Audio Version Of The Blog – 04.29.14

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“Bubble” Blowers

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Michael Khazin, economist): “The 30 years of demand stimulation resulted in a situation when households consume more than they get by 25%. But today, all the tools to stimulate demand have been exhausted – this decline in demand is the underlying mechanism of the crisis, and there is no reason to believe that it will end in the near future.

“Most likely, the “bubble” will burst by mid 2015 and will cause massive bankruptcy of households and the financial system.”

My Comment: There is no doubt that this event will happen if socio-economic relations do not switch to rational consumption, closing unnecessary enterprises and the equal distribution of essential goods and services.

But this is only possible in parallel with a broad awareness campaign for the need to move to a new level of relations and implementation of the method of integral unity. It is necessary to try to introduce it when small problems arise, instead of bringing society to a deep crisis and possibility of a world war, when society will accept this method unwillingly as the only way of salvation.
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The Source Of Traditions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A new student who comes to the Pesach meal sees many religious customs and doesn’t understand what is going on.

Answer: These are not religious customs. All the customs of the Israeli nation stem from the wisdom of Kabbalah, and are transcendental and illogical. All this doesn’t exist in nature and so we don’t need to follow them blindly.

The 18 minutes during which the Matzo are baked, for example, are made of  the nine Sefirot of the Direct Light and nine Sefirot of the Returning Light. If we don’t manage to bake the Matzo during this time, a process of fermentation begins, which means that the egoistic desire will begin to swell and to rise. So we don’t eat leavened bread during Pesach since the fermented desire cannot receive the Light of Hochma (wisdom).

What does it mean to escape from Egypt? It’s a very quick transition when a person comes out of egoism and enters altruism, out of our world and into the feeling of the upper world, the feeling of the Creator.

Here, like in the time of birth, you cannot stall since you cease to be nourished by the previous system that provided you with oxygen and other nutrients. It operated upon you through the umbilical cord and your body functioned.

Now a totally different system operates upon you, as your lungs begin to receive oxygen through the air and you begin to breathe independently and to function; your temperature changes and totally new systems begin to operate, a different world and different senses. All this happens at once.

All the Jewish customs stem from the spiritual world and have no corporeal basis or justification. They gradually became customs of other religions as each religion received them in its own way and changed them to suit them.

For the Arabs, an offering is slaughtering a lamb. The word “sacrifice” stems from the Hebrew word “close.” The external customs of different peoples are not very different, but they all stem from ancient spiritual customs.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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“But He That Trusts In The Lord, Mercy Compasses Him About”

Dr. Michael LaitmanPsalms, 32; 10-11: Many are the sorrows of the wicked; but he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy compasseth him about. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous; and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.

If a person opens his vessel, he begins to feel that everything has already been prepared for him from Above and that everything has been prepared with mercy in advance. The only thing a person lacks is to detach from his desire to receive, and if not to detach from it, at least to detach from what depends on it. This is also prepared from Above.

Then a person attains adhesion with the Creator, as it says: “but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy compasseth him about.”
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/14

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It Is Good To Be Together In The Center Of The Group And Bad To Be Alone

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does it mean that suffering shortens time?

Answer:  The sufferings and clarifications shorten time because I must feel:

Evil in the desire to receive and good in the desire to bestow.
Bad alone and good together.
Bad outside of the center of the group and good within the center of the group.

All of this is against my substance, my desire. If I strive against my desire, I feel anguish and I am not ready to carry this out. A person is not ready to suffer willingly, and where there is suffering, he cannot enter.

Only provided that he has a greater goal that covers up the suffering will he be ready to accept them, like a patient who agrees to an operation. Even though it is unpleasant and dangerous, he goes along with this or otherwise he will die. So don’t consider him to be a hero; he indeed understands that without this it is impossible to go on and that it is worthwhile for him to accept the suffering and remain alive.

Every beast and every person makes a calculation like this. But we need to go against our desire to receive, without any justification of the desire to receive.

When I go against my ego and try to be integrated into society and into a group, to be together with them and to carry out what they want, I have no justification for this. I cannot say that there will be some kind of benefit from this for me. I don’t see a purpose for which it is worthwhile for me to yield and do what they want. There is no justification; I can’t swap a cow for a donkey. So how will I do this?

It is here that a place for the prayer of many is created, which is a request to receive the power of bestowal. I want to bestow without any compensation. This is against my nature, and it is impossible to carry this out. If they were to give me compensation, on the contrary, I surely would bestow in order to receive. If I need to give someone ten dollars and get back, let’s say, something worth a thousand dollars, I will happily bestow.

I have no problem in bestowing in order to receive, everyone does this. But here we are talking about bestowing without any compensation for myself, without any fulfillment. How is it possible to do this? There are no such actions in our world. For everything I do, there must be an opposite reaction from the other side. Otherwise this would be a perpetual motion machine, an eternal engine that constantly supplies energy and power without being charged.

There is nothing like this in our world, yet there is in spirituality! This is the power of the Creator who can bestow without any compensation. I want to get this power. If through a small illumination the desire to acquire this characteristic grows in me, this is a sign that I have already advanced to Lishma and I have already begun to demand: “Give me the power to bestow without anything in return.”

