Audio Version Of The Blog – 09.15.15
Posted on September 15th, 2015
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I am happy to invite you, dear readers, to read a special article for Rosh HaShana that I published today on Ynet and with this I also want to wish you and all of Israel a happy holiday and a good and sweet year!
This Year We Choose To Be Connected
“On Rosh HaShana, 5,776 years ago, one person succeeded in creating a connection with his surroundings. This evening, we celebrate the birthday of the first time that a connection like this was created in humanity. Rav Dr. Michael Laitman, in a special column for Rosh HaShana, explains how it is in our power to make the coming year more successful.”
I am looking at the year that has passed. It was a complex and difficult year for the people of Israel. There is no need to say very much about what we experienced, and it is clear that all of us look forward to a much better year. It depends only on us to make it better.
This evening, we are celebrating Rosh HaShana. 5,776 years ago, a special person was born whom we call Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). He was not the first person who was created; I don’t mean to say that the universe was created 5,776 years ago. This material universe has existed for 14 billion years. There is no argument about that.
What, indeed, was born 5,776 years ago is that system of unique connections that one person succeeded in creating with his surroundings, with others. That relationship that brings people together is what gives us the true reason for living, opens other worlds before us, and makes a person happy. Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the first time when a connection like this was created with humanity.
During the last 5,776 years, we have gone through innumerable situations, but something of this root is left in us. It is too small. It is distant. It comes and goes. However, on holidays, more than usual, it is still possible to feel a kind of spirit like this that envelops and connects all of us. It is because this nation was born from a special feeling of connection.
Abraham, the father of the nation, took the amorphous concept that Adam HaRishon began, and it really has developed into a method. Later, it even became a common slogan in the mouths of everyone, called, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” However, the idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not a slogan. It is the foundation. It is the essential basis for our existence here. This is what makes us unique, and this is the basis for our moral values as a nation. Incidentally, this is the only thing that we can and must contribute to humanity. But that is another story.
So, on this holiday, we close a circle; or, more correctly, we open a circle, and it is always necessary to begin from the head, and today is the head, Rosh HaShana, the head of the change. It means that it is the first point in which we understand that a change in the form of the relationships between us leads also to a change in our feeling as individuals and as a society. The way is the same way that Adam HaRishon began and our father Abraham developed, and is relevant to the same degree and perhaps even more for us today as well.
I hope, wish, and yearn for a year of change. It should be a year of building the right systems of relationships between us. A year of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” a year of unity, connection, love of others that will transform our lives here and make the approaching year into a sweet and happy year. I wish for a good year for all of the people of Israel!
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From the site Ynet article.
Question: If we were created as egoists from the start, why do we need to express regret, repent for our sins, and ask for forgiveness?
Answer: Prayer is making a judgment about our inner characteristics, obtained from the outside. The higher power of nature created our egoistic inclination, whereas we are only required to discover it and recognize its evil.
It is evil because it doesn’t allow us to connect with others and recreate the Kli of our common soul through which we feel the upper world.
A person is completely determined and defined by whatever characteristics he is born with, where he grew up, and what kind of education he received. So, we ourselves don’t sin that much, and even though it may seem to us that we have committed some sins in the past, we haven’t done anything bad. This is because nothing depends on us!
But if we clarify that the reason for all evil is our egoistic nature and we want to correct it, we have the possibility of doing this. So, let’s connect for that purpose because it is impossible to correct yourself on your own. So, I am appealing to everyone. Come, let’s correct ourselves, and we will feel ourselves in a completely different world!
All of our regret and repentance is awareness of how much we don’t want to connect with others. We begin to understand that it is possible to live well only through connection and unity, but our evil inclination is preventing us from attaining this. So, we ask the higher power of nature to connect and unite us, as it is written, “He who makes peace in His heavens, may He make peace for us and for all Israel.” (Kaddish).
Question: But what if I don’t want to relate well with others, and I am afraid they will exploit me?
Answer: We simply don’t understand how we benefit from connection and unity. It is as if we receive a sack with a million dollars as a gift. If the reward were revealed to us, everyone would want to connect. Everything depends only on the relationship between the results and the reward, and the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us how great the reward is.
Question: I am familiar with very many good people who are trying to relate well with everyone, but they haven’t gotten a million dollar prize.
Answer: The idea is that we don’t know what a good connection is. So, Kabbalah is called a science. It requires study and research. A person may invest much effort completely in vain. Many people in our world try to do good without results. They simply don’t recognize the laws of nature, so they make mistakes.
