Sometimes people come to the lesson with what appears to be fatigue. But it’s not fatigue. As Rabash said: If someone were to tell you that your house was on fire, you would jump up and run! Therefore, this is not fatigue, but only a lack of desire.

When people feel that they don’t understand or feel the material, as though they are in a thick fog, these feelings are symptoms of the desire’s dullness. “I’m not really interested, I don’t feel well, I have more pressing matters to deal with, I need to rest, tomorrow I’ve got a big day at work” – all these excuses are nothing but a lack of desire.

When I feel this way, it means that I am deliberately given the opportunity to find the desire, to want to obtain it, and to realize that I must find it myself. Finding the desire is only possible by opening a Kabbalah book, even when I don’t want to read or understand it, and when I don’t see or feel anything in it. Gradually, by forcing myself to read a little more, and a little more, and a little more – letter by letter, word by word, I search and wait to be overtaken by the desire described in The Book of Zohar.

I am aware of all these steps, tasteless as they are, without feeling or understanding them. However, it is precisely in this lack of taste, sensation, and awakening that I begin to feel the Creator’s attitude toward me. I realize that He still gives me the opportunity and a precise place to apply my own effort in all of these states.

This is my mutual work with the Upper Level, where I begin to connect to the Creator even in the states when I don’t feel that He is “Good that does Good” and “There is none else besides Him.” In this manner I come to the correct desires.

The fulfillment, the Upper Light, is in absolute rest. All that’s missing are the desires, the vessels (Kelim)

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 143
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A question I received: Every movie has a protagonist. Who is the protagonist in the movie of life?

My Answer: Every regular person that lives this film is the protagonist. However, he doesn’t sense that he’s an actor; he’s convinced that his life is real!

That is why life is like a dream. When we have a vivid dream, we experience strong emotions such as joy and fear, and wake up under the dream’s impression, whether good or bad. In the same way we will eventually wake up in Gmar Tikkun (the End of Correction) and realize that this life was merely a movie.

Actually, we will reach this realization even earlier, when The Zohar illuminates our actual state for us. But for as long as we exist in this film and sense ourselves as part of it, we cannot disconnect from it and we therefore view ourselves from outside.

When the Light makes the smallest correction in us, and we attach some part of an external desire to an internal one, we begin to see this dream for what it is, and realize the delusion we’ve lived prior to this discovery. Currently we are deluded not only with respect to the surrounding world, but also with respect to ourselves. There are so many layers of falsehood in us that we don’t know our true selves at all.

In a dream we may see ourselves as heroes – charging somewhere on a horse, flying to the moon – but that’s only a movie, and we wake up in our beds. However, as we attach ourselves to the external Kli and make it internal by loving our friends as ourselves, through this connection we reveal the Upper Light. That is when we wake up from this dream and begin to live in the world of truth.

Indeed, desires can only be united if we attain bestowal in them, because we thereby attach ourselves to an external part, which we hate. We then begin to care about this external desire more than about ourselves and we’re willing to give our friends everything we have.

We correct the illusion that is our egoistic desire. The Creator gave us this split reality only so that we can attain Him. In reality, all our Kelim are on the outside. Each of us must only change our attitude towards ourselves: Instead of loving ourselves as we do now, we must go outside of ourselves, and bring inside those who presently seem as being outside. That is how we correct all of our Kelim.

Inside them, we will sense the Creator, the Upper Force that acts within us, the intention to bestow with which we will unite as one.

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Three questions I received on impure forces, hypnosis, and extinct species:

Question: What exactly is the male impure force, and how can one tell if one is being ruled by it?

My Answer: Don’t be concerned with things like impure forces. You should just always aspire toward bestowal, connection, and the Creator.

Question: You were recently asked by someone, “Is it okay for a Kabbalist to use hypnosis? Is it a tool the Creator allows us to use?” Your answer was “No, and it is not permitted.”

I would like some further elaboration on this. I can see that hypnosis can be a very manipulative tool in the wrong hands. I can also see that it would be a useful form of therapy. For example, if I had a family member with extreme anxieties, hypnosis might be an excellent tool for getting to the root of the issue and releasing it as opposed to simply administering anxiety drugs.

Why is it not permitted? After all, you say we must deal with our corporeal issues while we live in both worlds simultaneously.

My Answer: Yes, you can use it for treatment, but not as a distraction from correction.

Question: Is there a reason in the spiritual world why species of animals become extinct?

My Answer: It’s a consequence of many qualities becoming extinct within us. However, when we correct ourselves in the future, we will probably see some of these species reappear and their populations grow.

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A question I received: What is the difference between darkness and Light in spirituality?

My Answer: When a person brings the Light of Hassadim into the darkness, he reveals that that darkness is the Light of Hochma. This is how Kabbalah defines the difference between darkness and Light.

