We Are Discovering A New World

Laitman_702_02Our actions in the science of Kabbalah are similar to those of scientists. We are discovering a new world; we are correcting ourselves, and in the process of making these corrections we learn and continually evolve alongside the corrections and within them.

That is why nobody can know his future degree until he attains it. A person does not advance along a clear, open path. Nothing is revealed! Whatever a person reaches was always concealed and unintelligible until the last moment. This is how we advance.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/10, The Zohar

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Before Reading The Book Of Zohar

Laitman_524_03Before we begin reading The Zohar, we need to prepare ourselves with an internal feeling that we are within the group. We will then be similar to that same group of the Kabbalists who wrote The Zohar and will have an easier time understanding what they convey to us.

Understanding comes as a result of the Light’s influence. The Light acts upon us from within the connection between the souls of ten Kabbalists who together existed in the final corrected state, meaning in the final corrected connection between one another. When they corrected the connection between them to such a degree that nobody had a single uncorrected desire to receive pleasure, then between themselves they revealed the Upper Light called “Zohar,” the Light originating from the Rosh (head) of Arich Anpin, which is the Light of Infinity.

Hence, if we try to reach the same relation between us as the authors of The Zohar had, we will attract the Light from the same state which they attained. This Light can also create the connection between us as it is said, “One who makes peace in the Upper One, makes peace in us.” This is precisely what we should expect from reading The Zohar.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/10, The Zohar

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The Virtual State Of Kabbalah

Laitman_912A question I received: How will the method of correction and dissemination of Kabbalah change when the entire world is transitioning toward a virtual connection?

My Answer: We need to quickly build a system of disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah through the Internet, a system that will exude warmth and give a person a feeling of universal connection. This system needs to teach us how to be connected with one another, and to provide virtual education for both children and adults. Presently our Learning Centers focus more on theory and intellectual development, but now we need to put greater emphasis on educating and “forming” a person.

A spiritual connection is when I feel another person within me as my inseparable part, even closer than a mother feels her child through her maternal connection. A spiritual connection is even tighter.

A virtual connection is a stepping stone to the spiritual one. Additionally, we need to accumulate a certain might by uniting together a multitude of desires. Indeed, our success depends on a global awakening, and the primary means of achieving that goal is the Internet. It was created for this very purpose. The Internet didn’t develop in order to disseminate sales or other petty nonsense, but to create a connection between people. That is the purpose of the world-wide web.

This connection may only be one of love. Therefore, as soon as we begin to create this web and wish for these electronic cables to transmit a feeling of connection and love, we will understand how to properly construct it.

Subsequently, humanity will feel that the Internet is changing, that is possesses an Upper, spiritual force, and it will truly become a web covering the world – a spiritual web, and not simply a means of conveying information or reaping profits. The Internet will cease to use people for profit; instead it will be used to elevate people to a new degree.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/10, Article “Exile and Redemption”

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Kabbalah Is Not About Empty Promises

Laitman_046_01The wisdom of Kabbalah rejects the concept of death thereby revealing the only action that we are able to perform. In everything else we are totally dependent on nature and act involuntarily. We spend our entire lives trying to ignore death, as if medicating ourselves in order to avoid the truth. It is a game we play, chasing money, honor, and power within an imaginary reality.

What do we do with the help of Kabbalah? Kabbalah provides a solution to this fundamental human dilemma by explaining how to reach eternal life here and now. We are shown how to gradually transition into an additional dimension without leaving this life; in fact, we become fully integrated together with it.

This is the meaning of “freedom from the angel of death,” described in the Torah as the covenant carved on stone tablets. Torah offers: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life… (Deuteronomy 30:19).”

However this opportunity was concealed, and people learned how to distract themselves. Therefore, the dissemination of Kabbalah has to include the explanation of this choice. In other words, Kabbalah not only leads to a good life on this earth, but also helps attain everlasting existence. When masses come to this realization they will no longer hide from the idea of death.

