Audio Version Of The Blog – 12.07.14

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio

[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/download/audio/eng_o_rav_2014-12-07_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’7.12.14′]

Humor, Defense Against Worries

Laitman_191Nowadays people need a very strong defense system against negative, mental influences. In fact, today there is a powerful source of threats and harassment; it’s our environment.

What do they show us on TV? In Africa, they suffer from hunger and very soon they will fall on Europe. In high school a student was beaten, one shot another to death.

Looking at this world, you can go crazy. This kind of news is given to a person before he goes to sleep so that he freed from stress and rests well! There is nothing more unnatural than that.

I can give an example from my teacher, Rav Baruch Ashlag. He would listen only to the first minute of the news to hear if anything important happened and the rest wouldn’t interest him. He loved humor, a good joke when combining opposites would suddenly turn into something funny. When he was told jokes, he was happy because from that a person rests.

We are always under pressure from problems that have no solutions, and the joke usually has an unsolvable problem, that by an unexpected turn is resolved. I think in addition to the environment, it can be a good means against worry and anxiety.

I fill my desire with humor and not with worries and threats. When I am no longer able to study, but still don’t need to go to sleep, then I like to hear or see something pleasant. In general, a nature film or a really funny comedy, appropriate humor.

I don’t think that by doing this I give the impression of being a frivolous person since all the news, the fears, and pressures are created by someone on purpose to affect us. And the more energy he puts in it, the more he attracts attention to himself, and later uses it for self-promotion. Why do I have to depend on it?

If it really were something interesting, essential, and crucial to life, like a tsunami, volcanic eruption, or real economic difficulties, that’s another matter. But 99% of the news, if not 100% we receive from irresponsible people, that apart from their profit have no other interest. Thus we must filter everything that comes from the general environment in order to not cause ourselves unnecessary worries and anxieties.
[147927]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/21/14

Related Material:
The Rapid Growth Of The Ego In Society
The Habit Of Fearing
The Harm In Negative Examples

Practicing Kabbalist

laitman_214Question: What is it, to be a Kabbalist that is occupied in practical work?

Answer: A Kabbalist that is occupied in practical work is a man that reveals the Creator in our world and wants to bring the whole world to Him. He works on the change of the ego to bestowal, altruism, hatred to love, the separation between us to unity. He realizes the thought of the Creator in our world, investigates and realizes it.

A real Kabbalist is a materialist and not mystical. He sees that the whole world exists as one whole under the influence of one force, and understands that in this world everything works under one law, the law of completion, unity, and mutual integrality, meaning, the law of love, and if it seems to us, that it is not like that, it is only because it is the way we are built and we need to correct our incorrect point of view. The evil that we see outside ourselves actually is within us and is reflected by our distorted vision on the exterior world. If I were completely corrected, then I would not see any evil in the world.

Question: Does it means, that the Kabbalist does not see any evil in the world?

Answer: It depends on what degree he is in. The thing is that our ego, that is called “Pharaoh,” is divided into 125 egoistic degrees, and the Kabbalist corrects them inside himself in portions, in parts, from the weakest degree to the greatest. By correcting each one of them, it is as if he rises in the degrees of the ladder of attainment, connecting with the upper force, in adhesion with the whole of humanity, and in this adhesion he feels the Creator.

To be a practicing Kabbalist, it means, to be a teacher or student, one that attains the upper world, to study according to authentic Kabbalistic sources, and to devote himself completely to it, because all the attainment of the spiritual world is also the fulfillment and the purpose of life.

Because when you begin to understand whom you are dealing with, then all the rest that is in this world is clearly seen as the fruits of the human imagination; these are insignificant efforts and experiences in comparison to the attainment of eternity, completion, the perfection of the Creator.
[146658]
From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/22/14

Related Material:
Who Is A Kabbalist?
Does A Kabbalist See The World As A More Corrected Place?
A Kabbalist Is A Scientist Who Studies The Upper Nature

Theater As A Means Of Education

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why does a person find empathy with actors on stage and identify with particular characters?

