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The “Reshimo” That Lives Within The Person

Dr. Michael LaitmanA person’s task is to always adhere to the upper management, to the work of the Creator on him. Through his attitude, the Creator awakens the substance.

So on all levels of the desire for pleasure, the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, Reshimot are awakened, informative genes that develop all of creation and advance it towards correction, to the desired state, to the previously defined goal. This means complete adhesion of the entire creation with the Creator, with the origin of the upper management.

However, from the substance itself, additional participation is required: It must itself consciously reach adhesion with the Host. It must understand the actions which are performed on it and through these actions attain the higher power, the Creator.

Of all of nature, only the human is prepared to do this. And within the human, all four of these levels also exist: still, vegetative, animate, and human. In fact, only the human level within the human is the origin of the right reaction to the actions of the Creator.

The human within the human must activate to connect to himself all the rest of the levels of humanity, and then the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate of nature will join with him also. All the parts of nature are included within the human, and they ascend and descend together with him.

In this way, it is up to us to look at creation. Those who belong to the fourth level of the fourth stage, meaning the level of the human within the human, feel an awakening to ascend. A living Reshimo is revealed within them obligating them to realize it. The human receives an inner aspiration towards spirituality. And after that he is obliged to clarify exactly what he must do to discover the Host and adhere to Him. Indeed, through this he fulfills the desire of the Creator and gives Him contentment. All that we need then is to scrutinize at each and every moment that we are under the control of the upper management and adhere to this control.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/14

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Good Will And A Good Attitude

Dr. Michael LaitmanAfter thousands of years of human development, humanity has reached the recognition of the evil of its nature. We finally realize what is happening and see that all of our lives are full of suffering and that all of our history is a history full of very great pain.

We thought that we were wise, advanced, enlightened, and very developed, and, ultimately we are empty, without hope and without a future for the new generation that has been born.

In such a difficult and critical situation, I am ready to think about a method and a new form of life. This would not be a life that is derived from my inner egoistic drives of exploitation of others from generation to generation, but from a different inclination, the exploitation of myself for the good of others.

This is the choice that stands before us, the only approach that is dictated by nature, the dilemma between the two inclinations: the evil (egoistic) inclination and the good (altruistic) inclination. There is no other possibility. The human has developed for thousands of years with a desire to exploit the environment, the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and human beings, and all of this is for himself and only for himself.  Now only one thing is left: to change this model to an opposite model. This means reaching balance with the environment. Indeed, I suffer because everyone wants to exploit each other, as do I. Ultimately, we are depleted. We deplete each other. We become upset, helpless, and defenseless. In short, we have reached a dead end.

There is simply no other choice. We must examine ourselves, understand how it is up to us to change our approach toward life, and then, instead of “everyone pulling the blanket toward himself,” it is clear that the only solution is to talk about cooperation and balance between us.

Indeed, the Earth is ready to provide us with all that we require, but, because of our ego, we are like foolish children who steal from each other, and ultimately no one is happy and no one gets any true satisfaction in life. So, the only solution is to balance the relationships between all of us. We begin from this: How do we change?

At the present time, I want to pull everything toward me, even if I don’t need it. The main thing is not to leave anything for others. That is how I enjoy not just my fulfillment, but also the deprivation of others. It is not enough that I have more than others. I don’t want them to have anything. Essentially, the fact that they have something bothers me because I always measure my situation in relation to others, and am happy that I have more and they have less.

So, it is up to us to understand what is good and what is bad in our nature and how we can compensate, complete, and correct it.

Question: Even if I want to reach balance, on what grounds can I evaluate my activities? How can I know what will help and what will harm me?

Answer: What makes things better for others will help, and the others will think about what is good for me. We try to do good to one another, to do the opposite of what is happening today.

Question: Each of the others has his own desires. Does this mean that it is always up to me to be changed within, to adjust myself to them? This requires me to be very sensitive to people.

Answer: The main thing is the desire to do good to others and to have a good attitude toward others. First of all, the attraction towards this comes from a lack of choice, and we continue to work on this. We hold workshops, games, events, and discussions, until, within us, we are sure that it is possible to get along mutually—well, with love—by rising above our ego, which doesn’t disappear anywhere but remains and becomes stronger.

