Audio Version Of The Blog – 07.18.17

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My Thoughts On Twitter, 7/17/17

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Just published on @Medium “AN OPEN LETTER AND PROPOSAL TO MARK ZUCKERBERG” #Facebook

“An Open Letter & Proposal to Mark Zuckerberg” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/open-letter-proposal-mark-zuckerberg-michael-laitman … by @laitman on @LinkedIn

Inspired by my letter (http://bit.ly/zucknote ) to Mark #Zuckerberg about bringing the world closer together.

From Twitter, 7/17/17

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Three Times About Love

laitman_527_03Comment: You said that a person is given the feeling of love in his youth and each of us has, indeed, experienced first love. The second time is when a person has a child, and as for the third time, he has to develop it himself, consciously in relation to strangers.

Answer: The first case is not love but a natural internal hormonal call that is described in many sources. In the second case, when a person has a baby, he feels that he is part of nature and that he is taking some high part in it. This action is similar to the Creator’s action and so it gives a person a special feeling. In the third case, if a person begins to truly resemble the Creator, he can already feel what love is.

Question: In the first two cases I can somehow imagine what love is. Can I relate to these two cases as an example in order to understand how to love others?

Answer: No! In the first case it is merely a hormonal discharge and that’s all. Forgive me for speaking about love and romance this way, but there is nothing else in it. You can ask any psychologist. And as for the love of a baby, it is a beastly emotion.

Nature did not let us feel all that for no reason but to develop the next level in us, which is above nature. You begin to love another not because you like him or because you fill up some of your desires, but because you are bringing the Creator pleasure by that, and this is called altruism.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/26/17

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What A Name Is

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is a name?

Answer: A name is an indicator of a specific characteristic or action.

The combination of letters symbolizes in what manner the name is created in creation.

Suppose that I have a desire that takes shape under the influence of a particular Light.

There is a special structure in this desire, a collection of forces and characteristics. Together they form a name.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/5/17

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The Creator Is On The Right

laitman_212Question from Facebook: Why is Hebrew written from right to left?

Answer: The right line represents wholeness in the system of the upper leadership, whereas the left line is the opposite, full of deficiencies, problems, and corruptions. This is the reason that everything begins from the right side toward the left side.  The Creator is on the right.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/3/17

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“Between the Straits”

Laitman_006We have entered a special period called “Between the Straits,” from the 17th of Tammuz when the first Tablets were broken, till the 9th of Av when the Temple was destroyed. Looking back at history, we can understand many things about this time. We can see how difficult it is to accept the method of unification and to implement it. This is to what the days “Between the Straits” testify.

We received the Torah, the method of correction, symbolized by Moses who rose to the mountain for forty days and brought the method of unification from the degree of Bina (Bestowal), but the people were unable to accept it. Even though everything has been prepared and given from above, we are unable to receive it.

And in reality, this is not our fault. It is simply because our desires still have not sufficiently integrated with good and evil to enable us to correct one through the other. The integration occurs precisely by way of the breakage. Only an explosion can help to break the boundaries between two opposites that reject one another and force them to integrate.

This integration must be completely chaotic and disorderly, under the pressure of an explosive force because there cannot be any order in the integration of good and evil. Order can be established only after they have been integrated. Within that integration, with the help of the upper Light, everything can be discerned and sorted out, and then the proper connection and construction can be attained.

There is a complex process allowing opposite things to unite in harmony and mutual complement. This is precisely what happens in the process of the reception of the Torah.

It is impossible to do this faster with the egoistic desire that just came out of Egypt and has only a weak inclination to be corrected. It understands that it needs to be corrected, but does not realize the extent to which it is opposite to the corrected state because there is no mutual integration yet.

As long as we are under the power of Pharaoh, egoism, we do not feel that we are its slaves. Our exodus happens by virtue of an external force that pulls us out of there, showing us that this is worthwhile. However, the desires are not corrected by it.

We see this happening to us: Every day we decide to finally come out of our egoism and start thinking about the group so that our concern won’t be for ourselves on a personal level, but so it will be for everyone. However, we do not succeed.

