Leaving The Toys Behind

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You are leaving for the Kabbalah convention in Spain, where you will also be giving interviews to the Spanish media. How are you going to explain to them what Baal HaSulam wrote about in his article “The Peace”: “We must but accept the yoke of heaven for the Creator as we are learning who He is”?

Answer: I hope they will hear me better than you do, better than people anywhere else in the world. Indeed, Spain is facing very serious problems.

I am scheduled for several interviews there, including a primetime interview on a leading TV channel that broadcasts to millions of viewers. We have become popular. Many journalists are willing to listen to us; they agree and quickly respond to our words.

As it presently stands, we have to explain what the current condition implies. The money is gone. No credit will help because it cannot be properly managed at this point. Would it help just to split the funds among people and stay in debt?

But what is there to do if there are no jobs and nobody needs what anybody may want to produce? Even if the European Union loans you some money to try to save the situation, what can you do? Open another store? Build another factory? What can I possibly produce? Is there anything left the world is still lacking today?

Try as I might, it will only make things worse since price-wise my products cannot compete with those made in China. How can we keep people’s jobs under such conditions? It is wiser to just close the business altogether. But what are we supposed to do with the unemployed, college graduates, and youth? Nobody has any idea.

You simply have nothing to produce. Even the food the world produces could feed eight billion people—we just don’t know how to distribute it correctly. How many cell phone upgrades can one have? Consumers are getting tired of novelties. Imagine what is going to happen when nobody will be buying products made in China any longer just because there will be no money for it. The goods may be cheap, but there’s a hole in the pocket, while one still needs food and clothes. Who will care about “toys” then?
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, “The Peace”

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There Are No Mistakes In Spirituality

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The Book of Zohar is full of stories and earthly images. Why are they so important if all they do is confuse and take us away from the correct intention?

Answer: Everything that a person existing in sanctity (the will to bestow) says proceeds from his attaining, sensing, and existing in the will to bestow, and does not simply come to his mind. Because his will to receive has become “sanctified,” meaning that it has acquired the property of bestowal and exists in it, this is the quality he feels.

That’s why he perceives a certain expression of the Creator within him and expresses it in such a form. He does not produce these images himself, nor do they simply appear in his mind. Rather, the form of the Creator that has revealed itself inside him arouses a certain image, the picture that he then describes to us.

That’s why we have to use these stories and connect with them. And if we do not understand them just yet, we will eventually. Take my word for it. Furthermore, you will reach the same degree of attainment, and the same story, pictures, images, and expressions will suddenly appear inside of you.

This is why Kabbalists understand each other. We don’t understand them, but the more you connect to what they are saying, the more you understand them.

It’s not a coincidence that in the Hasidic tradition, if a Rabbi’s note contains errors, you have to bless them because if he wrote it that way, to you it is a sign of holiness. This follows from the fact that a person who is in sanctity cannot make a mistake. It seems to you that he has made a mistake because you are uncorrected. And this is called faith above reason.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, The Zohar

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Where Is The Light Hidden?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where is the Light that Reforms: in the Torah or in my bestowal to the friends?

Answer: You receive the Light that Reforms from your effort to connect with your friends. We exist in a perfect, corrected system. The upper Light, the Light of Infinity, reigns over this system. How can you awaken this Light of Infinity to act upon you? You try to connect to the corrected system.

What is it? In what model is it presented to you? It’s in the group. To the extent that you connect with the group, in the connection between you, according to your efforts, the Light, the Torah, the force of bestowal, awakens. This force influences you and turns you, as well, into a bestowing part of the corrected system so that the Torah, this correcting Light, begins to fill you.

Question: Then how is the text we are reading connected to this?

Answer: In the text, you read about the corrected states in the connection between you and your friends. Just now, we were reading a passage from The Zohar. Where do I have to reveal everything that I have read about? I have to reveal this in my connection with the friends, in my aspiration to unite with them. Then, I will reveal all the properties, Sefirot, Partzufim, and the worlds in the connection between us.

