The Union Of Plus And Minus

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if during the seminar I’m thinking a lot about unity, but it’s difficult for me to feel it?

Answer: Our work is happening between the feelings and the mind, in the middle line. One needs to keep to this middle line in one’s thoughts, desires, intentions, and relationships, in everything. A one-way bias in any direction is not acceptable. Since all of this is being revealed in creation opposite to the Creator, it must be revealed in the middle line.

The whole of the nature exists only thanks to the fact that it is in some medium, the intermediate states between the absolute plus and minus, in a balance between extreme states.

However, on the human level, balance is not reached by averaging, like it is on the still, vegetative, or animate levels, but by the means that the minus and the plus are uniting together! The left and the right lines do not balance themselves out in the middle, but are united at the center, and that is why this middle line turns out to be on a higher level than their simple sum. This is the difference between the middle line in our world and in the spiritual.

It needs to be understood that all of these concepts, which we are studying on ourselves, will arrive at a balance and will provide the right approach for us towards the solution of any kind of problems.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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I Manage Myself With The Help Of Two Reins

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person needs to see himself as a point that receives everything from the outside. The friends and the world in general, and even the inanimate, the vegetative and the animate, are all parts of my soul. All of this is one Malchut (kingdom), one Kli (desire/vessel), one man who stands across from the Creator.

Therefore, to the extent that I try to connect the enthusiasm and impressions that reach me now from the friends, not to cancel them, to that extent they become real, since I join the parts of my soul to myself. And then I acquire a new intellect and emotions as a result of the connection of the broken Kli.

It’s forbidden to extinguish any state. We need to rise above and examine it from a higher level; this is the correct approach. And therefore, it doesn’t matter how I feel during the workshop: good or bad, since in any case I must rise above everything, and clarify where the feelings come from and why, and then continue. We need to gather and accumulate the most positive and negative impressions in order to advance onward above them.

I must, in advance, agree to every state that comes, since my self – annulment will be built above all of these states. Everything that I go through is necessary in order to teach me to take control of all my states and above them to connect with the friends in spite of my rejection. The most important thing for me must be the connection that I will manage seemingly via two reins, and all my feelings and experiences will be in the background. The end of the act is in the initial thought. If a person behaves in this way, then he correctly uses all of his discernments.

It’s forbidden to allow your horse to run away, not to the left or right. There’s a goal in front of you and you need to constantly examine yourself according to it: if you deviate to the left, then you need to add from the right line, and if you deviate to the right, you need to add from the left line. Everything is determined only by the direction to the goal, and the goal is unity. We don’t see any other goal in spirituality other than the point of unity, Arvut (mutual guarantee).
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Giving And Receiving

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what way is the giving of the Torah different from the receiving of the Torah with regard to the holiday of Shavuot (Pentecost)?

Answer: The Torah was given from Above, and the question is whether we receive it below. Therefore the holiday of Shavuot is called the “holiday of the giving of the Torah,” meaning that if you went through the early stages of the preparation, then you are given the opportunity and you are given the Torah which you should receive under certain conditions.

According to the way it’s described, we see that it isn’t enough just to reach Mt. Sinai; we also have to discover that it’s the mountain of hatred. This means that we return from the “right line” to the “left line.” Why do we need it after the escape from Egypt when I have already detached myself from the ego? But the Torah isn’t given just like that, I have to evoke the “Egypt” in me again, my evil inclination, while standing before this mountain and connect it with the Creator, with the Light that can correct me.

Then, by standing against the Light, I see the conditions that are revealed in my ego, I see what relations I have to establish between them, so that “the darkness will shine like Light,” so that the ego will resemble the Light by fully dressing in bestowal.

In order to do that a person undoubtedly needs many external forces of bestowal because I don’t have these forces and never will have them. So where can I find them? I am ready to connect with all the friends under conditions of mutual guarantee, and this enables me to connect with the general power of bestowal, meaning the upper Light, with the Creator. Thus the main condition is revealed: If we receive it, we will advance towards the Light, towards life, and if not, “here will be your burial place.” This is the condition of mutual guarantee; I annul myself only in order to connect.

If I accept this means, meaning mutual guarantee, the goal of creation, which is mutual correction of all the vessels of bestowal until adhesion into one whole according to the principle of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are One,” then I accept the method, the instruction, called the “Torah.” Then I enter the desert and start correcting myself. Each time new parts of Egypt, of the “left line,” are revealed to me; each time I find sins, mistakes, and evil inside me and correct them by rising to the level of Bina.

