Question: How does a Kabbalist relate to difficult events that happen in the world? Suppose they are personal like the death of relatives or some kind of disaster? How does he accept this?

Answer: A Kabbalist, like every person, experiences all kinds of feelings. However, he perceives everything, for instance the death of others and his own, the happiness of others or his own, a bit differently. There is a softening of his perception, as there is with a spiritually developed person.

Question: Is it possible to attain the level of Baal HaSulam and higher through learning the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: There are practically no limitations for anyone. Do you want to attain the level of the Creator? You are welcome.

Everything is open to everyone. Moreover, everyone must attain this level. Only then will he realize himself correctly and fully.

Question: How is it possible to use the earthly egoism for spiritual advancement?

Answer: We need corporeal egoism so that we will come to a group and act correctly within it in the fullest way. We read what Baal HaSulam and Rabash advise and we adapt everything that they recommend in their articles, and apply everything while maintaining connections in our world between our friends with clarifications about how we can unite, where egoism is found, etc. This is the realization of Kabbalah.

Question: What must we do so that we are not just sitting down and listening to you but are actively implementing advancement toward the upper world?

Answer: You need to create the conditions for maximal internal convergence, understanding, and support constantly. This is the spiritual action that we must perform, the same Kli (vessel) that we prepare for discovering the Creator.

Question: Why doesn’t the Creator perform some kind of miracle now, like in the time of Moses, to attract a greater number of people to a desire to attain it?

Answer: Because then it would then be an imposed desire, not a desire created and matured within a person.

Question: If everything around me and me, myself are the Creator, where is the evil inclination, the ego?

Answer: Don’t get confused. Everything is very simple. If we were to remove your ego and all of the disturbances and undesirable thoughts about others, then instead of all these obstacles, the Creator would be revealed. Try to perform an exercise like this among you.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 6/24/18

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Our entire spiritual ascent completely depends on the group. Therefore, the war is always about how to connect, unite, and reach such a state when the upper Light is revealed inside the connection, unites us, and elevates us from our level to the higher degree. However, if we do not make a sufficient effort for the upper Light, which is supposed to elevate us, then it acts from behind and brings us difficulties, troubles, problems, and wars. The Light urges us to awaken and to want its help in order to rise from our degree to the next, either through good or not so pleasant ways.

The Kabbalistic group, the ten, works like an elevator. If a person invests a certain amount of efforts into it, then this elevator starts working on him, attracting the upper Light to him, and raising him to the next floor. This is called a spiritual ascent.¹

If I do not ascend in my qualities, bestowal, and attainments, it means that I am not integrated with the ten. I have to see that the ten is ready to absorb and elevate me. If I do not see that, it is only because I “judge according to my own flaws”; otherwise, I would see them in the ideal state. That is, everything depends on me.

If the Creator brought me to the group and said, “Take it, this is your good fortune,” I should annul myself completely and then I will be able to ascend. As soon as the work at this stage finishes, the next floor appears before me. I should again annul myself to the ten, which already seems to me as a different, more advanced one, and perhaps even worse than before.

Again, the same work begins: justification, connection, and annulment. By making a certain amount of efforts, I will again turn the elevator on and it will lift me up a little more. It is the same each time: I annul myself to the group in order to see it as ideal and perfect, and thus I ascend higher and higher.²

If I annul myself to the group, I reveal that they are not friends, but spiritual qualities that only seemed to me as people having various problems and flaws. In fact, they are nine angels sent to help me, lifting me up on their wings.

As soon as I ascend, the same work restarts: I receive a burdening of the heart and fall; I start seeing friends as even worse than before, not at all as angels. It seems to me that they do not want to and cannot unite. I absolutely do not understand what I am doing with them and seems better to search for spirituality alone.

I then totally lose interest in spirituality until time does its work, and I start working on myself thereby realizing that everything depends on me. There is no other reality but me, the ten, and the Creator. All the rest is my ego’s distorted imagination.

I try to see that everything around me is in bestowal, in the spiritual world, and that the presence of the Shechina (Divinity) manifests in the entire world. I try to connect with the group and ask for help until the efforts reach their full amount and my ten turns into a spiritual elevator that lifts me up to the next degree. This is how I move from level to level, “from cloud to cloud.”³

Do not expect that this will happen at a certain time, like in the story of Cinderella, and that the group by itself will turn from a pumpkin into a carriage. It depends only on our work.⁴

Although it seems to us that we are running in the same place, we are indeed advancing. The calculation is made not on kilometers, but on efforts applied.⁵

What we see the group is the next world that exists within this world. A group is such a room that upon entering you find yourself in the next world, as if after death. If you do not want to enter it, all that is left for you is to wait for a real death. However, you have an opportunity to receive eternal, happy life right now. You just need to slightly change your ideas about kindness and eternity from egoistic and temporary concepts of our world to truly eternal and perfect ones.

