Audio Version Of The Blog – 10.13.14

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The More Impenetrable The Darkness, The Brighter The Light

laitman_236_01The huts during the holiday of Sukkot symbolize our embrace with the Creator. We arrive at connection with Him through the help of a special surrounding illumination, called the Sukkah, (hut).

We work before the Creator, adapting ourselves to Him, and this relationship is described as the actions of a person with four species of plants (arba’a minim) in the hut, that is, in the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif).

In order to bring oneself into compliance with the Creator, I hold etrog (citron fruit) in one hand and, in the other, lulav, hadassim, and aravot (a palm branch, three boughs of the myrtle tree, and two branches of the river willow). The last three species represent those properties of mine that I need to coordinate with the Creator.

  • Three boughs of the myrtle tree (Sefirot Hesed, Gevurah, and Tifferet)
  • Two branches of the river willow tree (Sefirot Netzach and Hod)
  • A palm branch (Sefira Yesod)
  • Etrog (Malchut)

Adding them together throughout the seven days of the holiday of Sukkot, I cling to this unity in thoughts and desires, connecting in this way to the Creator in the streaming Light. After all, the Lights also come gradually and are called by the same names: Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut.

As a result, if I use everything that I am given in the right way, then I correct myself and come to a full embrace with the Creator, which is called the “Joy of the Torah” (Simchat Torah) since I used all the Surrounding Light that was working on me, helping me to achieve adhesion. The Light that corrected me and led me to adhesion with the Creator is now called the Torah.

As it is written, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice, for the Light in it reforms.” The evil inclination is that very layer of concealment. I use all the Lights that come to me, and thanks to that they convert this exact concealment into revelation, and where the concealment was greater, deeper, and darker, then more Light is revealed.

This is how I come to the holiday Simchat Torah, to the burst of joy that comes immediately after Sukkot.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/5/14

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In Advance

laitman_527_03As it is written, “There is none else besides Him.” All of our work is focused on this. In my every action, every feeling, every desire, every thought, I want to reveal Him, He who sends me all this.

He is the organizer, the authentic doer. Whatever I do, in fact, He does it through me, and I must discover how He is working in me, like the upper force, the Creator, acting as a “derivative” in the created being.

Coming to this, I reach adhesion. By experiencing the action, I agree with what the Creator does through me, and then I become one whole with Him.

On the way to adhesion, I go through a lot of resistance, am especially sent into concealment and in various forms. This allows me, in the minutest detail, to bring myself in line with the Creator, to merge with Him, to adhere to such an extent as to feel not even He who produces my thoughts, actions, and desires within me, but I, myself, as if am ahead of His creation; all this is because I am in adhesion with the Creator and know Him.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/5/14

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Where Do We Find The Connection Between Us?

laitman_938_04Question: At the workshops we reached such a connection in our tens that a question arose. What more can be done? What else can we add to this?

Answer: I think that it is impossible for us to come any closer to each other on our own. We have experienced the limit of coming closer on our own and now we need to attract the Creator to this.

We passed through a stage of feeling and understood what it means to be one whole to some degree, and now we need to learn what the upper force is, try to feel it, enter it, and dissolve in it with the entire ten so that it will rule over us. When we totally plunge into it, we will find the connection between us there.

Question: What does it mean to attract the upper force? Is it in thoughts or in actions?

Answer: We, collectively, need to imagine ourselves as existing in the property of complete bestowal that rules over us, envelops us, and governs us. By coming closer to my friend and desiring to become included in him, I prepare myself for the Creator to descend upon me. This needs to be clear in feeling, not in actions.
[145096]
From the Convention in Saint Petersburg 9/21/14, Lesson 5

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Consolidating Hearts

Laitman_931-01Question: When we try to measure the desire of a friend by ourselves, to enter into him, an oppositional force begins to operate within us. Where does the second, balancing power that will help us “enter the friend” come from? What are we missing?

