Audio Version Of The Blog – 8/15/19
Posted on August 15th, 2019
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The neighbor is one who is opposite to me, similar to how we are opposite to the Creator. Nevertheless, the law of love operates in the system, obliging us to connect—otherwise we won’t be able to exist.
Love is the law of connection of all parts of nature, the created hatred, on all degrees.
We unite with the Creator not from the positive or negative, but from the middle between them—the Creator. Hence we must look for the center of the group, the common connection so that there—and only there, together we will demand the Light that Reforms. It will then do its job and it is also there that we will reveal the Creator.
Love is a special force of a higher order, connecting the positive and negative. It “covers all crimes”—gaps between opposites. It is the 3rd factor connecting them into one. It is the middle line given to us from above. It is the force of the Creator, not belonging to “+” nor “-“.
The day of love (Tu Be-Av)—love for all of creation, as coming from the Creator. This is a connection to the whole universe, humanity. I wish to love everything, to belong to a single system of good forces, so I will support everyone and everyone will support me. This universal love must fill everyone.
It was a pleasure having the @i24NEWS_EN crew here today at our headquarters in Petah Tikva. They interviewed me about the uniqueness of Bnei Baruch, how we teach Kabbalah, and why it’s becoming so popular in our time.
I explained the difference between authentic Kabbalah, and other teachings. We talked about how our organization welcomes individuals of all colors, genders, and nationalities, from all over the world.
#kabbalah #inclusion #diversity #spirituality
Two states on the spiritual path:
Mateh (staff)—when a person manages his egoism, being in control of it and aiming it to move toward the goal. That’s why it is called Mateh—staff.
Nahash (serpent) is when one cannot manage egoism, has no control to lead it in the intention for the sake of the Creator. But the serpent teaches him the path…
From Twitter, 8/15/19
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The Times of Israel published my new article “Tu B’Av, building love above hatred”
“There were no good days for Israel like Tu b’Av, a day when the tribes were permitted to mingle with each other and where each and every person bestowed their goodness upon their fellow man.” (Tiferet Shlomo)”
Tu B’Av is a special holiday that symbolizes love, relationships built above hatred, above the destruction of the Temple, which crumbled because of hatred between us. We correct the hatred when we rise above it and thus attain the great love, “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
It is written in the Mishnah that Tu B’Av is the greatest day when, according to tradition, the young women of Jerusalem would go out dressed in white to the orchards and vineyards to sing. The young men would join them to choose their bride. These are the images characterizing the holiday of Tu B’Av.
However, it is not the earthy love of young men and women in the vineyards that we speak of, but a totally different kind of love: one built atop the egoism (self-interest instead of concern for others’ wellbeing) that destroyed the First and Second Temples during the period between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, which we have just finished commemorating. These dark days remind the Jewish people about the destruction of the two Temples, as well as other problems and afflictions that we have undergone. And just days later, when all is gone and corrected, a new period begins.
The festival of Tu B’Av symbolizes the time in which we build a new Temple, one in our hearts, in the positive connection between hearts. We look for a spiritual partner to help us accomplish this, and the spiritual partner for both men and women is the higher force of love and bestowal, which we call “the Creator.” We connect with Him and together receive absolute fulfillment, pleasure and enlightenment—the revelation of the real world—existing in that sublime and whole reality and not only in a tiny fragment of reality that we know as our world. The whole process of the Tu B’Av unification symbolizes our ultimate correction, the rebuilding of the Temple, and our transition from hatred to love.
What Is Love?
True love, not on the corporeal level as we usually think of it, is a special feeling of connection between us which elevates us to the heights of eternity, wholeness, and an infinite expansion of our feelings and thoughts. We begin to sense that we exist eternally, totally fulfilled, when we relate to each other with this love. Imagine the feeling when everyone loves you; everyone relates to you as if you were their own little child. We need to give each one of us this kind of feeling.
However, there is one special condition required to achieve true love. True love unfolds only by connecting two opposing forces, two contradictory attributes, into one; the new force—a new consciousness, understanding and feeling—develops atop this connection, elevating us to the higher level of the perfect, spiritual reality.
This is why Tu B’Av (the 15th of Av), the day of love, happens right after Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av), the day of destruction. Only after the enormous, horrible crisis where we reveal the evil, the hatred between us, are we able to correct ourselves and reach true love. Then a new period begins. But in order to attain true love, we must first recognize that our state is completely opposite to it.
How to Build the Third Temple
It may not be obvious to us, but the entirety of nature works through contrasts. Evolution displays a dynamic interplay of two opposite forces. These forces manifest as plus and minus, hot and cold, ebb and flow, or male and female, they create deeper levels of conflict and self-interest, and thereafter, greater levels of reciprocity and connection. This is why the indispensable first step is to reveal a state of fragmentation—humanity’s current state—and then collect all the pieces and rebuild a perfect whole. This is what we need to reconstruct together through our relations of mutual concern and reciprocity.
It says in The Book of Psalms that the Third Temple will be called “a house of prayer for all nations.” Symbolically, Tu B’Av indicates that this is a holiday of love for the whole world. It’s as if the 15th of Av is a kind of Valentine’s Day for humanity.