Change your mind and heart a little and begin to live according to eternal and perfect laws. Otherwise you will remain a one-day butterfly, which lives only a day and dies.⁶
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12/5/18, Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 8:40
3 Minute 11:25
4 Minute 20:20
5 Minute 22:10
6 Minute 58:30

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Rabash, “Concerning the Importance of Friends”: But with love of friends, when friends bond to create unity among them, it explicitly means that they are equal. This is called “unity.” For example, if they do business together and say that the profits will not be distributed equally, is this called “unity”? Clearly, a business of love of friends should be when all the profits and possessions that the love of friends yields will be equally controlled by them. They should not hide or conceal from one another, but everything will be with love, friendship, truthfulness, and peace.

It seems that this describes the ideal states. But it is impossible to fulfill them if the friend and I are not connected through the Creator. Only thanks to the fact that we are connected with each other in Him we can behave this way. Only this can obligate us.

Question: What kind of profit is there?

Answer: It does not matter. Profit can be material or it can be spiritual. The main thing is that only contact in the Creator can obligate us and force us to accept the conditions of mutual guarantee, unity, and other requirements.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 5/9/18

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Thrive Global published my new article: “What Is The Authentic Source Of Happiness?”

Kabbalah is a method that teaches how to create a positively connected society of happy individuals, balanced with nature.

Everyone wants to be happy. There are myriad interpretations of what happiness is, how to be happy, and what the source of happiness is, and certainly, if we could identify an authentic source of happiness, then we could be confident in a goal to aspire toward.

In this examination on an authentic source of happiness, we will look into:

• whether there is such a thing as an authentic source of happiness,
• whether happiness is subjective and relative to each person, or whether there can be a source of happiness common to all,
• the roles society and its values play on our happiness,
• what stands in the way of being happy all the time,
• the role human nature plays on our happiness,
• defining an authentic source of happiness and the kind of transformation needed to experience it.

Is there such a thing as an authentic source of happiness?

Is happiness subjective and relative to every person, or can there be a source of happiness common to all?

In order to examine these questions, it is important to view ourselves as a social species, viewing our lives in connection with others, and that the quality of our connections influences our perspectives and sensations of happiness.

The fact that we’re a social species differentiates us from animals. We are molded and affected by our surroundings at every moment of our lives. Our birthplace, where we’re raised, our families, schools, teachers, friends, work colleagues, as well as our culture and the media we absorb and engage with, all influence our definitions of what it means to be happy, how we can achieve happiness and what we do in order to achieve it.

Many happiness studies have already concluded that a positively connected and supportive society provides the basis for its members’ happiness. A social foundation where everyone tends to each other—receiving as much as each individual needs and working for everyone’s benefit—is an optimal setup for each person’s happiness.

What interferes with our happiness?

The problem is that where there is society, there are social desires, i.e. desires for money, honor, respect, fame, control, power and knowledge. Our individual pursuits to fulfill these desires at others’ expense interferes with our happiness. For instance, if a person wants to become rich, powerful or famous, he must continually struggle to out-compete others, building his pursuit of such goals by disturbing or ruining the wealth, power or fame of others.

Moreover, human nature, which is a desire to enjoy, works such that when we enjoy something, our desire for that enjoyment extinguishes upon its reception, and a new desire surfaces in its place. This modus operandi of human nature makes us feel constantly unsatisfied and wanting.

This formula we live by—the pursuit of happiness at others’ expense coupled with the constant dissatisfaction embedded in human nature—is the antithesis to happiness. It can then be concluded that if our sources of happiness remain as individual quests for pleasure at others’ expense, we will never experience a lasting, blossoming form of happiness. We will be plagued by our desires becoming emptied all the time, and will endure increasing dissatisfaction until we will ultimately despair from trying to make our way in society with competitive, individualistic motives.

It is a must for every nation to be strongly united within, so all the individuals within it are attached to one another by instinctive love. Moreover, each individual should feel that the happiness of the nation is one’s own happiness, and the nation’s decadence is one’s own decadence… It means that the people of that nation, who sense that harmony, are the ones who make the nation, and the measure of happiness of the nation and sustainability are measured by their quality.

– Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag, The Nation.

Public opinion today venerates rivalry and individual achievement. In other words, if you trample upon your competition in order to succeed as an individual, you’re viewed with respect. It is an interwoven symptom of the individualistic-competitive values we are raised with, from our schools and universities, through the films, music, media, TV shows and Internet discussions we regularly engage with. Therefore, if we seek an authentic source of happiness, we need to first surmise that nothing will change if our egoistic human nature continues absorbing social influences that feed into its selfish direction at others’ expense.

