5 Minutes From The Daily Kabbalah Lesson: Discovering Your True Self Through The Kabbalistic Text


Why Should Humans, But Not Cows Have Souls?

naive1Recently, while in Madrid, I had a meeting with a reporter, and he asked me, “Can you tell me, where is my soul now?” I felt uncomfortable letting him down, but I had to tell him, “What soul? What are you talking about?” He didn’t get it: how can there be a person without a soul? Yet it doesn’t surprise him that a cow has no soul. But why should he have one? Right now he may be eating a steak that was made from that cow, but he doesn’t ask what happened to its soul. So how does the cow’s body differ from his own?

The soul is one’s connection with the Creator, with the Upper Light, and it only appears to the degree one is similar to Him. A soul appears in a person once he is above the Machsom, but prior to the Machsom, a person does not have a soul. All our other desires do not constitute a soul – at least not yet, while they’re not corrected.

When a person receives a point in the heart and develops it, then a soul appears within him, which is called “human.” But our animate bodies are not called human. Their only purpose is for us to raise a soul within the body, which will be called our “I.”
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

Why Kabbalah Of All Things?

fear1Sometimes people ask me: why not something else, why Kabbalah of all things? But ask yourself: what is the matter of creation, what influences it, who is the giver and who is the receiver? And then show me any other method that is effective.

What else can there be? Can you create another physics in our world? No! Well, it’s the same with Kabbalah. This isn’t some theory that someone has invented. Kabbalists have learned the laws by which the desire to enjoy operates, and the force that influences it, the plus and the minus, one thing versus the other, and based on their observations, they created the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Granted that the only thing comprising creation is the Light and the desire, Kabbalah explains how the Lights and the desires interconnect with each other in every possible situation. This is why Kabbalah is a science.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

During The Period Of Concealment, We Grow From One Day To The Next Like A Baby

creationWhy did we have to go through billions of years of evolution in order to start ascending back where we came from, from below upwards? We have a huge desire that is concealed from us. It is connected to all the worlds. I have to perfect myself, and the changes that will happen inside me will influence this entire infinite desire – all of creation. And the changes taking place in it will, in turn, influence me as well, making tiny changes inside me, because I can only bear such small portions at a time.

We are incorporating ourselves into an enormous job, which is concealed from us. We are like a baby who advances and develops tremendously from one day to the next. Later on, he will never go through this kind of development for the rest of his life. The changes taking place inside him every month of the first year of his development are simply astounding, compared to the changes he will go through in one month later on, say at the age of five, ten, or twenty.

This is how swiftly we are changing, even though it is concealed from us. That is why this time is called “the period of concealment,” because the enormous work we are doing is concealed from us. It’s concealed from us just like from a baby, who makes efforts while not understanding what he does. That’s how we don’t understand what we are doing. But meanwhile, there are tremendous transformations taking place within us.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

True Freedom Lies In Becoming “Human” Faster

trueThe society supplies a person with artificial behavioral models, playing off his ego. And it never asks the person whether he wants to live by these models or not. He is born in a certain location on earth, and this determines the general cultural values he will receive from childhood. This determines his upbringing and the kind of person he has to become. Whether he wants to or not, he absorbs these values and then continues to follow them for the rest of his life. In addition to this, society supplies him with promises of reward in the world to come, but this is done in order to use the person even more. In this regard, a person has no freedom of choice, no freedom.

But one day, a person’s “point in the heart” awakens and he starts feeling disillusioned with all of his previous life. It’s as if he begins life from a fresh, clean page. All of his previous values come tumbling down and disappear from the horizon, losing all their importance. His previous behavioral models become canceled because they no longer hold any reward or punishment for the person. The only things that remain are those necessary for one’s survival, the things without he cannot exist.

If a person is religious, then he also starts to have doubts about the world to come. Thus, the circumstances bring him to the group and the Kabbalah books, and then he has to make a choice: how much does he want to become part of this society and this path? He is not free to choose the path, but he is free to choose the speed at which he will advance, how much energy he will put into it, and how quickly he will absorb the right examples from this environment, in order to adopt the new behavioral models and the new values.

So, one’s only choice is in how much to become a part of the common process: to advance quicker or slower. In this regard, a person does have free choice: the choice to quickly absorb the new examples and models that are provided for him by the new society.

