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The Torah, “Numbers,” 22:2 – 22:3: Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. Moab became terrified of the people, for they were numerous, and Moab became disgusted because of the children of Israel.
The Torah doesn’t tell us about historical events, although we also can understand the content of the book from the historical level of this world. It is actually about states in which people who yearn for the Creator can unite and become one nation and thus be very strong.
The concept of many refers to the intensity of the connection between them, as one man in one heart, and not to the number of people. They are divided internally, but when they make an effort and develop internally, they can attain the force of unity that connects them, which is called many and of which Moab is afraid.
“… and Moab became disgusted because of the children of Israel” means that Moab sees the connection and unity between the children of Israel that is approaching and threatening it, and cannot do anything about it which, on its part, is unbearable.
The hatred that is mentioned here isn’t the hatred we see in our world. It manifests as the contrast between the spiritual forces of nature, whereas the rejection and hostility we see between people in our world is subconscious. The Jews don’t understand why they are oppressed, and the nations of the world don’t understand why they hate the Jews.
Question: What is the force of nature called Moab?
Answer: The egoistic force is divided into seven major opposite forces that are embodied by the seven nations living in the land of Israel until the conquest of the land by the Jews who came from the desert. These are seven Klipot (Shells), forces of impurity, that can exist only in this land, which means on this spiritual level.
A person who wants to discover the Creator must be on the spiritual level and accordingly on the level of this world because the two worlds are parallel.
All of the objects and phenomena in this world are the outcome of what happens in the upper world, as root and branch. Therefore, if you wish to conquer the land, for example, you can conquer it. However, in order to do so, you first must conquer the spiritual root, which means to be on the spiritual level. This is how the Torah tells us about the conquest on the spiritual level, and the outcome already is fulfilled in our world.
When the people of Israel began to take the idea of love of others lightly, for example, and fell into mutual hate, into the ego, they lost all of that in the corporeal world too and were expelled from this land. In other words, everything that happens in our world is an imprint of what we actually summon on the higher level.
The egoistic force, Moab—about which it is written, “…and Moab became disgusted because of the children of Israel”—wants to corrupt the children of Israel by sending them women who symbolize the ego so that their ego will grow. Moab can change Israel’s intention so that when they serve altruism and love, they will receive a little for themselves, which is enough to corrupt the spiritual level. Consequently, all of the changes that occur are fulfilled in this world in a negative way.
This is exactly what we see in Israel today, but there may be a different state, and we must start from above in order to change it.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/8/15
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Question: Is it possible to transcend the Machsom (Barrier) at the moment of death?
Answer: Of course not. We are all on the animal level. So, in what way does an animal change when it dies a natural death or when it is killed? What does it gain from death?
From this perspective, man is not better or worse than any other animal. However, while living in the corporeal world, he can ascend above his animal level and acquire an additional level called a soul.
However, if he doesn’t acquire this new sense, he has no soul, so when he passes away, his corporeal body passes away.
Question: Why do we perceive death as such a tragic event? Why are we afraid of death?
Answer: Fear drives us to overcome death. It spurs in us the egoistic desire to attain the upper world. When a person leaves the feeling of this world and reaches the feeling of the upper world, he ceases to fear death and continues to live in this world only in order to ascend higher in the spiritual world. In any case, he is already on the level of the next dimension.
[170507]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/11/15
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The weekly sections of the Torah, Korah and Balak, are called after names of people (attributes), who don’t like the people of Israel and rise against them. However, they actually spur history forward even more than Moses and other positive figures in the Torah, which exist thanks to the negative forces in nature that appear in them and to which they must respond.
The egoistic forces operate the whole system of creation and excite it, giving it a boost to keep on developing. Therefore, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.”
Our reality develops only thanks to the Creator’s angels. All of the people—including managers, military leaders and politicians—are the Creator’s individual forces, which He controls, of course.
In order to motivate something to move forward, the ego must be spurred forward. All of the turning points in history are named after them. In modern history, it is Hitler and Stalin. In ancient times, it was Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Titus, Caligula and more. It is actually the flashes of the ego that are expressed in razor sharp forms that give history a boost and leave an impression. It isn’t by chance that Titus set fire to the Temple.
It was so that the next generations should not forget him. How many good deeds have other people done, but no one remembers them. But if you had created a hydrogen bomb or an atomic bomb, it is a totally different matter.
These “angels” are called by that name because they are the engines of history. What is more, there are many of them among the Jews. The American family, Rosenberg, the “atomic spies,” spied for the Soviet Union and passed on secrets about the atom bomb that fell into the hands of another angel called Professor Jacob Zaldovich, who was one of the Soviet atom bomb and hydrogen bomb builders.
Looking back, we can see that the leading Spanish inquisitors who expelled the Jews were actually Jewish. In addition, who were those who enticed the Romans and the Greeks to invade Israel and slaughter and kill? It was the same fifth column. The point is that, as time goes by, all of the goodness that great people do for the world fades away, but the wickedness remains in history.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/8/15
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Question: Is thought also a matter of desire?
