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The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim) 19:33 – 19:34: And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not do him wrong. The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
A stranger refers to any new desire, which at first is naturally egoistic but is ready to join several corrected desires and obey them.
It is about the fact that we should be happy to receive the new desires that appear in us and expand the soul by enabling it to discover the Creator to a greater extent.
Therefore, we should yearn for it and love the new desires that are revealed in us, although they sometimes bring along unpleasantness and great problems. However, it is actually thanks to them that we format ourselves and rise.
The Torah speaks only about desire. There are no people and not what we see around us in the form of imaginary figures that are depicted by our uncorrected senses. We all are a collection of desires.
Question: It says: “love thy friend as thyself.” Does that make the stranger the other?
Answer: Yes, You have to love him to such an extent that he becomes the other, since thanks to him, you rise higher towards the Creator. The Creator sends these strangers to you on purpose, since nothing is coincidental.
These are all parts of your soul, just like creation is part of your soul. You simply don’t see what is external to you since you cannot perceive it correctly inside you. But to the same extent that you develop the sense of love and bestowal and exit yourself in faith above reason, which means in bestowal above receiving, you discover the whole of creation as your soul.
There are no strangers here. Instead everyone becomes an integral part of your soul.
Comment: In our world there is the concept of converting to Judaism, which means to become Jewish.
Answer: Even if the strangers want to live in our country without being formally converted, we have to provide them with a shelter because there are different attributes of closeness and detachment within them.
There were special places for converts in the Temple, for both men and women. Every person who lived outside the border of the country could enter the Temple and live in it if he performed certain work.
Just as the strangers rise within you within the internal work, the new desires that you have to work on by correcting them and adding them to the corrected desires, so did human strangers have their special work.
The Temple is the accurate reflection of the soul. Therefore, there was the destruction of the first Temple, which meant that the soul didn’t stand the inner tension in order to love and bestow and so descended to the second level, which was also later destroyed.
The third Temple is the complete end of correction of all the desires in our world and their connection into one unique whole in totally equal conditions.
Question: Why does it say that there is not going to be the destruction of the third Temple?
Answer: Because it is the state of the complete end of correction. There will be nothing left to interrupt it or bring to its destruction. All of the universal ego will be completely corrected.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/16/14
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Question: My younger brother has just graduated from university and now he ponders where to work and what to engage in. His indecisiveness forces him to weigh all the options for a long time. What would you advise him?
Answer: I would advise him to establish a stronger connection with the environment and perhaps even with different communities. I would have this be taught at schools and universities. I would also open different courses so that everyone would be able to attend them and to learn what kind of lifestyle is best for him in regard to what he wants and how to attain it.
Today there are many unemployed people who don’t know where to turn. There is no other way but to allow a person to actually interact with his environment and choose the sort of life he considers the best for his nature, his attributes, and his habits.
Question: Isn’t there a risk that I would follow any advice at work according to my desire?
Answer: If I hear different opinions, I will learn to compare them and thus eventually become wiser. Why is the computer smart? It can simply perform many calculations at a high speed. If I have many options and lots of experience, I will also become a genius. This is the whole wisdom.
Question: So how can we upgrade our “computer” so as to become smarter?
Answer: You can only do that by being incorporated into societies that are not too big. You should start working in workshops of ten people. I acquire a sensible approach to life by those who surround me, even if they are mistaken or are not highly educated. For example, I can sit with a musician, a manual laborer, a teacher, a shoemaker, a cook, or a scientist in the group of ten.
The moment we all sit together in a circle and exchange opinions, I build a vessel of connections with nine people in my mind and feelings. The more I am incorporated in each of them, the greater volume I acquire until I include all of humanity inside me.
I then divide my desire to receive into many cells and determine the different connections between them. It is like a game where one desire reflects your nature and another desire reflects your friend’s nature and so on. Now whenever a desire to receive on a different level appears in me, I implement the necessary strategy, which is one of those I acquired from the environment. This means that I have acquired a practical approach to life.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/11/13
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In the News (ScienceDaily): “A natural desire to be part of the ‘in crowd’ could damage our ability to make the right decisions, a new study has shown.
“Research led by the University of Exeter has shown that individuals have evolved to be overly influenced by their neighbours, rather than rely on their own instinct. As a result, groups become less responsive to changes in their natural environment.
“Lead author of the report, Dr Colin Torney, from the University of Exeter’s Mathematics department explained: ‘Social influence is a powerful force in nature and society.’
“’Copying what other individuals do can be useful in many situations, such as what kind of phone to buy, or for animals, which way to move or whether a situation is dangerous.
