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Why should our work be in concealment and darkness? It is because initially we feel nothing spiritual. We are created opposite to the spiritual quality of bestowal and love in order to build spiritual, real people. The human (Adam) is called “similar” (“Domeh“) to the Creator, and we need to create this from ourselves.

How do we do this? The Creator has broken us into pieces and He is between us. In order to reveal Him, we need to connect among each other. To the extent of such connection—tension, intensity, sensory perception of our connection, unification, and aspiration to each other—we will begin to feel the Creator.

This work is being hidden because we do not feel and are not interested in what is between us at all. We are only interested in what is inside of us, and what is outside of us as if does not exist. Externality exists only to the extent that we feel its benefit for ourselves and no more.

How can I transform myself to a sensor that feels externality more than internality? To stop feeling what is inside of me means restriction (Tzimtzum). I begin to feel that outside of me is the reflected light (Ohr Hozer), and what I will feel in this reflected Light, that is, in the feelings emanating from me outwardly, will be called the Creator.

Therefore, the work is being done in concealment, in the dark, at night.

The Creator invented a trick to let us perceive a reality that we should not perceive. This trick is called darkness. When it seems to us that we are lost, lacking understanding, knowledge and sensation, when we are confused, lost, falling into an unknown state, and losing our orientation in the world, this means that we are at the beginning of a new spiritual stage of comprehension and have a reliable basis for revealing the light. As the saying goes: “the advantage of the light is from within the darkness.”

Therefore, the feeling that I understand even less than before actually creates very good prerequisites for moving forward. Any new spiritual step begins with loss, disorientation, and a feeling of hopelessness, that is, darkness. To the extent that we feel darkness, we continue to make efforts and search for the light. The light is outside of us and the darkness is revealed within us.

This is where the whole method comes from: you must exit yourself toward your friends, and on the way toward them, you will find the light. They come to you and you go to them: this is how we mutually help each other even with selfish goals. This is already some kind of movement, like a baby that may make some movements unconsciously. But these chaotic and unconscious movements propel us forward.

The upper force gives us hints and plays with us. This Creator creates everything around us. We will later see how He works in us. There is nothing around us—the reality we feel is in each of us. Then we will understand that there is not each of us individually but only the one common reality called the Kli, HaVaYaH.

If I feel lost, this is a template from the Creator of my new state. I have to close my eyes and just connect to my friends. The Creator will resist this, assuring that there is nothing to look for because they are the same as me, and perhaps even worse. While in egoism, I see them in even greater egoism and greater darkness.

But I try to navigate in this chaotic state by exiting myself and trying to understand how to connect with others outside myself, right up to the feeling of a new reality there.¹
From Lesson 4, World Kabbalah Convention in Moldova 9/7/19, Rejoice in What We Lack/Work in Concealment

¹ Minute 0:10

Related Material:
The Best Time For Building The Kli
A Kli For Receiving The Light
Is Adam A Person Or A Spiritual Degree?

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In the News (The Guardian):  “Prisoners could be handed the keys to their cells to incentivize good behavior, as well as a series of other benefits, under government plans that call on governors to put more emphasis on rewards and less on punishments.

“Ministers want to give prison chiefs the power to begin allowing inmates who follow the rules more time out of their cells, the freedom to cook their own meals and more time to spend in the gym, as well as the freedom to choose when to shower and more time to meet visitors. …

“Officials cited evidence summarized by the government last month that positive reinforcement was more effective as a means by which to change behavior in the long term. And they stressed that those who did not abide by the rules could still lose privileges. …

“The policy also called for prison staff to ‘consistently use verbal reinforcement for good behavior and challenge poor behavior outside formal reviews’, and handed prison chiefs the ‘freedom to increase the amount of time out of cell for recreational activities or exercise alongside education and work programs’.”

Question: What do you think about this system of detention?

Answer: In principle, the Torah and especially Kabbalah feel that incarceration is not a correction. We see that it corrects nothing. On the contrary, people leave prison even more angry with huge malicious egoism that they again begin to use in everyday life among people.

Prison is not education. Education must be organized differently.

In the past, a few thousand years ago, there were cities of refuge where people were deported and looked after. They had to remain inside the city and had no right to leave it.