The practice of spiritual advancement proves that a person begins to acquire this realization (presentiment) only after initial studies, which bring the influence of the Upper Light. Then one is granted a chance to sense eternity to the extent one moves closer to the property of the Creator (bestowal, Hafetz Hesed). By doing so, a person enters eternity and is already present in the infinite flow of life. This opportunity is available to everyone.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/10, Article “The Freedom”

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Building The Third Temple

Laitman_142A question I received: Why was it necessary to go through the destruction of two Temples in order to come to the process of correction?

My Answer: The corrected spiritual vessel must “receive for the sake of bestowal.” However, it is first necessary to correct the intention, to bestow, and then “receive for the sake of bestowal.” That’s why the destruction of the perfect state of “the World of Infinity” that originated from the Creator occurred ireceiving for the sake of bestowal,n two stages: from “receiving for the sake of bestowal,” to “bestowal for the sake of bestowal.”

The destruction of the First Temple led to the loss of the Light of Haya. Then from the state of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal” it transitioned to the level of “receiving for one’s own sake” (impure desires, Klipot), meaning the destruction of the Second Temple, which resulted in loss of the Light of Neshama. This is how we transpired in this world. Resurrection of the Temple gives us an opportunity for spiritual work. Since we do it on our own, we in fact reveal ourselves in the perfect Light of Yechida.

The same process applies to the construction of the earthly physical Temple. As with the prior Temples, first we must attain these spiritual stages within ourselves, and then begin to build the “external” Temple.

The question remains as to whether we must build the Temple in the realms of this material world. As it is said, as soon as our world attains the ultimate complete correction, then this imaginary world (Olam ha Medume) disappears from our imagination, and we begin to perceive only the spiritual world within our corrected properties.

Nevertheless, even if the Third Temple is to be constructed of stone it would be erected only after we build it in our heart, as it was with the First and the Second Temples. Therefore, we must focus all our attention only on the correction of our heart.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/10, The Zohar

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Giving Is Life, Receiving Death

Laitman_053_06The Creator begot the creature from the desire to receive pleasure. But He had to instill sparks of bestowal into it so that the creature could exist and develop. In addition to receiving, the creature should also bestow since the force of life consists of these two parts: consuming and giving.

Life amounts to clarifying what is bad and good for you, to rejecting the bad and attracting the good. Any living creature – of vegetative, animate, and spiritual or speaking levels – acts in this way, according to its state and degree.

To enliven creation, the desire for bestowal has to be added into all of its elements except for its initial material, the desire to receive pleasure. Otherwise, it would be dead, lifeless dust. To make a living creature out of dust, a spark of Light, the property of bestowal, needs to be introduced into the desire to receive.

The intermixing of properties of reception and bestowal occurs in every “atom” of creation in the process of the soul’s breaking. Until the breaking of the vessels and the state of the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph), Malchut receives the Light because the Creator gives her such a power, and not because she herself possesses it.

Only starting from the World of Atzilut and onwards, does Malchut mix with Bina and start acting herself, wanting to unite with Bina, to rise to it and become like it. This is the work of the creature itself. Until that moment, everything occurs by the power from Above.

For this reason the receiving desire became able to perform acts of bestowal only after the breaking of the vessels (desires) whereby the sparks of bestowal penetrated the desire to receive pleasure. It then also revealed how opposite it is to the Light. The breaking of the vessels is actually the revelation of the true nature of the creature, the desire to receive pleasure, in relation to the Light.

Their oppositeness, the egoistic desires property to feel and care only about itself becomes revealed. So does the Light of bestowal and love. Then the creature realizes its oppositeness to the Creator and what it wants to be like. It attracts the Light from Above in order to become similar to the Creator. Thus the work of the creature commences.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/10, The Zohar

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Every Person Must Become The Author Of Creation

Laitman_097The revelation is always personal; it cannot be received from someone else. Someone else can only teach you how to read. But there has to be someone to teach us to read, since reading and writing belong to the human level, whereas we, who are beginning to read, are on the animate level. Thus, we need someone who is on the human level to help us rise to that level and teach us to read and write.

