Until now, our egoism was developed by the force driving this world. This force increased our egoism from one generation to the next over the course of millennia. But now it’s finished and our ego no longer sees anywhere to keep going. It has reached the final boundary of the sphere in which it grew and has filled it all up.

We are being treated in a new way that shows us how interconnected we are with one another within the egoistic sphere. This force of compression will constantly push us closer together, closing us inside and showing us how incapable we are of hiding from one another.

Nature is now exhibiting a completely new attitude toward us, and therefore we will feel worse with every passing year. This is why all the countries and governments are in dismay and don’t know what to do with the world. The only way to correct the world is to attract a force that will correct us, which will happen to the extent we desire it. So, we have to desire it!

Every person will be forced to connect with others via a connection of kindness. This will either happen coercively or through the realization that it is necessary. By studying, gathering together, singing, and having a Kabbalah TV channel, we connect to the system from which this force comes to us and corrects us.

Every person has to find out about this and reveal the Creator. In the same way that we now feel ourselves, the world, people and nature, we will have to reveal one more level of reality, one more world.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/10, “Matan Torah”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: There Is A Way To Resolve All The Contradictions
Laitman.com Post: Einstein On The Nature Of Humanity
Laitman.com Post: How To Change The Direction Of The Crisis

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaEra (And I Appeared),” Item 1
Download: WMV Video|MP3 Audio

Filed under: Zohar - No Comments →

A question I received: What is essentially the gist of the method that you want to convey to the whole world?

My Answer: It’s the method of how to properly organize human society. Right now society is broken and feels the need to unite. However, it doesn’t have the method to attain unity.

Everyone understands that our egoism is destroying us and we have nowhere left to go. There are no other methods left. Our entire history and the entire path we have gone through have brought us to the understanding that we cannot do anything to affect human nature. All research shows that we are complete egoists and every person thinks only about himself.

However, we cannot keep advancing in this manner. The ego is constantly growing while the world we live in forces everyone to be interconnected. Nature has pushed us into this tight connection, yet we are striving to do the opposite, to separate as much as we can. We have no way to balance these two forces that are opposite to one another: our ego, which separates us from each other, and the force of nature, which pressures us and locks us all together like in prison.

We find ourselves in one small room where we all hate each other. The situation is becoming unbearable and we don’t understand: What should we do next?

Humanity is gradually revealing this state of affairs. On the other hand, the science of Kabbalah is being revealed, which is a method offering a way to resolve the contradiction and transform it to perfection. It is possible only with the help of an external, Upper Force, which does not exist within the plane of our reality.

This seems unrealistic to you because the force that can correct our state does not come from our world. Yet, we can discover it and use it just like the other forces of nature that we did not know in the past, but we learned about them and now use them.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/10, “Matan Torah”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: An Entry Pass Into A New World
Laitman.com Post: Selecting The Short And Pleasant Path
Laitman.com Post: The New Stage Of The Same Old Crisis

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

A question I received: It’s been said that if one goes to a convention their spiritual advancement is about the same as what they would have advanced between that convention and the last convention. Why is that? Why does someone advance so much during that short, little period of three or four days?

My Answer: Because we come together, we are leaving our work places, our homes, and our families, we take vacation from work, and we spend money for that effort in order to bond. We make efforts in order to acquire something that is beyond this level of life, something higher. It is a fulfillment that is beyond this life.

People, who are willing to give up on so many things, in order to bring themselves to spirituality, simply deserve it. Besides that, they come to unite, so everyone absorbs the strength and forces of everyone else. That kind of embrace is worthy of months and months of studying and even then it is impossible to attain it. I don’t think that a person who doesn’t come to a convention like that is capable of achieving a similar result. It doesn’t matter what he tries to do in life unless on the condition that he is, let’s say in prison or in some situation that doesn’t allow him to come. I have a student, for instance, that is in the North Pole; so, he works from there, and he can’t, really can’t come. Some people are really even in prison and they study with us. They are in prison (because of mistakes they made in the past), so they really can’t come.

But because they are incapable, they will receive whatever we receive from that convention. But if a person has the opportunity to come, even if it requires meeting difficult conditions, if he has the opportunity, I don’t think it’s worthwhile to stay home. It’s just a shame to miss this kind of intense opportunity to make such great advancement.

From an Interview with the Learning Center Director 4/5/10

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: World Zohar Convention: Bringing The Light To America
Laitman.com Post: Tune In To The Spiritual Net
Video: Walk Through The World Zohar Convention 2010 (3:16)

Filed under: Conventions, Spirituality - No Comments →

The Zohar, Chapter “BaHar (On Mount Sinai),” Item 63: “You may use them as slaves forever.” It is a Mitzva [commandment] to enslave a Canaanite slave. They are from the side of Ham, who performed incest, as it is written, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brothers…”

To be a slave is also a correction. A desire that could be forced to obey the power of the corrected desires is called “a slave that is close to his master.” Slavery is the form of its correction, a proper way of its existence.

For the time being, I am unable to be free within a certain desire, nor can I work with it for the sake of bestowal on my own. I can only attribute it to my other desire. Such a desire can also be called “a child,” “a woman,” or “an adolescent;” it is not a “man” yet, not a “hero” who is able to “overcome” (a man, “Gever” is derived from “Itgabrut” – overcoming, surmounting).

A  form of desire that is able to work only under the authority of another desire is called “a slave.”

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Practical Joke
Laitman.com Post: The Final Condition
Video: Being Free – Kabbalah Moments (2:11)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

We work on our desires during the night, in the darkness of the exile, having no strength. While still in the darkness, we prepare ourselves to greet the morning, meaning we find the desires we can sacrifice.

