Audio Version Of The Blog – 05.02.14

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Fewer Goods – More Profits

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Harvard Business Review Blog): “Recent evidence suggests that the paradigm of ‘variation is value’ may be shifting. More and more, consumers are conveying their preference for fewer choices and simpler customer experiences. For example, a Forester Research survey earlier this year noted that consumers are foregoing unlimited choices in the computing world in exchange for more ‘curated’ choice, where providers sort through the possible applications for individuals and recommend a limited subset. Similarly, at a Future Agenda Conference in August, much of the conversation was about ‘less variety.’ As one professor noted, ‘fewer choices provide higher levels of satisfaction.’ 

“The narrowing of choices by these companies has not only made it easier for their customers but has also increased revenues and margins. With fewer products or services to promise, all of the associated supply chain, facility, and support processes can be slimmed down, saving considerable money and energy. Even automobile companies and airlines seem to have learned this lesson. General Motors’ process of shedding brands and narrowing down their product portfolio may have been painful, but this made it easier for buyers to understand the new GM and for the company to focus its resources on producing better cars. Similarly many airlines have cut routes and frequency of flights, giving them fuller planes and more efficient use of their assets.”

My Comment: This comes not from a desire to be the best, like nature in all its actions, but by the desire to maximize profit. Nevertheless, this is in the right direction. And then comes the right intention.
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A Search For The Center Of The Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I understand what I have to do if I want to turn to the social committee. I have their email address and their phone numbers. But how do I turn to the center of the group?

Answer: The center of the group is an inner discernment, my feeling that this is the point where we connect. We descended from above while being connected, and then reached this world where this connection was totally broken. Now we have to rise back to the same state in which we were connected and then rise even higher upward to an even stronger connection.

We enter the patterns that have already been arranged for us during our descent. All these patterns, all the 125 levels, already exist. We only have to yearn for them.

Yearning for the center of the group is yearning for our higher state that already exists. I look for it in the dark, “on my bed at night.” I try to imagine what the state is like in which we are all connected and the Creator is revealed to us. What should this connection be like? I want to attain this form. This is the state I have to look for, to picture it from the state I am in now. I have to think emotionally about what our connection looks like so that we can all merge, so that our hearts will melt, and become one. If I try to picture this state, I get closer to it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/14, Shamati #190, Shamati #59

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An Operation For The Assistant Director

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean for me to participate in my own development, that didn’t exist before?

Answer: Previously you were a box that was managed by orders that came from a network. Within you were only mechanisms through which they activated you with these commands. But now, into yourself, you must move the main part of the computer that is above you and sends you the commands along with the program that runs it. This is called, “a part of the Divine from Above.”

Question: Why are you calling me a box? After all, I am alive and learning.

Answer: Because you are a desire to receive that is activated only by self-interest that is managed from Above. But now you are getting a part of the computer that manages you, together with the program. You need to know the ultimate goal of creation and your true situation. You need to know how to advance in a mandatory direction.

You need to check yourself, understand, and see that you are a desire to receive, so you cannot advance towards the desired goal of creation. Appearing within you is a conflict between what you want and what is necessary. This will draw you towards troubles and wars through which you will gradually begin to change your mind about the goal.

You don’t want this goal, anything but to bestow, to give. But what is there to do? You receive blow after blow, flee until there is neither anywhere to flee nor anywhere to hide. You begin to accept that you have no choice but to agree. And through your consent, you begin to learn that until this point all was through coercion, and then it becomes according to your desire.

We see this according to the 4 phases of Ohr Yashar (Direct Light), how a receiver is made from a bestower, and that a receiver under pressure can resemble the bestower. But this is a very long way, since 400 years are required for this. These are the 4 phases of  Ohr Yashar, but in reverse, and this way is not very desirable.

So we needed progressive development over billions of years. And now through the wisdom of Kabbalah and a guide that is sent to you, you begin to see how to carry out actions that will be desirable to your ego and will gradually become a mechanism that works in the opposite way. All of this must be done gradually, not because you receive benefit for yourself, rather because this is good for others, including the higher power.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Seeing The Future

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I don’t understand what I have to add in order to actually participate in my own development.

