Audio Version Of The Blog – 10.15.14

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio

[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2014-10-15_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’15.10.14′]

Rise To The Very Beginning

Laitman_712_03Question: Is it possible to say that the four plant species (Arba Minim) that characterize the Sukkot holiday symbolize the characteristics of the Creator?

Answer: The Creator has no characteristics. It is I with my desire who identifies Him with seven characteristics. Since I am a “point of desire,” I feel the Creator with feeling and intellect, with desires and thoughts. By means of thoughts I scrutinize the desires, that is how mind and feelings work in partnership so that with them I will search for the Creator.

What measurements do I use?

With my normal senses, without thinking, I distinguish the “outlines”: This is blue, that is red, that is a high note, that is a sour taste, and that is a burnt odor. Even in spirituality everything is measured in relation to myself. I can say that I perceive the characteristics of the Creator because I attribute them to Him, but essentially this is just my perception.

Question: When a person goes out to find the Creator, what exactly is he looking for? What is this “Creator”?

Answer: This is what sustains my life, my existence, what determines everything that happens and will happen with me. All this is attributed to some first cause that precedes me, that is prior to my previous nonexistence and my present existence.

I am in a world without knowing what a world is. The Creator molds a feeling like this in me. It seems to me that there is a world, but I am not sure about it. I only know that I feel that within me. If I had other characteristics, as it seems, I would feel it differently.

But in fact, what and how I feel is not important to me. Rather, what is important is that there is a prior first cause that shapes me, that provides this feeling for me. It is concerned about me, and in fact, at every moment it supplies within me everything through which I feel and what it is that I feel. This first beginning is the “Creator.” For from His side, He created me.

And whereas, from my side, He is the “Creator” (Bore) because He is conceived by me according to the principle “Come and see” (Bo-Re). He created me and located me in a point in time within a particular reality. And from this I can explore, scrutinize, feel, and understand Him. He seemingly manages and plays with me, giving me the possibility of knowing Him.

Question: This is like a game of “hide and seek”?

Answer: Not completely. Yes, He is concealed, but this is so that I will understand Him. By my conducting searches for the Creator, I examine what is Him and what is not. Among these possibilities I find intermediate, “limited” forms, and that is how I begin to discern, to understand Him, to shape in my mind and heart a model (template) called the “Creator.”

Here it is important to remember that I don’t perceive the Creator Himself, this is impossible. Within me, within my desires and thoughts, I construct some kind of image, some kind of likeness, that is found within me but corresponds to Him. This is what is called, “Come and see.”

Ultimately, I am working against my desire to receive. And by molding the image of the Creator, I can provide the conditions through which, with my desire, I will yearn to resemble Him and not yearn for pleasures.
[145117]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/5/14

Related Material:
Four Species (Arba’at HaMinim) Of Sukkot
On The Holiday Of Sukkot
An Honest Talk With The Creator

Temporary Residence Under The Open Sky

laitman_745_01Question: At the time of the Sukkot holiday, why is it customary to go outside of your house where you live all year and go to a temporary structure, to a Sukkah? What does this mean in a spiritual sense?

Answer: Going out to a temporary structure symbolizes the beginning of spiritual advancement where we constantly leave a previous state and enter under the influence of a higher level. In order to enter under the influence of what is higher, it is necessary to change your location, your level, all the time.

The seven days of Sukkot are seven levels of ascent from state to state, from one spiritual Partzuf to another. Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut are seven Sefirot that differentiate my present state from the next state.

Sefirot are degrees of correction of the soul that determine how much my desire to receive is corrected for the sake of bestowal, a bit more and more, until I enter the next level.These are called seven Sefirot, moving from receiving for my own sake to bestowal to others and, after that, from the bestowal that is attained to greater and greater bestowal. During all seven days, I advance more and more in the levels of bestowal and love.

Question: Why is it necessary to build the Sukkah under the open sky?

