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A Loan On Spiritual Terms

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal Hasulam, “The Peace”: These are the words of Rabbi Akiva: “The book is open and the hand writes.” Any state that the generation is in is like a book, and all the evildoers are as writing hands because each evil is carved and written in the book until they accumulate to an amount that the public can no longer bear. At that time, they ruin that evil state and rearrange into a more desirable state. Thus, each and every act is calculated and written in the book, meaning in the state.

And he says, “All who wish to borrow may come and borrow.” This means that he believes that this world is not like an open store without an owner, but that there is an owner present, a shopkeeper who stands in his store and demands of each customer the right price for the merchandise he is taking from the store, meaning toil in His work while he is nourished by that store, in a manner that is certain to bring him to the purpose of creation, as He pleases.

His goal is to attain bestowal. However, a person requires powers to realize this, and he doesn’t have these powers. He takes them on loan, even though he intends it all for bestowal. What is more, this is even if he wants to repay, that is, not to use anything for himself. He uses the entire world for bestowal.

According to the standards of our world, it is impossible to declare that a person like this is taking something on loan. You see that we get a loan for personal benefit. Here, everything is otherwise. Incidentally, the Torah’s prohibition against giving a loan with interest is derived from this. In the spiritual world, no loan must be paid back with more than what had been received.

So, the forces that I don’t have from the start I take on loan, but I am not taking for myself. They are not mine, I only add to them a desire for the sake of bestowal. Instead of the Creator, I bestow to everyone, and my entire goal is only to convey this bestowal skillfully, as if it were from His hands. I have nothing of my own besides my altruistic self that contracts the egoistic desire within it and acts above it. Therefore, essentially, I don’t have anything to return.

Question: In spite of all this, it is not clear: How can a person ask for a loan for himself in spirituality?

Answer: So, I said that this is another kind of loan. You see, I don’t have my own powers of bestowal. Additionally, I (specifically, I) want to give just as the Creator does. I have to transmit and give that which He wishes for the world.

This state is described allegorically with a metaphor that says that the Creator wanted to give the nations of the world the method of correction. However, they could not accept it. So, He used a transitional group called Israel, which means “straight to the Creator.” The people of Israel are like coordinators that connect the upper Light with the AHP. Thanks to this, Malchut can rise to Bina and be “sweetened” there so as to pass the Light from above downward.

So, this is called a loan only because a person doesn’t have the power of bestowal, and he receives this from the Creator. However, he doesn’t use it for himself, as it is customary in our egoistic world. In this world, a person seeks benefit for himself first of all, and afterward, he thinks about benefit for others, whether this is financial matters, well-being, or net pleasure. In spirituality, I ask not for myself. I want to participate in the life of the Creator. This participation is intended entirely for bestowal. For the sake of this, I activate all of my desire to the maximum possible level. Everything else I temporarily keep “locked up” under the restriction.

Question: So, how is it necessary to ask for a loan like this for the goal of bestowal?

Answer: This is called ascent, a request for correction (MAN). From the Creator, I request power to be able to examine, to correct, the deed itself. I want Him to do this, as it is written: “Be clothed in me and perform the deed of bestowal.” It is like an infant asks for help from his mother or simply cries, and the mother comes and helps. The entire problem is to turn into a “crying infant” internally. And it takes time to learn this….
[105531]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13, “The Peace”

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Absolute Love Above Fictitious Hate

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Baal HaSulam explains that if parents treat their son with absolute love, the son will inevitably begin to hate them instead of returning their love since he won’t worry that the parents will stop loving him. What about the Creator: Will we also begin to hate Him when we discover His absolute love for us?

Answer: We have to reach absolute love towards the Creator in our spiritual work, meaning regardless of whether we receive pleasure or punishment from the Creator. Our spiritual growth is based on developing love while feeling a growing feeling of repulsion until it reaches absolute hate, meaning feeling that the Creator hates us more and more while we develop a growing absolute love towards Him, in order to work in faith above reason.

Thus we can understand why the Creator has created in us desire in which we feel pleasure or pain. But we have to rise above that in a new feeling of bestowal, and then our attitude towards the Creator becomes totally independent of His love since we establish our attitude above the feeling of hate, according to the principle “love will cover all sins.”
[108268]

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Material Success Is No Guarantee Of Spiritual Success

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, “Concerning Above Reason”: It turns out that a person has qualities that his parents bequeathed to their children, and he has qualities that he acquired from the society, which are a new possession. And this comes to him only through bonding with the society and the envy that he feels toward the friends when he sees that they have better qualities than his own. It motivates him to acquire their good qualities, which he doesn’t have and of which he is jealous.

