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The Wisdom Of Kabbalah And The Kabbalists

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe wisdom of Kabbalah is not a religion. It is not mysticism nor a healing method. It has no magical ability to perform miracles and is neither magic nor any dark force. The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t help one person acquire an advantage over other people. On the contrary, under its influence, a person becomes loving and caring about others.

The wisdom of Kabbalah directs us toward perceiving the upper world, and accordingly, all of the initial parameters in a person are changed, meaning his characteristics and attitude towards our world and all of creation. It changes the person into an absolutely different creature. His intellect (thoughts) and heart (desires) become completely different and he begins to think, behave, and feel in an absolutely different manner than a regular person.

On the one hand, an immense perception of the entire world exists within him. On the other hand, it is difficult for him to live in this world just as it is difficult for an adult to live in a kindergarten, for he is forced constantly to make great efforts to balance himself with the little children. However, along with the upper world, he must also exist in our world. Moreover, he doesn’t show his uniqueness at all and must make compromises at all times.

A Kabbalist cannot be someone’s enemy. In fact, he is the best friend of all of humanity, for his every inclination is directed toward bringing humanity toward a happy and perfect existence.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/22/14

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The Game Of Life

Laitman_524_01Question: How can we acquire a sense of importance of spiritual advancement?

Answer: Spiritual growth means the following:

  1.     Acknowledgment that one doesn’t yet have a feeling of the importance of spiritual advancement.
  2.     Realization that one can control this process.
  3.     Understanding of the fact that the importance of the goal can only be acquired from external influences since all of us are complete egoists.
  4.     “External influence” means the impact of the surroundings, the group.
  5.     One attains proportionately to the degree of the importance of the goal that one strives to reach.
  6.     Return to the beginning (item 1),  i.e. to our realization of the deficiency of the importance of the goal.

Is there a solution to this problem?

There is only one thing that we can do in this respect: implement the property of jealousness to things that others have already achieved and of the goal that is important to them. What if nobody has a sense of importance of spiritual advancement? In this case, all we can do is purposefully light our friends’ hearts with false, imaginary importance of our spiritual growth.

This thought is not new, nor is it original since we all receive false, illusionary importance of life values, the goals we work for and aspire to from our surroundings. It is possible because these issues look very significant in the eyes of our surroundings. They will actually become really essential for us after we stop playing the game!

The same rule applies to spiritual advancement. Only on the path of spiritual development can we recognize and conscientiously organize the source that will become extremely important to us later. We are the ones who shape our surroundings and define the objects that are important to us.

So, we have to play roles and pretend in front of others. The better we play the role pretending that we already have understood the significance of the spiritual progress, the sooner we’ll transition from a state of spiritual indifference to spiritual concern.

In front of one’s friends, one has to play the role of a person who really cares about the world’s correction and who loves one’s friends. We have to play the roles of “internally burning people”. Our actual inner feelings do not matter at all. The vital thing is that we must play the role to the best of our ability.

Use all available remedies to demonstrate to your friends how important the group is to you, how much you care about it. Pretend that you are really “on fire.” If you behave this way, you’ll be able to kindle your friends’ hearts and your own heart will also be lit.

You can play this role in turns with your friends, but it’s much better if you play together, in front of everybody. I received several suggestions to invite professional actors. Remember the Kabbalist who was inspired by drunk musicians? However, I think it’s extra. We have to understand our nature and learn how to control it.
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Judgment And Mercy

laitman_207The Torah, “VaYikra” (Leviticus), Kedoshim (Holy), “Let There Be Light”: The whole world is seen only in one bonding, attached in its entanglement: Midat ha Din (the Quality of Judgment) and Midat ha Rachamim (the Quality of Mercy), Malchut and Bina, attached and entangled in one another. Therefore, when the world was sentenced in the inclusive Din, it was sentenced with Rachamim, with Malchut included in Bina. Were it not so, the world would not have been able to exist for even one moment.

No matter what is going on in this world—wars, cataclysms, natural disasters—everything stems from Mercy. It is hard for us to accept this fact since it is impossible to justify disaster being at the level of this world. In order to correctly understand what is happening around us, we should reach the level at which actions are originated and from which they are performed.

