Learning To “Share Everything”

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday, the Creator puts the condition before us: “If you do not connect as one man with one heart, you’ll get nothing! It’s for you to feel that such a life is not a life…. And moreover, I will appoint a king as cruel as Haman over you.”

That is, for every action in which He made us unequal to each other, forcing us to hate, envy, and blame each other, we have to make corrections and achieve complete equality. And after that we will not be concerned about how much each of us gets, so much so that even if a person receives nothing while the others receive infinity, he will rejoice as if he received the infinite fulfillment himself.

It will be enough for a person to see that everyone receives fulfillment and fully enjoys, while he himself has nothing and needs nothing! Then, he will become similar to the Creator because he receives nothing and only gives.

Today, we are beginning to see such tendencies and steps in this direction in our world. It is the first time that the Creator says: “You have come to the threshold, and you will get nothing more. You will have great difficulties, exist in crisis and other problems, until you reach the solution that equality does not mean ‘just take and share.'”

You can start counting family members so that each has an equal amount, but in reality we must come to a different correction. After all, this is simply social egalitarianism that does not correspond to absolute justice.

The Creator wants us to reach the state when due to our love for the others, we will only care about satisfying their needs at our own expense. But first, we should think about our own correction because without it, we will not receive fulfillment.

Today’s economic recommendations and new theories will not be able to fulfill us without correction. On the contrary, they will lead us to a greater awareness of evil and our inability to do anything. Therefore, we can only distribute, as widely as possible, the knowledge about our current state, the way the wisdom of Kabbalah explains it.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/2011, “The Nation”

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Greece: The Creator Of European History

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Mark Mazower, a professor of history at Columbia University): “This is hardly the first time that to understand Europe’s future, you need to turn away from the big powers at the center of the continent and look closely at what is happening in Athens. For the past 200 years, Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s evolution.

“In the 1820s, as it waged a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire, Greece became an early symbol of escape from the prison house of empire.

“Over the next century, the radically new combination of constitutional democracy and ethnic nationalism that Greece embodied spread across the continent, culminating in “the peace to end all peace” at the end of the First World War, when the Ottoman, Hapsburg, and Russian empires disintegrated and were replaced by nation-states.

“It is ironic, then, that Greece was in the vanguard of resistance to the Nazis, too. In the winter of 1940-41, it was the first country to fight back effectively against the Axis powers, humiliating Mussolini in the Greco-Italian war while the rest of Europe cheered.

“Only a few years after Hitler’s defeat, Greece found itself in the center of history again, as a front line in the cold war.

“Greece was an emblem of a new phase in its history. The fall of its military dictatorship in 1974 not only brought the country full membership in what would become the European Union; it also …prefigured the global democratization wave of the 1980s and ’90s…

“The European Union was supposed to shore up a fragmented Europe, to consolidate its democratic potential and to transform the continent into a force capable of competing on the global stage. It is perhaps fitting that one of Europe’s oldest and most democratic nation-states should be on the new front line, throwing all these achievements into question. For we are all small powers now, and once again Greece is in the forefront of the fight for the future.”

My Comment: This approach is more akin to the opinion of a foreteller, such as the Greek “Delphic oracle,” than to the scientific approach. But today it is clear to everyone that unless the EU overcomes the natural tendency of each member state to take care only of itself and does everything possible to preserve and consolidate the union by moving towards a single government, above all national and economic contradictions, Europe will cease to exist. Only the final decision that there is no other way will give the world an example of complete future unity and will bring the EU out of crisis.
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Albert Einstein: Why Socialism?

Opinion (Albert Einstein, “Why Socialism?” 1949): “’I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.’”

“This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949)…” [at the request of Paul Sweezy (a famous American Marxist political economist, the author of the theory of monopoly capitalism)].
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Before The Upper One Turns His Back On Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanSuccess in our days depends on how we execute the program of nature. Nature wants us to connect, and today it clearly shows it to us from its part, the part of the upper force. This force comes closer to us so we would reveal it, but we perceive it as evil.

The upper one reveals his lower part to you, the AHP, to give you the opportunity to attach yourself to Him. He is revealed as the form of bestowal, but you perceive it as darkness, confusion, and weakness. And now, regardless of it all, you need to attach yourself to Him.

We represent two adjacent degrees: the upper one and the lower one. And now the upper degree, AHP de Bina, Elokim, the Creator, is revealed to us in the smallest degree. And we need to make an effort to perceive it with understanding. Such is nature, and nothing can be done about it: It reveals itself to us, showing that we must be connected.

The AHP of the upper one demands it from us, revealing the desired form to us that we must accept, and then we will feel good. Otherwise, He will shine for us, but His shining will be darkness for us, not Light (Ohr), but night (Orta). And we will keep receiving this influence from Him until we feel completely bad, and we will still need to change under the pressure of this evil and agree with His power.

This is why whatever we refer to as the crisis, is not a crisis in reality, but the revelation of the next higher degree, which we must ascend to. The quicker we understand this, the more we will ease this entire process for us, which we will have to go through one way or the other, at our own will or by force.

