For The First Time In 6000 Years

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should we do if there are strong and very experienced friends in the group who used to be very active in dissemination in the past but do not take part in it now? It is a very bad example. Should we just wait?

Answer: You can wait and you can also interest them in another type of dissemination.

After all, what is the problem? On the whole when a person comes to the group, he agrees to participate in everything. Then he begins to understand that it is actually about the ego. “Oh, I don’t want to.” I may shout: “Let’s break through the Machsom (barrier)!” But when the time comes to actually break through and go out to the general public, I get scared. This means that I no longer move forward.

One must be persistent. I understand that it doesn’t depend on a person and that he is given such a state, but on the whole, people should be asked to participate in what they can do best and where they can be more active. Otherwise they will not advance.

You cannot imagine the opportunities we have today. Going out to the masses is the practical fulfillment of the wisdom of Kabbalah for the first time in almost 6000 years of its existence. We are on the verge of the phase for which all of nature was created, all of creation.

What the Creator did with regard to all of His creation is now fulfilled by the creation itself; we have to fulfill this. Can you imagine what an opportunity this is?! But suddenly we throw our hands up and say: “It will pass somehow, it is difficult….” This is the lack of the importance and completely short-sighted.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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A Little Bit Of Goodness With The Right Intention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we bring the Creator contentment?

Answer: Bringing the Creator contentment means to discover Him. This brings contentment to Him and to all of humanity. The contentment of the Creator and of the created beings is the Light that fills the vessels: pleasure from filling the desire and from the attitude, which means on the first level and on the second level on the corporeal level and on the spiritual level. This is the Creator’s goal—to fully fill the vessels—and it brings contentment to Him and to the created beings, and so they both adhere to each other.

It is better to do less, but with the right intention. It isn’t about the quantity. If you need to spend more time to prepare, it is worth it. People are connected; if you talk to certain people you contact them, influence them, and if it is done correctly with the Inner Light that conveys the feeling, then it will later spread from them to all the other people they are in contact with. It will spread and influence everyone, they will do it subconsciously.

But if these are just corporeal actions, people can be inspired, cry, and shout like a crowd of fanatic fans at a performance of a pop star. They can also be impressed by the nice words of some talented speaker, like Trotsky, for example. But this will not lead to any positive outcomes but rather to destruction. So preparation is the most important thing before every action, the intention to bring the Creator contentment.

This is the only thing I think about all day: How to add my intention to my work, since this is the secret for success.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/13

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A Touch That Cannot Be Replaced By Anything Else

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can working with the social networks be considered valuable dissemination?

Answer: Although the Internet is widely used and you can practically convey scents through it, we cannot really feel people without physical contact. We can’t!

Even businessmen say that nothing happens without a personal touch. Although they can contact their partners on the other side of the world through banks, they still fly over to meet them. They have to meet them personally and to discuss different issues in conventions or over a meal. The personal contact is very important.

Even heads of states visit each other, and it isn’t because it’s an essential ritual but because this contact is necessary between human beings. Something happens here which cannot take place any other way.

You can imagine any virtual connection that you like, virtual love, etc., but it’s all a substitute and nothing can replace the physical connection. Of course, working on the Internet is essential, but still, when I visited Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk, I had such a connection with people over there that nothing can replace it. This contact is very important.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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A True Friend

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person become a true friend in the group?

Answer: You can become a true friend in the group when you go on an attack together. Only then do you become a friend and demand the same from others. Then a true connection is formed like in a family, such as when you take care of a child, which means taking care of a common problem that is external to you and through which you all connect. Then you can become a true friend in the group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Contact With The Teacher

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can be done if the group opinion is contrary to the opinion of the teacher? Which side should one choose?

Answer: We know that our small children don’t agree with us about many questions. Either they don’t agree because they are still small or because we didn’t explain everything to them sufficiently. This must be clarified.

