Audio Version Of The Blog – 05.14.17
Posted on May 14th, 2017
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Question: Why does a Kabbalist need to work in this world?
Answer: A Kabbalist must be a part of and participate fully in everything in which humanity participates. He is a natural part of this world and therefore needs to exist in the same system in which everyone is found.
A Kabbalist cannot climb to a mountain peak and live there as a hermit. He must live together with everyone, have a family, have children, and earn money for his livelihood, etc.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/18/16
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The Torah, Deuteronomy, 23:25: When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you desire, until you are sated, but you shall not put [any] into your vessel.
Grapes symbolize desire. That’s why “you may eat as many grapes as you desire, …but you shall not put [any] into your vessel” for the desire is foreign. When you get included into that desire, meaning rise to the next level, there you can receive into yourself without descending back to your level.
This refers to two Partzufim, two souls: big and small. If a small soul rises to the big one and gets included into it, like an embryo into its mother’s womb, then it can feed on everything there is on the upper level. However, it cannot descend to its level since it would be like death, like bodily infection.
When you are able to ascend and descend freely, understanding that you may not use this desire on your own level, the inclusion in the upper level will gradually raise you, and you will begin to ascend yourself and build your own “vineyard.”
Interestingly enough, on the farming fields in Israel, one can pick and eat all the fruits and vegetables he wants, but if wants to take them away, he has to pay for it. Everything has its roots and branches. This is the law of the Torah.
You can enter any field, say the sunflower field, choose whatever you like, and the owner will not say a word about it. He probably would not even look at you, though he knows he will be stripped of. But it doesn’t matter, this is a commandment. It means that the Creator will allow to replenish the harvest.
When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pick the ears with your hand, but you shall not lift a sickle upon your neighbor’s standing grain (The Torah, Deuteronomy, 23:26).
You may take as many ears of wheat as you need at the given moment because you’re not producing anything from it. But you cannot cut the harvest of a friend with a blade since that is an entire production (egoistic reception).
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/26/16
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Question: What does it mean to educate a person according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?
Answer: According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, education is the most important thing we should engage in. It is actually education that creates a human being from a beast. Through education, we can turn a person into anything. The main thing is the predetermined goal that has been set.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, in order to understand what goal to adhere to in education, we must first understand and discover what we are born for, what nature requires of us;, what the law of evolution is, what it is leading us to, and consequently, how we should educate a person.
Today, the world is in serious crisis, and we don’t know what to do because everything is changing so fast. We don’t know how to plan the life of married couples, their interaction with their children, and education in schools and kindergartens. It is all hanging in the air.
Everyone is engaged in self-fulfillment. We don’t know how a modern country or the whole world, for that matter, should function; how to establish mutual cooperation between people who have different traditions and aspirations and who immigrate from one place to another, not to mention the problem of the perception of the universe, the development of industry, trade, finance, and the economy.
All this is impossible without the proper education, because at the center of all this there is man who has to manage, create, and use this. But where is this future man? We cannot imagine him because we cannot imagine our future clearly. This is why we don’t know what to prepare our children for, which professions we should teach them, or how to guide them. Nothing is understood.
These are very serious questions even for the average person, not to mention a country that doesn’t know how to develop further and does everything blindly, one way today and another way tomorrow, etc. We are all in a very unclear state, as if hanging in limbo.
Therefore, everything depends on education. How should we prepare people for tomorrow so that nothing will take them by surprise?
This where the wisdom of Kabbalah, which has been concealed for many years, comes in and is now ready to help us. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, nature is leading human society toward universal unity, whether we like it or not. We will reach unity in any case, whether by the carrot or the stick, because all of nature is gradually becoming one big, complex system that is mutually connected.
The automation of society will not help here. People need to engage in organizing industrial, political, and other systems of human society in full mutual harmonious cooperation between them. Only in this way will we be able to survive properly and manage the situations we will encounter, constantly changing and realizing how nature is changing us because we cannot change by ourselves.
We are trying to build something and we suddenly encounter an obstacle and cannot succeed. We try to do things differently and once again encounter an obstacle. This is why we need people who understand the mutual connection with nature and who can lead all of human society to it. This is what our education should focus on.
It should be based on the ability to gather people in groups, in communities, in different parties, but not ones that oppose and contradict each other or are against anyone.
Our method is aimed at making a person feel that he lives in an integral world in which he is connected to others by billions of invisible wires. First, he has to imagine this network in a purely theoretical manner and then he will actually feel it.
Therefore, the whole educational approach should be aimed at developing a person’s sensitivity to internal communication with others where we feel all of society as the one unique system that it really is in nature’s plan.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/8/16
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The Jerusalem Post published my new article “The Israeli Camfire“
Lag Ba’omer celebrates the emergence of the immense light of unity through ‘The Book of Zohar.’ It is a calling for us to begin this journey toward being “as one man with one heart.”
Once a year, children and youth all over Israel collect any piece of wood they can lay their hands on and pile them up into huge heaps, which they set on fire on Lag Ba’omer night, the 33rd day of the omer count, which begins on the first day of Passover and ends on Shavuot. On that day, tens of thousands of people flock to the grave of the author of The Book of Zohar, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, to pray and to celebrate the writing of this seminal book of the wisdom of truth, also known as “the wisdom of Kabbalah.”
Lag Ba’omer is not regarded among the most fundamental festivals in Judaism, but like all Jewish festive days, it marks a profound point in our evolution as a nation and in the spiritual development of each and every one of us.