Night is when the Light of Hassadim is absent, and day is when the Light of Hassadim is present. The Light of Hochma is always present because Hochma is essentially the Creator.

Therefore, it always shines 100%. But after Tzimtzum Alef, the Light of Hochma is revealed only to the extent that the Light of Hassadim (the intention to bestow) is generated by a person.

Therefore, the darkness and suffering that we feel today are also coming from the Creator. They signify that the Upper Light is coming closer to us, but we feel it as darkness, evil, and problems because we are still opposite to it.

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Preparation To The Lesson
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Shamati #153  “A Thought Is an Upshot of the Desire“
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 19, Lesson 12
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The Book of Zohar Chapter “VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat),” Item 188
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Three questions I received on the right way to interpret the Torah and other holy books:

Question: I am very confused about the “oral Torah” or The Talmud. I understand that the Torah is a gift from the Creator guiding us towards the right path in life and we are to sometimes understand the stories from the Torah on a metaphorical level, not a literal one. Then how do you explain the literal aspect of The Talmud and that it seems to have been written by Rabbis? As I understand, the priests and Sanhedrin were corrupt – which is what caused the destruction of The Temple.

My Answer: We have recently started reading The Zohar. By reading it together with us, you will also be able to see how the other holy books were written.

Question: I have been reading your posts and finding them rather interesting. As I can see from the pictures, you are Jewish, so my question is this: What does Kabbalah have to do with the religion of Moses? Is it like a manual for humans to read the Torah?

My Answer: It’s impossible to understand the Torah without Kabbalah, because on the outside, the Torah appears to be a historical tale, whereas Kabbalah reveals it to us as a method of correction and a textbook on the structure of the Upper World.

Question: In the Torah, who (or what force) was Melchizedek? And why did Abram pay tithes to him? The Torah says Melchizedek was a priest of God, but I thought Abraham was the first to discover, let alone attain, the Creator.

My Answer: Melchizedek personifies the Creator’s quality of justice. Similarly, all the characters in the Torah are not men or women, but descriptions of human qualities. Everything that is written in the Torah is describing specific, consecutive changes that happen inside a person.

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Two questions I received on unfortunate circumstances in our world:

Question: It really does seem that even as the computer/technological age affords us the ability to be with each other across many miles, to connect with all our friends no matter where we are in the world, there is a huge lack of soul connection between us! Why is that?

Why are we feeling so much fear, needing to grab whatever power or space or whatever it is that we need at such an alarming pace? Why is there so much anger, and mistrust in the world? Why are there so many despotic leaders with power gone awry? I’m sure that influence has always existed, for there has always existed those who “have” and those who “have not.”

My Answer: It’s because we follow the principle “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we shall die.” Egoism forces us to close our eyes to tomorrow because people see no way out of the situation.

Question: Dear Dr. Laitman, I especially liked the way you described to us the way children should be educated in the future (but really now, as it is urgent). My question is: How long will it take for the kindergarten schools up to the universities and colleges around the world to catch up to the idea? Maybe 5 years? I am worried that it will be more than 5 years.

My Answer: I hope it won’t take longer. Otherwise, things will get worse.

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Until today humanity has been advancing by three policies:

1. Mercy, justice and peace, which it somehow managed to maintain;

2. The pressure of dictatorship, which didn’t ask people for their opinion and simply told them how to live; or

3. People were divided into slaves and masters and accepted this inequality out of hopelessness.

Those were people’s previous ways of development, but now they have reached a demand for global equality. People feel that “Everyone must be equal!” And on one hand, this really expresses their internal vision of justice; we feel that equality is right. However, our definition of equality is wrong – we are seeking external, instead of internal equality.

Therefore, we aim for equality between everyone in the external form, but over the last two centuries we have been finding out that external equality is a complete delusion. What we need is equality that is deeper, more internal.

To attain it, we will have to gain awareness of the entire system of our inter-connection and return to the principle of truth, where truth means that each person obeys the laws of reality due to people’s common, global and deep knowledge of Nature.

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Two questions I received about pleasure and suffering:

Question: Why does the Creator make us suffer?

My Answer: It follows from the rule, “the greatness of the Light is seen from darkness.” For example, soccer fans can’t be fully satisfied with a game unless their favorite team goes through difficulties. Research showed that fans of a winning team that had gone through negative emotions due to a risk of the team losing had keener and more positive feelings about the match. Negative emotions play a key role in positive sensations.

Question: I have a question which has bothered me for a long time and thus hindered me in my acceptance of Kabbalah. Why did God want to please Himself (by pleasing His creation – since we are one); why not just maintain His perfection? That must have meant that He also had an egoistic desire to bring pleasure to Himself.

My Answer: You reason this way because you do not understand the quality of bestowal. You think that it includes some kind of reference to oneself, but it does not.

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