Preventing A Third Intifada, Part 1

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A wave of terrorist attacks by Israeli Arabs has hit Israel in the last couple of weeks. This is very worrisome and seems to be getting worse and may reach the proportions of a third intifada. Very few people understand the reason for this sudden outburst of violence.

Some people think that the reason is rumors about changes in the status quo with the regard to the Temple Mount. Others believe that it is another expression of the rise of fundamentalism and the upsurge of Muslim terrorists in the world that affect the Israeli Arabs.

There are different explanations, but the main point is that people don’t know what to do in this terrible, horrifying reality. It is as if we are in a rerun of a movie that keeps taking us back over and over again to such terrible days.

The most shocking thing is that these terrorist attacks are not against soldiers, but against innocent civilians, women and children. We are forced to live in constant fear. The threat is not external but from inside our very home, from Arabs who are Israeli citizens, who are our neighbors in the same neighborhood or region.

Some people say that this is a temporary wave and that it will soon end and things will quiet down as we have already seen many times before. Others however, think that this is only the beginning of a much greater uprising among the Arab population. How do you see what is going on from your understanding of the inner system?

Answer: I look at what is going on from a totally different angle. There are no coincidences or sudden unexpected events in the whole evolutionary process. Everything is predetermined and the final action begins with a thought.

First there is a thought and a final picture. This determines both the most initial state and the whole process. It brings the still, vegetative, animate, and human to its ultimate form, which the Creator, nature, and desires have foreseen it from the beginning.

This is part of every creature’s evolutionary process, although the whole world goes through a long process of evolution that isn’t over yet and continues with all the creatures obeying rigid rules that cannot be affected or changed.

Every state is predetermined, but we have the right to ask why it is so, where it stems from, where it is taking us, and to what ultimate form. We can study and understand it, but the question is whether we can change anything about it.

First, we have to acknowledge the fact that we are in a system that obeys clear rules. Our lack of knowledge and understanding doesn’t mean that we are free of keeping them. Studies show that there is an internal force in everything that moves the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels from one state to another with the world developing as a result.

We are in the middle of a historical process that leads us from an initial state of absolute chaos that was predestined, called the shattering, to an opposite state of a perfect reality. Chaos is negative wholeness, which means that it contradicts wholeness in different ways on all the levels and in all the attributes, while wholeness symbolizes harmony between all the parts of the system on all the levels and in every form of connection.

As this process continues, there are different periods of development and there are forces of the still, vegetative, animate, and then the speaking levels. This whole evolution has been going on for billions of years. The still matter has evolved over 14 billion years; the vegetative world for about two billion years, the animate world for half a billion years, and humanity for about 2,000 years.

Humanity goes through special important periods in its evolution that are connected to the development of human beings who go through a qualitative leap. Externally, a person can remain almost the same, perhaps a bit taller or shorter, fatter or thinner, but it is mainly about the human and social evolution.

First humanity evolved unknowingly in a long historical process. This went on until one special day 5,775 years ago when one of the people in our world discovered the plan of creation, the process of evolution, its initial and final states, and everything that would happen between them along a timeline.

That person was called Adam and it isn’t by chance that he received this name. We already know that there are no coincidences in the world and that everything is governed by the laws of nature. His parents called him Adam and didn’t even know that it means that he resembled the Creator (Domeh – with the same root in Hebrew).

Adam discovered the laws of nature and evolution, and passed this information on to us through his students. Since that time, humanity received certain knowledge as to what is happening to it and the world surrounding it and about the forces that operate within it and influence our world.

We can manage in this world on the animate level. We are better at it than animals because we have a mind and feelings that are more developed. Although we are weak and gentle, this vulnerability allows us to be more sensitive and to better adapt to the environment and change accordingly.

As a result, our weakness becomes an advantage and is in our favor and a person develops that way and acquires greater control of nature. We can protect ourselves, build houses, sew clothes, etc. which means that a developed mind and sensitivity allow us to protect ourselves from nature’s caprices exactly where we are weak compared to animals.

In the generations that followed Abraham, his students developed this wisdom even more. They didn’t develop it by their rational thinking like abstract philosophy, but on the basis of their experience. Adam gave them the tools to study the inner mechanism of nature, which sets each of us in motion separately and all together and leads us towards a certain goal. Our next form already exists in the plan of creation and we have to attain it.

This whole process is revealed to humanity so that we will be able to be incorporated in it and even participate in this plan, making this process easy and pleasant. If we go through it willingly, we will enjoy it. If I want to develop and help myself do so, it is an enjoyable, desirable, pleasant process that is blessed.

It is a great advantage that provides us with the wisdom that Adam discovered, this is called the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the program “A New Life” 11/13/14

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Where Does The Light That Reforms Come From?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What actions of bestowal are we performing now, before entering the spiritual world?

