The World Depends On Us

Dr. Michael Laitman

We along with the entire world are undergoing a special state. The time when the wisdom of Kabbalah gets revealed is critical for the history of mankind.

During gatherings such as Kabbalah conventions, we desire correction of our soul, and nobody thinks about the rest of the world. And yet, let us ponder for a moment that we affect the fate of the world with our actions. I can sign this claim.

We wish and are trying to unite, thereby shifting the world to the scale of merit since the world, in itself, is a formless, lifeless matter which has no power. And we reside a few rungs above it, at the human level (Adam) that yearns to become similar (Dome) to the Creator. Therefore, the fate of the world lies in our hands.

This is why it is worthwhile to spend money to come to such Kabbalah conventions and place oneself in the environment unlike his home. This consideration is also necessary; after all, a person receives the right to affect the entire world and his own destiny.

At the first glance, what are we, really? And still, the Creator picked specifically these people, having given them an opportunity and a desire to come here [the Kabbalah Convention in the Arava Desert] in order to unite. It isn’t easy; hence, I have respect for every attendee whom the Creator chose and endowed with the strength. Likewise, I respect him for his desire and willingness to come and contribute. Every person present here is great and unique. And this is the way we should view each other.

We must value this special opportunity to affect our own destiny and the fate of the world. And it doesn’t matter that we ourselves barely recognize the profound meaning of the moment. Even though our desire is simple and naïve, it still reforms the world.

Therefore, I strongly recommend that you use this time to the fullest so that everyone could open his heart and wish to bond with the others. After all, this meeting brought very special people together. Let’s give it our best.
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From Lesson 1, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/30/10

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Let’s Keep Thinking About Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe begin to work with each other, and everyone wants to feel the others close, connected. Start to examine and analyze: How long can we go on like this? Can you keep thinking of the others this way for a while? A minute? Two minutes? Or maybe even five or ten minutes? It is already quite long. Usually, it ends in a second.

And it’s good. It is called guarantee. Everyone almost instantly forgets that he must bond with the others and see them as great, and that’s an opportunity to immediately remember to do it again.

If, in our thought, we are concerned with everyone, wishing that nobody forgets it, we will remember indeed. A person will feel how the others pressure him with their thoughts. Desires in the hearts of the others will affect everyone.

Baal HaSulam wrote a very special, profound article about mutual guarantee. After all, it is the condition for receiving the Torah, the Light. We support everybody so that nobody forgets about unity, which isn’t dancing in embrace, but rather the inner unity of hearts. If we care about one another, we will definitely not forget about it, constantly returning to it in our thoughts. Thereby, we will accomplish great work.

Each second, everyone keeps forgetting and remembering over and over again. Together, we will complete many acts, by entering this connection and stepping out of it again, in order to return to it again. And every time, while doing so, we actualize the Reshimot (spiritual records) that remained in us after the breaking of the souls.

Finally, after a few such actions, we arrive to the Light. It is written: “The Torah will go forth from Zion.” In other words, we receive it thanks to these departures (Yetziot) from oneness, each time resisting them and rushing back in.

So, let us think about our unity, about nobody abandoning these thoughts, about everyone here being a magnificent and unique individual. He was chosen by the Creator; hence, I honor this upper part, the Creator’s part, in him. Thereby, while assisting each other from within, we gradually arrange ourselves into one common Kli (vessel), a single soul.

When this Kli comprised from multiple parts bonds in the minimal required degree, we will immediately feel the Creator’s, the Upper Light’s, presence in it. Let’s hope that we will reach this state today or tomorrow, or, at the latest, the day after tomorrow.

In fact, it happens when you least expect it, and even the instant before a person doesn’t see it coming. It can, indeed, occur after the efforts we have just described.
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From Lesson 1, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/30/10

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Let Me Have Your Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we unify with each other?

