Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 35

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

613 Suggestions and 613 Deposits

There are two parts in Torah and Mitzvot.

A. The Torah and Mitzvot as they appear to all, are the keeping of Mitzvot and the study of Torah in the form of 613 counsels. These have the power to purify and refine the body [desires], and enhance the merit of the soul [intention] to be worthy and to merit receiving the Light of the King’s face, as the soul was in its root before it diminished and came into this base body [egoistic desire] in the base world.

B. Keeping the Mitzvot and studying the Torah in the form of 613 deposits, namely the matter of attaining His Names and the full reward of the souls.

The merit of the latter part over the former is as the merit of Heaven over Earth. This is because the first part is mere preparation, and the second part is the actual completeness and the purpose of Creation.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, From the Mouth of a Sage
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Whom To Judge And Why

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When I feel repelled by the group, should I remain patient and not judge my friends?

Answer: You should judge yourself instead of them because the only reason you perceive them negatively is because that’s how your egoism sees them. The Creator gathered all these different people in a group and wants you to unite with them. He evokes dislike of them within you, and your egoistic desire pushes you away from unifying. This is called revealing evil inside of you, as it is written, “I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah for its correction.”

Now I have to attract Light during the study only for the sake of one goal: To unite with people in the group, whom I reject. I don’t need anything else. If my attitude to them changes as a result of the study, that means the Light of the Torah has influenced me and I have acquired the quality of bestowal.

In other words, the goal is not to unite with a friend or to correct your egoism. These are just means. The goal is to attract the quality of the Creator, His image, by means of attracting Light.

That is why things are arranged so that I push the friends away. It’s so I would need the influence of the Light, which will give me the quality of the Creator. Otherwise there is no need for it. That is to say, we shouldn’t think about the need to correct something, but about the fact that we attain the goal by means of the correction.
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From the lesson on 2/18/11, Writings of Rabash

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The Only Thing That’s Constant Is The Approach

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the main principle that our children have to internalize?

Answer: Children have to understand that everything always changes in a person and in the world, and the only thing that’s constant is the approach which says: There is no other force that can help a person advance through life besides the force he receives from the environment. He does not get the forces to advance from the ego, nor from the influence of the mass media, nor from the influence of the external environment, but only from the group of people that gives him a specific value system, the understanding of the Creator’s importance. In order to attain the Creator, the quality of bestowal, a person must always advance by faith above reason, receiving from his environment the desire, aspiration, and understanding of the importance of this goal, and the feeling of worry about how to attain it.

In essence, a person always takes on the form of his environment, meaning he absorbs its value system, its conception of the future, its very essence. In other words, he becomes included into the external Kli or desire, acquires the quality of love, and comes out into the unification of all the souls—Malchut of the World of Atzilut.

Only by correctly including himself in his environment can a person reach the Creator. The inner unity that is present there is due to the fact that the Creator chose these people and united them with each other. This is Malchut of the World of Atzilut, the Shechina where a person immediately finds the Creator.

Therefore, the new generation, our children must internalize that this is exactly how we advance. This is our path. There are no descents, but only ascents. There is no confusion. Everything taking place is necessary for making new discernments.
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From the talk on education on 2/18/11

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On Global Education

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is global education? Who will supervise it, a single board of education for the entire world?

Answer: This is the mission of UNESCO, a specialized agency of the United Nations devoted to the issue of education in the entire world.

Global education means the explanation of the laws of nature. We need to explain that we are all inter-connected, governed by a single upper force, and have to act accordingly.

To be a single whole means to consider each others’ interests. Otherwise we will incur nature’s blows until we realize that we have no choice but to unite. The blows will force man to renounce his egoism; he will be willing to do anything to avoid suffering. But all of it could be accomplished in a good way, by the force of the Light that Reforms.

Of course, I didn’t explain it during the meeting with head of UNESCO, but eventually I will have to. This is what Marx wanted to do. He thought that when people begin to unite, to build socialism, they will see in practice that they can’t. They will start searching and realize that there is only one means of correction: the upper force. This is why Marx was an atheist and did not believe in any gods but the upper force of bestowal.

A simple observation of nature teaches us that we, too, have to be connected. And later, by trying to unite, we reveal that we can’t. Then the solution will become revealed. And for this we have to actively circulate Kabbalah. The world will need it more and more.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/2011, “The Freedom”

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Bestowal Will Rule Over The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If the governments are no longer capable of making correct decisions, who will rule the country to prevent anarchy? Who will govern the world?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that we will reach a state when the world will be ruled by Sanhedrin (the supreme assembly of sages, Kabbalists). Say, there will be 120 people (like in the ancient Sanhedrin) who will define the entire process of correction that the world has to undergo.

