The Impure Forces Are The Creator’s Assistants

Dr. Michael LaitmanKlipot (the impure forces, the “rind” or “peel”) are a special system that does not allow us to touch desires if we lack the forces to overcome them. Klipot are like guards, as it is written, “The Klipa (rind) protects the fruit.”

We hate Klipot, thinking that they are evil forces, while in reality they are very useful. They save us by limiting us, repelling us, and scaring us away! They build all sorts of obstacles before us, which we can overcome only when we become worthy of what stands behind the obstacle.

Imagine what would happen if a little child could do anything he wanted. How much harm would he cause to himself and to others? But nature does not give him the ability to do this.

This is why there are three impure Klipot in the Worlds of BYA, which stand against ZAT de Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. They are called “the stormy wind” (Ruach Seara), “the great cloud” (Anan Gadol), and “the all-consuming fire” (Esh Mitlakahat). Only by going through them will you reach the World of Atzilut!

These impure Klipot protect holiness. We have to overcome the Klipa and become stronger than it. Then we can touch holiness. Until then we will have to deal with the impure forces if we are not ready for more.

Therefore, the system of the impure forces, Klipot, plays an exceptionally important role: It is the system of protection. We have to learn to look at everything from the Creator’s perspective, and He did not do anything in vain.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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There’s No Such Thing As Physical Fatigue

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I invigorate myself during the study if I don’t feel the Creator and “the Shechina is in the dust”‘?

Answer: You have to raise the Shechina from the dust. This is exactly what Kabbalists write about.

Say you feel enormous physical fatigue. You feel like you have no energy and cannot focus on the lesson. But is this really physical fatigue or is it spiritual?

It’s very simple to figure it out. Go to a group that burns up with inspiration and spend some time among the friends. Sit together, sing, and eat a shared meal. Then take a look at yourself: Were you falling asleep there or not?

If you didn’t fall asleep there, it means the reason is not physical fatigue, but only the external influence.

There is no such thing as physical fatigue. It’s all spiritual forces! Rabash gave the following example: A person cannot get up for the lesson because he is very tired, but if you wake him up in the middle of the night and tell him that there is a fire in his house, he will immediately jump to his feet. He won’t respond, “Wait, I’m sleeping now, come back in the morning.”

In other words, everything is determined by the importance we put into it.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, Beit Shaar HaKavanot

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Does The Process Itself Exist?

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur whole work consists of justifying the states that we go through, and then they will seem more comfortable to us. And this depends only on us! After all, all these states are inevitable; all the Reshimot (spiritual genes) must come out, in order, one after another, and be realized until the end of correction.

They are gradually revealed in you in order for you to justify them. And what does it mean to justify them? It means to realize, feel, and understand for what purpose they come, who brings them, why, and in what order.

Thereby you develop yourself, and so much that you begin to include in you the whole creation. This is precisely what the Creator wants from you! This is why He does not give you the final form; you wouldn’t feel or understand anything in it. Instead, He leads you through the whole sequence of actions.

But does this process truly exist? It doesn’t! There is no beginning, no end, and nothing at all! There is one perfect state. The Creator stretches it out from beginning to end, like a rubber band, implanting the ego, the evil inclination, or the desire for pleasure, into His own action. And then you can go through all these states in order, from beginning to end, all the while perfecting your sensations and mind.

This helps you understand the whole process of creation, from two opposites: from darkness – to Light. And if this were one state, you would not be able to differentiate between anything, since you are a created being. You need two states in order to feel and elucidate one against the other.
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From a lesson on Baal HaSulam’s Letters 11/26/10

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What are “round” vessels (Kelim de Igulim), and how do they participate in our work?

Answer: “Round” vessels are the storage, archive of all desires, which we need to extract from there and correct. They are desires of the World of Infinity, still before the restriction. Through them the Upper Light can influence those who still don’t have a screen.

Souls that have a screen work with “straight” vessels (Kelim de Yosher). They are situated in “straight” unification with the Upper Light. However, if I don’t have a screen, I cannot influence the Creator.

And how can the Creator influence me? He influences me through “round” vessels since He exists everywhere, in all desires. Through them He can influence me since I, too, have “round” vessels which I still haven’t “straightened out,” directed them to the Creator.

Therefore, there are two types of Upper Governance: individual and general. I exist under the individual, private Governance if I am able to be connected to the Creator in mutual bestowal. In that case, He gives to me, I give to Him, and we work together completely “straight”: “the measure of suffering (effort) determines the measure of reward,” meaning the screen determines the whole profit, and this is how I advance.

Meanwhile, the “round” desires indicate that I am unable to overcome anything. I don’t even know or understand that I am receiving since the whole world does it. Until a person acquires a screen and starts working “in the line,” he is controlled through the “round” desires, meaning he receives without thinking, like everyone else.

The Light reaches us through the “round” Kelim and rouses a “straight” reaction in us because we have no other opportunity to respond to the Creator. If we react properly and in a “straight” manner to the way He influences us through the “circles,” we enter into contact with Him. We reveal the Creator as a Giver and receive the whole fulfillment in a “straight” manner, with the help of the screen.

And if not, then we are sent various disasters and misfortunes through the “round” desires. The “circles” control and turn us in all directions, but if we establish a “straight” connection, we take the control into our own hands.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/10, Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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My Signature On The Bestowal Declaration

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should we do about friends who don’t awaken? Should we be patient with them just as with the outside world?

