Audio Version Of The Blog – 08.10.17
Posted on August 10th, 2017
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The largest portal United with Israel published my new article: “Tu B’Av is More than One Day of Love”
Much more than hearts and flowers! Discover the unconditional love symbolized by Tu B’Av and how it can elevate the world.
In modern-day Israel, Tu b’Av (the 15th of Av) has become a feel-good day, mostly characterized by spouses buying chocolate and flowers for each other to celebrate their romance. Basically, a Jewish version of Valentine’s Day, if you will.
But Tu b’Av has been a lot more than that for the Jewish people. It is written, “There were no good days for Israel like Tu b’Av, a day when the tribes were permitted to mingle with each other and where each and every person bestowed their goodness upon their fellow man” (Tiferet Shlomo). The kind of love Tu b’Av truly represents is an unconditional love that has to spread among all Jews and then throughout the whole of humanity. And it is no coincidence that it comes right after Tisha B’Av, which represents the polar opposite – unfounded hatred.
From Unfounded Hatred to Unconditional Love
The direct transition from Tisha b’Av (ninth of Av) to Tu b’Av symbolizes the only way in which we can attain true love – by first recognizing that our state is completely opposite to it. In other words, the recognition of an unfounded hatred that dwells in our hearts is the precondition for the attainment of unconditional love between us, as is written, “Tu b’Av is the correction and mitigation of Tisha b’Av.” (Likutey Halachot).
It may not be intuitive to us, but the whole of nature works this way. Evolution displays a dynamic interplay of two opposite forces. Whether they manifest as plus and minus, hot and cold, ebb and flow, or male and female, they create deeper levels of conflict and self-interest and then greater levels of reciprocity and connection. This is how ancient bacteria evolved from hostile competition to shared responsibility, thus forming the nucleated cell. Our bodies also exemplify this perfectly, with up to 100 trillion individual cells, integrated to create a more advanced level of life.
About 4,000 years ago, Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people, understood that this natural dynamic also applies to human society. When the Babylonians around him sank into self-interest and separation, he recognized that state as a precursor for a new degree of human connection. Abraham “seeded love for all people” (Noam Elimelech, Sefer Noam Elimelech) with the vision of a higher state and “went from city to city, kingdom to kingdom, until thousands and tens of thousands joined him… and they became a nation” (Maimonides, Yad HaChazaka).
This is the little-known birth story of the Jewish people. In fact, the word “‘Yehudi’ [Jewish] means ‘Yechidi’ – one who clings to the point of life, which is where unity is.” (The Admor of Gur, Sefat Emet).
Where is the Love Today?
The Hebrew calendar says it is time for the festival of love, but reality shows that the Jewish people are perhaps more divided than ever, with growing rifts between liberals and conservatives, Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jews, and between the various factions within Israel itself – possibly the harshest hostility demonstrated daily.
However, just as Abraham saw thousands of years ago, the hatred and separation that persist within the Jewish people today is not coincidental. It’s an evolutionary stage, a precursor to the next degree of Jewish unity.
And in our time, there is even more that’s brewing under the surface. Since the formation of the people of Israel in Babylon, the world began to feel that Jews hold onto something special and to ponder what binds them together. Thinkers, leaders, scientists and artists from various nations have written about this riddle for centuries.
“What is the Jew?” contemplated illustrious Russian author Leo Tolstoy. “What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed… continues to live and to flourish?” (The Final Resolution). Mark Twain expressed this even more bluntly, saying that, “all things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” (“Concerning the Jews”).
So what is it that the Jews hold the access to? They hold the method for building a network of altruistic connections above the growing self-interest. And the nature of human development is such that humanity is gradually generating a greater and greater need for this method. Thus, the method of attaining true love among human beings, which is the foundation of the Jewish people, is gradually becoming what the whole world needs.
The Method for Attaining Love
For the past 2,000 years or so, what remained from the method of unity that created the Jewish people are mostly symbols, such as the customs and holidays that have become today’s Judaism as we know it. Only a handful of people in each generation continued to engage in and develop the method of unity. Over time, this method took on the name, “the wisdom of Kabbalah.”
Contrary to popular belief, authentic Kabbalah has nothing to do with mysticism, amulets, astrology and other misconceptions that have been linked to it throughout the centuries. Rather, it is about upgrading our nature from the growing self-love that leads us to crises and leaves us with a limited perception of reality to an equivalence with the force of unconditional love that permeates all of nature.
The wisdom of Kabbalah has the tools and knowledge to prepare us for the whole new level of human life and experience that the world is inevitably moving towards. And so, from Kabbalah’s perspective, Tu b’Av is not about paying compliments to each other for one day and then going back to fighting and biting. Rather, this day should be a compelling symbol for the work we have to do every day in order to rise to a new level of connection between us and to share it with all of human society. As the luminary Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag wrote, “all our work is to discover love within us, each and every day.” (A Sage’s Fruit).
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Is it possible to be on constant vacation? #vacation #summer
From Twitter, 8/9/17
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Question from Facebook: In the past, a family was created for economic reasons. Today, a person does not need a family to live and enjoy life. Moreover, it hinders him and just creates problems. So, why start a family?