We are not talking about the physical sunrise or sunset, nor do we refer to pieces of flesh of sacrificial animals. We speak only about the use of the Light of correction in which a person can see himself as a sacred vessel.

In other words, a person will reach the Temple, come to the burnt-offering altar, and become ready to work with his desire by raising it to the level of bestowal. The elevation of the parts (“pieces”) of our desire to the level of bestowal is what is called “offering.”

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Prayer Instead Of Sacrifice
Laitman.com Post: Playing King David’s Harp
Laitman.com Post: Night Is The Time Of Work

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

“Exile” is a state in which a person lacks an anti-egoistic screen and has no contact with the Light. A person is unable to correct himself and perform the act of sacrificing.

“Sacrifice” stands for a corrected desire. Time after time, a person has to take a part of his desire of the still, vegetative, or animate level and elevate it to the speaking level. But while in exile, a person has no strength to correct any of his desires. This is because he is totally deprived of spiritual powers until the Surrounding Light reaches him and leads him out of his state.

Getting out of exile and obtaining the power to withstand a desire, to rise above it and work for the sake of bestowal, means that a person has reached the “desert” (a state in which desires are still small like in a desert) or that he has arrived at the “land of Israel” (a state of higher desires and work on a higher level). Where a person arrives after he gets out of exile is solely dependent upon the size of the desire that he is able to overcome and rise above in order to work with for the sake of bestowal.

After 40 years of its correction and redirection towards bestowal, the desire that previously was a “desert,” turns into a desire that is called the “land of Israel.” It means that the desire becomes suitable to work with for the sake of bestowal.

So far we don’t have the power to correct, and therefore, we stay “away from the land of Israel” (land – “Eretz” is derived from the world “Ratzon” – desire). We don’t have the power to work with our desires for the sake of bestowal; we only imagine what “correct spiritual work” is.  It signifies that instead of sacrificing we pray. We replace the real work with our desires by our request to be granted a power to perform real correction.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The True Meaning Of Sacrifice
Laitman.com Post: The Prayer Of The Heart
Video: Being Free – Kabbalah Moments (00:32)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

A question I received: Should the work on the intention during The Zohar study begin during the day, long before the lesson?

My Answer: One should work on the intention all the time. The world is arranged in such a way that we are in contact with the group and the studies only for a brief interval of time.

Thousands of people from around the world are watching the lesson right now. Many are listening to simultaneous translations. There are those who can barely even understand the translation, since it’s available only in the main languages. However, it makes no difference for their spiritual advancement. With regard to The Zohar, we all are in an equal position. We come to the lesson like to a gas station. We fill ourselves with the Light and then live in it during the remaining hours.

Our world is purposely arranged in such a way that we work for one third of our lives, sleep for the other third of it, and waste another third on various nonsense. Only an hour or two remain, which we tear away from our sleep and use it to study.

However, when we begin to study, we need to understand that our whole life is arranged correctly, and we shouldn’t work just for the lack of a better choice. The Creator purposely organized this process for us. If we come to the lesson even for an hour, this should be enough to remain in adhesion with the goal for the twenty-three remaining hours and to prepare our desires for that one hour of study.

More than 2000 years ago in the Negev desert there lived a person by the name of Bar Bi Yoma (a student for one day). He was a peasant who worked in the fields. When his work was done for the season and he could leave his home, he walked to Jerusalem. After the journey to Jerusalem, he would have only one day available to study the Torah; the next day he would hurry back home to work.

In honor of this person, there is a custom today for everyone to study for one day out of the year. Back then sages said that his studying for one day was equal in value to continuous study over the course of a year because he would aspire to this day throughout the whole year.

Therefore, if we await this one hour of the lesson for the twenty-three remaining hours of a day, all 24 hours are counted in our favor. This shows us how many hours are necessary to prepare the desire for one hour of studying.

Thus everything depends on preparation. We should spend all the other hours preparing ourselves for one hour of the Zohar lesson.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Study 4/23/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Become A Sage In One Day By Attending A Kabbalah Congress
Laitman.com Post: Every Kabbalah Congress Is Another Chance
Laitman.com Post: Everyone Has To Experience A Kabbalah Congress At Least Once

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

The Works of Rabash, Vol.3, Dargot Sulam Articles, pg. 1774 (abridged): With regard to spiritual attainment, the society is divided into the majority and a chosen few. The majority need to be educated, taught how to mechanically observe the Torah and commandments. The education that a person receives compels him to perform these actions.

A person justifies his actions, why he performs them, by citing the way he was educated which includes the customs he learned from the environment in which he was raised. This is why education, habit, does not allow a person to refrain from keeping customs, since habit becomes a second nature. Therefore, all the habits, words, and actions that a person acquires as a result of education are not difficult to observe.

However, if a person wants to perform actions that he hasn’t become accustomed to in his childhood, his body questions every, most minute action: “Why are you doing this?” or, in other words, “What makes you do it?” If a person does not receive support from the environment, he has to look for it in the Creator.

This is why such a person is chosen and doesn’t belong to the majority. He needs the Creator’s support, as it is said, “One who comes to cleanse himself (of egoism), receives help from Above.” He is unable to receive help from the environment and thus compels help to come from Above.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Creator’s Work
Rabash Article: “The Influence of the Environment on a Person”
Shamati #33: The Lots on Yom Kippurim and with Haman

Filed under: Education, Torah - 1 Comment →

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →