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Opinion (Mark Schaller, Professor of Psychology – University of British Columbia): “It’s an unconscious strategy for avoiding a wide range of potential infections, since we have no way of detecting germs themselves. But since the consequences of missing a sign of disease are serious, possibly even fatal, and the array of symptoms wide, our behavioral immune system (as Schaller has dubbed this suite of responses) tends towards over-sensitivity—which is why we might be more averse to practically anyone who strikes us as anomalous. That includes a man in a wheelchair who poses no disease threat at all. Recent scholarship bears this out; for example, research published in Evolution and Human Behavior revealed that disease-avoidant psychological processes play a driving role in prejudices against people who are obese or disabled.
“’Protective prejudice’ may also fuel an instinctive distrust of strangers. It makes sense—in terms of strict self-preservation—to be wary around those whose behavior and dress suggest they’re outsiders.
“Even if we try to hide our reactions, our instinctive concerns about those who look unusual are biases we impart to others through everyday interactions. Left unchecked, such discomfort can grow powerful enough to predispose whole societies towards xenophobia, and along with it, violence against those seen as outsiders. Yet by understanding the underpinnings of protective prejudice, we can learn to combat it rather than overextend it, on both a personal and a global scale.”
My Comment: Everything can be overcome, except anti-Semitism, because it stems from the opposition of the forces to receive and bestow. Carriers of these forces are opposite in nature. By their nature, Jews belong to the force of bestowal, and other nations belong to the force of receiving.
This is the reason for hatred, rejection, and the feeling of strangeness, which cannot be overcome or corrected. Correction is the opposite action that will help the Jews realize their root of bestowal (love of others), and the nations of the world accept the method from them and also reach this quality. Only in this case, will everyone adhere to the Creator.
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Question: How is a person’s work, which attributes everything to the principle, there is none else beside Him, linked to a group?
Answer: All of the work is with intention. It is not important what I do: sell watermelons or give a class somewhere. At that moment I have some kind of intention of what I want to accomplish with this activity. For the Shevirah (breaking of the vessel) was intentional and the destruction was intentionally concealed.
The desires, activities, events, and circumstances are not important in and of themselves. Rather, what is important is with what intention I am including in that circumstance, in that picture from the film. What do I want from the picture of the world that is now revealed in me and what do I do with my attitude towards the present state?
The states arrive by themselves; I don’t determine nor choose them. It is as if I pass from one picture to another in a film, one after another, and the question is only what I want from all of this. Here is all of my work. I cannot change these pictures, but my intention determines what I will see in those pictures through which I must pass; peace or war, jealousy or hatred, or everything good and pleasurable.
All of this depends only on my intention, since through that I change each picture in the film, the entire film and the entire picture of reality from end to end. I must return this picture to the Creator at all times, since all that comes to me in the form of the world, through adhering to Him.
To support this I have a group that is operating worldwide. I want the whole world to connect to the same idea and everyone to adhere to the Creator. This is what I am trying to attain at each and every moment.
And it makes no difference what actions are required for this. It could be that I am working as a mechanic in a garage, but this is not important. What is important is my intention through which I gather and connect all moments for correction.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Baal HaSulam, Thou Hast Hemmed Me in Behind and Before: Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before, meaning the revelation and concealment of the face of the Creator. This is because indeed, “His kingdom ruleth over all,” and everything will return to its root because there is no place vacant of Him. But the difference is in present tense or future tense.
Because who connects the two worlds, discovers His clothing in the present: everything that is done is a clothing for the revelation of divinity. And this is deemed the present tense, meaning that now, too, he comes out in royal clothes and evidently shows that the rider is not subordinate to the horse.
The Creator doesn’t disappear in His clothing, which is all of reality, the whole world.
But although it seemingly appears (to a person) that the horse leads the rider.
We are confused with regard to the Creator’s clothing to such an extent that we are distracted by everything that happens, which conceals the upper force from us and confuses us so much that it seems that the rider is subordinate to the horse.
The truth is that the horse is provoked to any movement only by the sensation of the rider’s bridle and headstall. And this is called “the construction of the stature of divinity,” and it is also called “face-to-face.”
If we discover the reason, the active force, the thought of creation, and how it directs each of us and all of us together, we can thus clarify and discover the rider, that there is none else besides Him, the first cause and the first source.
We then realize that the clothing by which the Creator conceals Himself, is actually so that we will discover Him behind them, learn to understand His language, and realize why He is concealed behind everything that happens.
It is actually by such concealment that we reach His revelation. Otherwise we would not feel anything in the simple white Light, even if we perceived its white shade. It is actually by these concealments, by such games where the Creator is concealed, that we begin to learn His nature, His character, by comparing Him to ourselves, which means to the opposite form. The opposite form is revealed as clothing, as the concealment that separates us, but if we try to reveal the Creator and ask Him to help us reveal Him correctly and adhere to Him, if we are ready to change, the concealment will turn into a revelation.
The same forms of concealment will turn into opposite forms and will help us in the revelation. Without them, we could not taste, distinguish, see, or feel the Creator, because our nature is opposite from Him. Therefore, there is the need for an adaptor between the Creator and the egoistic force or shell, which is us and which later turns to Holiness.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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Baal HaSulam, “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before”: Hence, you should not think that you are drawing away from holiness, which means that the Creator doesn’t operate on you, doesn’t work on you or manage you, since He has forgotten you, “For he that is banished be not an outcast from him.” And every wheel turns to come to holiness, its root.
Therefore, although it seems that the horse leads the rider by its base desire, the truth is not so. It is the rider who leads the horse to his destination.
