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One must lay low and wait for the state of “dust” to pass, lowering his head, like Rabbi Akiva on a plank during a storm in the sea. Waiting it out means making efforts while observing one’s framework, overcoming the body—this is called raising the Shechina from the dust.
Precisely by that, one pleases the Creator, since he works without taste or meaning—and therefore he is happy!

A commandment is an effort to go by faith above reason, in bestowal to the Creator, although one doesn’t want this and doesn’t feel anything, accepting it “as an ox to the burden and as a donkey to the load,” rejoicing because he thereby bestows to the Creator, and taking pride in it—therein lies the Commandment and the “Joy of the Commandment.”

The will to receive can be overcome only by going against the desire, as if one doesn’t see anything, with eyes closed, as if not needing anything, doing everything only for the Creator’s sake, despite the resistance, that is, by complete self-annulment. And constantly ask the Creator for help in this war.

The most important thing is prayer for the force to go above reason, in joy, to merit asking for this, although one’s desires refuse to be in bestowal. One nevertheless asks to feel the Creator’s greatness so he will be able to work above reason in joy, with importance, as if he is in reason.

Advancement lies in descending lower and lower into egoism, the world, and respectively, rising higher and higher into the spiritual world: from -1 to +1, from -2 to +2. As written, “One who is higher than another, his egoism is greater.” The “other” is my previous state, since ascent is the ascent of broken desires.

Ascending Mount Sinai means rising above the universal egoism, overcoming resistance to unite in the ten. This is possible only to the extent of the Creator’s greatness, as Moses asked, “Show me Your greatness.” The desire remains empty and faith above reason is filled. The reward is the Creator’s fulfillment.

Every day we face Mount Sinai, a new ego of each person from the ten. To rise above it toward unity is becoming more difficult each time, despite our experience. Our task is to reveal the Upper world in this lifetime. We grow in unity and, respectively, in egoism. But we build the connection above it.

Spiritual growth begins with a person splitting himself in two parts:
the earthly, egoistic one, reception, reason – Daat, and
the upper, altruistic one, bestowal, faith – Emuna
And he sees no discrepancy between them since he perceives these two worlds in different qualities, desires, intentions.

The goal of life, of creation, is attained in adhesion with the Creator.
It’s attained by equivalence of form, “bestowal and love,”
Between people—and then between them and the Creator.
Between people it is attained by the light of Torah by efforts to connect in the ten in mutual guarantee (Arvut).
To this degree the Creator is revealed.

Our master, Egoism, “twists us this way and that”—and we unconsciously carry out all its orders. It lives inside us, forcing us to constantly worry about everything besides the goal of creation. While we carry out its orders, we burn our lives, not attaining anything. But there is someone deliberately diverting us from the goal….

By uniting more and more, it’s as if we “climb Mount Sinai,”overcome Sinah – hatred, the ego. Ascending means connecting more and more above the disturbances that the Creator places in our way to help us unite more and create a desire—vessel, soul, for the whole light.

The system of the world is realized, moving toward the goal, without our participation (Beito). We can become included in it and, to the extent of our correspondence to it, study and influence (receive and bestow) according to its laws. That is how we can accelerate the development of reality (Ahishena), adding the positive forces of Torah.

The Torah is a system in which we exist, the program and scheme of all reality, its engine. By attaining the Torah, the laws of bestowal and love, restoring the connections of broken desires between us, we attain the Creator’s plan and Himself, as written, “Know the Creator and serve Him.”

Since the main law of the Torah, “love your neighbor as yourself,” is realized in the group (a ten, Minyan) that aspires toward complete unity, “as one heart,” mutual bestowal – love, revealing the quality of the Creator in equivalence; hence, every person can check whether he is engaged in Torah.

“Mount Sinai” (the ego—hatred between us) can be overcome only by Kabbalah—the method of reciprocally growing closer in work above egoism. Ascent means coming closer above the growing egoism. The degrees of ascent above egoism are the degrees of revealing the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love.

Realization of Torah, of “love the neighbor,” can be achieved only in a group that aspires together to change repulsion to attraction, and in its center to attain complete unity, in the quality of bestowal and connection, common to all, in which the Creator will be revealed from love for the friends.

Mechanical actions do not change a person’s nature from egoistic to love for others—the aim of the Torah. The main law of the Torah is “Love your neighbor.” Only by uniting in the group and thus evoking the Torah’s light do we change our nature to bestowal. The new desire is called a Soul—a part of the Creator, the quality of love.

What happens to our body after death?—The same as with every living organism.
Where is a person’s soul?—It’s a part of the Creator, the quality of bestowal and love. One must create it within with the help of the upper light by working on one’s egoism.
It is written: attain your world while living in this world.
From Twitter, 6/5/19

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The Times of Israel published my new article “Shavuot: Brightening Israel and the Jewish People”

“Israel is all messed up with their election… They ought to get their act together,” said President Trump in relation to the political uncertainty in this country going to the polls for a second time this year. He is right, but it’s just a symptom of the wider problem of the deeply fragmented Israeli society that lacks a common vision about its future, a state of division also existent within American Jewry, as well as between Israel and the Diaspora. The timing of Shavuot and all it represents could not be more relevant. The holiday symbolizes the reception of the guidebook for the spiritual correction of our people, the receiving of the Torah, or in other words, the way out of the mess.

What was actually given to us at Mount Sinai? The Torah is not a chronicle about past events. On the contrary, it describes the seminal moment when our future becomes decided, when a clear answer becomes required from all of us: Are we ready to accept mutual guarantee (Arvut) as the law of life? Exactly this is the Torah—instruction on how to correct our shattered relations and instead become guarantors for each other by loving our neighbors as ourselves.