“’However, the challenge is in evaluating personal beliefs when they contradict what others are doing. We showed that evolution will lead individuals to over use social information, and copy others too much than they should.
“’The result is that groups evolve to be unresponsive to changes in their environment and spend too much time copying one another, and not making their own decisions.’”
My Opinion: Humans never have their own opinion on anything, and everything that was formed in them is the product of their environment. If one wants to have his own opinion, it is possible only when he receives it after revealing the Creator. A person has only the desire to obtain an opinion. Therefore, no person, except a Kabbalist, has his own opinion.
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Question: Lately there is such a direction as behavioral economics. Many studies show that humans are not rational creatures, but instead, they are managed by sensory impulses, and they often act to their own detriment. Do you agree with this assertion?
Answer: A human being is a desire to receive and the desire to receive is devoid of logic (rationality). Each one chooses exactly what to enjoy for himself. But apparently my rational choice is contingent on education, habit, and values.
There are also other factors: fear of death, a desire to succeed, and looking good in the eyes of one’s peers in his environment. The survival and sexual instincts play a role that is no less important.
Question: For quite some time, psychologists have attempted to identify those hidden forces that don’t permit us to make rational (logical) decisions.
Answer: Today, on the long road of development, and through our increased power, we see that our entire civilization is completely irrational. It acts destructively towards itself and deliberately chooses the way of suffering.
For example, a mother teaches her child: “Be conciliatory towards others, be quiet, then you will have more friends.” Whereas he says adamantly: “I don’t want to!” We see examples of this not only in children. Adults and entire groups of people fight, kill, and destroy each other only out of envy, vanity and a desire to dominate.
It is completely understood that the aspiration to fulfill our inner drives and our irrationality is what manages us and we only employ our intellect later, when it is necessary for getting what we want.
Question: The expression, “Humans are emotional creatures” indicates that he feels the awakening of some desire within him. To what is he sensitive?
Answer: He is sensitive to what he is missing, which is to say, according to what he needs. He pays attention to himself all the time: “What do I want? What kind of desire is aroused in me now obliging me to fulfill it? I am a slave to my desires; they dominate me.”
Question: If intellect only serves the desires, where is wisdom found?
Answer: It is found within the desire. The desire to receive is our nature. This is apparent on all levels. Atoms maintain their form, plants absorb beneficial substances and emit harmful substances, and animals multiply. All of this is the desire to receive and fulfill itself with all kinds of pleasant things according to a program that exists in each individual.
That is how wisdom manifests itself on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate. Except in humans, the program for life for all other living creatures cannot be changed. Every cat will eat fish for pleasure, even if it has never tasted it previously. Everything is different with humans. You don’t begin eating Chinese food if you are accumstomed to a Slavic cuisine from childhood. What can be derived from this is that humans undergo a unique program that we call education.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/11/13
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The Torah, “Leviticus” (Metzora), 14:1 – 14:4: And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: This shall be the ritual for a leper at the time that he is to be cleansed.
When it was been reported to the priest, the priest shall go outside the camp. If the priest sees that the leper has been healed of his scaly affection, the priest shall order two live clean birds, cedar wood, crimson stuff, and hyssop to be brought for him who is to be cleansed.
Question: After Moses brings his people to the Creator, every chapter begins with the words “and the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying.” Why is that so?
Answer: It is because the level of Moses is an intermediate level through which every person discovers the Creator. This is the only way he can reach a connection with the upper force, with the Creator (Keter), that is dressed in the attribute of Moses, which is the complete attribute of Bina, complete bestowal. After the level of bestowal there is the next more sublime level that is love.
Question: It says that the leper (tzara’ath) was brought to the priest. What is the meaning of “the priest shall go outside the camp?”
Answer: A priest and Moses are the same level that has sublevels. Moses is the uppermost attribute in Bina.
When a person rises up to the level of a Cohen, priest, (Bina) he has to examine all his desires, intentions, and goals and check to see if after the days of purification he left any leprosy (flaws).
A flaw is a desire or a thought that operates for its own self. The moment such a thought is revealed, it indicates that a person isn’t pure yet. Therefore, there should be seven additional days of correction. If we don’t discover a flaw a person is considered pure, which means that he is actually on the level of Bina, in the attribute of bestowal, but has not fulfilled it yet!
How can he prepare himself for its fulfillment? He has to take all his desires and not simply restrict them of the egoistic filling, but act against the intention for himself that he had before. He is supposed to focus his intention on the benefit of others.
The beginning of the fulfillment of the desire for the sake of others is called “Eid,” a sacrifice, stemming from the Hebrew word “approximation.”
