Kabbalah Moments: The Power Of The Environment

Desire It And "Hear" It!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I awaken fear of the Creator inside me if I only see our material world?

Answer: Once I’ve been in the group for a long time, the time comes when I suddenly "hear" that I have to unite with my friends in order to attain the spiritual world. Yet, I don’t understand why and for what because I still don’t feel the connection between the following components:

  1. The Upper Goal, which I don’t feel or realize, but which I have to attain;
  2. The Upper Force, which I have to attain and feel;
  3. My attitude to the friends;
  4. The state of unity with friends which we have to attain.

There is a chain of inner revelations of feeling that have to take place within me. After all, our entire life is sensations. We are made of a matter called "the will to enjoy." This is a desire that feels pleasure or suffering and nothing more than that.

Therefore, my entire attitude to anything amounts to my sensation. It is either present or absent. If I don’t have this inner chain of feeling, the connection of how I will attain the goal of creation from this moment on (through love for the Creator, worry about Him, fear of Him, care for the group, and unity with friends as one man with one heart), if I still lack the inner responses to this, the impressions and reactions, then I still have to do more work on myself.

What should I do? The condition for revealing the Creator is just like at Mount Sinai: having the desire to unite as one man with one heart. Then He will become revealed to you in your unified desire. Moreover, you only have to desire to unite, and the Creator will carry out the unification. We have to try to acquire a desire for unity.

But how can I try to do this if I don’t want it? You can develop a desire through action. This is the meaning of the verse, "We will do and we will hear!"

This is exactly why our false world was created, where we exist in bodies. You can perform false physical actions of bestowal to your friends and speak about unity with them without any desire for it.

You don’t have a desire for it? That doesn’t matter! You don’t live just in the desire. You also exist in an external shell called the physical body. So make physical actions of bestowal to your friend, acting as if you love him instead of yourself.

That is why it is written, "Buy yourself a friend." Bestow to him in all sorts of ways and you will feel how your attitude to him changes. Why? Because you invested your energy and efforts in him. You did not want it, but by acting this way you gained a special attitude to him.

This is called "We will do." Actions that you make without a desire bring you to "we will hear," to the quality of bestowal.  (“Hearing” is the quality of Bina). Then you already begin to hear the things the Torah speaks about. It is the instruction manual on the path to the Light. (Torah comes from the words Ohr – Light, and Horaa – instructions.)

Therefore, let’s try to unite all together even if we don’t have a desire for this. Let’s ascend above our feelings and then we will experience everything in a new way.

From the 1st lesson of the Mega Congress 2010

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Mega Congress Evening Lesson – 07.25.10

Unity Around the World “Lecture at the Unity Evening”
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We’ll Pass The Machsom And The World Will Change!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Will the world change if we pass the Machsom at this Congress? Will it happen immediately or gradually?

Answer: Right now we are able to unite our desires and awaken the Upper Light to such an extent that we will feel the Light. We will then feel the spiritual reality, the connection between us through mutual bestowal. I am not talking about love, total interconnection or "return due to love" because this is the second phase of correction. For now we are connecting on the first phase of correction just by ascending above our ego by the force of the Light.

This Light is like a magnet that raises us above our egoism, above the mountain of hatred, Mount Sinai. We can ascend above egoism and enter the spiritual world temporarily, for a certain amount of time, and then once again descend into the ego and return into the material world. Alternatively, we can ascend or enter it permanently, in which case from that state on we will begin the phases of development in the "desert," where we ascend up the spiritual ladder. We will then rise along 125 levels until the World of Infinity, the total correction of egoism into bestowal and love.

Let us hope that we will attain at least a temporary revelation of the Creator. However, even if this doesn’t happen, it means that we still lack the true desire for it, that our desire is not great or precise enough yet in order to get rid of egoism. In that case, it will happen next time when we accumulate sufficient force and the exact desire to ascend above ourselves. The most important thing is to be concerned about the connection between us and to reveal the Creator inside this connection. This is the purpose of the existence of the worlds and of man in this world.

Our quantitative and qualitative force is already sufficient for us to attain it at this Congress.

From the 1st lesson of the Mega Congress 2010

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The Voice Of The Messiah’s Horn

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the Mega Congress 2010, many new participants will face the force, the desire called the “World Group” (the World Kli) for the first time. Why should someone who studies Kabbalah in the Ukraine or New Zealand matter to me?

Answer: This wisdom has to spread to all of humankind for it is written, “And they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them.” The Torah was given in order to correct all souls. The “nation of Israel” is only a connecting link, as Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee).” Correction has to take place in the entire world, but Israel is the first in line. This correction starts with Israel, manifests here first, and then “spills” over its borders filling the rest of the world.

