Audio Version Of The Blog – 05.26.15

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

[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2015-05-26_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’26.5.15′]

The Torah As The Law Of Love

laitman_549_02Every person is created with an egoistic desire, but in addition to it, we are given the Torah, which can turn this evil desire into a good one. The desire remains, but, instead of using it for our own benefit, we begin to use it for the good of others.

This revolution in the use of one’s desire can be performed with a tool called the Torah, the Reforming Light. Studying my egoistic desire, I discover that it consists of 613 parts, 613 desires, that together comprise my evil inclination.

I need to correct all these desires, from the lightest to the heaviest, in order to stop using them for myself and start using them for the benefit of others. I must make a complete revolution in this. It is impossible to correct them halfway in order to make it beneficial for me and for you.

Therefore it is said that a person must perform 613 commandments. This is about 613 corrections of my desire from evil to good with respect to the other. As a result of these corrections, I come to love, fulfilling the main law of the Torah.

It is this method of correction that the people of Israel once received. For this, we are given the Torah. The task of the people of Israel is to implement this method, setting an example for the entire world and becoming a Light to the nations.

Therefore, the Torah contains so many warnings. Our entire fate depends on the fulfillment of this condition of love for one’s friend as for oneself. Let’s see whether we are approaching this realization or not.
[159706]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/3/15

Related Material:
The General Plan And Every Step Along The Way
The Torah As An Engine For Change
The Commandment: Love Thy Friend

Jerusalem – A “Perfect City”

Laitman_421_01Question: How is it that the three world religions that have so many disagreements with each other agree that Jerusalem is the holy city?

Answer: All three religions of the world are connected with Abraham and with the fact that the wisdom of Kabbalah went into concealment. About two thousand years ago, after the destruction of the Second Temple, the people of Israel fell from the spiritual degree they were previously on, from brotherly love, and fell into unfounded hatred.

All that the Jews had taken from the holy Kabbalistic books turned into the Judaism of exile. Thus, Judaism developed followed by Christianity and then Islam. All of these religions emerged because the people of Israel lost their spirituality.

Both Christianity and Islam borrowed their symbols from Judaism, and that is why Jerusalem became a holy city for them. Everyone feels that this city has something special—Jews, Muslims, and Christians—because such an attitude is instilled in a person from his childhood.

But it is one thing to attribute sanctity to stones and another thing to build Jerusalem in one’s heart. Jerusalem is a “perfect city”; it is the properties in which a person reveals the Creator. The upper force of bestowal and love is revealed in the land of Israel, in Jerusalem.

The heart is all the human desires. To reveal the Creator means to achieve these corrected properties that allow me to bestow to everyone. If I come out of my egoism and begin to love the other like myself, then in this aspiration I reveal the land of Israel (Yashar El – straight to God), the perfect city Jerusalem, my corrected properties of bestowal, and the Temple, and the Creator in them, and unite with Him.

Everyone eventually strives to achieve this true concept of Jerusalem, but does not know what is hidden behind it. All the people must go through this process of internal creation of oneself, regardless of the religion they profess.

Indeed, we all came out of Babylon. Some joined Abraham and went with him, and some of the Babylonians were not yet ready for this. But in the end, everyone should come to this, as it is written, “…for they shall all know Me from their smallest to their greatest” and “…my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

Therefore, Jerusalem is at the center of general attention because all the peoples should gather in it—not physically, but in a spiritual sense. Religions only prepare humanity to the stage where we are now, to come to the revelation of the Creator.

Question: How will our world look when every person builds Jerusalem inside himself?

Answer: All the people will become brothers. The concept of Jerusalem means that we all are connected to each other and become brothers, as one man in one heart. This state is called the “perfect city.”

Question: In this case, it does not matter which religion one professes, correct?

Answer: Then, there will be no religion. They all will disappear, as they are replaced by the knowledge of the Creator, as it is written, “Know your Creator.”
[159599]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/7/15

Related Material:
Building Jerusalem Within The Heart
Ordinary Stones Of The Holy City
Everything Is Transient – Only The Relationship With The Eternal Is Eternal

Shavuot Is The Most Important Holiday

laitman_937Question: There are holidays that we remember and celebrate like Rosh Hashana and Pesach (Passover), while Shavuot isn’t so impressive as compared to them. Can we say that it is less important than the other holidays?

