Audio Version Of The Blog – 02.15.13

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Get The Tools And Don’t Expect Favors

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, article “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: And because The Zohar is revealed in our generation, this is a clear proof that we are now in the time of the Messiah, at the beginning of this generation, about which it is said: “ And the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Creator.”

Baal HaSulam is writing it that because everything is realized by the upper Light. And when the Light is illuminating less, then the nation of Israel is in exile, if it illuminates even less, then we all are in troubles up to the loss of life, meaning losing this perception of reality. And conversely, when the Light illuminates more, then we feel vitality and we live a full life. When it illuminates even more, then we begin to feel the source of the Light and we are attracted to it.

Everything comes from the Light, and precisely it “shakes” the vessels, our desires, but in our era, its bestowing is changing. The revelation of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the thought of creation and its goal, the systems that humanity exists in, the global nature with its absolute laws, which is the Creator, all this brought great changes in our world. In the last century, the Light influenced the world in such a way, that as a result, The Book of Zohar was revealed, meaning that the strongest source of correction was revealed. The authors of The Zohar wrote openly that thanks to this Book, the people of Israel go out of exile. Therefore, it is necessary to see our time as time of spiritual ascent, and everything depends only on the correct use of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

From above there will be no concessions on what we are capable of realizing. But this way or that way, the revealing of The Book of Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah, the work that was done by Baal HaSulam that revealed the method of Kabbalah to this generation, and the works of Rabash that describe the rules of spiritual work—all this laid a foundation for our ascent. The two parts of the wisdom of Kabbalah that were prepared by our teachers were necessarily revealed in order for anyone who is awakened to self-realization in the path to the goal of creation (purpose) to be able to execute it.

Therefore, our time is the beginning of the period of the Messiah, meaning the stage of the final correction.
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From the 4th Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/13, A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Look In The Right Place And You Will Find

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God”: What does it mean that the Lord heals the brokenhearted, since we know that the main thing in a person is the heart, that “a heart” is the vessel that receives the Holiness from Above. This is as we learn from the shattering of the vessels, which means that if a vessel is shattered, it cannot contain anything that is put in it. In addition, if a heart is broken, it means that the desire to receive dominates the heart and so the abundance cannot enter it, since everything that the desire to receive receives goes to the shells and this is called “the breaking of the heart.”

The Creator can’t help a person unless the heart feels that it is broken, since until then, there is no one to help. The heart is broken at once but we correct it in small parts, and this is indeed a great easing in our work. After all, we don’t have to make great efforts in order to correct everything all at once from our current egoistic state straight to the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

Instead, we can perform a gradual correction, in small portions, as if we are transferring the King’s treasure, moving one coin at a time from one place to another. Still, it’s hard for us to make the first move since it means moving to the opposite intention: from in order to receive to in order to bestow. So it can’t take place unless we clarify our desires and our intentions, unless we differentiate the desires and the intentions, unless we understand what is in our power and what is not, and where it is our part and where it is not.

We must clarify all this so that we can discern exactly what a broken heart is, and what exactly needs to be corrected. It takes a long time to clarify this discernment. This is because we forget about the group, about others, and about the fact that the desire has to be collective. Everyone begins to think about himself, about how he feels inside, and this has nothing to do with a broken heart.

The heart is broken since it can’t connect with others. This is what the shattering is about, but we don’t think in this direction at all. We try to imagine our personal shattering, and it takes a long time until we locate it correctly. But the moment this happens, it becomes clear that it’s a simple and concrete problem that needs to be corrected.

It takes a lot of work for the vessel to understand that nothing can happen to it individually, but only collectively, that it’s only part of the general vessel and one part in the Light. But the moment there is a diagnosis, there is no need to call the doctor and immediately see how the correction and the filling appear in that place.

So it’s very important that we reach the general thought, the general feeling, so that everyone will feel that he is in a force field of mutual guarantee. All our searching is done in the totally wrong place, we are searching inside ourselves instead of searching between us, and thus all our powers go to waste.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/13

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Be Like Everyone Else?

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam says that, in fact, the Jewish people have not received the land of Israel even though they live in it. The problem is that the Israeli nation is not fulfilling its designation. By having returned to our homeland and having gathered here again, the nation has to adjust itself to a new era, to the vessels that are revealed today, but it isn’t doing this.

