Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2014-08-30_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’30.8.14′]
The Torah, “VaYikra” 14:36-14:37: …and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house. And he shall look on the plague…
When a person examines his desire with the help of the Upper Light that makes all the defects prominent, he understands that he has a plague, and he sees how this is revealed in relation to others.
For this he must enter into some kind of society, connect with others, and try to make moves for their sake according to the principle, “And you shall love your friend.” Everything is revealed according to the surrounding society.
The general rule, the general law of the Torah is “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This means that all of the characteristics of the person are defined in relation to the camp, the tent, the city, and all of humanity, meaning in regard to others and the law, “And you shall love your neighbor.”
The characteristics of the person are the egoistic desires for the sake of reception. They are discovered according to how much he corrects them with full bestowal towards others. The correction of the desires is done from within outward.
The inner desires are the most refined. After them come the more external desires. And it could be the other way around: first the external desires are corrected, and after that the internal ones. It depends upon the style of the person’s work.
The external desires are divided into body, clothing, house, and yard. The work with the desires in the third phase that a person corrects in relation to others are called “house.”
In these desires, he sees that part of them adhere to the ego. When he is on the level of the “priest,” meaning the level of “Bina” (bestowal), he looks at the more external desires on the level of “house,” and when he sees the deficiencies in himself or in others, he can scrutinize them precisely.
[141913]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/5/14
Related Material:
Light Desires
Turning The Land Of Canaan Into The Land Of Israel
Process Of Self-Scrutiny
Baal HaSulam, “One Commandment”: …(good deeds) are justified in and of themselves, since human conscience necessitates them. However, if one performs them from this perspective, he has not done a thing. In others words, these actions will not bring him closer to the Creator and to actual work Lishma.
Idealism and a good attitude won’t bring us closer to positive results because they contradict the thought of creation according to which we should unite through taking steps towards the upper. Actions that are not aimed at the upper force will trigger a huge failure.
Baal HaSulam used Russia as an example of a country where the idea of building communism had totally failed. If one’s reciprocal “good deeds” are not directed to the right goal, nothing positive will occur, so it is better without them
There are plenty of charities that help various countries and different segments of the population. They save people from famine, epidemics, and other disasters. Still, more and more people starve, get sick, and suffer from numerous disasters. Research shows that humanitarian aid to Africa never improved the general situation; on the contrary, acts of charity made it even worse.
How can it be that the world doesn’t know how to distribute the abundance? Why do our attempts to save people who have nothing to eat have a negative effect? At first glance, it looks illogical.
Maybe, we demotivate people from doing their work? However, nowadays they don’t have to work. It’s better to pay them for not being employed, since there is not enough work for everybody.
The fact that among the aging population there will be less working people and more “freeloaders” sounds frightening. But in reality, here is no need for so many workers. It would be even better if the vast majority of people stopped working right now. According to the latest statistics, if there are fewer jobs, the world would become a cleaner and better place. As to food, clothing, and shelter, there is enough for all.
In my eyes, less than ten percent (10%) of the population are able to provide for the normal, basic needs of the earth’s entire population. If we implement modern technologies, only two to three percent (2-3%) of the world population would have to be engaged in work to cover the needs of humanity. We have no clue what prospects are open to us by modern science, nor do we realize that a technological revolution is already at our doorstep. However, we are not ready for it because nobody knows how to reorganize the world.
Unemployment is a direct threat to the social order. Riots of youth in France and England vividly demonstrated that a few idle teenagers can destabilize the life of vast regions and districts. What if there were a million or several million hooligans with nothing to do?
This situation must be prevented. Before we change the system we live in, people have to be educated and taken care of. Special systems that serve more than 90% of the unemployed population have to be established. People have to be busy doing something else, otherwise what will happen to them? People, who stay home without having anything to do, gradually go crazy. Marijuana was recently legalized particularly for them, but what’s next?
Family values are being broken in the Western world and significantly fewer people want to marry or have children. However, staying single does not solve their problems.
The population of our planet is forecast to grow to nine billion people in the next fifty years. Actually, it’s not the worst thing that can happen to us. In the last one hundred years, the population of one billion grew to seven billion regardless of the extremely devastating wars that took place in the 20th century.
Our major problem is becoming more apparent. At this time, our “good works” are not oriented to the higher goal. Without the correct intention that crowns the entire process, we won’t achieve any success.
On the contrary, had we organized the process correctly, the world could have turned into a paradise. For that, humanity doesn’t have to become zombies as it has now. People will acquire wisdom and obtain a new, enlightened spirit. They will realize what they are doing, and thus, they will be engaged in jobs of a completely different type.