We arrange the connection specifically in the face of the ego, above differences of opinion, above opposition, and we build good relationships among us and connect with balance.

Through this, we design a new standard of living, a new level called Man (Adam), leaving the previous level.

Question: This means that agreement fundamentally is not enough? It cannot be the button that activates the mechanism of cooperation?

Answer: This button is found in me, within my heart, and in order to press it, I release all of my good impulses and use them for the benefit of others, and I close, contract, and freeze all of my bad impulses.

Of course, for this, we must build the entire auxiliary systems of the new world, build them with our own hands. With their help, we learn to differentiate between good and evil, between bestowal to others and reception from them, between using myself for their good and exploiting them for my good.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/10/14

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The Endless Struggle With The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe book, Shem MeShmuel, ParshatHa’azinu”: “Adam HaRishon said to all of the creatures, ‘Come, let’s bow down and kneel before the Creator’; but due to the error the concept had become corrupted until even the good of that generation didn’t have the possibility of uniting together to serve the Creator. Rather they were isolated individuals. And the correction of this began in the generation of the dispersion which made a division in the human species. This means that the correction began with the gathering and association of people for service to the Creator, beginning from Abraham, peace be upon him.”

The desire to receive must reach correction and resemblance to the characteristic of bestowal, meaning the Creator, whose desire is to benefit the creatures.

The desire to receive will be like the Creator through intention. It cannot change itself and remains a desire for pleasure. But as a result of the process, all of its pleasure is in bestowal. It advances in this direction.

The correction begins from the developed state, from the advanced stage of the extension of the four phases of the Ohr Yashar (Direct Light), when the desire already feels itself, its reception. It is aware of who is receiving, understands that it is the opposite of the giver, and the feeling of this difference awakens shame in it.

And so the correction doesn’t begin immediately. Adam, the first Kabbalist, was the one in whom it awakened. Like us, he asked questions about the meaning of life: “What is all this for? Why? How?”, and he reached discovery of the Upper Light.

The desires were weak and small then, what is called refined. And the corrections were also different than our corrections. Indeed, the desire to receive didn’t just grow, but also divided into many parts. It was not just that the population of Babylon was not large. The number of humans in the world tells us how much the desire for pleasure has grown and requires division so that everyone will have the power to correct his part.

There were ten generations between Adam and Noah, and between Noah and Abraham who led the correction differently, and he wanted to add to this process all of the people in the world who were still concentrated in one area.

As we know, Abraham gathered around him all of the people who wanted to join with him and took them out of Babylon.

For the most part, there are no meaningful differences from ancient days until our day: not in essence, and not in the stages of the process. Of course, each one feels his unique way through his individual Reshimo. But by and large, all of these corrections are called the “service of the Creator,” or work “for the sake of the Creator,” which is incumbent upon us.

And so in the time of Abraham, part of the Babylonians began to separate from the others and called themselves, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), Israel, according to their inclination, their goal. When they united, they passed through various states of connection on more or less strong levels, stages of analysis, the levels of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

After that they found themselves in the low state of the Egyptian exile, and felt how their ego had again grown and dominated them, just about as it had been in Babylon. But they already related to its dominance differently. They wanted to leave its dominance, and at that time they had almost disappeared, melting into it so much had it swallowed them into itself.

This was a real danger, the “49 Gates of Impurity,” a state almost without a solution. And in spite of it all, from their last energy, with the help of the force among them called “Moses,” they succeeded in darkness, under a succession of blows, to awaken both “in good” and “in bad,” and flee from the dominance of the ego, rising above it.

This was called the “exodus from Egypt”—they rose above the ego and were drawn towards development. However, the ego didn’t disappear, but they controlled it themselves.

This control of the ego and even the ability to use it correctly for the sake of bestowal is called “Torah.” The Egyptian exile, the descent into the abyss of narcissism that was discovered, ultimately provided them with this ability.