Answer: An external foreign force is required for us to smash our ego. We see that we are not consolidated in our hearts. It is impossible to scrape the membrane off the heart. This sack full of blood boils and beats within us, measuring every second of life that remains and we cannot do anything about it. What is required is an external force that will connect our hearts.

It is possible to invite it only through the right intention while studying the real Kabbalistic sources by Baal HaSulam and Rabash. So we must constantly try, try, and try to do this. There are no other possibilities.

You must all try together to nullify the iron wall that exists between you. You feel how much it separates between your hearts. So try to break through it!
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Three” 9/21/14, Lesson 5

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Everything Is Determined By The Importance Of The Goal

laitman_527Question: How does one build the desire “to receive for the sake of bestowal” correctly?

Answer: To receive for the sake of bestowal is an incredibly difficult thing and not worth thinking about in the meantime. Our first task is to rise above our ego. And we must use our ego and more “for the sake of bestowal,” this is a very tall order.

Comment: But leaving one’s own nature is no less of a “very tall order.”

Answer: No, it is much lower. Everything begins with a person nullifying himself with regard to the group. Growth and the accumulation of the importance of the goal, the level called Lo Lishma (not for Her name), happens while he is still within the ego but gradually advances towards departing from it.

Departing from the ego is called crossing the Machsom (barrier), a conditional boundary between two worlds, physical and spiritual. Further a person begins to rise in levels of “bestowal for the sake of bestowal,” reaches the fifth, maximal level and only later the level of “reception for the sake of bestowal.”

Question: And if I don’t have a desire to be integrated with others, what happens then?

Answer: Nobody has this desire. But necessity obliges one. If you want to attain the goal of life, you need to go through all of this, and if not, then you will need to go through this against your will. Initially you have no desire to work against the ego, you are an absolutely healthy person. But the importance of the goal obligates you to begin to work against it.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Three” 9/21/14, Lesson 5

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On The Physical Level

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: If a person in our group of ten is sick and suffering, can we help him somehow?

Answer: You must help him in any way possible.

A group of ten is Arvutone for all and all for one. It is a clear understanding that only together can we attain the goal and that each friend is more important to me than myself.

Question: And so he becomes healthy?

Answer: If you want that very much, then yes.

Question: Perhaps there is some kind of algorithm about what to think. Advise us about what is important so that the person will truly become healthy.

Answer: I cannot do this because all of your algorithms will be egoistic. We are not on the same level so our requests to the Creator and our requests for the health of the friend will be able to be integrated. In the meantime, they cannot be integrated. So I cannot speak about something that is more than this so that you will not egoistically begin to use everything that comes up in your mind.

You must help a friend in healing or stabilizing domestic problems through your good desires and intentions on the normal physical level.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Three” 9/21/14, lesson 5

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Inviting The Light Of Correction To Be My Guest

laitman_921Question: The idea that the shade of the Sukkah symbolizes the need to settle for little frightens me since I want to feel that I am in the world of Infinity that is full of love and forces of bestowal. What restriction does it refer to?

Answer: The whole world is open before you. Go ahead. Go right back to the Creator! Sukkot is only the beginning of the year.

There are still many more states ahead in which you will work hard. After Sukkot, there is the holiday of Simchat Torah (rejoicing with the Torah), and then there is Hanukkah, the “Festival of Lights” when our practical correction to bestowal begins.

The light of Hanukkah symbolizes complete bestowal, and so it is impossible to use the Hanukkah candles for light, but only in order to see them. As it is written, “These candles are holy,” and Holiness is bestowal. Afterward, we attain an even a greater correction and reach the holiday of Purim.

Purim is directly opposite to Yom Kippur (Kippurim). On Yom Kippur, we decided that we cannot do anything with our absolutely terrible egoistic desires. In Purim, they all are corrected to such an extent that we cease to clarify them. We can eat and drink as much as we want, and we are sure that it is in order to bestow and that everything will work out for the best.