Answer: On the contrary, it is the most important holiday. On this day we received the method according to which we can raise our life to a spiritual level and discover the next world here and now, just as it is written, “You will see your world in your life.”

We all were created in this world from the evil force, our ego, but we can add the good force to the evil force by this method and balance them. Our entire world is merely an evil inclination. This inclination is a desire, and it is evil because everyone thinks only about how he can fill it at the expense of others, without taking others into consideration. This is the reason that our nature is evil, as it is written, “…man’s heart is evil from his youth.”

If we begin to see that everything is evil and that only the evil is revealed as it is revealed now in our state, then we will be able to reach a state in which we will say, “Enough! That’s it! We must change something!” Then, we have the opportunity to bring in the good force. When we discover this force in nature, we can balance the evil force with the good force, and we can manage ourselves correctly with these two forces like with two reins. Without the good force, which the wisdom of Kabbalah helps us reveal, we are lost. We will not be able to do anything with our egoistic nature.

This is why I am happy that we have reached this evil state because it is actually from the evil that we can ascend and reach the good.
[159811]
From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 5/17/15

Related Material:
A Joyful Giving Of The Torah Holiday
Giving And Receiving
From The Giving Of Torah To Its Reception

When We Open The Torah

laitman_527_05The Torah is the most popular book of all times and among all peoples. It talks about the spiritual development of a person and about his inner characteristics.

We regard the Torah as a fascinating biography of historical figures and we don’t suspect that it is not talking about physical issues but about a person’s inner state and about the inner state of all of humanity. So it is up to us to leave its stories to the imagination of writers and historians and talk about what it really says.

Adam—A Desire that Raises the Person Above the Material

A person is born as an egoist, he passes through a long way of egoistic development on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate, until for the first time, 5,775 years ago, the level of “man” (Adam) was awakened in him, the level of his inner development. It is not by chance that they called the first man who perceived the spiritual world Adam.

The desire was awakened in him to attain a new level that reveals the meaning of life, its source, and the power that created the universe and manages it. This is a pure power that is not clothed in any earthly images.

A person, according to his physical structure, senses, mind, and heart, is on the animal level of developmental. And suddenly the component of “Man” is revealed in him, an additional desire and intelligence that weren’t revealed in any form from an external aspect. These are already spiritual components that differentiate him from the beast. They raise a person above substance through his relationship to creation, to the Creator, to the meaning of life.

The first Adam described his attainment in the book, Sefer Raziel HaMalakh. In continuation, his students, Cain, Abel, and Seth, developed his discovery. That is how it continued until Noah, representing the tenth generation of the students of the first Adam.

Abraham, the First Active Explorer of the Power that Manages Creation

Ten additional generations passed from Noah to Abraham before humanity reached the state of “Babylon,” which is the first state in which people began to be locked into a group. The growing ego began to hint to them how to work amongst themselves, to help them discover the close relationship that was revealed in the clashes and opposition within a person and between people.

Precisely at this time in ancient Babylon, within one of the priests of the religion, Abraham, the son of Terah, the desire arose to attain a higher spiritual level. If before him all of the Kabbalists penetrated the secrets of creation passively, Abraham became the first active explorer who attained the power that manages the universe by himself.

This was a new level of attainment; he rose above his ego and began to work with it actively. The ego reached a level in him that began to be a real force and cooperated with him. So Babylon embodies the conflict between people, strife, discord, and their dispersion.

On this background, Abraham created the method for discovering the creation. Although Adam is considered to be the first Kabbalist, Abraham is the one who founded the study that became the instrument for attaining the universe and the force that manages it, the Creator.

It is impossible to deny the existence of this force, because after all, we see that the entire creation was created according to some kind of principle, according to some kind of program. It links within itself and acts within an immense system according to a formula that we don’t understand.

Abraham began to investigate it actively, because around that time the public became egoistic, i.e., the opposition of society to this force of nature made it possible for the society to explore nature, the Creator. Abraham wrote about his discoveries in the Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzirah).

Overcoming the Crisis in Babylon

With this method launched by Abraham, since the shattering occurred first as the expression of separate individuals, each one representing a particular property that once was collected into one unified desire; now each one of us is some kind of unique aspect of the general desire that existed before then.

