Different Languages Describe The Same Spiritual Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “VeYechi (And Jacob Lived), Item 451: On the third watch, the Cherubim strike their wings and sing, as it is written, “Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord … from the rising of the sun to its setting.” Then all the angels that stand on the third watch sing.

In The Study of the Ten Sefirot, we can study the spiritual actions by way of the three lines, the Lights, the Kelim (vessels), the screens, and the Reshimot (spiritual genes, reminiscences). However, The Zohar describes the same actions through the holy still, vegetative, and animate objects which are the forces in one’s work. In other words, the various parts of the soul are named after the various types of the still, vegetative, and animate objects of nature and man.

It is difficult for us to conceive of them as terms in spiritual physics, like those in TES. In the ARI’s The Tree of Life, we see how hard it is to depict the variability of spiritual actions in the language of Sefirot and Partzufim.

For this reason, there is another language in the spiritual world: the language of branches. Here, we take a particular branch of the spiritual world in this world, where each branch has its own particular name. Thus, in every case, even the smallest spiritual detail has a particular name intended specifically for this spiritual quality or action. We use these names and end up with a language that is more simple and precise.

If we were to rewrite in the language of Kabbalah all that Moses had written in the Torah, we would end up with a voluminous book. However, using the language of branches, everything is expressed very concisely. A person who senses spiritual reality has a much easier time perceiving the text which describes the Upper World with corporeal names. After all, the two worlds are parallel, and he who senses the Upper World sees their correspondence.

The other advantage of the language of branches is that the same names are applicable in all the worlds and degrees for every branch corresponds precisely to its root. Therefore, as we read The Zohar with the Sulam Commentary which combines the language of Kabbalah that clarifies the picture from this world described in the language of branches, we begin to see that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the ARI, and Baal HaSulam all write about exactly the same thing.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, The Zohar

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Correction Begins With "Babylon"

Dr. Michael LaitmanCreation is generally referred to as “Babylon.” It was created out of desire which has developed through the four phases of Light, the descent through the worlds, and the birth and the breaking of the structure of Adam in the course of which the desires to receive and bestow have mixed so that each desire contains parts of all the others.

Afterward, the Light shines upon this broken state, and the broken desires begin to awaken from the still level to the vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature. But along with the subsequent development of egoism in people, 5770 years ago, the desire to bestow appeared in one person, Adam. This initiates the process of correction, and for this reason time is counted from Adam.

Twenty generations then evolved in preparation of mutual correction. The first manifestation of the complete breaking is referred to as “Babylon.” From that time on, thousands of people have followed the path of Adam in the revelation of the Creator, and this is why they were called “man,” “the son of Adam” (Ben Adam).

The Light continues to pour on all of the broken desires, and its influence evokes in them the manifestation of the broken desires to bestow, it causes them discomfort. Man instinctively begins searching, hoping to fulfill his desire. He wants to reveal his true state and find the reason for the breaking of the properties to receive and bestow. This is what leads him to the revelation of the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/28/10, “What is Silver, Gold, Israel, the Nations in Work”

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Our State Today And Tomorrow

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How would you describe our current state before the November congress?

Answer: I think that we are in a state of preparation for a jump; we need to join forces, demand of ourselves, and prepare and connect under pressure. If we prepare well, we will experience an inner revelation at the congress.

Even if the new students do not feel an actual revelation, at least they will experience a sensation. They will understand the essence of Kabbalah, the need to unite; illusions will fade, confusions will disappear, and everything will become one whole, one common picture; the only operating Force will become manifested, and all the “decorations” will only remain as connections between us.

This is because the world is an illusion, concealment, and I see different images in the place where I am not connected with the Creator.
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From the Talk On Unity in the Group 9/24/10

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Development Occurs In Spurts

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do you feel like our development is happening with variable speed, in spurts?

Answer: It is true that development never flows evenly and in a linear fashion, there are always spurts. This is the way it manifests in our sensations because of the flaws in our work, and it will continue this way until the final correction. Good and bad periods alternate, war and peace replace one another, and we keep experiencing sudden changes. Periodicity is an inherent aspect of development.

The same applies to the structure of the Partzuf which divides into five degrees of Aviut (the depth of the desire). There is a screen and a Light on every degree; they are organized discretely and consecutively, not linearly. Everything comes in portions and drops, it does not flow evenly. This is why periods can sometimes be positive and sometimes negative; they need to be used differently. We learn this from our own experience.
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From the Talk On Unity in the Group 9/24/10

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The Development Of The Kabbalistic Group

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There are common laws of development in nature: birth, maturation, maximum efficiency, and dying away. Does the group develop according to the same laws?

Answer: Undoubtedly, we go through these states in our personal and group development. But the group still develops in a little different manner. On one hand, it constantly expands, but on the other, it begins to unite with the Creator once it transitions into the spiritual phase. Once its corporeal part, the desires to receive, dies away, it enters the Creator with the intentions to bestow and exists infinitely there in its root.

Certainly, the notion of the “group” eventually disappears because it becomes replaced with the notion of “Adam,” a single soul. The group (Kvutza) is still something limited; it represents a union (Kibbutz), an alliance of souls united under pressure. Once it merges with the Creator, the souls begin to exist in one another without dying away, the unity between them does not disappear, and at the same time everything becomes one whole.
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From the Talk On Unity in the Group 9/24/10

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The Purpose Of Education

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe purpose of education is to explain that to “love thy neighbor” is a common law of nature. Only this forms a child into a human being. This needs to be reflected in every subject being taught; all of them should incorporate the notion of the unity of nature and governance (“there is none else beside Him”) and the absolute interconnection of all the parts of creation (“love thy neighbor as thyself”).

