Women’s Questions In Preparation For The Convention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can women create a strong common desire to maximize the ability to support the men during the convention?

Answer: To this day, we cannot explain to the women that they’re doing spiritual work just as men do, the only difference being that the style of their interconnection is somewhat different from the connection between the men.

With men, it all starts with a very simple friendship, with shared activities. They swim together in the sea, sit around, share meals, and study. With women this connection is much more complicated. But when they set a higher goal for themselves and understand that for the sake of this goal they need to unite, then they can accomplish it and achieve the goal. That is, the exalted goal becomes like a master for them, and they’re prepared to unite for its sake.

Question: Do women need to prepare for the convention in some special way? Perhaps we should do it together somehow or correspond with each other? Or should we only unite internally?

Answer: The importance of unification should be the same in women as in men; this is first. And second, they need to understand that they also need to achieve unity. Women are able to unite for the sake of a higher goal, and they need to explore and scrutinize this possibility.

The Bible tells about how Moshe’s sister Miriam united all the women together before exiting Egypt, how the women worked on themselves in Egypt, and how it was precisely that feminine part which nurtured Moses, that is, the force that then pulls us out of Egypt.

Question: What should women expect from the workshops?

Answer: The women, like the men, need to discuss all the details of unification. Let them try to do that; let them discover what is for them and what isn’t. In this manner, they will find their own path in a practical way since otherwise it won’t work.

On one hand, women ask: “Why not?” But when you offer them the work of unification, they say: “This isn’t for us!” And so a problem arises. And it’s unclear what can be done, what action to take, and how to approach this problem?

Women need to unite for a common cause, like in a huge number of existing women’s organization, where women can unite in order to achieve something not between, but outside of themselves. So let them unite in order to achieve something outside themselves as well, and for that purpose they can connect—not against anyone, but for the sake of accomplishing something. They can do it!

Question: Do women need to unite in order to achieve the goal or in order for the men to reach it?

Answer: They need to unite to attain the result together. Let them clarify this, and they will see the middle point into which they need to fit exactly to complement the men. And in no way is their work any less than the work of men; it’s actually greater.

Question: How should a woman prepare her husband for the convention?

Answer: You wash, dress, and feed him, then hand him his backpack, and let him go to school. I’m speaking absolutely seriously: Prepare him like you would a child. That is, let him know that you expect great accomplishments from him, that you hope that throughout the convention he’ll really go in the right direction with good and necessary thoughts. That’s how you get him ready. When it comes to that, a woman has what’s called the wisdom of life.

Question: How do men work correctly with women’s support during the workshops?

Answer: Men shouldn’t pay attention to it yet. Later, when we really become properly interconnected, we’ll feel the women’s influence, pressure on us.

It’s good when we can sense that; it obliges us. Let’s hope that we’ll be able to feel that too.
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From a Lecture on Unity Day Around the World, “Preparation for the Congress” 4/22/2012     

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What Should We Talk About At The Convention?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We see plenty of faces at the convention, many new people. What should or shouldn’t we talk about?

Answer: What do you mean “plenty of faces, many new people”? Am I really interested in what a person looks like, or whether he or she is old or young?

The soul is ageless. The soul has no form. The soul is the property of bestowal. If so, I don’t look at anything else! That is why I neither notice nor remember people; I don’t recall their names because I am interested only in their internal field that they resonate around, that they emanate, but not in their looks or names. What’s the difference?

Question: In order to generate this field, what should we talk or not talk about?

Answer: You should talk only about the goal, only about the topic of the convention, only about maintaining the greatness of the goal, only about the positive, and in no way about the negative—that’s what Rabash writes in his articles.

A convention is not the place to make calculations. We do all that before the convention—take an example from me.

That’s it: The convention is starting, and we put aside all the problems; this is the past, and we should rise above it now. All our negative qualities, properties, connections, and contradictions between us, all that is left below. Now we rise above them and talk only about unification, about the necessity, about what we achieve by virtue of unity, about how impossible it is to reach it in any other way, about how we can’t reach it on our own, and hence need the upper Light.

All our work is precisely in order for us to realize that we cannot achieve anything ourselves. But this is after we perform a certain number of joint efforts and see that we aren’t able to do this. And then the upper force will be revealed in this huge frustration and huge desire, and it will perform the correction upon us, revealing the Creator within us. 

Question: What should I do if during a workshop a friend either talks too much or doesn’t talk at all? How can I relate to this correctly?

Answer: If he doesn’t talk, try to encourage him, to hug him, or to involve him in a conversation so that he participates in a discussion in some way, “breaks” a lack of contact, and makes contact somehow.

