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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Audio Version Of The Blog – 06.11.14

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
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What Kind Of People Did They Grow Up To Be?

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from Vedomosti): “Young people from 11 to 20 year olds can be considered as Generation Z. They are characterized by the fact that they are familiar with digital technology from childhood, were born with an iPad in hand, adhere to the principle of ‘live in the present,’ preferring to spend time in pleasure and trying not to worry about anything.

“The main goal of their lives is to ‘be happy,’ which is associated with the physical and psychological comfort, personal freedom, the possibility of seeing the world. They do not want to work, but talk about the desire to fill their lives with meaning, not to live to work, but to work to live.

“This generation is a generation of consumers, whose lives are filled with advertisements. The generation that has not experienced mass unemployment and easily parts with money. They love to go to restaurants, buy gadgets.”

My Comment: Tough new global conditions will force them to think about the cause of what is happening to humanity. We are required to reveal the plan of nature to them and our participation in its realization by the good path, not through suffering.
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The Firstborn Receives Twice As Much

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it easier for some people to connect to dissemination and more difficult for others?

Answer: It doesn’t mean anything. There are those who are like the patriarchs and there are those who are like the sons. The patriarchs actually have no Light of Hochma. All the Light is revealed by the sons but on the level of the patriarchs.

I add the desires of AHP but the Light of Hassadim is revealed in AHP, while the Light of Hochma is revealed in GE. But how can GE receive the Light of Hochma? After all, they are vessels of bestowal?

I take the deficiencies from AHP and raise them to GE and then I raise them higher to the upper. It turns out that I receive from the upper the Light that is dressed in the deficiencies of the lower. But I receive these deficiencies and suffer because of them; I wanted to give them everything, “the cow wants to nurse the calf more than the calf wants to suckle.”

I have great deficiencies from the AHP and even if my source is the desires of GE, I can receive all the Light that is meant for AHP and even much more. This means that the firstborn receives twice as much. We have to learn how to do that.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/14, Writings of Rabash

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The Heart Is Like Squeezing A Lemon

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere are several phases in getting closer. In the first phase a person realizes that the more he yearns for connection in order to attain the spiritual world, the more he sees that he cannot. He cannot connect to others and to reveal the Creator which means the attribute of bestowal in the connection.

He tries until he sees that he cannot. The first thing a person discovers is that the Creator’s force is ready and able to help him. So he says that “There is none else besides Him” and that this is the only thing he needs. In order to reach that, first since he has no choice, and then out of his own freewill, he agrees to follow the direction of love of the created beings and thus reach the love of the Creator.

At all times the condition of the love of the created beings acts depending on how much the Creator has to be revealed. There were times when the Creator was revealed only to Kabbalists and was concealed from everyone else, and so this work was different than it is today. This means that in different times there was a different merging between the wisdom of the general and the wisdom of the individual, about which it is written: “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.”

Today we are close to the complete revelation, and Kabbalists tell us about that because we wouldn’t be able to discover that by ourselves. No one can determine that just by external signs. Although from day to day we see that the world is advancing towards an absolute crisis and that the crisis is in human society, in the connection between people.But in our world there is no power that can correct his connection.

So we should listen to what Kabbalists say. First we have to understand that the Creator can help us connect and to be as one man in one heart. The hearts are different and we need to make an effort to connect into one heart. It is as if we squeeze all the juice out of a lemon, all the evil inclination that comes out of the heart. To what is left, we can add the intention of mutually bestowing unto one another and by that unto the Creator.

The conditions are very simple, and although it is impossible to fulfill them, it is clear what needs to be done. After squeezing all the egoistic inclinations out of my heart, I can relate to the group, to each of the friends, as to the Creator, but only if it is a friend and we are ready to connect that way, so that together, between us we will discover the Creator in one common heart.

Each of us is as important as the upper force itself. Each of us is ready to turn himself into a force of love and bestowal. If we yearn for that and don’t forget it during the day, a habit becomes second nature, we will realize that we cannot and that we need the Creator’s help. It is only with His help that we can annul our nature and connect above it.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/14

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At The Turning Point Of History

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe are now implementing an activity that corrects the Shevirah (shattering), something that has never happened in all of history. Just imagine how important this work is. The shattering, the error of Adam HaRishon with the Tree of Knowledge, all of this happened in order to mix the desires and to make it possible for the receptive vessels to approach the goal of creation.

For these are the true desires. The desire to receive is the foundation of creation. And in these days we are implementing the first action in the entire creation, in the descent of the worlds from above to below and in the creation of this world, this entire universe, in the entire evolution of the creature on the face of the earth and the entire history of humanity. Only now begins the correction of the shattering and all of the expansion from above to below.

We are at the turning point from which we begin to rise again from below to above. And this elevation is not done through the desires of Galgalta ve Eynaim themselves, for they were already corrected at the time of the First Temple. And now they are beginning to correct the Kelim (the desires) of the AHP.

The moment we correct our AHP that belongs to Galgalta ve Eynaim, meaning the physical people of Israel, then the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel will be discovered. After that, the new work in partnership with them will have already begun.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/14, Writings of Rabash

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