Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.24.14

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The US Will Not Survive Without Food Stamps

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from MoneyNews): “The number of Americans on food stamps climbed to an all-time peak last year, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture.

“An average of 46.6 million people received the benefits each month last year, with the average number of households that received them totaling 22.3 million. In 2007, just 26.3 million people received food stamps.

“Among states, Texas topped the chart with an average of 4.04 million food stamp recipients per month. California came in second with 3.96 million, and Florida was third with 3.35 million. …

“In the Weekly Republican Address Saturday, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ripped the Agriculture Department for what he called its aggressive program to put more people on food stamps, Daily Caller reports.

“Sessions voiced disdain for the Agriculture Departments’ claim that ‘each $5 in new [food stamp] benefits generates almost twice that amount in economic activity for the community.’

“Sessions offered a response to that. ‘Isn’t a better goal to help more Americans find good-paying jobs, to have the pride and self-respect that comes from that?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t this a superior form of compassion that has a more solid moral foundation?’

“But President Barack Obama won’t let that happen, Sessions says.

“The U.S. government spent a record $80.4 billion on food stamps in fiscal 2012 — up $2.7 billion from fiscal 2011.

“According to the Monthly Treasury Statement by the U.S. Treasury Department, the government spent $77.6 billion on food stamps — formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — in fiscal 2011.”

My Comment: We are approaching a state when due to the huge number of unemployed, people will understand that it is necessary to introduce a general program of equal distribution of essential goods and services to people. The term “unemployed” will disappear.
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A Shared Mission

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why do we need to go out to people? Don’t they need to come to us themselves?

Answer: How will they know about it if we are not involved with dissemination? If I hadn’t opened an Internet site in 1996 that talked about the wisdom of Kabbalah, who would have known about it?

And later, when the group was already created, we organized a trip to the United States and gave lectures in 11 major cities. From this all of our groups that still exist today in America began.

If we don’t go out to the general public, how will people know about the science of Kabbalah and that it is open for learning? If you don’t disseminate your product well, then who will know about it besides yourself? Dissemination is the most essential thing.

If there is no dissemination, then it’s as if blood doesn’t go out from the heart to the rest of the organs. It’s precisely through this that you go out from the source all the time, from the center, and disseminate to outer circles; there is a reaction that comes back. And if you simply sit and wait, then nothing will ever happen.

All trades are based upon this: If you don’t advertise your product, nobody will buy it. 50 to 70% of the price of a product is spent on advertising. Today, there is no problem in producing any product; this costs pennies today. But the main thing is to sell it successfully: to persuade that this product is worth paying money for. And 70% of what is paid for was wasted only on advertising.

If I simply stayed at home, nobody would know about me. At first I thought of doing this; I thought that I would sit and write books. But there was no choice, the time was compelling. It’s not my manner to travel everywhere and perform, but what can you do? We see from the Torah that both Abraham and Moses didn’t want to accept their mission at first. Each one of them said directly that he didn’t want this and rejected the mission with all his strength, but without a choice, they were compelled to accept it.

That is how we must take the example from them. Never has anyone wanted a mission like this because you are not going to publicize something useful and good for the ego and you only get humiliation, beatings, and trouble from it. It’s enough just to look at the description of the life of Moses, and this was even though he was the leader of the people. It’s possible to say the same thing about King David, all of his life he was involved in wars.

There is no choice. We must carry out our mission, but today all of us can go up on the royal road together.
[130425]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/14, The Zohar

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Quantity Is The Determinant In Our World

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf Baal HaSulam were surrounded by allies, he would not have been afraid of informers, he would have continued his work by writing another fifty articles and continuing on the way that he determined for himself. And so instead he had to leave Jerusalem and go to Jaffa to some hovel to be involved in construction.

He really suffered from a lack of power. For in our world quantity and not quality is the determinant. And this is particularly significant in our day when we are coming to the general correction.

Baal HaSulam wrote that from the end of the twentieth century the correction would be done thanks to the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah to everyone. Therefore, dissemination is imperative for us not simply to increase our groups; rather, it is imperative because without this we cannot build a vessel for revealing spirituality. Therefore, dissemination is essentially the private correction of everyone by going and expanding the boundaries of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

For if we don’t reach those six hundred thousand people who in all kinds of ways will belong to the study of Kabbalah, we cannot reach the minimal intensity through which it is possible to reveal the Creator. These conditions don’t depend upon us but match the structure of the system about which we are learning in The Study of the Ten Sefirot and in the Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah. Therefore our task is to expand.