Even if we define an authentic source of happiness that can satisfy everyone—a limitless form of pleasure that fills us when we engage in giving to and positively connecting with others—we still won’t experience lasting happinessif society as a whole fails to prioritize values of giving, kindness, altruism and positive connection over present-day competitive-individualistic values.

What will increase awareness of the authentic source of happiness?

The rise in misfortunes and problems in human society will play their role to raise awareness of why we fail to achieve an authentic and lasting form of happiness. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this state is called “recognition of evil.” It means that problems and crises accumulate until we see that as much as we want to live happy and harmonious lives, we don’t, and moreover, the situation worsens. Eventually, we will realize that the solution is in a fundamental shift of our values—from competitive-individualistic-egoistic values to cooperative-connected-altruistic ones—and that the educational institutions and media permeating values into our lives need to accept major responsibility in such a transformation.

The very appearance of happiness science and positive psychology in an age where depression has risen to become the world’s most prominent disease shows a clear example of how, as our sorrows worsen, we seek to counter them with an antidote.

It is this same era that the authors of The Book of Zohar, as well as the most renowned Kabbalist of the 20th Century, Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) stated that the authentic wisdom of Kabbalah would become revealed and available to all, as a method to guide society to the kinds of positive connections that can make everyone happy.

Kabbalah is a method that teaches how to create a positively connected society of happy individuals, balanced with nature. It does this by guiding its participants through a process of experimentation in connecting with others in order to attract a force of connection dwelling in nature, which has the power to change us to make us more considerate of each other. Thus, a person will learn to aspire not only to fulfill his or her own happiness, but that of others as well. A harmonious human society will then be built to ensure the happiness of every individual.

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New Life #107 – The New World of Work, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

Do you want to get up in the morning full of energy like a child going to the playground? The integral approach to business in the new world of work provides employees at all levels with an environment for development and prosperity. Engaging in challenges and hard work become enjoyable when we’re with friends. Loving human relationships can build balance, closeness, and unity in the workplace. Today, workers feel isolated and threatened, as though they were in prison. Each does his part and doesn’t want to interact with the others. Relationships between suppliers, customers, and shareholders are becoming increasingly dry. Tension, alienation, and pressure at home are affecting the level of focus of employees at work. The broken connections between people have led to global deterioration, destruction, protectionism, fascism, and terrorism. We will either attain the new approach through proactive education or through suffering, hatred, war, and the recognition of evil. The integral approach of relating well above all negativity needs to be taught through mutual example and social pressure. We need to learn how to accept one another and connect like family in order to continue to exist as a human species.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #107 – The New World of Work,” part 2, 12/5/12

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Covenant Of Salt” (Preparation for the Virtual Convention 2018)

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”

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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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I check myself—is my prayer complete? I must try to do my best in helping the group to achieve the goal. And when I feel this burden slipping off me, that I am no longer able to keep carrying it, I cry out to the Creator for help—and He helps me, grants the property of bestowal.

Mass riots will move from France thru the EU because egoists can’t be close in such tight dependency. First, they need to be taught how to be close to each other and then brought together to that extent. They should accept the migrants only in the degree of readiness to live together

The Creator created a desire/Soul and planted egoism in it. Egoism split the Soul into repelling parts that must be united by love over hatred. Rejection increases love in the degree of difference between man and the Creator. In this difference of love over hate man finds the Creator
From Twitter, 12/12/18

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Rabash, “Concerning the Importance of Friends”: But how can one consider one’s friend greater than himself when he can see that his own merits are greater than his friend’s, that he is more talented and has better natural qualities? There are two ways to understand this:

1. He is going with faith above reason: once he has chosen him as a friend, he appreciates him above reason.
2. This is more natural—within reason. If he has decided to accept the other as a friend, and works on himself to love him, then it is natural with love to see only good things. And even though there are bad things in one’s friend, he cannot see them, as it is written, “love covers all transgressions.”

Question: What is unique about each path: working with friends in faith above reason or by natural development?

Answer: Faith above reason appears when a person receives a force from above to see others as greater than himself, closer to the Creator. Therefore, he starts treating them with more respect and care, becomes more cautious, as if in similarity with the Creator.

Gradually, acting on the basis of the fact that the Light obligates him to do so, his attitude toward his teacher and his friends, toward everything that relates to his spiritual advancement, becomes his permanent state.

A person changes, and the influence from above that he felt before seemingly dissipates and becomes integrated into his life.

Question: Should we not concern ourselves about these two paths?

Answer: We should only be in anticipation, in anticipation of receiving the upper Light, the force of bestowal. Our work consists of us wanting to show in advance that we are already in it, like a child playing an adult with toy cars, dolls, etc.

Question: What does the Light change in us through its influence?

Answer: Our relationship with the environment and with the Creator.