The only decision that needs to be made is how to advance toward the adhesion with the Creator, what’s the best way to do it for each layer of the society, each age group, and nationality. Then we will be successful.

We have to aim at the spiritual goal and correct the entire world, from top to bottom. For this, we don’t need any revolutions, but one: the revolution in education which needs to become global.

Today the rulers only act in their self-interest. They cannot form a true government since government implies connection. And how can they connect if each of them thinks how to come to power and get around everyone else? That is, everyone thinks about how to take advantage of others in order to get ahead.

This is our egoistic nature, and therefore, we shouldn’t expect anything else: We will only see failure after failure. The people will change the governments, but it will only become worse until we finally realize that we only need to change education.

The world needs to understand that it exists in dis-harmony with nature. If a general, integral network is descending upon us from above, and it considers only everyone taken together, while each of us thinks only about himself, then we are in opposition to the force that rules us. Nothing will help us but new education.

The relationships we build below have to resemble the global network which rules the world from above. We must be similar to it, and the greater this similarity will be, the more peaceful and good the world will become.

The upper network is invariable, it remains the same; it only descends and approaches us increasingly more. If we do not change in accordance to it, we will start feeling increasingly worse year to year and even day by day!

Our only task is to change ourselves. Humanity here, below, has to also become global and integral. It is possible only by education of a new human.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/2011, “The Freedom”

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“Do His Will As Your Own”

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have to evoke a lack of fulfillment in the upper Partzuf. Only then, on our desire, will it perform a Zivug (union) with its upper ones up to the world of Infinity and will bring the Light that will beget, correct, and fulfill us. If you cannot awaken the upper one and stir up the desire in it, you will not merit any change.

We study in the wisdom of Kabbalah how to ask the upper Partzuf. Therefore, you may scream, jump, do whatever you please, it won’t help. “My sons defeated Me” means that “the sons” force the Creator to reform them.

What else can you do if everything descends from Above due to the prior awakening below? You don’t know what the upper Partzuf is doing, nor does it interest you what actions it performs. What you are interested in is how you can make it work.

In other words, you must understand how to ask correctly. This means that in any case, you have to know what the upper one is going to do with you, or you will be asking it not what it desires to do. He wants to give you a glass of milk, but you want to ask for a glass of juice. In this case, he can’t hear and doesn’t understand you. He knows that at the moment, you need a glass of milk, exactly that, and in a specific amount.

“Do His will and your own” means that this is what you must learn, and to achieve this, you need faith above reason. You must study all the disturbances that the upper one instills in you, all the “bad” states, all the so-called declines that it uses to provoke you. If you analyze correctly and rise above them by way of faith above reason, you will be certain to know what the upper one wants from you, ask exactly that, and receive it.

All that I feel right now, if I pay attention to it, is what the upper one wants me to ask from it. The upper one wants me to turn to it, but it doesn’t instill this desire in me directly since it wishes me to attain it so I may become as the upper one is, so I may become wise.

How do we teach children? We offer them problematic situations, but do not provide solutions. We gradually guide them to develop an ability to think, understand, discover, and want to find a solution on their own. This is the same as the upper one does with us. Every moment of our life is a mere hint, a sign that it is giving us so that we will know what to ask for, what is worth asking for, and in what form we should do it.

It’s all about creating our MAN (Mayin Nukvin), a plea, a prayer. If we pay attention to it, then we have an open book before us. Next time, I will turn to the upper one with a correct request. What happens after that, I don’t know.

Kabbalists tell us about it so as to bring us closer to our roots. We study Atik, Arich Anpin, the world of Infinity, and so on. Why do I need to know all this?

Let’s say, the only thing that interests me is my connection with my mother, but what happens beyond that, supermarkets or factories that produce things, none of it matters to me at all. I only yell, “Mom, give me candy!” However, in the future, you must become an adult. You must understand things and take part in them in some way.

Therefore, we are so eager to fill little children with all types of knowledge so that they may know and understand as much as possible. In order for a child to not just ask, but also understand why and what for, you explain to him or her that this is okay, but that it is not okay at the moment because he or she shouldn’t be eating sweets before dinner. You explain to a child much more than what he or she is asking for, and that is a relationship we share with the upper one.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/6/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 02.23.11

Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Is Israel Who Do the Desire of the Creator in the Work,” Lesson 2
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Tenth Commandment,” Item 242, Lesson 3, “The Eleventh Commandment,” Item 244, Lesson 1
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 91, Lesson 51
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Lesson 7
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