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The Inner Meaning Of The Hanukkah Holiday

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the spiritual meaning of the Hanukkah holiday?

Answer: Hanukkah symbolizes the ascent of the person above his egoism when he defeats the “Greeks” within him. These are all those characteristics that yearn for knowledge and want to dominate him.

In fact, spiritual attainment is not considered scientific because it is based on overcoming the ego through crises as happens in our world, not by using it.

Therefore, the Hanukkah holiday is filled with Light. It expresses the victory of our overcoming our inner egoistic drives.

Question: Does this mean I have no need of knowledge, called the “Greeks” within me?

Answer: No, beginning from the time of Abraham and on, humanity needed to develop in a completely different way, not physically nor intellectually, but spiritually through the development of our emotions to a state in which we begin to feel the nature that is hidden from us.

The Hanukkah holiday, which is the embodiment of the Light, symbolizes the discovery of the hidden nature.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/19/16

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Hanukkah Is A Stopover

laitman_222_0At some point in one’s life, a person begins to feel it as small, insignificant, and temporary that brings nothing to him and others. Indeed, what is in it apart from ordinary individuals?

What does he leave to his children and grandchildren, and what do they leave? Nothing! Everything is aimless—stupidity! We play games in this life like kids who constantly compete with each other. But basically it is all some kind of a game of nature that seemingly mocks us.

A person suddenly begins to feel that he needs to unravel this mystery of nature. It can’t be that nature created everything in vain: a cluster of stars, large galaxies and us—so small on this Earth! We feel as if we are on a small boat in an ocean of darkness. How do we understand what’s going on? I want to know! I want to control my own destiny!

When a person has this question, he begins to search, and gradually comes to Kabbalah.

In principle, it may take a few lives until he reaches the correct methodology through his developed desire: how to unveil the meaning of existence, its essence, and its mystery.

Kabbalah answers this very simply. Do you want to open your eyes? It isn’t difficult. The eyes should be directed outward and not inward. When you really open them, you won’t see the world you see in front of you now, because you see it within yourself! It is in your mind!

In order to open your eyes to the real world that exists outside of you, you need a special external influence—the Upper Light. You have to fight with yourself to stop looking inward seeing only yourself and all the rest through yourself.

Ahead is darkness, the crossing of the Red Sea, but you gradually will get out of the old vision of the world and with inner sight, will start looking outward, outside of yourself. At the same time, your physical body remains with you, but it will become completely extrinsic because you already exist in a new vision, in a new comprehension of the world, and there everything is different—other forces, and other objects.

Now you are not within your “box” that constantly deceives you and shows you illusory images, but you see forces and universes.
The transition from the bourgeois, ordinary state to the state of disclosing the eternal, perfect world, the huge system above the stars, above everything you observe now is called “coming to Hanukkah.”

This first step from the material you to the spiritual you is called a step toward the battle with your inner egoistic haters who constantly shoving on you more and more of the new pictures, annoy you, and do with you anything they want.

But if you win this fight, you come to a state of Hanukkah that is an intermediate state in the spiritual work, as a stopover on the path, a break, a short vacation.

Then comes the next stage of development, the next span from Hanukkah to Purim, which is an attainment of the upper world, its real revelation, when you take possession of it and begin to clearly use, manage, and own it.

The complete attainment of the upper world is Purim, that is not just a stopover like Hanukkah, but the final station—a great revelation of the entire universe to a person, where he gets all the answers, attainments, eternal, perfect conditions.

Thus, Hanukkah is the first and only stop on the road halfway to perfection, and it is very important. We celebrate it as a completely spiritual stop, because it is a complete separation from the previous egoistic state, but not yet an approach to the spiritual state. This is why it is so airy, suspended, like in a child, when you still do not possess the world, in which you appeared.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/19/16

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Hanukkah, A Children’s Holiday

laitman_600_02Question: Why is Hanukkah considered to be a children’s holiday?

Answer: It is because a baby who begins to perceive the world is basically just a small child. So are we, we are found in a situation like children when we are revealing the upper world.

In other words, when we reach the spiritual holiday of Hanukkah, our state is called a state of Katnut (smallness) of the soul—“Galgalta ve Eynaim.

So in our world we sing with children and eat jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot). In general, the holiday is very happy, soft, and childlike because that is how we begin to reveal the upper world; in spiritual attainment we are still children.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/19/16

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Answers To Your Questions, Part 157

laitman_570Question: What can you say about a state in which you wake up in the middle of the night and feel an unbearable pain in your soul and think that it is because you are missing (not doing what you should for the root of your soul) what you were given?

Answer: This is a wonderful way in which the Creator reminds you that He exits.

