Audio Version Of The Blog – 03.28.16

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Haman Today

laitman_289Question: Who is Haman in our time?

Answer: Haman is the force that divides us and thereby weakens the nation so that it is easier to manage us. In the Book of Esther, Haman told king Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and separate among the peoples throughout all the provinces of your kingdom…”; they are weak because they are divided, and therefore it is easier to destroy them.

This is the reason that we must unite above all of our differences, including every part in the nation, in spite of everything that divides us, without any arguments as to who is right.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is directing us toward this unity, to unity above all of our differences, so that, as it is written, “Love covers all transgressions,” since this is the only kind of unity that there can be in the nation of Israel, which otherwise would remain as a gathering of exiles, as a collection of immigrants from different counties.

Haman is the force that tears the Jewish nation into pieces. We can identify him in every part of society, religious and secular, left and right political streams, etc. Kabbalah is the method of uniting opposites, above all rejections. It is the only method that has the force of correction, the force of Esther and Mordechai.
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Related Material:
The Characters Of Purim: Haman
Haman’s Irrepressible Desires
Destined To Unite

Playing With Sensations

laitman_567_04Question: You often say that the wisdom of Kabbalah is a science that is grasped in the senses. But a science cannot be studied without the intellect, without thinking?

Answer: Of course, it is impossible. The wisdom of Kabbalah is not grasped in the senses, but we feel in feelings. Then we check these feelings: we divide, we compare among themselves, we give them graduating numbers as though weighing them.

In fact, Kabbalah is playing with feelings. But it orders them systematically, and we start to see the interaction of desires, what feelings arise in each of them.

In Kabbalah, we measure very precisely all the feelings and give them a numeric name, determining their power, direction, properties and so on. Therefore, we have a science of feelings, because the only matter of our world is desire.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is depicted as the science of emotions because the only matter in our world is the desire, and what is felt in the desire is called sensing, which is felt as the Light that operates and affects the desire. This means that, by measuring the changes in the desire, we measure the Light that operates and affects it.

Question: What comes first, a person’s mind or the desire?

Answer: The desire comes first and the mind follows, and this is how we develop. Where does a child’s mind come from? It is only as a result of the development of the desire.

The greater the desire that a person has, the more he needs a mind in order to acquire all of his desires and control them.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/17/16

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Feelings Are First, The Mind Is Secondary
The Mind Only Evaluates Feelings
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People Who Are Close Become Part Of Our Identity

laitman_929In the News (from psychologytoday.com): “A new study has confirmed that humankind’s capacity for love and friendship sets us apart from all other species. Researchers at University of Virginia have found that humans are hardwired to empathize with those close to them at a neural level.

“People in your social network literally become entwined with your sense of self at a neural level. ‘With familiarity, other people become part of ourselves,’ …

“Humans have evolved to have our self-identity become woven into a neural tapestry with our loved ones. James Coan said, “Our self comes to include the people we feel close to. This likely is because humans need to have friends and allies who they can side with and see as being the same as themselves. And as people spend more time together, they become more similar.” …

“‘The correlation between self and friend was remarkably similar,’ Coan said. “The finding shows the brain’s remarkable capacity to model self to others; that people close to us become a part of ourselves, and that is not just metaphor or poetry, it’s very real. Literally we are under threat when a friend is under threat. But not so when a stranger is under threat.”

“‘It’s essentially a breakdown of self and other; our self comes to include the people we become close to,’ Coan said. ‘If a friend is under threat, it becomes the same as if we ourselves are under threat. We can understand the pain or difficulty they may be going through in the same way we understand our own pain.'”

 

My Comment: In general, we are parts of a common network, a web of relationships. We have yet to discover its universality. Accordingly, we can understand the extent to which we each shape each others’ lives, which means that a complete connection between us will bring us to a perfect existence. Out of necessity, everyone becomes close and connects as in a network.
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Dispelling Myths About Kabbalah, Part 3

Laitman_137Secular people and Kabbalah

Question: Why is there an opinion that one can study Kabbalah only after he has mastered all of the Torah and Talmud?

Answer: The great Kabbalist the Ari and his disciple Haim Vital explain in their books that one should study all the books of the Torah and Talmud, but after he has revealed the Creator. After the revelation, he can fill himself with the Light through the study of the Talmud.

People studied the Talmud with the purpose of revealing the Creator even before the destruction of the Temple. After all, the entire Torah talks about the law of love of your neighbor. If a person begins to love others, he senses and includes within himself the entire spiritual world, which exists outside of his ego.

