A Key Error In Calculation

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe true evil inclination correlates with the good inclination, which is revealed to us from Above. It is written that the purpose of creation is to delight the created beings. And to do this we need to become like the Creator, to bestow like Him. Once we acquire the opportunity to bestow, we will discover that this is His benevolence.

There is no better gift than the opportunity to bestow. From it, we will enjoy like the Creator enjoys when He bestows to His creatures.

This means that I must come to the exact state when it will be goodness to me: to delight in bestowal to my neighbor. And my “neighbor” is someone I extremely hate. When I bestow to him and enjoy it tremendously, it means I have realized the principle of loving my neighbor as myself. In this case, my pleasure is similar to the Creator’s, and between us there is adhesion, correspondence, and similarity.

This must be the criteria of goodness for me. But if I’m unable to see it on this level, then I lower it. Let’s say that goodness is an ascent above my current egoism. No matter what I want, I verify this desire according to my proximity to the purpose of creation, bestowal, and spirituality, instead of the fulfillment of my Kelim (vessels, desires). And if it is unknown to me, then the most reliable thing to do is to check how this desire brings me closer to the books, the teacher, and my friends.

Our eternal problem is to measure correctly. We always deviate to the side. A bribe from our egoism blinds us. We say: “What can we do,” forgive ourselves, and continue to measure incorrectly. And this is why we fail to reveal the evil. But how are we to correct the evil if we fail to reveal it? This error always remains with us.

It is necessary to combine three things: books, teacher, and group. If a person is able to connect them and begin to test himself in relation to them, then he has a chance to reveal the evil. These three factors can help a person begin to form a point of unity with Israel, Torah, and the Creator so that the books, the teacher, and the group would direct him towards the property of bestowal, the Creator.

And as a person passes further in the correct direction, he will see that both the means and the outcome, the tree and the fruit, are truly one.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “The Matter of Tu Bishevat”

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Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 24

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

What Is a Prayer?

Since half a thing is not given from Above, one must pray to the Creator to give him complete help. This means that during one’s prayerwhen he arranges what is in his heart since a prayer is work in the heartone must decide for himself that he wishes for the Creator to give him a desire to annul before Him altogether, leaving no desire under his own authority, but that all the desires will be only to glorify the Creator. And when he decides on complete annulment, he asks of the Creator to help him carry it out…. This is called “a complete prayer” since his desire is for the Creator to give him a complete desire, without any compromises for himself, and he asks of the Creator to help him always be with His righteousness.
– Rabash, Letter no. 65

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.
– Psalms, 34
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Generating New Desires – Laitman Unplugged

Behind The Words Of The Zohar

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When The Zohar speaks about man, does it refer to the desires?

Answer: According to The Zohar, “man” is a property similar to the Creator. Clearly, this only refers to the desires. This is because the image of man standing before us does not exist in reality. This is a trick of the imagination.

Let’s say that you see an image on the computer screen. Does it exist in reality? Something exists in the computer’s memory, and all the actions happen there. But in order for you to see what happens in the memory (which is there only for your knowledge and for the connection with you), there is a screen where you see a certain demonstration of something that exists in the memory. But the actual original image is there, inside, in the form of electric signals, forces that exist in different combinations with each other.

You see the external symbols of these combinations which are very limited and strictly specific because you are unable to perceive them otherwise. After all, you cannot live in a computer’s memory, understand, and see whatever exists there.

It is the same with The Zohar. Its authors convey to us a certain spiritual impression, which at this point we are able to hear only externally, imagining it somehow in our uncorrected, limited perception. But this vision has nothing to do with the actual spiritual image, concealed on the inside, behind the external forms of the letters, words, and images, which arise in your imagination. The authors of The Zohar have something completely different in mind.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Working Between Plus And Minus, Love And Hate

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean to realize the informational genes, the Reshimot, within the group?

Answer: There is no other type of realization of each person’s Reshimot except by completing his engagement in the group to the absolute state of perfection. This is how Reshimot are actualized.

The group is the only place and way to realize them: I must enter the group with all the desires, properties, and informational data unfolding in me, and until I start seeing it as perfect, under all of its conditions, I cannot say that I have realized a particular Reshimo.

The moment I see all the friends as perfect, that is, connected, bonded, and loving (according to my degree), it means I have finished processing a given Reshimo and have realized it completely. And immediately the next step unfolds before me: as hatred, rejection, envy, lust, and ambition.

Now, yet again, I must bring my present condition to perfection. This is the only way I can actualize my Reshimot and achieve a complete state, a state when there are no more Reshimot which I need to correct with love of others and bring to eternal wholeness and perfection.