This is precisely the goal for which the Torah was given to us. However, we must constantly renew our state of worthiness for reception of the Torah by scaling the “mountain of hatred” (Sinah), the roar of the storm raging inside us. To do this, we must unite, connect with each other, become “as one man with one heart” and stand at the foot of the mountain. In other words, we must fully comprehend that we are given very important and strict conditions under which we must work with all diligence and ever-increasing unity.

Shavuot, like all Jewish holidays, carries a call to action. The holiday is bright. It’s full of whiteness and light, but the call to action is quite complicated to carry out. We bump into each other; people are strangled by indifference, burned with anger toward those with different opinions than their own. We are in a desert of barren and soulless relationships. If we would suddenly recognize how egoism tears us to pieces, if we would try to connect into one integral body and face our seemingly insurmountable internal split, we would then clearly realize how desperately we need help.

This state of clarity we presently face is a unique opportunity for unity. Only by increasing our connection will we be able to climb the mountain ever higher, rising above our separation. To rise means to continually increase our connection above all problems, difficulties and disturbances that we encounter in order to help us overcome more and more and to create a vessel in which the light of the Torah will gradually be revealed.

In this moment of recognition coinciding with the Shavuot holiday, we have the opportunity to receive help and instruction, a unifying force that can increase our social health and let us live happily. This is the current moment of evolutionary development we find ourselves in: either we will grow up proactively and start using the Torah according to its purpose, for the sake of unity above all disagreements, or the hard knocks of life will force us to grow up.

The Torah, indeed, is the most powerful tool that we have yet to learn how to use. A person cannot use this tool alone. The problem, however, is that we still cannot work together to put it to use. The Torah will provide us with security and prosperity and will give peace to the world, but first we must get used to the fact that it works between us and not on the individual. Egoism, after all, is revealed in relation to other people.

Therefore, the Torah is meant to connect the person with the environment at any time and level of human development. It reveals to us the force of goodness and love that ties us together. We begin to sense how we must balance our egoism, the evil inclination, wherever it is revealed with the force of goodness, and we can then hold two forces like reins by which we can advance directly to unity and love, letting us lay a solid and bright foundation of our future.

For more about Shavuot >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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Question: What does it mean to know the essence of things through letters?

Answer: First, it is necessary to understand each letter, what elements it consists of.
Without going deeply into the details, each letter is a certain combination of the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim, receiving and giving, their variation and mutual alignment between each other.

In other words, how much can I give in order to receive something? Or vice versa, how can I receive and what should I give for it? These are different things, although they seem the same. It depends on what is ahead.

Secondly, letters cannot arbitrarily follow one after the other. There are letters that cannot stand together, they must have a certain sequence.

Letters represent light. According to the structure of the spiritual system, there are five Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, and Malchut. Until the middle of Bina, there are no letters, only abstract light.

Starting from the middle of Bina and on, the upper light enters the Kelim (vessels), desires. Therefore, there are nine letters in the lower part of Bina, nine in ZA, and four in Malchut, twenty-two letters in total.

They cannot be more or less because that is the number of Sefirot from Bina to Malchut, i.e., each Sephira corresponds to a certain letter. Moreover, at different levels Sefirot can be denoted by different letters. There are also five additional letters (Manzepach), which are placed at the end of words to complete the entire development from top to bottom.

According to Gematria (the numerical value of the letters), the first nine letters from Aleph to Tet are single unites, from Yod to Tzadik tens, and the last four letters Kuf, Reish, Shin, and Tav represent hundreds.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/6/19

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Question: Is it possible to measure a thought in our world? Is it an electromagnetic wave or something else?

Answer: Our thoughts are absolutely immaterial. Naturally, they give some material depiction in us. We can measure different potentials with the help of brain encephalograms, etc., but these are not thoughts themselves but rather a consequence of material carriers that react thus when something happens in them.

Thought is the greatest force with which you can overturn the entire world. It is above our world, but it descends here as a control signal.

Question: Does it mean that what is most invisible is the most powerful?

Answer: Definitely. For example, what is there to see in an atomic bomb? A kilogram of some matter. What happens to it when it explodes? If you connect opposite elements with each other, say, plus and minus, what energy do you get?!

Question: Can we compare this released energy to a thought?

Answer: No, thought is much stronger because it is not limited by distance and force. Everything depends only on the one who uses it and the way he uses it.

Question: Can the power of thought be negative? For example, is an evil eye also a thought?

Answer: Yes, these are very harmful thoughts that must not be used, but they do exist.

Question: We say that spirituality is detached from corporeality. But even though a thought is not material, it nevertheless affects us. Is this a one-way influence?

Answer: No. By saying that spirituality does not affect corporeality, we mean something completely different. However, it is spirituality that controls corporeality. What else can control matter if not the spirit?

Question: Does it mean that immaterial thoughts control corporeality?

Answer: Of course. If we knew how much we spoil the world with our thoughts, I cannot even imagine what we would do! Look in what physical conditions people exist and how much their bodies suffer! It is only because of our evil thoughts.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/3/19

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New Life 1104 – The Revelation At Mount Sinai

Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

At Mount Sinai, the people bow down to the power of connection above a mountain of hatred that is revealed between them. They receive the Ten Commandments, which provides a method of getting along with one another as one man with one heart despite the growing hatred. The condition to receiving the Torah is to agree to be a “zero” so the power of good would be in control. God is found in the one heart that includes them all because God is the attribute of love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1104 – The Revelation At Mount Sinai,” 4/2/19

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “The Absolute Zero”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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