Because of the concealment, we forget, don’t understand, and don’t feel the leadership of the upper force. We think that we operate according to our own desire, and that we are the ones who make mistakes, but we mustn’t think that way. We don’t do anything and it is all the Creator’s doing. But because we haven’t made enough efforts prior to the revelation of the Creator, He has to give us more means in order to reveal Him, which means to increase the concealment on the next level.
The Creator wants us to reveal Him, and so he constantly pushes us towards this revelation according to our state. He increases the concealment in order to help us reveal Him. If we are ready for the revelation, for the understanding, and the feeling, the Creator diminishes the concealment a bit, seeing that in this way we will attain Him faster.
The rider leads the horse to his destination, in each and every case. If a person says that he has made a mistake and that he has caused harm, it is a naïve illusion. We have to say that everything in the past was done by the Creator, and only with regard to the future can we say: “If I am not for myself, who is for me?”
We mustn’t regret the past as something that we did. I should only regret the fact that the Creator has arranged things this way for me so that I couldn’t adhere to Him at that point.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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M. Weisman, “Midrash Mesaper,” “Tzav“: “In its clarity the sky fire resembled the sun.”
These are two great lights, the lights of the night and the day, the sun and the moon, which have to be the same in the future.
The point is that the moon illuminates by the light that comes from the sun, but the earth conceals it from the sun. When the earth will fully conceal the moon and, on the other hand, when it is corrected, it will not be a Masach (screen), and it will outshine it, the moon will begin to illuminate like the sun, which is the state we have to reach.
This means that Malchut, our previous ego that will be corrected to bestow unto others and to love others, will begin to illuminate like the Creator. Then the two great lights will not illuminate for themselves but each other.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/6/13
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The group is an organized group of people who are ready to connect and agree to maintain special rules for this. These laws are not determined by us but by great Kabbalists who passed through all the stages of ascent and know how it is necessary to assemble the Kli in order to discover the Creator.
The Kabbalists explain that there must be: “One for all and all for one,” “as one man with one heart.” Each one must rise above his ego for the welfare of the group. Nobody thinks about himself or about individual friends, rather only about the whole group. Everyone nullifies themselves in order to reach unity. The connection is above all, there is no other goal.
If all of a sudden something must be done, then we ask: Will this increase our connection or not? If our connection will become stronger, then we do it, and if not, then we don’t do it. This is the only criterion. There is nothing but one single goal, our unity, for the discovery of the Creator depends upon its intensity.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 3
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The Bible, “Psalms” 139: “For the conductor. Of David, a song.” O Lord, You have searched me out, and You know. You know my sitting and my rising; You understand how to attach me from afar. My going about and my lying down You encompassed, and You are accustomed to all my ways. For there is no word on my tongue; behold, O Lord, You know it all. From the rear and front You encompassed me, and You placed Your pressure upon me.
A psalm is an expression of a person’s constant agreement at any moment, at any state, to follow the principle of There is none else besides Him. This means acknowledging the fact that He is the only one who manages everything and there is nothing in a person except for one point of disconnection from the Creator. Everything else comes from the upper force, from the Creator.
However, a person sees reality through this disconnection, through this breaking point. All of a person’s work is to try as hard as he can to constantly identify that There is none else besides Him every time he sees the world through this breaking point. Although it doesn’t seem that way, he constantly tries to reconnect Malchut and Zeir Anpin, which means to discover that the Creator is the one who manages everything.
Thus the breaking point is gradually corrected time after time, until it reaches a point that it is totally healed, which means that it ceases to exist, and a person reaches complete adhesion with the Creator.
This psalm tells us about our work, which is constantly trying to reach the real causes through the concealments. This means to discover what happens to us, in us, and around us, and that it all comes from the Creator who constantly stabilizes the state in us called our world, our life.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/14
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In our world, there is a very strange phenomenon: man, who develops from generation to generation. He develops his mind, and thus changes his environment.
But the mind itself develops due to the environment and so it cannot ascend higher than the attainment of the environment and how to make better use of it. This is what makes man so different from other animals. He uses nature and the environment a bit more than other animals, and that’s all. The animals’ desire is limited and definite, and it doesn’t grow from one generation to the next but is only filled by simple things: food, sex, family. That’s all an animal has.
People also enjoy the same pleasures, but they also enjoy wealth, domination, and knowledge. This makes human beings much more active but also worse and more egoistic than animals. It is because the power of the ego is unlimited when it comes to these human pleasures; a person wants to swallow the whole world, and thus ruins it. He ruins his environment to such an extent that it becomes more and more difficult to survive in this world ,which is supposed to be for the benefit of man.
After all, man has intellect so that he can arrange a better and more comfortable environment. But there is something here that ruins all this: our egoistic desire.
If we look and assess our life from this perspective, it is better not to be born at all and not to be doomed to such afflictions. Baal HaSulam says in the article “Peace in the World” that if a person calculated and weighed all the pleasures in life and all the sufferings, he would prefer not to be born at all.
But there is a purpose for being in this world. It is only for this purpose that all of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and especially man exist. It determines our character and all the inner and environmental conditions. All this is meant for our spiritual development.
Our spiritual development is the ascent from our current state to the spiritual world, which means unity, bestowal, and the love of others. But it is defined with respect to us, and in fact, spirituality is called the Creator, the Light, the One who bestows and loves.
We discover all that as the Creator’s nature and we call it spirituality. Our nature, on the other hand, is called corporeality since it stems from the matter of the desire to receive; whereas the Creator’s nature stems from the Light, from the force of bestowal and love and so it is called spirituality. It is based on the wind in contrast to the rain.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
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