Audio Version Of The Blog – 2/23/20
Posted on February 23rd, 2020
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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 2/23/20
The people of Israel have a close relationship with the desert. In each era we come and go, wandering and returning to this barren place. And so do we, students and members of Bnei Baruch from all over the world disconnect once a year, and head for a weekend in the desert, to unite and focus on the power of connection between us. There are no disturbances in the quiet desert. The thoughts are clear. Intentions flow. The desert is not like the image that comes to mind, a dead space with nothing. The desert has a sea of life. A little digging in the ground will reveal real water sources. As with our inner relationships, we go a little deeper and discover a new dimension—perfect and eternal.
How can I find out what to ask the Creator? I look at others and write down in my notebook all the faults that I see in my friends and then demand that the Creator correct those qualities in me, which are the reason that I see everything upside down.
We need to do such an exercise in the ten. Everyone writes a list and addresses each position with a prayer, even several times, praying for every fault that he sees in his friends. I ask the Creator to correct me so that I will see perfection instead of flaws.
It must be a very specific prayer for every flaw that I see in each friend in order to invert my eyesight and admire the greatness of my friends. I exalt the friends and the Creator who made a correction in me, allowing me to see the ten as perfect.
What is left for me to do after I see everyone as perfect? I must now try to penetrate even more into my friends, cling onto them, annul myself before them, immerse in them, and then I will receive all of their properties as the upper nine Sefirot in relation to my Malchut, my desire to receive. I will be ready to support and help them in every way possible, and I will thus come closer to building a spiritual Partzuf.1
To stop seeing flaws in my friend is the very first correction that I start with if I want to progress. After all, this is of greatest concern to me right now. A flaw is all that interferes with our union and disallows my seeing the greatness of the friend. The friend’s greatness is that he is connected with all the other friends and with the Creator, and therefore, I want to be in connection with him.
If I correct my view so as not to see faults in my friends, I will stick to all nine of them, I will be ready to support them, that is, to work like Malchut in relation to the upper nine Sefirot. I will pray for them, do everything to serve them. I will feel that until I fulfill them, they will be unable to perform a spiritual action. Therefore, I turn to the Creator and ask for help. The ten now becomes even more important for me than the Creator and, of course, more important than myself.
All I ask is to let me fulfill them for their benefit. I ask the Creator: “Tell me, what can I do to make them appear perfect before You?” This means that I annul myself and raise my friends to the level of the Creator. This is already a spiritual state.
I see that the friends in the ten understand each other and support each other. But I seem to be standing on the sidelines and do not even understand what they are talking about, I feel no taste in the connection that attracts them so much, in mutual help. I am amazed at how they manage to feel so close to each other, a connection I am incapable of. Therefore, I ask the Creator for help, realizing that I myself will never achieve this. I see that the friends have spiritual powers because they can relate to each other in such a way. These are clearly not forces of this world, but spiritual forces that they have received from the study, the lessons, and dissemination.
But I have not received such strength, so what should I do? I do not want to lag behind. First of all, I hold back my friends, becoming a burden for the ten. I thus pray to the Creator to give me the strength to be included in my friends, annul myself before them, bow down, and turn into dust under their feet.
At first, before I started working on my correction, my friends seemed insignificant and idiotic to me. I automatically criticized everyone or at least was indifferent to them. I did not feel that everyone stood inside my heart as a special spiritual image, a Sefira.
Gradually, my view of the spiritual world begins to run through my friends. When we speak of spirituality, I no longer think of the Creator but of them. Friends stand before me like nine deities, idols. I do not know how to work with them yet, but I already see that spirituality is achieved through them, by how together with my friends, I build my spiritual picture. They currently obscure spirituality from me, but they are on the way there, pointing me in the right direction. And this is already progress.2
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/20,Preparation for Convention
1 Minute 62:00
2 Minute 1:14:00
Related Material:
Seeing The Environment Through Eyes Of Love
Love Covers All Crimes
The Union Of The Points In The Heart
The Times of Israel published my new article “The world of academia: an anti-Semitic stronghold”
Hatred against Jews and Israel is no longer marginal but mainstream on college campuses. In the US, for example, a group of Jewish Harvard students formed an anti-Zionist coalition that included support for BDS, while a Jewish student, Adela Cojab, sued NYU alleging her alma mater does not do enough to combat anti-Semitism. Such polarized environments prevail on campuses today, where anti-Semitic incidents have risen dramatically in recent years.
Anti-Zionist sentiments are also evident across the ocean. In Germany, 20% of academics support the right to reject the existence of the state of Israel as part of free speech on campus, revealed a recent study commissioned by the Christian Democratic Union’s think tank.