When he obtains the property of bestowal, he begins to study Talmud and perceives everything written there in the correct way. In other words, he sees that it is talking about spiritual concepts rather than their material branches in this world.

That is, anyone who has a desire can study Kabbalah, and they can start with Kabbalah before mastering Gemara, Mishna, and Torah. I can add only that I brought forty students from Tel Aviv to my teacher Rabash. They were absolutely secular people. I suspect that most of them did not know Torah even from the school curriculum. Yet Rabash accepted them, and they began studying Kabbalah right after that.

The study of Kabbalah was banned because the Jews went into exile, during which time they were not supposed to turn to Kabbalah. We had to wait for the end of the exile, which occurred at the end of the 20th century, about 20 years ago.

From that point on, Kabbalah is open all. As Baal HaSulam wrote, the period of exile completely ended in 1995. From that moment, this wisdom has become open for everyone.

Question: Some people think that the exile ended with the founding of the State of Israel.

Answer: I give the definition adopted in the wisdom of Kabbalah by the Kabbalists.
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From the Israeli Radio Program 103FM 2/28/16

Related Material:
Dispelling Myths About Kabbalah, Part 2
Dispelling Myths About Kabbalah, Part 1
Like Water Seeping Through Sand

Planet Earth Has No Parallel

laitman_746_01In the News (Scientific American): “More than 400 years ago Renaissance scientist Nicolaus Copernicus reduced us to near nothingness by showing that our planet is not the center of the solar system. With every subsequent scientific revolution, most other privileged positions in the universe humans might have held dear have been further degraded, revealing the cold truth that our species is the smallest of specks on a speck of a planet, cosmologically speaking. A new calculation of exoplanets suggests that Earth is just one out of a likely 700 million trillion terrestrial planets in the entire observable universe. But the average age of these planets—well above Earth’s age—and their typical locations—in galaxies vastly unlike the Milky Way—just might turn the Copernican principle on its head.

“Astronomer Erik Zackrisson from Uppsala University and his colleagues created a cosmic compendium of all the terrestrial exoplanets likely to exist throughout the observable universe, based on the rocky worlds astronomers have found so far. …

“With the estimated errors taken into account, the researchers conclude that Earth stands as a mild violation of the Copernican principle. Our pale blue dot might just be special after all. ‘It’s not too much of a fluke that we could arise in a galaxy like the Milky Way, but nevertheless, it’s just enough to make you think twice about it,’ says Jay Olson from Boise State University, who was not involved in the study. Both he and Zackrisson think the Copernican principle could be saved by some unknown caveat to the findings. ‘Whenever you find something that sticks out…’ Zackrisson says, ‘…that means that either we are the result of a very improbable lottery draw or we don’t understand how the lottery works.’”

My Comment: We exist in a world of natural laws where the Creator is the highest force of nature that combines everything. Besides this force, or more precisely, this thought, everything is just a figment of our imagination.

In general, we do not exist, except in our subjective sensations. So to talk about other planets and about the possibility of conditions for existence on them is meaningless. It is best to grow into the likeness of the Creator, to feel the true state – only the existence of the Creator, because “there is none else beside Him” (Deuteronomy 4:35).
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The “Mosaic” Of The Earth Is One Of A Kind
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New Life #608 – The Legalization Of Cannabis In Israel

New Life #608 – The Legalization Of Cannabis In Israel
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Summary:

Years ago I saw the legalization of cannabis coming. When the war against cigarettes began, I realized that it was in order to bring in cannabis. Governments, regimes, doctors, anyone who deals with the public, wants people to be more calm. But this process won’t work out so well since it is against the general plan of development and the goal of creation.

We know that there have always been drugs, but the problem today is that a person doesn’t feel that there is anything he can do in this world. After the desires for food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge, a desire to understand why I am alive awakens.

In ancient cultures, the use of cannabis was totally different than the way it is consumed today. The use of cannabis today stems from the feeling of emptiness. There is nothing to do in life and cannabis calms people and makes them sleepy. Soon we will feel it is not enough to relax a bit; we will feel we need to understand what we are living for in the first place.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #608 – The Legalization Of Cannabis In Israel,” 8/9/15

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 03.28.16

Preparation for the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” Item 44

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The Book of Zohar — Selected Excerpts, “Ki Tetze,” “The Exile Continues,” Item 21

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Writings of Rabash, “Letter 66”

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