Answer: This is because I don’t want to exploit the bestowal of the Creator for my own pleasure. Rather, I want to receive power from Him only for my own correction. This is specifically what the roof of the Sukkah symbolizes.

If I am not yet corrected, I receive the Light of the Creator for my own correction, and, if I am corrected, then it is for transmitting it to others. The more I receive the Light, the more I will be able to transmit it onward.

Throughout the entire year, the Light bestows in order to show me my egoistic characteristics. After this, on Rosh Hashanah, it shows me the goodness of the Creator.

Then during the ten days of repentance, the Light comes to differentiate Malchut from Bina within me, the desire to receive from the desire to bestow, the letter “Hey – ה” from the letter “Vav  וץ” After that, Sukkot arrives in which we receive the same illumination, but it already has corrected us.

During all seven days of Sukkot, we receive Light that corrects us to a state of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal,” and with the completion of these corrections, we celebrate the holiday of Simchat Torah (Rejoicing in the Torah). We use the force called Torah and rise to the level of  righteous.
[145074]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/2/14

Related Material:
A Sukkah In The Yard And Also In The Heart
Inviting The Light Of Correction To Be My Guest
Get Ready To Be Born: Flip Over “Head Down”

The Awe That We Don’t Feel

laitman_289Question: Is the connection of fear and love one of awe for the Creator? Or is that a new feeling that, in the meantime, isn’t revealed in our world?

Answer: We are not talking about what is revealed in our world, meaning in the egoistic desires. Since there is nothing in them except for the animal fear for their corporeal existence and love for the pleasures that fill their animal existence.

We are not at all speaking about what is felt in the animal body, but trying to imagine ourselves existing in bestowal where two attributes reign: love and awe. We only think about what is happening outside of us, which means on what directs us externally to others and through them to the Creator, to the attribute of general love and bestowal.

Question: Why don’t we feel that awe you are speaking about?

Answer: That is a sign that you still haven’t gone through the required discernments of your advancement.

When a person is very concerned about something, is shaking and worried, then a feeling appears in him that he is investing strength and is not receiving what he should. And then he begins to think, “What’s the matter? It should turn out, but doesn’t.”

I have been studying so many years, so many years working on myself, doing a lot of disseminating. I have done so much. What haven’t I yet completed? Where have I made mistakes? Why don’t I see some advancement? And it could be that the advancement is that I don’t see it!? But I also need to know that. This means there is a demand that appears to a person, but it appears according to his efforts.
[144801]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

Related Material:
The Parameter For The Equivalence Of Form To The Creator
Awe: The Basis For Successful Work
Fear Of Appealing To The Creator

Awe: The Basis For Successful Work

laitman_938_07Question: After two hours of work during the workshop, we received the feeling of fulfillment and joy from connection. What should our next step be? What should our prayer be for in order to not “squander” this state in vain?

Answer: We began our workshop with trepidation. We cannot forget that this is the basis for successful work. Everything that we do further needs to be grounded in this foundation. Whatever I may be doing physically, wherever my thoughts may take me, I am always monitoring my trepidation: “Do I quiver inside? Are my hopes and aspirations coming true? Am I moving forward or not?”

It is quite possible that I am falling into how I feel. Is this good or bad? In many I saw that many were not happy because they believed that here, they will be exalted on the wings of love. While others perceived it as the right state and correctly identified the degree of trepidation.

Thus, when we start to worry: “What is happening to me?! Why am I not ascending?! Why am I not in the correct connection with the others?! Where is my burning, outrage, dismay?!” Then there is a fear that there is something wrong with what is happening to me. This is an excellent state!

It is not for nothing that the first commandment is called the commandment of awe, of fear, worry. Only not about ourselves, but about whether I will be able to truly reach the property of bestowal.

What type of fear can there be in the property of bestowal? First and foremost, rising above yourself, annulling yourself, for only then the trepidation for others appears in me. I aim only to see where and how I can help my friends be connected with each other and sense this fear in a way that it would permeate everyone. Trepidation means mutual care, mutual worry so that each of us can be a correct element for the others.