And at each more exalted rung, you are definitely going to face greater hatred and rejection, calculations you can’t avoid. You are led by an endless flood of hate and egoistic calculations involving others, while thinking only about how to deceive, take advantage, and place yourself above them.

You think about it every instant until your head cracks. And if you are also arranging a plan to carry it out, you break your heart as well. And then you understand that you can work only in the group. A person is cast into such states when all the problems are focused around only this. This is the way it is until the very end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

These calculations are not going to leave you alone; they look like some kind of nonsense, and you think you’re done with it. But in an instant, they re-appear all over again! And it keeps repeating time after time, without an end! All we can do is exercise patience and keep returning to the same thing endlessly, until the breakthrough finally occurs.

Rabash used to share how a physician prohibited him from drinking whiskey, but he would soak a piece of pie in it and little by little ate it. It looked like he was eating a pie, while there was less and less whiskey in his glass.

We are unable to receive the Light of Hochma (Wisdom): We can only keep absorbing it in our desire drop by drop, until after an enormous number of actions we absorb all of it. How does a computer work? It doesn’t understand anything but “0” and “1,” while everything else is done through multiple actions.

This is how all of nature is structured: quantum physics, chemistry, and other sciences. There is nothing but “plus,” “minus,” and a tremendous number of acts. The whole trick lies in this multiplying of actions. Each action, no matter what equation it is defined by, comes down to “plus” and “minus,” connection and separation.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011, “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah is everything. There is nothing beyond its boundaries. It includes man and his entire world, no matter where he is. All of this exists none other than in man’s perception, whereas our study of plants and animals through zoology, biology, and botany is only a study of how man perceives them. In fact, these are all certain forces which are expressed this way in relation to me.

Even the Creator, I study only the way He becomes revealed in relation to me. Through all reality I reveal Him as the root. The attainment of this root is the goal of the entire research. The entire universe developed precisely in order for man to reveal the Root. All of reality is the means to establish a connection between man and the Root, the Creator.

The Creator is not some religious symbol, but the root of everything, the One who controls everything, the primary cause and source of everything that exists, as well as the goal. It is written, “I am the first and I am the last.”

The root means that everything begins from Him and He determines how every event will occur. And everything will eventually conclude with Him as well. It is written about Him, “The One, Single, and Singular” and “There is none else besides Him,” who is good and does good.

But it is impossible to research reality with the help of the science of Kabbalah without first changing oneself. Only a Kabbalist can be a researcher in this science because he reveals it upon himself. It is impossible to research it as an external observer, the way other sciences do.

For example, I once studied metallurgy where we used to take metal samples. We would heat a sample, cool it, test it under pressure, and check the influence of different additions and alloys. Yet I remained the same person who researches the metal. And I would throw out the sample and take a different one the next day.

However, in Kabbalah you have to be inside of the test sample yourself! You have to take on its qualities. You don’t just learn to understand them a little and feel them from outside, the way we usually experience the things we research. In Kabbalah you have to be inside matter itself, take on the same form, and according to this correspondence you will be able to understand it.

When you build its full model inside yourself, only then will you be able to check and research it. You research yourself! The Creator (Boreh) means “Come and See” (Bo – Reh). I do not see anything on the outside. The Creator is inside of me. To the degree of our equivalence, which I have attained, I say, “This is the Creator! This is my God.”

Every person has to come to know Him, “From the smallest of them to the greatest.” But to do that, one must be willing to change his nature and replace it with the Creator’s nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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The Dissertation Defense Is Canceled

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If my egoism is crying because it feels bad, how can I remain in the thought that this state is where the truth lies?

Answer: We focus on things which essentially are not up to us. We need to go through the entire chain of spiritual states, but if we focus on them too much, start analyzing them, and “writing a dissertation” on them, we don’t move on. We do not advance.

True, a person has to understand his condition in order to complete it. But to do so, he has to move on to the next state and once there, make a conclusion about the previous one. Our work is to hasten the time, and this depends on the influence of the environment. The more I absorb from it, the faster I will move on. Any procrastination brings harm.

A certain state may be good, but I if I sit there and start analyzing my ascent piece by piece, then the very first extra moment spent there becomes Klipa, impurity. That’s because I stopped due to feeling comfortable, pleased, and good there.

It follows that we have to beware not to submerge too deeply into ourselves and constantly look forward. This is very important. Sometimes people procrastinate, unable to move on, thus turning their condition into a subject of their “scientific research.” This is not good.