We make greater and greater efforts, but small breakages keep taking place. This is happening to us as we are a consequence of many destructions and corrections that have already taken place in our root.

The Torah tells us about the preparation for correction. The entire path lasting six thousand years that humanity transverses was just preparation. Correction is attained only at the very end, on the day of absolute Light. All of these states have also been realized in matter: the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the horrible wars within the nation of Israel. All of this was the material incarnation of the spiritual degrees.

After the complete integration, which was achieved at the cost of many wars, shards of the broken will to enjoy and will to bestow become completely integrated with one another and fall even lower, to the very bottom. After four exiles and three redemptions, each of which was necessary, we are reaching the end of the last exile and the beginning of the final redemption.

Looking at this process, it is obvious that the Torah cannot be received all at once. And this is indicated by the day of the 17th of Tammuz, the breaking of the first Tablets. Only after the breaking and mutual integration of spiritual desires with material ones has occurred is it possible to ascend to acquire a different form.

The first Torah was “incorrect.” It was necessary only in order for the Tablets to be broken and to reach correction. The second Torah was corrected, able to fix the integration of bestowing desires with the receiving ones, which is what happens with the help of the second Tablets. This is a unique process, testifying to how opposite our qualities are to the qualities of the upper force.

We should have a balanced attitude to these days, seeing them not just as days of mourning and breakage, but as something inevitable that we have to go through. The whole world will have to go through this destruction in one form or another. However, if we know why we are doing this and for what purpose, we will be able to go through everything by the path of Achishena (hastening), as humans.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/17, Lesson on the topic of “The Period of “Between the Straits”

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Do Not Damage The “Person” In You

Laitman_507_03Torah, Deuteronomy 27:24: Cursed be he who strikes his fellow in secret. And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’

“In secret” means in court. This is about egoistically destroying an opportunity for your next action of correction. If I take a desire and instead of correcting it I pull it away from my action, then I kill it within myself, which means “to strike my fellow in secret.” I curse myself by this.

The damage of the soul by a person or the damaging of “a person” within oneself is called a curse.

Question: In other words, must I take care of my neighbor, as if to educate him?

Answer: Of course, this is your desire. The Torah does not speak about anything other than the desires that are within each of us. It tells us how to correct them and how to become similar to the Creator.

Therefore, all the things the Torah speaks about such as sheep, goats, cows, plants, and even more so, people—in all their external manifestations—imply different desires within a person. The Torah indicates clearly what you can and cannot do. Therefore, it tells you what you don’t touch, what is not yours, and what the system itself will correct for you.

Question: Can we say that if I do not aspire to fulfill the law “love your neighbor as yourself,” then it is as if I kill my neighbor?

Answer: Of course because your “mother-in-law,” your “wife,” your “mother,” and your “father,” no matter who and what they are, are all within you. If you correct them incorrectly, you kill them.

Question: Does it mean that humanity is now in a state of “killing its neighbor”?

Of course, and especially within oneself; we kill our soul within ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/23/16

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How Can We Accelerate Spiritual Advancement?

laitman_281_02Question: How is it possible to hasten spiritual advancement?

Answer: Time is a very large and important factor in our progress.

I cannot imagine that it is possible to reduce it very much. You do not know how many spiritual states you pass through every minute of your earthly life in, which you do not even suspect. The counter is spinning and spinning and everything is constantly changing.

Suddenly a person feels that he is beginning to grasp things differently, feeling and understanding something, and so forth. This is a result of the inner changes he is going through.

Therefore, on the one hand, we need to hasten time, but on the other hand, we are living in particular frameworks. If you are in a group in a lesson and are working on yourselves and on the group systematically and mutually, in the framework of our general world group, then only the joint efforts play a role.

In this way you can hasten the time, but in any case, the time factor exists and it is necessary to take it into account and to respect it.
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From the talk at a videoconference with the Learning Center students, 5/21/17

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 7/18/17

Preparation for the Lesson

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Preparation for the Italy Convention 2017, “Building the Spiritual Partzuf,” Lesson 2

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 32

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Shamati #2 “Divinity in Exile”

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