At the same time, I direct my thoughts to the entire world group. Will we be able to achieve this? Will we finally be thinking about this constantly? I need to take care to fulfill my mission with respect to all the friends in the world! This is what my trepidation contains and not an egoistic fear for my own self.

I need to be concerned about everyone, to feel the friends the way a mother feels her children. It is internal attention and support. We will not achieve anything if we will sail on the waves of our egoism. And if it is not working out, cry, pray, ask. But we need to be doing something.

Right now, we received an addition of egoism. Before the congress, we were all inspired, subtle, ready to hold on to whatever it takes in order to not fly off. Now, on the contrary, we do not know how to rise up. Such are the rules: In order to overcome this degree, we are given added heaviness, and we must lift it.

We need to do this together. We should feel ourselves as interconnected, supporting one another.

I, too, invested a lot of effort, time, health, and life in order for something to work out. I also look at all of this, just like every one of you, from the point of view of implementation. We depend on each other. Just like my success is determined by you, so each of you determines the success of all.
[144793]
From the Convention in St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/9/14, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Fear Of Appealing To The Creator
On The Way Towards Love
What Is The One Who Fears The Creator Afraid Of?

Spiritual Fear Cannot Be Without Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn The Book of Zohar, it is written: Evoking fear on both sides of love (during the periods of “trials” and the periods of mercy and benevolence) is essential. During the time of mercy and success on His Paths, it is necessary to trepidation awakened before the Creator to avoid committing sins and to prevent our love for Him “cooling down.”

There is no such thing as the fear of punishment. There is no retribution whatsoever. Only to our egoistic desire does it look that we are being punished for our wrongdoings.

Similar to how we egoists relate to each other in this realm, we assume that there is either a reward or a punishment for everything. Our whole life goes by between these two categories and clarifications: “How can I feel better, how can I reward myself? How can I hide from punishments?”

​The ​spiritual path lies above this level. There is no egoistic reckoning whatsoever, neither with the plus nor minus sign. There, it has nothing to do with rewards or retributions. In spirituality, we are the ones who create a scale of spiritual recompenses and paybacks.

When one is given a chance to care about others, it is a reward. If for some reason one is unable to take care of others, one considers it to be a punishment.

The true reality can be attained only when we bring our bodily sensors outside ourselves and begin sensing life not internally, but externally. We have to acknowledge and feel it. That’s why it is said: “You will see your world while you are still alive.” However, moving in this direction becomes possible only if we connect fear with love.

From Baal HaSulam’s and Rabash’s articles and from our own experience, we know that love never comes without fear. Real, spiritual fear cannot occur if it is not accompanied by love.  We shiver because we are scared that our love can weaken or love of those who care about us will diminish. We are in distress, not because we just enjoy being together as two egoists who are delighted to be with each other. Rather, we worry that we won’t let the Creator love us because we don’t please Him by loving our neighbors.

These are mutual sensations. We experience them only at the level of fear. Fear is necessary to make us rise above our egoism and work with it inversely.

… In order to avoid falling to wickedness and diminishing our love for the Creator, we have to connect fear with love.

The same happens on the “other side of love,” at the time of stringent trials when He judges us for our deeds. Awakening of fear before the Creator is essential so that we won’t fall in​to the state of judging ourselves according to egoistic criteria.
[144684]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, lesson 1

Related Material:
“Fear Must Adhere To Love”
How Can We Be Afraid Of Someone We Love?
Anatomy Of Fear And Love

We Must Not Allow Love To Cool Down

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Letter No 2: I advise you to fear that your love might cool down even though our minds reject this possibility.

When we are in love, it seems to us that it will last forever. However, we know that in this world, everything is temporary. This state of affairs applies to spirituality as well since, there too, we continue climbing the next steps. So, it is natural that current states will disappear there  as well. That’s why there is nothing permanent whatsoever and why any condition will always be replaced with another one, either a bad one with a good one, or a good one with a bad one.

