The Protection From All Troubles

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we keep the right intention in our regular day to day lives? And how should a person react to the troubles that befall him?

Answer: It is written that a person has to make all the possible efforts to reveal his connection with the Creator and with the world, no matter what happens. “If I don’t do it for myself, then who will do it for me?”

He still doesn’t understand the causes, but in the end he must perceive everything taking place as necessary and as the best possible thing for his spiritual advancement. He has to ask his group and the whole world group to think about each other so not one of us would lose the connection with the upper force in his thoughts, with “There is no one else beside Him.”

As soon as we unite in the connection between us and together with the Creator, then nothing bad can happen to any of us. That’s because we enter the process called “carrying out a commandment” and a person who carries out a commandment cannot be harmed.

If a person makes a correction, then no one can harm him. Even if he gets into a descent, it will be a descent for the purpose of ascent and correction. It will be a descent without which an ascent is impossible!
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From the 1st lesson at the Dead Sea Convention on 2/24/11

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He Whose Heart Is Broken

Dr. Michael LaitmanWritings of Rabash, Why does it say that “The Creator heals broken hearts”? It is because the most important thing for a person is the heart because it is the vessel for the Upper Light. But if the vessel is broken, then everything filling it spills to the outside.

Therefore, if the heart is broken, meaning, if the egoistic desire rules over the heart, then the Light cannot enter it. Everything a person receives egoistically goes to the impure forces (Klipot). This is called “a broken heart.”

Therefore, a person asks the Creator to help and cure his broken heart because nothing spiritual can enter it and only the Creator can save him. That is why it is written, “The Creator is close to those whose heart is broken.”

The Creator created creation perfect. But then, in order to give creation the ability to understand, feel, reveal, and value this perfect state, He had to take it through states that are opposite to perfection in every form. Then creation will prepare, acquiring the force, sensations, and ability to reveal the perfection that was created in it.

States that are opposite to perfection are called “breaking.” They exist only in relation to creation, inside its sensation and understanding. That is to say, a person reveals that his heart is broken—that all of his desires are broken and that he is ruled by egoism. And just like in a broken vessel, all of the fulfillment he is given spills to the outside and goes to the egoistic desires.

A person feels that he passionately desires bestowal, but is unable to do it because his entire heart is broken. He suddenly reveals that all of his thoughts and desires, his entire aspiration to bestowal is actually aimed at the total opposite: at egoistic reception.

That is to say, he is torn apart in two directions. The first is his passionate desire to the Creator, which seems to come from the bottom of his heart. But he reveals that in actuality, from the bottom of his heart he wants the opposite.

Then, as a result of these two opposite directions that become revealed inside him, a person feels that his heart is broken. That is why he asks the Creator to cure his heart so his intentions would be aimed at the Creator, at bestowal, at the neighbor—only in one direction, without returning back to himself.

Then it is considered a true prayer that is accepted from above, as it is written, “The Creator is close to those whose heart is broken.”

This discernment is the only thing we need.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/11 on Prayer

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The Path Through The Broken Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanWith all our might we are trying to make at least some kind of practical action of bestowal, to see our environment as bestowing and perfect. We desire to lower ourselves before the environment and to see the friends as the greatest people of the generation so that through them we would receive the opportunity to come to the Creator. But the more we try to do this, the more we reveal that we only want this egoistically, in order to profit at everyone’s expense and to use everyone for our own sake.

These opportunities are constantly revealed to a person and he sees that he immediately recognizes them and wants to use society for his own interests. These are the best moments—revelations of truth. And if a person is willing to endure them and to advance without milling around in them, but continuing to move in the direction of bestowal to the environment, then he will reveal his desire more and more.

He will see that no matter how much he tries to act for the sake of bestowal, to bestow to the environment and to reveal the Creator through others in order to bestow to Him—in response to all the attempts he continuously reveals thoughts of the “broken egoism” and opposite intentions, meaning symptoms of the broken heart.

Only to the degree that a person aspires to bestowal and holiness does he reveal the expressions of the impure force that rules over him. And there is nothing you can do about it because we need this revelation. If egoism is revealed to a person so strongly that he comes to hate it and doesn’t want to remain in it, this is a prayer.

