Understanding Anti-Semitism – Laitman Unplugged
Posted on May 3rd, 2011
Question: Are we supposed to start our correction with the animate degree, meaning to reduce our consumption to only the level of necessity?
Answer: No, we shouldn’t. The issue is not about merely reducing the exploitation of nature. Besides, we really don’t know how to limit ourselves.
It must occur naturally, on its own. If my head is “in the clouds,” in spiritual aspiration, I instinctively consume only as much as I need to sustain myself. It is absolutely not necessary to issue a minimal ration card and an inflatable mattress to everybody. This isn’t what we are talking about.
We work in a reciprocal manner on the interconnection between us in order to build an integral system similar to nature on all of its levels. The speaking level is given to us so that we will arrange this system ourselves. And if we are building it, we will surely have the right attitude toward all natural wealth, using our resources as this exalted necessity dictates.
Austerity, “the green movement,” or a vegetarian life style, none of this will ever bring success. On the contrary, we must think solely about our internal structure, the correct connection between us at the human degree, and then all the rest of our relationships with the still, vegetative, and animate levels will come into balance.
[41895]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, “Peace in the World”
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The Creator reaches us every time we give Him a chance. This is the secret to success. If we give the Creator such opportunities, we will be waking up quickly, at a higher frequency, and be able to come to a greater desire sooner, to a certain degree of longing and yearning regarded as “world, year, soul” (Olam, Shanah, Nefesh). That is, we will reach adhesion with the Light “in the same place, at the same time, with the same woman,” as the unification of man and the Creator is described.
After all, to reach adhesion (Zivug), we have to meet several conditions. First of all, we need the correct desire, meaning not some corporeal desire, but a need to come to similarity with the Creator, the first spiritual degree, the first connection with Him. To achieve this, I am supposed to provide the desire in the appropriate amount, quality, intensity, and form.
Besides that, I am not supposed to want anything else so that it would become my only desire, reward, and fulfillment. Nothing else is required, but desiring it. After all, the rest is the reward I am working for. All my passionate desire, longing, tension, and aspiration to keep the connection with the Creator, to hang on to this point despite all the difficulty, is, in fact, the reward.
If one comes to this state, rises above his egoistic desire, and wishes to pass all of his yearning to the Creator, to demonstrate one’s longing for Him, and doesn’t seek anything beyond this, he merits exalted adhesion.
Here, one can find help in the environment that will support, awaken, remind, and arrange all the necessary conditions for such adhesion for him; it will clarify them and raise their importance. After all, the Creator reaches a person every time the latter presents Him with such an opportunity. This is the point most important to us.
This means that the goal is to give the Creator more opportunities to wake us up by any means, no matter how. It may be that more often than not, it is through unpleasant sensations, but we are not scared by problems, fears, and longing since we don’t view them as bad states.
What is bad for us is only when we disconnect from the thought and relationship with the Creator, from longing and desire. All our other yearnings for Him we consider as desirable and important, regardless of whether we like or dislike experiencing them.
Before anything else, we value the truth rather than feeling good or bad, sweet or bitter. Thus, we gradually and correctly prepare ourselves for the first adhesion and finally come to it.
[41886]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 19
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Baal HaSulam’s Letter No. 19, p. 70: “Know thou the God of thy father and serve Him.” Know means recognition because a soul that does not know is not good. This means that if a person does not know his master, even though he has a soul and yearns and longs to serve Him, it is not good.
Even though one has a soul, he is not ready to know Him, “Until the spirit be poured upon him from on high.” However, one must lend an ear and listen to the words of the sages and believe in them wholeheartedly.
It has already been written: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” The Baal Shem Tov interprets: “The Lord is thy shade.” Like the shade that follows one’s movements, its inclinations lean every way the person does, so is man according to the Creator. It means that when love for the Creator awakens, one must see that the Creator has awakened toward him with intense longing, etc.
Even if the point in the heart emerges in a person, he doesn’t know how to wake up and cannot do it on his own, alone. He is awakened by the upper Light, the Creator, while a person, from all these pleasant and unpleasant awakenings, is supposed to understand and learn how the Creator deals with him. He must learn to speak the Creator’s language to communicate with Him.
We need to come to a desire, intensity, and longing, that corresponds with what is next, meaning the first spiritual degree that exists above us or the last step of the ladder that sprawls down to us, along which our soul had descended from the world of Infinity some time ago. That was the rung where we were still linked with the Creator, and therefore, today, we are supposed to achieve the same kind of determination, intensity,and desire that connected us with Him there.
We come to this kind of yearning by using the exercises that the Creator provides for us in the time regarded as “wheels” (Ofanim). He presents us with various opportunities to become connected to Him, and we don’t know why it should be in this specific form and this kind of situation. He suddenly reminds us that He exists, and we start to feel that we are missing Him.