Answer: Indeed, in the past a man needed a wife to serve him, children to help him in old age, a house to live in, friends, relatives—in general, the closest circle.
A person needed to be supported in trouble, in illness, and eventually be attended to at a funeral. And today he does not need this; there are all kinds of social services that deal with this.
Does one need a wife? No, he does not. He can have a new wife every day. Children? Why does he need children? They grow up and from the age of ten he hardly sees them, only when they ask for money. They have no regard for their parents, and he will not get help from them in old age either.
Today, a person is separated from his natural roots: family, wife, children, parents, and home. Even the place of work no longer is binding. In the past people worked in one place all their lives. Where is all this today?
Question: It turns out that society’s main cell, the family, no longer exists?
Answer: Unfortunately, no one wants anything. Women do not want to marry, do not want to have children, although by nature they have a desire for children, a husband, a family, and a home.
Question: So do we need a family in the long run or not?
Answer: Whether we need it or not need depends on the goal. If the goal justifies the means, then the means is necessary, and if not, then there’s no need for it.
Question: Do you mean that now humanity has such goals that it does not need a family?
Answer: Of course. But if I know that to achieve the goal I need a family, then I will create it and will cherish it.
Humanity must acquire a goal, and then it will understand how to live and whether it is necessary to live. Today, many people in the world are questioning whether it is worth living.
Separation of children from their parents is subconsciously taking place also because they are troubled by the question: “Why did my parents bring me into the world? So that I would hang out in life and suffer? I’m useless; nobody needs me—not me or others. Wait till I die? For this they gave birth to me? They enjoyed it, and they did it for their own delight, but I have no enjoyment from life. So give me some drugs and I will somehow exist.”
Question: What should be the goal in life for the sake of which a family is needed?
Answer: The goal for which a family is needed is to reach the next level of existence: complete, eternal, infinite, and giving absolute attainment. We cannot imagine this and do not even want to imagine it. We are tired of everything! That is why it is very difficult to explain this to people.
We need to break out of life for our own sake—this is our limitation. As soon as we feel that there is another method of existence, it will become much easier for us.
In this case, a family is needed because it is one of the systems of similarity to the upper system of nature. To move to the upper goal, one must get married, have a family and children, especially men.
And the goal is to reach the next level of existence, when we replace egoistic existence with an altruistic one. This reveals completely different depths of nature, existence in other dimensions, when not our universe is a home for us, but an entirely different universe.
Question: How are relations in the family adjusted then?
Answer: They are adjusted only in accordance with what a person sees as the goal of his upper existence. Guided by this, the family is kept and children are raised. Otherwise, nothing will exist.
Question: Does the concept of love exist in a family that has a purpose?
Answer: Love is the correct relationship that allows you to achieve this ultimate goal. And nothing more.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 5/15/17
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In the News (Quartz): “It doesn’t take long for seemingly outlandish ideas to become normalized. Today, Stanford University professor Hank Greely’s assertion that Americans will stop having sex to procreate sounds absurd. But in a couple of decades, he predicts, that will be the accepted reality.
“Greely, director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Law and the Biosciences, believes that we’re 20 to 30 years away from a time when most American procreation will begin by selecting from a range of embryos created with the parents’ DNA in a lab. This already happens on a limited basis for disease prevention and occasionally sex selection, but he argues it will become far cheaper and widely available thanks to stem cell technology that will allow couples to make eggs and sperm out of stem cells from their skin.”
My Comment: We should welcome this option if a person suffers from an incurable disease so as not to pass it on to his offspring. In addition, the condition of the father or mother can be tested and necessary changes can be made. We can do it. We already have such “tweezers” that enable us to raise a good and healthy generation. Humanity has always aspired for that.
Basically, if every person were allowed to have healthy, beautiful, strong, and successful children, he would want that. So it is quite possible that we are advancing toward that.
Question: So what is the meaning of conceiving with love?
Answer: What does love have to do with it?! When it comes to conceiving, we are like animals; we only confuse the two things! Is there love between animals? They smell each other and the smell alone is enough in order to tell them whether they can reproduce. It isn’t sex but the culture. For cats, for example, it is spring time, and during the rest of the year they just lie tranquilly in the sun. That’s the way it is with animals.
And we confuse pleasure with reproduction. Sex is a pleasure just like good food. Why should it be connected to having children? Today we see how much one has nothing to do with the other. We hardly want to conceive one child! Why should we have sex for 50 years?
Comment: Humanity sees things in a totally different manner…
Answer: No, it doesn’t see things differently. Humanity simply doesn’t understand where it already is. Love doesn’t go along with sex, and reproduction has nothing to do with love or even with sex.
Question: What is a corrected family in your opinion?
Answer: It is very hard for me to describe a corrected family since in such a family there are first and foremost good relations between its members above all the problems.
We have to change our attitude to people and this will change our whole life. Then we will see how to maintain a good family life. But without changing our attitude, of course, it will certainly be awful.