After that it is not necessary to ask for anything any longer. If one does, they will be artificial requests. A prayer is the sensation that is in the heart. If a person feels how much he suffers from his egoistic inclinations, which prevent him from using the means that should have brought him to bestowal to the Creator, then this is already enough. Through that he already becomes closer to the Creator. Everything turns out to be the other way around! He is closest to the Creator precisely when he reveals how broken and opposite to the Creator his heart is.

It follows that we should understand that our work is opposite to the work of a religious person who feels perfect, inspired, and exalted. In Kabbalah everything is opposite: the path to the Creator lies through the broken heart, which is precisely the time we discover how opposite we are to Him. And precisely from this profound descent, calling out to the Creator, we reveal that we have a point of contact with Him.

Therefore, joy and despair come simultaneously, supporting each other and uniting together. That is when the Creator becomes revealed as a result of the unification of these two opposites into one.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/11

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Blessed Are You Who Created The Worlds….

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Introduction, “The Intention in the Blessing,” Item 16: …For this reason, the blessing that a person blesses the Creator awakens to bestow upon the Creator blessings from above to all the worlds.

Question: What is a blessing?

Answer: A blessing is a special force from above, the force of Bina that influences Malchut. The Creator is called Blessed if I turn to Him from Malchut with the request for the forces of bestowal to come to me, to enter me, and become part of me.

When I include these forces inside of me, it means I receive a blessing, the qualities of Bina that become included in Malchut. According to these qualities, which I received from the Creator, I can call Him Blessed. Otherwise I do not have the same qualities for which I can value and thank Him.

Why do I want to receive these qualities from Bina? It’s so that I won’t curse the Creator, but will bless Him. That is to say, all of the corrections that I try to acquire are not for my own benefit, but only in order to love, to respect, and to bless the Creator.

Therefore, the words “Blessed are You” in the blessings of prayer mean that I have already gone through the corrections enabling me to work for the sake of bestowal, that I have received blessing from Him, and am now in the quality of bestowal and love. And I bless the Creator for this opportunity.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/11, The Zohar

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Convention = Acceleration

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we unite at the upcoming convention in New Jersey so we will accelerate time?

Answer: The convention is the maximum acceleration possible in our world. There is no action that’s more powerful. That is how I experience it myself.

I saw the same thing with Rabash during the simplest actions made by the group to unite. Even if we didn’t travel somewhere together and did not connect other people from the whole world to us, it was still very important to him.

After every convention I feel how we ascend a level higher and I gain the ability to explain the material in new ways. I think everyone feels this.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/11 on Time

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The Unique Force Of Kabbalah Conventions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do Kabbalah conventions serve as a final result of our practical work? What can you say about the upcoming convention in North America?

Answer: My attitude to such gatherings is very positive, and I think they provide an opportunity for great advancement. I see that with every convention, I get better and better at giving simpler explanations which are easier for people to digest. They start to understand me better, and we become closer to one another.

Every such meeting is a leap up. One visit to a Kabbalah convention is worth a month of daily studies. It gives a person internal and external impressions and many positive results. Once a year, we organize a congress in North America, so try not to let this opportunity pass by.

If you do have the opportunity, but it appears to you like there isn’t enough time or finances, this is an obstacle that was placed intentionally before you. You should honestly examine yourself, being aware that you stand before a profound decision. A person who has such an opportunity once a year and doesn’t come will lose a great deal since he loses the bond with this path.

Surely, there may be objective reasons which prevent a person from coming, such as being incarcerated in prison. However, if one is able to, but it is difficult for him, that is not an excuse. It is a test from Above, and he should leap over the obstacle placed in his way.

Many groups and individuals will gather. It is a very different kind of power, and we connect to the whole world from there. I will do my best to pass an internal charge to the people who will be so close in front of me at that moment. People keep feeling it later, after the event, unlike those who could come and did not.

It probably doesn’t matter that much how one studies day by day, whether in the virtual group or a physical one. It depends on a person and the relationships in the group. However, neither a physical nor virtual group can replace a collective gathering such as a convention where hundreds or thousands of people get together and unify.

There are those who left a group for different reasons, but a convention is something else, and everyone should go there without making any calculations regarding attitudes within the group or what have you. He just comes in order to unify with the world Kli (vessel) and ascend the new spiritual rung thereby.