But if you truly have a conflict with me and it is not imaginary, then you have a problem. Then you get absolutely nothing from me! And this says that you don’t have any possibility of advancing spiritually.

I suggest to people who don’t have contact with me, to leave us and search for another teacher, for time is running out, life is going on and coming to an end. That’s too bad. It could be that you will have another teacher with whom you can find contact and move forward. I say this for your own good. If there is no contact with me from your side, then you are not bringing any benefit to the entire movement of the world group.

There must be contact with the teacher as there should be with the Creator. Even contact with a friend must be as it should be with the Creator, because all this is connected together: group, teacher, and all the Kabbalists and transforms into being a single whole.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Variations On The Concept Of The Groups Of Ten

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Our group is composed of ten people and we consider ourselves to be a “group of ten.” Is it necessary to divide the group, do we need to change the composition of the “group of ten”?

Answer: If you are simply a “group of ten” and you don’t have more people, there is no need to break it up; remain with this group of ten.

When I talk about mixing the groups of ten, I mean large groups, groups like in Kiev, Moscow, and St. Petersburg where there are large numbers of people who can be divided into groups of ten and can change all the time.

For example, our leading students, our most active friends, whom you see all the time, suddenly find themselves in a group of ten with those you never see on the screen. These people sit quietly, don’t stand out, some of them have difficulty speaking Hebrew. And surprisingly, our active students discover wonderful people among our “silent” students who are very active internally and not externally, so it is simply wonderful to work together with them in a group of ten! And after this, they tell me that they never thought, didn’t feel, and didn’t know that we have such strong friends like these.

Therefore it is very important to mix, in completely different, opposite conditions, and combinations.

Suppose that ten people gather in order to solve some question together; through a discussion in the center of the group, they attain such a connection where each one goes “outside of himself,” and then the question is much better clarified because it becomes closer to the Creator. We begin to look at it this way, as the Creator looks at it, and from this we can solve this question.

With this, the role of the group of ten is finished. The next time, the group of ten will work identically.

Question: If we mix the group of ten, what do we do with the reading of the evening passage and the articles of association? Maybe it is necessary to leave the reading with the previous group of ten?

Answer: Now we are fully involved with the care of virtual education; we are going out to people both through the Internet and also directly. For us this is the most important thing!

Therefore all of your thoughts and reflections on mixing or preparation like this or in another way, all this is childish talk. When you begin to go out to the world and work with strangers, problems about this, questions about this, will arise for you; you will have a pressing need to be in a group of ten and to connect yourselves with the Creator, with me, with the whole group or the group of ten because otherwise you will not be able to do anything outside!

The audience with which you are beginning to come in contact will obligate you to find the correct contact between all the components: the Creator, yourselves, your group, me, the world group, and so on. But if you don’t go out to the people, then no need like this will appear within you. Therefore all of your theories regarding the groups of ten, in what manner to mix them, seem irrelevant, lacking any serious healthy basis.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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“The Blindness of Modern Economists”

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the news (from Casey Research): “The contrast between mainstream academic economics and “real world economics” has always been stark, but today the disconnect is so enormous that it seems the two have nothing at all in common. If you were to ask Paul Krugman and Doug Casey how to fix what ails our economy, you’d get two diametrically opposed answers. …

“Mainstream economics relies heavily on mathematics, whereas real-world economics shuns it.

“In the hard sciences like physics or chemistry, fields based on immutable natural laws, focusing on math produces the best results. Economics, on the other hand, is a social science and attempts to explain human behavior—arguably the most fickle of actions, and no more mathematically quantifiable than the exact degree of mortification when throwing up on the dress of your 12th-grade crush at a high school reunion. Which, of course, has never happened to anyone we know.

