Audio Version Of The Blog – 09.17.15

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Happy 5,776th Birthday!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: According to religion, man was created 5,776 years ago, while according to science it happened more than 200,000 years before that. Who is right from a Kabbalistic perspective?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t take part in such debates. It studies nature and tells us about it. Nature is the same thing as the Creator, and the wisdom of Kabbalah explores the upper force of nature called the Creator. The word “Creator” in Hebrew “Boreh” means “come and see.” If we explore nature properly, we attain the Creator and see Him.

Thus Rosh HaShana (the Hebrew New Year) is the day of the revelation of the Creator, of the upper force. This is the day that mankind first attained the upper force, the spiritual world, an upper reality that we left to live here in this world only so that we will be able to break into it again. From this world, we will be able to attain the upper world.

Then we will know the answers to all the eternal questions: “What is the purpose of this life? What is its meaning? For what purpose do we exist on this earth and for what is all set? This isn’t a mere search for filling because we are unsatisfied with life, but a search for the goal for which we were created from above. Kabbalah teaches us how to turn to the Creator, raise Him, and reveal Him. Then the whole plan of creation is revealed to us, including what happened before we felt that we exist here in this world. It is because our world is only an intermediate station between what happened before we were born and the station of our future goal at which we arrive after we leave this world.

We either ascend to an upper dimension or lower to our level in this world. The wisdom of Kabbalah allows us to do both. All this is accessible to us thanks to the wisdom of Kabbalah that was revealed by first man who was the first human being to discover the Creator.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 9/6/15

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Traditions And Meanings Of The Rosh HaShanah Meal

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does the food we eat on Rosh HaShanah symbolize?

Answer: On Rosh HaShanah, it is a Mitzvah (commandment) for us to eat the head of a fish to emphasize our desire to be the head and not the tail. This means that we want to find an understanding for the entire structure of creation, the entire spiritual project, and not just to understand and recognize our actions, goals, or our role in penetrating into the entire wisdom of creation, but also to find the power and courage to realize them within ourselves.

The pomegranate symbolizes the correction of the 613 egoistic desires in every person for rapprochement, unity, and love. The seeds of the pomegranate create one collective, common fruit. Each one of us is a small seed, and we need to unite, which represents the completion of our common collective spiritual work, a fruit in which all components are connected in the right way.

The apple is that part we took from the sin that happened with the Tree of Knowledge. We dip it in honey to sweeten whatever is waiting for us as we continue forward, so that the instructions and help that we receive from above will be correct and precise. The correction of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge is called mollification. If a person places before himself the same goal that exists in nature and finds harmony within it, there can no longer be anything in life that is bad for him. He will constantly feel mutual, harmonious help from nature that surrounds him.

If we think about unity and connection between us, we can balance the climate on Earth and do everything that we want, such as preventing all suffering and war. But before we teach humanity to connect and unite, we need to learn this ourselves. Studying the wisdom of Kabbalah will explain to everyone how this is done, andI hope that we attain this unity.

All these customs are simply external in character. But in fact, this is a huge, major holiday from which the right attitude towards life truly begins because a person now begins to restore himself.
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From KabTV’s “Holidays. Rosh HaShana” 8/6/15

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Repentance Before Rosh HaShanah

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn order to ask for forgiveness, we must know what love is for people like yourself and what it means by asking these questions, “What haven’t I done on behalf of this love? If it is necessary to feel that I have love for others, which is the main Mitzvah (commandment) of the Torah, do I or do I not feel it?” Many people think that it is enough just to carry out physical Mitzvot.

The Kabbalists advise us to unite into groups of 10, so that together we can check if we are truly treating each other well. Is everyone trying to distance himself from his ego and connect with others, become integrated with their desires and to feel love between us? If we understand that all of this doesn’t exist, we feel we are to blame, so we ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness is for not carrying out the main condition, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Today, this condition has become imperative for the whole world in order to come out of the global crisis. But the people of Israel must be the first to realize this, and we are not doing it. So we ask for the power to help us attain this love. We clearly see that we are not prepared to carry out this condition by ourselves, but we can ask for help. And we conclude the Selichot (forgiveness) by asking for the power to carry out the main Mitzvah and bringing people closer together. And through this getting closer we also get closer to the higher force, the Creator.

A person cannot realize this by himself, so we work in a group, which is how we check if we have attained mutual bestowal and connection or not. If not, we need to ask for the power to help us connect and reach unity. This common request is called prayer and it is derived from our connection, from the center of our circle, like a pillar that rises upward. When we examine our union, we reach Selichot.