Answer: At the moment our actions are in worrying that the friends should come to the lesson and in supporting one another, keeping spirits in the group high, and setting an example for others as to how much we yearn for the goal and how much we worry about organizing our center, so that we will be able to study and hold different activities and events there in order to reach adhesion with the Creator.

Dissemination and studying in campuses etc. are all actions of bestowal. We perform many actions of bestowal, but they lack the right intentions. This is our main problem. People constantly ask me: “What else should we do in order to bestow more, in order to do more?”

Of course we should more, but we still have to pay attention to our intentions and actions, which are very important. We shouldn’t diminish our actions, neither their intensity nor their quantity. But we need to spur one another and to remind each other about the goal. Every action should make us feel the connection, and in the connection we have to start feeling the presence of the Creator that should illuminate for us there.

We receive the Light that Reforms as a result of our efforts to connect. The Light is in the vessels, in Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity), which isn’t shattered but is whole and full with the Light of Ein Sof . But with regard to us the Light of Malchut of Ein Sof that comes is in a shattered form after all the worlds, which means concealments.

First it is concealed, but then it is shattered and then it goes through many more partitions of concealments, levels of weakening the Light by the filters until it reaches us. We have to make an effort in order to connect, in order to get closer to the Light that Reforms that is in a connected vessel.

When I try to connect, the Light that Reforms begins to shine on me from the point that I make an effort. I collect and connect the shattered parts, gather and unite the society and the Light shines on me from there according to my efforts.

Everyone works according to his concealment, according to the way he is shattered, and the Light shines on me to the extent that I try to connect all the parts into one, since it is in a whole vessel that is shattered only with respect to me.

This picture should constantly be before our eyes.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The Lack Of Consensus

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Could you please tell us how you decided to take on the mission of disseminating Kabbalah widely in the world, so that we can follow your example?

Answer: Today, you have no other choice since you live in another generation. I was still in a transition time, standing with one foot in the time where Kabbalists of all generations lived preparing their students in small groups, hidden from everyone else.

So it was with my teacher Rabash, before my arrival. Then I came along and changed that place. At the beginning, his entire family greeted me very warmly because I took care of him.

But they quickly cooled towards me because through me, forty absolutely secular people from Tel Aviv came to study. In the religious area of Bnei Brak, it was uncustomary to have these kind of students and it cast a shadow over their home. Rabash was the only one who was happy about the new students, but all his family members were upset.

I was still in the transition process and in some way helped this revolution begin. But today, you live in a different era and in a new generation. So, you only need to unite with each other and pull the whole world towards this, beginning with the closest, tightly knit circles to wider ones.

Otherwise pressure and blows will outpace your progress and will roll with great speed, not as it was in the last century. Politicians and sociologists say that the main problem today is the health of society, and the entire political struggle will be carried out around this issue.

But no one but us has the means of improving society; all other ways have long proven to be ineffective. Humanity was obliged to check them out and find out that they not only do not help, but harm.

Thus, we are shown that the entire society can succeed only through the path of Kabbalah. And if we do it together, then improvement will affect all areas of the life of the nation, such as safety and education.

Question: How can we ourselves make such a decision to really make this step?

Answer: I cannot decide for you! You are looking at me and waiting for me to say something. But I have nothing more to say. I say what to do and the implementation is up to you.

Question: What stops us from making this decision?

Answer: It should be a consensus that you have decided, committed, signed an agreement with each other, and then demanded each other to perform this action.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/14, Workshop

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Spiritual And Physical Exile

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom ancient Babylon to the destruction of the Temple, the group of Abraham went through many various states, ascents and descents. It is due to egoism that they were forced to unite with each other to the extent that they revealed the inner anti-egoistic laws of nature that they wrote in the book called the Torah. The Torah is the guide by which we must live today.

Through cultivating good relationships with each other, consideration, mutual trust, and support, they revealed a special force of connection within this unity, which is the force of nature. This force holds within itself the entire universe and causes its movement towards harmony.

This was the major discovery of the descendants of the group of Abraham. Having understood the fundamental force of nature that causes the development of humankind, they saw the process by which it develops.

Over time, coming out of slavery in Egypt, they again returned to their country called Israel, the land of those who seek the Creator, where they built a state based on love of others and laws of mutual trust.

These laws were introduced into everyday life through the Sanhedrin, which was a council of sages who had achieved a high level of altruism that clearly told them how to move forward and what to do. Thus, the sages dealt with the people’s problems and led it forward. The people existed in this state before the time called the destruction of the Temple.

For many hundreds of years and with each generation fighting with their ego and rising above it, they came to a state when an unexpected surge of egoism occurred within them and which they could not cover by getting closer to each other. Through this egoism, the society fell apart.