Answer: I have a desire to reach some exalted purpose, to ascend to the upper world toward the Creator, the root of my soul, to something unknown. Every person has this longing for attaining the root, the purpose of his or her life. It has been planted in everyone, but in one person it emerges in the present incarnation (Gilgul), in another it manifested in the previous one, and in the third it will awaken in a future lifetime.

My root resides in the Creator from where I descended down to this world. And now, finally, you and I have started to aspire upward. The root of the soul, the point in the heart, awakened in both of us.

Neither you nor I can achieve anything with our points in the heart. But we will if we unify them, if you attach my point in the heart to yours and I do the same with mine. How do we do that? We have to strive to connect in our hearts. Unity per se will come from Above, by way of the Light that Reforms; but in order for that to occur, you have to collect the spiritual desires of all the people sitting here.

You acquire them by asking for it. Everything is driven by desire since it is the matter of creation. I wish and long for their desires aimed to the Creator to be mine. I want one great desire comprised of all individual desires to appear within me.

Start thinking about it and you will see how much closer you feel to people, not physically, but internally. You will start feeling what their hearts desire, and your own spiritual desire from a point will grow to a sphere, a “globe,” a “vessel.”

Finally, in this pieced together desire, you will feel a spiritual current, spiritual life. Hence, demand: “I want your desires! Do you need mine? I am willing, take it. But first let’s make a group where everyone wants to connect his heart with the hearts of the friends.”
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From Lesson 1, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/30/10

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Keeping The Light At All Costs

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we increase our enthusiasm so that it doesn’t end, so that the Light doesn’t depart?

Answer: Experience is the mother of wisdom. Let me tell you based on my own experience: You will undergo various states, wishing to keep the Light at all costs.

And then you will start pondering: “What is the Light? Is it when I feel good or when I think about others? After all, these states can differ, can’t they? Is there Light when I understand everything or when I feel in the dark? In fact, darkness is relative to the Light from which I am so distant. I feel a big distance between us as darkness, but in truth, it is the Light that makes me feel that I am not Him.”

Many impressions will wash over you to bring you to a new stage in the end. You will feel that it doesn’t matter what states you are going through: the Light and the darkness, ecstasy and dread, when you are frozen, torn out of life, and then suddenly feel an abrupt ascent, when you are about to soar without wings, and there is a piercing clarity, when everything comes before your eyes as on an X-ray screen, only to be replaced with you suddenly falling prostrate and forgetting the names of your family.

This way, you gradually discover that you don’t care what states you experience. The only thing that matters is: “Can I use the current state to bestow, to align myself with the vector leading me outside of myself?”

This is the degree everything will change to. Let’s hope we are nearing that time.
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From Lesson 1, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/30/10

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Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 8

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

The Essence of the Work in Torah and Mitzvot

By keeping Torah and Mitzvot, the purpose of creation—to do good to His creations—becomes revealed.
Rabash, Rabash—the Social Writings, “The Importance of a Prayer of Many

The meaning of the souls of the children of Israel [those who, regardless of their nationality, aspire to the Creator] is that they are a part of God Above [the property of bestowal]. The soul cascaded [from the world of Infinity to our world] by way of cause and consequence [the Light’s correspondence to desire] and descended [in the property of bestowal] degree-by-degree until it became suitable [so distant from the Creator’s level] to come into this world and clothe the filthy corporeal body [desire to only receive, not give].

By keeping the Torah and observing its Mitzvot, it ascends degree-by-degree [in the property of bestowal] until its stature is completed, and it is fit to receive its reward from The Whole. This has been prepared for it in advance, meaning attaining the holy Torah by way of the Names of the Creator [the properties and acts of bestowal], which are the 613 deposits.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, From the Mouth of a Sage
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The Torah Is Given To Those Who Need It

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can one advance by faith above reason in the group?

Answer: Without the group it’s completely impossible to do this. Either you unite with a teacher the way it was done in the past, or you unite with the group. But it’s impossible to advance by yourself.