From here we see that without studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is impossible to discover what to ask, towards what to be attracted, the purpose of Creation, and how the Torah is connected to the Mitzvot of love of others and love of the Creator through the entire order of correction. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to realize ourselves according to what is written in the Torah. The only Mitzvah is to rise above our ego and attain connection and unity between everyone. It includes within it all the rest of the Mitzvot, which are individual corrections of our ego. The egoistic desire is composed of 613 parts, each one of which we must correct, beginning with the easiest and moving towards what is more and more difficult. In this way it is necessary to carry out 613 corrections, which are called the 613 (Taryag) Mitzvot.

When we help each other we ultimately attain redemption, meaning that we discover the higher power, the Creator, within our correct mutual connection of bestowal and love. And this is the forgiveness before Rosh HaShanah. Certainly it is impossible to begin the New Year, the new beginning, the next level, towards which we must ascend thanks to our correction without clarifying all that we went through. And this is the essence of repentance, to ask with greater vigor for the Light that Reforms to correct us and make it possible for us to attain an even stronger union.
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From KabTV’s “Selichot” 8/17/15

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A Good Time For Review

laitman_929The month of Tishrei is coming, a special month full of holidays. The Jewish holidays are not just fulfilling a traditional obligation, they have spiritual roots derived from the forces of nature that operate in cycles, according to the rotation of the Earth around the sun and other higher reasons.

We feel that every day influences our world with different forces: One day is not like another, and one night is not like another night; we are changing all the time. There are more pleasant and better days and there are problematic days.

The month of Elul is a very good time for review of what we did in the past year and what we intend to do in the New Year.

The meaning of the name “Elul” is an acronym, “Ani LeDodi VeDodi Li (I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine)” (Song of Songs 6:3). We must understand the essential demand of the Creator, the higher force of nature. “I am my beloved’s” means that I need to examine myself this month before the beginning of the new year, in a special period of concentration of unique forces within us and our influence on the world.

We must carry out what is written in the Torah, the obligations that were received at Mount Sinai: “Become as one person with one heart” and “All Israel are friends.” Ultimately it is up to us to reach, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” and complete union.

People don’t understand what love is. In our world, this word takes on a very unclean and sexual nuance, or we connect this word with love for animals, trees, and the preservation of nature.

But the concept of love of others means connecting to feel all the desires of others and trying to fulfill them. This is like the connection of two devices; if we connect them correctly, the result is a single device all of whose parts can understand each other and work together.

That is how an engine is built so that all of its parts work in concert, like the organs of a single body that support each other. In this case, it is possible to say that there is love between them.

The Torah is speaking about love like this, about mutual connection, about understanding between everyone, when each one works for the others. If everyone works for everyone, a perfect system emerges, and this is the situation we must attain.

First only one person was created, Adam, one desire. But after that this system was shattered into a multitude of fragments that were not able to integrate with each other. Our work is to find a place for each one that is appropriate for him, and clarify in what form he must be integrated with the others. This is like a gigantic puzzle that we must assemble into one picture.

This puzzle includes 600,000 essential parts called “six hundred thousand souls,” and a further multitude of additional small fragments that are inserted between us. Every person in this world has a part of the overall puzzle because all of us are the “children of Adam,” and must compose him together.

But the main obligation in assembling this puzzle is imposed upon the people of Israel. They are the main constituents of all its billions of parts. If the people of Israel will assemble themselves correctly and will connect this puzzle correctly, then all the rest of the fragments will begin to move and search for their place. And ultimately each one will integrate with the others and become integrated in the puzzle.

In this way humanity will attain harmony, wondrous union, and the correct global integration that our world requires today so profoundly.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/30/15

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Advancing Towards A Miracle

laitman_276_02The Torah, “Exodus,” 33:4: [When] the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his finery.

Advancing in spirituality means advancing in absolute darkness, but the moment a person abandons his ego, the darkness immediately turns into light, and if he sinks into his ego again he immediately finds himself in darkness.

The darkness is immediately felt in all our feelings, definitions and directions as helplessness, as lack of control and lack of a goal. But this is actually how we can reach the attribute of bestowal.

It is clear that we don’t feel the attribute of bestowal now; we cannot imagine where it comes from and how a person attains it. It seems that we simply change one attribute to another, although this isn’t the case at all. How can a person who is immersed in his ego want an attribute that is opposite from his original nature? This is the main problem, which no one understands.

How can I want the attribute of love and bestowal when I am in the opposite attributes? Even if I want them, it will still be with the intention of in order to receive. So advancing towards the goal without the Creator is in darkness, and this is actually what I need so that I will look for a way of turning the darkness into light.

This state already exists in me, but how can I feel everything that is opposite from my ego as Light? How can I change and transform myself? How can I reach the attribute of bestowal if we cannot demand it to begin with because everything we demand is for ourselves?