It is known that without knowing the physical laws of nature, it is impossible to do anything good. On the contrary, you only cause harm. If I don’t understand the law of gravity, I am liable to fall off a roof.
The same thing even happens with the soul. We must know the laws of our inner nature or of the soul, and then we will use them correctly and easily reach a wonderful, harmonious, peaceful life and benefit from much more than a million dollars.
In the month of Elul, we are entering a unique period. We have an opportunity to benefit greatly if we just will understand that the goal is to connect and unite among us, and the one thing that disturbs us is our ego, the evil inclination.
If we try to become freed from it with the help of the wisdom of Kabbalah, then it will provide us with all the necessary means required for correction. Then we will attain abundance and full prosperity. Between us, we will discover the upper world and begin to live a fabulous life as if we were on a cloud.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15
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Question: How should we start the new year?
Answer: We should start the year with the recognition that we have an opportunity to become equal to the Creator, which means to relate to Him the way He relates to you. However, first you must discover that the Creator relates to you with absolute love and bestowal, and you must develop the same thing within you.
However, you don’t feel the Creator; you don’t know Him. The moment you begin to invent Him, you will create another religion, and we already have enough religions in our world.
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we have all the means to attain the Creator. Like a jigsaw puzzle, if you use everything you are given correctly, you will resemble the Creator totally.
In fact, the Creator has created this world in a state of total destruction and division. If you arrange it, you not only will become equal to Him, but also will resemble His depth, and so you will attain the same state, the same thought, the same goal, the same starting point from which He began.
You will attain the full depth of His thought, and as a result, you also will attain the Creator to some extent. Kabbalists don’t tell us about what comes next. When you reach that point, you will see for yourself.
Therefore, for us, a new year, Rosh Hashana is indeed a step toward new horizons.
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From KabTV’s “Holidays. Rosh HaShana” 8/6/15
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The month of Elul is the time for self-examination. Did you fulfill the instruction that was given at Mount Sinai and, even before that, at the time of Abraham, which is to attain connection?
The Upper Light will be dressed on us and will reveal the upper world to us to the extent that we begin to unite, and we will feel that we are living in a corrected, round, upper and harmonious world.
Therefore, a sin or transgression is what stands in our way of achieving unity among us. Anyone can examine himself from this perspective and find out how full of sins, of egoistic attributes and desires, he is, which makes him resent others.
The month of Elul is called the time of repentance, which means the return of the created being to the Creator, to resembling and being equal in form to His attributes, to love and bestowal.
Discovering our sins and transgressions is already a correction. All we must do is to acknowledge our corruption. People try to conceal their evil and hide it, while the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us to bring out your evil because, you are a complete egoist. The moment these sins and transgressions are discovered, they immediately will be corrected.
We are divided and immersed in our ego, but we must connect like the parts of Adam’s one soul. Our role is to find the way to connection and unity. We look for the way, but each time, we discover that we really don’t want to unite, and we don’t yearn for connection. This is actually our only sin, and simply discovering that is the entire correction.
A prayer is judging yourself, the desire to discover and bring out all your sins and transgressions so that they can be corrected and will disappear. Regret and repentance is not tears but the recognition of the need to unite. We see that the world is beginning to realize that without connection and unity we simply will not be able to survive.
Every time we discover different sins against connection and unity inside us, they will be corrected thanks to our revelation. We cannot correct anything by ourselves and it is our duty only to discover the evil within us and to point out the egoistic attribute of our character. This is called a prayer, judging yourself.
Question: Why is it enough to simply discover and highlight our egoistic attributes, which already is the correction?
Answer: When we discover and highlight our evil, we realize to what extent we need correction. The correction itself is done by the Light that Reforms.
When we discover our ego and our sins, we draw the Light of correction. It is written, “’I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice’ …since the Light in it reforms it.”
The Torah is the general Light that is around us, but it operates on us only if we discover the attributes inside us that stand in the way of our connection and unity, which means our sins.
The main thing is to determine the diagnosis because the remedy already exists! The moment we discover the ego inside us that doesn’t allow us to connect, the Light that Reforms, called the Torah, immediately operates on it and corrects this desire.
The correction allows us to connect with others, but to the extent that we connect internally and begin to feel close to one another, the Upper Light can be revealed to us and let us feel the upper world.
Our work in the month of Elul comes down to revealing the evil that doesn’t let us unite with others. During this time, the evil only is revealed, but it is corrected when the new year begins on Rosh HaShana.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15
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