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The Meeting Place With The Creator Cannot Be Changed

Dr. Michael LaitmanRav Kook, “The Purpose of Israel and Its People’s Specificity”: There is a need for much studying in many generations that lays the beginning of the high ideal of serving the Creator, given to Israel. Its goal is the elevation of the entire humanity.

It can only be raised through the elevation of the people of Israel—the people who started to illuminate the darkness of the world and have to finish what was begun. Only in its own light, clearly realizing its importance and mission, will it learn how sublime and beautiful this goal is.

Question: The responsibility for the humanity imposes more responsibility on Israel and makes greater demands compared to internal, group work …

Answer: I need the group in order to get power from them. The group is my upper. I constantly recharge my “battery” in the group; I meet with our common power in it, with the Creator, and based on that, I appeal to a wide audience.

The group is “Israel” from which environment I can go out to the people, to all of humanity. To keep in touch with the task, with the goal, with the Creator, with the method of correction, with the force that unites us—the force of love and support between us—I have to be in the group. Otherwise, I just have nothing with which to “reach out to people” because I have neither strength nor the right approach.

Question: So in his articles about the group, did Rabash want to explain to us how to be “recharged” by friends to transfer energy further?

Answer: Of course. In general, every Kabbalist said as much as he could say to reveal in his generation. Therefore, Baal Shem Tov began to implement the method in the form of Hasidism, and then Rav Kook, Baal HaSulam and Rabash continued this revolution in spite of resistance.

Question: So today it is possible to reveal love and bring pleasure to the Creator only by working with a wide audience?

Answer: Yes. You come to a group and unite with the friends in brotherly love to gather strength and power and to take the right course to turn to the masses. It is among them that you will discover the need for the Creator. Your relationship with Him will be manifested there. There, among the people, He dwells. “Do you want to find me? Please. I am there and nowhere else.”

This is the specificity of our time in the “era of Mashiach (Messiah)”; we begin to actually implement the method, going out to “the people.” We just prepare ourselves in the group, it gives us strength, but the action itself is carried out among the masses, where we are building the “Third Temple” from the broken vessels of the entire world.

That is why Baal HaSulam says that the deliverance of Israel is possible only after the whole world learns about the method of correction due to our work with the external audience. Just as Pharaoh knew the God of Israel and agreed to let the people go.

Working with external desires, we do not correct them all at once, but start the process of sorting and the correction of the vessels belonging to the worlds of BYA, and to the same extent come out of exile. After all, the “exile” for the vessels of bestowal is the inability to correct the world. “Deliverance” means that we can take the broken vessels of the worlds of BYA from humanity, raise them to the Creator, and thus bring Him pleasure by allowing you to open them.

In doing so, we ourselves are just intermediaries, the connecting link.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/13, Writings of Rav Kook

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The World Is An Infant In Our Hands

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe do not deceive people; they really will get what they want from the higher Light, which will be revealed. After all, this is the same source. The Creator awakens a lack in them and it seems to them that they have problems in children’s education, security, and health. And we promise that all this will improve and that we will fulfill them. That is, we work together and fulfill all these needs because we reveal the power of the environment, the power of the society, and with the help of this new power, we correct all the problems.

This will succeed; we are not lying to them. The world will truly change for the better. And together with this, they will feel that they are acquiring a method that makes it possible to attract the power of society, the power of connection, the unity, that is, in essence, to attract the Creator to us, only in a concealed form. After all, in the meantime they don’t have the Kelim to discover Him explicitly.

And so they will feel how they get power as a result of connection. And they will also understand that they require us in order to be connected otherwise they will not succeed. Therefore they will be more and more dependent on you. So we will work together. Gradually they will get a new concept of what the desired fulfillment needs to be, what true security is, true education, and true health. All of these concepts will change, as it does with a person who advances and evolves, but we are talking about completely earthly things.

The purpose and program of the Creator is to be revealed in the creatures to the final point of this world and not only in humans, but also in the animate, vegetative, and still levels of nature. Thus all levels of creation will be completely filled with Light.

The Creator enjoys being discovered in the creatures because they enjoy this; they feel more security, health, and so forth. And they get all this through us, because through us the Upper Light makes all the changes in them. They will begin to be changed fundamentally, to evolve, to be more conscious. But this consciousness will grow the deficiency in them, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Their deficiencies (AHP) will evolve more and more; new demands will appear in them, and in the end they will reach a need for contact with the Creator.

People will increasingly need us, depend on us, and demand more from us. They are already beginning to understand that we are their guides and they will require more qualitative work from us. They will feel that they are absolutely dependent on us, like an infant depends on his mother, and they will adhere to us. This connection will grow and manifest more; for everyone of us will hold millions, as if, children who are clinging to their mother and won’t let go. This is because they will feel that not only do their lives depend on us, but much beyond this.

