The Harmony Of Opposites

The Harmony Of OppositesYou know why I like a Georgian choir so much? It’s because of the accord. The singers have to share the same feelings, the hearts of all participants have to be like one heart. They should work as a team and feel each other. There has to be internal balance and complete integration.

Each singer performs his part without interfering with others and simultaneously is in accord with them. Their voices go in innumerable directions and unite, then divide, split, and come back together over and over again. This internal flow of the connection of the opposites is what grants such strength to this art.

It’s exactly how a Kabbalistic group has to act internally.
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From a Meal at the Georgia Convention 11/5/12

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Why Is The Creator Constantly Shaking Us?

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are under the constant influence of the one and only force of the Creator—there is none else besides Him. Why does He always confuse us? We sleep, and then all of a sudden we wake up, get inspired, rejoice, and then again have no idea where to go. We feel like we want to stay close to our friends, then we prefer to be as far from them as possible, staying away from the group. Then we are either in high spirits or suddenly become sad. What does He want of us? Why does He constantly toss us from side to side? Why doesn’t He give us concrete and correct directions on how to advance?

Religions dictate: “Do this and that, and everything will be fine. Don’t do that or you’ll be in trouble.” Everything is clear there. This is the way we teach our children: “Stop doing this, it’s bad. You’ll succeed if you do what I am telling you.”

Everything that’s going on in the world is more or less clear to us except our own spiritual work. We are doing something that is utterly elusive. We are in constant confusion. Something that we clearly understood yesterday is totally vague to us today and we can’t even come back to it.

Why does the Creator turn us into people who swing from one state to another, from certain conclusions to others? If He is One, Unique and Unified, if He is the only force that governs us, then where do our diverse states come from? Why does He do everything in His power to confuse and disorient us and bring us to a state when our desires and thoughts are of no help at all?

Question: Why does He do that? If, say, this single force is throwing us from side to side, then why does He evoke such states in us when the more we advance, the more doubts and troubles we go through? Does He really want us to come closer to Him? Why doesn’t He want us to become smarter and stronger? There is a goal, a method, everything! Then why do we experience ever new opposing sensations and opinions? What’s going on in general?! Why does He need all of this?

Answer: The Creator constantly shakes us in order to make us understand that we are helpless and to motivate us to eventually appeal to Him. Why does He constantly shake us as if we’re in a washing machine? He does that to make us lose the ground that we stand on and hold onto Him.…
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From the Georgia Convention 11/5/12, Workshop 1

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 11.25.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,”  Item 27, Lesson 10

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The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpt, ParashatEmor,” Item 177, Lesson 14

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 8, “Ohr Pnimi,” Item 59, Lesson 39

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“The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “The Language of the Kabbalists Is a Language of Branches,” Lesson 7

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 11.24.12

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Many Problems, One Reason

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, just like the whole Torah, is only about the connection between us, as we unite, our connection reveals a new force. Each time we exert ourselves in order to connect to one another, as if trying to penetrate the center of our mutual connection with a force of several “kilograms.” Once we have created the sufficient force to connect, a special type of connection is revealed called “the world of Assiya.” When we create greater tension, the connection called “the world of Yetzira” is revealed. And so we ascend the spiritual levels. There is nothing more than that.

So while reading The Zohar we constantly try to find out how to connect more strongly to one another and to find out what our connection is. By the connection that you discover, you attain the level of mutual bestowal, and according to the level of the mutual bestowal, you begin to discover a special force, the Creator. This is called “from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.”

This is the only state we should think about, because there is nothing but this state. On every level there is only the concealment of this state, and the revelation. To the extent that you have to be connected, but are not connected yet, you feel sufferings: missiles, financial problems, in everything, without exception. All for one reason only: You are not connected strongly enough to others.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/12, The Zohar

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Repetition Woes

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”: …this wisdom (Kabbalah) is no more and no less than a sequence of roots, which hang down by way of cause and consequence, by fixed, determined rules, interweaving to a single, exalted goal described as “the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world…

The wisdom of Kabbalah discloses to all of humanity in general and to each of us in particular a mandatory step-by-step pathway of advancement that conforms to absolute laws of nature, and leads us up from our current state to the end of correction. Kabbalah explains which tools help us follow this path and what forces act upon us while we inevitably advance in accordance with the will of nature, as well as when we self-develop due to our conscious, mindful participation and willful contribution to the process. We discover all parts of reality, from the current state to the end of correction, in the system called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.”