On the whole, the state of Israel was founded on a miserable ideal, as the “refuge” for Jews all over the world. But do we feel good when we run to a shelter as we are under missile attack?

Of course, I am not against the state of Israel. When there are missiles outside, the shelter saves us. But the Israeli nation has to live here in order to fulfill its mission, and instead it wants the unattainable: to be like everyone else, not to “aspire” for anything, but simply be a “normal country.”

Question: So how can we explain all this to people?

Answer: One thing is clear: You can’t dictate the meaning of life to them, shame them, or “teach them the right way.” It won’t work. No one can bear such a heavy load being dumped on him. After all, a person needs a clear benefit. Where is the carrot the donkey can follow? Moreover, it needs to be such a carrot that there will be no need for the stick from behind.

When troubles are on our doorstep, it’s enough to entice a person a little and he immediately begins to move from his place. In the darkness of suffering, everyone will run to the light that filtering through a small window. But how can we lead the people forward without troubles and sufferings? Now they are sitting at their homes, strolling in the street, and everything is just fine. This means that we can only speak about the laws of nature with them, about being balanced with nature, and not more than that. But these explanations also seem abstract, since people don’t feel the crisis yet and so they are not ready to listen.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13, A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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It’s Good At Home, But It’s Better With The Team

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A new form of work has developed, “remote work or telecommuting” when an employee does not go to the office, but stays at home at his computer and goes to the office a couple times a month. Is this good or bad?

Answer: I think that in this case a person will still suffer from depression and emptiness. He needs to feel an integral connection. Working alone will not be effective enough. Today it is relevant because it is convenient for an employee, for an employer, and for a mother with children, but this is a temporary process.

In any case, a person will need to be integrated into a system, either at the place of residence or on the basis of something else. He must constantly fulfill his new desire, feel that he is inside an integral system. After all, the integral egoism that appears in us will still lead us to this. We are not free; nature develops us in this way.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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“Inequality Is Holding Back The Recovery”

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Joseph Stiglitz, professor of economics at Columbia University and Nobel laureate): “The long malaise into which the economy seems to be settling, and the growing divide between the 1 percent and the rest — an inequality not only of outcomes but also of opportunity. To me, these problems are two sides of the same coin: with inequality at its highest level since before the Depression, a robust recovery will be difficult in the short term, and the American dream — a good life in exchange for hard work — is slowly dying.

“There are four major reasons inequality is squelching our recovery. The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically driven our economic growth. …

“Second, the hollowing out of the middle class since the 1970s, a phenomenon interrupted only briefly in the 1990s, means that they are unable to invest in their future, by educating themselves and their children and by starting or improving businesses.

“Third, the weakness of the middle class is holding back tax receipts. ….

“Fourth, inequality is associated with more frequent and more severe boom-and-bust cycles that make our economy more volatile and vulnerable. … The International Monetary Fund has noted the systematic relationship between economic instability and economic inequality, but American leaders haven’t absorbed the lesson.

Inequality leads to political inequality and a broken decision-making process. High unemployment, of course, depresses wages. Adjusted for inflation, real wages have stagnated or fallen. … Since the Great Recession, most of the increase in the nation’s wealth has gone to the very top.

“Meanwhile, as incomes have stagnated or fallen, tuition has soared. … We could have recognized that when young people are jobless, their skills atrophy. We could have made sure that every young person was either in school, in a training program or on a job. Instead, we let youth unemployment rise to twice the national average.  The children of the rich can stay in college or attend graduate school, without accumulating enormous debt, or take unpaid internships to beef up their résumés. Not so for those in the middle and bottom. We are sowing the seeds of ever more inequality in the coming years. …

“Globalization, and the unbalanced way it has been pursued, has shifted bargaining power away from workers: firms can threaten to move elsewhere, especially when tax laws treat such overseas investments so favorably. This in turn has weakened unions.”

My Comment: Inequality is the principle criterion of our world—egoism; it can be eradicated only through integral education which everyone should go through so that humanity can get rid of its evil and survive.
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How To Fill The Void?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Would it be worthwhile for business people to change their direction now, to diversify and turn to some kinds of essential production?

Answer: In the new integral system, unnecessary businesses, unnecessary profession, and unnecessary jobs will automatically be discarded. After all, we are approaching this and in the end of things, humanity will only produce essential food goods, products, and services.

Question: Will the result be that trade as we know it and brokerage services will disappear?