In order to expand and go out full force in all directions, it is also up to us to be strong against all of those factions who really want to annihilate us because this is against their ideology, their ability to profit more, to succeed more in the material program. And in general this happens everywhere in this egoistic world; each has pleasure from someone else being less than he is so much so that it would be better if the other didn’t exist at all.

Therefore, we need to understand that our activity in dissemination is not just some kind of hobby. Someone who wants to reach the feeling of opening the spiritual world between us must understand that this requires a vessel that is appropriate in the quantitative and qualitative sense for that Light that must be revealed in it. This is the condition of the law of equivalence of form.

We only need to become stronger so nobody can rise up against us and try to divert us from the way. We need to become so strong that we can openly disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah and not quietly where we hide ourselves. For this we also need to become internally strong, and this depends upon our intensity throughout the world. And likewise, we need to become strong in the outer circle, where we have many fans and supporters, people who understand and recognize us more. And through expansion of the circles more and more widely, we must bring the people of Israel to correction.
[130411]
From the Lesson 3/19/14, Conversation About Importance of Dissemination

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Trainers Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Does it follow that humility is not a single action; rather, a person must humble himself all the time? If so, when will a sufficient degree of such actions be gathered and a person will begin to live in two dimensions?

Answer: After a number of acts of humility like these, this breakthrough happens. But nobody knows exactly after how many actions. If a person is weak, they give him small actions to carry out, but their number will be greater. And a strong person can do this more rapidly, like a hammer that hews stone. But nevertheless, this has never been done with one blow.

Rabash described this as shots at the “heart of stone,” where every bullet leaves more and more new and larger grooves in the stone until an opening is created. How many shots this takes depends upon the intensity of the work of the person, on the power of the blows for which he is ready.

If the group supports a person, then he is ready to endure more and not run away immediately. In this case he can contend and even “give his teeth to the ego” in response to what is happening, this is a very unique intensification already. For you strike your ego “in your teeth” and not someone who stands in front of you, but someone inside of you. A person learns this gradually, if not from the advice of his teacher, then from his own suffering.
[130361]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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Sons Of The King’s Palace

Dr. Michael Laitman“The Bride” is the connection in the group, Malchut is at least ten men (Minyan). The purpose of the exile was actually to collect all the shattered parts and build the vessel of the bride. Then we reach the night of the bride (eve of Shavuot), in which all the parts come together, and it is also the darkest time.

Although we are happy that we can already connect, it is still a state of darkness. Then the next morning the groom arrives and the light of day is revealed in the bride. Our world is what we feel in Malchut, in the bride, and so we need to collect all the pieces of the vessels, all the parts of the bride.

We are all parts of the bride, which is all of humanity. But there are people who collect all these parts together; who work like ants that carry all these parts of the soul into the bride. They are called the sons of the king’s palace.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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Insurance For The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I raise my awareness in order to relate to the Creator at every moment, and not just ten out of a thousand?

Answer: Everything depends upon external support from the Creator, from the group, from the teacher, or from all of them together.

If I am in a prosperous state now, how can I make sure that I will be fine again tomorrow? You have a refrigerator at home for this, and you know that there are groceries there that you can get any time you are hungry.

Do you have the same insurance for the future in spiritual work? Have you prepared it? Your refrigerator is the group. You don’t have any place for saving the Light, but you can accumulate it within the group.

This works like a wire and a coil through which a current flows. If you want to be active all the time, in this dynamic, then you need to build such relationships with the group. Invest in the group when you can, and then when you can’t, you will get energy back from it.
[130356]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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Amalek Is Arrogance, Condescension and Pride

Dr. Michael LaitmanExodus (Tetzaveh), “Light and Sun”: It says in the Midrash and Rashi says (about Amalek), whom you met on your way, which stems from the word “coldness,” which means that they put out the fire of their love and cooled it, since initially they were warm and enthusiastic in their love for one another.

