Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.18.14
Posted on April 18th, 2014
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In the News (from The Conversation): “Bacterial diseases cause millions of deaths every year. Most of these bacteria were benign at some point in their evolutionary past, and we don’t always understand what turned them into disease-causing pathogens. In a new study, researchers have tracked down when this switch happened in a flesh-eating bacteria.
“‘The date we deduced coincided with numerous mentions of streptococcus epidemics in the literature,’ Musser said. Since 1983, there have been several outbreaks of streptococcus infections across the world. For example, in the UK, streptococcus infections increased in number and severity between 1983 and 1985.
“It is the same story for many other countries, with Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia falling victim to what is now an inter-continental epidemic. The symptoms ranged from pharyngitis to the flesh-eating disease, necrotizing fasciitis.”
My Comment: Any part of our body and the environment can turn into a monster carrying death, as it is written, that the enemies of man populate his house. But the conversion into enemies depends on the relationship between people as enemies.
After all, we are at the highest stage of the development of egoism, and therefore our behavior as rational and conscious, requires that the lower levels of nature (still, vegetative, animate) establish the same relationship between themselves relative to us.
If we correct our relations to being friendly, we will become convinced in the truth of the Bible, which states that in the future the wolf will live with the lamb, and a child will play with them.
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From The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 15, Item 44: Now, the deliverance from the Egyptian slavery is considered as an exile.
Deliverance and exile are related. Under different circumstances the same state can be considered an exile or deliverance. The exile at a certain step can be spiritually higher than the deliverance at another level.
Let’s say I am a junior at a university and have no clue what I am studying, i.e., I am “in exile.” Compared to freshmen and sophomores, I am in the state of deliverance since I somehow managed to ascend to a higher step than they have.
Rabash writes that the level of faith that we attain each time turns into the foundation for the next step: Reshimo de Hitlabshut turns into Reshimo de Aviut; this is how we advance. Deliverances transform to exiles.
From Rabash’s Article “The Meaning of Exile”: “Falling” in spirituality does not mean that one loses faith. It means that at this time one is required to work even harder; that’s why one’s prior faith is considered a downfall compared to his current state.
Keter of the lower Partzuf becomes Malchut of the upper. It proves that we should never judge our state from within but only in combination with the related states. Each time we are elevated to sanctity and we never downgrade. Even if we end up being in the darkness, the new state of darkness is still higher than a good state we were previously in.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/26/14, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”
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Question: What is the meaning of the vessels that we pick up from the Egyptians?
Answer: Without them, we are unable to reveal the Light (the Creator) because all we are able to do is modify the intention. Egypt is the intention for one’s own sake.
The land of Israel (Eretz Israel) is a desire (ratzon) directly to the Creator (Yashar-El). The same desire that exists in Egypt transforms to Israel after changing the intention.
We have only one desire. When we first reveal it, it seems like ancient Babylon because everything seems so confused. It is a huge egoism that mixes all states together. The first time we exit our ego due to Abraham’s method we strive to rise above our will to receive and detach from our prior states as much as we can.
This phenomenon is called “Abraham.” Abraham leads us out of Babylon and separates us from our usual, corporeal egoism.
In the beginning, when one comes to a group, one is taught how to work beyond one’s egoism and to connect with friends. While making attempts to achieve unity, one suddenly experiences a tremendous downfall.
This is an entrance to Egypt: a more egoistic and harsh intention. One wants to receive all the worlds. It is a more egoistic and focused intention. One even wants to use the wisdom of Kabbalah for the sake of one’s personal wellbeing. This is called the power of Pharaoh.
If we continue working, the group and the Surrounding Light influence us. We don’t sense the Light, but notice the consequences of its impact on us. We feel that we are obligated to exit our egoism, to get rid of it. We apply efforts and experience troubles and numerous problems that help us detach from our ego.
Sometimes we fall very deep into our egoism. Sometimes we detach from our ego and rise over it. We go through ups and downs. Our egoism (the Pharaoh) keeps receiving blows until we rid ourselves of it.
The first detachment from the egoistic intention is called exodus from Egypt. This is what we hope to go through all together when we unite. I anticipate that this coming Pesach won’t be just a holiday on the calendar for us and that we will experience a spiritual leap.
