Audio Version Of The Blog – 06.12.14

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All The Weapons Are In Our Hands

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur method is meant to bring about a change in every person and not in governments or the upper echelons of power in the state or in the world. The changes from above will lead to nothing; it can only be changed from below.

Our whole development is from the bottom up because we belong to the third stage of development. After the descent of the worlds from the top down and the history of human development in this world, humanity is starting its ascent from the bottom up.

In any case, in any condition, and at any stage, changes always take place from the bottom up. Therefore, we reach the ordinary person and bring about changes in him, and he brings about changes in others by his connection to them. The Upper Light finds a place through which it can bestow. So we continue upward.

I hope to see you confident and happy, and that you know how to approach the public with joy since all the weapons are in your hands and with them you can destroy all the evil in the world.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Values Of A Neurotic Society

Dr. Michael LaitmanOpinion (Olga Lukina, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, Director of the Institute for Integrative Psychotherapy and Coaching, Moscow): “In today’s society, the key life values are devalued: the value of work, the value of deep professional knowledge, honesty with oneself, self-esteem, willingness to do good, and responsibility.

“Instead, there are important values of a neurotic society: status, money, superiority in competition, aggressive force.

“Young people are particularly vulnerable. They swallow these ‘values’ without censorship; they have no immunity to them. Striving to meet the expectations of this society, they lose touch with their authentic selves. Only those who have healthy orientations and strong support of the family can withstand.”

My Comment: No doubt, without integral education, the young generation will lose itself completely.
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Upper Light In Advance

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is so special about the miracle of the giving of the Torah? After all, there were miracles before that like the miracle of the exodus from Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea?

Answer: We cannot attain these levels by ourselves since we ascend from the bottom up. Just as in our world we cannot ask a child to do something by himself if he doesn’t know how or expect that he should know something that he hasn’t been taught.

First we have to teach and educate a child, then he will be able use this knowledge and perhaps even discover new things, but everything requires preparation. When we come out of Egypt, we have no preparation and can’t do anything. We need the revelation of the Light that will come and take care of us and will provide us with inner discernments. First we need education, training, strength, knowledge, intelligence, and sensing.

Because we have no idea about the upper world, how can we resemble something about which we know nothing? How can we reach something if we have no preparation for it? Therefore, everything that is revealed in the giving of the Torah is given to us as if in advance, so that later we will work on it and attain it by ourselves.

This is how it always happens: First you are given a new state; it is shown to you and then it is taken away so that you will attain it by yourself. This repeats on every level and in every state. It is impossible to require a person to advance by himself. When we ascend from the bottom up we never know the next level. Every upper level is a whole world with regard to the lower level. There are such processes that we cannot even imagine that they exist and cannot know anything about in advance.

It is simply an endless adventure in which every time something new is revealed. It is like reading the same articles, the same sentences, but everything is perceived in a totally different way. Suddenly you see that you have to change all the concepts, to perceive and process them in a totally differ manner. It is on this new basis that you begin to understand what is written differently.

Therefore, it is impossible to ask a person to prepare himself for the receiving of the Torah in advance. We make certain preparations according to our level of understanding, and then whatever has to happen happens.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/14

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All The Guarantors In One Boat

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why does it say that “the Creator did not find any people or any language that are capable of receiving the Torah” except for Israel?

Answer: The only vessels, desires, that can receive the Torah are Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE). But it is possible to move forward only with vessels of AHP. Therefore, we advance only by the combination of GE and AHP, and all the preparation is done by the mutual incorporation of the two: Israel in exile with the nations of the world.

Question: Does that mean that only the vessels of GE need to attain mutual guarantee?

Answer: Everyone must attain mutual guarantee, but in his own way. Eventually everyone has to be in the same boat.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/14, Writings of Rabash

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Connecting Equally

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to reach equality in a convention in order to balance the entire system?

Answer: We will not talk about equality, but we will talk about connection. And from connection comes equality. It is not necessary to cut off heads and line everyone up according to one standard for this. On the contrary, everyone must grow as high as possible and be integrated in a general connection. Equality comes from this.

There is no need to limit anyone. Limitation never leads to anything good. The only thing we need is connection, and from this is born the feeling of what it is to be equal.

We want to join, to embrace, and to connect. And on the basis of that feeling that appears as a result of all these actions, we begin to connect equally. This is because connection cannot exist if we are not equal. Connection between differences; these will become the higher and lower levels.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/14, Writings of Rabash

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Master Of Time

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where do we get the sensation of time? Why is this sensation very precise, really down to the minute or second in one person and in another person a sensation of time doesn’t exist at all?

Answer: It depends upon the development of the desire to enjoy. If I want enjoyment, then I divide my desire into fractions of a second to fill every fraction of a second with fulfillment, with pleasure. And so the feeling of time is important to me.

Life never feels long because I can fill it with many pleasures, with a wide range of variables: food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge. And then 80 years of life is only a short time for me, even a thousand years would not be enough do to everything.

Question: Sometimes we perceive time as a negative phenomenon: With time things go bad, crumble, and our bodies get old. But on the other hand, time can be beneficial because it heals, appeases, and completes. How do you perceive time: as a good or bad phenomenon?

Answer: Time depends on what I fill it with. And first of all it is necessary to understand how I can manage time, and not to let time manage me. I don’t agree with such sayings like “time heals all wounds” and you need to accept things with more serenity, as if this time is something found outside of me. This is the sort of attitude of weak people who don’t know how to manage their time. With this attitude toward time we invite a lot of unpleasantness upon ourselves.

Time should be under our control and we must rise above it. And this doesn’t mean prolonging life to 100 years thanks to successes in biology or genetics. For then even 200 years will not be enough for us and life will seem as if it is too short.

