Audio Version Of The Blog – 07.27.16

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The Destruction Of The Temple – The 17th Of Tammuz

Laitman_633_4Question: It is said on the 17th of Tammuz, Antiochus Epiphanes burned the Torah and brought a statue of an idol into the Temple. If we look at that from a spiritual perspective, what does that mean?

Answer: The Torah doesn’t simply refer to the tablets or to a scroll of paper with something written on it. The Torah is Light, a spiritual force that descends from an upper level that is filled with love and bestowal unto people who aspire for this level.

The Temple refers to a person’s heart. The fact that a person is above his egoism is called holiness. So when the state of love and bestowal disappears, the Upper Light, the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) disappears and the holiness also disappears, and instead a statue of an idol (of egoism and self-love) is placed in the Temple, which means in our hearts.

This is the reason that humans bow to idols. Of course, we should thoroughly purify our hearts, our attributes, our intentions, and our feelings of all the egoistic idols until we are able to aim our desires at the full connection between us, so that each of us will think only about the wellbeing of others.

Question: Is the fall from the holy level of connection also an act of destruction?

Answer: Yes, but it is essential because otherwise the Creator will not be able to insert His attributes into the created being. The attributes should be opposite and at the same time include each other inside them, the Creator should include the attributes of the created being, and the created being should include the attributes of the Creator.

Then they will begin to create attributes that come in contact, that can resemble each other, one opposite the other; the Creator descends to the created being thanks to the incorporation of the created being’s attributes inside Him, and the created being can rise at least a bit above his life, which means above his attributes and desires, and reach the level of the Creator.

Thus they mutually cooperate. This sums the whole principle of the correction called Tzimtzum Bet (the second restriction).

It is important to say that the mutual penetration of the opposite attributes doesn’t stem from the 17th of Tammuz or the 9th of Av but from Adam’s sin, because it is there that the system of mutual connection and the equivalence of form of the created being to the Creator already exists thanks to the sin and the clash of the polar attributes.

Thus the chain of ascents and descents should regularly take place in every person. So I wish you all successful descents, which should be followed each time by an ascent!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/11/16

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When There Are No Common Interests

laitman_627_1Question: I have started studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and I have noticed that many people around me don’t interest me anymore. Is this an indication that my ego has grown or that the difference between our attributes has grown?

Answer: We seek the right environment throughout our lives according to our internal attributes, our hobbies, and our goals, and so without a choice we are drawn to people whom we find interesting.

For me, for example, these are my students and friends who share the same views as I do. This, of course, doesn’t negate my natural attraction to my children and my grandchildren because they are my family, but this has nothing to do with spirituality.

As for other people, I am just not in contact with them because we have no common interests. Sometimes I meet people I studied with in the past or who were in my life at different stages, but apart from some small talk such as “How are you?” and “How is everything?”, we have nothing in common.

After a couple of minutes there is nothing to talk about anymore. Therefore it is okay to accept the fact that the wisdom of Kabbalah diverts us a bit from our old acquaintances. Life has separated us.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/10/16

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Let’s Bring Good To The World!

laitman_626Question: What is hindering the people of Israel and all the Jews in the world from uniting? Why don’t other peoples have this problem?

Answer: The other peoples have the same problem and even more so! But they aren’t founded on the idea of consolidation, like we are. We possess the method of unity! Therefore, the nations of the world are pushing us to begin to use it.

Question: So why doesn’t anything succeed?

Answer: It is because our people don’t know and don’t want to know that they have this method, the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is specifically this that talks about how it is necessary to unite and how to show this to the rest of the peoples.

But no one wants to listen. Check yourself: how important it is to you, what will you do, and when will you think about it next? It turns out that we, the Jews, prevent ourselves! Anti-Semites are right when they accuse us of being a problem for the whole world, because only we have the uniting technique called “Kabbalah.” But we do not want to use it and lead the world to the good bright future!

It is not important to the anti-Semites how many achievements we have brought to the world, how many Nobel Prizes we have, and that we want to be good to them. The world requires something else. The one thing that it wants from us is that we transform it into a better world with happy people!

This is possible to attain only through consolidation. Give humanity an example of unity. This is the only thing missing in our fragmented and miserable world. Show that people can live together happily in unity and connection between them and that the method is in our hands! It is called the wisdom of Kabbalah and we have to use it. We haven’t used it for 2,000 years, and now the time has arrived to begin using it and bringing the world to happiness.

Question: Would there be peace in the whole world if we were happily and joyfully singing and dancing in circles in Israel?