If we want to attain the force of nature that created the singular desire, we can do this to the degree of our connection and unity. When we connect and unite above our opposition and contradictions, we create a state of separation between the negative forces of our division and the singular positive force of nature. Specifically within this opposition appears the opportunity for clarifying the feeling of what happens in us and in all of creation.

When Abraham discovered this, he called the Babylonians to rise above their crisis because it is nothing other than the discovery of the opposition of society to nature. At the same time the opposition is increasing.

There exist only two methods for overcoming the crisis: Either gathering together according to the method of Abraham, or scattering in all directions so as not to feel the constant enmity and conflicts with each other. In this way, the Babylonian society divided into two parts: one part scattered and settled all over the surface of the Earth and the second part followed Abraham to the land of Israel.

Since all the characteristics are connected, it is natural that if one “changes his location he changes his fortune” (Talmud Yerushalmi, Shabbat 6:9). A particular force of nature influences every piece of land on Earth, so someone who changes the location of his dwelling changes his fortune, his fate. Clearly it is not necessary to accept this literally. But on the other hand, we see how both biology and geography truly influence the appearance of people, their manner and characteristics. And it is not because the land is like this, but because the characteristics of every point in space are different. So Abraham, since he was led by an inner intention, brought his disciples to the land of Israel, because he felt that their place was precisely here.

But the processes through which the people passed in ancient Babylon also continued in the land of Israel. The ego was constantly growing, and they needed to rise above it through the unity between them. There was nothing new in the method that was discovered by Abraham, it was simply realized by those who possessed the same view with greater or lesser success, and they succeeded in realizing it.

Joseph, A Level that Unites Separated Desires

The development of the school of Abraham was continued by his student Isaac, called the “son” of Abraham in the Torah. “Son” in the wisdom of Kabbalah indicates his successor.

But in the time of Jacob there began to be problems in the realization and implementation of the study in life itself, because the unity that they had to attain was already on another level. Jacob is a small part of the general soul (six Sefirot). To continue with the realization of the method, it was necessary to move to the general level, Israel, meaning ten Sefirot instead of six.

Here for the first time they saw that their method was not enough. They didn’t know how to solve the problem of unification. Between all the opinions that are called the sons of Jacob, and their brother Joseph started disputes and arguments. Joseph thought that it was necessary to unite according to a particular principle that specifically was about him, for even the name “Joseph” is derived from the word “L’Asof,” to connect, (in Hebrew all names have an internal meaning).

But the point of view of Joseph sounded very egoistic. His brothers didn’t agree with him, and ultimately they found themselves in Egypt against their will. In other words, the continued development of spirituality brought them to a state in which against their will they found themselves under the control of Joseph. And to continue rising further in the spiritual levels, they had to accept his leadership upon themselves.

In the Torah this is described in the form of a conflict between the brothers, the sale of Joseph to Egypt, the descent of the sons of Jacob to Egypt, and so forth. If we translate this into the language of Kabbalah, then it is speaking about the work of the person with his inner emotions, but already on another, more serious egoistic level, when the rigid, distinctive and precise ego is discovered.

The ego grew according to five levels. If we rise above them, it is possible to examine and attain the only power of nature that is its opposite, the Creator. When the sons of Jacob found themselves on the next egoistic level, they discovered it as good, because Joseph connected them together and they felt sufficient advancement. What they were not ready for before then, they succeeded in doing now, to unite among them and work in the direction of attaining the Creator. These are what are called the seven years of plenty. And together with this they discovered the system in which they were found.

The Ego, Our Friend and Enemy

After the descent to Egypt stages begin that will bring us close to leaving it, escaping from under the control of Pharaoh, the emergence of the recognition that our work is realized within the ego. Attainment like this typifies every level.

This is because in order to rise to the next level that brings us forward, we need to be attracted towards it. So its ego needs to be shown to us as good, imperative, and as necessary for spiritual advancement: We enter into it, attain a new level with its help, and grow. And after this he already begins to acquire more painful forms.

We see that this is the way it happens even in our world, when throughout all of human development until recently, we thought that movement forward would bring us the good life, the right goal, the victory of reason, the good, and the right mutual relationships. We thought that there are ways of reaching this: capitalism, socialism, or communism. And we went forward, the main thing being to reach the goal, and without paying attention to the problems appeared along with this. Whereas, here an absolutely different situation was revealed: the recognition that we possess an egoistic nature and that we will not reach anything other than self-annihilation. And in our time we are beginning to attain and understand this.