At this point, it is necessary to understand who caused this awakening. Did I wake up on my own, or was it the Creator who woke me up? What am I supposed to do with it? Do I give thanks for my awakening or blame Him for not calling on me and for my having nothing at all? To the extent that a person is aware of this whole process and constantly strives to receive a desire for oneness, he will come to success.
[41891]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 19
Question: How will man look in his final stage of development?
Answer: As I see it, he will restrict himself in order to employ nature only as necessary and won’t feel the lack of anything, while all his yearnings will turn to the welfare of others. He will use only as much as is needed for correct corporeal existence, only to actualize his aspiration toward the well-being of others.
Meanwhile, the body will be receiving only what is good, vital, and most beneficial for it to be healthy. As to the yearning for others and contact with them, it will allow a person to reveal the integral system of total interdependence for himself. Thereby, he will attain the inner dimension of nature, its internal force, perfect and eternal.
[41902]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, “Peace in the World”
Question: As an example of development, we talk about the ripening of an apple that undergoes stages of bitterness before it turns into a delicious fruit. However, then the apple falls to the ground, rots, and provides seeds. So, we seem to be describing only the intermediate stages, aren’t we?
Answer: It’s not so. Having ripened, an apple’s next stage is its development in the next generation, at a new stage. That is specifically why it rots, expires, and gives its sprouts and seeds to the next states. This is all so that on the way, it could serve a more advanced degree, the animate or speaking one.
So do our bodies change from generation to generation, live and die; so that in this life, we could gradually extract from ourselves a certain measure, a certain sensation, our sensory, spiritual offspring for a higher degree of human. Despite our similarity to an apple which undergoes a cycle of life and death, the results remain in this life for the next step of development. At it, we specifically collect human seeds, feelings, and relationships until gradually, above the bodies, we come to the need to unify.
Thereby, we construct one more system of nature that didn’t previously exist: unity which connects not the bodies, but rather people’s consciousness. This is what we call the truly human society, rather than our external relationships that are worse than those of the animals. We will unify with each other in an authentic human society, build it above ourselves in the course of the lifetimes we go through.
When we form this structure, it will become the human degree. All nature at the still, vegetative, and animate levels, and in between, is linked into one mechanism where only human is absent.
Until we build among us the whole, wonderful system, we will be a nuisance in nature. When our unity is built, we will find ourselves in harmony with all levels of nature and ourselves. Then, we will feel how perfect and beautiful all of nature is.
This is what we must come to. It is the final stage of our evolution. From generation to generation, we undergo the disintegration phase, like an apple, and give our life for the generations that follow us. It is all so that in every lifetime we could build up the desire that someday will be one.
Everyone donates thoughts and emotions from his failures and achievements, a contribution to the human degree, the construction of which will finally become completed. This degree is present in our consciousness since man differs from beasts specifically by having a mind, understanding, attainment, and wisdom.
[41899]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, “Peace in the World”
In our world, we exist at the animate degree. Hence, we can take from nature only as necessary to sustain the body. However, we pump its resources out for the needs of the speaking degree.
Unlike the animate level, the “human” in me demands more: It wants money, honor, and knowledge. These desires can’t be satisfied by raping nature.
I can take a few pounds of metal called “gold” from it and thereby gratify my vanity and lust for power. How does metal relate to the lack of power? Why do we use the resources of one level for the needs of another? It is totally wrong.
Desires pertaining to food, sex, and family should be met according to natural instincts, which doesn’t destroy nature since you are acting at the animate level. If rabbits in the woods don’t have enough food, their numbers decrease. Thereby, one exists in balance with nature and is directly in circuit with it. Instead, we artificially place ourselves above nature, exploiting its levels in order to engage the speaking one.
The authentic correction of the speaking level should be different. We employ nature for necessities, while all other efforts are directed at the connection with people. Thereby, we correct our yearning for money, honor, and knowledge. Otherwise, we destroy the animate and vegetative levels, which is exactly what we are witnessing today.
In our relationship with nature, if we didn’t employ our desires for wealth, honor, and knowledge, there would be fewer of us on the Earth, probably a billion. Our life would be simpler, and we wouldn’t be exploiting our desires, but rather correcting them. It would result in our living in balance with nature at the still, vegetative, and animate levels, as well as at the speaking one.
Moreover, this degree would endow us with the sensation of the inner essence of nature, the upper force hidden in it. By having corrected the desires for wealth, honor, and knowledge, we would get to step inside nature and see the depth of its being, eternity, and perfection.
[41904]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, “Peace in the World”
Shamati #5 “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, “Mishpatim,” Item 190
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 2, Item 1. Ohr Pnimi, Item 4, Lesson 6
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Our entire problem is that we do not hear the Creator’s hints. Quietly, the Creator constantly directs us, but we do not feel it. A person has to feel that the Creator is always whispering in his ear.
