Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Rabash, Vol. 1, Article 3 “Love of Friends – 1” (1984)
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 274
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Title “Appellations Alien to the Human Spirit”
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Psalm: “Creator, You lay my hand on a good fate, saying “Take this for yourself.'” All a person can do is yearn for the Creator, through the unity with the group—to the property of bestowal. And later on he will discover that the Creator has laid a quiet narrow path for him …
… amid the collective hard life.
Everyone should do his best to give the group a spirit of life, hope, and energy to keep working from a new start every time: a person was disappointed with his advancement in the spiritual work, but now the friends gave him the strength and faith to overcome all obstacles ….
…. and achieve perfection.
The #Torah is given to illuminate darkness. It performs two actions:
1. Its light reforms a person toward equivalence with the Creator, which removes the concealment and reveals the property of bestowal.
2. Allows you to perform acts of bestowal and reveals the Torah’s secrets:
…. how to attain the Creator and the state “Torah-Israel-Creator are one.”
As soon as those possessing the “point of yearning for the Creator” are united into one group, all of humanity will strive after them. Because they can be guarantors and leaders of all mankind. Therefore, its correction and closeness depend only on those who are striving for Him.
#EU is destroying Europe! The solution is to leave the EU that is bringing Europe down. It is a curse for Europe—a gathering of egoists. Europe doesn’t want to pay for defense although it is dependent on other countries and #Russia.
Trump wants to quickly move away from the sinking EU so as not to let it pull America along.
It’s impossible for a person to get himself up. But, if, with his desire to rise, he chooses a good environment and cancels himself before it—the environment lifts him up. The more he cancels himself and yearns toward the environment, the faster the Creator reveals himself in it.
If one finds himself in a group that “in general” strives toward the Creator, then his progress depends on his desire to receive from the Creator the force of bestowal through the group.
But this desire he receives from the group as well, from the envy and jealousy to their success in their relationship with each other and their closeness to the Creator.
From Twitter, 1/13/19
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Medium published my new article “Addictions: Discover the Drug of Life”
We are all addicted. Society is organized in such a way that at any given moment in our lives, we become addicted to something: things we are used to do or consume from childhood, certain food, a way of thinking or behaving and different forms of entertainment, to name a few. In short, we become addicted to any pattern learned at home during our upbringing or developed throughout our lives from the environment. All these conditions construct what we are and what we are prone to, defining our tendency to potential addictions, including deadly ones. If that is the case, how can a person be liberated from a harmful dependency?
Harvard Medical School defines addiction as a “loss of control over indulging in a substance or performing an action or behavior, and continued craving for it despite negative consequences.” In fact, those adverse results are affecting a whole generation. The opioid epidemic, for instance, causes 155 deaths every day in the United States. Although dramatic and worrisome, it is only the peak of the iceberg. An estimated 40 million Americans ages 12 and older abuse or are addicted to nicotine, alcohol or other kind of drugs, surpassing the number of people with heart problems, diabetes or cancer.
A New World, New Addictions
Tech dependency can also have an impact on how we function, developing symptoms similar to substance abuse. Gaming addiction, for instance, has been classified as a mental health condition by the World Health Organization. In addition, 50% of young people admit cell phone addiction while Americans in general spend an average of 5 hours a day browsing, according to recent studies.
Regardless the source of dependency, the common denominator is the yearning for detachment, even temporary, from troubles, pressures, competition and other negative influences from the surrounding circles we might be exposed to: family, school, work and society.
Pursuing an alternative reality is a consequence of human nature. We are made from an insatiable desire to enjoy that constantly grows and renews itself, leaving us empty when it is unfulfilled, leading us to various addictions to fill the void. As those cravings transform into a habit, one constantly needs larger doses, entering a vicious circle. This is an unsuccessful way of coping.
Why do people resist calling these examples addictions? It is because they are so immersed in a certain way of living that it seems natural, but when they lose control of their lives they try to get out of the trap and find it extremely difficult, if not impossible. It is at this point when a person descends to a vegetative level, suppressing the internal desire for a higherpurpose in life — unique to the human level, the most developed in nature — instead of filling it.