Now, there are 125 degrees between you and me. Had I made such an inner change within myself whereby I connect with you with my heart and soul, in my mind and desires, I would have reached my personal final correction (Gmar Tikkun). Approaching you, bestowing to you, and accepting your desire as mine, I would have gone through all 125 degrees. I would have revealed the worlds between us, ascents and descents, in the relationship between me and my friends.

As soon as I unite with a friend, at least one of them, I finish my work. You don’t have to unite with millions, or billions, or the Creator because this is the same thing. If I cancel my desire to enjoy and can accept a friend’s desire as mine, it’s done!

That is why we read The Book of Zohar which describes various states that I reveal in the form of connection or separation between us, between me and the other—all the worlds (concealments) and separations are there.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011The Zohar

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Dr. Michael LaitmanAll the work begins namely in this world and at our time. We have reached the state when our desire to enjoy has grown, completely evolved at the corporeal level, and now we are able to start to perceive it by comparing it with the desire to bestow. In other words, we finished our development at the still, vegetative, and animate levels, and now we have to begin to develop at the human degree which includes two forces: reception and bestowal.

Before, I had completely “flat” vision; I saw around myself only what I could benefit from and  grab for myself, and those who I could use. I acted just on the desire to enjoy, which is the basis of the still, vegetative, and animate nature. Thus, I did not have any “splitting” and doubt; it used to be one direction only: how to succeed more in my egoistic desire.

This translates into an ordinary corporeal life without regard to public life, which we never developed before. We always looked at the society as an object of use. However, now the desire to bestow awakens and manifests in us. We cannot resist this desire and must take it into account.

For the first time in history, the whole of humankind enters a state in which the desire to receive and the desire to bestow have to be balanced and controlled by us. If we don’t establish their balance, we bring upheavals and crises.

Thus, the most important thing for us is to create the correct environment for all of humanity. Our world group has to become the first one to serve as an example. Thus, our growth “from below up” begins, while before that, we were developing only on the horizontal plane.

Then, we will reveal the correct interaction between the desire to receive and the desire to bestow, Malchut and Bina, in our broken desires. To reach this, we request the Light that Reforms. It’s as though I reveal: Here is my egoism, and I would like it to act differently and to connect with others, to participate in the mutual work.

That is why I ask the Light to come and correct my desire, to establish some balance and reciprocity in our system so that we bestow to each other, make concessions, and connect. Then, the Light comes and brings us back to its Source. This is called the correction “from below up” that we have to accomplish.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Kabbalists On Love Of Others And Love Of The Creator, Part 2

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

Love of Others Is the Means to Attain the Love of the Creator

A person starts the correction of egoism with the intention “for oneself.” Then, under the influence of the Light that corrects, he acquires the intention “for the sake of the Creator.” Trying to reach bestowal to one’s friend, one reaches bestowal to and love of the Creator since it makes no difference if one works for one’s friend or for the Creator. That is because anything that is outside of man’s desire, outside of selfish profit, appears to be unreal.
– Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings

The impression that comes to a person when he bestows to the Creator is completely the same as the impression he gets when he bestows to the other. In both cases, he is engaged in bestowal, without any hope of receiving any reward. Hence, in the act of bestowal, the love of the Creator and the love of his friend unite and actually become one.
– Baal HaSulam, The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee), Item 22

The correction of man consists of two parts: By correcting his relation to the friend, one gains the skills necessary to correct his relation to the Creator.
– Baal HaSulam, “One Commandment
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The Path To The Heart Of The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There are limits to what people can hear from us. Do these limits expand during the peak of a crisis, as for example in Spain, where recently mass demonstrations took place?

Answer: If a person has a problem or illness, he always wants to hear the good news about the remedy. Ideally, not we, but our Spanish friends have to address the Spanish people. Namely, they will be able to disseminate the method of correction among their people, gently and in an accessible way. They know how to communicate with their people. We have only to train and instruct them so that they set to work.

This should be done around the world. This is why the Creator awakens the points in the hearts among all the nations so that they act locally. And from now on, we have to prepare them for this mission. They know how to talk to the people; there are no barriers between them and their people. Their people are their family, friends, and acquaintances. We only have  to prepare a collection of materials and a supporting base for them.