It was then that internecine wars, distrust, and disagreement began, leading to the invasions by the Greeks and then the Romans. Thus the path of the state of Israel ended. The entire group of people went from its spiritual state into exile, from a state of “love thy neighbor as thyself” to a descent to normal, everyday egoism.

In their physical life, the spiritual exile was manifested in the form of physical exile. The Romans who conquered the land of Israel expelled the Jews who were forced to begin their centuries of wandering.

Holding together purely egoistically in order not to perish and to somehow survive, they were compelled to move from country to country where they were given temporary shelter. Thus, the 2,000 years of exile of the Jewish people passed in this way.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/24/14

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Congress In Verona “Day Three” – 11.23.14

Congress in Verona “Day Three,” Lesson 6

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Congress in Verona “Day Three,” Workshop 1

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 11.22.14

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
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 Asking For Powers For The Sake Of The Friends

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe main thing is to feel that you are in the AHP of the upper. We should try to feel that with all our might, and the group helps us do so. If I want to enter the group and feel its spirit, it impresses me and lets me feel the desires of the friends.

If I perform different actions and focus on the group, I increase my desire, connect it with the desires of the friends, and receive the Light that Reforms that is common to everyone. We want connection and want to connect since the prayer of the individual doesn’t work. The desire to bestow cannot exist in one person, and it has to settle in matter that is called a desire to bestow, which means that it is external to me.

If I want to bestow unto you, my desire to bestow has to settle and live within you and not in me. The desire to receive is the feeling of deficiency inside me that requires a filling. The desire to bestow is when I feel your desire and want it to be filled.

It turns out that bestowal doesn’t belong to me, but rather requires me to act in your desires. Thus we attain connection. All the powers that I ask for from Above are not meant for me, but are intended to be within the friend, in others.

I don’t need anything; I remain with only one point when I ask for anything. This is actually how I grow. It is because my size depends on and is measured by the extent to which I fill the desire of others. It all belongs to me, becomes my soul, and is a result of my spiritual action. Eventually, I fill all the desires that are external to my point.

The Torah tells us about such spiritual actions and people don’t really understand what the Torah refers to with concepts like Israel, the nations of the world, and all the events that take place there involving the Israeli nation. It is very hard for a person to identify with that and to attribute what is described there to himself, since he is used to perceiving everything in the corporeal sense, as in an historic folk tale.

But the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that the Torah tells us about the spiritual states that a person goes through. Therefore, we have to turn to all the nations, just like Abraham did in his time. We are in the same Babylon and same state today and must turn to the whole world with our common outcry: “Let’s connect!” There is no other correction but the Returning Light (Ohr Makif), which is what everyone needs.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/14, Writing of Rabash

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The Last Stage Of Corporeal Evolution

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Can we say that our spiritual advancement is parallel to the evolution of the world?

Answer: No. The corporeal world has already evolved to its ultimate phase. We on the other hand, are on the human level and can continue our evolution on a higher spiritual level.

This means that the still, vegetative, animate nature, and man in his animate nature, have exhausted all the options of their evolution. Therefore, the world doesn’t know how to go on. A person doesn’t have the powers or the right attributes to change anything. Civilization has reached a dead end in the course of its evolution and is now confronted with a general crisis in every aspect of life.

No one can see any way of putting an end to the situation we are in. There are, of course, wise guys in society who try to come up with solutions and thus advance, become more prominent, and make a profit from the current situation, but their suggestions very soon prove to be useless and are just like a hiring a “fakir per hour” and nothing more than that.

No matter what philosophers, economists, politicians, or sociologists say, they cannot offer anything constructive and positive. Although they see things correctly, and understand to some extent what is going on in society, their suggestions turn out to be totally absurd once put to a test. It is simply their ego that wants to say that it has some idea or a solution or at least a way to prevent the coming end.

We are in a very unpleasant state. The people have been anesthetized and thus keep on living with their small joys and sorrows, and staggering through their temporary existence as long things don’t get any worse.

For the first time in history, humanity is in a state of total apathy.

We have tried everything: feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism and now there is a certain inclination to return to the feudal system and split countries into small parts. It is the same idea as feudalism. Two hundred years ago, Germany was comprised of dozens of small principalities, and is now ready to split up again. Recently, there was a poll in Venice about breaking away from Italy.

They believe that there is something logical about this breakup: “If I detach myself from you and you detach yourself from me, we become independent administrative units and since we will be on our own, it will be easier to manage life within our borders.” The ego doesn’t conquer large areas, so it dominates small republics that have split up.

On the whole, they are very nationalistic and are even ready for sacrifice as long as they can be independent. The Catalonians, for example, cannot stand the Spanish and the Corsicans cannot stand the French and the Scots cannot stand the British.

