Special Lecture in Toronto – 04.05.11

Kabbalah Is Embracing the World
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Ascending To New Heights

Dr. Michael LaitmanDear friends!

We are all well-aware of the post-convention syndrome of general descent. Of course, we will not escape it this time as well, but only if we weaken the unification we have reached during the convention!

During the lessons, don’t hesitate to ask me questions about the prevention of the descent: We must turn the descents into a subsequent ascent! For the time being, I recommend that you study the convention lessons again and again.

I embrace you all,
Dr. Michael Laitman
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The Creator: The Witness Of Our Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I understand that I love my friend?

Answer: It happens when I cease to see his body completely and sense that our feelings (hearts) and minds are united together. At first we only imagine such connection to ourselves, but then it actually occurs beyond the bodies. In this connection we start to feel the Creator’s presence.

A state when you are capable of uniting with the friend in mind and heart and the Creator dwells between you is called love of the friend. One condition cannot be met without the others: All three parameters have to be joined together. The Creator becomes revealed between us as the witness of us being truly connected with each other.
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From Lesson 2, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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Teaching Children The Perception Of Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I told my three year old son that everything that surrounds us exists within man. He asked me: “Does it exist inside my body?” And I didn’t know what to answer him. How can we explain it to a child?

Answer: It is forbidden to talk about these things with small children. We can discuss the correct perception of reality with nine year old children, by giving them the information in small portions since their internal and external perception of reality contradict each other.

This may induce a conflict in the child since his brain is not sufficiently developed yet and can’t perceive two parts as being both opposite to and connected with each other. All other things can be discussed at younger age.

It’s advisable to consult with us on such matters. We have collected a great deal of children education material; a big department is working on it; twice a week I hold talks on education, which provide answers to such questions.
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From Lesson 2, WE! Convention 4/2/2011

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What Is My Life Mission?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I would like to thank you for devoting your life to this science.

Answer: This was not my choice. Just like you, I came to Kabbalah because I felt dissatisfied with life and searched for the most important thing in life.

At first I had hoped to receive answers to my questions in science, and only after numerous disappointments and lengthy searches did I come to Kabbalah. And I have only the Creator to thank for all of that.

However, He has made me in such a way that I won’t feel that I have realized myself until people reach His revelation through me.
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From the 2nd lesson at the WE! Convention, 4/1/11

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Everything Depends On The Right Focus

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe do not realize that our entire worldview passes through the prism of human society. The difference between the animate level and our, human level lies precisely in the fact that we build an environment.

We used to live in herds, just like animals. But then we started organizing special relationships among us, arranging people according to a hierarchy, and distributing functions. Our development thereby took on a social character even though it still unfolded egoistically, naturally, instinctively, by nature’s command. Yet we were becoming human.

We cannot even imagine what it would be like to live completely alone, without any memories of human society. In this situation a person would live by himself, on the level of an animal.

From this it is clear that we do not perceive reality the way it is, but through the environment. Society has raised me, endowed me with habits and models dictating how to look at what is happening, how to evaluate things, and how to accept everything that I see. My mind and feelings are programmed according to the value system that society has conditioned me to have over the course of the first 20 years of my life. I do not see the world the way it is, but the picture imposed on me by society.

Likewise, in the spiritual society we have to give a person our view of the world, funneled through the prism of love, the aspiration to bestow to others instead of personal benefit. Bestowal has to acquire the greatest importance in every person’s eyes.

At the same time a person’s worldview will still be built on the program “installed” in him by society. This is natural because it is the only way he can look at the world. A person by himself is just “an observation point,” whereas the analysis and understanding come from the norms of society, which tells him: This is important and this is not, this means one thing and that means something different. It’s as if we build a matrix in front of a person through which he sees the upper Light. Otherwise it would be impossible to see it.

On the other hand, right now we observe the upper Light through the matrix of human society. This is our world.

Thus, we have to become maximally included in the group, using the materials of Baal HaSulam and Rabash. That is how we build a new vision of the world inside of us. This is seen very clearly when looking at beginners. They come to the lesson or lecture as if they were coming from another world, but gradually they adopt a slightly different direction, a different perspective, and different values. Gradually we come closer to them and they change their point of view, the “polarization” of their picture of perception. In the same world, a different form of being comes through before them.

Then the lecture ends, the connection with me becomes severed, and everything disappears. Next time they return defocused again, with a distorted “resolution.” At every lecture it takes time to focus them anew, to bring the details that diffuse in their eyes back into one.

I am unable to do this all of the time. You have to focus on your own by uniting so that every mutual action will constantly keep you in the spiritual focus. It has to become focused a bit more and then a bit more, as if you are adjusting the resolution on binoculars by turning two lenses so they would come together on the spiritual goal. When you achieve this, you will immediately reveal the spiritual world.