Still, make every possible effort to multiply love. If there is a way to increase love, but one doesn’t take advantage of it, it is considered an “omission.” It’s “as if” one gives a great present to one’s friend: the love that reveals in his friend’s heart at the moment of giving is different from the love that remains in his friend’s heart after the deed of giving is over.

In other words, love gradually vanishes. It “cools down” every day to the extent that it goes away completely and reaches a stage of oblivion. That’s why the recipient of the gift must search for the ways to regard the act of giving as recurrent and new every given day.

That is, we have to constantly renew the sensation of love and never allow our feelings to cool down. Everything happens inside us. To keep this sensation, we don’t necessarily have to receive new gifts each time. This rule also applies to unity among us that has to be instigated on a continual basis.

We have come to a state when each one of us cares for others as if they are our little children, our closest and most beloved ones. Thus, we strive to give them everything they want. If we manage to do so, we will provide others with everything they really need, and the Creator will manifest Himself among us as a result of our similarity to His properties.

Our attitude to each other and His property of absolute bestowal and love will somehow coincide. At least they will reach the first level of similarity of the 125 steps. It is the most important issue for us. We are in a state of a constant readiness and everything is in our hands.

We should persistently beg the Creator to give our friends everything they want, i.e., correction and revelation. Revelation is the property of bestowal and love among us. This is exactly what we mean by the term trepidation: a state of caring about our friends that is similar to taking care of our own children from two sides by judgment and  by love.

On the side of judgment, we should really worry that we will lose a chance as did the ARI’s students when he invited them to Jerusalem to bring the world to a state of correction. At that time, everything supported the upper force to be revealed to them, as the upper force was ready to act in this world and correct it. However, the ARI’s students found excuses not to obey their teacher’s invitation. Some of them didn’t show up because their wives wouldn’t let them go and others were busy.

This explains why we have to maintain the state of trepidation and be concerned that we won’t succeed. In every moment and every minute, we have to clarify how we should treat others and support the general Kli (vessel) in a way that it finally reaches a certain condition that will allow the Creator to reveal Himself to us.

It’s as if we are currently facing the Judge, and as if we are given the last opportunity, or granted the final word. Imagine yourself in this state! Visualize that we are facing judgment and that we have to fill it with mutual love. We will be able to do this only if we ask the Creator to fill the gaps between us.

It’s not us who get closer in our hearts, rather it is the Creator who fills the egoistic emptiness between us with love. When the distance between us is multiplied by love, a connection of tremendous intensity emerges. That is why our closeness happens only due to the Creator filling the ​empty spaces between us. He connects, coordinates, and unites us. That’s why our work is called the Creator’s work (Avodat a-Shem).

We only invite Him to do the work of correcting and strengthening our connection.
[144676]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14

Related Material:
So That You Will Not Forget The Gift Of Love
A War Of Love
Absolute Love Above Fictitious Hate

Different Levels, One Essence

Dr. Michael LaitmanTorah, Leviticus (Ki Tazria) 13:18-20: And when the flesh hath in the skin thereof a boil, and it is healed, in the place of the boil there is a white rising, or a bright spot, reddish-white, then it shall be shown to the priest. And the priest shall look; and, behold, if the appearance thereof be lower than the skin, and the hair thereof be turned white, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is the plague of leprosy, it hath broken out in the boil.

White is the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), and red is the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), in other words, the right and the left lines that are essential for the revelation of the essence of this desire.

Torah, Leviticus (Ki Tazria) 13:21: But if the priest look on it, and, behold, there be no white hairs therein, and it be not lower than the skin, but be dim, then the priest shall shut him up seven days.

Comment: On the whole, this is a repetition of what we already have said.

Answer: There are many repetitions in the Torah in general, since all the levels that make up ten Sefirot are similar to each other, but different chapters refer to different levels, and so the language constantly changes. However, the essence of the one problem, the ego, remains the same and so the solution to the problem is also just one: to determine exactly what is corrupted, and to ask and receive from above, the power of correction that matches it.