People will be full of life. They will sense that they live in a vast reality, in an unlimited universe and that other worlds depend on them. They will interact with everybody around them. Together, they will change our reality. It is quite a different kind of work, isn’t it?
Gradually and methodically people have to be prepared for this transition.
[142043]
From 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/22/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam
Related Material:
We Are Educators
Exile From Intention
Doing Good For One’s Own Sake
From the book: The Essential Secret of the Jews, M. Brushtein.
Unity Is = The Goal Of Nature
It’s time to ask the question directly. What is the relationship between the unity of people and unity with nature?
First of all, is there a connection between the parts of nature? And if so, who knows about this except the Kabbalists? It turns out that scientists and thinkers have been talking about this long time ago.
“The living, from bacteria to higher plants and higher animals, including man, is a single inseparable whole.” (Vladimir I.Vernadsky)
The fact that humanity is going to unite against all odds has long been known as well.
“Evolution = Rise of consciousness, Rise of consciousness = Union effected. The general gathering together in which, by correlated actions of the without and the within of the earth, the totality of thinking units and thinking forces are engaged—the aggregation in a single block of a mankind whose fragments weld together and interpenetrate before our eyes in spite of (indeed in proportion to) their efforts to separate.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Le Phenomene Humain)
Yes, many, many people have understood and felt that humanity should unite, but why and how they did not know.
“Religion and state social education for thousands of years have tried and are trying to create unity and by force to include everyone into one common understanding of the meaning and purpose of life.
“This common understanding never existed in the millennia of human history.” (Vladimir I.Vernadsky)
Kabbalists not only knew and know the answers to these questions, but, in addition, they explained why humanity evolves in this way and not otherwise.
“We distinguish four divisions in the Speaking species, arranged in gradations one atop the other. Those are the Masses, the Strong, the Wealthy, and the Sagacious. They are equal to the four degrees in the whole of reality, called “Still,” “Vegetative,” “Animate,” and “Speaking.” (Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”)
This division of humanity corresponds to these four stages of development that we were talking about. Besides…
“We should know that this law is inclusive for the entire creation; all of nature’s systems are based upon it, organic and inorganic alike, up to the human species with all its idealistic and material properties.
“In all the above there is none that does not obey the iron law of gradual evolution resulting from the mutual collision of these two forces on one another. There is a positive force, meaning constructive, and a negative force, meaning negative and destructive.” (Baal HaSulam, “The Solution”)
In conclusion, we would say that humankind must be involved in this evolutionary process. The sooner – the better.
“Hence, if we let the world evolve naturally, today’s world must undergo the ruin and torments that the primitive man experienced.” (Baal HaSulam, “The Solution”)
[141992]
Related Material:
The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 32
The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 31
The Essential Secret Of The Jews, Part 30
The most important thing about our desires is to differentiate the pure from the impure, from the egoistic. There are egoistic desires that are possible to correct now, and there are those that are corrected at a later time, in the next stage, which are the higher ones, or those that aren’t in use and so are corrected at the end.
The uncorrected desires are spoken about in the Torah as those, as it seems, that go through a person’s skin and are seen on his face.
This is how a cell works in the material world. Genetics has discovered that our body is a huge mechanism, which includes trillions of trillions of cells and each of them are constantly correcting themselves, and what they cannot correct, they push outside.
We are not interested in what the cell throws out, but in the process of correcting desires, because it is the most important thing. The body, in any case, will die. But if you correct some of your desires, then you remain to exist in them. This means that you already have some hold on a minimum existence in the spiritual world. Afterward it is possible to continue working. The main thing is to establish yourself there.
Comment: This means that the desire doesn’t disappear, but remains for the future.
Answer: In nature there isn’t really anything that has no use. If something is not useful for us at the moment, it is only because we are not able to correct it.
Question: Even what humanity produces, is that also necessary?
Answer: Yes. But the corporeal world is automatically connected to the correction. In accordance to our thoughts and desires, all of nature is corrected, including the inanimate level of nature.
Comment: The weekly passage “The Leper” specifically speaks about this, that not only a person and his body, but also his house can be infected with leprosy.
Answer: Under the concept of “house,” man’s desires are also included. The Torah doesn’t speak about anything except man. All desires are divided into five stages: body, clothing, house, yard, and the rest of the world. But we mainly speak about the first four stages, since the main thing is to correct these four parts.
