A Helping Hand Stretched Out From The Darkness

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe do not understand what it means to enjoy bestowal. The goal of creation is to bring pleasure to the creatures. And they will really enjoy: The only question is how?

We do not understand that the desire that we feel today is foreign and distant from us. To enjoy bestowal is not the pleasure of what the other enjoys. That would just be an arrangement that is beneficial for both of us.

And if I enjoy the fact that he feels good even if I feel bad, but I overcome myself, as parents do sacrificing everything for their children, this is not bestowal either. We can hardly imagine the desires that emerge in the spiritual world. It is possible only to give some approximate examples, like physical branches in relation to the roots.

Therefore, we must try to imagine as much as possible how special this concept is, separate from the familiar and requiring a psychological revolution. The entire world inverts in our consciousness, and then we discover something entirely new.

This requires internal effort and detachment from the old environment, the willingness to: escape from the current state, jump in the Red Sea (Yam Sof – the Sea of the End),  loose one’s head, abandon everything that one has, and be left totally naked and defenseless, accepting everything no matter what it is, only if it comes from Above.

We need to prepare ourselves for the convention in Arava in this way, and if we are able to hold ourselves in this state, we will achieve a breakthrough—in this darkness, to the waters of the Red Sea, and we will overcome everything no matter what is revealed.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, Writings of Rabash

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Who Is The Stick Being Prepared For?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is written, “A thousand enter a room, but one comes out to the light.” So what can we do to make sure at least a dozen people succeed, or a hundred people? Indeed, our ideal result is nothing less than one hundred percent.

Take a regular person off the street. He lives a decent life, but suddenly he begins to get bombarded by all kinds of problems and misfortunes: conflicts with his wife, kids getting out of hand, health issues that the doctors can’t seem to fix…. Everywhere he turns, he discovers evil. Things keep deteriorating and there’s no solution in sight.

Admittedly, everybody else appears to be in just as dire straits and that makes it all more bearable. After all, man always checks himself in relation to others both in joy and in sorrow. When any given misfortune befalls everybody, it makes it easier to endure. We all come from the same soul and no one can judge himself in a vacuum, separate from others.

We all compare our state with the general prosperity or misery. I am incapable of sensing myself exclusively, for without the human environment, I fall back to the animate degree. And if there aren’t animals around, I’ll revert to the vegetative degree. If you abandon a human being in the woods without animals, he will invariably become like the vegetation that is his environment.

So then, today we exist at the very stage when the crisis is enveloping the whole world. Sure, the media mitigates the situation by showing us that people everywhere are hurting. This appeases us for a time so that the next blows will be harder and penetrate deeper until they become unbearable. But for the time being, I look at others and remain content with my own lot despite all the problems that are besetting me. Other people’s suffering allays my vigilance; the upshot is that the evil will break through into my consciousness only after it becomes too much to bear.

How can we remain in a state of helplessness when it becomes a matter of life and death? That’s when the suffering clues you in that its arrival is not accidental but purposeful. The chain of Reshimot (informational genes) leads you to this thought.

However, we don’t want to lead humanity down this path filled with pandemics, natural disasters, world wars, and so on. We want to bring humanity to the recognition of evil today while people are still finding comfort in the misery of others and empty hopes.

How do we do this? This brings up the issue of understanding the governance: You see that it is sweetenting your life, but at the same time you see the stick it’s preparing for you in the event you fail to recognize this governance in its true form in real time, through the prism of mitigated suffering.

Such is the path of the Torah, and such is the path of suffering for all of humanity. It’s all in your hands.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The EU Is On The Brink Of A Recession Of Unknown Scope

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Bloomberg): “Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said on Jan. 4 that the EU is on the brink of a recession of unknown scope.

“‘Things are really starting to slow down,’ Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics in London, said by telephone. ‘There’s an underlying economic downturn going on at the same time as the peripheral debt crisis continues. Even the strongest parts of the euro-zone economy are beginning to falter. ‘We see the euro zone beginning to break up, perhaps as soon as this year.’”

My Comment: A fortiori, it’s strange to see the idleness of “decision makers.” But in general, they cannot come up with a solution because they do not view the world as common and integral, as a single whole that is in need of unity and mutual guarantee, which is possible only under conditions of integral education of the masses and the movement in universal bailout when facing a universal disaster.
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The Point Of A Fall Is The Point Of Ascent

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion: (Nicolas Barré, Deputy Managing Editor, Les Echos): “Earlier this year, seventeen countries of the euro area were closer than ever before to the abyss. None of the two most urgent problems has been solved. European leaders have long since lost their AAA rating in the financial markets. They are tormented, put conditions, stretch time, in short, show all their inability to bailout Greece, the country that accounts for only about 3% of the total income of the continent.

“One gets the impression that they are powerless, and yet from the beginning of the year we have seen four warning signs that a disaster is imminent.

“And the first of them is the inevitability of a Greek default. The second is the growth of distrust towards all the euro zone countries, except Germany. The third is the freezing of transactions between banks since they no longer trust each other. The fourth is a short-term decline: Credits are declining for both states and businesses.

“A real leap forward is required in order to avoid contamination of the entire European financial system, which may push the entire continent into the abyss. There is little time left.”

My Comment: Perhaps, from the lowest point of a fall, we will begin to realize the need to revise the entire system of social and economic relations and establish them on trust and equality. After all, it is the opposite processes that have led us to ruin.
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One Gram Of Desire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we ask for the desire to bestow if our nature is the desire to receive that only wants to be filled?

