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Weekly Torah Portion – 07.04.12

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, Selected Excerpts

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Getting Ready For The Congress: Second Round Of Questions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if, during the convention, I connect via the Internet, and in the workshop, I can only hear the focus group? How should I incorporate in the unity like the people who physically attend the convention?

Answer: The friends who conduct the workshop on the other side of the screen are with me. I also am connected to the focus group, only listen to these friends, and as appropriate, give instructions and speak. I don’t hear the others, so you are in the same situation I am in, and it is enough in order to be with me. If a person sits by himself in front of a screen during the workshop and opens his heart as strongly as he can, he is with us.

Question: How should the groups around the world prepare for the convention?

Answer: Just like we do. After all, the distances don’t separate us. Prepare mattresses and food and everything that you need in order to constantly be with us, like us. Then, you surely will experience the same feelings, the same fillings, the same states.

Question: Should we have a protocol in this convention?

Answer: Yes, the same protocol as in the workshops or in the group according to which a person comes to the convention only to connect. By that, it will be clear what we have to do.

No one can leave for a while during the convention; no one does anything outside the general framework. In short, we are consolidated. People who served in the army will find it easier; they have such memories.

One way or another, a person should follow his feelings, and everything should follow the feeling of unity from which no one detaches himself. After all, the moment a person leaves this feeling, this necessity, the yearning for it, he falls.

Then, he needs a protocol in order to act according to its rules. In the meantime, he holds on to the unity, and the protocol is written in his heart.

This refers to all the groups. People who don’t take part in our daily activities, but feel a need to participate, can join our groups, but it should be full participation. You cannot just visit the friends during the convention for a couple of hours and that’s it. If a person participates in the convention, it should be from the beginning to the end and only with the permission of the group if his intentions are really serious. Our convention is not for beginners, but for those who follow our path and who feel the need to unite in order to reach the spiritual world.

Question: How can we choose a stronger environment before the convention?

Answer: In order to do that, we must unite as strongly as we can. I don’t escape from one group to another, and I don’t choose between two groups. I clarify the concept of a “group” itself.

Question: A week ago, you said that a 1% effort during the morning lesson is much more effective than a 10% effort during the convention. So, why do we need the convention?

Answer: The morning lesson involves greater difficulties since is very hard to work against a habit, but, indeed, by many actions during the morning lesson, we can do much more and come to greater results than during a convention. If we made enough efforts during the morning lesson, if we were serious and constantly thought about how to make the best of it, we wouldn’t need conventions. They wouldn’t compensate for much either. After all, every morning lesson is a special event, an important state.

Question: What should be the outcome of this convention? What is the final picture that you see?

Answer: Constant unity in which we open up the upper dimension.

Question: How should we aim ourselves with the help of the convention and the Creator who does everything so that this wisdom will become common knowledge so that it will be the general approach of the group?

Answer: Everything is revealed in unity.
[81965]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in the North of Israel”

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Getting Ready For The Congress: First Round Of Questions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: This congress is quite sudden, and we fear that we will not arrive with sufficient enthusiasm. How can we prepare ourselves in the time we have left so that the convention will not turn into a festival?

Answer: The congress will not turn into a festival; we will make sure it doesn’t. Don’t expect celebrations, but rather most likely a forced march with mattresses. So you can stop worrying, it won’t be easy.

As for the suddenness, the best and most important things appear suddenly, the exodus from Egypt, for example that took place in a hurry. So there is nothing to complain about, it is just the opposite case.

Besides, we are talking about connection and unity, so do we have to make a fuss about that and say: “Friends listen to the news, we have to unite! Let’s prepare ourselves and in six months we are going to unite…”

Are we talking about something new we haven’t heard of? Do we have to start preparing for it only now? Shouldn’t we be ready for that all our life and every moment in our life?

What do we need a congress for? It may very well be that we will receive what we want to attain today and then there will be no need for the convention and other actions will be required instead. We should expect the coming of the Messiah every day.

Question: What should I expect from the congress?

Answer: That by the connection and the unity with others I will attain the general from of bestowal called “the revelation of the Creator,” the revelation of the “upper force.”