And even though he is only free to choose the speed with which he adopts these new examples, this is nevertheless true freedom. That’s because it is above his egoistic desire to enjoy. And in this way, he already begins to build a “human being” within.
(From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

Why Kabbalists Desire The Creator’s Concealment

what-do-villains-and-prophets-have-to-do-with-bnei-baruchs-virtual-groupThe Creator’s concealment exists only relative to me. To the degree I advance spiritually, I myself start to desire His concealment, similar to playing a game. For the Creator, however, there is no game: He knows everything since everything is Him. But as for me, I don’t want to know anything ahead of time; I desire concealment, because it gives me a place to express myself independently of His control.

We Can Come Out Of The Crisis Without The Influence Of Suffering

influenceToday the whole world is unwillingly starting to become part of one integral system, and people see that they are increasingly being governed by some sort of forces, yet they aren’t able to resist them. People are experiencing a crisis in all areas and are discovering that there is something concealed from them, yet they are unable to do anything.

We, humans, cannot control anything; we are subjugated to blind fate and we are unable to handle it. All this is making us reveal that the system of connections between us is flawed, and at the same time, that the forces governing us are concealed. We are discovering this out of our own inability to do anything ourselves.

But there’s an even greater crisis of government institutions still awaiting us. That’s because these institutions feel obliged to prove to us that they are supposedly in control of things and have power over something. People are yet to reveal that “the hearts of the kings and ministers are in the hands of the Creator,” and that none of the governments are actually able to do anything. This fact will become revealed to everyone.

If that weren’t enough, we are yet to face another powerful blow from nature, which will come in order to make us see that we are small and insignificant compared to its phenomena.

All of this will bring us to the realization that we really are part of one integral system and are unable to do anything. And then, out of this realization, we will reveal that even our thoughts and desires are not our own, but come to us from nature. Nature controls us from within and from without in every regard. We will then feel that we are bound in chains, and will start looking for a salvation.

This may happen under the influence of suffering, or through the wisdom of Kabbalah, which enables us to forestall the suffering. Either way, we will have to reveal the system of forces in which we exist, as well as what it is doing to us and what its purpose is.

So let’s already start by imagining that we are the experiment of the Upper Force, which is now revealing Its plan to us. Humanity will have to reveal this fact, either out of despair, because it is influenced by painful blows, or as a result of disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah. Clearly, the latter is a much better path.

The revelation of the entire system of relationships, the entire matrix of connections between us and the Upper, Governing Force of Nature – the Creator, is what constitutes the wisdom of Kabbalah. The entire wisdom of Kabbalah talks only about this.

Why Americans Are Hooked On Antidepressants

a-reshimo-is-ones-complete-future-stateIn the News (from MSNBC News):Antidepressant use doubles in U.S., study finds” Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday. “Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans,” Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

My Comment: Because people are feeling a new, unearthly desire, which is impossible to fulfill in this world, they are experiencing an incurable state of depression and melancholy that they are trying to suppress with drugs or other addictive substances. However, this desire can instead be fulfilled with the desired pleasure by revealing the Upper World, using the method of fulfilling this new desire, the soul. This method is called the “Wisdom of Kabbalah.” Kabbalah is translated from Hebrew as “reception or fulfillment.”

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Our Impudence Is The Reason For The Global Crisis

impudenceHow does man dare to declare that he is not part of nature’s system? Then what are you, if you aren’t part of nature? A thousand years ago, or a century ago, you were controlled by nature, but now you’re not? And why is the world not? Is it because you have created a few “toys” – cars and airplanes? All you did was take different substances and mix them together, and you came up with plastic and bubble gum. So what has made you separate from nature?

The fact is that we have not been separated from nature. All the sciences, including Darwin’s theory, say that we are the result of evolution of the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature. So why does man suddenly deem himself above nature, separate from the integral system of the universe? Why does he suddenly step beyond its boundaries and say, “I am free!” What is he free from?

So now, because of our senseless pride, because we impudently think we are free, we are facing a crisis. The fact is that we aren’t free, and we exist inside the integral, global system of Nature (the Creator). Therefore, we have to behave in harmony with the system.

We are inside the Creator. He controls us, and there is no one else besides Him. We don’t have any possibility of acting freely, not in any regard. Even the sensation that we seem to stand opposite Him is given to us by Him, in order to raise us.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot”)

Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 09.07.2009

michael-laitman_daily-lesson_sep-03_0001_previewPreparation and Part 1 of the Lesson
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Part 2, on Chapter 2 of Talmud Eser Sefirot
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Part 3, on “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” Item 142
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