Lag Ba’omer in a Nutshell
Some 20 centuries ago, precisely at this time of the year, between Passover and Shavuot, Rabbi Akiva was teaching his 24,000 students. But according to the Talmud (Yevamot 62b), because these students did not follow Rabbi Akiva’s most fundamental law, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” they all died in a plague that struck them. Only five students remained because they followed their teacher’s guidance and stuck to the principle of love of others.
Of these five students, two in particular passed on their teacher’s tenet—Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, chief redactor and editor of the Mishnah, and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi), author of The Book of Zohar.
Hidden in a Cave
In the period following the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire (circa 132–136 CE), Rashbi was among the most prominent dissidents against the Roman rule in the Land of Israel. The Roman emperor, Hadrian, sent men in search of Rashbi to find and execute him.
According to legend, Rashbi and his son Rabbi Elazar fled to the Galilee where they hid in a cave for 13 years eating only carobs from a nearby tree and drinking the water of a nearby spring. During that time, they delved into the wisdom of the hidden, the wisdom of Kabbalah, and revealed the secrets of creation. Their efforts granted them the understanding of nature’s deepest levels and the understanding of the underlying unity at the basis of existence.
After 13 years, Rashbi heard about the death of Emperor Hadrian and came out of the cave. He gathered eight more students, in addition to his son, and taught them the secrets of Torah he had revealed. With his students, Rashbi went into another cave, and with their help he wrote The Book of Zohar, which is an interpretation of the Pentateuch, parts of the Prophets and the Writings (Hagiographa), and is the seminal book in the wisdom of Kabbalah.
The Book of Zohar describes the natural relationships that exist among all people. Contrary to popular belief, it does not talk about mystical creatures and esoteric powers, but rather writes about us—the process we go through as we develop our spirituality through our relations with other people.
Through his insinuations and intimations, Rashbi explains how we should construct our relationships correctly through love of others, and how love of others will bring peace to the entire world. In the portion, Aharei Mot, the book writes, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers sit together. These are the friends as they sit together, at first, they seem like people at war, wishing to kill one another. Then, they return to being in brotherly love. Henceforth, you will also not part … and by your merit there will be peace in the world.”
These brothers and friends that The Zohar mentions are people just like you and me, who have decided to connect for one and only purpose: to attain that underlying unity at the basis of existence that we mentioned earlier. By acknowledging their mutual hatred and subsequent exertion to rise above it and unite, they connect to that force of unity and establish such profound love among them, such true brotherly love, that even The Zohar fails to describe and simply refers to it as “a burning flame of love” or “the light of The Zohar.”
The Connection between The Zohar and Lag BaOmer
Lag Ba’omer, the 33rd day of the omer count is the day when Rashbi passed away. It is also the day when the wisdom of Kabbalah was given to the world through the sealing of The Book of Zohar.
The tradition of lighting fires on Lag Ba’omer symbolizes the great light that appeared in our dark world when The Zohar was signed, sealed, and delivered to humanity—a light that can establish among us connections of love.
A Light at the End of the Tunnel
The darkness of the deadlock that our world has fallen into over the last decades stems from our unrestrained egoism. This is the exact same ailment that consumed Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students. Just as the Temple was ruined and the students of Rabbi Akiva died only because of unfounded hatred, today’s alienation and atmosphere of animosity in society are bound to wreak havoc in the world in general, and on Israel in particular.
The way out of the labyrinth requires that we use the same method of connection and unity that our ancestors used 20 centuries ago. If we implement it among us and connect above the internal rejection we feel toward each other, we will light up the same great flame that burned before and the light of The Zohar will be revealed.
My teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (RABASH), wrote, “In each one there is a spark of love of others. However, the spark cannot ignite the light of love. Therefore, by bonding together, the sparks becomes a big flame” (The Writings of RABASH, vol. 2, “What Is the Degree One Should Achieve”).
Establishing a Lasting Solution among Us
Today, it is becoming clear that our society requires a fundamental, long-lasting, and sustainable solution to the problems we face. The great rule of the Torah, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” is within our power to perform, if we choose together to install it among us. We are indeed selfish to the core and our “inclination is evil from our youth,” as the Torah tells us. Yet, even a journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step, and now we must take that step and begin to march on a new path: the path of unity, connection, and brotherhood.
Lag Ba’omer symbolizes the appearance of the immense light of unity in our world through The Book of Zohar. It is a great opportunity for us to begin this journey toward mutual responsibility, toward being “as one man with one heart,” toward being what the nation of Israel is all about—love of others—and toward sharing that light with the nations, just as we have been commanded to be, “a light unto nations.”
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We have to wake up to a new dream #AmericanDream
#Politicalcorrectness is evil! It impedes clear thinking, complicates clear issues, ppl don’t dare assign clear definitions. It suffocates!
Machines can do everything–except connect with the Creator. This is how humans and #machines will soon divide up their responsibilities.
#Germany (Steinmeier) abandons Israel, calls for two-state solution. Jews, the time for showing your usefulness to the world is running out!
The crisis of developed countries is of man’s nature, and the solution is in rising above the ego. #Liberals /democrats won’t help change!
The Israeli camp fire http://dlvr.it/P6gVlR #Opinion #JPost
The Fire of Hatred, the Fire of Love @haaretzcom #LagBaomer
From Twitter, 5/11/17
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New Life 848 – Jewish Burial
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the attitude to life and death does not relate to the physiological body but to the spiritual body.
A Jewish burial is quick and simple in order to emphasize that the soul is important and the body is not.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 848 – Jewish Burial,” 4/13/17
 Video: Play Now | Download |
 Audio: Play Now | Download |
Preparation for the Lesson
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Selected Excerpts for Lag BaOmer, Part 1
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Selected Excerpts for Lag BaOmer, Part 2
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
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