They will not know exactly from where this power comes and what this is; for in the meantime they will not get a clear feeling of the Light. But they will feel that they depend on us one hundred percent: for life or death. This is like an infant who begins to scream when his mother leaves him for a moment, as if for him it were the end of the world.

To bring satisfaction to people or to the Creator is the same thing. We will see how the Creator is revealed in them and will feel that through our giving them satisfaction, we give contentment to the Creator. The desire of the Creator is to do good to His creatures and to be discovered in His creatures. The method of Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to His creatures in this world. We are only the conduit; the Creator will be revealed within the people. We only turn on the ignition and start the engine. Before us is a system, and it is up to us to activate it, to make it possible for the Light to enter it. The ignition is in our hands.

This system is called Malchut de Ein Sof, within which is found the Light and the Kli that are arranged in two tiers: the substance and filling, and as the relationship between them. Everything is found within that system and there is nothing outside of it. And we don’t belong to this world; we are something foreign and not typical of this world. The Creator gave us an opportunity to be concerned for this world, like aliens from other worlds. After all, our point in the heart is a “part of the Divine from above” (Job 31:2).
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Dr. Michael LaitmanWe will never be able to be present in the process of the extension of the “worlds” from above to below, for this happened before we appeared. In this world it is impossible to be present in the past and to participate in historic events that took place before us. We cannot know what happened in history if this knowledge was not recorded or passed from person to person.

We only find some kind of testimony; from the ground we dig up the remains of the dinosaurs, bones, other objects, and with the help of scientific investigators we can somehow describe to ourselves which processes took place before us. But all this is no more than speculation. Also in the spiritual world there is now way to know at all about previous events, for there is nobody who can tell us about them.

In our world, the earth’s crust preserves within it layers of all the geological periods that have passed in the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate, even before humans were created. By studying it we can get some kind of knowledge about our history. Similarly, in spirituality we can learn from ourselves about processes that happened before us, but nevertheless, these things are no more than speculation.

In spirituality, attainment is based upon a process of ascent from below to above. This is a very unique process that has no material parallel. Through Reshimo (informational genes) and all the forms that are found in us, we are ready to begin to rise, that is, to perceive the entire process of the work of the higher power that created us.

Our ascent from below to above is through attainment, through the acquisition of vessels and Lights. We don’t go back in history, to all the smaller vessels and less Light, to more and more primitive forms as if we were turning evolution backward and returning to the beginning of the process through which we have passed in this world and in spiritual development. On the contrary, moving from the bottom up, we gain a sense of the Creator and the mind.

That is, we don’t return to our roots to become simpler and less complex, to before the initial state, and with this to know ourselves better and better. For if we returned to our roots, then we would become more primitive, we would lose our complex organization, and accordingly, we would understand, feel, and perceive less.

Therefore, during the process from below to above, to our senses and mind of  creation, we add the senses and mind of the Creator. We don’t perceive the structure of the creature on each and every level; rather, we perceive the structure of the level itself, that is, the structure of the Creator, His relationship to the creature on that level.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/20/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Climate Change Is Happening Too Quickly For Species To Adapt

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from The Guardian): “A study has shown that the speed of evolutionary change is far outstripped by the rate of global warming, meaning many creatures will face extinction. …

“’We found that, on average, species usually adapt to different climatic conditions at a rate of only by about 1C per million years,’ Wiens explained. ‘But if global temperatures are going to rise by about four degrees over the next 100 years as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that is where you get a huge difference in rates. What that suggests overall is that simply evolving to match these conditions may not be an option for many species.’

“The study indicates there is simply not enough time for species to change their morphologies – for example, by altering their bodies’ shapes so they hold less heat – to compensate for rising heat levels. Too many generations of evolutionary change are required. Nor is moving habitat an option for many creatures. ‘Consider a species living on the top of a mountain,’ says Wiens. ‘If it gets too warm or dry up there, they can’t go anywhere.’

“The crucial point of the study is that it stresses a fact that is often conveniently ignored by climate change deniers. It is not just the dramatic nature of the changes that lie ahead – melting icecaps, rising sea levels and soaring temperatures – but the extraordinary speed at which they are occurring. Past transformations that saw planetary temperatures soar took millions of years to occur. The one we are creating will take only a few generations to take place. Either evolution speeds up 10,000-fold, which is an unlikely occurrence, or there will be widespread extinctions.”

