A Kabbalistic Drama

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why is it so difficult to carry out the condition of “buy yourself a friend”? Shouldn’t our egoism derive pleasure from this?

My Answer: You “buy” friends by lowering yourself before them and doing what they want. This is called “paying.” Rather than proudly walking into a store with a pile of money and choosing who to buy, you buy a friend by doing what is necessary for him; you serve him. You don’t buy him “from above”; you buy him “from below.” You are willing to do everything for him as though he does not need you.

In other words, you bend down before him and ask, “What can I do for you so that you will become my friend? I am ready for anything, just give my spiritual desire, my soul back to me!”

You cannot forcefully demand that he return your soul to you since it is in his possession. If now you want to receive your soul, you need to approach him from different sides, trying to find the approach which will make him free your soul. Your success depends only on his positive attitude towards you. If he does not wish to treat you well, then you are lost.

Did you ever take care of someone, trying to gain their positive disposition to you?  Imagine that you are standing before a judge who needs to announce your sentence now. He is disposed strictly against you and is just seething with anger. How would you try to change his anger to mercy?

“A person and a group” is a whole Kabbalistic drama.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, Article, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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"We Shall Do And We Shall Hear"

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why is man given too much intelligence from Above? As a result, his reasoning outweighs and rejects his actions, stripping him of an opportunity to advance?

My Answer: People receive so much intelligence in order not to be animals. An animal has just enough intelligence as it needs for life and it doesn’t make mistakes. We are given excess intelligence so that we would make mistakes, build plans for the future, have egoistic intentions and along with them, the intelligence to aspire to a higher degree, to develop, and to suffer. After all, suffering pushes us ahead.

An additional desire, a point in the heart, awakens in a person and rouses dissatisfaction in him: “Who am I? What am I living for? What is life? What is death?” An animal doesn’t ask about these things. You don’t complain about being given all these questions instead of just living peacefully as does an animal, do you?

Too much intelligence isn’t a problem. The problem occurs if a person allows his corporeal mind to control him and stop him from acting. If an action isn’t coordinated with the mind, the mind wins and stops the action.

We need to tune into the group, to build good relationships there, and to “buy ourselves a friend.” This is called action, as it is written, “We shall do and [then] we shall hear.” This means that we’ll reach the degree of Bina. After all, through the action, we draw the Light of correction from Bina. It influences us and gives us its quality of bestowal. However, if the mind stops a person from acting, then the person can’t change.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, Article, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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We Learn How To Change

Dr. Michael LaitmanPeople always aspire to reason and don’t understand that attainment comes only from above reason, that is, in the spiritual vessel of faith above reason. Only there will true knowledge be revealed. As we now study RABASH’s articles about the group and try to build our Internet community in accordance to the principles they describe, we want people to occupy themselves with it as much as possible. How much they understand these articles is not so important. What counts is that people work on them throughout the day as well.

One may get confused, not understand anything, curse all this, and want it all at the same time. It is most important for one to constantly occupy oneself with it. Thereby we will draw the Light that Reforms which will change our desires, and then we will understand.

However, understanding is not the goal in itself. The goal is to carry out correct actions which will bring us closer to bestowal. We don’t study in order to receive knowledge; we study in order to change. Otherwise it would be too easy, just as our egoism desires: to grab the Upper, spiritual world for itself also.

The whole Torah (Kabbalah) is given to us for a single purpose: to correct our egoistic nature. That is, the Torah works in the opposite direction, meaning against our ego. You do not climb into spirituality by yourself; rather, the spiritual Force of correction enters you. And you should desire and anticipate this force of correction. It is called your Mashiach (Messiah).

Of course we need to work on these articles about the group: make a plan, write a brief summary, take certain definitions, laws, and principles from them and use them to build our statute. Yet what matters most is being engaged in it all the time. The results will come as a consequence of this work and not from understanding. Everything will depend on how much we wish for this to happen. This is called the prayer (MAN).

Therefore, working with the articles is essential. However, it should not be work to acquire knowledge, but rather work to realize them.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, Article, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend – 2”

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When He Who Knows All Mysteries Will Testify

Dr. Michael LaitmanA question I received: Why is it written in the Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 55, that a person who attained “open Providence [that is, revealed the Creator] is certain that he will not sin again”?

My Answer: A person is certain that he won’t sin because he has corrected, with the help of the screen and the Reflected Light, all his desires to receive. He rose above them and now can proceed further. He needs “the Creator to testify” for his correction in order to continue working with his desires to receive and start using them for receiving in order to bestow.

I need an additional general force which is called the testimony of the Creator. Now I have to open my Pandora’s box that contains all my desires and begin to clarify in which of them I can receive pleasure and thereby delight the Creator. This is a totally new tendency, which has never existed before. I have never done it, and now I have to taste pleasures in order to delight the Creator much like a guest who partakes in the feast to satisfy the host.

In order not to err, I have to collect the unique, new forces provided by the Creator’s testimony. Otherwise, I shouldn’t even touch and start disclosing my new receiving desires. I need an additional assisting force. And “When He who knows all mysteries will testy that I will not turn back to folly,” I will be able to begin correcting my transgressions.

In this stage, transgressions have already turned into mistakes, and I should feel better, as it were. I have already corrected half of the receiving desire, and it is fully filled with the Light of Hassadim. Now I have to begin working with it in the three lines and introduce a little bit of the Light of Hochma into it.

This means that my transgressions have become mistakes. I am going to receive in order to bestow, but I already possess the intention “in order to bestow.” I only need to very carefully add reception to it.

When we attain such a high spiritual level, we will realize what this work is all about.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/10, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot

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