Answer: If this method could be summed up by our singing and dancing in circles, everything would be simple. But it is much more complicated, it is universal and profound. It is unique in that it reveals how to reach the higher management. This is a very wise, serious and internal global method. It is possible to read what scientists, thinkers, and philosophers have written about the wisdom of Kabbalah and to understand what it is. This is the only asset of our world.

Question: If the process of unifying were to begin in Israel, would the world around us then change?

Answer: Absolutely! Both the Arabs and the anti-Semites would become our friends. Nobody, except the Jews has freedom of choice. What do the anti-Semites seem to say? “You hold the key to our happiness! You are the reason for all the evil in the world!” So we can become the reason for all the good.

Let’s do this! There is no reason to sit and cry about this, drawing a bitter future upon us again. We must wake up and approach this question seriously. Really great powers are in our hands. We can make ourselves and the entire world happy!
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From the Webinar 5/8/16

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Obama’s “Deep Ties” To Islam

laitman_272In the News (Fox News): “Newly unearthed photos of President Obama in Muslim garb underscore his deep ties to the faith — and possibly help explain his reluctance to call out radical Islam, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly said Wednesday.

“The photos, aired on “The O’Reilly Factor,” were taken at the wedding of Obama’s half-brother, Malik Obama, in Maryland sometime in the early 1990s, O’Reilly said. They were not offered as evidence that Obama is Muslim, as some of his critics insist, but to show his “deep emotional ties” to the religion of his father and stepfather, O’Reilly said.

“‘There is no question the Obama administration’s greatest failure is allowing the Islamic terror group ISIS to run wild, murdering thousands of innocent people all over the world, including many Muslims,’ said O’Reilly. ‘Mr. Obama has never, never acknowledged that mistake, nor does he define the ISIS threat accurately.

“’That group is killing innocent people in order to impose a radical version of Islam on the world,’ the newsman added. ‘The jihad is solely based on theology, perverted as it may be.’

“A similar photo emerged in 2008, when Obama was running for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton. In that photo, Obama was seen wearing a white turban and Muslim dress. The photo was sent to the influential Drudge Report, and Obama’s campaign blamed Clinton for the ‘smear.’ …

“The president reportedly met his older half-brother for the first time in 1985. Malik Obama now lives in a rural Kenyan village near Lake Victoria.”

My Comment: The Creator is leading the world toward the recognition of evil in people and the recognition of the need to counterbalance evil with good. Attraction of the good force into our world happens through educating people according to the method that was discovered by Abraham and is presented in the wisdom of Kabbalah. The time has come to use this method throughout the world before the world makes bigger mistakes.
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Golden Path To Love

laitman_527_03Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 5:29: Keep them to perform [them] as the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside either to the right or to the left.

Do not turn aside either to the right or to the left means to go along the middle line only, using all your qualities for bestowal and love.

All qualities, whatever they may be, we must accept so that we rise above ourselves in love for them.

When we deviate to the left, we enter the state of uncorrected desires and can’t leave them so. When we deviate to the right, we enter the state when we “float” in the Upper Light, in the quality of bestowal and love, but we don’t participate in it with all our egoism.

Therefore, both sides have to be balanced by the middle line, which is called a golden path to love.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/30/16

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New Life 735 – Blessings And The Connection To The Creator

New Life 735 – Blessings And The Connection To The Creator
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

“A person should not enjoy the world without a blessing.” It isn’t easy to understand what the sages mean by that, but they don’t refer to empty words. A person should reach the revelation of the Creator and true gratitude.

Children learn to say blessings and adults should learn how to actually discover the Creator.

Those who have revealed the Creator say that He is good and benevolent to all, and therefore I have to be like Him. The blessing is only a reason to connect to the upper force in order to identify with Him. The blessing should include the intention to discover the Creator and to bring Him delight.

All our work is to correct our attributes, to correct the desire to receive, which is totally egoistic. All this can be fulfilled only by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah in a group of people.

It says “the commandments were given only in order to purify the created beings,” that is, purify us, to correct our egoism. To bless actually means to reach a state in which a person enjoys the actual connection with the Creator and his giving to the Creator.

The purpose of the blessing is not to say thank you but to ascend to the level of the Creator, to be loving and giving like He is. Giving to the Creator can only be by giving to others, as it is written,  “from the love of the created being to the love of the Creator.”

Therefore, “love thy friend as thyself” is the greatest rule of the Torah. This is the goodness that a person can “give” the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 735 – Blessings And The Connection To The Creator,” 6/21/16

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 07.27.16

Preparation for the Lesson

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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention,” Lesson 9

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Lesson on the Topic: “17th of Tammuz,” Lesson 8

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