the souls are there: All the friends and all the relatives, and actually all the world is there! And it was only me who just got there and connected to them, in order to begin to work together.

It is said: “Every person judges others to the extent of his own flaws.” The corrupted system only exists relative to the uncorrected person who attains it. It is only to him that this world seems to exist, full of many people whom he needs to correct.

But actually, he needs to correct only himself. And then everything else that he sees around him will transform into the system of his soul, and nothing but it.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/6/2011, “Pticha

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The War From The Middle East Will Move Through The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (From kp.ru): “If the world stops buying the U.S. debt, it will lead to the collapse of the pyramid. …The U.S. sees the way out of this impasse in the outbreak of another war, against which their problems will seem small.

“Palestine would not have raised the question about their recognition without the consent of the United States. And the U.S. is already talking about the need for Israel to return to the 1967 borders …because America needs a war in the Middle East to bring instability closer to the borders of its geopolitical rivals: China, Russia, and Europe.

“In the mid-twentieth century, the Anglo-Saxons for the sake of war, after which the dollar has become a major reserve currency, returned European allies to Hitler and turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities. Today, the Americans and British make Islamic fundamentalism the shock force of a new war. …Hence their direct assistance to the ‘Muslim brothers’ to change the secular regimes in the Middle East to Islamic.

“The United States ‘deserted” their friends and associates… to replace them with various forms of “Al-Qaeda.’ For them, Gaddafi is worse than Islamic extremists. Why does the U.S. not stop Turkey, which acts in relation to Israel as never before?

“The leaders and citizens of Israel have to learn who tries to put them once again in jeopardy, by solving its immediate problems to preserve its world supremacy.

“Iran is now trying to ride the wave caused by the States.

“The monolithic nature of the West is destroyed, …not to speak about its reputation.

“Libya is expected to ‘collapse’ …because the U.S. needs a base for ‘Al-Qaeda’ in Libya, from where fundamentalism, terrorism, and chaos will spread across the region. In addition, it needs a military base for the war with Israel.

Then, the U.S. desire to bring to power the radicals in Syria. Syria strangled the first phase of insurgency. …Syria would be able to resist only if it extinguishes the attempts to blow up the situation.

“Chaos and radicalism, which originated in the Middle East and strengthened on Israel, will move on. In a few years the U.S. will leave Afghanistan; the Taliban and other radicals will come there. They will proceed with Islamic revolutions in Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. This is a direct threat to the security of Russia and China.”

My Comment: Only the aspiration towards unity will be able to stand against the U.S. and radicals; no one, including Russia, has any other powers. But the rapid development of the world towards globality and universal interdependence will frustrate the plans and weaken those who are against the tendency of nature towards a united world.

No one can escape total mutual guarantee and abiding by the law of equilibrium in nature. Egoism has finished its individual development and begun its connection into a single system: All the people will discover themselves interconnected, like cogwheels in a single mechanism. In this case, the one who desires to go against the unified movement will cause a backlash, the force of immense suffering, which will correct him and make him similar to nature.
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Fundamentals of Kabbalah – 10.09.11

A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah
Download: MP3 Audio

Again About The Crisis…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You once wrote that the word “crisis” has an opposite meaning, but how does it correlate with Kabbalah? After all, we do not see that the crisis itself corrects, and we need, as you write, to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah for it?

Answer: Look at what Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “The Peace”: “This means that the corrupt conducts in the states of humanity are the very ones that generate the good states. And each good state is nothing but the fruit of the work in the bad state that preceded it.”

Indeed, good and evil must not be evaluated according to the evaluation of the state as is, but it must be done according to the general purpose of creation, where every state that brings humanity closer to the goal is considered to be good, and the states that distance humanity from the goal are considered to be bad. The “law of development” is based only on this. According to this law, the lack of correction and the sin that are contained in the state cause and build a good state.

The period of existence of every state is strictly predetermined; it is the time required for the growth of the amount of evil contained in the state until it becomes big enough that people will no longer be able to be in it. And then the society will need to unite, break it, and move into a better state from the perspective of correction of the given generation.

The period of existence of the new state also lasts until the sparks of evil in it rise and mature so much that it will be no longer be possible to tolerate it. And then once again humanity will need to break this state and build a more comfortable one instead. It is in this way that states alternate and are evaluated one after another, one degree at a time, until we reach a state that will be so corrected that it won’t have even a spark of evil in it.

Thus it follows that the essence of all the seeds and grains, which grow into and are the origin of the good states, is nothing but the actual uncorrected states. This means that all the evil deeds, which are revealed and done by the sinners of the generation, are put together and weighed until they become so heavy that the society can no longer tolerate them. And then people rise, break this state, and create a more desired one. Thus, every separate evil becomes the condition for the appearance of the force of rejection, which enables the development of the righteous state.

Now compare this to the original post about the crisis.
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What Kabbalists Reveal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I don’t understand what is written in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, how it relates to us, and why I need to study it?

Answer: Everything we can perceive and come to know (ourselves and our environment) makes up our life, the sensation of our existence. If our senses were turned off, we would stop perceiving both ourselves and the world. We are but various desires for fulfillment that are different from one another. We are all connected between us by a network of connections, like cells of a living organism. And all of us, connected together with many connections, are swimming in a “soup” of the property of love and bestowal, referred to as our Creator.