[141804]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/05/14
Related Material:
Layer by Layer Purification of Desire
Identifying The Essence Of My Desires
Correcting The Last Level
Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2014-08-29_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’29.8.14′]
Question: A regular person doesn’t even suspect that there is some kind of higher power that is approaching us and summoning problems in our lives. In ancient times there were prophets who told the people about the actions of the Creator. But who will explain to people today what is happening with them?
Answer: The role of Kabbalists is to explain what is happening to everyone, and the main thing is to say that there is a remedy for correcting the unpleasant situation we find ourselves in. We have the possibility of transforming all the negative phenomena into positive ones, transforming darkness into Light.
Question: For this, what kind of change must happen in us?
Answer: All the changes are directed only towards connection. We don’t feel anything else. We need to overcome the rejection, the hatred of one towards another, our indifference, and to understand that only through connection between us do we bring the higher power closer to us in a good way. This force will be clothed in us and then we will merit the most wonderful life.
Everyone will need to study the method of connection and unification in order to understand what must be done and how. In this manner, we merit a wonderful life and remove all of the disasters, problems, diseases, wars, and anti-Semitism.
A powerful weapon like this is in our hands, but we haven’t even suspected this, and this is the whole problem. People must discover and know what this higher power is and how to use it through our connection. The war is not conducted with an external enemy, rather within the people of Israel.
In the meantime, mentioning the Creator, the higher power, frightens a person because he connects these concepts with religious stereotypes he is accustomed to. Nobody knows exactly what is standing behind these words, but each one has his concept, and it seems to him that he supposedly understands.
But essentially, the Creator is the collective power of nature. There are many forces we learn about in physics, chemistry, biology and zoology. These are the laws of all kinds of natural systems. But the collective power that includes all the rest of the forces within it, the general system that includes the other systems within it, this is called the “Creator.” This is everything!
The Creator is not some kind of mystical image but the collective power that holds within it the entire creation that was created by it. Therefore this is what is called.
Besides that, the Creator (Boreh) symbolizes “Bo Reh” (come and see). This means that we can “come,” advance in our correction, and “see.” We approach this higher power through connecting with each other, and in this manner we form the ability to feel the Creator within us.
The law of equivalence of form exists according to which we can only feel such a phenomenon we have common characteristics with. So how can we acquire common characteristics with the Creator in order to feel Him? We attain characteristics like these through our connection with others.
[142268]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: Preparing the People of Israel for Light” 8/20/14
Related Material:
The Meteor Is Already Close
A Good Future Depends Upon Discovering The Upper Force
Keeping Up With The Schedule Of Creation
Question: If the upper force is good, why is it revealed in an unpleasant way, pressuring us?
Answer: The higher power pressures us from above in that it aspires to be discovered. Whereas, we are found below as separated, crushed, rejecting and hating each other. The pressure of the upper force from above increases our problems, because He wants to be discovered, but is not.
All of the problems pop up because of the approach of the Creator to us. If you are not adapted to Him, then His approach awakens negative reactions in you.
Question: I don’t understand how the approach of the Creator could be perceived as negative. It would seem that this would be the opposite; wouldn’t it be necessary to awaken some kind of positive results?
Answer: Imagine that you are a child. Your mother comes to you and asks: “Have you completed your homework?” And you haven’t prepared your lessons. So your mother threatens: “Watch out, I will come back in another hour to check if you have finished your homework!” As the hour passes you begin to be afraid of when she will come back because you still haven’t done anything.
How will her approach be felt in this case: good or bad? If you don’t comply with her demand, you feel her approach as unpleasant, you don’t want her to come to check you. Isn’t this so?
And now the same thing is happening with us. We are not carrying out those actions that we must carry out. We don’t want to become like one person with one heart, where all of Israel are friends, connected with mutual guarantee (Arvut). We are not becoming like those that we must be, and so the approach of the Creator awakens troubles, disasters, and wars within us and around us.
All of these are the result of the nearing of the Creator. The Holocaust was a result of His approach. That is how the approach of the upper force is revealed if we don’t adapt to it.
So we must prevent the blow through a remedy: Begin getting closer to each other, connect so that we approximate ourselves to the approach of the Creator. Then we will accept this approach as better and better, to the state in which the upper force will be completely clothed in us. There is no better state than this!
Question: Is the upper force like a meteor that is approaching our Earth?
Answer: The higher power is not approaching us with the speed of a meteor, which is 30 kilometers per second. This is a gradual process that began a long time ago. But essentially this “meteor” is already close, and its speed is increasing all the time. The inner and outer tension has grown.
After that a period of calm could come. But even if it comes, it will be for a very brief time. Periods of calm will become more and more compressed, whereas the tension will grow exponentially. This is because we are on the threshold of the general correction and the Creator is obliging us to carry out the correction, meaning to connect among us.
