In the News (from Psychologies.ru): “Why do people in power clearly display tyranny, obstinacy and mental instability? The answer is simple: a slight feeling of superiority over others might have a significant impact on all of us.

“We all notice how almost instantly the people appointed to high office become transformed. They are impatient and demanding. Any, even minor progress on the career ladder may radically change their behavior. The tone of their voice rises, and they become harsh and arrogant. Like all of us, they have no doubt about being right.

“In receiving power over others, we feel our superior. Our desires become higher than the rules of decency and behavior, less ethical. A sense of authority allows us to behave noisily and leave a mess.

“From this moment we stop understanding the feelings of others and ignore their efforts. All decisions are made independently and self-confidently, especially in cases when the fate of hundreds or thousands of people depend on this.”

My Comment: Therefore, Kabbalah encourages allowing only corrected people to “steer,” those who are free from personal selfish purposes. It was like that in the ancient kingdom of Israel during the First and Second Temples when the whole population and especially the sages who managed it were in the state of revelation of the Creator, which kept everyone above his egoism.
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Question: Is there a reason for all our problems?

Answer: If there is a conflict with our spouse, our children, our neighbors, at work, and even within ourselves it means that our ego, called Pharaoh, dominates us.

Question:  But the slavery in Egypt, which the Torah tells us about, was only in ancient times and ended a long time ago.

Answer: Pharaoh dominates us all the time, even right now. The events described in the Torah are not related to a certain time and are not a historical story. We are still enslaved to the same ego, to our egoistic nature, which doesn’t allow us to live a normal life.

We live in a special world today, in a special time. We are all connected in one network to an integral world, an integral economy, and depend on one another. If the international community imposes certain sanctions against any country, it cuts off its connections with that country , like Iran for example, this state falls, since everyone depends on everyone else.

This shows us what an integral world we are living in, in which everyone is connected to one another. If we don’t keep the good relations in this interdependent world, we harm ourselves.

Therefore, if we don’t manage to fix the relationships between all the nations, all the countries, and all the political parties within a country, we will simply destroy ourselves. Nothing can help us if we are opposite to the general law of nature.

Question: But it is a fact that we don’t get along with each other and we still go on living.

Answer: There is a limit to this confrontation: how large it can grow and how long it can continue. The reason for this confrontation is our nature, which forces each of us to think only about himself. But a person doesn’t understand that his own good and wellbeing depend on everyone else. Our foolish ego operates in such a primitive way. People cannot understand that if we connect with good relationships with others we  will only benefit.

Question: It seems contrary that in ancient primitive societies people were more closely connected and that we draw further apart as we develop.

Answer: Don’t consider ancient societies as primitive. They realized that they depended on each other and that they were connected and couldn’t survive without these connections.

The problem of modern society is that we have reached such a high level through technological progress that it seems that we can live independently of each nother and so each one locks himself in his apartment with his cell phone and his computer and doesn’t want to see anyone. The main point is that he shouldn’t be touched.

This lack of connection between us, or the negative ties, are called Pharaoh, our ego. We don’t want to consider others and we don’t understand that we are mutually connected in one network and this is especially true for the nation of Israel. We always need to value ourselves according to this scale: the extent that we are against others or for them.

The whole Torah is only about “love thy friend as thyself,” which is the great rule of the Torah. This rule includes everything and there is nothing but reaching the right unity.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 3/15/15

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

Recall the First “Ego-Warrior”

When the speaking level of desires first erupted as egotism, Babylon was at its peak, and Abraham was the one faced with trying to solve the mystery of his people’s social decline. His countryfolk were so immersed in building their tower that they completely abandoned their camaraderie. They were no longer “of one language and of one speech” (Genesis 11:1); all they cared about was the tower.

The book, Pirkey de-Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer), portrays Abraham’s dismay with his people’s new passion: “Rabbi Pinhas says that there were no stones there [in Babylon] to build the city and the tower. What did they do? They fashioned bricks and burned them like artisans until they built it [the tower] seven miles high. Those who would lift up the bricks climbed up from the east, and those who climbed down would descend on the west. And if a man fell and died they would pay him no mind. But if a brick fell, they would sit down and wail saying, ‘When will another come up in its stead?’ When Abraham, son of Terah, walked by and saw them building the city and the tower, he cursed them in the name of God.”[i]