All our groups around the world have to be converted into dissemination centers so that they know how to explain to demonstrators and the needy the reason for their suffering, in very simple words and without mentioning the word Kabbalah. Otherwise, people will just turn away and will not be able to listen. Even you, who are ready to listen, have difficulties grasping the words of Kabbalists. What can we expect of others?…
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, “The Peace”

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Silence As A Sign Of Powerlessness

Dr. Michael LaitmanPeople with the point in the heart have received an understanding, means, and ability to help the world. We have to put into practice whatever we have received to realize ourselves one hundred percent.

We still have time: People are still looking for the cause of all the troubles and for an opportunity to improve the situation. But eventually people will understand that there isn’t a particular solution for their country because it is dependent upon the whole world. “What’s the point in gathering in the square? How will it help us? So I need to appeal to the entire world?” “Yes, you do. Let’s find together what we have overlooked here; let’s understand where help can come from.”

And then the nations will turn to us. The prophets write about this, talking about big suffering all over the world. It’s not local calamities anymore, but epidemics, natural disasters, and so on. All this is to press Israel, despite its seemingly small size on a global scale.

A global drama is unfolding in front of our eyes. Israel is still not in the position of its people having lost their jobs and necessary social services, such as health and national insurance. In the U.S., for example, a vast number of homeowners cannot pay their mortgages, while at the same time, their homes have depreciated and are valued at less than the amounts owed to their mortgage lenders.

The situation is bleak. People will see this better when the crisis becomes even more integral and undeniably global. It’s not a coincidence that the participants of the G8 who gathered in Deauville had a meaningless meeting.

I’m not making fun out of them; there is really nothing they can do. A great disaster has come, everyone understands this, and everyone is silent. And they can’t stop the meetings because they have to do something at least for show.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, “The Peace”

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NTV On Kabbalah Or “Growing Pains” Of Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Have you seen a TV program about Kabbalah broadcast on NTV, a Russian television channel? What can you say about it?

Answer: We were approached three times by the NTV producers asking us to participate in this program. But having discovered who other participants were, we had to refuse: You have to choose who to talk to.

Counting knots on a red string and believing in its magical force is beyond my comprehension. And magic spells such as “Pulsa deNura” arouse nothing but sadness at people’s late development.

But these are only “growing pains.” It will pass. Poor children! Why are they so hateful? Kabbalah talks about love, and not love as a commodity ($20 for a string). But I would agree to an interview on our terms.
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Know The World You Live In

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we reach people in authority? After all, we want to break down the walls of the box they live in.

Answer: Not at all. We don’t fight with the government, don’t destroy politics and the economy, and we don’t break customary lifestyles. We fight only for the education of people and not more. I am in favor of leaving everything in the world as it is, only adding the principle of “love your neighbor as thyself.”

It’s none of my business what has been built so far. Let them build more. Only one thing is important for me: People should know in what world they live, what they live for, and how they can truly fulfill themselves so that they reach the goal without falling into self-deception and entertaining themselves with all kinds of games that give only fleeting, inadequate fulfillment, and ending in death.

I don’t cancel anything, don’t oppose government programs, banks, city halls, and the like. I don’t care about that. Do what you want: If you want to steal, steal, do other silly things, it’s not important; I don’t look at that at all. All I want is to add education.

The purpose of education is to give knowledge about the world we live in, how it functions, what moves it, what its goal is, what would happen if we go along with this program, and what would happen if we deviate from it or head in the opposite direction. How much suffering will this bring us? What kind of suffering? Whether it’s worth it or not? I want people to know, to see what they face, to be able to read the map and nothing more.

All the other issues are on another plane, and I don’t overlap with it at all: My office is on the floor above. We are talking only about what we are destined to come to anyway. We deplete natural resources and pollute the Earth. Thus, we have to move from a consumer society to a balanced society, in other words, to stop acting silly.

People need simple everyday things: housing, work, food, clothing, and the like. This should be provided for everyone, and everything else has to cease. We have to stop producing useless goods, to stop measuring one’s success by output. These goods empty the planet and pollute the environment.

