Audio Version Of The Blog – 06.19.13

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Weekly Torah Portion – 06.19.13

The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion, Selected Excerpts

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Do Not Withhold Spiritual Support From Yourselves!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do married Kabbalists need to help those who are not married to find a partner for themselves?

Answer: I think that it is desirable for both men and for women to establish a family, although it could be that this is not found in their program.  That a woman today who in the past always aspired to establish a family doesn’t want this, this is the result of a developed, or perhaps even an overly developed, ego.

The person doesn’t see any reason: “Well, I will bring a child into this world, and when ten or fifteen years have passed he will leave me; and then what?”  It is the same thing with the husband as well.  “I dedicated my whole life to him, and then what?”

No, this is not so.  We need to build the same relationships both within and between us, and in the whole world.  Therefore it is necessary to try to act in a family according to the same principle by which we learn the wisdom of Kabbalah and gradually let it take root.  Then the family will acquire meaning, for in spite of it all, this is the same cell from which the growth of the person begins.  The husband and wife need to be involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah together and participate in a group as a single cell.  Also the groups, by uniting, need to participate in our general world group as one cell, and the general world group in relation to all of humanity, until all of us will be locked into one family.  So everything begins from the family.

And never disparage this essential egoistic component, it is simply necessary to raise it to the next level.

Therefore, I think that a man and a woman can get married at any age, work together and participate in a group as a single whole.  With this they will feel how beneficial this cooperation between them is, because in spite of it all, it is doubtful that Kabbalistic obligations will hold you in a group the way they hold you at home.

It’s worth it, I am speaking seriously.  Therefore, all the bachelors should pay attention to not withhold serious, spiritual support from themselves.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 1

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Healing Something With Something That Resembles It

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it difficult for us to open our hearts even if we know that we are one family? The closer a person is the more difficult it is. We are ready to share and pour our heart out to anyone but those who are near to us. Why is that? Is it just my feeling, my illusion?

Answer: It’s actually so and it will get even more difficult. It says in The Zohar that the students of Rabbi Shimon, who were all great Kabbalists, felt such great hatred towards one another when they gathered that it seemed to burn them from the inside. They were ready to burn one another. So you are on the right track. We should understand this and know how to manage it.

The point is that all the negative attributes were given to us so that we would see how we have to focus our efforts on getting closer. So there is nothing to complain about, but rather to be glad about the revelation of evil and to understand that it shows you where you are ill.

Can you imagine what would happen to us if nothing hurt? How many illnesses we would ignore? Thanks to the pain we pay attention to the illness and heal it. We don’t calm ourselves by saying that “I hate the other, but now I will have a drink with him, eat something together, and everything will be fine…” No! This is wrong! It’s like taking a painkiller. A glass of vodka and everything is fine, and is he already your friend? No!

Question: So where can I purchase the remedy?

Answer: The remedy is revealed only when we reach the recognition of the illness itself, only then, is the remedy revealed inside the illness. After all, all the remedies that we use in this world were discovered by studying the illness itself. By studying the illness we discover what causes it and we begin to use the same material as an antidote, thus healing something with something “similar.”

This means that when we know for sure what the problem is, we heal it by using the same thing but in its opposite form. So this is yet to be revealed. The main thing is not to negate and not to perceive the ego that is revealed between us as something bad.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 1

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Strengthening Unity Or Hindering It?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it more important for us to strengthen unity or leave it as it is? Or is there an alternative?

Answer: I don’t think anything can hold with efforts without increasing them, for our ego is constantly growing.

We must always think about the basis on which everything rests. We live in a world that evolved egoistically, and we ourselves evolved egoistically; therefore we cannot avoid working on this.

And it is said, “Describe to yourself… , make it in your eyes… , …which is renewed all the time”. Which is to say, we need “to see” all the time, it is impossible otherwise.

Therefore we need to understand clearly that what existed a minute ago has finished its action already; we apparently were friends, we decided to work together, and a minute later all of our good intentions evaporated, that is how quickly everything changes in us. So we need to comprehend everything in the right way, meaning to get used to this, to support this with that.

We examine all this with constant effort. Nothing exists in spirituality at constant velocity. According to Einstein’s theory, something that moves in a straight line at constant velocity is the same as something that is at rest.

The spiritual world is beyond the speed of light. Even the great Kabbalist Maimonides wrote in the 12th century that spirituality is found beyond the speed of light.