When talking about the relationship between a person and the Creator, we always mean the presence of the environment. Without it I don’t have anything to ascend above, nothing to correct. A plea to the Creator is a plea for correction. But the correction of what? The only thing I have to correct is my attitude to my neighbor. This is egoism, the evil inclination, unfounded hatred, broken Kelim, the broken Temple.

Therefore, it’s obvious that what we always mean by that is that a person is in the right environment, with his group. This principle originates from Mount Sinai where a condition was established: to unite as one man with one heart. Only then will you receive the Torah and be able to correct yourself.

If, however, you do not try to unite and reach mutual guarantee, then what will you correct? In that case, you will not receive the Torah. The condition for receiving the Torah is a need for it. But if you do not want to unite with others, then you do not need the Torah. It is intended only in order to correct the connection between people.

Therefore, in our times, when the world is being brought to a dead-end situation of universal interconnection, when it is becoming apparent that without the right connections between us civilization will reach its end, people will have to use the Torah. They will need the Upper Force, the force of the Light that will unite them.

This is the purpose for which the Torah, the Kabbalistic method, is being revealed. All the other methods cannot be called Torah because they do not oppose the evil inclination. People will gradually reveal the evil inclination in this world and will then need the real Torah.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/11, Writings of Rabash

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The Soul Has No Age

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a child connect to your educational system?

Answer: A child will connect to that "environment of existence" through the Internet in a language he or she understands and in a form suitable to him or her. We just need to encourage children from the start to be part of the system, and they will make contact with other children around the world. They will feel comfortable in it and advance as part of it.

I think that results will be immediately visible. Within a few weeks, you will feel how your child has changed. Try to talk with him, and you’ll see how he’s grown, wised up, and begins to answer questions as an adult, that he has gotten an entirely different attitude toward life.

We have to treat a child as an adult. The soul has no age. The problem is that we dumb ourselves down when interacting with children and, thus, spoil them. A child doesn’t want such an attitude from us. He wants to be the same as us.

We just need to take into account that he is physically smaller and weaker than us, but, inside, he is absolutely grown up and adult. We should treat and talk to him as with an adult, seriously explaining everything, seeking advice, and listening to his opinion as with an adult.

You’ll see how well children respond to it and want it. For them, being an adult is a fascinating game. It’s forbidden for us adults to descend to their level and play as if we were kids. It’s wrong. It’s not they, but we who are playing.

It’s a very important principle of education to treat children as adults. Never mind that he looks like a little child; it’s only a physical body. From within that child’s body, an adult’s eyes are watching you, closely following after you and understanding everything.

It’s a mistake to consider him a child. It’s a fallacy that has accompanied humanity since antiquity, together with all sorts of fairy tales, preaching all kinds of fetishism and superstition. We need to cancel all that.

We are different from a child only at the animate level. When we communicate at the level of human within us, we should treat everyone equally. A child is our equal partner in the creation of this new educational method, and we have to speak openly with him about everything and require his full participation. Let children sit in meetings together with adults and participate in discussions about building the program. We’ve got nothing to hide from them.

That’s what will develop them. They don’t want to receive everything ready-made from us. They want to independently, consciously realize it from the start. We should hide nothing from a child; he is not a child. We need to treat him as a complete equal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/10, “Peace in the World”

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Don’t Get Distracted By The Sharp Turns

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe states of “Israel” and “nations of the world” constantly alternate inside a person and this process does not depend on him. All he has to do is “push down on the gas,” strive forward with everything he’s got. To do that, one needs a strong connection with the group and relentless thought about spiritual advancement in the direction of bestowal. That is how the principle “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one” is realized, which is the Creator’s command.

The more efforts a person makes, the more often these two states alternate. That’s when it is important not to let either of them knock you off track, not to wish to remain in either state, and not get stuck in either of them.

One must always see the goal ahead of him and aspire directly to it, even though the path is curvy and crooked. Every person is whirled about by his own Reshimot, as if he is advancing down a winding tunnel. There is nowhere to escape to and you only aspire forward, not making any calculations on the sharp turns.