A person who lived 500 years ago didn’t feel that the 30 years of his life were shorter, but rather, were even longer than a person who lives 80 years today. So I don’t think that it is worthwhile for us to advance in this direction. We simply need to rise above the concept of time, and this is what managing it is.

Time depends upon whether I get more or less pleasure. Changes in my desire for pleasure create a sensation of the passing of time for me. But if I were to feel some pleasure regularly with an unchanging desire, then I would not feel myself alive at all. I would lose not only the sensation of time but the sensation of life in general.

This is because no changes would occur in me, and without changes there is no feeling of being alive. Life is not just some kind of feeling, but rather a difference between one state and another. If the states don’t change, then that state continues all the time and I don’t feel myself as existing.

It follows that the feeling of time is an internal concept, emotional and completely subjective. All that I must do is change my senses (the tools of perception), the whole inner program that operates in me today as in every living body. If I rise above this program and begin to function differently, not for the need to fulfill my desire for pleasure, not to live from what comes to me, but to fulfill myself by myself and to manage my fulfillments, then I become the master of time. For this we only need to rise above our egoistic desire, to stop depending on it.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/17/14

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The Commandments Are Heard Only When We Reach Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the meaning from the Kabbalistic perspective of each of the ten commandments, like “thou shalt not steal” or “thou shalt not kill,” etc.?

Answer: We don’t understand the true meaning of the ten commandments that simply seem like moral instructions to us.

The commandment of “honor thy father and thy mother,” for example, refers to the connection between the Partzufim of ZON (Zeir Anpin and Nukva) and the upper Aba and Ima (father and mother).

The commandment “thou shalt no steal” is the prohibition to use the desire to enjoy for my own sake, which is called stealing. Who are you stealing from? From the Light, from the Creator.

All the ten commandments refer to the right use of the desire to enjoy. It is about the limitations that we must implement on Malchut. These limitations are called a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light (Ohr Hozer). Due to the fact that Malchut accepts these limitations, it can become the clothing for the ten Sefirot, and so it is called the ten commandments.

A commandment (stemming from the Hebrew root “utterance”) is what is born in the mouth of the Partzuf, the Peh de Rosh. All these actions are performed in the world of Atzilut.

Only after we become as one man in one heart do we receive the ten commandments. Otherwise we cannot hear them. We have to be on the level of Bina in order to have the ear that can hear the ten utterances from Mt. Sinai.

First we have to go through a period of preparation and reach connection on the level of one man in one heart, and only then do we hear the commandments. Otherwise we will lack the vessels in order to understand them.

Everyday a new confusion and a new understanding are felt during the study. You ask a question and after that you may be confused a hundred times and understand a hundred times in order to bring yourself to the point where you asked the question. Everything depends on the vessels.

Question: Do these commandments, such as “thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not kill” operate in the corporeal world too?

Answer: Of course we need the same thing that is written on the spiritual sense in our world too, but the correction of the soul takes place in the spiritual world. Still, we have to create the right environment in the corporeal world so that in it we will be able to attain the spiritual correction.

First we must understand that the basis for all the corrections is the main rule of the Torah: “Love thy friend as thyself.” This means that all the corrections, all the details described in the Torah, are the explanations for how we should reach the fulfillment of the conditions of loving others.

My attitude to whatever it may be—to friends, to the external world, to all the spiritual worlds, to everything—has to be only out of love, to the extent that I love myself. That’s it! Every action I make has to be accompanied by the thought that I do it for others. Love isn’t just speaking the words. There must be a real desire within me that obliges me to do it. Otherwise it is not called a commandment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/03/14, Shamati 66 “The Giving of the Torah”

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A Person’s Essential Work

Dr. MIchael LaitmanRabash’s Letter #59: The essential work of the person is to connect himself with the Creator.

The word “Omer” comes from the phrase gathering sheaves (Malmim Alumim). That is, through this a person becomes mute (Ilem) and doesn’t open his mouth with accusations against the Creator, rather for him, “Everything that comes from the Creator is for the good” (Berachot 9).

And he says to himself that his thoughts and desires will be only for the sake of Heaven, so he is a sheaf (Omer).

This means that through making a strong connection between all of his thoughts and desires so that they will be for only one goal, which is to give contentment to his Creator, the person is called a sheaf (Omer).

And the counting (Sefirat – סְפִירָה) of the Omer comes from the word “Sapphire (Sapir – סַפִּיר),” Light. Due to a person connecting himself to the Creator, the person receives the revelation of the Light of the Creator and thus becomes an Omer (sheaf), connecting all of the desires into one connection, for one goal, which is for the sake of Heaven; for the sake of what is higher, this Omer shines.

And since it includes seven qualities (measures), which must all be corrected so that they are all for the Creator, there is a general rule that every quality is included in all the qualities, so it follows that there are seven times seven, 49 days until the receiving of the Torah. For the Omer is from barley (Seorim); that is, it comes from measurements (Sha’arim, levels) for which he places the greatness of the Creator in his heart, to that degree the Light of the Creator dwells in a person.

And this is called the aspect of faith. And when the person merits faith in the Creator, this is called the level of the beast. And this is the idea that the Omer was barley, which is animal feed, meaning that he has not yet merited the knowledge of the Torah.

If so, on Shavuot, when we merit receiving the Torah, then we receive the knowledge of the Torah, so we sacrifice the wheat offering, which is human food, which is the speaking level, the level of the Torah.

We gather sheaves, which is the aspect of the mute, when he is only animate and not speaking. For only through the Torah do we merit the speaking aspect.”
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 06.12.14

Preparation for the Lesson

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Mutual Guarantee,” Item 21

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