The speed of light is a constant everywhere. So by the concept of “beyond the speed of light” we mean a change in velocity. If we have something that is growing all the time, this is spirituality. In spirituality we take into account the differential, which is to say, the change. If there is a change that is growing all the time, in spirituality this is considered to be a velocity, and not acceleration. Which is to say, everything is at a higher order of magnitude there; what is considered to be velocity in our world (for instance, movement at a velocity of 200 kilometers per second), in spirituality this would be considered to be standing still, since there is no change in this.

In other words, all of those states that don’t change in us don’t exist in spirituality. And only our positive additions, efforts above an ego that is growing for the needs of the goal, which is evolving all the time in us, only these are considered to exist spiritually.

Therefore maintaining an old state won’t work, for the ego is growing. Even in our world everything is found in constant movement: We age, go forward, something is always happening. It is only in our feelings that the ego is as if is slowing us down.

So if you don’t want to be stuck, you have one and only one possibility, that everything around you will be in an internal movement and you will be connected with it all. So how is it possible to be connected with it all? Only through establishing a covenant, when you reach an agreement that you will pull each other all the time, wake each other up, and support each other.

If you direct yourselves in this way, then you can assure yourself spiritual advancement, otherwise, not: The ego will grow and “pull” you wherever it goes. The friends must awaken you in the right way and then you can realize this precisely.

But it is impossible to remain in a single state; nature will not allow this. Then it will push you down, so that through the crisis you will be convinced that it is necessary rise up. This is the only way!

This problem exists everywhere, both in families and in groups; people suppose that they can preserve our state, and so we hold onto a position and maintain it.
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From the 2nd Preparation for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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A Hill Of Golden Sand

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if the majority of the friends in my group of ten are very weak and pull me downwards?

Answer: One needs to struggle and try to pull them after you. And also to turn for help so that within this tens a few strong friends will be included, like yourself. But it is forbidden to leave the weak ones. You need to strengthen them. That’s the correction.

The correction is such that everyone becomes equal and unified, and not that a few outstanding friends are chosen and the rest are discarded.

If one goes from one group of ten to another, a stronger group, and succeeds there, and the others will fall even lower without him, then that is not a correction, but corruption. We are approaching the general correction of the entire world, thus today as we enter a greater area, not just growth in height, we will attain in this way greater success.

We think that we simply need to rise up the ladder, but the rise upwards on the rungs of the ladder depends on the spread across. This ladder grew in the form of the cone, like sand hills that children build. If you want your hill to be tall, you need to make its base wider. Identically, our development upward is built like this. It can’t be any other way. It is imperative.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/13, Writings of Rabash

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The World Awaits New Ideas

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Mikhail Khazin): “Almost at the same time, economic growth stopped all over the world. … And the consequences of this condition surfaced.

– The world’s financial elite, which determines all the rules of the global economy, broke up into several groups (after the Strauss-Kahn case in the summer of 2011);

– Since there is not enough money, the policy of withholding money is revived;

– As the liberal idea discredited itself, the alternative options (communism, fascism, militant Islam) are coming back into politics.

“In this situation, only an ideological line can be offered, and we need to prepare for the emergence of new ideas.”

My Comment: Mikhail Khazin recently visited me, and during a few meetings we were discussing the possibility of revealing integral education to the world. I trust his sense as a forecaster and that the time of disclosing of our method of correction will come soon.
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Ascent To A Higher Orbit

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the prerequisite for a desire to unite, is it my desire to understand and to feel everything within me?

Answer: During the process of spiritual work, our desire to understand and to feel everything within us does not contract; on the contrary, it goes and grows more and more.  And it must expand because it is becoming more and more integral.  I already begin to understand how my image of reality changes and that my body, by occupying a particular volume in physical space, gives me a feeling of distance, isolation from others, even opposition and difference from others.

I need to bring myself to a state where I feel myself freed from the body.  The body doesn’t exist.  Above my body, which is to say beyond the ego, there exists connection between me and others.  And the body doesn’t exist, it is some kind of egoistic image in my imagination, in our consciousness.  This is how I need to learn to describe my future state to myself.  What interests me is only the spiritual unity between us.  There is no significance to bodies.  Later we will see how they disappear.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah we learn about the birth of the spiritual Kli, about its growth and about changes of state.  The same thing takes place with us in our world, the birth and growth of our beastly body, which in principle is that ego.  Our body is what exists in our imagination, in fact, it is formed within our ego.  After that it melts, disappears, dies, and in its place another body appears, and another, and so forth until we go out to the level of the completed correction.  We return into the bodies all the time because they are imperative for us for our independent attainment of every spiritual level.