“In the hallowed halls of academia, you need not be correct to be useful. In the world of business, if you’re wrong more often than you’re right, you won’t stay in business for long. In contrast, academic economists can and have made very successful careers out of being apologists for the regime. No matter that they’ve been dead wrong in virtually every forecast they’ve ever made: as long as their forecasts align with their peers’, they can collectively claim, for example, that no one could have ever seen the financial crisis coming. …

“My guess is that academics are bitter about this fact, and believe that because the free market doesn’t adequately reward them, there must be something wrong with it. They correctly understand that oftentimes, the only way for them to obtain a lot of money is to steal it via the government; and because that principle applies to their line of work, it must apply to all others too. …

“Mainstream economists believe that aggregate demand—the total demand for goods and services in the economy at a given time and price level—is the wellspring from which all prosperity emerges, and so anything that increases aggregate demand must be positive, even otherwise wasteful government spending. Economists also use these as an excuse to make laughably rosy forecasts.”

My Comment: There is the elite above economists who dictates to them what to do. It could be said as was once said by the Soviet elite about cybernetics: “Economics is the whore of imperialism.”
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The Specifics Of Our Generation

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why does the work with an external audience develop a need for the Creator and a group?

Answer: Because it is all one vessel. Otherwise there is no need to do this. But if we want to get closer to the Creator, we feel that this is possible only through working with people. The reason is not in caring about other people, because according to the development of our desires, we feel no need for it. But we want to reach the Creator, though still egoistically, and we see that there is no other way.

By investing in work with people egoistically, with the egoistic intention to reach the Creator (Lo Lishma), we still care for others for the sake of revealing Him; that is, we already connect this chain. Our intentions are still incorrect and egoistic, but we are on the path, making correct actions. And then these correct actions attract the Light that Reforms to us, which corrects our intention. Thus, we come from Lo Lishma to Lishma.

We are not required to have an intention; it does not depend on us. We are required only to make efforts where we can and the intention will be corrected because of them. A person cannot be demanded not to think of himself. How is this possible? The intention depends only on the strength of the Light that affects us like a magnet from above. The Light pulls us more and we rise and become inspired by the right intention; it pulls us less and we fall down and think more about ourselves. It all depends on the Light.

We awaken the Light by our desire to correct intention. This is called the realization of evil. A prayer is a request of the intention to bestow, but already on correct actions.

Initially there were Kabbalists who could feel the need to turn to the Creator only because of connection with friends. And we are not capable of that, our desire is more egoistic, broken, and coarse. But on the other hand, precisely because of this, we are able to start working with the general public. This is the characteristic of our generation.

As we work, we feel the need for the group more acutely because we feel that without a connection with it, we will not succeed in external dissemination. And we depend on it because we are ashamed to be losers and spend so much effort in vain; we have already invested too much in this work.

But eventually, the Creator will play with us so that we will realize that we depend only on Him and no one else, neither the public nor ourselves. This is the purpose of all that is happening now in this world, so that we will want Him and understand that the source of our entire life is in Him!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/13, “Group and Dissemination”

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The Only Problem That Requires A Solution

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Our group broke apart after the St. Petersburg convention and only one or two people come to the morning lesson now. What has happened to the group? Everyone suddenly has serious personal problems. How can we overcome this situation?

Answer: We keep forgetting that nothing happens by chance and that everything is done by the Creator. Whatever we receive is controlled by the general system of providence. This system is both general and individual.

Suddenly, the friends in the group feel bad and have some external and internal problems. Everyone has his own private personal or family troubles. They don’t understand that there are actually no problems. There is only one problem and that is the connection with the Creator! Everything else is just an external reflection of this connection. There is nothing but that!

Your connection with the Creator is illustrated by the rule of “for better or worse” and is revealed in different events that are depicted to you at work, at home, in the family, with the children, or with yourself when it comes to your health or to different inner feelings or different moods. The Creator does all that in order to wash you thoroughly in different states, wring you like a rag, and show you what you are worth.

He does it in a controlled manner, according to your state, with the one intention that you will always have a chance to rise. If you cannot rise above every state that you are in, above every problem, it means that you haven’t fulfilled the condition you were given.