Looking for the Drug of Joy
People lack the elixir of life, the drug of happiness. Therefore, we face not a drug problem, but an emptiness problem. If our nature is a desire to receive, and this desire is not provided, it transforms into a negative escape mechanism.
A person is a result of the environment. Therefore, it is important to see it as the overriding factor for human change. Such transformation is possible by isolating the individual from the surroundings that triggered the addiction and replacing them with positive support circles that will help the person reshape the previous dangerous habits into positive ones. It is the equivalent of setting up a new program that will need to complement and bring more satisfaction to the person than the artificial sensation obtained through substance abuse or any other kind of unhealthy dependency.
Our Relations Rehab
I am referring to a comprehensive treatment that needs to target an underlying multifaceted problem. That is to say, we have to create new conditions according to every person’s cultural and social background and needs. In some cases, it will possibly require a rehab medical plan but it should always include the remedy to all our troubles, the drug of life, which is based on positive connection among people. A positive social environment can rehabilitate us and help us to evolve to a higher level of existence.
Such a new level of positive social connections is what evolution is pushing us to attain. In order to realize such connections, we first need to educate about and promote the idea that only through warm, safe and supportive connections, human society can achieve the kind of satisfaction it is constantly craving for. Then, we will be aware of the fact that the only dependency we need to be hooked on is realizing our interdependence in a positive way.
That is the way nature has created us, humans, as part of an integral and interrelated system that should work harmoniously and balanced through mutual care and consideration. By realizing and implementing such relations, we can enter into balance with nature and discover a much greater kind of fulfillment as a result.
Question: What is wrong with wanting to “bend” the whole world to suit myself if the world is full of malice and vices?
Answer: I understand that you would like to change our world. But if you do this by breaking it, you will only get some of your smaller broken worlds.
You have to change yourself and then, instead of today’s world, which appears to you in your egoistic properties, you will discover another, better, altruistic world. To change the world is to change your properties, and then you will see it differently.
You need to understand that we exist in our desire. Changing your desires from the lowest state to the state of complete bestowal and love, that is, the world of Infinity, we can move back and forth along the ladder of the spiritual worlds. It all depends on our properties.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/26/18
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New Life #127 – The Essence of Communication, Part 2
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
All of our problems stem from the wrong type of communication between us as couples, in families, at work, and in the world at large. Communicating with others in mutual bestowal reveals enormous energy and a whole new world in the resulting connection between us. Each of us has to implement all of our skills in order to satisfy the deficiencies of others so that we reach absolute and correct communication and fulfillment both individually and collectively. The more distant we are and still manage to fully communicate, the greater the pleasure we feel. In fact, oppositeness is the precondition for communication and there is no opportunity for communication between similar parties. Just as a mother treats her baby, we need to have a new intention to feel the deficiencies of others as they actually are and fill them. We can only achieve this goal in an environment with others who are aiming toward the same thing. By acquiring and satisfying the desires of others in this way, above our differences, we feel great pleasure and become one again.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #127 – The Essence Of Communication, Part 2,” 1/15/13
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Lesson Preparation
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Writings of Rabash, Vol. 1, Article 2 “Concerning Love of Friends ” (1984)
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 270
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Title “Conveyance from a Wise Kabbalist to an Understanding Receiver”
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Man’s desire comprises 613 desires. Each must be corrected from reception to bestowal by the Torah’s light comprising 613 lights, of which each corrects one of 613 desires corresponding to it. After correction, the same light fills the desire it corrected—observes a Commandment.
The Creator made man in the desire to receive alone,
but under the Torah’s influence
man acquires the intention of bestowal,
thus becoming similar to the Creator
and starts to feel the upper world of the Creator.
I don’t work on my feeling and reason. I only aspire to be included in the group and through the inclusion to acquire new senses. In the connections with the friends I build Man, Adam, similar to the Creator. I don’t care about my current sensations since it is my animate degree.