Our perception of life and this world is the perception of the connection between us. Perception is either its fulfillment or the lack thereof in everyone’s individual desires. The desires of fulfillment give us the perception of this world. The desires to fulfill others, the system of connection between us or the Creator, give us the perception of the general connection, its similarity to the property of bestowal, the “soup,” the Creator.

So, The Study of the Ten Sefirot and all Kabbalah books in general narrate about the revelation of this system of connections between us, the Creator, to the extent of our efforts. That is, it tells us how this system becomes revealed, in what order, and also about its interconnections.

This is what Kabbalists have discovered, and this is what they are describing to us. We don’t understand what we are reading because it’s only possible to understand what we already perceive, and we don’t yet perceive the upper world. However, even reading about this system without understanding evokes the influence of forces on us, meaning the reforming Light (the quality of bestowal), our Source, and brings its revelation closer to us.
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Nicholas Christakis: The Hidden Influence Of Social Networks

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Instead Of Looking At Others, Look At Yourself

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It seems that suffering is inevitable and that we won’t be able to manage without it.…

Answer: However, you can replace it with the suffering of love. If those around you start “brainwashing you,” you will begin to appreciate bestowal: “Why don’t I bestow?” You will be walking around with this question from morning to night: “Why do I lack it? Where can I find it? Perhaps here? Perhaps there?” You will look for it everywhere as if hypnotized.

Then there will be no need for the blows—the internal blows will replace them. But they will come in the form of a yearning for bestowal, for the purpose of creation, and you will be connected to it directly. It all depends on those around you. They have to constantly “transmit” to you how important bestowal is, and then you will strive for it.

But here is a question: Don’t you remain at the animate level by acting according to the dictate of the environment? That’s correct. This is why people with the point in the heart are told: “You have to build the correct environment yourselves, as well as do it for those who don’t have free will in this. Their freedom is more modest; it is in joining you.”

If you fulfill your free will and build your environment, you will be able to build it for others too. The problem is in the fact that you don’t have the right environment. You haven’t built it, and so you are not influenced by it. Thus, you don’t pass it on to others. You can’t be the environment for them yet.

Don’t complain that you cannot bestow upon others. Instead, think about how you can bestow upon yourselves. There are no tricks here, only practical work. If we don’t do it, we can forget about correcting the world. Who will correct it? We as we at the moment?

We have to create such a strong environment so that we can become a system that bestows upon the whole world. It shouldn’t be only by the media, not only by TV, radio, and the Internet. This is necessary only to some extent. The main thing is that we will influence the world because we will already be in the system of souls, in the system of mutual connection between us, where everyone’s thoughts and desires flow constantly.

Now we are in this system as well, but we don’t control it because we haven’t acquired the power of bestowal. If we are equipped with the power of bestowal, we will control the general system and will convey the importance of bestowal to everyone. This is true bestowal upon the environment.

Let’s hope that we will be able to make this year a good year for the whole world.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, “Peace in the World”

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There Is Only One Last Step To Make

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why do we say that the system is perfect if I am missing in it?

Answer: The system of the worlds that expanded from the world of Infinity to our world is perfect. Only the Light is missing in it. The system is in a small state (Katnut), which is the minimal Light necessary for existence; it is only filled with the Light of Hassadim (Mercy).

If we receive the desire to live, we have to be incorporated in this system. We make up Malchut, the last part of the system. There is only one point in Malchut through which we can enter the system and bring our desire into it. It isn’t about the egoistic desire of a certain individual, but rather our common desire. In other words, it is the desire to bestow.

If I bring the desire to bestow into Malchut, if my friends and I want to become as one man, then this desire to be a single whole is not the personal desire of each one, but our common desire. This is called the “prayer of the many,” and it is received in Malchut.

In this case, it becomes the tenth Sefira of all the ten Sefirot, before which there are nine Sefirot, five worlds. We make up the last point, the Malchut of all the worlds. This is where we bring our desire to connect, meaning to bestow, and thus we activate the first nine Sefirot, the attributes of bestowal. They begin to influence us according to our aspiration for bestowal, and thus they correct us.

The last Sefira, Malchut, becomes the desire to bestow and enlivens the first nine Sefirot and all the upper worlds. It unites with them in a general merger into one system.

This is how we enter the upper system and get to know it. Then we actually begin to attain everything that we read about in The Study of Ten Sefirot: Atik, Arich Anpin, their actions, Aba ve Ima, and ZON that ascend and descend, the interaction between the different parts of the spiritual Partzufim, and drops of Light that trickle (Mazalin) from Above . We see all these relationships between our spiritual roots, get to know them, and can already start to activate them based on our knowledge of the system.

I become familiar with everything in it. It’s as though I see that here is the supermarket, the bank, myself, my family, my relatives, the distant ones, and so on. This is how I begin learn about the upper system and advance in it.

Then the Kabbalah books become manuals for me and not just a miraculous remedy (Segula). It’s like buying a washing machine, for example, and opening the manual to read about how to operate it. This is how I open The Study of the Ten Sefirot and see how to activate the upper system.

I can even manage without a book, as it says: “Man’s soul will teach him.” I can learn about the system even without the books and become integrated in it.

And all this is right before us! There is only one last step to make.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/2011, Shamati #42

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