Hence, no other science is more important or more important to us, especially now that we have already completed development on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels. Previously, we could not learn the wisdom of Kabbalah and use it; that’s why it was hidden from us. However, as soon as we become able to implement it and contribute its natural, timely development in order to accelerate it, in other words, as soon as we voluntarily hasten our growth, understand, and are aware of it, at this point, the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed to us and obliges us to implement it.

Here of course, we have to admit that we can’t continue developing the way we used to because we have reached the period of conscientious and mindful development in every step of the way. Without our awareness and active participation, we won’t advance from one state to another, nor will we climb to a higher level. At the speaking developmental stage, it’s absolutely impossible to advance “automatically” as on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels, when we were growing up under the impact of mandatory forces.

It’s similar to transitioning from the first grade to the second: If I’m not ready for it, I’ll be left for the second or third year of studies in the same grade. I’ll be punished for that, I won’t be allowed to play games, eat cakes, etc., until I complete all the lessons. I have to finish the first grade on my own.

It doesn’t work as at the previous developmental stages, which didn’t require any personal contribution. One must not advance as an animal, but as a human being, acquiring wisdom and the sense of consciously participating in the process.

If humanity continues to act in the old way, it will trigger new disasters so as to finally understand the necessity of conscious progress. We have to feel and understand the rules of our development and see the goal before us, and pursue it.

This is why the world won’t advance without the wisdom of Kabbalah, nor will it develop without picking it up from us and using it accordingly. Otherwise, it just will not happen. Woes will continue and people will suffer until they eventually hear and understand our message. This is the requirement of our era.

We, on the other hand, must show the most friendly, sympathetic, and gentle attitude while presenting a Kabbalistic methodology in various forms of offering our methodology to make it easier for everybody to absorb it. We must focus on the the user, as it is said: “Educate a child according to his own way.”

Nevertheless, until the people of Israel and the whole world closely connect with the wisdom of Kabbalah, disasters will continue in order to motivate everybody to search for it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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A Conscious Movement Towards The Creator

laitman_935The conscious aspiration towards the Creator means that we organize a group, its spiritual center, assemble together, all our aspirations are aimed forward, everyone is equal, everyone connects, and we expect to find the Creator and cling to Him as to our only place of rescue specifically in the group.

A small child holds on to his mother (he doesn’t know anything else in the world), grasping her, feeling her, and recognizing her scent, and that’s it: He doesn’t need anything else. So do we need to reach such a state in order to hold on to the Creator, but only through the group and from within it. This is our salvation! It is specifically in this state that we cross the Machsom (the barrier that separates us from spirituality), the first point of connection, adhesion, contact with the Creator.

It is well described in the stories of the exit from Egypt, when one no longer knows what is happening. People flee from there at night, run without knowing where to, jump through the Red Sea. They jump into the abyss, it doesn’t matter where—what matters is to move forward, towards the Creator, and to hold on to Him! It is not known what will be there, and there’s no need to know. One finds himself in this state, and in this state he passes the Machsom. This is, to our present states, when we, so to speak, are slightly rocked from side to side, we need to add these big shake-ups.

And after one passed the Machsom, he is being shaken more strongly. There, on one hand, one finds the Klipot (the shells) and on the other, the divinity, meaning forces of impurity and holiness. There serious problems begin, which don’t stop until Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction). They travel from the bottom to the top by a cone, and minus and plus become greater and greater. And that gives us greater and greater need to hold on to the Creator. And this is what His help is. This is why it is called “help against him.”

But is there another possibility to come to Him if we are egoists and were created opposite to Him? There is no other way.

So what is our participation in this? When we are being shaken, we grasp onto the Creator, like a baby to his mother, crying, longing, clinging to Him. What is our work in order that we will grasp this process and transform it into good, conscious, worthy?

Question: How can we make this process in order to participate in it and not just to be rocked from side to side and thus have us long to hold on to Him? How is it possible to transform this path into something more normal? How is it possible to speed up our progress forward?

Answer: We can participate ourselves in this process only in the event that we approach it more strongly and attain the point of connection in the group. Through this point, we will hold on to the Creator more strongly.

We need to do this consciously so that the shake-ups from the side of the Creator don’t influence us, so that we ourselves, regardless of the shake-ups, exalt connection with Him, so that drawing closer to the Creator, to a state when we are in reciprocity, unity, love, and mutual assistance, when we are one complete whole will be important for us. This shouldn’t be in order to escape problems, but because it is important in itself.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/05/12, Workshop 1

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Completing The Construction Of An Incomplete World

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have a huge force in our hands and there is nothing that compares to it in the world. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the foundation of nature without all the myths and beliefs! The physical laws, the most profound laws of the world are mutual cooperation of two opposing forces: the Light and the vessel (desire), the attribute of reception and the attribute of bestowal, and there’s nothing but that.