My Comment: There is no common solution to the problem of ecology, society and man. We must recognize the impasse of our egoistic development and our own inability to resist it by our own forces. Only by uniting in order to draw the upper Light that Reforms that creates the property of bestowal and love in us, will we, through our unity, be able to bring the planet to balance and prosperity, and ourselves to a higher spiritual state.
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Shaping The Spiritual Structure On Mortal Flesh

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is it necessary to take notes on what you say during the lessons?

Answer: People have various ways of studying Kabbalah. Those who want to take notes should do so. Those who don’t, should not do it. This kind of knowledge must be recorded on hearts on the desires.

Each one approaches their desires differently. I went through a very difficult path: science, graphs, vectors, tables, and so on, and it is a long way to go, but for me there is no other way to learn. That’s how I am built.

I remember that my childhood teachers complained to my father that I was solving chemical problems by applying mathematical methods. I simply couldn’t remember how various substances reacted to each other. So, I solved the problems by calculating the number of electrons they have on their external orbit. I simply was unable to see these problems from a different angle. Today, it is called “physical chemistry” or “chemical physics.”

When I studied Kabbalah without a pencil or a pen or additional tools, and if I couldn’t  organize everything in a table or a dictionary, it simply did not exist for me.

However, Kabbalah has nothing to do with all of this. A person must open his mouth, heart, ears, and eyes so that this knowledge enters inside him.

Question: What kind of preparation do we need for that? After all, to “open our mouths,” we must be ready for that.

Answer: There are people who perceive the world only so. But the problem is in them; they are very shallow and that’s why their penetration into the material they study is very superficial. “Ah-ah-ah!” That is all they say.

When you resist and turn on your brain, your “Ah!” goes through your mind, which is always full of tremendous opposition. I would compare it with induction resistance when the electric flow circulates through a torus and accumulates momentum. You unmistakably feel how it works, how your internal contours change. It shapes you!

The remodeling that we receive is very difficult since we must breakdown our previous form to a shapeless mass. We must crash our “flesh” and make it an amorphous mass even though it is assembled so accurately and our internal organs work so well, notwithstanding that they work egoistically. Then, we should reshape this formless mass anew. This process must be accompanied by the awareness that it is we who should do this work on ourselves. Our apprehension that it is much better for us if we do it ourselves should become so strong that we even begin asking for it.

Yet, the pain does not vanish. However, we neutralize it by the higher purpose. It is as if we perform surgery on ourselves. I don’t want to scare anyone off, but it is exactly how it should be that way in our awareness.

It is not an easy thing to deal with. It takes time. When one begins associating oneself with the Creator and begins to regard one’s egoism as “a help against him,” then one can rejoice because his egoism undergoes numerous tsunamis and hurricanes that smooth it out—beat, knead, mince, and make ashes out of it. Ashes cannot be resurrected into anything but the initial state.

If the pain persists, it means that we haven’t merged with the Creator yet. It is an indication of one’s integration with the Creator! When everything is ground down and turns into ashes, as it is written, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thy return,” then, Adam will emerge, that is, a Man that is built in a completely new internal structure. This is what we must go through.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book,” 4/28/13

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About Physics and Poetry of the Soul

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn his commentary to The Book of Zohar written in the language of Midrash, Baal HaSulam added the language of “The Study of the Ten Sefirot.” By doing so, he passed us a key to this book. His commentary is not just a simple interpretation, but rather, an encoding key to a cipher, to a door that was locked before.

For example, as it is written in The Book of Zohar and in other original sources, “The Creator has come before the face and announced.” Baal HaSulam explains that it is written about the ascent of Malchut to Bina.

At first, this happens in the state of smallness (Katnut), the property of judgment. Then, Malchut is allowed to descend from Bina to the level of Yesod and use the vessels of reception that are, by this time, ready to relate to the Giver and are called “AHP on the rise.” At this time, the Creator comes in front of the face and announces. “Announcement” means revelation.

Baal HaSulam gave us an opportunity to see spiritual actions behind the language of Midrash. This vision facilitates our path and opens ways to self-report that are essential for a deeper penetration into The Book of Zohar.

It also contains parts that are written using the language of Kabbalah, but in general, the texts of Midrash are richer, more expressive, more poetic, and more colorful; whereas the Study of the Ten Sefirot tells us about the physics of spiritual relationships, about psychology and measurable properties of the soul. The soul is the general vessel (Malchut) of the World of Infinity. It is as if the soul was split into several parts that were tested, checked, weighed, and studied together with the interconnections between them, their order, and the way they are fulfilled, and hence went Kabbalah.

These things can be described in a number of various ways, schematically, along the lines of systems research,  or sensorially. In any case, it is about the same thing: ways of correcting and fulfilling the broken vessel that we have received. Generally, there are two ways to describe this process, emotional and intellectual.