I am faced with an impossible mission, which is to find the point that is impossible to identify, feel, and understand in advance, because if I understand, it means that I am not in the egoistic attribute anymore!

Therefore, I yearn for it only thanks to my point in the heart, but even this yearning is egoistic because it is dominated by my egoistic desires.

This is the mystery of the cooperation between the Creator (the Light) and us. When it operates, we turn to Him through an obstacle that cannot be penetrated.

There is a very interesting passage between these two levels that we don’t know and cannot find. But if we keep advancing towards the goal by using the means we have, it is gradually revealed to us. The means to advance include working with the group, the desire to draw the Light that Reforms, and yearning to connect. These means gradually help us discern a certain direction, but it still remains secret.

We see that today very few think that it is possible to change our nature. Those who understand anything about human nature realize that it is impossible to change it.

Therefore this process is called the miracle of the exodus from Egypt, when a person understands that he cannot change himself and at the same time is already strongly connected to the Creator. By his actions he realizes that only the Creator can do it. The moment he reaches a point of detachment between the Creator and him, the Creator corrects everything.

We can turn our spiritual advancement to joy only if we acknowledge the importance of the goal that a person receives from the right environment. It is impossible to attain it without mutual support, without mutual guarantee.

Materialistic psychology tells us how we can calm a person down and how we can help him overcome depression, while our method teaches how to ascend to joy. If you are depressed, you cannot make even one step. A person has to turn all the dark states into Light, since otherwise he will not be able to overcome them.

The Torah tells us about clear states that we undergo and thus change our original nature by the help of the Light that Reforms.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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Those Who Skip Over The Section Of Time

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: An exception is Rashbi and his generation, the authors of The Zohar, who were granted all 125 degrees in completeness, even though it was prior to the days of the Messiah.

Hence, we often find in The Zohar that there will be none like the generation of Rashbi until the generation of the Messiah King. This is why his composition made such a great impact in the world, since the secrets of the Torah in it occupy the level of all 125 degrees.

Hence, it is said in The Zohar that The Book of Zohar will be revealed only at the end of days, the days of the Messiah.

And since The Zohar appeared in our generation, it is a clear proof that we are already in the days of the Messiah, at the outset of that generation upon which it was said, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.”

In the past we studied very little from The Book of Zohar. A person’s individual path of his spiritual development, that of the group, and the general path of the development of the world are connected to one another, because the individual and the general are equal. We couldn’t rush ahead and start studying The Book of Zohar until now because we were unable to hear it, so for many years we hardly touched The Book of Zohar in our study.

A special time had to come and our inner impulse had to ripen. About four years ago I suddenly felt that we have to do something with The Book because it is impossible to study from an authentic source in our times. There was a need to simplify The Book of Zohar so that an ordinary person would be able to understand it, and so we had to remove the many obstacles one encounters when studying this Book and also to translate it to other languages.

I felt a great elation in doing this work. I gradually went over all the writings of The Book of Zohar, day by day, volume after volume, and I greatly enjoyed it, feeling that I was drinking from the spring of life. Many other people took part in this project. We can actually say that it wasn’t work but a gift from above. Now we are glad to bring the outcome of our work to the whole world: the first complete edition in Hebrew and abridged editions in Russian and English. The Book of Zohar will gradually be published in other languages so that everyone will have a chance to study it with us.

No other book has ever been written by a group of Kabbalists as a result of ten connecting. Moreover, there has never been another book that was written in such a special time when people were both on the spiritual level that was before the destruction of the Temple and after the destruction. This means that they were exactly in the center of the shattering, between the two parts of the shattering, and managed to connect the shattering, to skip over it, and to connect its two parts.

There have never been Kabbalists who managed to attain all the 125 levels, which means to attain complete connection with the Creator. This is actually the reason that The Book of Zohar is on such a high level and belongs to the end of correction. It wasn’t written by one Kabbalist, but is the product of the connection between people who attained the Creator. This is very important. So when we study this book, it takes us back to that connection, to the correction.

All the other Kabbalistic books were written by people who attained spirituality but not as a result of the connection between people in a group. This is the reason that we wanted to make this book as close to everyone as possible. If a person reads it, the Light that comes through the high souls that connected begins to operate on him.

This Light operates among us and raises our sensitivity to connection. It operates whether we want it or not. Therefore , it was so important to simplify The Book of Zohar and translate it into different languages. This book includes everything we need for our correction!
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From the World Zohar Week “World Zohar Convention,” Day One 2/5/14, Lesson 1

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 09.17.15

Preparation for the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Article 45

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Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 146

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts  “Rosh HaShanah,” “Articles for Yom HaKippurim

[media 7] [media 8]

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence,” “The Order of Passing the Wisdom”

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