Answer: Initially a play is directed towards a specific audience and a particular time. Today we aren’t watching a performance that was staged in ancient Greece. There were isolated classical productions that remained on the stage for hundreds of years.

A play must arouse a sensation of empathy in a person. This is not soccer, where we are be a fan of only one team. A theater performance must hold us in our entirety. From the start there are positive and negative characters in a play, and there are viewers who identify more with male actors and there are those who identify more with women. But ultimately, the entire play must arouse viewer sympathy for a particular character and hatred for his antagonist.

The viewer identifies with the protagonist, for that is how he assesses the validity of what happens in a play, the degree of its success. It is as if he is living in that time, participating in everything that is happening, and suffering along with the protagonist.

The main thing about the theater is its educational value. The play must be written and staged to educate the viewer, giving him good examples, attracting him towards a worthy goal, showing him his own appearance, and representing the character of a true hero. The viewer learns from the characters in a play, just as a son learns from his father. In this case, the theater is used for an educational purpose.

If the play is designed for entertainment and pleasure, it doesn’t give anything. Specifically in classical plays like those of Chekhov and Shakespeare, I don’t see any high educational potential. For some time they have become a presentation for the central protagonist who is trying to become famous thanks to his uniqueness.

An educational play must be written in particular to elevate a person to a higher level. It is designed to grant the viewer a strong, deep, obliging and correct psychological lesson. When he leaves the theater, the person shouldn’t require any explanation. If an explanation is required, this says that the play didn’t fulfill its function.

Suppose that the viewer doesn’t even understand everything that is happening on the stage. This is not important. The main thing is that the viewer will be impressed and get excited by the example and that he will receive an educational lesson: a proper sense of good and evil must be presented, positive qualities that should be emulated, and negative ones that one should distance himself from.

The power of the theater is in the influence of the environment on a person. Even within two hours, it is possible to influence all the senses of the audience from the stage. And even more so, the viewers are impressed by each other.

It is said that theater begins even before the viewer enters the hall and sits down. The person is influenced by the theatrical environment, its uniqueness and the music that is heard before the performance. Not long ago I visited the famous La Scala opera house in Milan and noticed that the building was very simple. In other words, the main focus of this world-famous theater was the performance itself.

But I have seen other theaters in which the actors in theatrical costumes meet the audience in the entrance hall and invite them to enter the world of the performance. The goal of this reception is to prepare the person and impress him so that he will already be involved with the play from the first moment.

It is not for nothing that the musical symphony begins the introduction, the opening, since this awakens emotion in a person. After all, the final goal of the playwright and the director is to influence people and awaken the kind of experiences that they desire for him, so that an audience will laugh and cry, clap their hands and freeze in absolute silence in the right places.

The audience comes to the theater specifically to experience all of this, including making an unofficial covenant with the director. If we were to use the entire system correctly, we could influence a person in a good way.
[146134]
From the program “A New Life” 5/22/14

Related Material:
A Theatrical Marvel
All The World Is A Stage
Behind The Scenes At A Shadow Theater

Are Mass Protests An Escape From Depression?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Today society doesn’t feel sympathy for people in power. For the past two or three years, many nations have gone through similar processes of social resentment and anger. What can you recommend in connection to this widespread and increasing phenomenon?

Answer: I have met with very wealthy people who say: “If I don’t have profits, what will I share?” I very much wanted to answer them: “Don’t distribute anything! They can have everything without you.”

I certainly didn’t answer them this way, but their position is understandable. In the past, they created the workplaces, distributed bonuses and awards, and through the media, they have broadcast rumors that they have used their wealth to care for others.

Today the rich have nothing to share, even if they wanted to. People suddenly feel empty inside instead of feeling the previous natural drives of “I want this, and this, and this!” Now, it is not possible to build a new desire within them; what would fulfill them if there is no desire, no deficiency?

Do you suppose that an artist or composer entering a supermarket can fulfill himself one-hundred percent? No! He must buy products to sustain and fortify his body, but the main thing for him is to fulfill his inner need. Such a situation today is typical of regular people. Why? It is because nature has stopped arousing us with desires that we are used to receiving through some channel and we have suddenly found ourselves with emptiness.