But Abraham did more than curse the builders. First, he tried to mend the rift and bring his people back together. Midrash Rabah tells us that Abraham brought together all the people in the world,[ii] and Rabbi Behayei Ben Asher tells us how he exposed Nimrod’s pretence of supernal powers. In his Midrash, Rabeinu [our Rav] Behayei, he writes, “[Nimrod] said to him, ‘I created the earth and the heaven with my power.’ Abraham replied, ‘…when I came out of the cave, I saw the sun rising in the East and setting in the West. Make it rise in the West and set in the East, and I will bow unto you. But if not, the one who gave my hand the strength to burn the statues will give me strength and I will kill you.’ Nimrod said to his counselors, ‘What shall be the sentence of this one?’ They replied, ‘He is the one of whom we said, ‘A nation shall come forth from him and inherit this world and the next world.’ And now, as the sentence he had decreed, so shall be done unto him. Promptly, they threw him into the furnace. At that time the Lord filled with mercy over him and saved him, as it is written, ‘I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans.’”[iii]

Following his heated debate with the king, Abraham took his family, his students, and his possessions and fled from Babylon. Along the way he collected into his entourage people who agreed with his message—“When faced with egotism, unite above it.” In other words, when hatred breaks out among friends, make the common goal of revealing the Creator—the quality of bestowal, the fundamental force that creates reality—more important than the rivaling parties, and thus unite above the rivalry. The bonuses of such deeds are enhanced unity, subsequent acquisition of the quality of bestowal by the former adversaries, and consequently, the revelation of the Creator.

The above sentence describes the essence of the fusion, the mending of the rift with which Abraham attempted to furnish his countryfolk. And that essence—unity above differences enhances cohesion and (if you want it to) reveals the Creator—has never changed. In fact, it will never change, as it is Nature’s Law of Bestowal.

As detailed in the Introduction to this book, Abraham’s group succeeded in uniting and grew into what became the people of Israel, a nation whose common trait is the desire for the Creator. Through unity above differences, as explained in Chapter 1, Israel developed a method by which to shift one’s thinking from the “me” mode to the “we” mode, thus perceiving the “One,” the Creator.

Thus, while Israel was going from strength to strength by employing unity over egotism, the rest of the world was experiencing episodes of ebb and flow, with empires rising and falling and the hedonistic culture of self-indulgence assuming predominance. For this reason, even today, in the most hedonistic of all eras, Abraham’s monotheism is the predominant notion of deity, while the Tower of Babylon is a symbol of human conceit and folly.

This is why the only ones who can educate the world as to the way one can grow as wise as Abraham are those who were his students, the children of Israel, known worldwide as Jews. This wisdom was Abraham’s legacy to them, and passing it on as he did is their obligation to the world.

[i] Pirkey de-Rabbi Eliezer (Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer), Chapter 24.

[ii] Midrash Rabah, Beresheet [Genesis], Parasha 39, Paragraph no. 3.

[iii] Rabbi Behayei Ben Asher Iben Haluah, Rabeinu [our Rav] Behayei, Beresheet [Genesis] 15:6.

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder” Article 17

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “This Is for Judah” 

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Halevi Epstein, Maor va Shemesh (Light of the Sun): The writing implies that the goal of the creation was that no bestowal should descend unless by intervention from below and the raising of MAN, which the assembly of Israel awaken, and, by raising MAN, all the worlds thus ascend and add to the desire to adhere to their root.

This is the main delight for the Creator, that Israel purify themselves from the depths of corporeality and yearn to adhere to their Maker.

There is the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) and the vessel of Ein Sof. The vessel of Ein Sof is all of humanity, and there is a pipe between them with a valve or a tap, which is us. The more strongly we unite, the more we open that tap, the greater the flow of the upper abundance that reaches the vessel of Ein Sof, all of humanity, through us.

Therefore, everything depends on the assembly of Israel, on the connection of the people in whom the Reshimot (reminiscences) have awoken that oblige them to yearn to the Creator, which means to look for a special connection with Him. On the other hand, they can be connected with the whole, great vessel of all of humanity.

We must determine a mutual connection both with the upper level and with the lower level in order to connect them through us. To the extent that we unite in this work, we will attain bestowal.

At first, this work is depicted to us as if there is the Upper Light above and a big vessel below, and we are in the middle like a pipe that conveys the Light. When we connect, we open the pipe and the Light and abundance flows through them to the lower, corrects, connects, and fills them.

But it is only now that we believe in this schematic form. Later, we will see that it’s a bit different, that the Creator is already in the big vessel of humanity, and therefore we enter that vessel in order to meet the Creator.

It is by our connection that we allow Him to be revealed in the created beings, but He is already in them. All this work takes on a different form. We begin to feel that the Creator and the created beings are adhered as one, and only we are external to this connection and unity. This is the second phase of the work, and then there is also a third phase.

In the meantime, we must picture this work this way, as if we were a pipe with a tap and that, according to our connection, we are rewarded with conveying the Light from the Surrounding to the surrounded, which means from Ein Sof of the Light to the Ein Sof of the vessel.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/14, Talk about the Importance of Unity

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Question: How does a person need to revive himself in states of descent?