Question: With such kind, ideal relationships in the corrected family, what will be the attitude to having children? Let’s say we are a couple living by the rule of love of others…
Answer: I think that if we truly relate to each other that way, then nature itself will begin to regulate humanity and our mutual relations. We will not connect beastliness with being human, and we will see life in a totally different way.
We cannot understand that today. Today we are locked on the beastly life and the beastly family, on the need to be together in order to exist, to survive, to raise children. In the corrected family, on the other hand, there will be a totally different atmosphere.
So it is hard for me to say, but there will be completely different relationships between sex, family, love, and reproduction according to the law of nature. According to the rule of “love thy friend as thyself,” we will see exactly what is best for us.
Question: Will there be a need for pills or any other contraceptives?
Answer: No. Everything will be regulated by nature alone. We only have to regulate the good relations between us.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/6/17
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Ari, “Tree of Life”: Behold, that before the emanations were emanated and the creatures were created, the upper simple Light had filled the whole existence…
The goal of creation is to bring the creations to the attainment of the Creator, to adhesion with Him, to reaching His level. The entire development of the human being in this world throughout thousands of years is directed at the realization of this task.
There were many people throughout human history who were able to come out of the animal degree into the human one, starting from Adam, the first man, Adam HaRishon. Such people are called Kabbalists, and during all the generations they kept helping others to come to the attainment of the upper force, to enter the spiritual degree.
Our whole life in this world, within our egoistic desire, is there for the purpose of coming out of it and elevating ourselves to the level of bestowal, to the highest existence—eternal and boundless.
So we ought to thank those people, who, having attained the Creator themselves, exerted all their efforts to develop the science of Kabbalah, helping others reach the same degree and go through the same states on the way to attaining the highest reality.
All evolution can be divided into two stages. Initially, there is an instinctive maturation and the development of the desire for pleasure. However, at some point that desire develops to the extent of demanding its correction into the desire to bestow. That turning point is symbolized by a special Kabbalist, whose name was Ari.
That messenger from above did for us what no one else has ever done. There is no other person who has made a greater contribution to the general correction. Starting with him, humanity entered the period of deliverance. For it was the Ari who revealed the science of Kabbalah, the methodology of correction, who took it from above and brought it deep down for us.
That is why today’s date [July 27, 2017] is so important for us—Ari’s Memorial Day. For everything we have in our spiritual life, what we strive for, investing our whole life into, has really come from the great Ari. It is the soul that symbolizes the turning point from the world of darkness into the world of correction.
He was the first Kabbalist who brought people the practical methodology of correction that includes the structure of the upper worlds, the circulation of souls, distribution of Light, and development. He linked these explanations to the holidays and quotes from the Torah.
Ari created the language of Kabbalah amd made it possible for study, research, and implementation. He translated Kabbalah from the language of parables and hints, received before him among the Kabbalists, into a modern, precise, scientific language: measures, degrees, Aviut (depth of the desire), Kashiut (strength of the screen)—all scientific terms.
After him, Kabbalah turned into a real science, due to the highest degree that Ari has attained, allowing him to encompass the whole upper world.
That is why he begins his writings from the four stages of Direct Light, in all the details. All the structure of the worlds that the science of Kabbalah teaches came from Ari. Baal HaSulam writes that he attained his spiritual heights due to the fact, that he received an embryo of the soul of Ari. Because of this special soul, Baal HaSulam reached his attainments and continued the work of Ari.
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From the Lesson on the Day of Ari’s Memory 7/27/17
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Question: Can I begin to influence my fate positively if I begin to ascend in thought above the ego, thinking well of others, justifying every action of a person (bad or good) with the thought that, “There is none else beside Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35)?
Answer: Only in a unique group under special guidance will you be able to enter a new management system.
Question: Why don’t you begin your lessons with the last part of the lesson that begins today at 5:00 am Israel Time for the sake of uniting to a common goal?
Answer: My lessons are designed for all levels, not just for beginners.
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Torah, Deuteronomy 28:07: The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you, to be beaten before you; they will come out against you in one direction, but they will flee from you in seven directions.
There is one force that spoils everything, our egoism. However, when we begin to work with it, the upper Light breaks it down into a spectrum of seven paths from red to ultraviolet.
By decomposing into seven parts, as through a prism, egoism reveals before you the entire picture on which you read the qualities of the Creator, interact with Him, and adhere to Him. That is, you discover yourself. The prism is you. Everything passes through you.
Egoism adds one single egoistic desire to you. You connect with the upper Light that returns to the source, which, passing through you, builds a prism out of you. So, it turns out that you already consist of seven Sefirot, seven colors: Hessed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yessod, and Malchut. These seven colors give you a complete picture of the Creator—the source of the Light itself. Thus, you become a person.
Question: How can we break this down into three lines? Does this mean that the left line is one force and the right line covers it?
Answer: Both lines complement each other, as it is written, ”The darkness will shine like the light.” There is no difference between night and day because they are opposite; all the lights are manifested. The lights are revealed in the middle line with the correct combination of the left line and the right line.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/5/16
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| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Lesson on the Topic: “Perception of Reality”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 70
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Mutual Guarantee,” Item 28
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