And how did they cool them? By arrogance and pride, because Amalek in means arrogance, condescension, and pride. The main thing that brings one to love his friend is when each one sees that he is low and despised, always finding flaws in everything that he does and seeing the righteousness of his friend and of his actions and that he is great in his eyes, and so he loves his friend and is united with him.

But if he thinks that he is great and feels proud, he sees the flaws of his friend by that and thus hates him, since his friend seems very low to him. Amalek cooled the warmth and the enthusiasm Israel felt before, in loving one another.

The outstanding characteristic of the desire to receive that is immediately revealed is pride. Anger and arrogance are additional attributes. But pride is special because it can even be revealed in an opposite manner, when a person is proud that he has humiliated himself. So pride is the main sign of the desire to receive.

Pride is not feeling that I am greater, higher, and stronger than others, but thinking that in any of the states that I encounter in life, it’s someone else who has to change and not me, which means that something that is external to me has to change not myself. It turns out that if I see something negative, I attribute this deficiency to the Creator since only He exists except for me.

If a person has an urge or an inclination to change something on the outside, it’s called pride and it signifies the desire to receive. We can learn a lot from this since there is something to filter and to clarify on every level.

It’s a split perception: The way it seems to me and the way it seems to others, as if I exist and they exist and around me there is a big world full of people. But in fact I communicate with my own attributes and not with others. This is where there is an opening to another level of perception. So the illumination of Amalek, which is in order to receive, that is most clearly revealed as Haman, on its ultimate level, is a great holiday for the Jews, meaning for those who want to reach unity, to unite as one nation, because it’s the last obstacle in reaching unity of all the shattered parts of the soul.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14

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Thou Shall Not Make Molten Gods!

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:17-34:18: You shall not make molten gods for yourself. The Festival of Unleavened Bread you shall keep—eating unleavened bread for seven days, as I commanded you—at the set time of the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you went forth from Egypt.

In a state called “The land of Israel” a person has to keep and to observe all the corrections that he has already attained, which means that even on the highest level they cannot be annulled. The spiritual attributes that we have acquired along the spiritual path, the attributes of love and bestowal towards those around us now turn to the Creator.

Question: Why does it say “molten gods?” Does this refer to some form?

Answer: A molten god is the strongest state. It’s when everything is merged into one unified picture, into one single equivalence of form, into a desire, a yearning.

When we carve something from a natural material, some of the material is left over in the form of debris and loose material. When we cast a form by using our materials, it as if spews out in one unified form that actually takes on an egoistic form.

This means that a person knows exactly what he wants to achieve and applies all ones skills to create an idol. He collects all his desires and connects them so that they become one whole, but in an opposite form that is in absolute contrast to what he should do. He does have to collect them but with the attribute of bestowal and not the opposite attribute. Therefore, it’s the most insidious point of change in a person’s behavior when he has the opportunity to turn to one side or the other.

Question: So there is no main installation that is done to connect to others in order to resemble the Creator? And it isn’t injected by the Creator?

Answer: No. In this state a person receives great help since he thinks that what he does will help everyone and that it’s in order to please the Creator. He has to hold on to only one small point so he won’t cast an idol for himself, and it is to raise his faith above reason. This is the only thing that can protect him and save him.

It’s a very delicate matter since a person thinks that by molding an idol he acts for the good of others. He finds infinite confirmations, proof and evidence that he is spreading the Light while he is actually spreading darkness.

It’s only in faith above reason that one can work on this thin line; it is when a person uses the connection with the upper tools, with the earlier corrected souls, when he has contact with the group, the books, and the teacher who is in contact with his teachers. One cannot start inventing things. A person’s nature will not allow him to do anything. There are no such cases in history. A person has to study with his teachers and through them to connect and to constantly guard this connection so that he can advance. It cannot be any other way!

Question: Can a person who has certain talents use them?

Answer: Certainly not. There is no need for corporeal talent along the spiritual path. On the contrary, all you need is a pure heart and mind, this pure inner state is the best.

When we fill ourselves with information and with everything about the method, we have to be careful of different philosophies, logical conclusions, etc. We have to rely only on the sources by constantly trying to clarify them and understand them anew each time.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.24.14

Preparation for the Lesson

[media 1] [media 2]

Workshop 

[media 3] [media 4]

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts

[media 5] [media 6]

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”   

[media 7] [media 8]