Thus, through the society, he gains new qualities that he adopts by seeing that they are at a higher degree than his, and he is envious of them. This is the reason why now he can be greater than when he didn’t have a society, since he acquires new powers through the society.”

A person is born a small animal, and what he grows up to be depends on the upbringing. If we are talking about an ordinary, earthly upbringing, then a person develops due to society. He envies others and longs for pleasure, money, power, fame, and knowledge, and that is why he learns from society how he can achieve these goals, that is, success in this world. If he has prerequisites for spiritual development, he finds himself in the environment that can instill in him new properties —spiritual.

In the material society, a person develops naturally, by instinctively adopting the values ​​of society and seeking to learn from it how to reach worldly success. But spiritual upbringing is different because it requires a person to cancel himself, that is, it gives him the freedom of choice: to adopt its spiritual values from the environment or not.

Only to the extent of his self-nullification will a person be able to see the society as higher than himself. He will have to apply much effort to look at society from the bottom up, and then he will be able to receive from the society its values, the importance and greatness of the goal, and thus advance spiritually.

Spiritual success depends not only on the environment, but also on how a person uses it, that is, how much he annuls himself and appreciates society, whether he agrees to suffer, seeing others higher than himself. Envy forces a person to feel humiliated, but he needs to understand that it is for his own benefit to see the others as great. If he is capable of such an attitude, then he will advance. In the end, a person has to enjoy that he can stand against his egoism and trample over it in order to attain spiritual values and get closer to the spiritual goal.

That is why advancement in the material society is completely opposite to spiritual advancement. And success in the material world does not guarantee that a person will be able to succeed in spirituality because it is determined by the free choice of the person himself.
[108940]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/13

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With The Friends Under The “Sukkah Of Peace”

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is so special about the love of friends that allows me to cover all sins?

Answer: Love of friends covers all sins. After all, if we work on connecting our sparks in the group, then all the other desires surrender to the Light of love despite the fact that they are so opposite from one another to the extent that they actually hate one another. This Light operates on us from above, from the upper level, when it covers us with one blanket, one umbrella, a Sukkah of peace, and obligates all of us to unite, although internally we remain very different.

Question: Do I choose the friend once or anew every day?

Answer: I don’t choose according to corporeal criteria. In the meantime we don’t know why we have been brought into one group from above, he and I. It depends on the root of the soul, on the sentence of the souls, which we will learn about later. But because we are in a group we have to fulfill our freewill and to connect into one system, one group.

Choosing a friend means being loyal to him despite the repulsion and the doubts. I shouldn’t feel any difference between him and me. Every moment the thought and the desire change in me, I have to choose him in the exact same manner, I examine myself and him.
[108153]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/13, Writings of Rabash

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Learn From The Children And Not From Television Talk Shows

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The integral discussion is a very unique program. Basically, people will come to see how problems that interest them can be solved at the roundtable. However, regular talk shows that attract television viewers generally remind one of conflicts or fist fights.

Answer: I always talk only about our need to influence each other in a positive manner, without “opposition.” You might deny this and say that this is incorrect, unimaginable, and unacceptable, that through this kind of a discussion, we won’t attract anyone, but I know only one thing: A problem cannot be solved through argument.

From the screen, I show the television viewer how a problem can be solved without actually touching upon it because the problem exists on level “A,” and I raise the panelists to level “B.” When I take them to this level and maybe even to level “C” or “D,” they transform into something else.

Question: In Wikipedia, it is written that, in a roundtable, people don’t accommodate themselves to the opinion of the other. Rather, they add their own opinion.

Answer: I relate respectfully to the public roundtables, but integral roundtables are something absolutely different. What I mean is that its form is absolutely different. It is only positive!

In no way should you express opposition. Rather, everyone is completed on a new, corrected level. One doesn’t enter into any confrontations or expressions of dissent. In this way, we are playing at being on the next level; we only add. If someone expresses his opinion, I explain that it is possible to do even better, saying, “Adding to what my friend said, I suppose that we can do more of this and that.”

I am always building our next integral level together with the others. This is based only on agreement between us—only on agreement! We always rise higher and higher. This is never done through opposition and contradiction. There is no opposition and contradiction!

Question: However, if there are no arguments or reservations, we cannot reach a decision.

Answer: If this is a true and proper workshop, the people are like children playing at building a common home. This makes it more exciting and engaging for them than if they were destructive or directed against each other.

I see how children instinctively use this when they want to play together and not alone. When they are interested in the results of their labor becoming some kind of structure, like trains or cities, then something will turn around and they will work together.
[108072]
From KabTV’s “Wisdom of Crowds” 5/14/13

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To Be Divested Of All Problems

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: After the Integral Education lessons, people sit in circles and begin to discuss problems. How is this done?