Question: You helped me understand the main thing in life: to see an actual meaning in bestowal, to break out of the dark shell of the ego, and to take a step toward the abyss of fear.

I lived in thoughts and understanding and easily grasped the wisdom of Kabbalah in my mind, but it is only now that the world is changing, only now is this path directly revealed in my feelings. Nothing is redundant; everything leads only to one thing, to correction.

What should I do so that the restrictions of the ego will not be so painful? The ego is growing immensely and I don’t always manage to build a connection above it, while hell is very dark.

Do you actually undergo such terrible states before every ascent? How do you break it? After all, every time the push is increasingly stronger and there is no way back, while after every ascent there is a sharp fall. How can I ascend above this without injuring those who are close to me? How can I feel it when I am lonely? This is a burning question, and I am sorry if I refer to the corporeal world by it.

Answer: You should dedicate more time to studying and dissemination.
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Hanukkah Is A Celebration Of Victory Over Ourselves

Laitman_155Hanukkah seems like a childish, not very serious holiday. But, in fact, it is the most significant holiday because it speaks about a person’s entry into the spiritual work, his first step, his crossing the border between the material and the spiritual worlds.

In order to cross this border, a person must go against the “Greeks” in him, against his egoism. He defeats these impure, egoistic forces because he stands against them and is not afraid.

Yet, we reveal that we have no strength to stand against the egoistic desire. Where can it come from if we are a complete product of this egoism and all we have is a tiny spark that opposes it.

But if we hold on and don’t back off, then a miracle happens—again and again comes the Upper Light, performs its work, and “conveys the strong into the hands of the weak.” Our desire to bestow is very weak so far, almost imperceptible. However, the miracle happens and help comes from above, giving us the force of bestowal, the altruistic intention, and faith, through which we can win.

The victory comes when a person, on the one hand feels that he is obliged to win this war, but on the other hand has no strength and he reaches despair, having exhausted all his possibilities. We see from history that many Jews left the path of light and adopted the Greek’s approach to life. Only the Maccabees remained, a small handful of the people who started the war.

“The Greeks attacked me,” and at the same time a person feels that he must continue to fight with his last strength, without any hope for success. He can’t give up, because otherwise he will remain enslaved by egoism. Then a miracle happens and he wins this war. The Exodus from Egypt and Hanukkah, the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, are all stages of the same war.

This entire war is on the border of the material and the spiritual worlds, between egoistic forces and the forces of bestowal and love. A person sees that between him and the spiritual world is a wall. Only if he can give up his egoistic desires and thoughts, will he begin to feel the spiritual world in this vacant space.

This realization doesn’t come immediately but after a long time and much effort because it is necessary to find new measures and new sensations so that a person will obtain the connection with the spiritual. Then he discovers the “Greeks” that he didn’t see before and realizes that he will have a war with them.

It is a great joy because he finally discovers that he faces a formidable barrier. This barrier is inside the person, in his perception of the world and reality, and in his previous life’s values.

Now he needs to dress into a new person who thinks and sees differently, prefers other values, and acquires completely new feelings, mind, and perception of the world. So begins the Maccabean War with our internal “Greeks.”
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From the lesson on the topic “Hanukkah by the wisdom of Kabbalah” 12/20/16

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New Life 795 – The Wisdom Of The Tribe

New Life 795 – The Wisdom Of The Tribe
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

According to the program of nature, we should not leave the tribal framework. Egoism keeps us apart from each other and we need to learn to connect.

A person becomes wiser in a tribe because he learns the wisdom of nature, the wisdom of connection.

In the emotional or spiritual dimension, we discover that we are all one, that all of us are part of the system of Adam HaRishon (the First Man).

Abraham taught his students how to connect above the growing egoism that separates us, about how “love covereth all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12), so they were successful in protecting tribal life through connection. In connection, we discover the inner power in nature, the good force, the force of connection, thanks to which everything exists. The revelation of this force develops wisdom in us. “Hochma” (wisdom) is composed of the same letters as “Koach Ma” (what strength). A person learns to identify in advance the negative forces that come and knows how to balance them with the help of positive forces.

Nature is a single connected system, a positive energy called life flows between all the living cells in nature; the upper force connects everything. If we transcend the ego, we penetrate into the nature of the upper world, the door to a new world.

Life today is compelling us to return to the wisdom of connection that Abraham discovered and to become a single connected tribe.

Physics explores the connection between inanimate particles, while the wisdom of Kabbalah explores beyond time, movement, and space.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 795 – The Wisdom Of The Tribe,” 11/29/16

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 01.02.17

Preparation for the Lesson

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Lesson on the Topic: “Education for Concession”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah,” (Giving of the Torah), Item 6 

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