Forgetting The Past – Laitman Unplugged
Posted on March 11th, 2011
Question: In the modern chauvinistic society men are typically judged by how wealthy or smart they are, and women are judged by beauty. Which criteria will the society apply when it develops?
Answer: If society will begin to value the spiritual goal, whether it’s out of hopelessness from being in a bad state or due to a timely realization of evil while in a good state, we will see ourselves and others as friends and partners on the path to the goal.
Now I judge every person, object, and state based on how much it can benefit my egoistic existence. Similarly in the future, I will judge everything in our world from the still to the human levels based on how it effects my advancement toward the goal.
If a beauty queen happens to be the most helpful in achieving the goal, I’ll marry her. But if a sales girl from the market happens to be the most helpful, I’ll marry her instead. Everything is determined by the goal.
We have an example of how the Jewish nation conducted itself before the destruction of the Temple, and in the orthodox forms almost until today. Wealth was never an object of respect. A young man was always judged by his knowledge. The one who knew more pages of the Torah by heart was better, and there where no other criteria for judging a person throughout all of history. Girls were judged based on the families they came from and their upbringing.
When it came to choosing a partner, parents made the decisions, not hormones after a chance meeting at a party. Why so? This is in accordance with the spiritual law. From Atik, there comes the Light that prompts Malchut of the world of Atzilut to unite with Zeir Anpin. In other words, the decision comes from above.
It is said that the Creator brings a couple together. And in our world, it’s the parents of the young couple that decide what’s best for them.
It has always been done in this fashion in order to neutralize the influence of external beauty. As Rabash used to say, two people should meet, talk, and make sure that they don’t disgust each other. If they don’t repel one another, this is all that’s needed. Everything else is built on mutual compromises. Then, there will surely be love between them.
Actually, the tradition of parents doing the matchmaking is common among all nations. The young were not asked, the parents used to bring them together.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011 on Women
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The task of the created being is to move toward new, unexpected, and unknown states by arranging for itself all the necessary conditions to attract the upper force which can transform it. Hence, these actions are regarded as the “miraculous remedy” (Segula).
The acts that the created being must carry out are clearly defined: It has to rouse its own desire, cultivate it, enter the group, and “purchase the friends for himself” by starting to bestow to and lower himself before the group. One needs to get inspired by their exalting the spiritual goal, “make a teacher for himself” to learn from him with the friends, and unify into one integral desire, one vessel (“Kli”), in order to correct the breaking.
The breaking is the place within which we reveal our correction: our reformed state and the upper Light that fills our restored collective vessel. That is, we are dealing with the actions that can be accurately described and practically applied while still remaining in one’s egoistic nature, in a still uncorrected state. This stage exists at each step of the ascent, even at the spiritual degrees.
As to the acts of the upper one, it’s the upper Light (the Light of AB-SAG or the Surrounding Light) which expands to us in the manner we can’t comprehend and affects us without our feeling or being aware of it. We only feel the effects of its work.
This is why there is a gap between the creature’s actions and the Creator’s work in response to the former if they are arranged correctly. That is, there is no cause-and-effect chain on the part of the created being, and we neither understand how the breakthrough occurs nor can foretell it. Hence, this entire work is regarded as the “miraculous remedy.”
But it is all due to the fact that the created being is preparing to receive a new nature that it presently lacks. And hence, we cannot see or feel the forthcoming transformations. That is why this is described as a miracle. However, when a person receives these inner transformations from Above, the entire chain of events he went through becomes clear to him, and now he says about the past: “I labored and I found!”
A find is exactly what Segula, a miraculous force, implicates. We must constantly strive to do whatever we can, as it is written: “Do all that you are able to do” and you will find! This is precisely what determines the gap between my present and future states. I am completely in charge of my current state: I am aware of it, understand it, and organize everything in it: “I do everything I can.” But then I “find” a completely new state that comes as a miracle. After all, I receive a totally new nature that I didn’t expect or predict in advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011 on The Importance of the Study
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Question: How can it be that a person has been studying for years but still hasn’t attained the prayer, the plea for correction?