And after this, the period of the wilderness began, where they adjusted the ego and corrected it with bestowal for the sake of bestowal, filling it with Hafetz Hesed (delighting in mercy). Even though they didn’t have anything, since they were in a wasteland, they passed from desire to desire and each time discovered the evil and corrected it.

The Torah tells us about this period and explains to us how it is necessary to correct the ego, to rise above it, and to control it. But this is control only on the first level: bestowal for the sake of bestowal.

And so, with the ascent of Malchut to Bina, after “forty years in the wilderness,” we were finally ready to correct Malchut. This was already the level called the “entrance into the land of Israel.” We continued on with corrections and wars, conquering the land, until the people of Israel dominated the land of Israel.

But with this the correction wasn’t finished. Only its first stage was finished, which had continued from Abraham until the building of the First Temple (Beit HaMikdash). This was the correction of only those people who had gone out from Babylon, a small part of humanity. But the general correction that Adam HaRishon had begun had not been realized.

So in order to continue the process, the group of Abraham that had become the people of Israel, had to be broken up and enter into contact, into connection, with all of the rest of these desires, these parts of humanity, which are called the “seventy nations of the world.” Meanwhile, they had been scattered to all places on Earth; in other words, from being controlled by the ego, they passed to all kinds of control, they created religions and faiths, and awakened various forces that acted upon them.

And so the nation of Israel not only had to fall from its level, but also had to be scattered among all the peoples, among all the forces, the controls and the methods, to be integrated with them and integrated in them.

The destruction of the Second Temple symbolizes the final fall of the people of Israel into unfounded hatred that was worse than among all the nations of the world, because they just about lost the connection between them, the characteristic of the people of Israel and belonging to the land of Israel. Indeed, only their general orientation, only their need to make the correction for the sake of the future, is what held them together in some form.

After that, the integration with the world was finished, and now the awakening again began. First of all, the people of Israel entered the land of Israel. After this they corrected themselves from being a small group to all of the people dwelling in Zion, after that to the people of Israel scattered throughout the Diaspora, and after that gradually the whole world.

Everything happens gradually, according to the refinement of the vessels, desires, and with the integration of the Reshimot that remained from the time of the shattering. In fact, there is nobody who is greater and nobody who is less here. We see this within the material only according to the intensity of the desire to receive and the Reshimot that are awakened within it.

They are under the influence of the Light that awakens them accordingly. And all of the corrections are sustained from the lightest correction to the heaviest correction. That is how development happens.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Put Judges and Guards At All The Gates

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In a corrected society when someone harms me must there be a judge to whom I can turn with my complaint?

Answer: No, I must sit together with the one who harmed me and scrutinize the incident. It might be necessary to invite additional people so we will have ten people in a circle. The problem is not that he did something bad to me; rather it is that we have done general harm to everyone.

The dispute between us is not a private problem between me and you. Through it we have harmed the entire society and so it is up to us to solve it in a general way, with the participation of the society. There is nothing to be ashamed of and hide here. It is very important to scrutinize together with everyone how we can correct this defect. You did not hurt me personally; rather through me you hurt the entire society. This approach is absolutely different from that which exists today. So all of us must scrutinize what the damage is, why this happened, and correct it together.

Basically, it is up to us to acknowledge that we are guilty that you committed a transgression. This is because for us as a society there wasn’t a strong enough influence to keep you on the right track. This means that the person who committed the transgression is not guilty; rather first of all the society, his environment is guilty of not investing enough in him and making it possible for him to behave this way. This is a much more global problem than how it seems to us today.

Question: In a circumstance like this, what is the role of the judge?

Answer: The judge only helps us to reach clarification; he explains to us that the problem is not in an isolated person, rather in his environment. The person is a product of his environment. He is born with us and was always among us. We are familiar with him, where he studies, his workplace, his family. So what happened all of a sudden that we didn’t succeed in holding him to higher morality? Why did he suddenly fall? Apparently he lost the connection with us, and so we are to blame!

Question: It is logical that the judgment is not only in regard to the perpetrator, but the entire society?

Answer: As is understood, the judgment is not in regard to him at all. He is a product of the society, so all blame is on the environment.

Question: If so, must we scrutinize all of the minor controversies here and there between one person and another together with the entire society from morning to night?