Thus, you will work half a day to provide the necessities and study the rest of the day, passing exams from time to time. You will be paid for this and only for this.

People don’t know the world they live in. They graduate from school, not matching the reality they exist in. They live in their illusions, in isolation from the world, surprised by the troubles they attract to themselves. These troubles come because, like children, we act to harm ourselves.

And thus, I want only one thing for you: to add education and, most importantly, upbringing and training, the essence of which is the correction of the relationship between people. Then, you will be in sync, in balance, with the world; you will become an integral whole, which is the imperative of the time. All the elements have to be correctly connected with the main mechanism, with natural networks of interconnection, and you don’t even know about this.

That is what I am talking about. True, such education will change a person, but it will happen gradually, as if by itself. I don’t fight with the nature of things; I just explain the world to you, show where you live, and as a consequence, you change. You see the facts in front of you, and what can you do? We can do nothing: Having seen immutable laws, we will take them into account.

Nothing can be changed at one go. People act according to their nature. Can it be corrected? Destruction is inherent in human nature, and until you give humans a correct education, until they will see for themselves that they risk losing their lives, they will not stop. And they have to see it in the clearest way, as if death is standing on the threshold. This is the education, the upbringing that we need.

Otherwise, we will not survive on the Earth. This is confirmed by research. There is no other means except education. We don’t have to moralize and tell people whether they are good or bad. They are the way nature created them. They cannot steal less, lie less; they are unable to. It’s said: “Go to the Creator Who made me.” The Creator tells you from the very beginning: “I created the evil inclination.” You are not going to complain to Him about His deeds, are you?

You have only one medicine: “The Torah as a spice,” in other words, education according to the method of Kabbalah.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/2011, “The Freedom”

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The Physics Of A Wider World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it possible to acquire the soul, reveal the spiritual world and the Creator without the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: A person begins to explore nature and discovers in it a certain law, a particular connection between phenomena. For example, I throw an object on the floor, calculate the acceleration of its fall, and draw a law from this experiment. At the same time, other people don’t study natural phenomena but learn about them in a prepared form.

There are people who discover the laws of nature, and there are those who learn them and thereby make a revelation, always personal and individual.

Phenomena that are being discovered by scientists existed in nature before. Hadn’t apples fallen on heads before Newton discovered the law of gravity? In this way, there is nothing new; we reveal what already exists, already happens. However, there are pioneers and those who learn from them and try to use the acquired knowledge correctly.

The same can be applied to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the physics of a wider world, not perceived by our sense organs. To feel it, we have to develop an additional sense organ called “the property of bestowal,” in which we will reveal the spiritual phenomena: Sefirot, the worlds, and Partzufim. Nonetheless, we continue to work as scientists.

It is said: “By Your actions we will know You.” It’s clear that everything stems from an action, from research. “A person judges only by what his eyes can see.” “Faith” is the force of bestowal that you attain. You don’t close your eyes to accept blindly as fact someone else’s opinion; this does not exist in any science, including the science of Kabbalah. On the contrary, it is said: “Know the Creator and serve Him.” Knowledge, analysis, and revelation are the foundation of everything.

There are people who have already made this discovery and have seen certain patterns; they convey to you knowledge about these laws, the method of research to ease your way. These laws apply to everyone because we are in one world.

So, don’t look at Kabbalah as at an unknown animal. It’s the root of all the other sciences of our world because it reveals the roots of creation, and it should be treated as a science. Kabbalah is not related to religion. When we fell from the degree of love of friends into self-love and mutual hatred, we lost Kabbalah and stopped perceiving the upper, spiritual world. Then, religion was born.

Thus, “religion” is the science of Kabbalah remaining in exile, in separation from the Creator, in isolation from the upper world, apart from the object of studying. Outside of real perception, without knowledge and understanding, the interpretation of spiritual actions and the relationship with the true reality, with the upper force, turned into Judaism. It exists in the period between the destruction of the Temple and redemption, after which we return to the wisdom of Kabbalah. That’s why it’s said: “Everyone will know Me, from the smallest to the greatest.”

Of course, we should not despise anything. We advance with the help of available means, but each of them has its own application.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/2011, “The Freedom”

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