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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/2011, Writings of Rabash

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World Without Hollywood: Fiction Or Reality?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Will the tendency to move toward internal values cause the disappearance of occupations involved in film production, fashion, and so on?

Answer: In any case, our world stands at the threshold of great transformations in regard to all the previously existing values. It will manifest in abandoning the external preferences that used to be meaningful to people until now. Even today, we have witnessed quite a noticeable popularity of casualness in everyday dress codes, and it is for a good reason.

I often participate in global congresses and conferences, and every year I notice a growing tendency for a negligent attitude toward external values. There are fewer restrictions, and the participants are given much more freedom in the form they wish to use for their presentations. People have grown impatient of various ceremonies and everything that would push them into a certain square.

This is a common trend which confirms people’s gravitation toward internal values. They need to know the essence of things, not their external expression. This is how our ego advances us. I am certain that many professions related to fashion and design will eventually vanish.

People’s attitude toward external attributes only emphasizes the growth of their interest in internal values and demonstrates that nothing external attracts them any longer. Hence, we dress and act the way we do, and as for me, I am happy to see this status quo in the world.
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From the
Introductory Lecture Series 2/22/2011, “Preference for the Internal Over the External”

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Woman Is Where Changes Take Place

Dr. Michael LaitmanTo influence the men in a wholesome and powerful way, the women must also unite, but they should unite with an understanding of the principles of our work and what exactly to demand from the men. To do so, they must know what the Light is that the men need to draw and what it has to beget.

A woman in spirituality is a force even greater than a man. A man is just a force, a screen, whereas a woman is the place where all kinds of changes occur. She begets a new rung and nourishes it. Conception, nurturing, and maturing to adulthood, all of it lies within the female’s part of the collective or individual soul.

As regards a man, he only delivers the Light. It is said that he “provides the whitening,” and that completes his role, as it were. After that, he resides within a mother and through her, supplies the forces to develop the souls.

As regards the offspring, everything comes from the mother, the female part. All spiritual growth goes through a woman, and it is the female part that begets souls. The same is mentioned in the Torah. For example, “Abraham” and “Sarah” are two parts of the soul who beget a new soul, and their more advanced state is regarded as “Isaac.” Who gives birth to him? Obviously, it is Sarah.

We must function as nature dictates. Having aligned ourselves with the material nature, we will move on from it to the spiritual one, thanks to which we will accomplish what we set out to do without harming ourselves.

Vice versa, the more harm we inflict by indulging our egoism, the more we will scream about the “equality” that in reality ruins families and society, and the fewer our chances will become. Some politicians may benefit from it, but it won’t be us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/11 on Women

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Only Heroes Will Enter The King’s Palace

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 133: And only the heroes among them, whose patience endured, defeated the guards and opened the gate. And they were instantly awarded seeing the King’s face….

Question: What is the degree of “patience endured?”

Answer: A person arrives at the wisdom of Kabbalah “dying” to attain everything and all at once, but when he or she doesn’t succeed, they start getting angry at themselves, the Creator, and the whole world. This is how a person’s healthy, strong egoistic desire expresses itself when it realizes that it doesn’t have any chance to be fulfilled because it’s totally opposite to the source of fulfillment.

The degree of patience is formed in a person when he begins to understand what the spiritual path entails and comprehends the necessity of each stage. As if with a pair of tweezers, grain by grain, he collects his accumulated impressions, fully aware that without them, he cannot assemble the “building blocks” of his soul. After all, a person’s soul contains thousands of various details within it, each of which must be refined, and that is why it is impossible to leap over a certain stage.

Baal HaSulam writes that it is only the one who walks a long path to corrections that wins the most due to the fact that he or she undergoes deeper discernments. In fact, our soul is not just a two-dimensional puzzle, but rather a complex structure that expands in depth in every direction because each soul must contain all souls within it.

It is a multidimensional spiritual space where a person with his body is connected with absolutely every soul as if besides himself, there is no one else. Therefore, a person has to perform very big discernments.

So, the measure of patience doesn’t imply the degree of your self-composure or, conversely, impatience. The Creator is an immutable law of nature, and there is nothing you can do. For example, in truth, you can yell at a machine all you want when you can’t make it work, but it won’t help whatsoever.