This is why we come out to people and try to explain this to everyone. And the more people find out about this, even if they do not listen or understand much, still, if this information somehow penetrates the public, it will start influencing them. Public opinion has a special power because it is based on a large number of people, and this is why people will suddenly begin to feel and understand this.

They will begin to act in the direction of unity, not even knowing why this desire suddenly appeared in them. If the opinion spreads through the masses, it will be enough to hear a fraction of a word for it to become obvious to everyone that they should connect, and that it is a good thing.

This state refers to the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, once He is ready to be in a contact with us on the very first degree. And this is why this degree reveals its lower part, AHP, to us. But we call it a crisis—lack of correspondence, balance, connection, harmony, and homeostasis—between the lower one and the upper one.

We must equalize our qualities with His because the law that obligates to correspond to the upper governance operates everywhere. When we do not correspond to it, we suffer, and if we begin to correspond to it, we will be happy. But the upper one does not change; He simply tries to make His qualities clearer to us—His AHP, which we must attach ourselves to.

And when we do not do it in our current state, His AHP operates according to a preset program and gradually becomes revealed more and more. It is as if He is turning His back to us until the darkness coming from Him becomes completely unbearable to us. And then we will need to do something with ourselves under the influence of blows and great suffering.

The upper one always reveals Himself in a higher form, in the form of an idea, and thus gives us an opportunity to develop. He does not reveal Himself in a form of the lack of provision or safety; He mainly reveals Himself as a lack of understanding, confusion, and the inability to control. He primarily strives to develop the human degree in you; He wants you to understand, agree, and begin to change yourself and your environments—to reconstruct your degree, the entire world, in accordance to Him.

But if you do not comply, He turns a little more since this operates like a mechanism in Him, called “at its own time” (Beito), like a clock. He keeps showing His AHP more and more, and so at the end, you will have to react. This is why we should not wait!

We can say that here we are already dealing with practical Kabbalah.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter

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Weekly Torah Portion – 09.09.11

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Ki Teze,” Selected Excerpts
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Crisis: Connection Through An Explosion

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the breaking, how did it happen that the upper one knew that the creature was going to break, but still responded to its request?

Answer: Of course, the upper one knew, He Himself arranged the breaking! Otherwise, how would Malchut connect with Bina if it were not for the breaking?

When people speak of the current crisis, they also refer to it as some kind of breaking (the word “crisis” comes from the same root). But this is not correct. A crisis is the creation of a connection between two qualities that cannot connect any other way.

In technology, we often use this method of connection, when the defensive forces of some material need to be destroyed in order to connect it to another material. This method is used to weld metals, incorporate one into the other. When things cannot connect, we thus destroy their defensive forces, the boundaries between them, and force them to connect, enter one another. This becomes possible through their breaking, forcefully, through an explosion.

It might seem strange why we would need to blow up and break things, but we do not break them; on the contrary, we achieve a connection. And it will be impossible for us to connect with one another if each one of us does not break his defensive barrier. After all, the force of egoism, the force of the desire to receive pleasure, which exists in all matter, will never allow anyone else to enter its territory. This is why we need to use a special force against it, which would break its boundaries, in order to introduce a second material, a second quality within, like an unwelcome guest.

This is what happens during the breaking with Bina and Malchut. But if Malchut never receives the quality of Bina, it will not be able to correct itself. And it is not able to receive the qualities of Bina because it has put restrictions on itself, defensive screens—it does not wish to receive anything. It needs to be broken in by force! It will never agree to do it on its own.

It will not agree to break and receive for its own sake. Yet, without the revelation of egoistic reception, it is impossible to reveal Malchut’s true qualities that are opposite to bestowal and do not allow it to attain it.

This is why the breaking was arranged from Above. We call it so, but in reality, it is the connection of Malchut and Bina because as soon as it happens, the qualities of mercy and justice intermix.

At the end, we get Bina and Malchut, which are tightly connected with each other, but broken. This also is an attainment because even though they feel distanced from the Creator, they have an ability to correct this distance because they are connected!

It follows that the breaking is a great correction in the building of a vessel. It is impossible for us to attain continuation or any correction without this intermediate state. This is why we need to see a turning point, a point of “bifurcation,” in the current crisis—a possibility for a sharp turn into a completely new state.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/4/2011, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

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Kabbalists On Perception Of Reality, Part 15

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

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

All these images and changes begin and end only with the impression of the souls.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33

There is no change at all in the world of Atzilut itself, whether the lower ones receive its great abundance lushly, or receive nothing at all. The above mentioned greatness lies solely on the lower ones.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 32

When the Light of Malchut descends and expands over the people, it appears to them, to each and every one, according to their own appearance, vision, and imagination, meaning only in the receivers and not at all in the Sefira Malchut herself.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 35
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Shamati #127 Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled)“The Firmament Over Malchut,” Item 339, Lesson 19
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Writings of Baal HaSulam The Nation,” (Start with: “In order to discover…”), Lesson 16
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