Question: This is the first convention that in advance you are not awakening us, leaving room for our exertion. How do we examine ourselves to see whether we are preparing ourselves the way we should?

Answer: I act according to the situation. In the current state, I don’t feel that I can spur you in any way other than what I am doing. Listen to today’s lesson again, and you will see that I am constantly waking you up. It also refers to the recent lessons and workshops.

What can I do if you don’t take this into account, if you don’t pay attention to that? I am trying to do my work. Besides, you should demand! I am ready to give a thousand times more, but where is your demand? You have no spiritual hunger; it is as if you are all full: “Well, tell us some more and we will listen…” what else can I say?

Question: How can we consolidate our forces in order to break through the Machsom (barrier) during the convention?

Answer: We need the unity that is attained out of necessity, the awakening of the desires and the impression. It says: “Each man shall help his friend.” Nowhere does it say that the teacher has to dance before the group in order to evoke joy or tears. The teacher guides the group in the right direction, but the students should follow this direction by themselves. There should be a collective desire among the friends. The teacher cannot do what the group should do, and you are wasting your time if you are hoping for this.
[81968]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in North of Israel”

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People, Yoo-hoo!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the best way to unite with the desires of the 99% of the population, in order to be successful in dissemination?

Answer: In our time, the common system of mankind is being revealed as a single whole. This is why the crisis that surrounds us is global and integral. It cannot be solved in any egoistic, individual way. Nor can we pretend to play protectionism since it would only lead to such problems we would never manage to come out of: That is the direct path to world war. This is why everyone is afraid; everyone understands that something needs to be done here. But what do we do—no one has solutions or options—and we see this.

So we need to begin to teach people the meaning of mutual guarantee, mutual connection, mutual obligation. This is exactly what nature is imposing on us today, and there is nowhere to hide from this. We must do this, since on one hand, we were given the ability to understand this system, and on the other hand, we will not advance without this.

It is written in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” that the entire system is built in such a way that people who have received a special drive for the spiritual must be the intermediary between the spiritual, upper force of nature, the Creator, and the rest of humanity that is not capable of realizing and understanding where it is, why it is here, and its purpose.

Our objective is to present the masses with the idea of the integral world that is now being gradually revealed and discovered, with the idea that we are opposite to the integral system, and this is the reason we perceive it as a crisis. We must understand what we need to do in this state and how we are to unite.

It is written in the article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” that Kabbalah is the method of the revelation of the Creator to the people in this world.

If we, on one hand, study Kabbalah, the revelation of the upper force to the extent of our similarity to it, our becoming closer to it in qualities, we become one common whole with it.

On the other hand, since we exist in this world, we have the opportunity to be connected with the rest of humanity, and through us, the entire humanity connects around the Creator.

These are not just lofty words; this is really the way it is. We see how people today are incapable of solving any problems, that they do not even understand things at all: “Are there really any changes in the world?” Many live as if nothing is happening. And this is not because nothing is happening, but because they do not feel them, they are not yet able to feel these changes.

We must teach them about all this. But, not the way we learn; they will not understand this since the point in the heart has not yet awakened in them, the part, which connects us with the Creator. We must teach them to be closer, to unite, to help one another on the corporeal level, so they will realize all this, and we will add our intention to this; in other words, together, we will all represent a single common Partzuf, where we are the head, and they are the body of the Partzuf, the desire. And this single spiritual Partzuf operates together.

This is why we must necessarily be connected with the Creator through the wisdom of Kabbalah, though our intention, through seminars and everything else, and at the same time, we must be connected with the 99% of the population, do different kinds of “round” tables with them.

This is the essence of our work: internally with the Creator, and externally with the rest of mankind to bring them closer to me, and they will very quickly feel that they need us.
[81951]
From a Talk During the Meal in Toronto, 6/19/12

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Do The Masses Need Kabbalah?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do we need to tell the 99% of the population about the wisdom of Kabbalah? If yes, then what would the consequences of that be?

