Question: You say that the world is ruled by Satan, the evil inclination. What does that mean?

Answer: It is our egoism, which has many different names: the evil desire, Satan, devil, Azazel, etc. It turns out that our world is ruled by our uncorrected, egoistic desires. If I say that Satan is inside me, it means the egoistic property exists in me.

Question: If Satan is an attribute, why is it drawn with horns and hooves?

Answer: Horns, hooves, and a tail are all people’s fantasy. By the way, these elements can also be found in Kabbalah, in the corporeal language that expresses certain spiritual attributes. Therefore it is absolutely forbidden to depict such pictures and imagine that there are forces and spiritual attributes that have such forms. There is nothing evil in nature except our egoism.

Question: So why have people described Satan in such a frightening way?

Answer: These pictures appeared during the last 500 years. On the one hand, Satan is drawn in the image of a man, but on the other hand, as a frightening beast. This is how a person subconsciously relates to his evil inclination, egoism, which constantly incites us. The word “Satan” stems from the Hebrew word “Leastin,” which means to snitch, to provoke, to incite.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 6/10/15

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The Torah, “Numbers” 8:1 – 8:2: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say to him: When you light the lamps, the seven lamps shall cast their light toward the face of the menorah.

Question: Why does the weekly section of the Torah, BeHaalotcha begin with the description of the Menorah (lamp)?

Answer: It is because the Menorah (lamp) is the embodiment of the Light that descends from above unto the human souls. It is a Menorah of seven candles that is the embodiment of the six Lights that descend from Above: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. All the six Lights belong to Zeir Anpin, a structure that we call the Creator.

The Creator is a relative concept that symbolizes the one who is above us. Because Zeir Anpin is above Malchut it is revealed as the Creator with regard to us. If we ascend to His level, it rises above us once again and so there is a different Creator each time: we change and ascend and He changes and ascends. It is all relative.

The Creator operates and influences us by the seven Lights and so the Menorah is called the lamp of the seven candles (three candles on the right, three on the left and one in the middle), which symbolizes our connection with the Creator. Thus, we change our properties into the opposite attributes, the attributes of receiving into attributes of bestowal, and can illuminate like Him.

Three candles on the right and three on the left symbolize the right and the left lines and we who are in the middle are the middle line in the spiritual work. Of all the items that symbolize different attributes of the connection between the Creator and the created beings, the lamp is the brightest and most prominent symbol of this connection.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/4/15

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Egoistic desires run the world. We try to absorb into ourselves as much as we can, and we see that these desires cannot be fulfilled. All attempts to satisfy them lead us towards death.

No matter how much we fill ourselves with all kinds of: food, sex, family joys, discoveries, knowledge, and so on, we still come to the fact that from them nothing remains. On the contrary, even greater emptiness comes and adds to the disappointment.

We think that the pleasure we will get is equal to the desire for it, but when the pleasure enters the desire, it grows twice as much and we are left doubly empty. This is because Light and desire cancel each other out leaving us with twice as much emptiness.

To this day this was how life has been for all of us. A person enters the world naked, and leaves life doubly naked. We go through a lot of incarnations until we begin to understand that it is not worthwhile for us to pursue anything; it gives nothing.

Gradually humanity is becoming aware of this, and we are beginning to search for the truth. It brings us to a method with whose help it is truly possible to be fulfilled. But this fulfillment doesn’t enter directly into the desire to receive; rather, it is realized through the fulfillment of others. So here love for others is vital, and so we have an infinite possibility for enjoying, while they enjoy themselves, we enjoy fulfilling those we love.

In our world there are examples of how this works on the instinctive animal level of nature, when we fulfill our children and those that we love. And in the spiritual world everything is much more powerful, because there we fulfill each other, not because we love someone from the start, but we give birth to love within us for absolute strangers and even people who repulse us. This love doesn’t just appear that way; rather, it comes with the help of the Upper Light. When a person obligates himself to serve others, he begins to give birth within himself to a feeling of love for them, because they become dear to him, like an adopted child in a family, because of their investment in him, the parents begin to love him even more than their biological children.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to bestow to others and be fulfilled with this. But we are not talking about bestowing in order to receive. The main thing is receiving for the purpose of bestowal.