In the beginning the ego attracts and seduces us, offers us very nice, good fulfillments. And after this we begin to understand that all of this is not for us and even harms us. And about this it is said in the Torah that we built beautiful cities for Pharaoh, Pithom, and Ramses, all of this is for the ego, and in fact, we dig a grave for ourselves with this. They are called dangerous cities, in regard to attaining the Creator, because the ego can bury us to such a degree that it is not possible to get out of it.

When the ego begins to attract us, we run after it: Everything in this world is ours, ours, ours. After that the person dies without taking anything with him. That is how things go one generation after another and gradually humanity begins to understand that this pursuit is harmful because this brings it to distancing, depression, and self-destruction. The lack of purpose, the appearance within us of the question about the meaning of life kills our egoistic movement forward and leads to a deep apathy.

At the end of development the ego must show us a reward: What have we gotten, where does this race end, where are the fruits of our labor? When we go a little higher with our egoistic desire we are already looking at everything completely differently. Everything that exists on the physical level seems as empty and useless to a person. He seemingly rises above his beastly state and understands that all of this is false: It isn’t clear why life has been wasted.

So it is said that Pharaoh specifically symbolizes the ego among the children of Israel, meaning those who have the need and the drive to discover the meaning of life, the purpose of existence, the Creator. Since the ego is constantly evolving and the need to see results is clearly growing, the person can no longer be satisfied only with mundane attainments, for he doesn’t exist forever and the needs in him are growing beyond materialism. He begins to understand that all of this is merely child’s play and ultimately, like everyone else, he will die. Life went by, and then what?

The ego helps us to decode, solve, see, understand and feel the lack of result of our way from the start. We see that the era of the “American dream,” the pursuit after profit has ended and now no one has the need for luxuries. People have evolved beyond this; you cannot compel them to run like a hamster in a wheel after more and more new purchases and fulfillments.

Humanity is now beginning to understand this; so today a stratum of ego that is immense in quality and small in quantity is appearing in it that asks the question about the meaning of life. It pushes humanity towards depression, drugs, terror, and crime, to suppress the question about the meaning of life any way it can, or at least to find some kind of partial answer for it. Gradually, more and more people are beginning to be interested in the Kabbalistic answer to this question.

In his time, this problem brought the students of Abraham to Egypt, to that state that began to awaken the ego in them that opposes the Creator, for only when they are immersed into the ego is it possible to discover this force. So the Egyptian exile and the exodus from Egypt became the foundation stones for the spiritual development of the person and humanity. Based upon the example of the small group of Abraham, which was thrown into the control of the ego called “Pharaoh,” it is possible to understand what is to be expected for all of humanity, since even today we are found in the same situation. This is the reason that when we open the Torah it is impossible for us to forget its extreme relevance for our time.
[157868]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/02/15, Lesson on the Topic: “Dissemination of Kabbalah”

Related Material:
The Oral Torah Is A Key To Penetrating Inside
The Torah Is A Program And A Guide
The Torah Is The Basis For All The Laws

The Blessing Of The Sixth Year

Laitman_707The Torah, “Leviticus” 25:19 – 25:21: And the land will then yield its fruit and you will eat to satiety, and live upon it securely. And if you should say, “What will we eat in the seventh year? We will not sow, and we will not gather in our produce!” [Know then, that] I will command My blessing for you in the sixth year, and it will yield produce for three years.

If I observe and keep the spiritual laws, I have no problems and am under the protection of nature. But when I delve into my ego and begin to operate on my own, I cannot count on harvesting the crops for the three years to come.

Can you imagine what would happen if I have a poor crop in the sixth year? What will I eat during the three years that follow? Nothing. In ancient times, people were dependent totally on what the land gave them.

Question: What does this symbolize with regard to our internal state?

Answer: I correct my desires and fill the six Sefirot: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. They all concentrate and accumulate in the Sefira of Yesod, which moves on to Malchut and raises Malchut all the way to Bina. Therefore, I have no problem existing in Malchut. Malchut is the vessel from which I am nourished for three years.
[155620]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/13/14

Related Material:
And Then You Will Hear Music
There Is No Land Of Israel Without The Nation Of Israel
The Year Of The Creator

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.26.15

Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 12

[media 1] [media 2]

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 2

[media 3] [media 4]

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee,” Item 28

[media 5] [media 6]