When I rise to this level after “forty years in the desert,” I will be worthy of working with the desire to receive in receiving in order to bestow. This is already the work in the Land of Israel, meaning in the desire that is aimed directly at the Creator (Yashar El). By fulfilling these corrections, I build the Temple, a special vessel into which I draw the Reforming Light and the Light of fulfillment. Thus I reach my Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction).

Then new vessels, which do not belong to Israel, are immediately evoked. Where do they come from? The point is that I didn’t take into account all the vessels because I selected and corrected only part of them in order to include Malchut in Bina, and not more than that. Now when the desires of Malchut itself are evoked, I see that my Temple is in the Land of Israel, meaning in Malchut that has joined Bina. But this isn’t enough. We have to reach the state in which the Land of Israel will spread all over the world, to bring Malchut back from the level of Bina to its place.

Thus the third Temple will be built from the desires of the whole world that will go through complete correction. Therefore it’s clear that all our history was only a preparation for the final correction, which we are fulfilling today.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

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My Self Is Actually Not Mine

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says in the Torah: “I am thy Lord,” what does it actually mean?

Answer: It means that the Creator controls everything. If you consider any thoughts, or desires that you have or actions that you perform as your own, it is only because you are confused and have the illusion that it is you. Actually “you” don’t exist at all.

Question: So when do I become myself?

Answer: If I become equal to Him, then He and I “sound” in unison. My self actually doesn’t exist. My free will, my independence, is only to perform consciously and willingly what the Creator does with me.

I am merely a “zombie,” but I was given the chance to grow a “head,” a mechanism, an understanding, and a recognition so that I will understand where I am, who created me and who performs all these actions. I am given that so that I will agree or disagree with His actions, so that I will accept Him and feel Him as good, will identify with Him and will only want His full control. Then I will see that He withdraws and doesn’t want to control me because now I want to control myself exactly as He controlled me and no other way.

This means that I am in adhesion with Him. He makes room for me to the extent that I agree with Him. He created me, I am totally under His control, and He only wants to build this “head” from me, the understanding and the recognition, so that I will resemble Him, and be like Him.

With this goal I can join the game—I constantly agree or disagree with Him alternately, in order to understand Him through these changes and eventually to want only His control over me with my heart and soul.

In any case, we are never detached from the Creator—He is the first and He is the last, and there is none else besides Him. The only thing missing is our recognition of the force that controls us.

Question: But doesn’t a father want his son to be independent? Doesn’t he leave his hand leave him alone for a moment? Can’t we operate on our own even in bestowal?

Answer: If the Creator left us we would disappear from HaVaYaH, from existing. He creates the illusion of whether I agree or disagree with His actions in order to allow the growth of a “head” in addition to the “stomach.” First you worried about filling your desires, and now you are given doubts, and a space is opened from which He seems to be absent. Thus the Creator raises you in small portions of imaginary independence, while you may be satisfied or dissatisfied with His control.

And so, in contrast to religions, we arrive at a critical clarification and examination and eventually reach an agreement, and from that we reach adhesion when the Creator’s control over us is felt as undividedly good and absolute. This actually stems from the initial disagreement and my rejection of His actions. “As the benefit of the Light from the darkness”—I constantly try to clarify things, have doubts and resent the Creator, disagree with Him and curse Him, until I reach adhesion with Him.

This is why it says that “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.” A person who develops by the wisdom of Kabbalah seems like an actual “offender,” since he goes through such doubts and serious questions, but without this he cannot reach adhesion.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

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Shortage Of Time: Good Or Bad?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The human psyche is designed so that it allows a person to accurately estimate the time of speaking: If he is given three minutes, he will talk for three minutes; if he is given an hour, he will talk for an hour.

What time allotment is better: a little shortage of time or should it be sufficient for everyone to speak?

Answer: Certainly there should be a little lack of time, but it should be just a little. It is not good when people feel that they only just started talking.

Usually each question winds in a spiral: becoming deeper, and better, and more. Therefore, there is never enough time.

However, we have to understand that in general this is given to us only with a purpose to “kick off” the unity between us, but then all of it should be passed into the daily lesson. There we realize everything that we created, that we begot during the workshop.
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From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.29.12

Writings of Rabash You Stand Today All of You” (To: “According to the above-said”)

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The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpts “Beresheet (Genesis),” “For He Did Shower Rain,” Item 422, Lesson 107

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 2, Item 1, Lesson 1

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Baal HaSulam “600,000 Souls,” Lesson 2

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