Then I fulfill myself and simultaneously fulfill others. My goal is to fulfill them! But ultimately the fulfillment remains within me. Here appears the “branching out” that is incomprehensible to us today, which a person gradually begins to attain when he is involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 6/10/15

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Question: Do the Jews have to become teachers for all people who want the wisdom of connection?

Answer: Certainly, it is said that Israel will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and through them all the nations of the world will be blessed. In other words, the Jews will become teachers for the nations of the world in the wisdom of connection and the unification of all of humanity so that, with this unity, the higher power will be revealed. But this will happen only after they first reconstruct this method for themselves. Only then can they transmit it to everyone else.

Above all, they must discover the spiritual consciousness latent in them, reaching a permanent state of connection between them and becoming a single whole, and then they can explain, teach and transmit this characteristic to their students. But even if the Jews were to reach unity and not be involved with others, the 70 nations would be drawn into agreement with them. The essence of the method is not in sitting and studying it. It is the unity of mutual penetration, adhesion, connection, closeness with each other, and internal reciprocity when they begin to feel themselves as a single, unified whole. Their egoistic desires will begin to melt just like pieces of iron or gold, becoming a single mass.

Question: But for any modern person this seems frightening because this signifies the loss of his “self.”

Answer: On the contrary, the person acquires his self because he is united with all of humanity. His self grows eight billion times, and this will be his eternal and perfected self.
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From KabTV’s “Last Generation” 6/4/15

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Writings of Baal HaSulam  “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 40

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Good and Evil,” “The Next World”

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Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 52

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption”

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Question: Is there a God?

Answer: I don’t know what people mean when they say “God.” If by God we mean a force that controls everything, then that force is nature.

As we learn more about nature, we see that everything about it is rational, balanced, and works according to its laws. We know some of these laws, others we do not, and for this reason their essence is hidden from us. We believe in various miracles and actions that supposedly can affect our course of actions, and this is all because we lack knowledge. The science of Kabbalah offers the possibility of learning these laws.

Nature can be called God if we remember that it is an absolutely rigid force, which does not abide to any of our wishes. It is not like our parents to whom we can come and cry and they will have pity on us. Our tears will not help. It is a system that acts according to its precise laws. As it is written, “I gave a law, and I do not change it.”

According to the science of Kabbalah, the numerical value (Gematria) of the words “nature” and “God/Creator” are the same. Therefore, turning to the Creator is the same as turning to nature. However, it’s best to call this force nature because we immediately understand that we are talking about rigid laws and pleading to them will not help.

A person should know how to behave and correct himself in order for these laws to become benevolent for him. And if he does not use them correctly, then naturally he will receive a negative reaction, as with any physical laws.

Therefore, there is no God whom we can mollify or somehow appease!
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 6/10/15

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,”: “Harut (carved) on the tables”; do not pronounce it Harut (carved), but rather Herut (freedom), to show that they are liberated from the angel of death. These words need to be clarified, because how is the matter of reception of the Torah related to one’s liberation from death?

Question: Generation after generation, freedom has attracted people. What does this mean?

Answer: Freedom is an amorphous concept, it is completely unrealistic, unnatural, something that eludes us, something that we picture in our imaginations. What people think and accept as freedom is derived from a lack of understanding of where they exist.

We live in a limited volume, on a small and enclosed Earth, and within this volume we try to find a state in which we feel the least pressure. In this state we apparently feel ourselves free, independent, choosing and realizing our actions, thoughts, and opinions.

But we are all particles of an immense network interconnected through billions of threads of control, and thus we don’t feel that we are in a rigid system that completely determines everything. Its concealment from us is what grants us the illusion of freedom. But in fact we have no freedom, neither in thoughts, nor in desires or actions.

Question: Does the need for this amorphous feeling, constitute a response to the subconscious feeling that we are not free?

Answer: I think that humanity doesn’t understand that it isn’t free. A person always finds ways to evade unpleasant feelings and thoughts.  After all, our main characteristic is the desire to receive and to enjoy, so I am constantly searching for the condition of maximum enjoyment or minimal suffering. This is the totality of my aspirations in every situation.

We can’t say that a person has a great need for freedom. He wants to find work, spend time with his family, to have everything defined and okay for him. On the one hand, he believes it is best to be in charge. So what kind of freedom is this?

A person puts himself into particular frameworks. He gets married, establishes a family, and therefore is obliged to work, to feed the family, to be concerned about it, to protect it—obligation, obligation, and obligation. So where is the freedom here?!