I see that I can use a friend correctly for our common goal. As a rule, I see him already not as an object for the application of my efforts, but as part of the Creator. After all, I cannot relate to the Creator directly, but I can to the friend. He is virtually an external sphere of my applied efforts sent to me by the Creator.

Question: Why is it better to see my friend within reason than in faith above reason?

Answer: It is more natural, since faith above reason enters a new degree. I receive the force that lets me relate to the friend as to the Creator. I see myself as the only one who has something to change and to correct. Everyone else is just acting out the will of the Creator since they actually are in adhesion with Him.

It follows that my faith above reason becomes my natural state.
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From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 5/30/18

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My article “The UN Partition Plan and the Rebirth of Israel: Where Are We Now?” published in The Times of Israel.

71 years ago, masses of Jews in Israel and the Diaspora gathered around radio transistors, fascinated by the most dramatic vote in Israel’s history. After long nerve-racking hours, in November 29, 1947, an American announcer’s concluding statement sliced ​​through the tense silence: “33 in favor, 13 against… The proposal is accepted.” The establishment of the State of Israel was declared.

If you would ask the previous generation of Jews where they were on November 29, 1947, one would answer with a memory of the burst of joy, dances and hugs, and another would cry, recalling their Holocaust story of survival. They would reminisce how cars honked, horns blew and cheers rose in the streets, and how the dream of a Jewish state took shape before their very eyes.

On the night of the announcement, we felt together, united as one. Since then, however, we have gone through 71 years of regularly surfacing wars and internal conflicts. We certainly have achievements to be proud of: a flag and an anthem, an army, an air force, and a flourishing hi-tech industry. Yet, have we become what we dreamt of, i.e. one people, whole, united, with an independent and free country? Also, what if there would be a vote at the UN today about whether or not the State of Israel should exist? Would anyone be willing to sign a similar resolution today?

There is an abyss between the dreams of the past and the reality of the present. We lost something significant along the way. Although we returned to the Land of the Patriarchs after 2,000 years of exile, and tried to renovate a Hebrew culture within its borders, our efforts have been insufficient. After 71 years, we have failed to find the bond among Israeli society and Jews worldwide that would make its initial moment of joy complete and lasting. Moreover, voices of resistance to the existence of the State of Israel get louder from one year to the next, claiming that the Jewish state has completely lost its right to exist and even call for its boycott.

However, Kabbalists think otherwise.

With all due respect to the United Nations, the justification for the existence of the Jewish state was created when our patriarch Abraham gathered a number of students from the Babylonians who had a desire to discover life’s source. Together, they discovered the method to transcend to a higher level of existence, which was characterized by peaceful bonds of love, unity and mutual responsibility above each individual’s inborn differences, which balanced this group with nature. That is, as nature operates according to laws of interconnection and interdependence, Abraham’s method revealed how people could rise above their differences, connecting on the same level of interconnection and interdependence as nature itself. Therefore, the realization of Abraham’s method and its transmission to humanity is the mandate we received from nature, both for our existence as a nation and for the people of Israel.

The long years of exile have alienated us from living according to Abraham’s method, and we have existed as any other nation. However, toward the end of the 19th century, a remarkable change took place. The Jewish people began to feel a strong need to return to their land and establish an independent state. With perfect timing, Abraham’s method—the wisdom of Kabbalah—also began to be rediscovered to all. In that context, Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) and Rav Kook, the great Kabbalists of the 20th century, determined that our independence as a Jewish State depends directly on the attainment of our independence from our corporeal life of differences and divisions. “As long as we do not raise our goal above the corporeal life, we will have no corporeal revival because the spiritual and the corporeal in us cannot dwell in one basket, for we are the children of the idea” (Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Exile and Redemption“).

In other words, it is impossible to build an Israeli society based on values ​​and principles stemming from our inborn, corporeal and egoistic natures, even though it seems as if we succeed in other countries. We returned to the Land of Israel for the sole purpose of building a society bonded by threads of love, unity and mutual responsibility above our inborn egoistic traits, and then to pass this ability to unite above differences to humanity, who indeed feels the increasing need for such unity in our times. This is the only justification for our existence in this land.

71 years after the most dramatic vote in Israel’s history is a time when anti-Semitism lifts its ugly head. At present, unfortunately, our main unifying element is our common fear of our enemies. Instead of unifying out of our characteristic positive, creative and innovative thrust to implement the method of unity that our ancestors once realized, we instead experience a negative, passive and transient form of unity only at times of anti-Semitic threats or attacks.

However, we needn’t despair. We should use this broken reality as an epic opportunity to rebuild our shared life as a nation on solid foundations sustained by what originally united us. If we want to celebrate like we did 71 years ago, we can do so by realizing our unique potential to unite above our differences. Until we do, anti-Semitism will continue intensifying as the world waits for us to unite and invite everyone into an expanding circle of unity and love, in balance with nature.
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