What will change in us if the leap happens? First, Babylon will turn into a sensation that we are in Egypt, in slavery, still inside the will to receive. Everything depends on our perception. In Babylon, everybody acted within their egoism and it was considered normal because this is human nature.
But we do not agree with this state and want to rise above the ego. When we tried to elevate, we transitioned from Babylon to the land of Canaan, the future land of Israel. There, we suddenly sensed that we simply cannot do it the way we tried and that we have to stay inside the will to receive, otherwise we won’t advance at all. This means that we have entered Egypt.
When we acknowledge the necessity of changing intentions from egoistic to bestowing, we start working on exiting Egypt and continue our work until we manage to disconnect from our egoistic intention. Detachment from the latter is the exodus from Egypt.
Then, we are uncertain of what should be done next: We have detached ourselves from the egoism, but what now? At this point, we start acquiring the intention to bestow that we add on top of the same desire that we had when we were in Egypt. That’s why each commandment that we observe, each bestowing action, is just a recollection of our exodus from Egypt.
I use the desire that previously was called Babylon, then was Egypt, and then transformed into the Sinai Desert, and in the end it finally became the land of Israel. The desire remains the same, but the intention improves each time.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/3/14, Q&A with Rav Laitman
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There isn’t a more important state than our current state, since this is where our spiritual evolution begins. It is in our situation, in our condition, that the exit to the first spiritual level is possible. It cannot be any other way. Everyone starts off this way. We are given a special opportunity and we have to use all the means that we are given in order to bring ourselves to the feeling of exile, to feeling that we are in chains and in the worst possible state under the domination of Pharaoh.
Pharaoh controls even our smallest thought, our smallest desire, wherever we turn and whatever we do. Every impulse and every move we make stem from him; every thought and every stream of consciousness, every desire and all the desires that stem from it, are all determined by the ego. No matter which way we go and how far we try to move away from evil, we remain in the ego.
A person determines that he cannot leave exile, although he really wants to exit it and makes many attempts, many great efforts, and exerts himself, but it leads to nothing. When he cries out desperately with the last powers he has left for only this last cry, a miracle takes place and he comes out of Egypt.
Now he begins to understand and to feel what it means to be under the influence of the Light. He comes out of his enslavement to his desire and voluntarily becomes enslaved to the Light, by choosing to be under the domination of the attribute of bestowal, above reason.
He knows that he is becoming a slave, that he is enslaving himself, and that he isn’t free anymore, but he is free of the desire to receive and from his beloved self, about whom he constantly worries. He is under another kind of domination and actually wants to be under this domination.
There is no neutral state on the way between egoistic Egypt and complete bestowal. A person immediately moves from one kind of domination to another, but he wants it and yearns for it even when he is still in Egypt. Besides the repulsion, the hatred, and the rejection he feels towards the state in Egypt, he also yearns for the total domination of the Light so that it will totally rule him, guide him, and manage him.
This is how we should prepare ourselves internally. Let’s hope that we are somehow ready for that and as for all the rest – the Lord will complete the work for us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/14, Writings of Rabash
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Psalms 121: A song for ascents. I shall raise my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come?
My help is from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to falter; Your Guardian will not slumber.
Behold, the Guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your Guardian; the Lord is your shadow; [He is] by your right hand.
By day, the sun will not smite you, nor will the moon at night.
The Lord will guard you from all evil; He will guard your soul.
The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from now and to eternity.
We have to raise our deficiencies for the correction of Malchut, the shattered vessel, the shattered soul, until we reach the head of the world of Atzilut, from where will my help come, I shall raise my eyes to the mountains, which means to rise above every mountain of doubt. This ascent is according to the equivalence of form that I want to attain. Of course, I cannot do so at the moment, but I want to ascend there.
This is where my help will come from, my help is from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth, which means that He creates Malchut by the attributes of Bina and Zeir Anpin, HaVaYaH connects them.
A person can express his request this way from every state he is in, from the day and from the night, in order to discover that the Guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. All these days will accumulate and the Creator will help us and will dwell in the unity between us according to our yearning to unite.
We must not forget that we have to prepare a platform, a place for the Divinity. All our work is with the connection in a practical and down to earth manner, despite all the troubles and the obstacles. There are no coincidences in life, everything is arranged and organized to the very last detail from Above so that we will connect in these conditions.
