Audio Version Of The Blog – 08.14.16

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Who Is A Kabbalist?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: At what point does Kabbalah become a science?

Answer: Kabbalah becomes a science when a Kabbalist is engaged in it.

A Kabbalist is one who has achieved the state of “receiving for the sake of bestowal.” A person who possesses such properties understands the Creator’s actions within himself and in the universe. He becomes a researcher of the entire space revealed before him.

Therefore he is called a Kabbalist. Those who study Kabbalah are the students of Kabbalists for now since they are on the path to the attainment of the spiritual world.
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From the Convention In Moscow, Day Two 5/3/16, Lesson 5

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Spiritual Interaction Between Husband And Wife

Laitman_506_1Question: Which forces and spiritual laws have an influence on a correct relationship between husband and wife and how is it possible to learn how to use them?

Answer: The right mutual relationships between husband and wife are realized when they become friends and they create the same conditions between them that exist in a group of Kabbalists. I heard this many times from my teacher, the great Kabbalist, Rabash.

If a husband and wife work correctly with each other mutually and grow spiritually together, the Creator will be revealed between them and they will become a small group.

This surely does not exclude participation by the wife in a women’s group or the participation of the husband in a men’s group, but they do create a normal, physical, and full group between them.

Question: Are you aware of couples like these? How do they interact with each other?

Answer: I was told that there were couples like these in the distant past, but I didn’t see this with my teacher Rabash even though his wife understood very well what he was involved with and they lived together for 65 years. Even his father, the great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam was not connected with his wife like this.

The students of Rabash partially aspired to do this, but due to the lack of time and energy to implement spiritual activities among us, we learned more in a men’s group and the women studied separately.

We were the first group to have broken into the wisdom of Kabbalah by attaining the upper world, so we didn’t have enough power, patience, and mind to create connections like these in the family. We were pioneers in studying and attaining the wisdom of Kabbalah, so in his time nothing worked smoothly.

Question: Would it be correct for a husband and wife to discover the other half within them first and only after that connect and advance together toward the Creator?

Answer: No, there is no need to divide anything. It is completely possible to succeed in discovering it through a group specifically and not in the connection between you. There are many different possibilities here.

We are now in a transitional period in which great and expanding masses are beginning to study the wisdom of Kabbalah, so there is no way of knowing clearly whether we must specifically act mutually with a wife or a husband and then in a group or the opposite, first in groups and then each other.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/6/16

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Women’s Questions

laitman_606Question: Does a woman have to yearn for the attribute of bestowal if she was created as the part that receives?

Answer: The two sexes are equal in attaining the Creator, and each of them has both a male and a female part.

Question: How can I stop raising my voice to my husband and children?

Answer: Your husband and children exist inside you and only seem to exist on the outside, and so you have to first turn you the husband and children that are inside you and only then to the figures that are on the outside.
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Ynet: “The Man Who Paved The Spiritual Way Of The Nation Of Israel”

From my column in Ynet: “The Man Who Paved The Spiritual Way Of The Nation Of Israel”

At the age of 35 he appeared in Safed, mysterious and majestic, and during the two and half years before his sudden death he changed the course of history and brought about a tremendous change. Thanks to him the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed to anyone who wished to study it and not just a chosen few. The ARI, Rabbi Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, the greatest Kabbalist of Safed passed away on the 5th of Av 444 years ago. He left behinda method of study and a relevant message, which were adapted to our times by Baal HaSulam, Rav Yehuda Ashlag.

 “If I had found even one righteous among you, I would not have been taken away from this world before my time,” said the ARI sorrowfully to his students a few moments before he passed away

Rav Isaac Cohen, who was by his side, sobbed bitterly and said “What shall we do now?” and the ARI answered: “Tell the friends on my behalf that from now on they will not engage in the wisdom that I have taught them at all, since they did not understand it properly and only Rav Chaim Vital will engage in it in hiding and by whispering.” Rav Isaac Cohen was very upset and asked “Is there any hope?” “If you are rewarded I will come and teach you,” the ARI answered. “How will you come and teach us after you pass away?!” asked Isaac Cohen again. “You have no business inquiring what is hidden,” answered the ARI and passed away at the age of only 38! (Shaar HaGilgulim)

The Zohar: The ARI’s Whole World

The ARI was the greatest Kabbalist in 16th century Safed and one of the central and most significant figure in the history of the nation of Israel and the wisdom of Kabbalah. He was born in Jerusalem in 1534. His father died when he was eight and the family encountered many hardships as a result. In order to improve their situation, his mother decided to move to Egypt to live with her brother. There the ARI lived most of his life, and delved into the study of The Zohar.