What else could we mean by building the Third Temple? It speaks of a state in which we connect into one single system called Adam (human), which stems from the Hebrew root “Domeh” (“similar”), as in “similar to the upper one” (“Domeh le Elyon”). When this system is connected by the positive force, when humanity is connected positively, the state will be called the Third Temple. The Creator will be revealed in the system of positive human connection as the upper force of the world. Thus, we will live in a feeling of eternity and wholeness, in a totally different world, and this is what we call “the Third Temple.” It will be the real day of love that is written about in the words, “love will cover all our transgressions,” and “love your friend as yourself,” which means that this is humanity’s ultimate state.
This is what Tu B’Av truly symbolizes, love built specifically above the hatred among us that we discover in every moment of our lives. Let us hasten in our identification of the bad so that we can start building mutual love and understanding above it and spread this warm blanket of love over the whole world.
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We are honored to have such a teacher, Baal HaSulam, who is the next incarnation of the soul of the great Ari. It is said about the Ari that he was Messiah ben Joseph, that is, he connected all the previous Kabbalah with the current state of the end of correction for us, with the generation of the era of the Messiah. Therefore, as soon as the Kabbalah of the Ari was revealed, Kabbalists abandoned all other Kabbalistic methods and adopted his methodology.
This was not due to the Ari’s methodology being more understandable or that he ascended in his attainment above others, but because of the connection of his soul with the end of correction. The soul of the Ari is directly connected with the end of correction, and therefore, through him and his teaching, we can also establish a connection with the state of the final correction and correctly realize ourselves, all together, and each of us individually.
Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to Panim Meirot uMasbirot”:
‘’You have not a generation without such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Indeed, that Godly man, our Rav Isaac Luria, troubled and provided us the fullest measure. He did wondrously more than his predecessors, and if I had a tongue that praises, I would praise that day when his wisdom appeared almost as the day when the Torah was given to Israel.”
Indeed, we are unable to appreciate the height of the Ari, like a baby cannot appreciate the actions of adults. Everything we have today came from the Ari, and through his soul, we receive all the upper influence and correction. Baal HaSulam and Rabash come after the Ari in this chain.
The Ari never wrote a book himself. His books were written by his disciples. Some of the records were hidden in his grave and some were secretly kept in some kind of chest, and this is how they reached our time. Of course, the upper force and the higher purpose acted throughout. Otherwise, how is it possible that in some merchant like the Ari traveling between Egypt, Israel, and Damascus, engaging in trade, suddenly the upper aspiration awakened and forced him to settle in Israel and devote himself to Kabbalah.
All the information about the Ari is very inaccurate: there are two synagogues in Safed named after him and it is not clear to which he belonged. Everything is very vague as if it were not about a human being. There is no information about his family, wife, children, whether he had descendants. Nothing is clear. Of course, no one has freedom of choice and everything that happened to the Ari was dictated from above by the Creator.
Before the Ari, only individual, chosen people were engaged in Kabbalah. After him, however, Kabbalah came out of concealment. The life of the Ari in Safed was not easy because of the many opponents to Kabbalah. He began to reveal Kabbalah and organize groups. It helped him that Ramak, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, who had great authority in Safed, stood up for him and realized that the methodology of the Ari came from true, deep attainment.
The Ari is unique because he opened the wisdom of Kabbalah for us in a completely new way. He introduced such concepts as ten Sefirot, direct and reflected light, Malchut, the screen (Masach), and precisely defined the structure of the worlds and the Partzufim. All this is described in the book The Tree of Life written by Chaim Vital from the words of his teacher.
Chaim Vital studied with the Ari for only a year and a half until his teacher’s death. During this year and a half, he managed to gain knowledge that was enough for twenty books. It took another three generations to collect and print these books. It is obvious that some upper, nonhuman force was behind all this.
After the Ari, Kabbalah was revealed because he brought a special inner, spiritual force to the world. Besides, his teaching began to spread little by little. It doesn’t matter that he taught only in a small city, in Safed; this spiritual force, which he brought closer to our world through his soul, was felt all over the world.
Thanks to this, a Kabbalist such as Baal Shem Tov later appeared in Russia, who continued the work of the Ari and began to talk about the same concepts: worlds, Sefirot, Partzufim. In Hasidism, it is customary to call them the teachings of Baal Shem Tov, but in fact, the basis was laid by the teachings of the Ari.
Baal HaSulam wrote that he was the reincarnation of the soul of the Ari, that is, that he had a direct connection with him and was able to directly attain everything attained by the Ari. The next reincarnation of the soul is like inheriting the entire spiritual attainment of the father, passing it to the son.
Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to Panim Meirot uMasbirot”: “There are not enough words to measure his holy work in our favor. The doors of attainment were locked and bolted, and he came and opened them for us.”
Restriction, screen, reflected light—the Ari describes not only how the light spreads from above downward, but the specific development of the desire, its stages of coarsening, the connection of this process with the force of the screen. Therefore, he belongs to the generation of correction and is considered to be Messiah ben Joseph, after which begins the correction of Malchut itself, the era of Messiah ben David.