Answer: We study the wisdom of Kabbalah because it allows us to solve our problem, the desire to be connected with the Creator, to reveal Him in our unity according to the laws of connection and equivalence precisely between us. But when we communicate with the 99% of the population, we talk only about the earthly connection on the level for which they have a desire. We always need to relate to people according to their desires. This is why we don’t disclose anything from the wisdom of Kabbalah; they aren’t drawn to it and don’t feel a need for it. Conversely, it only repels them.

But gradually, this will pass. At least in Israel where resistance to Kabbalah is very great, it’s happening rather quickly. People are already understanding, more or less, that from one perspective, it’s Kabbalah, from another, it’s mutual guarantee, and from a third aspect, it’s roundtables, and it all goes together. Today contrary to our worries, the public is capable of accepting the integral method and it doesn’t repel or scare them.

Thus, in the future, they’ll react calmly to the fact that you are studying Kabbalah, but only for your own self. And it’s indeed for yourselves.

They don’t have that desire, but you do. That’s first. And second is that they’ll understand that everything they’d like to learn about our world, its correction, and about how easy it is to live well in this world, it turns out that it all comes from Kabbalah. But by that time they will have matured internally to such an extent, and will feel the global connection of the world so much that they’ll feel that Kabbalah speaks only of this, and in general, that it’s not a religion and doesn’t pertain to Judaism or anything else, but it’s simply a study of the overall creation. They will readily accept that. They won’t start studying Kabbalah, but they will be glad that what they are doing comes from such an ancient universal human science. And all of this will converge in them into one common concept.

It was difficult for us to understand this because we only sought the attainment of something higher, the upper world and the upper force, but for them, it will be very simple. They will realize it very quickly.
[81948]
From a Talk During a Meal in Toronto, 6/19/2012

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The End Of The Game

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (John Mauldin, President of Millennium Wave Securities): “The reality is they’ve got a massive trade imbalance in Europe. The Southern countries want the Germans to finance it. The Germans want a fiscal Union with control over the budgets. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, they don’t either, but it is coming to an end.

“What we’re seeing is the real end game. We’re coming to the end of government’s ability to borrow money to fund current spending that’s beyond the growth of their economy.

“I actually find that massively bullish because that government funding misallocates capital. So governments are going to have to live within their means. Not just in European countries, not just in Britain, not just in Japan which has its own problems that will be coming to us next year, not just in France which will be the headline in 2 years, but also in the US. …

“Debt has been renegotiated, it’s been printed, defaulted upon, restructured. There are all sorts of ‘re’ words we talk about, but it’s default by another name. It’s what happens if you as an individual have more debt and you have more than you can possibly pay, you have to restructure something or file bankruptcy.

“That’s where Western governments are. They’ve run out of the ability to borrow money to finance their current consumption. This is a good thing that it’s coming to an end. I don’t see this as negative in the longer-term. It’s still going to be a bumpy ride for the markets. It’s certainly going to be (an interesting) ride for the business as usual crowd.”

My Comment: The solution seems simple, proven, but it is not so; we are dealing with the restructuring of society; nature will try us until we recognize the bankruptcy of our egoistic attitude towards the world and the need to change it. We will have to pay not by cutting budgets, but by changing ourselves.
[81982]

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America Is No Longer The Land Of Opportunity

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist): “U.S. inequality is at its highest point for nearly a century. Those at the top – no matter how you slice it – are enjoying a larger share of the national pie; the number below the poverty level is growing. The gap between those with the median income and those at the top is growing, too. The U.S. used to think of itself as a middle-class country – but this is no longer true. …

“Textbooks teach us that we can have a more egalitarian society only if we give up growth or efficiency. However, closer analysis shows that we are paying a high price for inequality: it contributes to social, economic and political instability, and to lower growth. Western countries with the healthiest economies (for example those in Scandinavia) are also the countries with the highest degree of equality. …

“America used to be thought of as the land of opportunity. Today, a child’s life chances are more dependent on the income of his or her parents than in Europe, or any other of the advanced industrial countries for which there are data. The U.S. worked hard to create the American dream of opportunity. But today, that dream is a myth.”