We must come to a state of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” no matter how unrealistic this may seem to us. The higher power is prepared to force us into this through its pressure. But it is desirable to begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah because from it, we discover how to attain this in ourselves before we are pressured from above with full force. We can reach this connection ourselves in a good way, without coercion.
[142264]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: Preparing the People of Israel for Light” 8/20/14
Related Material:
An Obscure Cloud Over The World
Equip Yourself With The Higher Power Of Nature
A Good Future Depends Upon Discovering The Upper Force
The Torah, “Leviticus” (Metzora), 15:4-15:7: “Any bedding upon which the man with the discharge will lie, shall become unclean, and any object upon which he will sit, shall become unclean. And a man who touches his bedding, shall immerse his garments and immerse himself in water and he remain unclean until evening. And anyone who sits on an object, upon which the man with the discharge will sit, shall immerse his garments and immerse himself in water, and he shall remain unclean until evening. And anyone who touches the flesh of the man with a discharge, shall immerse his garments and immerse himself in water, and he shall remain unclean until evening.”
Any contact with the egoistic desires can lead to contagion of the corrected desires.
This speaks about a person who establishes an integral system of connection with others. Therefore, he has no right to begin doing anything without first clarifying his desires, since he may only suffer from that and eventually everything will break down. He will build it, but it will all collapse since there is an egoistic desire somewhere that will become active after being included in this whole schema.
It turns out that it is essential to discover my egoistic desire first. This is the essence of the Torah, which tells us how to draw the Upper Light in order to help us clarify the egoistic and the non-egoistic desires inside us; those that can already be corrected and those that are already corrected. Then they can be divided into three types: those that can be corrected, those that cannot be corrected, and those that are already corrected.
The Light should reveal these three levels inside me. There is nothing I can do with the revelation of the right desires, since they are ready. I have to simply suppress them so as not to allow them to connect with the egoistic desires, as it says that it is forbidden to sit in a certain place, to lie there, or to touch it.
Then it is essential to discover the desires that can be corrected and to start correcting them separately. The infected desires that cannot be corrected have to be isolated and only on the next levels, to the extent that I receive the powers of the next level, clarify them again and decide whether I can do anything with them.
It is a very serious study, an internal study: touching, incorporating inside me, exiting myself into the impure desires and vice versa, and drawing them to me in order to correct them. Therefore, it is called secret work since no one can see it on the outside.
[142181]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/5/14
Related Material:
Opening Pandora’s Box
Layer by Layer Purification of Desire
Identifying The Essence Of My Desires
Question: On your shelf you have a disc called “The Tower of Babel, the Last Level.” Do you mean that this is the last level before the Source of Light?
Answer: The last level of the Tower of Babel is the biggest ego that exists in us. And you must reach it in order to rise to the world of Infinity, because you can only rise there through a big ego.
Question: But the model of the Tower of Babel is the model of sin. How can you use the human sin to arrive at the biggest Light?
Answer: This can be done because they are connected. When you reach the biggest sins, you merit the biggest Light.
Question: So I need to sin in order to come to the biggest Light?
Answer: That is right.
Question: So, you are pushing people to sin?
Answer: Right now I exist in a small point of this world and I want to attain a higher degree. But I am unable to do anything with the ego that I have now, because my ego is small, there is just enough to use in this world. This is why I need to reveal a big ego, let us say -100 kg (the minus is there to show that this refers to ego). Then I correct it into +100 kg of bestowal, and this way I attain correction.
And on a higher degree, I will have one ton of ego, which I will correct into one ton of bestowal.
And this will continue forever: one against the other. You sin, correct it, and arrive at the Light. Again you enter the ego, correct it, and again you attain the Light. This is how one advances in the spiritual world.
You must reveal your ego, because ego is the material where the spiritual world becomes revealed under the condition that you correct it from reception to bestowal. It is written that: “There is no righteous person in the world, who has done good deeds without having sinned.” This is why we need the revelation of the ego.
But we never work on revealing a big ego, evil, in us; on the contrary, we aspire towards the property of love and bestowal above and in spite our egoism. But when we succeed in this and acquire the property of bestowal, the egoism immediately grows, so we will rise above it once again. And this way we move ahead on two legs, the right line, bestowal, and the left line, reception.
[29404]
From the Kabbalah for the Nation Lecture 11/23/10
Related Material:
The Windows Of Your House
There Are No Sins In This World
Asking For Forgiveness Before The New Year
Daily Audio Version-MP3
Get the Weekly eNewsletter
Follow on Twitter