I want to be wise, sensitive, and understanding, so that I will be able to bestow and have all that I need for this bestowal. And so I receive this ability.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/14, Writings of Rabash

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Clouds Over The Border Of Egypt

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash’s Article, “Come Unto Pharaoh – 2”: The fact was that everything that they built would fall. This means that every time they built for themselves some structure in the work, the Egyptians came, meaning the alien thoughts of the Egyptians, and ruined all their work. In other words, all the work that they did with all their efforts to overcome and to serve in the work of holiness was swallowed in the ground.

Thus, each day they had to start over, and it seemed to them as though they were never engaged in the work of holiness. Moreover, each time they contemplated moving forward, they saw that not only did they not progress, they even regressed, since new “who” and “what” questions would always surface in their minds.

These are the well-known questions of Pharaoh: (Exodus 5:2) Who is the LORD, that I should hearken unto His voice? and (Exodus 12:26) What mean ye by this service? And the questions became heavier and heavier, and if the person advances from day to day, he sees himself less and less successful. But it’s necessary to accept this as reliable evidence of advancement for this happens with each and every one when he approaches the exodus from Egypt.

Precisely because the person invests much effort, they show him how much he doesn’t succeed. Therefore there is no chance of advancing if the person isn’t fortified by study, the Rav, and the group. And this applies to both men and women. There is no difference between them; the process is the same process.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/16/14, Writings of Rabash

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Are We Suitable For One Another?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I be sure that a certain woman is right for me?

Answer: I look at her and see two different people in her who behave in two different ways. Besides, I know myself and the way I behave. It is as if I exit myself and study myself as a psychologist. Then as a third independent spectator, I can see to what extent we two, she and I fit together.

We are suitable for one another only to the extent that we are ready to make mutual concessions. On the whole, any two systems can connect by making concessions.

But it is very hard work and we should look for a matching partner: the character should be the same, which means that both should be calm or they should be burning like fire, and they should care about the same things. The more common attributes we have to begin with, the easier it will be to establish a successful connection.

First of all, we must understand one another. The mutual understanding stems from a common interest, which means as a result of mutual concessions and a similar attitude to life. This attitude is formed during wisdom of connection courses because we need to reformat ourselves.

Of course, we should have the same plans and the same view of life, because without this a family cannot exist. How do we both imagine a successful family? How can we make one another happy? Do we understand what our partner enjoys?

In other words, we have come to a mutual understanding in every respect. If I marry a woman from a totally foreign culture, who grew up at the other end of the world, we are not suitable for each other from the start. It is doubtful whether we can ever manage. We come from different cultures and our perspectives are different in every way, our goals are different, and we have a different idea of what a family is, but we have to get along because each one wants to live the life he or she is used to. So we have to make concessions and do what suits the other although we would do things differently according to our own nature, culture, and upbringing. The level of our adaptability is very important if each of us wants to understand the other.

The most prominent problem is in the kitchen because food is one of a person’s basic habits that he brings from his parents’ home. It is the same with regard to all the other values. I want my wife to value the same things that I do and that she will have the same goal in life, the same image of a successful family, the same attitude toward children, toward parents, and toward the environment.

It isn’t just an agreement between us but compatibility of our inner character with regard to every aspect in life, both giving it the same level of importance.

We don’t just talk as if we agree and have decided to get married. It has to be a deep true psychological study that we conduct in the process of many meetings. Otherwise, people get married and then it turns out that they have nothing in common.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 6/9/13

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Grinding The Ego To Bestowal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does the millstones of the system that grind the grains of the ego in the spiritual correction symbolize?

Answer: It’s a very complicated system that processes and corrects our desires. What is more, all this takes place inside a person. The shells of the grains or the husk is the external egoistic wrapping from which we have to totally detach ourselves and spread to the wind.

It protects us for a while, like it protects all of humanity today, gradually bringing us to a state in which we begin to feel that the ego is bad. This disturbs us in many aspects of life. It’s time to correct it and to start treating ourselves and life differently. We have to send the ego into the air, which means that we have to change its form.

First we choose the grains, when we understand that these are our egoistic attributes, and then we beat them and thus clean them of the husks, and take the grains out of the stalks. These are all internal processes that a person goes through.

Then the husks are carried by the wind and only the clean crop is left in the granary, and then we begin to process the grain, which means to grind it. Grinding is a process of recognition of the desire, which has already lost its egoistic wrapping. But how and with what should we do it? A person’s thirty-two teeth also symbolizes the actions of grinding, since when we chew food it becomes usable for eating.

But the most important thing for us are the millstones. By grinding our desire, we begin to understand what it is made of. Then we add water to it, which means to the desire to receive that is now clean of the intention for itself, and we add the intention for the sake of others, for love of others, and through them, for the Creator. This is called making bread, and if we operate this way, our desires become food that makes a person grow.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/27/13

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Through The Purifying Fire

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Bread is baked in fire. What does this phase symbolize in the spiritual correction?

Answer: After having reached the right combination between the desire to receive and the intention of in order to bestow, I insert it into the attribute of Din (judgment), the attribute of fire, the attribute of the tough and right correction, the proper use, and so it is put through fire. Many corrections in the Bible that are described as being put through fire symbolize purification.

Fire is the feeling of Din, the purification of the ego that remains. The ego has to cook, to warm up, to burn, and only the part that remains is ready to be food for humans. This is one of the main methods of correction.

We must purify our desire from the ego, so that it will remain without an intention for ourselves, and to add to it an intention of for the sake of others, love, and mutual connection with others. If it’s in the right form, it’s put through fire or through other hard trials, and in this process, the desire with the intention of in order to bestow is stabilized, which means that the bread is baked.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/27/13

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