Answer: Thought is a very powerful desire, the strongest force in creation, stronger than an atomic bomb. We just do not know how to use it.
Our thoughts are so small and superficial that there is no power in them. But if we could rise to the level of true thought, the intention, attained through the wisdom of Kabbalah, it would be possible to build the worlds. It is said, “Everything will be clarified through thought.”
Through thought, all of creation can be transformed; we can make our world anything we want. With the help of thought we can influence other galaxies and distant stars. It is the most powerful force.
Question: How is it possible that the power of thought could be more intense than an atomic bomb if it is possible to obliterate everything with a bomb?
Answer: Thought is capable of destruction and revitalizing, building, and creating. Through thought we can create like the Creator, just through thought alone.
Question: Can you give an example of this type of action in our world?
Answer: In the meantime there are no examples of this type in our lives because the power of thought I am speaking about is the power of bestowal, giving. For this it is necessary to reach a state in which the higher energy will pass through us. We become a lens that focuses this energy and can influence all of reality.
Imagine that we have a focusing lens through which all the energy of the universe passes. And we can use this lens and determine where it will be directed. Thus we are building a new world.
Question: What is this energy? Isn’t this the energy of the sun?
Answer: No, this is the energy of thought, intention, which depends on what I want to do. If I want to carry out good deeds like bestowal, giving a gift, creating a new and good creation, then I get this power at my disposal.
Even in our world, if a person thinks about good, he becomes better. But we are not talking about this but about something supernatural that we can use.
It is possible to extract these forces from nature so that each one of us will become the master of this intense power. We will become creatures who are not limited by any physical framework: not time, movement, or space.
The border between this world and the upper world will disappear; we will rise above life and death, all of this thanks to control over this unique energy that is found in the world. We will be ready to manage it if we become bestowers, lovers, and connected together correctly.
Each one of us now lives separately and therefore we have no power. We are not ready to connect with each other, so we don’t allow this energy to enter into our system.
If this energy were to enter between us and begin to flow and grow in it, it would attract us into a vortex of goodness. We will feel very rapidly that we are in the higher dimension.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM 11/29/15
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Midrash Rabbah, Parashat Balak: Balak was of noble origin, but he didn’t belong to the royal family. He wasn’t a Moavite from birth, but a Midianite, and so in ordinary times, crowning him simply would have been impossible. Yet, in the given situation, it happened thanks to his reputation as a brave warrior and a skilled sorcerer.
Balak was from Midian, just like Jethro, Moses’ father in law, with whom Moses had undergone a 40-year internship.
Jethro, who was the head of Midian, reached Moses’ camp when the Jews were getting ready to go to the desert and became their counselor, helping them build their defense and justice systems, and solving the problems of the mass of people who came out of Egypt. This is the reason that the internal structure of the Jewish nation is according to Midian law of.
Before taking any decision, Balak decided to find out what the secret of the Jews’ phenomenal success was: how they conquered one nation after another.
Conquering one nation after another means raising themselves above the ego and correcting it one layer after the other. This is called advancing in the desert.
And now it is about the people who have crossed the desert and are approaching the land of Israel.
Jethro understood the designation of the Jews and therefore connected to Moses. There is a double transition from egoism to altruism here, the attributes of Moses and the attributes of Jethro, Zipporah, Moses’ wife, and their sons are in the middle. This means that the movement toward the land of Israel would have been impossible without the connection to Jethro.
It is a very interesting combination of forces, of opposite and contrasting attributes and systems. It is actually by the coordination between them that the right contact with the Creator is achieved. It cannot happen differently. The two opposites must be together and then, on the basis of the oppositeness between them, the truth—which is in neither of them, but above—is revealed, “and the Creator is above them.”
However, thanks to the right oppositeness, you look at things as if through a sight, through a narrow, accurate crack, which is the only way you can see the target. Therefore, the opposite forces are on the level of Moses. It says that there never has been a Jewish prophet like Moses, but there has been among the nations of the world: Jethro.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/8/15
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Question: Scientists from Carnegie University in the US believe that vegetarianism and health diets are harmful to the environment.
They have conducted many studies and claim that consuming fruits, vegetables, and dairy products causes great harm to the environment since there is greater energy and water consumption associated with them, which pollutes the atmosphere. At the same time, they say that meat consumption has a positive effect on the environment.
Answer: We believe that vegetarian food is healthier, but in fact, we actually have changed ourselves. We have formatted ourselves so that it is no longer clear what is good and what is bad for our body and for the natural environment.
In our current way of life when seven to eight billion people populate the earth, we cannot strive to ensure everyone haw healthy, normal, natural food. It is because it is impossible to grow so much food naturally since you would not be able to feed anyone that way.