This is not a psychological problem and not external voices, nor a compulsive thought. This is our inner feeling that must constantly become more sensitive to perceiving the Creator’s voice.
I have to feel this inner voice inside of me, “Is this coming from Him or from me?” If I start perceiving these hints, they will help me very much. One must feel inside how He is constantly talking and hinting.
This won’t be pleasant. I will have to restrain myself and lead myself away from many weaknesses that I have, and sometimes will do the opposite. What can you do about it? A person has to find some way to relax. There are moments like that as well because a person is human.
However, in principle this sensitivity to the inner voice, as it is written, “I heard a voice,” is very important. This is not schizophrenia. It really is a very serious attunement similar to how a musical instrument is tuned in order for its sound to match the tuning fork, the pure note “A.” That is how one must feel: At what frequency can I “pick up” the Creator?
Question: How can we learn to discriminate the Creator’s voice among many others?
Answer: Only by your desire. There is no other way to do it. No one and nothing will help you. At the beginning of the previous century the Kabbalist Hazon Ish wrote the following in his book Faith and Confidence, “The quality of bestowal is a fine movement of a sensitive soul.” This is how he begins his book. We need precisely this fine attunement to the frequency at which the Creator broadcasts.
Question: What is this force that helps us to constantly keep this attunement and discriminate where and in what state I am in? Or does it not matter whether I feel good or bad?
Answer: What helps us to tune ourselves to this “fineness of the soul”? Only movement toward others, when I connect with others in spite of myself and in spite of all of the twists, turns and problems, and I try to tune myself.
All of these twists, turns, and problems are given to me deliberately. They indicate where I am still under-tuned. They show me my deviations from the necessary frequency. All the problems, troubles, and negative things are the expression of how much I am not tuned, that I still haven’t found the right resonance.
If a person perceives everything happening this way, in spite of anything that happens to him, if he does not lose the thought, “There is none else besides Him” and also tunes himself to, “If I don’t do it for myself, who will do it for me?” Then that’s all he needs.
Question: But where does he feel this voice inside?
Answer: In the movement toward the outside. The instrument in which the Creator is felt is a new resonating region inside of you that begins to resonate in relation to others.
This instrument is what we have to create. It is called “a soul.”
[41984]
From the lesson on 4/21/11
Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: When some element appears bad and harmful to us, it is but a self-testimony of that element; that it is still in the transition phase, in the process of its development. Hence, we cannot decide that it is bad and it is not wise for us to cast a flaw in it.
This passage speaks about thoughtful people and not about those who, like animals, don’t know where they live, why, and for which purpose. Unlike the latter, people who wish to explore themselves and nature come to a conclusion that we live in the world that is evolving, starting with the Big Bang up to this day. The still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels develop gradually, from the simplest to the most complex forms.
As a result, we cannot make an absolute estimate of anything, any creature, act, or occurrence since we can’t see what will sprout from it in the end. Only when the fruit on the tree ripens completely can we realize that this juicy and sweet apple is ready to delight us.
Then we’ll see why it had to undergo all the previous stages and how it should be used. It can be learned only by observing all the intermediate forms, coming to the final stage, seeing the final form, and finding how to apply it. If, however, we haven’t reached the end of our development, even at the still, vegetative, or animate levels, we can’t say we already know what’s going on. After all, everything is weighed and evaluated exclusively by the final result.
Everything is learned from experience. A sage doesn’t sneak into the future, but rather makes conclusions based on the path he has walked. Therefore, it is said: “Nobody is as wise as the experienced one.” So, there is nothing bad or good in the world; everything is necessary.
Everything has its place, time, reason, and need to be, and only in the end do we learn that everything was supposed to be the way it was. Only at the finish line can we make a conclusion about anything at all.
This pertains to all parts of reality and more so to ourselves. Only in the final stage of evolution can we make conclusions and express opinions about ourselves: Who and what we are, why and for what purpose.
In the mean time, from all these explorations, we gain experience and learn from our mistakes. We finally understand that nothing in nature should be deleted since we don’t comprehend the reasons for any phenomena. Previously, man wanted to transform nature, “bend” it to fit himself, which only led to the worse.
We should be interfering with nature as little as possible and treating it with extreme care. In other words, we should restrict our egoism and use nature solely as necessary, as animals do. After all, in this world, in our bodies, we are similar to them. And hence, we can’t take from nature more than our body needs. Then, we will be evolving in it correctly, without harming it.
In the “Preface to the Book, Panim Meriot uMasbirot,” Baal HaSulam explains that even the non-Kabbalist sages, such as Plato and Aristotle, used to warn not to pass scientific knowledge to the masses. They feared that people would start developing technologies and getting from nature more than their bodies required until they would exhaust the Earth.
Therefore, we must be in harmony with nature in order to develop in its environment correctly.
[41906]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, “Peace in the World”
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