All our lives are arranged such that we need to obey some rules. Whether I want it or not, in any case I am under the authority of some dogmas, tastes, restrictions, fashions, etc. Whether I want it or not, all of this influences me.

It follows that I am not free in anything, in absolutely nothing! So no freedom is accounted for. Even if a person lives alone in a jungle, he would still be surrounded by some kind of environment that forces its limitations and principles on him.

How can I understand what freedom is? For this we need to rise above our lack of freedom and feel sharply and clearly where we are, which forces determine our condition, how nature, through individuals and through my entire environment, defines and shapes me.

To be continued….
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 6/11/15

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Question: Our desires keep growing. How can we turn them into a ladder on which we can only go up and feel the ascension?

Answer: There are two states in creation: absolute bestowal and absolute receiving. The distance between them is called a ladder and on every step of that ladder there are increasingly greater desires. As one ascends the ladder they take on the form of an increasingly greater intention to bestow. The desire itself is a desire to receive while the ladder determines the intention of in order to bestow. In fact, we have initially been created as individuals who think only about ourselves and who use all our desires in our own interests. Being unable to give anything, we can only receive from others.

But when using the wisdom of Kabbalah, we draw the special energy of bestowal, which begins to operate on our general egoistic desire and correct it layer by layer by adding the attribute of bestowal to the attribute of receiving. When the Upper Light operates and influences the desire to receive, it divides it into 125 levels of correction, forming a ladder called “Jacob’s ladder.” This is how we correct ourselves until we reach complete bestowal, thus changing the form of our entire huge ego into the attribute of receiving in order to bestow.

When we use the two major attributes of creation, the attribute of receiving and the attribute of bestowal, we reach equality with the Creator. At the same time we don’t disappear in Him because, on the one hand, our desire to receive is kept and only acquires an external form of bestowal, but on the other hand, receiving with the intention of in order to bestow makes us similar to the Creator. This means that externally we become like Him and internally we are made of the desire to receive. This is what the whole correction comes down to.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 6/10/15

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Question: On whom does success depend: is it the inner connection between us, the sufferings the world will go through, or our swift dissemination?

Answer: Ten years of sufferings in the whole nation will not bring the Upper Light as close as one day of dissemination and a few mornings of lessons, even ten years of suffering in the whole nation! Because sufferings that comes from the side of the vessel are not clarified, are not calculated; it’s similar to an animal that howls from pain and does not know what to do.
People don’t have conscious connection with the Creator. Therefore, this cannot be compared to the lesson that sometimes awakens a prayer, a request, a yearning. This is quite so regarding dissemination, that is realizing what is lacking, which lacks only the intention in order to bestow. Therefore, dissemination is the means to the most efficient correction; the sufferings direct us. But the question is, what is all this suffering for? What are you suffering from?

Comment: I suffer because I feel bad.

Answer: This means, you suffer from the emptiness in the most corporeal and regular desires: food, family, money, honor, and knowledge. This is still in the regular way of sufferings. The Creator sends you troubles and you cry. He puts more pressure, and you cry louder, if he puts less pressure, you cry less. If He tickles you, you begin to laugh. All that is a direct action of the upper conduct, where is your correct reaction here? You must think not about your feelings inside the desire, but above it where you build your Rosh ha Partzuf (head of the Partzuf).

The group needs to permeate us with the spiritual deficiency, the need to exit the desire to receive and move to bestowal. If friends would start telling you now about impending danger, about a storm or a fierce storm that will blow everything, that it is on its way and will turn everything to a desert, you would become frantic with fear and worry. You would be full of fear because of that; so why can’t they transfer to you at least a tiny part of this worry regarding spirituality? They should do it.

But they are lazy. So you need to pay them, to do everything that is needed in the group. This way each one will help the other. But if you just wait for the deficiency for spirituality to be awakened in you and for it to become a directed yearning, this will never happen. Through the group you exit from the egoistic beastly point and immediately rise to the net of forces that is already spiritual. Even though it is not corrected, is egoistic, not for Her sake (Lo Lishma), it is already a net, and that is the main thing.

We do not receive enough pressure from the group; this is the whole problem. Another gathering of friends (Yeshivat Haverim) and another one, it’s only mechanical and it will not help. Rabash did not allow us to have more than one Yeshivat Haverim a week. Everything depends on a deeper penetration inward inside the dominion of intentions.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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