In order to grow such amounts of fruits and vegetables the old-fashioned way, we would need ten planets equipped with different automatic devices. However, even then, we would have miniature cucumbers and tomatoes. In other words, it doesn’t make sense. It is impossible to feed huge numbers of people that way.
At the same time, we must take into account that natural products spoil very quickly, so we should eat what we develop.
I had a friend who worked at the institute of agriculture. I once asked him, “What do you do? What do you feed us?” I told him a joke that you could play football with a tomato that we consume today, and nothing would happen to it, and you would even be able to cut it into a salad.
His reply was, “Yes, we aspire to grow exactly this type of tomato that you could throw against the wall, and then make whatever you want of it.” They will be in different shapes, so you would be able to transport them wherever you want, keep them for a long time, and then make whatever you want from them. They still will be tasty in texture and flavor.
Question: What about people’s health?
Answer: People also will be semi-synthetic. Everything will be normal, and nothing will happen because we have multiplied to eight billion people on earth, and we need to supply food for everyone, and natural products cannot be preserved long enough.
Today, we can build two greenhouses in the Negev which will feed all of Russia with different kinds of vegetables. We can grow miniature trees that will bear huge fruit, and it isn’t a problem at all. This way, humanity will not be hungry, and food products will not be spoiled because they have been engineered that way.
This means that everything will be fine. You load tomatoes on a truck and ship them wherever you want to. They will not rot after two or three days. Then you can wash them a little and see that there are no worms. Everything is clean, and you can make a salad. We must take this seriously. It is true that people are critical. I agree with them, but what can we do if we must feed eight billion people, and our desire is that no one should lack anything.
Question: So, what is the conclusion?
Answer: First, we must make sure that everyone has whatever he needs: half a kilo of tomatoes, half a kilo of cucumbers, half a kilo of peppers a day, 200 grams of meat, a piece of fish, and a glass of wine or grape juice. Everyone should have whatever he wants and everything will be fresh: one apple, one pear, and a slice of good bread.
However, can we do that? It is only thanks to chemistry. Otherwise, it would not reach the consumer, and you would not be able to preserve the food, pack it, and so forth.
In any case, you must apply science so that food would reach people in the most distant places and no one would be hungry.
When you achieve that with the help of science, you should make sure that it is as least harmful as possible. On the other hand, what difference does it make whether it is harmful or not? In the last century, life expectancy has doubled.
So, what’s next? Are people who live a normal life and who consume this food less healthy? Never mind.
There are natural diseases, so we should try to understand what they stem from. I don’t see that vegetarians are healthier than other people. My teacher Rabash could buy any type of food, and I suggested that he buy special fruits and vegetables and a special type of meat, but he said, “I need to eat what everyone eats.” No matter how hard I tried to convince him that that type of food was harmful, he refused and said, “I need to consume what all the others do because I live among them.”
Question: Does this mean that the conclusion is that, first of all, there is nowhere to escape to, and second, that the people will not starve?
Answer: No, the second conclusion comes first. The most important thing is that people will not starve.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/16/15
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Question: What is so bad about everyone yearning to get the greatest pleasure, and why are there so many problems and so much suffering in our world?
Answer: The problem is that each of us receives pleasure at the expense of someone else. By enjoying myself, I take pleasure away from others. I steal from them. I limit them somehow. This is what arouses war between people. Besides this, we were created with an evil, egoistic nature, and we want more pleasure specifically from having more than others. Enjoyment at the expense of others is a much greater pleasure. It is enough to see how we behave on the highway, cutting each other off and not giving each other the right of way. Is there really anyone for whom another minute would determine his life? Not at all, we simply get pleasure from moving ahead of everyone. This is our evil inclination. There is nothing bad about yearning to enjoy oneself. It is typical of any animal. However, a person specifically wants to have pleasure at the expense of others, rising above them and trampling them, and this is what is destroying our society. So the world has come to such a crisis.
Question: But there are many people who sacrifice themselves for the good of society.
Answer: They also are acting from their desire to enjoy. In fact, no one thinks about others. They themselves simply don’t understand the true motivation of their actions. If we were to take away the pleasure that humane people get from helping others, they couldn’t even make the smallest movement. If a mother were suddenly to stop feeling pleasure from her baby, he would die of starvation.
All matter works only according to this single principle. However, there is more matter, which is called “spiritual,” that is not felt by us and that acts according to another principle, bestowal, not reception. Spirituality is based upon this, giving pleasure and not receiving pleasure. This is antimatter, an upside-down world.
The spiritual world exists, and even ordinary science is discovering some borderline phenomena, but we are not ready to catch them with the help of our instruments. However, a person can attain a feeling of the upper world, of antimatter, and it is specifically with this that the wisdom of Kabbalah is involved.
Through special exercises, we can transform our matter into new matter, a desire to bestow, instead of a desire to receive. Then, we can enjoy bestowal, instead of reception.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM 11/29/15
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