Question: How does a Sukkah that we build in the yard symbolize the Sukkah that we must build in our heart?

Answer: Building a Sukkah in the heart means to create the conditions in which our desire to receive will be corrected by the Surrounding Light, which means that all our intentions will be focused on the benefit of others.

Therefore, it is customary to invite guests and to receive very honorable visitors in the Sukkah: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David. They symbolize the Lights that come and correct a person.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/2/14

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Exile: On The Verge Of The Light And Darkness, Part 5

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How did the exile of the two tribes happen? Were they “slightly in touch” with “Babylon” without “dissolving” in it completely?

Answer: Yes. This state of affairs has continued for two thousand years. If they lived absolutely separately, isolated from the rest of humanity, nobody would ever “pick” on them. However, it is impossible for spiritual reasons. They had to connect with other nations, thus leading humanity forward to the future ascent, to the upcoming “enlightenment.”

That’s why the upper governance “spun” things in a way that they involuntarily were forced to live among other nations and somehow transfer the wisdom to them. The Jews always were physicians, clerks, etc. They initiated banking and various technologies. Everything started with them.

Question: And while they were in a state of unity, they weren’t in exile?

Answer: Right. They entered one or another country poor and ragged, huddled together. They were accepted in that “shape.” For the time being, everything went well and they led quiet and peaceful lives.

However, as soon as they were settling down and, most importantly, getting richer, the distance between them grew. The level of equality and brotherhood among them rapidly diminished. There were rich and poor Jews. The “scalpel” that separated them from each other plunged more deeply into the gap created between them. It was then that the problems arose and they immediately become hated until they were expelled from the countries they were living in.

We can draw a parallel with the Egyptian exile. First, the Jews were given the land of Goshen, a fertile piece of land and they started developing the country. This period is described as “seven years of satiation.”

Then, why did the “seven years of hunger” come? Why did the new ruler of Egypt intimidate them? Why did Egyptians hate the Jews and force them out of the country?

It happened because the Jews grew “fat.” It was a result of their “compliance” with egoism during the “seven years of satiation,” at the time when the Jewish influence was very high in Egypt. They “sold” themselves to egoism. As soon as they reached the maximum level of selfishness, “seven years of hunger,” the period of suppression and overpowering began. This period ended by “expelling” the Jews from Egypt.

In essence, the same processes took place in other countries. The last, most vivid example is Germany. There the Jews really strove to be like the Germans. They were lawyers, doctors, politicians. One of them seriously aimed at becoming Chancellor. We all know the result.

Question: How did the two surviving expelled tribes of Israel live in Babylon? In essence, wasn’t anti-Semitism that accompanies the Jews until today was born at that time?

Answer: Generally speaking, anti-Semitism originated in ancient Babylon since Abrahams group was meant to exit, to get away from there. Then, the same situation repeated in Egypt and once again during the Babylonian exile. It is about the same state of equilibrium or absence of balance between the Light and the desire.

However, the first open manifestation of anti-Semitism happened in Babylon at the time of Nebuchadnezzar after the loss of the Temple. The truth is that the Jews were not pushed out of there; rather, the terms of the exile expired. After Haman made an unsuccessful attempt to exterminate all the Jews in the country, a new king Cyrus, Esther’s son, а patron of the Jews came to power. By the way, during the Babylonian exile the queen of Babylon was a Jewish woman. So, her son Cyrus helped the Jews to return to Israel and gave them everything they needed to resurrect the Temple.

It was the time of prophets who shared the exile with their people and exited from the exile together with them. At that time, the people were at a spiritual level, not in the power of complete darkness as it happened later
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From KabTV’s “Babylon Yesterday and Today” 9/03/14, Part 5

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10.13.14

Writings of Rabash Shlavei HaSulam,” Article 12

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts “Sukkot” 

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Peace,” “The Wheel of Transformation of the Form” 

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