Answer: Above there is a tank with Light from which two pipes with faucets extend and connect to the soul. The Creator turns on the faucet in one pipe and begins to stream Light into the soul. From this, a person begins to live, acquires the meaning of life, works, and everything is completely okay.

Suddenly, the Creator turns the faucet off and a person feels powerless, without any vitality. Everything is colorless, tasteless, and everything is gray. Where are the colors of life? Where are the tastes? The world has faded and fallen asleep.

The Creator does this so that the person will turn on the faucet himself and begin to fill himself. This is because in this way a person will make himself similar to the Creator. He will get the mind and heart, understanding the higher management and providence. This is not just a faucet. Rather, this is a system of management of the entire world, all of reality.

Through equivalence of form, he achieves correction and transforms into a man (Adam). So, the Creator sometimes closes the faucet and sometimes opens it, each time in different ways, and accordingly a person must open or close his faucet until he achieves equivalence with the Creator in all of his characteristics.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why is it customary to thoroughly clean one’s home before the Passover holiday?

Answer: A person’s thoughts and heart are called his home. The home—a person’s heart—needs to be cleansed of all the bad thoughts about other people. This is called the Passover cleaning.

Try thinking about this and imagining what we have to do to all our desires with regard to other people, society, relatives, neighbors, one’s spouse, and generally—with regard to our entire lives. How can we correct and improve them, or at least clean them of all the garbage?

Passover (Pesach) means a passage (Pasach) or transition from the egoistic state of love only for yourself—to love for the neighbor, where you consider others, even if just a little.

Question: And why is there a custom to clean everything with bleach?

Answer: Unfortunately, there is no other cleaning agent that can clean you out from the inside other than “the Light that Reforms.” If we hear, learn, and talk about the corrections that we have to perform inside of us, about the desires that we need to get rid of, this gradually cleanses us.

The force of the Light is the only means capable of cleansing us. However, it works only inasmuch as we desire to correct ourselves. And in order to desire this, we need to read about what awaits us after we unite with everyone.

Then we get rid of all the misfortunes and problems, and rise to a level of development where there is no evil or injury, but only boundless goodness.

That is how a person feels after coming out of Egypt. This is the reason why this holiday is called Passover (Pesach—a transition), when we cross the Red Sea, going from one nature to another: from the nature of reception to the nature of bestowal.

It’s similar to completely replacing the program inside a computer. Likewise, we have to replace our inner program, which will change our outlook on the world, our entire life paradigm. We start looking at the world through completely different glasses.

This allows us to see how the right connection with other people brings us goodness, and that revelation changes us. This is the meaning of coming out of Egypt.

Question: And where are we when we come out of Egypt?

Answer: We come out into new relationships, unity, bestowal. By uniting and being together, we are saved from our enemies and come out from exile to freedom.

Question: So right now my heart is dirty, loving only itself and caring only for itself. But if I clean it and start caring for others, I will see a different world around me?

Answer: Yes, this will be a world beyond the boundaries of Egypt. It will be the world that we see through our connection with each other, the quality of bestowal, or through integral glasses. Through those glasses, we start seeing the network connecting us together.

That world is called the upper world because we reveal the force that influences everyone, the network that controls all of us. We start to understand our past, present, and future, and we actually rise above time. We also know what the result of all our actions will be.

Question: How does this affect our regular, day-to-day lives?

Answer: A person knows what is happening to him and what will happen if he acts a certain way. He starts seeing all of the causes and consequences, which is called opening his eyes. He is no longer in a state of darkness and uncertainty.

Question: And how does it affect our relationships with one another?

Answer: We find out about our own intentions and others’ intentions, so our relationships become absolutely transparent, without any hard feelings or misunderstandings.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 15.03.2015

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 9: Plurally Speaking
Affecting Social Cohesion Through the Social Environment

From Me, to We, to One

With our current knowledge of human nature, we cannot avoid this competitive and alienating attitude because it is coming from within us, a dictation of the fourth, speaking level of desire. We also cannot stop the evolution of desires, just as we cannot stop the evolution of the whole of Nature. Moreover, if we are to achieve the purpose of creation of becoming similar to the Creator, we will need a robust desire as the fuel thrusting us forward, which means that we must not diminish or oppress our desires, or we will not attain our life’s goal.

And yet, not being able to stop the heightening of our self-centered desires does not mean we must yield to a trend of worsening human relations on all levels. Our society does not have to decline to a point where all we can do is to stock up on supplies, take cover, and lay low in wait for some miracle to save us from our fellow men and women.

In fact, even if we chose to try to shield ourselves, our nation’s mournful history indicates, and the law of Nature dictates that the nations will not permit us to remain passive. When troubles ensue, it is guaranteed that the Jews will be blamed for it once more and consequently tormented, perhaps worse than ever. However, contrary to past ordeals, there is much we can do to prevent this from unfolding.

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