Answer: It could be that this is so. But through this all of us advance. We discover the places where we have not worked enough on the connection between us making it possible for us to influence each other. In this way the entire society will rise. Newer and newer problems will be revealed, but they will strengthen the unity in a society all the time until it becomes like“one person with one heart.

Question: This is completely different from our attitude today where there is the accused and the accusers. Today the court determines who is right and who is to blame. And in a corrected society, individual guilt doesn’t exist at all and all scrutiny happens on the societal level?

Answer: Indeed even today the perpetrator asks the court for a pardon, justifying himself by saying that he grew up without parents, outside of the home, in a bad environment, was expelled from school, and lacks education. He also comes with claims against the society.

But we are not ready to hear these claims; instead we simply send him to prison for ten years. But maybe it is worthwhile to listen, could it be that he is justified? But the society is not ready to hear this.

The court system in the corrected society is found in the hands of the people and the nation judges itself. Through this it rises all the time. This is what meant, (Deuteronomy 16:18) “You shall set up judges and law enforcement officials for yourself in all your cities….”
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From Kab TV’s “A New Life” 6/17/14

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In Friendship With The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How does one effectively use envy for the purpose of advancement? It seems to me that my ego simply tends to close so that I don’t deteriorate downward.

Answer: You don’t need to make yourself the master of your destiny. What is needed from you is only some effort. But you have to give it! All the rest is not up to you.

The important thing is to try, like a child, who doesn’t even know where and what he is supposed to do. He tries! And that is what buys him the mind and inner growth.

Thus, I must act with full consciousness that I am doing all that I can in that I am trying to understand how to impart the greatest seriousness in my actions. But at the same time, one must exactly understand what these efforts demand so that they will raise me.

If the child doesn’t invest efforts, he can’t attain the correct results. We see in the stages of inanimate, vegetable, and animate that everything is programmed. We need to invest efforts, as if our development doesn’t depend on us. Do you know your future state? Does the child know what his silly jumps and games need to bring him?

Understand, you go in friendship with the Light, it is your partner. Go to friends, make an effort, and the Light will complete everything. You will feel that it lives in you, that it is working through you. Just exactly as you synchronize your pulse and thoughts with friends, you need to synchronize with it.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 3

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The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 3

From the book, The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein.

The Paradox of Love

And in spite of it all, what did Abraham mean by the words, “Love your neighbor as yourself”?

We want to be convinced that we are not making an elephant out of a fly. It could be that one doesn’t have to search for any law of nature. It is simply necessary to follow this egoistic principle and everyone will be happy. It is simply necessary to be more diligent and that’s it.

The problem is that it is fundamentally impossible to maintain the Mitzvah (precept) of Abraham. It was impossible then, when it appeared, it was impossible after that, and it is impossible even now. Can you convince yourselves that it is possible?

“…we were commanded: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” The word “thyself” tells us, love your neighbor to the same extent you love yourself, not one bit less. In other words, you must constantly and vigilantly satisfy the needs of every person in the Israeli nation, no less than you are always vigilant to satisfy your own needs.” (From the book, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”).

Isn’t this enough? Good, so let’s add another quotation from that source.

“…when sometimes he has but one pillow, if he lies on it himself and does not give it to his slave, he does not observe ‘because he is happy with thee,’ for he is lying on a pillow and the slave, on the ground. And if he does not lie on it, and does not give it to the slave, as well, it is Sodomite rule.”

It is found that unwillingly he must give it over to his slave. And the master himself lies on the ground.

It is difficult to believe that an optimistic person could be found who would begin to convince someone to be ready to carry out this Mitzvah fully. This is especially so when talking about an entire people. This amounts to a paradox. On the one hand, we are not ready to maintain the Mitzvah, “Love your neighbor as yourself”; whereas on the other hand, somehow this was successful for the Jewish people. There was a time….
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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 07.17.14

Shamati #68 “Man’s Connection to the Sefirot

[media 1] [media 2]

The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Rejoicing in Holidays and Not Giving to the Poor,” Item 176

[media 3] [media 4]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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