The Masons Are Scared of Kabbalah

The Masons Are Scared of KabbalahQuestions I received on movement, celebrities, the Masons, and pop music that uses prayers for lyrics:

Question: Dear Rav, I envy everything that moves. What can I do about it?

My Answer: Also move! (Meaning spiritual movement!)

Question: Why do you have conversations with celebrities, with people who are famous, instead of ordinary people? Do you really need the publicity? Do these talks with celebrities flatter your ego?

My Answer: Famous people meet different people thousands more times than ordinary people do. After my conversations with them they gain an understanding of the great value that Kabbalah has for every person and for the whole world, and they begin disseminating Kabbalah on a broad scale, or rather – they bring the Kabbalistic idea to the world. Experience proves this!

The reason I’m doing this is to accelerate man’s recognition of evil so he wouldn’t have to actually go through it in reality. As the Soviet satiric writer Zhvanetsky once said, “The difference between a clever person and a wise person is that a clever person gets out of a difficult situation with huge efforts, but a wise person never gets into that situation.” I want to be wise and I wish the same for everyone else.

Question: What is the connection between the Masons and Kabbalah, if there is any?

My Answer: There is no connection at all. Even my attempt a few years ago to give a lecture for the Masons in Jerusalem failed – they were scared. Secret brotherhoods of any type feel sick in the stomach at the thought of Kabbalah, because Kabbalah promotes wide dissemination to everyone, while the Masons aspire to maintain secrecy. However, there are no hidden forces there, but only traditions and a belief in their exclusivity.

I’m sure that the wave of world-wide change will soon overtake them, as well as all the other philosophies and religions. The only things that will remain will be man, the Creator and the connection between them, while the Masons’ protocols and religious faith “in something” will disappear.

Question: Recently we often hear the song “אנא בכוח,” with moving lyrics that go straight into the heart. Can you explain this text?

My Answer: Why does it move you so much if you don’t know the meaning of the text? Who taught you to think of this prayer in a special way? You wrote, “Recently we often hear” – but I’d like to ask you: who hears it, and where? I have never heard about it! I only know this prayer from the prayer book. In religion and in Kabbalah, no one treats it in a special way. This is just another “sensation” – someone just wants to stand out!

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Media coverage from a lecture & book promo tour of Rav Michael Laitman in the US and Canada, 2007

Kabbalah Teaches Love and Bestowal, and Nothing Else

Kabbalah Teaches Love and Bestowal, and Nothing ElseTwo questions I received on whether spiritual correction requires observance of physical rituals:

Question: You say that it’s possible to attain spiritual correction without physically observing the commandments of Judaism. Maybe you’re just saying this out of your concern for Kabbalah’s dissemination around the world? Or maybe what you really mean is that people can’t understand these commandments by simply reading them? If you can’t publish the answer on the blog, I would like to receive a private answer.

My Answer:
The Creator created the will to receive pleasure with an intention “for one’s own sake,” and this is how we find ourselves in this world. We were created this way in order to correct our intention to “for the sake of the neighbor or the Creator,” on all of our 613 desires. This correction happens under the influence of the Upper Light, Ohr Makif, which descends during the study of Kabbalah.

This bears no relation to the observance of religious rituals. A person can attain correction and spiritual attainment without physically observing the commandments, or rather – the traditions. This is true for both Jews and the nations of the world. Moreover, every person can keep his religion, because religion is no more than a nation’s cultural framework. Kabbalah only teaches us about the intention “for the sake of the neighbor,” how to love and bestow to others – and nothing else.

Question:
You’re all about spirituality and the love revolution. But what about connecting the root with the branch? After all, the still, vegetative, and animate levels are also levels of the will to receive. You always speak about the internality without any externality, and this confuses me. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of the “Introduction to the Book of Zohar” that the internality should be preferred over the externality. But it looks like Bnei Baruch gives 100% of their attention to the internality, and 0% to the externality! This is difficult and confusing. Why not make a small change and pay a little more attention to the externality? Why not combine both parts? Dedicate 90% of your attention to the internality, and 10% to the externality. This will really help everyone! What do you think?

My Answer: We at Bnei Baruch actually do this – we follow the traditions. But do you really think that all the people in the world – who are now approaching correction – have to observe the physical commandments of Judaism, even if it isn’t their tradition? In the article “The Future Generation” Baal HaSulam writes that every person can keep his religion!

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Watch Out for the “Practical Kabbalists” (the Phoneys)

Not Every Phony Is a KabbalistA question I received: Hello dear Rav Laitman. I tried to get my father interested in Kabbalah lessons, but he didn’t like them and two weeks later he said that I listen to the lessons too much. He found a small ad in the local newspaper that said, “We teach practical Kabbalah.” My father – who is a religious, decent and straightforward man – called them, and when the conversation was over he wanted to speak to me. He said that the man he spoke with told him that if a person studies Kabbalah alone, he will end up in the “Gates of Menashe” (a psychiatric clinic)! This made me very angry and upset, since I am studying something completely different. I started defending myself and arguing with him. He also got angry and said that this is no way for a daughter to speak to her father, and that my behavior was unacceptable. What should I do to prevent others from interfering with my “life-line” and my true development?

My Answer: You should conclude that 1. Not all the salesmen teach authentic Kabbalah – there are phoneys. 2. “Practical Kabbalah” is practical fraud. 3. There’s no sense calling random phone numbers in the local newspaper, or thinking that everyone is like us. 4. Bring your father to my lecture at “Beit Kabbalah L’Am” on Tuesday, 7:30 PM.

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