Meetings such as this congress demonstrate how adoptable the method of Kabbalah is for all nations since it is the only wisdom that can bring all people to unity regardless of their corporeal, earthly differences of nationality, race, gender, and mentality. Within the spiritual system, we are initially connected through our “points in the heart.” Now, we only add to them our desire to strengthen this connection. I don’t pick with whom to unite. My “point in the heart,” my soul, is already tied with whom I belong. In fact, our relationship broke solely in our perceptions. We don’t wish to be related, but we already are. All we need to do is to see it and become its voluntary participants.

Therefore, we must awaken everyone in the whole world. And congresses such as ours demonstrate how close we are to the truth. Actually, if we disseminate the method of correction, a person who has this “point in the heart” will understand and feel our truth. He will join us as an equal part in all our actions. In this way, all nations will join together in collective correction. This is what is called the complete correction or “complete redemption” (Geula Shlema) from spiritual exile. “Complete” means not only for the nation of Israel, but for all nations.

The wisdom of Kabbalah was written down for our generation, and the history of human evolution is coming to its final chapter. The nation of Israel must complete this correction first and pass the Light on to the other nations. If we don’t strive to carry out our mission and correct ourselves and the world, we will become the object of hatred.

The dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah in the world is called the voice of the Messiah’s Horn. As soon as we come out into the world with this method of correction, we will immediately receive a sympathetic and kind response of love instead of hatred.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Kabbalists On The Essence Of The Wisdom Of Kabbalah, Part 5

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. I promise to answer them. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

What Is The Basis Of The Wisdom Of Kabbalah?

A person must learn the wisdom: to attain and look into the Creator’s secrets [which are not yet revealed to him] in order to know himself, to understand who he is, how he was created, where he came from, where he is going, how to correct his body [desires], and how in the future he will stand before the court of the Ruler of the world.

One must attain and see the secret of the soul: what is his soul, where did it come from, why did it descend into this body, similar to a foul-smelling drop that is here today and in the grave tomorrow. He must look into this world in order to attain the world he is in and what he must correct in it. Then he will see the higher secrets of the Upper World and attain the Creator. A person will attain all of this from the secrets of the Torah.
– The Zohar For All with the Sulam Commentary, “Song of Songs”

The science of Kabbalah teaches us how to develop until we attain similarity [equivalence] of form with the Creator, avoiding mistakes.
– Rav Kook, Orot Kodesh, V.2

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A Righteous Man Is The Foundation Of The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanIntroduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 22: The righteous and the wicked should have been of equal weight in each generation. Yet, this is not so, and for each righteous, we find many thousands of vain ones. Yet, you must know that there are two kinds of governance in creation: a) a qualitative force; b) a quantitative force.

The force of those that hang about the feet of the Sitra Achra is meager, contemptible, and low, undesirable, and purposeless, and they are blown like chaff in the wind. Thus, how can such as those do anything to wise-hearted people whose way is clear with desire and aim, and a pillar of Upper Light shines before them day and night sufficiently to bring the tiny inclinations in their hearts?

Hence, He provided the quantitative force in Creation, as this force does not need any quality [and the qualitative force that does not need any quantity].

Without being aware of it, all people are connected in one system through their souls, and this is why a Kabbalist is able to correct the whole world all alone. A righteous man needs billions of regular people in each generation since their ordinary earthly desires add up into one big egoistic desire (Kli). A Kabbalist works with it and builds the intention “for the sake of bestowal” above it.

Then, without their participation he uses their desires and corrects them. He necessitates billions of people throughout the world to connect their joint desires with his intention for the sake of bestowal. Thus, he moves them ahead, towards correction. Any progress that happens in this world (technology, society, or culture) is caused by one person who attracts the Light that Reforms into this world. Otherwise, this world would remain inanimate and invariable since “the Light governs and brings into movement a desire that it created.”

It’s impossible to imagine our world without Kabbalists who attract Light into this world in accordance with the program of its development. It is written that “a righteous man is the foundation of the world.” This is absolutely right. Righteous men attract Light into the desires of masses by using aspirations of common souls. That gives our world a chance to stay alive and develop from generation to generation until it becomes suitable for spiritual advancement. And this is exactly what is happening in our generation.

The development of humankind in this world originates from the Light that is attracted by the righteous. It looks like our life depends on our physical work in this world: starting with creating new things, environmental research, or construction of new electric stations. But nothing would be revealed to us if there were no Light that emerges in this world and that is attracted by a Kabbalist.

This Light dresses itself in everybody else’s desires and uncovers them, giving raise to any movement, progress, discoveries, and evolution in the world. There is no change that happens from below; everything descends to us from Above.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Mega Congress Lessons 4 & 5 – 07.25.10

Unity Around the World “Questions and Answers”
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Unity Around the World, “Perception of Reality”
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