In other words, the Light of Hassadim (Mercy and Love) descends into this world from Above. At a certain level, love dresses into the property of Judgment, in formidable actions. We have to ascend to this level, go through hardships, and attain a degree of Mercy. This process is called the “revelation of the Creator.”

However, our ascent should be internal, moral. In this world, parents often punish their children. When a child reaches a certain age, he understands that they were right. If his parents didn’t act the way they did, they would fail in his upbringing. So, he agrees with their actions, acknowledges his parents’ love, and appreciates their actions.

Question: What if I am a witness to numerous disasters that occur to the entire nation? Do I also have to “grow up” in order to understand why they are happening?

Answer: What is the difference? All of us are small, silly children. We all require a long and thorough upbringing.

You shall be holy (Kedoshim), for I, the Lord, am holy. When the Creator created the world and wished to discover depths out of the concealments, and light out of darkness, at that time they were mingled in one another. For this reason, out of darkness came forth light, and out of concealment came forth the deep. One came out of the other. Out of good came forth bad, and out of Rachamim (Mercy) came forth Din (Judgment). Everything is included in one another, the good inclination and the bad inclination, right and left, Israel and the rest of the nations, white and black. Everything depends on one another.

There is no difference between these things at the level of the upper root from which everything stems out. Pluses and minuses, the good and the bad, are the same. The “difference” between these notions is needed only to teach us, to elevate us from this world to the higher level at which everything will merge into one, unified whole, and become one love.

Question: What does it mean: “One came out of the other”?

Answer: At each level, there is a state “Mercy from Judgment” and “Judgment from Mercy,” they are two blocks, Aba ve Ima (Father and Mother). Interactions between them stimulate our development. That’s why we attain Mercy when we ascend.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/19/14

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Connecting To A Higher Level

laitman_232_04Question: Does a person know when there is a “knock on the door” that it’s the ascent to the next spiritual level?

Answer: No. The point is that when he is on a certain level, he cannot understand the demand of the next level, just as a dog cannot understand his master’s rebuke. We have no control of that at all.

We cannot attain the next level unless we have the senses suitable for it that allow us to understand which permissions, prohibitions, and moral restrictions there can be on that level. Therefore we cannot depict the next level at all since our whole world is basically what is reflected in our desires, in our consciousness. It is formed by our five senses, and our senses and our feelings operate in the desires.

If I use the five levels of my desire (seeing, hearing, taste, smell and feeling) in order to bestow, it means that I have completed my work on the level of our world and there is a switch in me to a new level. I begin to feel an upper part of the creation.

I need to connect to it, to study it, and to format myself so that I will be able to use whatever is revealed to me now in the best possible way using my five new senses. They already carry a new message and new demands by opening and discovering inside of me a new part of creation. At the same time, the demands are only focused on bestowal, on exiting myself. Thus, after the level of our world, I begin to feel the next level, the external upper world, because I have already prepared myself for that in order to bestow.

By correcting the egoistic attributes into attributes of bestowal in the range of frequencies that is revealed to me, I begin to gain control of the new level that is called the land of Israel (a desire to bestow). By controlling it and acquiring it, I attain what enters my five senses, which means that I begin to exist in this land and to feel its attribute.

The interesting fact is that at first I begin to feel the still part in it, and then the vegetative, animate, speaking, and finally the root of everything, the Creator. Then I advance onwards and feel every new level as a new world.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/19/14

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According To The Order Of The Day

laitman_214Question: We have given all of our power and invested all of our soul in correction of the world, but it is clear that it is impossible to do anything as long as the Upper Light doesn’t come and help us. We have done such great work in Israel, but until now we haven’t succeeded in making even a pinhole in opening channels of communication between us. What else can help if not prayer?

Answer: First of all, we must feel responsible for everything that is happening, meaning to recognize that the state and correction of the world depend upon us. Then things will move. The problem is that we are impermeable to everything that is happening; we don’t understand and don’t feel that we are at the center of all the problems.

These are not just nice words and self-criticism. Really, we only must declare this: We are the ones who have the method for correction, the explanations, an organization, and a system.