Between every spiritual level there is a disconnect, a split.  In order to attain a particular level you need to fall from it to the level of this world.  At least for a moment you must feel that you exist only in this beastly state, and after this you will begin to attain the next higher spiritual level.  You fall to this level all the time, and then again you carry out an energetic leap to the next higher level.

And only with the completion of all the corrections when you carry out an action called (Shmuel II 23:20) “…a valiant man from Kabtziel who had done many acts” (which is to say, “I will gather together”), when you gather all of these levels and connect them integrally then the last state of the full completion of the correction appears.  And until then, we correct every value in a discrete (isolated) form, just as an electron leaps within the atom to the next levels.  But in general when it leaps it emits photons, whereas, we do the opposite because we are ascending spiritually; therefore, we apparently absorb energy from the surrounding energetic field called “Creator” or “Light,” and this obligates our ascent to a higher and higher orbit.
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From the 2nd Preparation for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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The Store Accepts Credit Cards

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Rabbi Akiva depicts two kinds of people: the first are the “open store” type, which regard this world as an open store without a shopkeeper. He says about them, “The book is open and the hand writes.” Meaning, although they do not see that there is an account, all their actions are nonetheless written in the book, as explained above. This is done by the law of development imprinted in Creation against humanity’s will, where the deeds of the wicked themselves necessarily instigate the good deeds, as we have shown above.

The second type of people is called “those who want to borrow.” They take the shopkeeper into consideration, and when they take something from the store, they only take it as a loan. They promise to pay the shopkeeper the desired price, meaning attain the goal by it.

The point in the heart determines everything. If I have a point in the heart and I fulfill it correctly, I belong to the second type, and if I don’t have a point in the heart, I work like the first type.

We have a point in the heart, so we want to approach the Creator with the right demand, “Dress in us, and do the work.” This is called, “My sons defeated me.”

Besides, we want to help people who don’t have a point in the heart and who cannot ask for this, but who also want to purchase products from the “store.” We must teach them how to take from the store. Then, we will go to the store together as if we have a credit card with which we will pay their account.

Question: Are there any discounts in this store?

Answer: The Creator always gives discounts, but only special discounts. He doesn’t lower prices, but spurs the right attitude in us in advance. Thus, we say, “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.” It is as if He sits behind an invisible cash register and at the same time brings us to it.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/07/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A Contrast That Reveals The True Picture Of The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, Exodus, 20:14: “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.”

A house, a wife, a servant, an ox, or an ass are all a person’s major desires that gradually connect in him, starting from the external vessels to the most inner desires.

“Thou shall not covet,” means that you have to work with your desires in order to bestow and not for yourself.

If until now it was about what you have and how you should work with it, now it is about what the other has and what you cannot use.

To use means to “want.” It isn’t just “thou shall not covet” in the sense of “don’t take” but actually not to covet, so that you will not feel the slightest envy towards the other. Then you begin to understand that if you relate to him you will not even see his image.

Usually you see some good and some bad in a person and envy him a little, etc. You cannot see him as he actually is; you see him in relation to you, whether better or worse one way or the other. If you don’t look at him through the prism of envy etc., you will not see his image.

He will never be depicted to you, since our sub-base is like a compact disc that is sensitive to light, that is behind the camera lens that catches the picture, changes it into electric signals and transmits it to the control so our sub-base perceives everything only in relation to us: to what extent it seems better or worse with regards to my ego.

If I get rid of it in relation to myself, then I don’t see you, you disappear from my sight. What happens? It turns out that the world doesn’t exist. I only see an absolute vacuum.

This means that the corrected state implies lack of envy in me and all the other states with regard to other people and humanity. In that case, I begin to understand that there is no one and that everything disappears. Then I have to find a totally new attribute that will allow me to see what does exist.

It turns out that if my ego is nullified, then the whole picture of the world is nullified and the world does not exist. So what does exist? There is nothing but the attribute of bestowal. But how can I perceive it? I begin to change myself according to this attribute of bestowal and to the same extent I am not compatible with it, I begin to see the differences and vice versa; to the extent that I am compatible with it, I begin to feel this attribute since a contrast has been created. It turns out that the part of the world in which I am not compatible with the attribute of bestowal is still me for the time being and the part of the world in which I am compatible with the attribute of bestowal is the Creator. Then, I and the Creator appear and there is no one but us.

When I gradually attain full correction, it is as if I disappear and only my feeling of the one unique Creator remains. Thus, I reach the recognition that “there is none else besides Him”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/04/13

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