Everything is determined by the love between friends. This is the “focus” that enables us to see the Creator. The friends bring together my feelings and mind in one direction, toward love for the neighbor, and then demand that I look only at them and that I think only about how to help them. I constantly concentrate on this and by means of the group I focus my attention into the thinnest line. That is how I reveal the Creator.
From the 5th lesson at the WE! Convention 4/1/11, Purpose of the Group

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And Then You Will Steal No More

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it said that the Surrounding Light becomes a vessel (Kli) for receiving the upper Light? Isn’t this only a condition for working with the desire to receive pleasure?

Answer: It is not exactly so. In reality, the desire to receive pleasure has never absorbed the upper Light even before the restriction since it is not intended for receiving the Light. That is, it received the Light not because it aspired to do so, but because the Creator arranged it this way. Therefore, this was not called receiving.

The desire to receive pleasure will never be able to be filled with the Light because it is opposite to the Light. The law of equivalence of form has to be observed. Therefore, the only Kli for receiving the Light is the Reflected Light (Ohr Hozer), bestowal.

We exist because a tiny illumination penetrates our egoism despite the prohibition introduced by Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction). This illumination vitalizes our entire world. However, it is not called receiving since the Light momentarily disappears—this is stealing.

Even if I truly wanted to bestow to the Creator in response, my desire would still be too small. The Reflected Light expands it, increases it 620 times, and gives me the opportunity to receive through bestowal.

My desire is unable to reveal the greatness of the Creator without the screen and the Reflected Light; it is very small. Meanwhile, the Creator is Infinity. Therefore, by revealing His importance and greatness I become included in His Kli (desire) and thereby obtain an infinite ability to bestow. After all, I want to fill Him!
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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What Makes A Kabbalist Suffer

Dr. Michael LaitmanA Kabbalist suffers when he sees that the world lags behind in advancement toward unity, the revelation of the Creator, and perfect life. We are capable of doing it, we have all the conditions for it, but we ignore this opportunity and do not fulfill it. Thus, we cause various problems upon ourselves and bring suffering to the Creator.

A Kabbalist is the one who suffers the most exactly because he has reached the revelation of the Creator. After all, in relation to the world he is like a mother in relation to her children. The entire world is his Kelim, parts of his soul. While they are uncorrected, a Kabbalist suffers for them more than they suffer themselves.

Every person feels his personal egoism and suffers because his Kli (vessel, desire) is empty. However, a Kabbalist includes everyone. He wants to treat everyone with love and fill everyone with absolute goodness. However, people do not want it; they do not agree to unite and annul their egoism even a little, in order to create one big desire (Kli) which can be filled with the Light of Infinity.

A Kabbalist cannot correct the world; he can only suffer for it and wait until people will express some minimal readiness to advance. Certainly, most of all he feels for his students since their suffering is directed toward the goal. He cannot advance them artificially since it will harm them and hinder their development. Therefore, he talks with them at the level corresponding to theirs.

We study the authentic sources, and our connection with them determines how much we can receive from them. This is exactly what I reveal and not what I understand in my desire. I work with the collective need which arises in order to be revealed to everyone.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners 12/13/2010, “Who Is a Kabbalist”

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A Beggar’s Box For The Upper Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, “Explanation of the Article, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: Baal HaSulam once said an allegory about it: Two people who were childhood friends separated as adults. One of them became a king, and the other, indigent. After many years, the poor one heard that his friend became a king and decided to go to his friend’s country and ask for help. He packed his few belongings and went.

When they met, he told the king that he was destitute, and this touched the king’s heart. The king said to his friend: “I will give you a letter to my treasurer to allow you into the treasury for two hours. In those two hours, whatever you manage to collect is yours.” The poor man went to the treasurer, armed with his letter, and received the longed for permit. He walked into the treasury with the box he was used to using for his beggary, and within five minutes, he filled his box to the rim and merrily stepped out of the treasury.

But the treasurer took his box from him and spilled its entire contents. Then the treasurer told the sobbing indigent, “Take your box and fill it up again.” The poor man walked into the treasury once more and filled his box. But when he stepped outside, the treasurer spilled its contents as before.

This cycle repeated itself, until the two hours were through. The last time the beggar came out, he told the treasurer: “I beg you, leave me what I have collected. My time is through and I can no longer enter the treasury.” Then the treasurer told him: “The contents of this box is yours, and so is everything that I have spilled out of your box for the past two hours. I have been spilling your money every time because I wanted to benefit you, since each time, you were coming with your tiny box full and you had no room for anything more.”

We are unable to receive the entire Light of Infinity at once. Therefore, all our work on receiving the Light is divided into many phases and states.

In addition, all our past states from the previous life cycles accumulate and gather into one common state where all desires (Kelim) and all the Lights unite together until we come to the state of final correction (Gmar Tikkun). In this state everything merges into one, and Malchut of Infinity filled with eternal Light becomes revealed again.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/2011, “Explanation to the Article, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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