After attaining tremendous spiritual levels and by his special concealed understanding of the development of humanity, he felt that the time had come to reveal it. He moved to Israel and settled in Safed. The ARI knew that he would meet Rabbi Chaim Vital, his loyal student, who would later write his teachings and spread his wisdom in the world.

Thus in 1570, at the age of 36 the ARI moved to Israel and settled in Safed, the city of the Kabbalists. It was centuries after the time of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi) and the Zohar group, years during which humanity had waited for the right teacher who would open the next spiritual level of the wisdom of Kabbalah. The ARI’s arrival to Israel and the publication of The Book of Zohar were clear signs that the time had come.

The Spark of Rashbi

Once he reached Safed, the ARI began to study with the great Kabbalist of the time, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (the Ramak). But shortly afterward the two exchanged roles, the ARI began to teach the group of Kabbalists and the Ramak learned from him.

Rabbi Moshe Cordovero was to first to acknowledge the young Kabbalist’s greatness and as his friend and student he used to say: “You should know that one man who sits here will rise after me and enlighten the generation with the wisdom of Kabbalah. If the pipes were clogged in my time, the pipes will be revealed in his times. You should know that he is a great man, the spark of Rashbi.”

At that time humanity was in an unprecedented turmoil: the Middle Ages were over; the Renaissance began and brought about revolutionary changes in technology and in industry. The human ego erupted and pushed the world to an accelerated evolution and to many storms. Two hundred years later humanity was about to undergo fierce radical changes in Europe, especially bloody revolutions and civil wars.

The ARI who had foreseen the changes in human nature realized that he had to develop an alternative path of spiritual development that would balance the eruption of the ego in order to avoid the terrible suffering. He thus adapted the wisdom of Kabbalah and turned it into a scientific, practical academic method, instead of the method of connection, which until then was allowed only to very few special people. According to his method, if his instructions are followed correctly, people would be able to and the masses would engage in it. The method of correction, which he developed (and is still studied today) lead to an unprecedented shift in the spiritual development of humanity and totally changed history.

The Baton Is Given to Rabbi Chaim Vital

Only two and a half years were enough for the ARI to leave his significant hallmark on the history of Kabbalah. At the same time he never wrote any of his teachings. His whole Kabbalistic theory is known to us only from the writings of his students and the most prominent one and his follower Rabbi Chaim Vital (Harav).

Just as Rabbi Aba served by Rabbi Shimon’s (Rashbi’s) side to write down his teachings, which were to be published in The Book of Zohar, so did the Harav write down the whole wisdom from the mouth of his teacher, which today is known as the ARI’s Kabbalah.

“First a person should arrange his prayers and accept the commandment of love thy friend as thyself and tune his heart to love all of the children of Israel as his own soul, since by that his prayer that includes all of the prayers of Israel rises and will be fruitful. Everyone should include himself as an organ of his friends. If a friend is in trouble, everyone should share his sorrow, and pray for him, and thus he should share all his prayers and his actions and his words with his friend, and my teacher greatly warned me regarding the matter of our love of friends.” (Shaar HaKavanot)

The Harav didn’t add anything to the words of the ARI, and when he wasn’t sure whether he understood his teacher, he specifically said so. One of the major works of the ARI is the book Etz HaChaim (The Tree of Life), which describes all the systems of the upper worlds and the laws of the creation as a clear scientific method, and also the Eight Gates, a series of books, which also includes explanations about reincarnations.

His Successors

“The Holy ARI was Messiah Ben Yoseph, and so he could reveal such a great wisdom,” said Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag. His great wisdom symbolizes the point between the end of the period of exile, which was characterized by a great division between people and the beginning of the redemption, characterized by wonderful unity between all of mankind. “If I could say words of praise I would praise him every day and say that his wisdom is being revealed every day just like the day the Torah was given to Israel.”

Baal HaSulam was the first in the 20th century to reach the spiritual level of the ARI and could therefore interpret his writings for our generation. He wrote a wonderful connection called The Study of the Ten Sefirot and in the introduction he wrote that the book was meant for anyone in our days who wishes to find the answer to the question of “What am I living for?”