Perhaps Kabbalists reached the same heights even before the Ari, but they did not receive a clear understanding in the form of a connection of lights, Kelim, and screens. Their attainment came as a revelation from above and not from within, from their own Kelim, which would allow them to build the world by their own attainment. Therefore, after the Ari and onward, everyone can study Kabbalah and gradually attain what he revealed.
Without an explanation of how the desire works with the screen and the reflected light, it is impossible to implement correction. Therefore, the Kabbalists before the Ari made only preparations for correction, and the Ari revealed the work from below upward and opened the method of correction—practical Kabbalah—to us.1
The day of a Kabbalist’s departure is the day of his elevation. Therefore, on this day, we want to be connected with the Ari, with his soul and his method, in a special way, even more than before, and commemorate the day of his memory. This, in fact, is a joyful day because his soul has fulfilled itself and rose to a higher degree. Therefore, Kabbalists never mourn the departed.2
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/4/19, Memorial Day of ARI
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute54:50
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Question from Facebook: Why is loneliness given to us and how do we correct it?
Answer: Loneliness is given to you for you to feel that everything is in your hands, nobody pressures you, you are in charge of your condition, and you can do everything.
Start to use your loneliness correctly and you will see how good it is because in reality this state is given to you by the Creator so that you can turn to Him.
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From KabTV’s “Answers to the questions from the Facebook,” 3/10/19
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Question: Are the shield and sword metaphors for the right and left lines? In that case, what is bestowal and what is receiving?
Answer: The shield is basically the restriction of working with your desires. The sword is when you turn these egoistic desires into altruistic ones, strike your enemies with it. That is, you defeat them, conquer them, so that instead of working for receiving, they work for bestowal.
Question: Does the ten also get a shield and sword?
Answer: Of course. It means that before getting them, people should gather in the ten. Before that, nothing is given to anyone separately.
Kabbalah speaks not about one person, but about ten, which comes together as one organism. Otherwise, they will not be able to annul themselves to each other and somehow start becoming like the Creator.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 4/7/19
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Does the State of Israel have a right to exist? Why or why not?“
According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is a program that runs through nature’s and humanity’s development, which guides us all to a state of complete unification, eternity and perfection at the end of our development. In this process, the State of Israel has been given a right and ability to exist, however on a very specific condition: that the people of Israel fulfill a key role in the process.
What is the role of the people of Israel? It is to pioneer a method of unifying above division among each other—i.e. to reach what is described as “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) and “love covers all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12)—in order to become a conduit for unity to expand worldwide—i.e. to be “a light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6).
According to our role, to bring unity to the world, we have been doing the opposite until today. We are unaware of the duty we have toward the world, and due to the lack of awareness and efforts to unite, we experience increasing division among each other. As a result, we become a source of the world’s problems, conflicts and separation.
Therefore, if the people of Israel fail to develop from this moment onward in a unifying direction, then the period of the existence of the State of Israel will come to an end. If the people of Israel in the State of Israel, in the land that we have been given, fail to motion toward serving the world with a positive example of unification, and continue developing in the opposite direction, then the State of Israel will have no right to exist. Then, as has taken place before in history, the Jewish people would become pressured to exit this land and disperse around the world. Moreover, according to the exponentially-growing hatred toward the Jewish people and the methodical delegitimization of the State of Israel unfolding from one day to the next, I think that the decision to eliminate the State of Israel could very well happen soon.
Historical Periods and the Development of Desires.
Question: From a historical point of view, we can break down the evolution of human desires according to historical periods. Supposedly from 35,000 BC to 4,000 BC, the inanimate level of human desires developed. These are basic desires like food, sex, family.
Then, 4,000 years ago, starting with the growing egoism in Babylon and approximately until the 5th century, the development of the vegetative level of desires, mainly desires for wealth took place.
From the 5th to the 15th century, merely a thousand years, the desire of the animate level developed—for power, and from the 15th to the 20th century, there was a development of the human level of desires—for knowledge.
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the development of both individualism in people and of spiritual desires. That is, people already want to attain their root.
How are all these desires divided into inanimate, vegetative, and animate within one person?
Answer: It depends on the nature of a person, on what level of egoism prevails in him or her. After all, all these desires are of various egoistic levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, human. Depending on the power of egoism in each of these components, a person is more inclined to either animate satiation or vegetative, inanimate, or human fillings.
Question: We see throughout history how our desires are constantly growing. They grow both in a person and in all of humanity. What is the reason?
Answer: This is due to the fact that we must achieve the maximum quantity and quality of desires in their widest variety. We must evaluate, weigh, find out their purposefulness in us, how it works, why, what for.
In order to be not just executors of these desires but to be able to control them, to take possession of these desires, to rule over ourselves, to reach a level higher than ourselves, so that by controlling our desires we would achieve maximum freedom from them and the ability to control them according to some kind of higher, reasonable decision.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 12/3/18
Related Material:
Evolution Of Desires, Part 1
World History In The Light Of Kabbalah, Part 2
World History In The Light Of Kabbalah, Part 1
Lesson Preparation
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
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