Answer: This is exactly all of our work. We should understand that the filling is always there and it never changes. It doesn’t get transferred to us not because of some action on the Creator’s part. It’s all inside me already, and I only have to discover the suitable desires for the revelation of the filling.

That filling is bestowal. The Creator wants to give us the attribute of bestowal that would fill us just as it fills Him.

The Creator created the desire to receive “from absence,” but it’s only “one gram” of desire. Except for this one gram, there is no more desire to receive. Everything else develops inside it under the influence of the Light, the force of bestowal. So when the created being feels the filling on its last, fourth, phase of development, it is filled with the attitude of the Creator towards it. Then it restricts itself because it feels shame.…

The created being doesn’t get a filling of more than that one gram inside the desire to receive. This is because inside the desire to receive, there is nothing but that one gram. All the other things in it are added thanks to the attribute of bestowal.

The attribute of bestowal turns the desire to receive, which wants to fill itself, into a desire to fill others. This attribute of bestowal is the only addition to the “existence from absence.” So it all depends on and is measured relative to the attribute of bestowal, relative to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/2012, Writings of Rabash

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Softening The Hearts By Way Of The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There are those who see a threat in Baal HaSulam’s approach, who prefers internality over externality. How is it possible to reach people who “lean towards externality?”

Answer: The nation is not able to understand what relates to the inner essence. The external forms fascinate it, and it needs to hold onto something. You say: “Concentrate on internality, and there you will discover everything.” But for them, this is nonsense. No one works with his heart. It’s difficult and requires a certain level of development.

Only now we are entering a period when the new generation will need to develop the heart. Until now it was the “stony heart,” and now there will be a need to soften it, beginning from afar. We are speaking about a big job, large-scale processes that we need to go through.

We hope that our approach, imbued with love and unity, will help us in softening the hearts. Then, as people advance forward, we will be able to talk about deeper issues. After all, the message of unity gets a response only in the heart of man. Even if in the meantime, it is externally, the heart begins to work nevertheless.

This is the way. Also, if you open a place for the Light in many hearts, it operates very quickly. It is a matter of a few months. Just begin, and you will see.

Thus, I am very optimistic. If we create an education kit and begin to distribute it among the nation, we will be able to see a completely different picture already this year. The most important thing is to find correct and understandable ways to transfer the message, to upgrade them from month to month so that they are more internal. And then we will succeed.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/2012, “Introduction to TES

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Re-Educating The Adults

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should be the structure of the integral upbringing? How should we start the education of an adult person?

Answer: Certainly we should be engaged in the education of adults, but we still have to put the maximum attention on the education of children because changing the adults is very hard. On one hand, they feel the entire corruption of the society where they live, and they would like to change it. However, changing the society means changing a person. It’s very difficult to change a person. By taking care of our children (something which is important to us), we will be changing ourselves as well.

Most of us are someone’s parents. When we are involved in building a completely different society for our children, as it is said, “If not for us, then for our children,” when we take care of the next generation and educate it, we will simultaneously start re-educating ourselves.

Question: Does it mean that the course for adults should include a course for the preparation of educators for the kids as well?

Answer: This is a must! The course should include the topics on interaction between the spouses, interaction of a person with the society, with the boss, with employees, and with the children, as well as child education. A person should be connected with everyone in the integral way.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” #5, 12/13/11

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.17.12

Writings of Rabash, Igrot, “Letter 34”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Three Lights,” (Start with: “For this reason”), Lesson 38
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 6, ”The Eser Sefirot of ha Olam Nekudim,” Item 3, Lesson 3
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Introduction to the Study of Ten Sefirot,” Item 46, Lesson 23
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Audio Version Of The Blog – 01.16.12

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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The Forbidden Secret Is Open To Any Baby

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why does Baal HaSulam write in “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” about the forbidden part in the wisdom of Kabbalah: that Kabbalists can reveal what belongs to “Flavors of the Torah,” but cannot disclose the part that belongs to the first three Sefirot or the “head of the Partzuf?”

Answer: Even if Kabbalists tell about something that is “forbidden,” we won’t understand anything. It is like talking about anything next to a baby without needing to be careful because the infant still will not hear or understand anything anyway. He doesn’t connect the words he hears to any meaning. Just like when we read The Book of Zohar, single words are understandable, but for us they add up to senseless sentences

“The secrets of the Torah” are not information that is carefully hidden from us. It is simply our brain, which at the moment is on an ordinary beastly level, cannot perceive them. So for us it remains a secret, as does all of reality. Please, it is all revealed to you, look! Do you see anything? Who is to blame that you don’t have the means to perceive? Develop them and you will see reality. It is the same when it comes to the “secrets of the Torah.”

We study in “The Study of the Ten Sefirot” about what belongs to the head of the world of Atzilut, the head of Arich Anpin, and we know that there are the parts of RADLA (Reish delo Eiyada), parts of its “brain” (Mocha de Avirah, Kruma de Avirah) that are concealed from us in the upper Light. But we study everything that belongs to the “flavors of the Torah” and not its “secrets” in this system. The difference is that the “flavors” relate to the thoughts of the created being and the “secrets of the Torah” relate to the Creator’s thoughts.

There would be no point mentioning all this, if there weren’t people who claim that it is forbidden to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because it is a secret. There are no secrets in it; on the contrary, the wisdom of Kabbalah reveals reality to us! It doesn’t reveal some “forbidden secrets”: In order to reveal the secrets you have to reach them yourself by preparing your vessels, your desires, your vessels of perception. If you prepare all the desires that belong to the seven lower Sefirot (ZAT) in the full height of the spiritual ladder, then you begin to discover their upper part (GAR). You will be ready for this revelation and will discover this secret yourself. [Read more →]