The book is all of creation, from the initial plan all the way until the final act. However, in order to reveal it, a person has to go through the story and write it on his heart (as the verse says, “write the whole Torah on your heart”). That is how we prepare our spiritual vessels.

When a person reads the Torah, he learns from the Upper One, and when a person records it, he becomes equal to Him and starts to understand Him. That is how one rises to the level of the plan of creation, the end of the book.

The book is the plan of creation, which is attained at the end. The story is what we read and record within us by changing our desires and building letters out of them. Thus, we become the authors by revealing its Author. We create a copy of the book, and that constitutes all of our work.

The author does not invent the book with his own mind. He is already in front of a ready-made book from the heavens, and he transcribes it. He does not work with his own mind; he does not even know how to read or write. He must first learn. If we learn to read and write, and are able to transcribe all of creation upon ourselves, following the Creator’s example, then we will receive the title of “author.”

The Creator is not the author, since He did not write anything. He actualized everything with one thought. But we reveal His plan inside our uncorrected desires, and therefore, for us, His thought divides into the book, author, and story. If I learn to read, then His thought starts to be revealed to me inside my matter and I read it off of myself to the degree that I become equal to it. And then I transcribe it on myself.

The plan of creation is the right line, and my matter is the left line. I am in the middle line, transcribing this thought into my left line. The book, author, and story is the Creator, the creation, and the connection between them, called the Torah.

From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/10, Shamati #197

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Shamati #197: “Book, Author, Story”

Torah Scribe

Laitman_508_3From the book Shamati, Article 197: Book, Author, Story. A book is considered [the state] prior to creation [the plan]. An author is the owner of the book. The unification of the author and the book assumes the form of a “story,” that is, the Torah along with the Giver of the Torah.

We perceive ourselves inside some sort of reality, and we have to do research to find out: What is the meaning of it? Is this an illusion or the truth? Or perhaps the two are the same thing? Some program is unraveling within me along a chain of causes and effects. But who is its author? Will I be able to recognize the author of the story that I read within me?

The book (this whole reality) already existed before I started reading and revealing it. However, all the revelations take place inside me because I am reading this story as I go through the book from beginning to end and receive an impression from its flow.

Inside this story, to the degree I become familiar and included in it, I reveal the author of the book. As I go inside the book, its story starts to build me and to push me to become its author (or scribe) as well.

The story is the Torah, which leads us to the full revelation of the entire book, in which we are together with the One who Gives the Torah. Each of us reveals it for himself anew, but we need a teacher to help us read this book, similar to how an adult in our world reads to a child until the child grows up and learns to read on his own.

In the science of Kabbalah, an adult (spiritually speaking) has to help the child. It’s impossible to reveal the book on your own, but only when it’s passed from teacher to student. That is how each of us must learn to read the book and go through this story in order to reveal the author within the book.

As long as I don’t learn to read on my own and go through this whole path, I won’t reveal the book and its author because that is possible only when I am similar to Him. Gradually I myself become the author, since I write the Torah on the matter of my desire, which continuously assumes new forms of letters.

Even though this book has already been written by its Author, I too, become its author. As I go through the story from beginning to end, I equalize and unite with the book, the author, and the story.

Note: In Hebrew the word Sofer means both the writer (author) and the scribe. The only author is the Creator, who wrote only one book, the Torah, which incorporates everything. We are only rewriting it (revealing it), each one of us within himself.

From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/10, Shamati #197

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 04.18.10

Shamati #197 “Book, Author, Story
A Kabbalistic book is a revelation I make within myself when I attain similarity of qualities with its author.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 246
A thought doesn’t exist independently. Any given thought is based on a feeling and is there to serve it.
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Beit Shaar HaKavanot, Item 79, Lesson 27
On the way to correction one must thoroughly sense the breaking and reveal his inability to attain unity, similar to the way Malchut can’t merge with Bina.
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Article, “The Freedom,” Page 206, Lesson 2 
Contact with the surroundings is a contact with my Kelim, which for the time being I perceive as something external. That is the place of the breaking, as well as a platform for analysis and correction.
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Evening Zohar Lesson – 04.17.10

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Shemot (Exodus),” Item 228
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