Answer: We see that the development of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature as well as man took place over billions of years all told. They say that the universe emerged about 15 billion years ago. The earth has existed for about 5 billion years. The first people on earth appeared about 200,000 years ago. And man began his spiritual correction starting with Adam HaRishon, 5770 years ago.
It’s not an accident that these processes span over time. There is a specific order here of the revelation of the breaking and its correction. And looking at this development, we have to understand that it demands a great amount of actions to be made inside of the common Malchut so that inside of it some kind of tangible, significant change would occur.
Therefore, even though we yearn to attain the goal as fast as possible and desire to reveal it now, at this very moment, and to immediately reveal it in all its perfection, nevertheless we have to be very patient. And despite anything, we have to expect the arrival of the Messiah any moment now, meaning the arrival of the general force that will correct us and complete all of the correction.
But the days go by, and every new day that comes, corrections happen inside of us. Day and night unite together and that is how we advance. That is to say, we have to understand that Malchut of the world of Infinity, which we reveal, contains such a multitude of actions that their revelation has to happen gradually, one step after the other.
We are unable to understand and feel all at once the entire depth of the vessel or desire that reveals the Creator. Think of the kind of revelation we are getting ready for—it is the revelation of the Creator! This is a non-human force and might with a great number of shades. This is so grandiose that we don’t even understand what we are talking about. That is why the preparation to this revelation happens inside of us by such small steps.
When these steps will be revealed to us later on, we will see how many of them were there! We think that moment by moment, day by day, or even month by month, there are no changes happening. But later these changes will be revealed in us and we will understand what they really did to us, and generally, what happened over that time!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/11 on Prayer
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After all of his searches, a person reaches a state where he asks for just one thing: the ability to make the right decision. And that means he has reached the right prayer.
The most important thing that we will discover by studying the unification of the forces of reception and bestowal is how the Creator makes decisions while being above them, what He bases His decisions on. We will attain Him by His actions. But by researching everything that happens inside of us under His influence, through this we want to attain His mind, His plan, intentions, and thoughts. This is our entire work.
And to do this all that is necessary is prayer. With our own forces we cannot attain His mind and head, the place where decisions are made and from which all actions come. That is because we are also His actions.
And since a spiritual action is always done “for the sake of bestowal,” we cannot understand how the upper mind could have made that decision. This always happens as a “finding” or miracle, as it is written: “I labored and found”! It is impossible to understand the Creator’s mind directly by observing the combination of two forces: reception and bestowal. This is where the difference lies between the Creator Himself, His decision, and all the actions that follow from His decision.
Therefore, a person who reaches prayer asks for the ability to understand precisely this: the plan and thought of the Creator, who makes the decisions. Similarly, Moses was told, “You will see me from behind, but you will not see My face.” This prayer emerges continuously.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/11 on Prayer
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In the process of reincarnation, the only thing that changes is the external form, our attitude or “clothing,” but not the inner, fundamental state. It is impossible to talk about that state at all in terms of loss of life, death.
The Light that expands in the spiritual Partzuf is called the Light of life. When it leaves the Partzuf, death comes. However, in spirituality things never go through life and death as we understand them because a person is always above his fulfillment. He is on the level of the screen and Reflected Light, in the state of Hafetz Hesed because he has acquired the level of bestowal.
If the Light comes, then it’s good because a person can receive it for the sake of bestowal and this gives him more life. And if the Light of life leaves and the Light of Hassadim remains, it is also life, but a small degree of it, until reaching the tiniest illumination that provides the bare minimum, a dreaming state. However, one way or another a person is always connected with the force of life.
Therefore, the science of Kabbalah does not attribute any significance to the bodily sensations that comprise our life and death. In Kabbalah these are completely different notions which are nothing like what we understand them to be.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/11 on Life and Death
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