Answer: No, they will remain. There are numerous connections in trade and in brokerage services. But in the same trade and intermediary services there is a set of completely unnecessary contacts, companies, and industries that fill artificial niches. As a result of integral development, all of that will gradually disappear as is already evidenced by the level of increasing unemployment.

People begin to demand higher fulfillment, instead of continuously purchasing more and more. It will become increasingly revealed to man that the level of consumption doesn’t exceed rational consumption. I need to feed my “animal,” to maintain my body, my children, family, and relatives. This is essential, but this is the animal level of our state.

And today a new level is already discovered where I need to receive fulfillment not from purchasing a better car than my neighbors, etc. I suddenly begin to feel within me such an emptiness that I can fill only with close contact with the community, through mutual integration in a common connection.

The feelings of confidence, security, warmth, generosity, and kindness are what is missing now in the society. But in the meantime they are not aware of it. We see this according to the programs that are shown on TV, according to how the media distorts people, etc. But still, it’s true because it’s necessary for people to understand as quickly as possible in what kind of world they are living.
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From KabTV’s “Personnel Secrets” 2/3/13

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The End Of The Information Era

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are entering a new state where the “upper bar” that was set for humanity is changing. In the era that is coming to an end, it was information: Whoever has information rules the world. It isn’t by chance that the banks have become a kind of industrial enterprises: They are also making a profit, but directly, on the “information” level. And this is according to the laws of nature. Indeed, if I have information, I don’t need anything else. Information by itself has become an object that we manufacture, design, and sell, just like real merchandise.

Now this era is coming to an end, and whoever has more information cannot “move mountains” anymore. Before information was simply “linear,” it was made of a chain of “bits” that connect to an egoistic pipe. Now, however, we enter a “round” world, an era of an integral humanity, and the states don’t change smoothly but through a crisis. It stems from the fact that we don’t control this transition and don’t know what we are about to encounter.

Once, everything was clear and even revolutions fitted the framework of logical reasoning. People knew how to hasten the development of technology and science and worked full steam ahead. But today nothing is clear anymore.

Meanwhile, the next phase of the general human designation, the next key principle, the next main criterion of society, its intensity and development, is attainment. It’s the attainment of a new system. Whoever attains it will be a “great” person.

Practically, it means that in our times we have to change man and not the world. For the first time we have to adapt ourselves to the system that is being revealed to us. But this time it isn’t we who are building the system according to our ego from within. The Creator no longer urges us from within, but only reveals the deficiency to us and shows us an example ahead so that we will build ourselves according to the example. Humanity must become integral and “round” like all of Nature. The faster we understand this the less we will suffer.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar

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I’d Rather Be a Janitor…

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: (From a letter) Why should I go to work? What is the point? Of course the salary is important. But I could eliminate the cost of travel, stop buying clothes that I am constantly updating so as not to wear the same thing all the time, and stop buying expensive prepared meals—it turns out that I spend two-thirds of my salary just to be able to go to work—so wouldn’t it be better to become a janitor sweeping floors in the morning and having the rest of the day free, easily living on one-third of my current salary?

Answer: These sentiments belong not only to simple workers, but also to people in high positions who force themselves to go to work from fear of losing their jobs, or out of a sense of responsibility, or because talking to people gives them energy to live.

But still, we are moving in the direction of human transformation, people develop absolutely new demands for new kinds of fulfillment. This is not for financial fulfillment; there is a changing inner need to change the quality of life. It is no longer determined by what you eat or drink, taking a walk in the evening, or buying something new. Its feeling arises in us as a new emptiness.

Question: But work fills the emptiness in us in many ways. Maybe the problem is that there is no time to just sit and think about something else, something more important?

Answer: But this is not a treatment, but just a distraction, like an analgesic drug, which will not solve the problem.

We see that many people are willing to work for free, just so their work would give them some kind of fulfillment.

We have new desires, new voids, that we must fill through society due to the integral connection we find ourselves in. Our past egoistic desires are transformed into new ones, which require being fulfilled through society and interconnection. We are still only in the beginning stages of this new integral egoism, but we can already feel it.
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From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/3/13

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 02.15.13

Preparation to the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam  Letter 26, Lesson 2

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The Book of ZoharSelected Excerpt, ParashatBalak,” Lesson 2

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Volume 1, Part 1, Lesson 5

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Writings of Baal HaSulam The Peace,” Lesson 8

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