If a friend talks a lot, it is necessary to limit him because everyone should speak up, that is, the maximum number of people should speak within 2-3 minutes. He can say a couple of sentences, but they should be thought through in advance. He “shoots” them out, and the microphone is given to the next person.
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From a Lecture on Unity Day Around the World, “Preparation for the Congress” 4/22/2012    

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Responsibility For The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach convention is like an ascent to the next degree. In the convention you receive the rudiments of new sensations, which you have to develop. If you don’t, they die away, disappear.

You saw something at the convention, you heard or sensed something new: a new idea, a new inner movement, a new relation to others, and how others help you. Later you have to realize all of it in practice.

You have to go over, and perhaps more than once, everything that we’ve covered during the convention, to internally process, pass it through yourself, like through a meat grinder, and realize it in the group, in dissemination, and in the relationship with yourself and with the Creator. You have to put it all together into one general worldview, one picture of the world, being aware that thereby you are forming your view on everything, including yourself and the Creator. All of it has to become one unified whole within you.

How can I put everything that is happening on this sphere into one unified whole? Everything is happening only in order for me to bring this sphere into balance, harmony with the Light that exists at absolute rest, and so everything else has to come into balance with it. I’m responsible for bringing this entire system into a state of balance, harmony, and similarity to the Light.

We have to form in ourselves this view of the world and then realize it.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Lesson 5 

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.27.12

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio

[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2012-04-27_declamation_blog-rav_full_mus.mp3 title=’27.4.12′]

Wake Up The Switch Operator Before It’s Too Late!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Now as we begin to operate as one global, collective group, does the work of the local groups change?

Answer: We have to judge ourselves severely and calculate things in the clearest, most serious way. We have to learn according to the general upper Providence, the Creator’s actions in the world, to what extent the world needs correction, and how far we are still from fulfilling it by participating in it, by being ready to become the bridge, the pass-through, the adaptor, through which the correction will be made. This should wake us up and give us a real seriousness and responsibility of understanding our role.

It isn’t acceptable to take into account only ourselves and be deluded that everything is fine with us and that we can wait. The account is very serious and even alarming. It is like Baal HaSulam’s warning before the Holocaust. If the people of Israel, (everyone who is called Yashar – El, who yearns directly for the Creator), do not keep the required conditions, it causes the increased external forces and leads to their victory over the internal forces.

Then there are great troubles. The destructive, deadly, evil force, which we actually summoned, begins to rule the world. Therefore, every individual should treat the group very seriously and with great responsibility: every person in relation to the group, each group in relation to other groups to a common global group, and to the world, to the whole world.

We are already in this state, in this time which is the most critical in all of human history, and we will determine how we advance: by Light or by suffering.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/12, Writings of Rabash

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So Was It Yesterday?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can we reach a true prayer artificially, through games?

Answer: Advancement is only possible through prayer, by the revelation of the deficiency. If you wish to count how many times and in what way you advanced, then you have to take into account the moments in which you discovered a deficiency for the Creator from the bottom of your heart.

This deficiency activates the Reforming Light. What depends on you is only the prayer, (the raising of MAN), then accordingly you can calculate things. How many times do you recall that you raised MAN yesterday by discovering a need for the Creator inside you and the desire to advance towards bestowal upon others, the group, and the connection with the friends and the rest of humanity?

Did you yearn for that yesterday, at least to some extent? If you didn’t, then there was no yesterday; you have erased that day from your history!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/12, Writings of Rabash

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How To Put An End To War?

Dr. Michael LaitmanToday there are no wars of survival wars, and no wars of independence, no wars against attackers, but rather wars directed at bestowal. This is exactly how we should see the current state.

In the past, Abraham’s group broke off from the part of humanity that was concentrated in Babel and since then all our existence is meant only to correct ourselves by going through shattering and destruction, exiles and holocausts. This is the essence of the many bitter corrections, as a result of which we are back at the land of Israel today.

Not all the nations understand this return, and among those who have accepted it, not all of them treat the state and the army in the same way. These of course are childhood diseases, which we have to go through during the stages of our development. In the paper Ha’uma (The Nation) and in other places, Baal HaSulam says that we are not a nation yet in the true sense.

Here is an excerpt from his article “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“:

It follows that our generation is the generation of the days of the Messiah. This is why we have been granted the redemption of our holy land from the hands of the foreigners. We have also been rewarded with the revelation of The Book of Zohar.

Yet, with those two, we have only been rewarded with this gift from the Creator, but we have not received anything into our own hands. Instead, we have been given a chance to begin with the work of God, to engage in Torah and Mitzvot Lishma. Then we will be granted the great success that is promised to the generation of the Messiah, which all the generations before us did not know.

In this light, we must see the same path the past generations made. This process is essential despite the many disasters it involved, and at the end of which we were finally given a chance to return to the land of Israel in order to rebuild a state and a nation here. Today it is in our hands: There are all the necessary conditions, and from now on we have to pave the road to the correction of the world. Only when we are prepared for that, will the troubles and the problems that are aimed at us come to an end.