Then the entire course of study will be based upon and governed by the single law, it will move in one direction, and this is exactly what the child will grasp. If it is written that the law of “loving one’s neighbor” is the “main rule of the Torah” (meaning the common law of the universe), then we must educate children based on this law and show that everything that happens in the world is defined by this condition.

The children will grasp this singular law, and both the upper governance and their proper behavior will become obvious to them. When we show that the best and the most horrible events in the world only happen in order to reveal to us the place where we need to fulfill this law, children will begin to have a different, purposeful attitude towards reality.

Those who want to correct themselves and, through themselves, the world are called human. This is how we raise human beings from animals.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/27/10, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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The Binding Force Of Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When I have a connection with someone in our world, I feel either love or hate, but what happens in a spiritual connection? What does the revelation of the Creator feel like?

Answer: Spiritual phenomena are bestowal. These relationships are reciprocal connections of bonding, love, and mutual inclusion into each other. We build a connection of unity and love between us, and then we reveal the Light that was previously concealed within this connection.

This Light corrects our connections, shapes them, and builds a “place” or a “desire to bestow” out of them. Then we reveal an even greater opportunity to bestow in this “place,” and the main force of the universe, the Creator, becomes revealed in the opportunity to bestow.

But all of this happens in the same place, within our unity, and the Creator becomes clearer each time to the extent of our new property of bestowal and love.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/26/10, “600,000 Souls”

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Kabbalists On The Language Of Kabbalah, Part 10

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

The Law of Root and Branch

The substance of the elements of reality in the first, Uppermost world is purer than in all the ones below it. And the substance of the elements of reality in the second world [that comes after it] is coarser than in that of the first world, but purer than all that is of a lower degree.

This continues similarly down to this world before us, whose substance of the elements in reality is coarser and darker than in all the worlds preceding it. However, the shapes and the elements of reality and all their occurrences come unchanged and equal in every world, both in quantity and quality. They compared it to the conduct of a seal and its imprint: all the shapes in the seal [the Upper World] are perfectly transferred in every detail and intricacy to the imprinted object [the lower world].
– Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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Spiritual X-Ray

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah does not add suffering to a person, but rather reveals to the person his true condition. It is similar to someone who visits a doctor, and an x-ray detects a problem that requires surgery. Obviously, the patient doesn’t blame the doctor, but thanks him for finding the disease.

At the same time, the doctor not only diagnoses the person’s disease, but also informs the patient about “all necessary remedies to cure the illness.” It is because everything exists in the Light, and all one needs to do is clarify what is deficient or damaged. As soon as a person figures it out, he immediately receives a remedy and recovers shortly thereafter.

With the means available to us, we must discover our weak points relative to the Creator (the Light). That is why we need the Light to work like an x-ray, showing us what is wrong and, in particular, what does not conform to it. This is how we should examine our entire body.

If we do so by means of the Light, we will clarify and correct ourselves simultaneously through the Light of AB-SAG (the Light intended to find the evil and transform it into good). Thus, we advance with pleasure and enjoyment. If we don’t have an x-ray available, then every cell of our body reaches a near-lethal condition, and we undergo terrible suffering until we begin to realize what is in need of correction and how to achieve it, which is only from within ourselves by changing our attitude to the world.

The method of Kabbalah reveals our affliction faster, making it possible to correct it right away. We have the device in our hands that helps us uncover our problems which were there all along yet concealed from us since previously there was no hope of a cure.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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From Love Of Created Beings To Love Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanPresently the Creator is concealed from me, and I am only able to search for Him inside the group which stands between me and Him, as it is written: “From love of the created beings to love of the Creator.” If I direct myself to the group and clarify all the answers through them with respect to our connection and mutual guarantee, then I transfer my desires into the group and am able to see whether their desire is to receive or to bestow.

In return, the group provides me with a feeling of the Creator’s importance, and this feeling becomes important to me whether I want it or not. I begin to believe in the greatness of the Creator and that the greatest reward is to be near Him. The group restructures the order of my values, placing bestowal and the Creator on top and my egoistic desires at the bottom.

Then I begin to work to increase the greatness of bestowal, and this feeling continues to grow until it turns into a full-fledged mutual guarantee and we all become as one. If we achieve the sensation of “one man” in even the smallest measure, then we cross the barrier (Machsom) which separates us from the Upper World. And then, according to the law of equivalence of form, we begin to feel the Creator, the quality which defines the entire universe.

The group is my only means of defining spiritual definitions such as light and dark or day and night. After all, I come to the group utterly confused, without a clear understanding of what I want from this life, what is important, what determines advancement, and what the Creator wants from me. I scatter in all directions without even realizing where I’m going.

I have no clear direction whatsoever, and only the group can help me find my way. Books alone are unable to do that for me; they may even confuse me by giving me the impression that I have advanced spiritually by accumulating knowledge and that by grasping the information in a literal sense, I will attain spirituality. I was given the group as a model of the spiritual world temporarily, in place of the Creator, and the more I realize that my advancement takes place within the group, the quicker I will advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/1/10, “What is Day and Night in Work?”

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