Answer: Generally a lesson with the presentation of clips, pictures, and even breaks goes on for a maximum of one hour, more than this would be difficult for people to keep up with. After that, they must internalize the material that they have learned.

After the talk comes the workshop which must include those questions that were touched upon during the talk in perhaps a slightly different form. So everyone will internalize them, people need to talk about them with friends in the circles. They need to be discussed, felt in the form of questions, in the form of doubts, in the form of some direction, intention, so that the people can reach that opinion to which we wanted to bring them to from the beginning, but now through discussions with others.

From the start we can say to a person that even if he doesn’t agree with something, now he must give a secondary importance to his disagreement. Suppose that he has pre-existing prejudices from the society in which he has been educated and has lived. He must put these prejudices to the side and try, on the contrary, to be an advocate for our opinion and to convince everyone else that the future for which we are now yearning is the only correct and possible one from the present condition in which we now exist. We give him time for this, some advice, and carry on a discussion in this spirit.

That is, we are not trying to lead students into a discussion, but rather to put them into a state where they will imagine the next world, the coming state, play with it, protect it, and convince others that it is correct. Through discussion, a person will begin to see that he gradually truly agrees with it. Therefore we always direct the student not to be defensive and resistant, not to argue; rather, we direct him with positive influences to rise to the state to which we want to bring him.

Question: Is it possible to use the integral method to solve specific problems?

Answer: When we begin to use the integral method, then specific problems will be solved on their own. If I reach a collective where there are differences of opinion and problems, I don’t talk about them at all, I don’t touch upon them. In no way am I going to awaken the “beast” who sits in every one of them because one “match” can set fire to the whole world. This would be the wrong approach. Only by divesting (shedding) ourselves of all problems will we direct ourselves towards our connection.
[108076]
From KabTV’s “Wisdom of Crowds” 5/14/13

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What Kind Of Friends Do I Need?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the most important criterion I can use to check what kind of friends I should adhere to?

Answer: You should get closer to those who constantly attend the lessons, engage in dissemination, and take part in the duties. These people can be a role model for me even by their external behavior and by their corporeal earthly actions. Therefore, I want to adhere to them.

It makes no difference what a person’s character is and exactly what kind of work he does in the group. What’s important is that he comes every day and takes part in everything. It is best to adhere to such people who don’t stand out in the group because of their special attributes but are loyal to it and give it all their powers.
[108798]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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A Special Inclination – Present From Our Ancestors

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is it exactly that makes the group strong? What attributes should we work on?

Answer:  We shouldn’t value the power of the group by the number of people in it; that is a wrong estimation since there is a difference between the number of different people and their inner preparation. So, it is impossible to judge everyone according to the same parameters.

In Russia, for example, it is easy to organize a group of more than a hundred people while, in the US, it is difficult to gather even ten people. We cannot compare success by the size of the group. What’s important is the quality, which is hard to identify.

All of Eastern Europe, and especially Russia, is where Kabbalists were very active in the last generations. The most important Kabbalist in the history of the wisdom of Kabbalah after the Ari was Baal Shem Tov, who had many followers and students all over Belarus and the Ukraine who simply “plowed the ground” there so that their ideas were in the air. As a result, there were a great number of Kabbalists there from Poland, Galicia, and further to the east.

Consequently, the people who live there, and especially the Russian people, have a special sense, a special inclination for Kabbalah. That’s how the influence of the surrounding Light is revealed. Therefore, it is impossible to compare this region with Western Europe where just as many Jews and intelligent, educated people live and still the great inclination for spirituality has not been revealed. This is called “ancestral merit.”
[108790]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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A Payment That Cannot Even Be Counted!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why do some groups succeed in providing their friends with strong support and protection from external influences, while some groups find it very hard to do so? What should we focus on in order to strengthen the group?

Answer: The main thing that kills us is the routine. A person likes to calculate what he has earned at the end of every day when he comes back from work. We must understand what our profit adds up to, whether I can add things up and be glad although I don’t see any payment in my vessels of receiving.

However, I can value and praise the profit I have made, the work that was done, and the efforts that were made during the day. I didn’t get any corporeal profit as a result, but I helped to correct the world, and, through the world, I helped the Creator. This is the profit I should praise constantly, and this is where the environment should support me.

If a person doesn’t understand that he needs a strong group for that and doesn’t demand such support from it, he cannot advance since he has no fuel. We should check this and accordingly see if we feel enough energy and motivation.

We should establish the environment by our collective powers and not wait for someone else to do it for us. We are lucky to have the chance to study, to have books, the right intention, and a teacher. We should use all that as quickly as possible!
[108786]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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