Answer: When a baby is born, it first grows only instinctively. But gradually he becomes more aware.

What is the difference between a one-year-old baby and a five-year-old? What has changed besides the child’s weight? A five-year-old can somewhat understand the future, which means the outcome of the states he is experiencing. He can assess and see the future, which means expecting the next state.

Animals do it instinctively, but not humans. A baby can fall from a high place and doesn’t understand that it’s dangerous. He can put something hot in his mouth and get burnt. An animal would not do such thing; it wouldn’t fall from a high place and would not get close to danger. A baby grows and acquires the wisdom he lacks.

A wise man is one who sees the future, which means how a state develops. This is what animals do instinctively but only in the limited sphere of their existence. A person has a much stronger ability since he develops it himself.

Baal HaSulam says that if someone was shown a newborn baby and newborn calf, he would say that the calf is a more perfect creature than the human baby because the baby is totally helpless while the calf can already walk, understand, feel, and is strong.

But because we develop the ability to see the future, we understand who is more perfect. The whole wisdom is in the ability to see the future. Therefore people consult wise men who see what ordinary people cannot see. This is what we have to acquire these days because the whole world is becoming confused and depressed. No one knows what to do and no one sees any possible outcomes. Therefore, we have to learn to see the future.

In contrast to previous generations, we can already see the future, our future, only in vessels of bestowal. It’s because the spiritual future is approaching and we cannot identify it, and so we think everything is falling apart. However, the point is that we cannot perceive and see the future and enter it in our current vessels because we don’t belong to that system. In order to become compatible with that system, to see the future and understand the changes that we have to make in order to adapt to the future, we need to be wise.

A wise man is anyone who knows the wisdom of Kabbalah. Therefore it written in the prophets that thousands all over the world will hold on to every wise man so that he will lead them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Do Not Boil A Kid In Its Mother’s Milk

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the spiritual meaning of separating milk from meat?

Answer: The Torah says: “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” Meat cannot be eaten with milk since by that you cause a short circuit between the most important things, the right and left lines.

Milk symbolizes the right line, the Light of Hassadim (mercy) that stems from the desire to bestow. So on the physical level, milk is food for children. However, the left line, meat, symbolizes receiving, rigidity, egoism.

We must not bring these two lines together because they can only connect in the middle line when you receive from the left egoistic line only what the right altruistic line can include in it and make the middle line out of the two.

In order to create the middle line, we have to descend from ten to six Sefirot, from  GAR to VAK which means to bring the state of greatness of the Partzuf to smallness, because until the end of correction it’s impossible to receive in order to bestow in the whole desire, except for a small quantity.

Malchut can be used only in the ascent to Bina. The ascent of Malchut to Bina is a state of smallness or six Sefirot. Therefore it’s possible to eat dairy products six hours after eating meat.

In our world, six hours is a conditional measure, and therefore in different communities the time of separation between meat and milk differs. In certain communities the break between dairy and meat is three hours and in others it’s an hour. But on the whole, most communities keep six hours.

As for meat, it can be eaten half an hour after dairy (except for hard cheese, which is the same as meat). Although the laws that forbid the combination of milk and meat are not so convenient, they stem from the smallness of the spiritual Partzuf.

Question: Do our friends all over the world have to keep these laws?

Answer: No, we don’t dictate anything to anyone. This refers to the spiritual work and its goal to receive in order to bestow. We can try to persuade people from morning to night that it’s important to feel love towards a friend, but we cannot demand that someone actually do it.

Moreover, one can keep the tradition and another cannot. We never demand of others but only of ourselves. On the other hand, those who don’t keep the tradition shouldn’t interfere with the customs of those who do. We should respect the customs of others, no matter what they are.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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Don’t Let Your Desire Leaven

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Leviticus” 2:11: No meal-offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven; for ye shall make no leaven, nor any honey, smoke as an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

“No meal-offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven” means that it is forbidden to allow our desire to receive to leaven and to rise. It has to remain in its original form.