Question: Does the intention refer to holding on constantly in my thoughts to this picture, which, in a movie, is called the main act?

Answer: It isn’t the main scene, but an ordinary scene and there is nothing other than that.

It changes, however, since in the transition from one desire to another, you fall into egoistic use and then begin to realize and wish to correct things. You are looking for a way to do that as if there were never anything. Once again, you find a group, and once again, you begin to correct yourself according to the right environment.

In fact, the same thing repeats itself, but on a new level each time, and so it seems totally different. For example, I studied geography every year in school, and everyone thought that it was seemingly the same material over and over again. But, I saw how the study became increasingly deeper. First, we studied the ordinary division of states and continents, and then about physical geography, nature, and the demography and industry in different countries. This means that each year the acquisition of knowledge becomes deeper, although the material may seem the same on the whole. It is the same thing here because we study the same thing.
[140813]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/20/14

Related Material:
Identifying The Essence Of My Desires
An Upper Doctor
The Eternal Book

The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 60

From the book The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein

What the Force Majeure Has Done

“Withdraw yourselves from man whose breath is in his nostrils, for in what merit is he to be esteemed?” (Prophets; Yeshayahu- Isaiah 2:22)

One of the first forces majeures described in literature can be considered the construction of the Tower of Babel. As we know, people wanted to get to heaven, but … builders suddenly ceased to understand each other, and the project was stopped. A typical force majeure.

This comes from history less ancient.  

Alexander the Great did his best, fought. He conquered a territory from the Indus to the Danube, formed the largest country in the ancient world. And then, as it happens, there was a force majeure. Alexander was bitten by a mosquito, a virus carrier – according to one version, or was treated with poison – according to another. Whatever it was, the great conqueror died at the age of 32 – and that was all. The empire collapsed, and the planned campaign into China did not take place.

From recent history.

People built and built socialism, and then decided to rebuild it. And then there was a force majeure. And capitalism emerged.

By the way, why was socialism needed to be built and capitalism appeared by itself? Maybe it’s because the conditions were ripe for capitalism and not yet for socialism?

But back to our topic. How do we manage to live like this?

We are constantly in circumstances of force majeure, but prefer not to notice this. Even a classic is not a decree.

“’I beg your pardon,’ retorted the stranger quietly, ‘but to rule, one must have a precise plan worked out for some reasonable period ahead. Allow me to enquire how man can control his own affairs when he is not only incapable of compiling a plan for some laughably short term, such as, say, a thousand years, but cannot even predict what will happen to him tomorrow? ‘” (Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita)

Seriously, in front of us, there is a special method of management that we don’t understand. Its essence is to be hidden from us – those who are governed.

Everything is under control, everything without exception. We have no doubts with respect to the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature. We have doubts with respect to ourselves.

At the time, the area of unexplained phenomena of nature included almost everything. From thunderstorms to gravity. Then, this endless cycle of ambiguities began to decrease.

Observation and discovery of laws of regularity have become a science. The human being began to feel, if not God, at least His deputy. Those phenomena which are not subject to the laws of regularity, he called a coincidence, an accident, an event, or even the fate of the force majeure. Once calmed down, and everything was back to normal.

How the human being manages to feel himself to be the boss when the infinite force majeure lives next to him is impossible to understand.

On the other hand, the perpetrators of force majeure can be seen by everyone.

“Any philosophy agrees,

that there is no escape from the Jews in the world,

science just still is not clear

how they make earthquakes.”

(Igor Guberman)
[144232]

Related Material:
The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 59
The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 58
The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 57

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10.15.14

Shamati #19 “What Is the Creator Hates the Bodies, in the Work”

[media 1] [media 2]

Writings of Baal HaSulam Igrot,” Letter 17

[media 3] [media 4]

Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” Article 5

[media 5] [media 6]

Lesson — Hoshana Raba 

[media 7] [media 8]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before” 

[media 9] [media 10]

Lesson on the Topic “Simchat Torah” 

[media 11] [media 12]