Perhaps you want to stop, to experience the current state, to study it and “chew it up.” But that will never help. Try to go through all the places at full speed and don’t worry if you are unfamiliar with the path.

The only way to understand anything is from a higher level. A child never knows what developmental stage he is now going through. He understands only the previous stages. That is why older children can be instructors for younger ones. The best thing is to set up this kind of interaction between adjoining levels.

Therefore, we always aspire only forward, until the very end of correction. Only there will we reveal all the roots, all the initial, intermediate, and final states. When they interweave into one whole, then you will reveal the system in an instant and understand everything. Until then there is no truth that you can rely on.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/11, Writings of Rabash

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All The Worlds Are Between Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Introduction, Article “Yitro (Jethro)”: The Zohar explains the order of the emanation of the Partzufim of Atzilut: Atik, AA, AVI, and ZA, how the source of everything, the Masach of Malchut of Midat ha Din, uses Partzuf Atik, operates in AA to conceal the Hochma there… Afterwards, it explains VAK de ZA concerning six curtains, and the embroidered curtain, GAR de ZA.

The authors of The Book of Zohar revealed the order of relationships between them and inside the connection among each other they revealed Partzufim, worlds, qualities, and inner discernments. All of this is present between a person and others.

When a person sees others as connected together, it is called “the World of Infinity.” If he sees them as connected partially, it is called Partzufim that are above him. That is how they speak to each other, revealing every quality and calling it “Rabbi Yossi, Rabbi Hiya, Rabbi Elazar, Rabbi Shimon,” as well as various pictures of nature.

All of these are states that our souls go through in the process of their correction. I know from my personal experience how difficult it is for a person to depict a very simple picture in his imagination: that there is nothing besides the separated souls. Their total division is perceived by them as our world. Their partial unification, the inclusion of the desires into one another by the principle “Love your neighbor as yourself” creates the sensation of the Upper World in the souls.

Their total unity is perceived by the souls as the World of Infinity: unbounded, unlimited unity, and accordingly, total fulfillment by Light.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/11, The Zohar

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Light Assisted Education

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is it in the wisdom of Kabbalah that allows it to develop a child so quickly, turning him or her into a human being?

Answer: It’s the Light that Reforms. A Kabbalistic education develops a child’s human level, drawing the Light upon him from the upper degree, and, thus, all the lower degrees seem easy to him.

Besides, he learns the sciences. It may seem to us that studying Kabbalah has nothing to do with biology or chemistry, but a child is studying scientific principles, the fundamentals of nature: the desire to bestow, the desire to receive, the universal connection, and the technique of “above reason.” These are the basic laws of creation, and, afterward, when the child studies certain physical or chemical laws, they come to him easily.

He is not intimidated by them as something unknown and difficult to understand. He approaches them lightly, from the top down, possessing the universal, basic knowledge that desire and its fulfillment are the fundamentals of nature. All of nature, accordingly, is a picture of their interaction, their correspondence. It greatly simplifies a child’s comprehension of the world and changes his outlook on life.

We need to give the world compelling evidence: to organize groups open for large numbers of children from around the world to enroll in our system. All of them will have different backgrounds and speak different languages, but they will study according to one method.

Then, we will demonstrate their achievements compared to all other education systems. We will showcase what kind of children they are and what happened to them, examining the process they went through.

In parallel, we will track what happened to their classmates left to study in the regular educational system. We’ll compare how our group succeeded in life and how it progressed all that time without any problems and crises to what happened to the others.

The criterion is not how highly educated a person is and what profession he acquired. That doesn’t guarantee happiness. Another way to look at it is to inquire whether a person is satisfied with his or her life and has found himself standing firmly on his feet, mastered a normal profession, and built a family. We’ll check what percentage of them lost their way in life. Let them talk to people and see how they have turned out.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/28/10, “Peace in the World”

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