Answer: No. In the group we have signed a mutual agreement just as in the past Kabbalistic groups demanded newcomers to sign a statute. Do you want to be a friend? “A friend” is a person who puts forth all his energy working to unite. After all, the only way we will attain the goal is by means of uniting.

We do not have the ability to accept every person who is not yet ready for it as he will simply “water down” our forces, or might even confuse us and lead us astray. Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Peace” that a person might understand that he cannot steal, yet not see anything wrong with not carrying out bestowal.

In spirituality, if you do not give the group everything you have to give it, it means you are stealing from it. Therefore, people who desire to enter the group have to know that they are signing the “bestowal declaration.” They are taking on the obligation to put in their contribution, to give all of their energy for the sake of unity.

Otherwise a person has no place in the group. So let him sit home in front of the television set.

This has to be understood and the group has to demand it from everyone and from each person. We will not attain anything without unity.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, The Zohar

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Outer And Inner Spheres Of Influence

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person cannot avoid being influenced by the environment, which elevates or belittles him. It is impossible to resist if I am important in my eyes.

If I don’t wish to conform to this opinion, I have to construct another image around myself, one that will become meaningful to me. In that case, I will measure everything in relation to it: If I am being reprimanded or praised, foremost, I will check whether it is beneficial or harmful to this image. And then, let me be scolded, but if the image benefits from it, helps me to achieve it, and come closer to it, I feel good.

If I am being scolded by the people whom I hold in authority, I value their opinion. But if I regard them as foes, then the more they scold me, the more it convinces me that I am correct. I am glad they are criticizing my path. In this case, the most horrible condemnations may sound as blessings to me.

Let’s say you are being cursed by the Pharaoh, it’s great, because he is opposite to the Creator; it all depends on whose influence you choose. Hence, I must remain only under the influence of my environment that I chose for spiritual growth. I should be very responsive to it since with its help, I can aim myself in the right direction.

Upon entering such an environment, its opinion must become sacred for me. I copy all its values and live in accordance with them instead of with what used to fill me before.

If I wish to receive the mind of the Upper One, the Creator, instead of my own, then I unfold my entire future world in the head (Rosh) of the group, in their desires. I don’t have anything else: They are that very Kli which I receive the future world into. Therefore, the collective opinion of the group and its values, start prevailing over everything else.

In fact, I will never be able to uncover the tiniest particle of the spiritual world unless I step out of myself and exchange my head for the common head and heart of the group. Therein lay my sole choice and chance to reach spirituality.

You need to be responsive to their mind and heart and keep trying to find within what the true environment is. As a result, you will suddenly get to realize that they have it all although they themselves are unaware of it. It is this particular group in relation to which you have to nullify yourself, and that is where you will find the entire World of Infinity.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, The Writings of Rabash

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See Yourself From Aside

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do I have free will to ask my own questions, or it is also done by the Upper Governance?

Answer: Free will doesn’t lie in your asking one or the other question. Free will means not sitting inside your ego getting blows. After all, submerged in your ego, you are unable to understand anything because you lack one more factor existing on the outside.

Identifying yourself with someone or something outside of you, you will be able to see yourself from aside. It will teach you to recognize two conditions: the Light and the dark. And then you will be able to advance faster.

But if you don’t enter the group, live in bestowing to it, and being affected by it, you do not advance. It is so because spiritual advancement lies in understanding the process of creation. In order to gain it, you need two initial points: one is within, the other-outside yourself. Hence, the group is given to you so that you may find this second point.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/10, Baal HaSulam, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot”

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Climbing The Mountain Of Doubts

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the article dedicated to the Hanukkah celebration, we read about choosing the environment. How does one relate to the other?

Answer: What is another way to come to the celebration of Hanukkah in the soul? Only with the help of environment that wakes a person up to demand the property of bestowal. And then we start asking it, by raising MAN (female waters, a prayer): It is our revolt against the “Greeks” above whom we must rise with our collective desire.

This is a war against inner doubts; waged until we defeat them all and climb to the top of the mountain made of these doubts (mountain in Hebrew is “har,” from the word “Irurim,” doubts) to the holiday of Hanukkah. And when we are in the final stage of the climb, when Hanukkah ends, all of its 8 days (the 7 Sefirot of Zeir Anpin plus Malchut), then we start approaching Purim. Now we collect the desires we rose above and attach them to Bina, thereby reaching the big, mature state of adulthood (Gadlut).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, The Writings of Rabash

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If The Heart Doesn’t Open

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should I work with faith above reason if the heart doesn’t open?

Answer: You need to be patient. It is hard work we do while in Egyptian bondage when we keep building new “pyramids” by exerting the greatest effort until the heart suddenly starts feeling. And in this work, the circulation of Kabbalah helps tremendously; it is beneficial to the person himself. The more he invests in the others, even if the motives are diversely egoistic, the faster he starts feeling how his heart unfolds.

I see this in the example of people who put much effort in studying but don’t get involved in the dissemination of Kabbalah. It is not enough to simply study and stay in the group: the heart doesn’t open! Everybody has to find himself a unique job, no matter how small, in order to make it his constant concern, so that he knows: This is what I bestow to people; through me, this wisdom gets spread.

This is a magical instrument as I have seen from my experience: A person who is involved in dissemination advances much more rapidly. Therefore, I recommend it to all.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/10, The Writings of Rabash

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