The degree of patience is when a person strives to obtain the correct approach to his spiritual advancement with the help of his environment. In other words, until we all unify, our Kli (vessel) will not be complete, and we will not be able to enter the Creator’s chambers. We must reach a certain minimal degree, a so-called Seah (amount of efforts). This requires patience.

You must constantly turn to the group and ask it for support and learn patience from the others. However, it is only regarded as patience when, in fact, it is mutual engagement with the others.

Patience is when I know that I will not obtain spirituality before the others. I have to work together with them, advance them, and then, in the last turn, I will enter the spiritual world.
It is precisely the awareness of my being the last one which defines the degree of my patience. It is a very important property that derives from the fact that there is nothing but a single Kli (vessel) and the Light, while I only stimulate them toward unification.

That is, when everyone strives to reach the summit of a mountain and step into the King’s palace, I don’t run ahead of them all, but push them from behind. I am the last in line. If I am willing to do that, it means that I have the endurance of patience. If I assist everyone, then after they become transformed, I, too, will be reformed.

No one can come to correction before his or her environment. It is regarded as: A person is unable to raise himself above his circle since it is a wholesome system where all its parts interact with each other.

How, then, will there be one part that is corrected within it while another is not? Therefore, the more a person strives to elevate his environment, the more exalted he or she becomes. Only this kind of approach leads to success.

Also, the degree of one’s patience is measured by his or her ability to turn suffering from having to compose oneself into bestowal and pleasure. In that case, that measure of patience that “endured” this work turns into a great Kli (desire).

After all, all impatience is an authentic expression of ego that is “burning” with desire to be fulfilled and hates everything that holds it from getting such fulfillment. The degree of a person’s patience tames this ego, reforms it, and becomes the criterion of the spiritual advancement of man.

Ultimately, the measure of patience is the very same uncorrected Kelim that separate me from the Creator since it is in them where I feel the impatience.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/2011, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Human Within Demands

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur method of raising children is not to tame and terrorize them into developing habits; only the few habits necessary for daily life should be instilled. The key in upbringing is to give the young the instruments they can use to understand the place and significance of every phenomenon in their life and to develop a clear system of values: First, there is the importance of the group, above it there is the importance of the Creator, and below it everything that leads to this. The rest doesn’t have any connection to free will and should be utilized as dictated by a simple decision of how essential it is to life.

Thus, a child’s surroundings should be divided into two parts: 1) living necessities, and 2) everything that relates to spirituality, the importance of which we wish to increase by way of our free will with the help of the group, unity, and studies. This system is the priority for him or her. A child must constantly be in it in order to find themselves as the most important thing in the world which must be realized.

Therefore, we cannot outline for the children the norms of behavior for their entire life since this method doesn’t work any longer for the new generation. They need to receive the tools that will remain with them for life. They will act by employing these devices, deciding “pro” or “con” each step of the way, every moment in their lives.

Hence, we are passing along the method, but habits should be cultivated in the group. The more time a child spends in the group, the better he or she understands its influence on him or her, senses its response, engages in it, and evolves.

There a youngster finds connection, strength, support, and the field for work. There a child advances, and if he or she fails at some point, then they employ study and prayer. Having gained the forces to rise, they fall yet again, and this process can occur only in the group. With the rest of the world, a child may interact as necessary.

These principles should be assimilated within children as much as possible while we raise them. Part of it will enter them as habitual behavior which depends on each child’s personality and the peculiarities of their souls, while the rest will be acquired during work in the group. However, in order for it to stay with them, children must know how to live, starting with the first years of their lives.

After all, it is the “human” part in the new generation that has to undergo transformation, not the animate one. Previously, all of us were as animals, and that is why there weren’t any specific changes.

Children used to receive education that was sufficient for life. The failure in upbringing can be explained by the fact that in the new generation, a “human” part of our desire is developing and changing constantly. Hence, nobody understands what is happening with the children and what it is that they want.

They don’t understand it either. The human part that is developing in the young generation requires a method of correction. If we give this method to this part of man and provide his animate part with habitual behavior acquired in childhood that will become his second nature, thereby, we will give him everything that’s needed.

He will govern both parts on his own. For the animate part, he will have a set of habits, and he will have the method to work with the human part.
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From the Talk on Education 2/18/2011

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