Mass protests have become a regular phenomenon today. Why do these people go out to the streets? They are looking for fulfillment! They don’t care who will rule because they think that through it they will find new fulfillment, and seize some source and purpose of life. But what is to be done? It won’t happen. They are ready to shut their eyes, to sink into a swoon from using drugs, just to not feel the emptiness. Half of humanity has sunken into depression. We must understand that they have no other possibility.

So leaders have lost their status among the masses. If in the past the masses yearned for wealth, control, and respect, today this doesn’t exist. They don’t see people whom they should worship among their leaders. Today the leaders are worse than the simple people, and they also despise them, asking why they should waste their lives on them?

The younger generation, who are 15-30 years old today, perceive them exactly like that. Only older people remain in this old paradigm. There is no way out for influential people other than to give people Integral Education. Only in this way will they be ready to maintain their influence and even rise to a new qualitative level in the eyes of society.
[146371]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 2/10/14

Related Material:
The Sinking Of The Consumerist Society
Integral Society: Is It A Utopia Or Reality?
New Rules Of A Global World

The Greater Purpose Of A Play

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach one of us has seen a small child watching a cartoon for the hundredth time, open-mouthed from great excitement. Why does he watch something he previously saw yesterday and the day before with such enthusiasm?

An adult watch a film that he has seen before, while a child watches the same thing as if bewitched. The idea is that a child is changing, he is new every day! And the adult is already determined.

The child is renewed from day to day so that a film that he sees ten times is new for him every time. The child is growing all the time, and his intellect and emotion are developing such that what he saw yesterday is different from what he sees today. After all, he is seeing the same film with different eyes.

And an adult does not become renewed like a child. Until the age of 17-18 he is growing, but later reaches saturation and absorbs new impressions with difficulty. He becomes renewed less and less until his life is over.

But when we watch a show that leaves a strong impression in us, we absorb impressions like children. A good film, a play, or an opera carry us away, stimulates all of our senses and penetrates into us. If it is truly a good show, that is how it influences a person.

Question: Can this help me in life?

Answer: It depends upon the message lies within the play, what it impresses us with, and its subject matter. Therefore, the theater can be a very powerful means of education, but we aren’t using it properly.

Question: Let’s say that for two hours I am impressed by a show with an educational message. After that I go out to the street and return to the routine of life. So what is left in me?

Answer: You no longer go back as the same person. If the show was constructed correctly, you are changed. You are not just watching a play by Shakespeare about something that happened hundreds of years ago.

The play touches your hear, and you relate to it as a part of your current life. So it remains inside you permanently and directs your life. Everything is constructed intentionally to direct your life. It is not a story about a prince and princess; rather, it is truly about life that is close to a person. So you can identify with the hero and see yourself in his place.

You aren’t just watching someone’s life from the side and thinking about what you would do in his place; rather, you are living this role. So you enter a theater as one particular person and leave as another person. You acquire wisdom about life and begin to look at life differently. We need plays like this.

Question: Is it possible to acquire wisdom about life that is not from actual life?

Answer: In many cases and even in real life, we learn not from our personal experience but from that of others. Why should we suffer and learn everything from our mistakes if it is possible to learn from the example of others and not make those mistakes?

I don’t need a theatrical drama to take place in my own life. I want to learn from the examples of others. This is what we are missing in kindergartens, schools, and in the family. They should teach us to differentiate between good and evil according to good and bad examples so that we will play our role in the theater of this life.

Question: What is the greatest thing about the theater? What is it prepared to give to a person in his life?

Answer: Theater must educate a person!
[146252]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/22/14

Related Material:
All The World Is A Stage
A Theatrical Marvel
Rehearsals In The Theater Of The Creator

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12.07.14

Preparation to the Lesson

[media 1] [media 2]

Writings of Rabash “Letter 40”

[media 3] [media 4]

The Book of Zohar “Introduction,” “General Explanation for All Fourteen Commandments and How They Divide Into Seven Days of Creation,” Item 9

[media 5] [media 6]

Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 54

[media 7] [media 8]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Mutual Guarantee,” Item 28

[media 9] [media 10]