It doesn’t matter if we really understand all of the fragments or if they remain unclear to us. When we read The Book of Zohar, we should be thinking only of the Light that Reforms. This way, step by step, penny by penny, we’ll accumulate a huge legacy.

So far, until we reach the revelation—that is, until we disclose the Creator at the very first step, right after the Machsom—we are bound to the rule that describes the work of egoism. So far, we absorb abundance; in other words, the results of our efforts go straight to impurity. It shows in our tiredness, weakness, lack of feeling, and so on, that are in fact, nonexistent; they only seem so to us. If our egoism gets a worthy and attractive offer, our weakness would disappear immediately.

Everything depends on the internal energy, on vessels, desires, that do not consider the spiritual path to be of any importance, either because they are not getting enough illumination from above or because they are being pulled down by egoism from below. In fact, it is a separation, an increase of the distance between the Lights and the vessels. As a result, we feel that we are hanging between heaven and the earth. It is as if something is pulling us down and won’t allow us to soar.

If this happens, all of our achievements fall back into egoism, into filth. However, since we already have completed the analysis and are familiar with these facts, we should avoid repeating prior mistakes. So now we are given new encumbrances that we must overcome over again, but how?

First of all, we should stop eyeing our friends’ faces that look so miserable. One judges according to one’s own flaws, but in fact, all of your friends are on the rise. The Light that descends during Passover lifts them, but they don’t sense it and feel a huge fatigue and pressure.

Question: Does it mean that when we cross the Machsom, we will flow with The Book of Zohar without any more burdens?

Answer: At that level, we concentrate on much harder things since we will acquire the ability to act against our will.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/13, The Zohar

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The Kabbalists About The Nation Of Israel And The Nations Of The World, Part 7

The Mission Of The People Of Israel

When the children of Israel will find perfection, the fountains of intelligence and knowledge shall flow beyond the boundaries of Israel and water all the nations of the world, as it is written (Isaiah 11), “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” and as it is written, “and shall come unto the Lord and to His goodness.”
Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 4

Also, it is upon the Israeli nation to qualify itself and all the people of the world through Torah and Mitzvot, to develop until they take upon themselves that sublime work of the love of others, which is the ladder to the purpose of Creation, which is Dvekut with Him.
Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Item 20

…the Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over. And these sparks multiply daily, like one who gives to the treasurer, until they are filled sufficiently, that is, until they develop to such an extent that they can understand the pleasantness and tranquility that are found in the kernel of love of others. For then they will know how to shift the balance to the right, and will place themselves under His burden, and the scale of sin will be eradicated from the world.
Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Item 24
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The Transition Point Between Truth And Falsehood

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom Rabash’s Letter No. 16: Hence, if a person is idle in the work, he cannot see the truth, that he is immersed in falsehood. But by increasing Torah in order to bestow contentment upon his Maker, one can then see the truth: that he is walking on a false path, called Lo Lishma. And this is the middle point between truth and falsehood. Hence, we must be strong and confident on our way, so every day will be as new to us, as we need to always renew our foundations, and then we shall march forward.

We are able to identify the true way on condition that we are not idle and that we apply every effort derived from our environment to approach bestowal, first, among friends and then with the Creator. If one tries to bestow and enhance the greatness of the goal, attempts to strengthen the influence of one’s environment, in other words, if one improves all the positive factors that contribute to one’s advancement, only then one will recognize one’s evil inclination, will distinguish the truth and understand that he is walking on a false path, called Lo Lishma.

“And this is a transition point between truth and falsehood.” In other words, we apply all possible efforts to follow the correct path. Only under this condition can we reveal that we are going the wrong way. This revelation is in fact a reward for our work.

We don’t realize the value of this compensation since we feel bad and think that we haven’t achieved anything at all. However, it signifies that we have attained positive results, because we disclose the shattering, recognize our oppositeness to the Creator, and detect the properties that we have to correct. By correcting them, we come to spirituality and achieve similarity with our goal.

That’s why the Creator gives us a reward—the revelation of our egoism—by showing us how opposite we are to Him. This is the first true attainment of our oppositeness with Him; that’s why it’s called a transition point between truth and falsehood. This is the first measurement of the Creator! When we correct the evil and turn it into its opposite, we become similar to the Creator and adhere to Him.

This process happens at each level. Our task is to enhance our aspiration to bestowal and love. Then, as a reward, we’ll reveal the opposite states, hatred, detachment…and we’ll scream to the Creator: “Save us!” Then, the Light that Reforms will descend and correct us.

When we reach a new level of correction, we should continue working with the help of our environment and pursue the right line. Then, as a reward, we’ll disclose the left line and the sinners will appear. Then again, we will be happy to see them, since at this point, we’ll already have something to correct, thus getting a chance to become similar to the Creator. This situation repeats over and over again.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/13

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