Today everyone who aims at and yearns for spirituality, for the revelation of the spiritual Providence of the upper force, belongs to the group called “the nation of Israel.” These people aim at Yashar – El (Straight for the Creator), and today they have to take on the form of bestowal. Then the pressure on Israel will stop and we will be able to take care of the whole world correctly. This is our mission.

As for now, we don’t see the whole picture, our role, the goal, and the process which we have to implement on the way to reaching the goal, we don’t understand why disasters fall upon us systematically even today, and when the afflictions and wars will come to an end. We cannot stop them, but we can correct ourselves, and then they will come to an end. It is simply impractical and futile to count on the fact that we will be rid of them if we don’t correct ourselves.

The knowledge of the whole system is required here: Why does it happen, what are the reasons, what is our responsibility, what is the goal that we should reach, and what should we fulfill in order to do I that? Only then is it possible to talk about a solution to the problems, only then will there be no more wars end and fallen heroes.

If people could see the general process, they would understand that we are becoming worse than we were before. We are not building a state and a nation, and do not arrive at any consensus. On the contrary, more and more people relate to the nation and the state by putting their self-interests first: As long as a person feels good, he is here, and when it is bad, he leaves the country. He doesn’t tie himself to anything here. Show him a place on the globe that is better and that is accessible and he will leave immediately.

So on the whole the question is: Why are we crying if we are not doing anything? Isn’t it silly and childish? Instead of just shedding tears and avowing never again, let’s find out, let’s look for the reason for what is going on. New planes and missiles are fine, but let’s examine things and focus on clarifying them.

What is lacking? Even in the direct practical sense, why are there so many who don’t join the army? Because we don’t care about the people, about their spirit, about their self-recognition. Look at what we are teaching the younger generation. The point is not about military service, but about a person’s investment in the society. If we don’t worry about that, why should we cry about it afterward?

Isn’t it better to invest in means and efforts to change the internal state of the people, in raising them, thus reaching a general consensus? Otherwise, if people do not recognize the state and its fallen heroes, the sporadic phenomenon will become a general trend.
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From “A Conversation Dedicated to the Memorial Day to the IDF Casualties and Terror Victims”

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A Safety Net For The Acrobat

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe four hundred years of exile were given to us so that we would cry out and reach a true prayer. When you finally cry out “Help!”,  you come out of exile.

So, the conflict between the “shell” and “holiness” is about one question: Who will rule? Is it the human part in a person or the Creator that is in a person?

This is the middle neutral point called the middle third of Tifferet, the shell of Noga. The Creator rules the upper part, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him,” and below, Pharaoh, or myself.

Here in the free neutral point we have to clarify many things, because each time, Pharaoh grows stronger and denies the Creator’s control. This is after you have decided that the Creator should rule and you are totally under the domination of the Upper that does everything. For a moment I imagined this whole picture in my mind.

This isn’t easy since I am constantly confused about who the Creator is, who rules, and where my place and the place of others is. It is very difficult, here, to keep things balanced, as if standing on one leg on a high pole in a circus constantly trying to maintain balance, trying not to fall.

I need the Creator’s help here that He will give me the force of bestowal, which will make me independent of my desire to receive. Otherwise I will constantly need to stabilize the picture of reality in me that is absolutely impossible, and will have to balance on one leg on a pole like a circus performer. Only the power of bestowal can provide me with such a safety net and balance.

Thus, our point of freedom, “the shell of Noga” is revealed on the lowest level, “the middle third of Tifferet,” that obliges us to answer the question as to who will rule and “Who is the Lord that I should listen to His voice?”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/12, Writings of Rabash 

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Talk About Women’s Preparation For The Convention – 04.17.12

I gave a talk about how women should prepare for conventions within the framework of the program “Rungs of the Ladder.”

The host of the program was Rachel Laitman, head of the Internet Department of the Arvut Movement.

Talk About Women's Preparation For The Convention

[media 1]   [media 2]

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“Economic Gloom Deepens Europe’s Political Crisis”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Marcus Walker and Charles Forelle, from The Wall Street Journal): “Around Europe, many voters, politicians and investors are fretting about economic weakness and high debts, and searching for the right balance between growth and fiscal discipline. A divide is growing between a German-led camp that argues that there is no alternative to austerity for all, and critics who say the strategy is pushing the euro zone into a downward spiral.”

My Comment: This is because the integration must either be complete or not; there is no halfway independence, virginity, or love! A lack of preparation of society in the form of integral upbringing will be manifested more strongly until it is implemented or until they run away, only this is terrible to imagine because it wouldn’t be done in a nice way!
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