The higher we ascend, the lower we descend by receiving more obstacles. Thus the shattered vessel, the shattered soul, is revealed until we clarify all its parts that we have to connect in order to attain the first spiritual level.
The main thing is to ascend to the first level of the spiritual ladder. All the other levels follow one another in a chain of cause and effect. They all have the same nature and the most difficult thing is to make the transition from the nature of in order to receive to in order to bestow.
Then there is the same manner of ascent according to the same rules. More and more details are revealed and the impression certainly changes, but it isn’t the initial transition of our nature anymore. So the main thing is to overcome the first level.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/14
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Question: In society there are excessively violent, aggressive children, which even hit their parents. Will the integral circle correct them?
Answer: In these cases, it’s necessary to raise the level of education and morality by discussing behavior like this in circles. And a good example is needed.
Let the children talk about love for parents, about softness. Can they compensate their parents for what they gave them in early childhood, remembering how their mother took care of them, how their father was concerned about them? The discussion should also include normal children, and the aggressive ones should listen to them. And then it’s necessary to try very carefully to include them in the conversation so that this will penetrate into them.
But there must be very serious integration, sympathy, and empathy. If aggressive children see that their peers as strong, serious, and healthy as they relate to their parents with love, understanding, sympathy and concern, then they will get a good example from them.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13
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Question: Suppose that parents organize a club for their children where they arrange discussions. But in this group two of the youths are troubled children who are deeply depressed that could infect the others. What should be done about that?
Answer: If the communication between the youths takes place naturally, then it’s necessary for them to relax through soulful songs around a campfire so that they will not be closed within themselves and will begin the conversation from a distance. What can be good for a person in life and what can be bad? Our nature seeks only good. But if we are locked in, eating ourselves up, are we having fun? So why don’t we escape from this?
What is this force that exists in me that puts me into a state of despair, darkness, and emptiness all the time? Could it be that this is the thing that I must struggle with somehow? And if I do struggle, I will discover such forces within me that act in opposition and that will raise me to particular heights in art, literature, science, sports and so forth. So it’s necessary to accept, with a blessing, everything that there is in a person, even the most depressed state that basically pushes a person towards the good, but only when this doesn’t lock the person inside himself like a cocoon.
On the contrary, a state of dissatisfaction pushes us forward, so it’s necessary to make it creative. And this is possible only with the help of the environment, where one person pushes forward and the other pulls backward, and between them a mutual movement appears. They check each other, inspecting the general movement between them etc. In other words, it’s necessary to support depressed children so that their condition can be creative.
Lots of famous writers, composers, and scientists experienced depression, and in order to get out of it, they engaged in creating. This was a cure for them, a salvation. They gave humanity creative gifts of classical masterpieces precisely thanks to their success at rising above their depression and using it in the right way.
How can we creatively use despair, difficulties, disappointments, and depression that are so widespread in the world today that result in neglect and disregard for everything? After all, from these states the next human, social, political, and national condition will be born.
Therefore, it’s forbidden to cast these states to the side and to consider them as something that is not good. On the contrary, it’s necessary to yearn to transform their strong, negative energy into something positive.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13
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Question: Suppose that I brought my child to a group in which seven out of ten children are depressed. Don’t I need to worry that their state will pass on to others?
Answer: No! It’s necessary to try to separate them from themselves immediately. “Friends, come, let’s talk about what is happening with us, from the side. This is me, a human being. And this is my body. Within the body, there are all kinds of forces, moods, and views.
“And what if I would get out of my body and take a look at it from the side, as though I have assembled myself differently? Let’s imagine ourselves in another form, as we rise above ourselves. Is it possible to achieve this?
“Was I created in such a form that I cannot be disengaged from myself? Or does there exist some kind of gap between the inner self and the external self where I can gradually begin to learn about myself from the side?” Regular psychological training like this makes it possible for a person to see that this is not himself but a particular external intention of the environment that surrounds him.
Could it be that the child simply read a lot of novels or saw television programs that awakened a sense of hopelessness? Even 100 to 150 years ago something called noble detachment was in fashion: “a hero of our times,” and so forth. In world literature, particularly in Russian literature, many books were dedicated to a search derived from inner darkness.
And it could be that he simply brags and boasts about this state, showing: “Look how I am! What attracts you doesn’t interest me!” So it’s necessary to check the origins from where depression in children is derived.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 12/12/13
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