It is written: great is the teaching leading to practical actions. The light obtained by practicing Kabbalah leads to practical actions—it returns a person to the Source, which is an action. This means that the light creates a new structure, HaVaYaH, the Temple, in one’s heart.
To turn an egoist into man (Adam – Edame, similar to the Creator), the Creator gives man all the states one by one, opposite to Him, so that out of all the states (images) opposite to the Creator, man will prefer the ideal—being similar to the Creator, over his personal comfort.
I ask to feel Your greatness (faith).
In the measure of this sensation, I’ll be able to lower and cancel myself, my ego; not to follow the instructions of egoism that You created in me; but to do everything like You, in bestowal and love, “lishma.”
You created the ego—and I ask You to reform it.
I’d like to act to delight the Creator, but the ego won’t let me!
If the Creator’s greatness is revealed to me, I can bestow as He does.
Therefore, I must engage in the Torah—to attain His greatness.
Hence all the conditions of engaging in Kabbalah, in a united group, etc., …
…. are to attain the greatness of the Creator!
The Creator: “I sold the Torah and Myself with it.” That is, if you take the Torah, you take the Creator too, since it’s impossible to use Torah without the Creator. Torah can be used as a means (Tavlin) to correct egoism and for reward in equivalence of form with the Creator.
By itself, study of the Torah doesn’t engage the Upper Light but merely lets one know about what was written (Hochma Bah Goim Ta’amin).
Spiritual work (Avodat Hashem) is studying the Torah by efforts, attracting the Upper Light to reform one’s intention to receive for oneself …
… to the intention to bestow to others and the Creator.
Until one gains the property of bestowal, Bina, Hassadim, faith, he is called goy.
He can attain the vestments of the Torah but not the Creator clothed in it. The outer vestments of the Torah are called outer knowledge, and not the Torah itself.
The #Torah is the attainment of the Creator, His being revealed.
Egoism doesn’t allow man to act against himself, depleting his energy.
But if man wishes to act for the Creator’s sake, he focuses only on the Creator’s light, on correction, as payment for all his efforts—only for the sake of a chance to bestow—and receives correction!
Sinking in egoism, one can only act for his own sake.
But if one acts against himself, he attracts the reforming light that makes him similar to the Creator.
Yet, he can act against himself only if the group pushes him to.
Hence it’s written: “One can’t get himself out of prison, but he can get saved by the friends!”
From Twitter, 1/12/19
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Question: To enter into a perfect world, into infinity, does it mean becoming perfect yourself, and from your corrected self, seeing perfection, eternity?
Answer: Yes, to the extent that I change within, I can see changes in the world around me.
Question: How do I come to the point that I myself have to change? After all, I am trying to change others my whole life.
Answer: Indeed, usually a person wants to change everyone else. He wants nothing more than to “bend” the world around him. However, in fact, the world does not bend. It is created such that if you want to bend it, you bend yourself. As a result, you will understand, perhaps not in one but in several lives, that you’re the one who needs to bend.
There is nothing demeaning about it. This is such an exciting game, such a fascinating, conceptual journey: while I am changing, I see the world around me also changing, like in a fairy tale. And it is possible.
Question: However, during the 70 to 80 years of one’s life, a person is somehow changing, which cannot be said about the world. What changes are you talking about?
Answer: The world is also changing a little, but only on that inanimate level at which people change. Why is the world today different from the world 100 years ago? Various technical and technological changes took place, climate conditions became different, some species of fauna and flora became extinct, etc. Everything comes from the fact that by changing, we see the world changing around us.
But these are very small changes at that same, inanimate level. It is not a new world. After all, we remain the same egoists.
Th fact is that when our material desires change, we begin to invent something ostensibly new. However, there is nothing to invent, because if a person begins to radically change his nature, his egoism, to the opposite property of bestowal and love, the property of connection with others, he then sees a completely different world through his new properties.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/26/18
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