In the corporeal world, the time for the flour to connect with the water in the process of making the Matzo should be no more than 18 minutes, so that the process of fermentation will not start.

This length of time has a spiritual root, as it is made of nine Sefirot of the Direct Light (Ohr Yashar) and nine Sefirot of the Returning Light (Ohr Hozer), which we can establish without taking the tenth Sefira into account. We cannot correct it and so we just leave it.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/27/13

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A White Gate On A Black Background

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the difference between a person who is controlled by Pharaoh and a person who is controlled by the Creator?

Answer: It is the same domination, the same power. Pharaoh is revealed very slowly as a great power until he is fully revealed in the full power of the 49 gates of impurity.

The Creator is also revealed slowly and gradually in the 49 gates of Holiness and then also in the 50th gate of Holiness, after which we transcend to receiving in order to bestow. It is the same force that operates in an opposite manner.

I have to feel the darkness and with respect to it, the Light, then the darkness again and the Light on top of it. This is the only way I discover my years of slavery in Egypt, my state in Egypt. My background is black and on it I write with the white Light. And then the background will be white on which I will write with black ink.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/14, Writings of Rabash

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A Miraculous Machine

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is laziness in the work?

Answer: Laziness is heaviness in our work, a lack of motivation, a lack of vigor and fuel, meaning, a lack of importance. Rabash gives a simple example: If one’s house were on fire and one needed to escape the fire, nobody would be lazy and continue sleeping. Everyone would jump out of bed and flee.

If one’s life isn’t in danger, one can say no matter what happens, what will be, will be,  and might take a sleeping pill to sleep more deeply.  Everything depends upon the importance.

There is no laziness or excitement; there is only a sense of the importance of the goal, the next state. If we are talking about a process which is repugnant to our nature, which like all animals, egoistically is drawn to rest, to fulfillment; how can one work for the fulfillment of others? This is simply impossible.

Can a car travel without fuel? Certainly not, it needs fuel. Without this it will not move! Whereas we want to reach a state in which we can advance without fuel. So how is it possible to do this without fulfilling ourselves with a nice and tempting goal? We are not ready to do this.

And here we are confused and don’t understand how to advance, where, to what goal, how to go through this whole process? This is because we truly must begin to work without fuel for our desire for pleasure, to work without an attractive goal for the ego that says it must be filled. We must go to the perpetual motion machine, towards an engine that uses an absolutely different fuel and performs other work.

We just don’t understand how such a thing can exist in reality. This is like a machine that works by itself on some invisible fuel and gets the power of movement by acting for the sake of others, fulfilling them, and doing everything for their good.

I don’t require anything for itself. It’s a miracle, and everything works. I check, does it have fuel? There is no fuel! Is there electricity? There is no electricity! Maybe it at least enjoys benefit from what it is doing? I check, it has no benefit from this! So how can it work?! Thanks to a miracle, a wonder, the power of bestowal! Why? There is no answer.

So how must we proceed towards a state like this where we will be like that machine? This is the whole question. The process moves us towards this, and we must grasp only one thing in it all the time: Connection – connection – connection. And so we pass through the states that are called the forefathers, the entire history of their development after leaving Babylon, then the entry into Egypt, seven years of satiety, seven years of famine, the plagues of Egypt, and the exodus from there.

All this happened only thanks to some kind of higher power that is unknown to us. From the connection between us, I discover all these states called seven years of satiety and seven years of famine, the ten plagues, and the escape from the previous state.

I flee from this entire old paradigm because it cannot help me any more with anything. I see that everything that I have done until now lacks value, and I discover something new here: the possibility of understanding, feeling, and working like that perpetual motion machine that works without fuel, without self-interest, and without fulfillment.

This machine works completely on the basis of a higher power. Suddenly some kind of illumination reaches it from Above and it begins to spin by itself as long as the illumination is in it. And then it’s ready to connect with others, to perform actions, to radiate energy from itself. This is simply amazing; this is the miracle that we have been waiting for so much.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/14, Writing of Rabash

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