Call them what you want: plus and minus, the North Pole and the South Pole, or proton and electron. We have the method to balance them that explains how we can build the world using these two building blocks, how we can complete the building of this purposefully incomplete world by ourselves, and thus understand what the Creator wants of us.

He wants us to be able to build it with Him. Just like a child builds a house of building blocks, sculptures something, plays with a construction set, or puts together a jigsaw puzzle, we too have to complete building this world!

The still, vegetative, and animate parts of this world are instinctively balanced. Nature operates in them so that they are never wrong and function correctly. Someone catches someone else, someone eats someone else; this is how nature governs them. This is so except for man.

We contain the animate and the speaking levels. We have to bring the animate level to balance with nature. This means reasonable consumption. The world will have to come to it either by suffering, by a crisis, or in a good way. I think that this development will accelerate now.

In any case, now everyone is already speaking about this openly. Lately we hear on the media that things will not be better in the future, but even worse. It isn’t only in Europe, but in America and in other countries too. That is, people already admit that there is no way out of this state.

Thus, nature will bring us either consciously or by blows to feel the necessity of a wise existence, of reasonable consumption: Everything should be shared equally, and then everyone will have whatever they need to subsist. All the other forces and time will be aimed only at attaining the next level called Adam (human), meaning similarity to the Creator in unity between us.

This is what we have to build by ourselves. We have to attain this level and to exist in it sensibly and not instinctively, so that we’ll be able to attain the level of the Creator, the one unified force that surrounds and manages us.

We must not think about this force as something material. Only the desire can be real. The Light that manages it is not matter, but only an intention to bestow. We will understand this with time.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 4

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 11.23.12

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Becoming The Guides For The Whole World

Dr. Michael LaitmanRav Kook, “The Lights,” “The War,” Item 9: The building of the world that is collapsing now before the terrible storms of the blood filled sword requires the building of the Israeli nation. The building of the nation and the revelation of its spirit is one thing, and it is connected to the building of the world that is falling apart and that is expecting a force that is united and supreme, and it is all in the soul of Knesset Israel. The spirit of the Creator is filled with it and it is impossible for man’s spirit, whose feeling of the soul is throbbing in him, to be calm in this great hour, without calling all the great forces of the nation: Wake up and rise to fulfill your role.

Things will not be corrected and will not improve unless the people of Israel understand their special role regarding themselves, regarding the whole world, and regarding the Creator and their obligation to everyone. This is the law of nature, which does not depend on our consent and doesn’t require our consent.

We will have to keep this law no matter what, either by the path of the Light or by the path of suffering. Humanity has to reach an equivalence of form with the Creator, and we are the part that is obligated to start the correction for everyone and to lead them by setting an example for the other nations. We have to acknowledge our mission and to accept it, either willingly by agreeing, understanding, and taking on the responsibility or by pressure of the general hatred that will be revealed towards us, the troubles, the problems, and the sufferings of the development press that is pressuring us.

We will have to acknowledge that the whole method of correction that leads us from the love of others to the love of the Creator is called the wisdom of Kabbalah. This wisdom tells about the connection among us, about the network of connections among us in which all of reality is included, the whole system of the worlds. By building and discovering the connection among us we discover the upper spiritual reality that is above the egoistic corporeal reality in which we are living today.

We will have to understand that the wisdom of Kabbalah is not about red strings, as the nonreligious believe, and not about creating statues that were already shattered in the days of Abraham, not mysticism, which religious people imagine, not blessings, and not prayers so that everything will change for my own good, except for me. So no one is thinking about self-correction, but rather they are asking for egoistic changes: not that I should change, but that everything around will change for my own good.

However, the wisdom of Kabbalah is God’s work by which, with help of the upper Light, with the help of the attribute of bestowal, we will want to change ourselves in faith above reason, in order to resemble the upper force and to reach an equivalence of form with it, to reach adhesion. This means to become Adam (human), which means “similar” to the Creator (Domeh), which has the same root in Hebrew.

This is what we should aim all the forces of the nation at, as Rav Kook says here: Only in the revelation of these forces will we reach the creation of the spirit of the nation and the assembly of all the souls of Israel, “Knesset Israel.” Then we will become a “nation of priests and a holy nation” for the whole world; we will become an example and guides for everyone.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/12

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