This question has not disappeared and is hidden in every person’s heart. Just as terrible crises erupted in the time of the ARI, which shook humanity and spurred many into asking this questions, so do such crises occur today: a series of terrorist attacks all over the world, the rise of radical Islam, the fading of the EU, the growing polarization between different sectors and communities, and so on. It is actually by studying and reading the special method developed by the ARI with the commentary of Baal HaSulam , his follower, that we can find an answer to the meaning of life. They immediately raise a person to spirituality and enable him to feel the unity on top of the separation that rules us and leads to global destruction.

“If my people listened to me at times when the evil grows strong, they would spend all their time studying The Book of Zohar and the writings of the ARI and thus annul all the afflictions and draw an abundance of Light (Notzar Hesed). It is enough to study from these two great Kabbalists who have paved the way for us to the attainment of happiness, wholeness and eternity in order to build the right connections between us for a good life and to climb up the spiritual ladder, which they have placed for us, a ladder that reaches the sky.
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From Ynet article 8/8/16

The Order Of Correction Of Desires

laitman_232_04Torah, “Deuteronomy,” 7:22 – 7:23: And the Lord, your God, will drive out those nations from before you, little by little. You will not be able to destroy them quickly, lest the beasts of the field outnumber you. But the Lord, your God, will deliver them to you, and He will confound them with great confusion, until they are destroyed.

The process of correcting desires occurs gradually, from the lightest to the heaviest. Nations are our desires on the level of man. The beasts of the field, locusts, gnats, and so on symbolize desires of the animal level.

Everything that comes from the earth, eruptions (until you root up the ground), floods, etc., are desires of the still level. That is, there can be anything you want at any level: the still, vegetative, animal, and human, and all this is within a person and is subject to correction.

Therefore it happens gradually, starting from the smallest desire and ending with the greatest one. Although, basically if you can correct a large, high desire, everything included in this category and which is under this desire is corrected.

Question: Does it mean we can correct the biggest desire first?

Answer: It depends upon where a person is. In principle, initially everything is corrected on the lowest level and upward.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/27/16

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New Life #324 – Truth And Falsehood

New Life #324 –  Truth And Falsehood
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

What is the meaning of truth and falsehood in our lives, according to what are they defined, in which cases is it possible to relate to falsehood as truth, and is it possible to reach absolute truth?

We don’t know what truth is. Every generation has different values; each person changes during his life.

It is human nature to think constantly only about oneself and one’s own good. If so, what kind of truth can there be here? For me, truth is what is good for me and falsehood is what is bad for me.

All of our lives are one big lie. I want to exploit everyone for my own good, but I hide this. It follows that there is no absolute truth or absolute falsehood; everything is a matter of expediency. This is very prominent in politics.

Even when a person does something good for someone else, it is only because he feels close to him. It follows that truth is our nature, meaning our desire to receive, to control, to exploit everything for our good.

Our children are less hypocritical than we are. We received an education about how to speak nicely and so forth. This has no power over them.

Once there were ideals, Socialism, Zionism. Today it is clear that everyone appeals only to himself and everything is a lie. Today there is no power in making an investment. It is even possible to download everything for free on the Internet with the press of a button.

What a person thinks of as his truth is basically the result of the education he received. When the question, “What am I living for?” is awakened, I have an opportunity to get closer to discovering the truth about myself.

In the Torah it is forbidden to lie, for its goal is to raise the person to the height of, “You shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), to the truth. Accordingly, falsehood is anything that doesn’t bring me to love of others.

The higher power is entirely love, giving and bestowal. There are no lies in it. I am the opposite, and my work is to become like it.

Truth and falsehood are relative. A white lie is a beneficial lie. It is necessary to check if the goal is for the good of others or a different goal. What must always guide me is the good of others, detached from my own self-interest. A man must compliment his wife for the sake of peace at home. The higher truth of “and you shall love your friend” is obligatory.

It is up to us to define the aspiration to love others as the goal of life. Without this, all of our lives would be false.

There are people who have a tendency to lie. They can also change. They specifically have a tendency toward creativity.

When advancing toward the truth, love of others, in the framework of the family, we go through all kinds of states. Each one must help others through giving a good example, showing that he is making an effort to love. How does one deal with a child who lies in the family?

Conclusion: If we define love of others as the goal of our lives, it is called living in the way of truth.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #324 –  Truth And Falsehood,” 3/23/14

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.14.16

Preparation for the Lesson

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Writings of Rabash, “Rungs of the Ladder,” “What Is, ‘Anyone Who Mourns for Jerusalem Is Rewarded with Seeing It’s Joy,’ In the Work”

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Writings of Rabash, “Dargot HaSulam,” Article 566

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Lesson on the Topic: “Tet-B’Av

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