When the ones supervising them (educators, etc.) saw that a person was functioning normally, they could gradually take him beyond the boundaries of this system.

Remark: It is also said in the Torah that the guilty ones were sent there so that others could not take revenge on them.

My Comment: Yes. It was all organized very seriously for the mutual benefit of both these people and external society. Later they returned.

I would advise this. They should feel free and change gradually.

Remark: But still the idea of the accusers and those that endorse incarceration is different, “They must be humiliated, locked up.”

My Comment: That is natural because we do not have a system of education; we only have a system of coercion and punishment.

Question: Does the system of punishment not work?

Answer: We see that it does not work. Moreover, the rest of society becomes infected by these thoughts. We see proof of the insufficiency of the punishment system in the ones who return to the streets, destroy everything, break store windows, set up barricades, and so on.

Question: Do you think that even the most inveterate criminal can be re-educated?

Answer: I think that it is possible to re-educate them and give them an opportunity for self-control in these cities. They can establish such an order that all others will envy because there is a concept of honor among them. We must understand that they are serious people who can establish order.

Question: What should change in the way of thinking of law enforcement agencies and prosecutors?

Answer: I think they should be locked up instead of these criminals. Then their way of thinking would change. It is impossible to be on one side and think for the other side. Of course, I mean this as a joke, but there is some truth in it.

Remark: You always say that the system of judges used to be completely different. Judges were those who simply could not accept a bribe.

My Comment: Being a judge was the highest position. In principle, to this day it is considered that a judge should receive a good salary, should be protected and independent. But what kind of independence can there be today if all judges obey governments, all are in collusion with each other, “one hand rubs another,” etc.?

Remark: Previously judges did not need to be paid a lot.

My Comment: This is not the point. They really were independent.

Question: How was that possible? What is this ideal image of a judge?

Answer: A judge greatly valued his position. He cherished the public opinion that was constantly tuned in such a way that a judge was above everyone, even above a king. A judge was on the same level as the Creator. It is possible to see this in the Torah, in the Book of Judges. This is the highest position in the country.

Question: Is it possible to raise such people in our egoistic world?

Answer: For this, it is necessary to educate them. We need an education system, not a penal system and not this public one that is a mess. But it is possible.

Question: Do you think that what they want to do in Britain is a step toward education?

Answer: Let them try. But in order to build a correct system, the right people must build it. I do not hold out hope that they will succeed. People with a different way of thinking should create such a system.

Question: So, is this a dead end?

Answer: Yes. Until they turn to Kabbalists nothing will help them. Good luck, British ladies and gentlemen!
[252359]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman”, 7/16/19

Related Material:
Prison Is Not What Reforms A Rapist
The Judge’s Sentence: A Prescription For Correction
Reeducation In Ancient Times

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Question: Why are tens of thousands of the quintessential historical examples of the manifestation of egoism and evil not enough to come to the need for correction? Why reveal egoism between ten unfamiliar people? What can we reveal there?

Answer: The egoism that you reveal every day in relation to your loved ones and all the others is not the ego that we are talking about.

Egoism is what interferes when you want to connect in the ten in order to reveal the Creator.

Therefore, we should study the qualities of connection to know them. By connecting correctly in the ten, we receive the manifestation of egoism. In further work on the ego in order to rise above it for the sake of revealing the Creator, both egoism and the Creator are revealed.
[251998]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/7/19

Related Material:
What Is There To Correct?
The Difference Between Spiritual And Corporeal Egoism
The Difference In Egoism

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New Life 247 – Discovering Who I Am, Part 1
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

It is important for every person to know his identity, what sets him apart from others, and the power of the environment in shaping his personality. Humans are motivated by a desire to enjoy that has no rationality and constantly grows. In order to make the right decision at any given time, we must check whether or not we have the right connection to the environment. We live in an ecological sphere in which we feed each other. This is how ecological balance is maintained. The still, vegetative, and animate levels of life all have natural, instinctive, life-wise programs to maintain balance, but humans do not. We need connecting circles to build engagement with others in heart and mind and tens’ workshops through which we can absorb wisdom.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 247 – Discovering Who I Am, Part 1,” 11/7/13

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Rabash, Article 33 “The Felons of Israel”   (1985)

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 67

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