If we don’t realize this in ourselves, we will not be prepared to begin a returning wave to extinguish the pressure and the hatred, and then we will have no right to exist. In such a case, we are wasting our powers and resources for nothing. If we cannot activate ourselves correctly, there is no justice in this.

Question: Where is it better to conduct dissemination so that our efforts will be most useful: among Israeli Jews or Arabs?

Answer: Since there is no time to waste, we must work only among the Israeli public, with those who have free choice to join us, the desires of the Galgalta ve Eynaim (Keter and Hochma).

Question: We are talking about the people of Israel, but all of our friends in our great, world Kabbalistic group also belong to “Israel” in the spiritual sense. How can we work together, in partnership?

Answer: Try to raise a common prayer, organize workshops, and widespread dissemination activities as much as possible in all the nations of the world, especially among the Jews. We are obliged to carry out actions to raise awareness with full force.

If we disseminate with all our strength, then all the rest will come from Above. This is the order of the day. We are already ready for it. How many times is it possible to read the same articles? The time has arrived to begin to turn the negative trend into a positive and correct one.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Bring Light To The World

laitman_568_01Question: We have a problem in phrasing the role of the Israeli nation correctly. It says that we should be “light unto the nations,” but what does that mean?

Answer: “Light unto the nations” doesn’t refer to scientific achievements. Baal HaSulam says that in that sense we are the students of the nations, they developed science and we have only joined in the process.

This isn’t what is expected of us. Has anyone ever thanked us for our Nobel Prizes or for our scientific discoveries? No one will thank us or really appreciate it, but will only attribute malicious intentions to us. The nations of the world don’t appreciate anything that we have contributed to humanity, except for the Light that Reforms. They don’t relate to anything but it.

You want recognition: “Look at what we have given the world, what medicines we have developed or what technologies we have invented…” “So what? Very nice. We will come to your hospitals for treatment.” They don’t respond internally to the fact that we seem to be doing them a favor, helping and caring for them. We even treat our enemies, but no one feels that he owes us anything. We expect a positive attitude in return, but the nations don’t feel any need for it.

It isn’t because they are ungrateful. The point is that we have to give them something that is totally different. In everything else that we give them it is as if we are repaying a debt instead of actually giving them something.

We can lower taxes to the Arab sector, or buy off our “cousins” in different bonuses and pave all of East Jerusalem with gold, but it wouldn’t be gifts for them. This is the mistake the government is making, thinking that this is how we will enlists the support of the Arabs. It is wrong.

The Arabs demand from us something that is totally different, and they don’t need anything but it. This is how a person feels according to the root of his soul: He has to receive the Light that Reforms from us, and we, on the other hand, turn off the tap and suffocate him.

For everything else, for their good life in the raging Middle East, they will never thank us. I repeat, we cannot blame them for being ungrateful. Our gifts are simply not what we really should give them. They receive it as something that we owe them as if repaying a debt.

We have to really clarify this matter. Many have offered to give them more, so that they would appreciate the benefits in the connection with us…no way!! Unless we give them the Light that Reforms their attitude towards us will not change at all.

The same goes for the whole world. It makes no difference what excuses we have and what we say about our contribution, the world doesn’t need it. People don’t see it as a good thing at all. We have to provide the world with something that is totally different and so we have to worry about that and do it: give the world the Light that Reforms.

When I read the papers and see the general approach of our domestic policy, I see that it is totally distorted from the top down. It is all a lie and people don’t understand what is going on.

Don’t give the Arabs anything but the Light that Reforms and you will see the results. Then they will not deceive or cheat us and will not play a dirty game. It is because we will oblige them by the Light, and there will be nothing to fear anymore. Give them the Light and they are yours, not only as “cousins” but as actual brothers. Open the borders, bring down the barriers, feel free, and you will see how they look up to you. But we are doing the exact opposite…

Baal HaSulam writes about this in the “The Last Generation“: Jews should present before the gentiles a novelty in the wisdom of religion, in justice and in peace. In that most gentiles are our disciples and this wisdom is attributed to us alone.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 11.24.14

Writings of RabashShlavei HaSulam,” “You Stand Today, All of You”

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The Book of Zohar, “Introduction,” “The Fourteenth Commandment,” Item 247

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 51

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Mutual Guarantee,” Item 19 

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