There are no dead-end states! They all are measured carefully in advance and come from the Creator with the one and only intention of raising you higher, not lower. This state is not part of the plan of creation. Even if you are lowered, in your transition through the lowest state, the upper state already is pre-existing. What does a low state mean? It is the upper state that you feel in your uncorrected vessels and, therefore, seems lower to you.

A descent is the desire of the next state, and, although you have not corrected it yet, it is already the next state. So, there are no descents and ascents! We always rise according to the module!

Where does the emptiness, fear, nervousness, and total apathy that I feel now—and everything we feel during a descent—stem from? It stems from my growing ego and the demands and feelings that have grown, which are already my next state that is revealed in its uncorrected form, not in the Light.

So, a day begins from the night. The night is the preparation for the Light. We study in the Study of the Ten Sefirot that the preparation for the correction of the vessels takes place during the night. Then the morning comes, not according to the clock, but according to the correction of the vessels, of the desires.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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From External Dissemination To The Revelation Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Each of us feels the importance and need for physical contact in the group and the groups of ten for the sense of confidence and importance one feels in the connection. What can replace the lack of physical contact?

We listen to the daily lesson every morning and have different committees. We get text messages every hour, but physically we get together only once or twice a week.

Answer: The point is not how many times you get together but how many times you come in contact with people on the outside. The spiritual work is as follows: The Creator is above, and below the Creator there is the group, in the group, there is the teacher (Rav); all the Kabbalists from whom we have received our method surround the group and the teacher, and below there are the masses, society, the people.

First, we have to connect in the group. This unity is essential when each one exits himself, performs the first restriction, creates a Masach (screen), and connects to others. Then we connect to the Creator by wanting to bring Him into the group, which is the second part. Third, when the Creator is already among us, we go out to the people.

From External Dissemination To The Revelation Of The Creator
Among the people we begin to feel that it’s not enough for us since we discover different deficiencies. Then we return to the group and in it we return to the Creator. Through the group we are empowered by the Creator, and then we return to the people. Thus we constantly perform this cyclical work. So physical contact is not enough, we have to engage in external dissemination through the group.

Our whole group is called Israel, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator). What does Yashar-El mean? Where can we discover Him? In the same place where there is a desire that was created by the Creator. The Creator is Light. We are in the middle, like a switch. Israel is the conductor through which this connection is fulfilled; this is all our work.

Therefore, we cannot connect to the Creator if we have no contact with the public, since together with the group and all the Kabbalists, we are not considered a created being. We are an artificial creation that the Creator has created in order to fulfill the connection between Him and His created being since we operate by the desire in our heart which He has given us. The point in the heart is what is typical of our group.

We don’t generate this point; it’s the Creator’s attribute from above. We work from this point, so we can only be the switch, the connector, the conductor, between the Creator and the desires. The Creator is Light. There is a desire and there is the Light that has to correct the desire and to fill it. We are in between the two and we have to fulfill this.

You can listen to as many lessons as you wish and have committees, but it will lead to nothing. You will actually remain on the same level for 10 to 20 years until you dry up and leave this useless business since you don’t engage in disseminating to the public!

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator in this world! Read the definition of the wisdom of Kabbalah in Baal HaSulam’s article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah.” The wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the people in our world. This is His desire, His goal, and the reason for all of creation.

We have to fulfill this goal. But in whom? It’s done in the masses, not in us. If we fulfill it only in us, we operate egoistically. The revelation of the Creator among the masses is not considered egoistic, since they don’t want it and have no desire for it; they are not egoists with regard to the Creator. They don’t need Him.

We, however, need Him! So we have to work for them, to discover the Creator among them, and then this revelation will be altruistic with regard to us. Study the diagram I drew and you will see that you cannot need the Creator if you don’t go out to the people. Only if you go out to the people and engage in dissemination will you feel that you need Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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