My Comment: While egoism reigned, America was a country of great (egoistic) opportunities, but since egoism ceased its development and became a crisis, the US has entered the crisis (of egoism), and to get out of it means to correct the egoism of the individual and society to integral relationship (love and bestowal). As soon as we get down to this, we will immediately find out that we have made the only right choice.
[81827]

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Through The Locks To The Upper World

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe collective desire in the group is attained only with regard to a common goal. The factor that forces us to connect is the Creator, the common point that connects us. Also, we shouldn’t forget about the rest of the world. We cannot advance in our work if we do not think and worry about those who need our help, and meanwhile suffer in this world.

We have to help them; we must hurry and raise them higher and higher each time. It is like navigating ships through a set of locks on the Panama Canal. A ship is brought into a set of locks where the water is at a certain level. Then the gates are locked and the lock is filled with water, lifting the ship to a higher level that matches the next set of locks. Afterwards the ship passes to another set of locks, again the gate is locked, the ship rises, and moves on. This is how we have to guide the nations of the world through all the “sets of locks” to the upper world. First we have to connect to people, to find the common points, “to open the door for them,” to bring them closer to us, and to draw them into our system, which means to lock the dam. Then with this level of the water, we begin to raise them up to the next level. Subsequently, they will be able to move on to the following “set of locks,” to study in the next course, and so we will gradually lead them from one world into the next.
[81809]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/12, “MatanTorah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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The World On The Scale Of Justification

Dr. Michael LaitmanMan forgets that he is always standing before the Light, the Creator, the good Who does good without any limitations. And all the limitations, obstacles, interferences, distance, and concealment exist in man himself. All he needs to do is remove this cover, destroy the obstacle, and it will disappear. All the disturbances that exist within man are the consequence of laziness and pride that are being placed as an obstacle before him by his ruined egoistic desire. We need to understand that if the upper Light fills everything, then all the disturbances only come from us.

If a person really comes to desire ridding himself of disturbances through the environment (meaning the teacher, books, friends, the group, and all the work that comes with it), this means that he really cancels it. This is because his efforts turn into a screen and the Reflected Light. The disturbance was caused by the absence of the screen and Reflected Light, and appeared in man as the result of the breaking. Each of our states come from the breaking because there is nothing in us other than a broken egoistic desire that paints a warped picture of different images and forms, sensations, opinions, thoughts, and desires for us in our ruined qualities; we call all these things “this world.”

Bu the moment that we wish to overcome this breaking, we understand that we’re experiencing all this within our ruined desire, which needs to be turned inside out. We don’t need anything other than this desire to turn everything the other way around. It’s a demand called prayer, an appeal, a cry, regarding which is written: “My children have defeated me,” because they have forced the Creator to change this deformed sensation and vision for the true one.

And as soon as we incline towards correction, we incline our entire world towards justification, and it inverts. We think that the Creator does it, but we actually do it with our own hands. The Light is always at absolute rest and is always ready to help us do something. Everything depends on whether we will be able to evoke it and obligate it to do this.

This is why we need to say: “No one will help me but me!” Because everything is in the person’s hands: the spiritual spark, the corrected desire, and the environment that needs to be organized so it represents a system of proper values, a scale of priorities. And with all this, a person will be able to advance and demand correction from the Light, the source, which will become revealed the moment the person really desires it.

On one hand, it’s written that the Creator does everything. But on the other hand, it’s written that everything depends upon the person. And in reality, everything is done by the upper Light, the upper force, but only at the person’s request. Even when we suffer today and seem to want to rid ourselves of suffering, in reality, we don’t want to be free of it. If we really wanted that, we would have ended all the suffering a long time ago.

In other words, the Light, the Creator, does all the actions, but man makes the decision regarding these actions. It’s written, “He labored and found,” it doesn’t happen any other way. This is why it’s necessary to understand that all the tools are known and the place of analysis is clear. It’s also necessary to analyze one’s intention, the direction of one’s thought, and the goal. And when a person makes the right analyses, uses his environment and all the tools given to him the right way, then the upper Light is ready to do this action the moment this desire appears in man.
[81750]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Igrot, “Letter 34

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