Usually a certain desire from the states of the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature are used for the correction. The Torah tells us about it allegorically and explains that “two live clean birds, cedar wood, crimson stuff, and hyssop to be brought for him who is to be cleansed.” The birds are the desire on the animate level in a person, the cedar strip and crimson are the desires on the level of the vegetative.
These are special internal attributes that exist in our world in their corporeal form and are therefore not described in the language of the roots but in the language of the branches of our world.
However, when Kabbalists read the Torah they understand which desires and intentions are referred to and what a person can use to start working for the sake of the society and through it for the sake of the upper force, for the Creator.
Society and the Creator are actually the same, but working for the society is working for someone that I can see and feel. When I do so, I discover a level that is totally different from everything else in which I simply work in order to bestow, not even for someone or something but externally to myself, for the Creator.
I begin to discover a totally new attribute of the spiritual world, which surrounds me and I am inside it.
Question: In other words, it is about an evident phase, like when I see you, for example, and want to fill you.
Answer: No. If you want to fill me, you have to first find out what I want. You have to be incorporated in my desires and begin to create something by which you will be able to fill me. When you fill me, you will feel the upper force in this action.
At the same time, you don’t need my response, not in the form of a smile or a kind word, since if there is a response it is already an egoistic filling. I don’t even have to know about it.
This is the work of a Kabbalist that no one knows about. Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the concealed wisdom. The actual action of the Kabbalist is not expressed physically but in feelings, in improving the situation and the atmosphere in the world, in people getting closer to one another, etc.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/14
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Shamati #69: Hence, when individuals in the whole of Israel are corrected, the whole world will naturally be corrected. It follows that the nations of the world will be corrected to the extent that we correct ourselves. This is the meaning of what our sages said, “Rewarded—sentences himself and the whole world to a scale of merit.” And they did not say, “sentences the whole of Israel,” but “the entire world to a scale of merit.” In other words, the internal will correct the external.
Israel belongs to the inner part, which corrects itself in order to correct the outer part—the nations of the world. This is the purpose for the existence of GE—the desires for bestowal, which the Creator gave us as a spark. However, from the very beginning we have to pray for the AHP, which we cannot use if it is not connected with the nations of the world.
Therefore, our prayers, work, and intentions always include all creatures, the entire world. Although Israel is the inner, small part of the world, it is like a cork in the bottleneck. If this cork opens the passage, it is enough to open the path for the Light to enter and correct all corrupt desires.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/14, Shamati #69
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Baal HaSulam wrote a march in the honor of the few who have reached the end of correction, the complete ascent above their ego, and absolute altruism, the attribute of love and bestowal for everyone.
This march is dedicated to very few who managed to reach their personal end of correction (Gmar Tikkun) in every generation throughout history.
The march praises and glorifies the great people who have attained the upper system of nature. It is a recognition of the uniqueness, the persistence, and the ability to ascend above themselves and during their lifetime become guests in the highest halls of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 9/2/14
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Question: The nation of Israel is one of the most unloved nations in the world and its approval rating is decreasing. From all sides pressure is increasing on us; clouds cover the horizon and we can’t see any clarity ahead for us.
In connection to this, in the mind of the public, the term, “the chosen people” has resurfaced, receiving all kinds of different interpretations. Some have repudiated it, but around 70% of the Israeli population still believes that we are “the chosen people.”
Much has been said, written and filmed on this subject. Dr. Avi Beker of Tel Aviv University, has published an entire book in which he suggests that the question of being “chosen” eternally holds the center of Jewish existence.
So what is this “chosen people”? Who chose us? What is it for? Could it be that we are just standing in line with various other peoples and cultures who have proclaimed that they are chosen? But then why throughout history do they specifically hate us and not anyone else?
Let’s start from the main point: Do you suppose that the Jewish people are chosen?
Answer: Certainly. After all, we have a task, a mission, and an obligation that has been imposed upon us, which is to reveal the Creator to all peoples. We must teach people how the Creator is discovered and watch over them with our concern throughout the way until the goal is attained.
Realization of this obligation, this task, begins from the present era, in our day, here and now. And for this we have been chosen.
Generally it has revealed itself from generation to generation, since the inhabitants of ancient Babylon began to be organized as a unique group around Abraham, living according to the principle, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Abraham created a nation from those who gathered around him. But this was not so that people would live well together; it was not in the name of some philosophical idea or arrogant conceit over other peoples, and it was not to make it easier to survive in this world.
No, they simply wanted to reveal the higher power through the connection between us. This was their goal and it was specifically this which united all of those who adhered to Abraham.
And so latent in our foundation are two aspirations:
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/28/14
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