Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/1/19

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What Is The True Purpose of Being Jewish? – Talk With Shaul Magid

Shaul Magid, the Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, meets Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman to discuss anti-Semitism, and the necessity to understand the roots and the true idea of Jewish spiritual nature.

“Jews hold the keys to the world’s prosperity.” This is what the nations of the world blame the Jewish people for. It is no empty complaint, but a subconscious demand toward Jews to perform their role.

The key to happiness lies in establishing positive connections between people above the exponentially-growing ego. This formula was revealed by Abraham 3,800 years ago, and this is what is considered as the beginning of the Jewish nation. “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love covers all transgressions” were the main principles that united 70 different nations into one synchronized entity back in ancient Babylon.

Now, when the world struggles from wars and disasters, called out by another bounce of the human ego, there is a need to learn how to reestablish positive connections. This is the method that Jews bear in themselves, even if through centuries, they forgot about it.

How can the Jews open the door to happiness? By reestablishing a lost connection that follows the principles of “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love covers all transgressions,” and pass the method of connection to the world.

This is the true idea and purpose of being Jewish.

Male And Female, Part 2

laitman_548.02Who Is Adam?

Question: In the beginning, the Creator created a single created being. This created being or program is called “a single desire—Adam HaRishon.” Does it also consist of female and male parts?

Answer: Yes, both parts simultaneously complete each other and are interconnected.

Question: Allegorically, they say that first only the male part was created, Adam, and that the woman was later created from his rib. How do you explain this?

Answer: It is very simple. The Creator is the quality of bestowal. We cannot determine what in fact it really is because it is outside of us. When it is already within us, it is defined as a combination of male and female properties.

Question: What is this created being “Adam“?

Answer: Adam is the ten Sefirot of the desire to receive, with a natural, instinctive intention to bestow. In such a form, he can be called an angel. That is, he is an absolutely ideal quality: very small, in a zero state, which has neither reception nor bestowal.

It is very difficult to decipher this whole story but it is possible. In The Book of Zohar and other Kabbalistic books, it is explained that this is about mutually complementing each other in the receiving and bestowing part when they are practically reduced to zero.

Therefore, Adam, as we call this system, is not a person, not a created being, but a quality which, relatively speaking, includes in himself the positive and negative forces that are interconnected and mutually complement each other. They exist in potential. This power device is called Adam.

Question: We were studying the four phases of direct light. At which phase was Adam created? Does this have something to do with the four phases?

Answer: No. First came the development of the four phases of direct light (Dalet Behinot de Ohr Yashar), then the creation of the worlds: Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. And only then did the conditions arise for creating the system called Adam.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 12/31/18

Related Material:
Male And Female, Part 1
Adam And Eve
And God Created Woman

“With Or Without Corbyn, The True Solution To UK’s Anti-Semitism” (Times Of Israel)

The Times of Israel published my new article “With or Without Corbyn, the True Solution to UK’s Anti-Semitism

Anxiety has spread among UK’s Jews over Labour’s potential victory in two weeks. For the first time in history, a prominent voice within the British Jewish community urges to refrain from voting for the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a politician with a long anti-Semitic background.

The spiritual leader of the UK’s 62 orthodox synagogues, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, warned that in the upcoming elections the “soul of the nation is at stake,” if Labour forms the next government. Leading rabbis also recommended that European Jews “must hide themselves and not stand out in their words and actions,” in light of today’s rampant anti-Semitism.

However, regardless of the election outcome, Jews will continue being felt as an increasing problem, since anti-Semitism is a much bigger phenomenon than any candidate.

Also, keeping our heads down, which failed to help us in the past, will likewise fail to help us today. A century ago, before the Holocaust, Jews acted in a similar fashion with terrible results. We can already see that the avoidance of wearing Jewish distinctive items like the kippah or the Star of David, has not helped diminish vicious attacks on Jews in Europe or anywhere else.

Over the last few years, anti-Semitism passed a boiling point, and it is now bubbling all around the world. Therefore, anti-Semitism demands a more thorough investigation and explanation, to penetrate through to the root of the problem, and seek a solution that would both satisfy those who hold anti-Semitic sentiment, as well as securing the acceptance, safety and peace of the Jewish people.

Today As Yesterday

Hatred against Jews is soaring worldwide, but anti-Semitism in the Old Continent seems to be spreading more rapidly across the major cities, with violent incidents reported almost on a daily basis. Such animosity is fueled by anti-Semitic tropes, as according to a recent survey conducted in 18 countries by the Anti-Defamation League, one in four Europeans expressed profound anti-Semitic sentiments.

Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the foremost Kabbalist of our era, worked with all his strength to warn the Jews of his native Poland that the danger of annihilation was approaching. He also wrote about his concern in his 1933 article, The Solution:

I have also spoken to the leaders of the generation, but at the time, my words were not accepted, though I was screaming like a banshee, warning about the destruction of the world. Alas, it made no impression. Now, however, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think the world will believe me that the end of the world is coming rapidly, and Israel will be the first nation to burn, as in the previous war. Thus, today it is good to awaken the world to accept the only remedy, and they will live and exist.” (Yehuda Ashlag, The Solution)

Baal HaSulam explained to Jews that it was their role to pioneer humanity’s correction. In nature, there are two forces—positive and negative, giving and receiving, love and hatred—and the Jews’ unification would awaken the positive, giving and loving force of nature into the world. By doing so, humanity would experience a newfound harmony and happiness, and the Jews would thus fulfill their role as “a light unto the nations.”

On the other hand, if the Jews do not unite, but continue to sink deeper into egoistic quicksand, i.e., self-centered thoughts and actions, they block the light, i.e., the force of unification dwelling in nature, from shining through to humanity. As more and more problems surface from growing dissatisfaction with life, and divisiveness between people, so does increasing hatred toward Jews. At first, the negative force acts in humanity’s subconscious. Afterward, it strikes openly and violently in tragedy.

Two Ways to Unity

Baal HaSulam taught that the Jewish people have two ways to advance: positively or negatively, through unity or separation. One way is a willful striving for unity a priori. The other way is through undesirable pressure to unite through hatred and violence upon them.

Unfortunately, at the time, no one listened to Baal HaSulam, and he was instead forced to leave Europe, with his son, my teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Halevi Ashlag (Rabash), and enter the Land of Israel. After a while, his family also immigrated, and the Jewish community that remained encountered the Holocaust.

History repeats and the message remains: Jews have an essential role toward the nations of the world. However, they are remote from fulfilling their original role. Most are even unaware of the method that is available to them. But the questions increase and push to awaken the sentiments and common sense:

  • Why didn’t the hatred of Jews disappear after the horrifying Holocaust?
  • Why do the nations of the world have such a burning hatred toward Jews?
  • Why is anti-Semitism rising globally?

The answers to these questions, together with the path to unity, rest in the method of connection: the wisdom of Kabbalah. It can help us become an example and model of unity for all people, especially for the citizens of Britain. If the Jews of Britain will start prioritizing unification above all other engagements, they will be able to awaken the attention of both Jews and non-Jews in Britain, and thus gradually anti-Semitism will become a non-issue, not only among the leadership of the Labour party, but in all walks of life.
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Family And Marriage, Part 7

laitman_600.01Go Beyond Your Ego

Remark: You said that a person instinctively experiences first love at the age of 12 or even earlier. Then for the first time one feels love for one’s children. All this in order to feel the model on yourself, how to correctly relate to our neighbor, to all of humanity.

My Comment: Yes. And then to the Creator.

Question: Are these relationships similar?

Answer: Each time they emerge at a different level.

If we are talking about children’s love, or love for children, or love for the family, then this is the natural love that exists in everyone as a bud, one needs to develop it.

If we talk about love for strangers, this goes beyond the framework of our egoism. Our egoism includes some kind of field: “This is mine, and this, and this.” Whatever is mine, I love, attract, and cherish it. I do not cherish anything that goes beyond the scope of my egoism. On the contrary, maybe I don’t need it and I don’t want to see it near me.

So, work on yourself is necessary here. Here I must see what is beyond my egoism. And practically outside of it is the Creator. As I begin to relate to what is beyond my egoism, so I relate to the Creator. Therefore, I must determine my attitude to the Creator and, based on this, relate to everything that is outside of my egoism.

Question: It turns out that if a person has a big ego, then one’s framework is narrowed? He doesn’t even feel family as his own?

Answer: Yes. But this does not mean that one cannot go beyond one’s ego. Maybe, on the contrary, in this way a person is pushed forward, given the recognition of evil.

Our movement forward is based on contraction and expansion: inhalation – exhalation, exhalation – inhalation. Therefore, if a person has great egoism and he does not feel anyone but himself, although, perhaps, he does not realize it, this moves him to deeper attainment of the Creator.

The greatest Kabbalists, before their correction, were very big egoists.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/1/19

Related Material:
Family And Marriage, Part 6
Family And Marriage, Part 5
Family And Marriage, Part 4

Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12/1/19

Lesson Preparation

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Lesson on the Topic “The Work in Faith Above Reason”

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 107

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