I have to allow only an instant to feel the state I have found myself in. I barely touch it, and then immediately, with the help of the group, I move on to the next state, not delaying it for another second. And while you are at it, don’t forget that the work is done by the Creator, whereas our job is to prepare MAN for Him, a plea for correction. We must prepare ourselves in order for Him to do the necessary work upon us.

Similar to the feminine part in creation, we look up from below, while the Creator, the male part, turns to us and acts from above downward. All we need to do is just bring ourselves to Him.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, Writings of Rabash

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Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is an unfolding Reshimo (a informational gene or record)? What exactly gets revealed to us?

Answer: It is impossible to explain because a Reshimo is a complete picture of the future which unfolds within me. At the end of this entire chain of Reshimot, there is my one last Reshimo that represents the world of Infinity.

Now, one of these states leading me on this path to the world of Infinity is becoming revealed. It is programmed with all the data except my mandatory effort and the screen. When I supply them, this Reshimo becomes realized and transforms into the true picture of reality.

Since this Reshimo includes in itself the entire picture of reality except for my own effort and my
anti-egoistic screen, it turns out that the Creator, who exposes a desire for my participation in this Reshimo, conceals Himself in it. It’s as if He is showing me a picture of reality with unfilled, left out intervals, in which I have to complete Him with my participation.

I cannot actualize a Reshimo in one go; it requires a number of actions, quite a lot at times. In the end, I must completely reveal the degree of similarity and lack of correspondence between us. Therefore, a Reshimo is structured and unfolds in such way as to not just bring me to the completion of this picture; it also must supply me with what I lack.

While I fill in the picture, I add all of the Creator to the point that has initially unfolded in me. After all, our goal at each rung is to become equal to the Creator.

I realize my Reshimo as though I am working and filling in something within me. Thereby, I elevate (fulfill) myself to the level of the Creator at my present degree. It is a multifaceted process that eventually leads me to perfection.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/2011,  “The Quality of the Hidden Wisdom – in General”

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Moments Of Truth

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do I thank the Creator for small spiritual revelations?

Answer: They immediately gain great value in a person since this has never happened to him. Never before have I valued rising above myself, but now I feel that I have risen above my egoism and view this as a real treasure.

Where does this attitude come from? From the Light. Obviously, it’s not me who makes the correct analysis. By the nature of things, while experiencing an ascent, I prefer to adhere to the truth.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/11, Writings of Rabash

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Europe Is A Tough Nut To Crack

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is so unique about the Berlin Convention? What do we have to do there? What should each of us and all of us together do, as well as among the groups?

Answer: Right now whether you want it or not you are under the impression of the things I say. It’s as if you are slightly suppressed and included by me into one single desire, a unified thought. And that unites us.

All of these qualities, means, desires, thoughts, the things we have already gone through, the things we desire, our aspirations, the huge amount of people and groups—all of this comes together into one. The result is that it works on us, giving us a very powerful, progressive impulse.

But we have a “small problem”: It seems to us that we have a small egoism and must only overcome it, turn some small knob, press some button, and by that we will have finished the job. We don’t understand that there is a great system at work here. It’s not just a “tumbler” that someone on top wants or doesn’t want to switch. We are in a system of two opposite forces: bestowal and reception. And until this system does not work by its dialectic, by its motion forward, by the law of the unity of parts, this won’t happen.

We only accelerate the time with our efforts, but we will never be able to make a jump. This is impossible due to the nature of things. Everything is done by way of gradual, sequential, and strictly determined movement, step by step. And through this step by step movement forward we constantly come closer to success, the moment when it will “shoot out.” The transition will happen! And it will be sudden.

Our conventions greatly accelerate the movement and therefore they are very important. During the several days that we are together and around us there are also many people around the world, during that time a very serious processing takes place in the degrees of our inner development.

One way or another a million states have to pass over us. We have to go through them. And every convention occurs differently, having new aspects, new forms, and feelings.

Therefore, the Berlin Convention is bound to be special because it will be a meeting of people who are permeated by the desire and qualities of the environment where they live. That environment is very bad; Europe is a very problematic continent, the source of all problems and wars, and having extremely great egoism, although it is already dwindling now, along with our entire civilization of the past. Still, it’s a tough nut to crack. That is why this convention is extremely not simple, and in fact, the most difficult.

The easiest Convention is one held in Latin America. The people there are fiery, open-hearted, and sincere. I have never met people like that anywhere. After that comes Russia. But in Europe things are most difficult, and the more difficult things are, the more interesting, and the more spectacular is the result and effective the work.

Therefore, I hope to have your support, both physical and virtual, so that we will “work on” Europe all together.
From the lesson in Moscow on 1/16/11, Writings of Rabash

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