This is a sign that we are not ready for unity and are trying to avoid it in any possible way, although nature obliges us to unite. If we were ready to unite, according to our parameters, feelings, and desires, there wouldn’t be any problems.

When the Europeans decided to establish the EU, they didn’t understand that they have to annul, not only the borders, but also to the imbalance between the states. They could have done all that, but their egos didn’t allow them to do so. It remained uncorrected and so many nations now want to go back to something more tangible and small and the feeling that “this is mine.”

Every one of the seven billion people on this planet is isolated in his corner. More and more people communicate with each other only through the Internet. Only the method of integral education provides a way out from this dead end.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/26/14

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Lateral Movement

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we determine that we can move on to the next spiritual level?

Answer: When you feel that you have no more powers to develop and have exhausted them on the current level, but have not yet reached the goal, it is a sign that you lack the next level.

In other words, we reach a certain state in our spiritual development in which we run out of powers to attain an inner level or to just remain on the same level today that we were on yesterday and to remain tomorrow on the level we are today. We run out of fuel! Then we begin to advance laterally. This is called self-movement, using your freewill.

The purpose of lateral movement is to connect all the people in the world into one whole, one desire, and one network that will be based totally on the good, mutual connection between people. Then the Creator, the attribute of love and bestowal, will be revealed in this network.

By this network we will transcend to a new level of existence and change our feeling of the world and our perspective.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/26/14

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Gathering The Roses Among Thorns

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is said that the people of Israel went into exile in order to attach the souls of the world to itself. This means that there are many spiritual sparks that we need to find and attach to ourselves. This happens at the time when Israel is among the other nations.

Being in exile does not refer to a physical presence in a foreign place, but a fall from the degree of bestowal and love. However, illumination passes through Israel to the souls of the nations of the world, which begins to awaken the sparks, the souls for whom it is time to join the desires of Galgalta ve Eynaim and become Israel (aspiring to straight to the Creator).

They join Israel not from the very beginning, nor from the time when Abraham began to gather this people in Babylon, but later, and in other generations. But during this process, there is scrutiny and choice of suitable desires, for the sake of which the people of Israel went into exile.

The exile did not happen because the people of Israel needed to be corrected. On the contrary, Israel so corrected itself, that at the time of exile, it was capable of connecting additional desires, the spiritual genes that are between egoistic forces (Klipot).

It is necessary to treat all the representatives of other nations who today join Israel accordingly. This is our work-in-exile, and it could finish quickly. Everything depends on our work with the awakening souls. Therefore, special respect, love, and the desire to get closer to them is required.

Night, darkness, and exile is the time of work. At this time, there are certain concealments by which we can make contact with the sparks inside the egoistic forces. And by connecting them to us, we demand our collective ascent. But we want to rise just for them and not for ourselves.

If the people of Israel thus gives itself for the correction of the world, then the exile is over. Indeed, by this we realize our true destiny. We are merely the means that is designed to draw all the desires suitable for correction from the depths of egoism. Israel is an adapter, a guide, ready to descend into the sea of the impure forces to pull out spiritual sparks.

Thus, it is so important to disseminate and work with all of our groups around the world, all the friends. It is called the work in darkness, in exile.

Rabbi Chaim Vital writes concerning this in his book The Eight Gates of Kitvei HaAri. What is the reason for the exile of the people of Israel among the nations? The fact is that Adam HaRishon included all the souls and all the worlds. And after his transgressions, these souls fell into the egoistic forces and divided into 70 nations. Therefore, Israel is needed to reveal these forces within each nation and gather all the roses of holy souls scattered among the thorns. The sages said that Israel went into exile only to connect the souls of the peoples of the world to itself.

This proves that the work we do in dissemination is the most correct, and we need to invest even more strength of effort into it. We must treat every person who wants to join us, such as those who are now at the European Convention in Verona, as strong participants, which are very necessary to do the work of the Creator.

Indeed, for the sake of these souls, Israel goes through a long and terrible exile. All this is in order to spread a little Light among these souls, get closer to them, and to be able to rise from the darkness together.

Israel plunges into egoistic desires (Klipot) and pulls out the spiritual sparks. But at the same time, Israel is only an intermediary, and in reality, the Creator needs the souls of other nations. After all, they are the real vessels in which then the Light of Hochma clothes.

Israel belongs only to Galgalta ve Eynaim, the desires to bestow. Our function is bestowal for the sake of bestowal, providing other nations with the strength by which they will be able to receive the Light in order to bestow.

Therefore, night and day, exile and liberation, are relative concepts. It all depends on how a person perceives them, since night and exile are not necessarily bad times. It is such periods that were originally planned in the process we are going through and we must use them for our work.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/14, Shamati #16

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