Why has academia become such a bastion of anti-Israel hatred?
Freedom to Attack
According to monitoring groups, in America, there were 201 anti-Semitic incidents on US university and college campuses in 2018 alone, involving harassment, vandalism and physical assault. Many more cases go unreported because of the inaction of faculties to combat discrimination against Jewish students, especially when prejudice and anti-Israeli initiatives come from Jews themselves—Jewish Voice for Peace being the most vociferous group, active with numerous chapters on campuses across America.
President Trump signed an executive order to combat anti-Semitism on campuses conditioning governmental funding upon whether or not universities fail to reject anti-Jewish bias. But even those in favor of the initiative question whether its enforcement is realistic since fighting bigotry might contradict freedom of speech.
What Built the Bastion of Hatred?
Academia, the stronghold of the learned and educated, has become a fertile hothouse of bigotry and discrimination for various reasons. First, because among students there will always be people proficient in the art of rhetoric who can formulate their ideas assertively to justify such motions as boycotts, using logic difficult to disagree with. These opinionated people also understand how to propagandize and spread their hatred to reach the media and wide audiences. After all, academia is society’s source of education, from where society’s leaders and presidents have emerged. Academia is known for its diversity and permissive libertarianism, an arena that tolerates the expression of whatever comes to mind, even if it might hurt someone else.
Secondly, the roots of modern anti-Semitism were laid decades ago and have been nurtured patiently and cunningly. Its complex rationalizations did not suddenly spring out of thin air to become what they are today: mature and strong hatred. Anti-Semitism is so strong that it is almost impossible to tackle.
What Money Can Buy
It is suspected that radical Muslim elements penetrated and politicized universities many years ago to secure their place of influence with the help of generous financial support, as is currently being investigated by the US Dept. of Education. He who pays has tacit permission to establish courses, programs and departments, according to his views and ideas, even at the expense of erasing other points of view and people. By quietly and steadily employing subversive operatives in key positions it becomes increasingly impossible to close the door to further infiltration.
Pluralism, Not Anarchy
Jews can no longer ignore what is happening right in front of their eyes and continue with a business-as-usual attitude, as if this is a small and passing discomfort. The animosity will not vanish until people realize that freedom should not be confused with anarchy, bigotry, discrimination and even physical attack to threaten or attempt annihilation. And Jews—a people with a vast history of pluralistic debate among their sages to reach truth and wisdom—can and should play a crucial role in fostering an understanding of true freedom for society.
Dialog should be encouraged with the intended end result of bringing about unity and brotherhood. Kabbalist Rav Yehuda Ashlag wrote in his essay “The Freedom” about the importance of the fundamental human value of freedom:
“Just as people’s faces differ, so their views differ. Therefore, society is cautioned to preserve the freedom of expression of the individual. Each individual should maintain his integrity, and the contradiction and oppositeness between people should remain forever, to forever secure the progress of the free society.”
But, as the wisdom of Kabbalah explains, freedom can work only if it is accompanied by the principle, “love covers all crimes” (Prov 10:12) as a basis to reach unity and brotherhood above our differences.
A plethora of ideas and thoughts based on selfish egoistic interests only result in conflicts and wars. On the other hand, when we rise above human egoism, covering it with love, a myriad of ideas and thoughts develop and enrich all kinds of means of communication and connection.
The Jewish people with their long tradition of pluralistic discourse are uniquely situated to play a crucial role in fostering the understanding of true freedom by first implementing among themselves the method of connection above differences and then passing on to humanity the positive force that is generated. It will calm down anti-Semitism and pave the path to a bright future of mutual understanding and harmonious relations. Attaining such an elevated state is the ultimate role of Jews, i.e., to be “light unto the nations.”
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Question: Regarding the principle of the restriction of a degree of our world’s essence: is each individual restricted in one’s own way or does it depend on the degree of consciousness? Is the restriction the measure of consciousness that can be limited by the capacity of the degree of certain consciousness?
Answer: First of all, read Baal HaSulam and you will see how simple it all is.
You restrict yourself. We are in the world of infinity even now. We are surrounded by infinity. But you restrict it to the meager volume of our world. You do this, with your consciousness. So expand your consciousness and move forward.
[259915]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/5/20
Related Material:
Rising Above Consciousness
The Spiritual World Is Right Here
Individual And Collective Consciousness
Question: Is envy a way of personal identification with the superiority of the object that evoked such a sensation? Or is it a certain program of egoism, a manifestation of one’s own essence in relation to social cynicism?
Answer: I don’t know what “social cynicism” is. Notions like this should be analyzed separately.
Regarding envy, it is a very useful quality. It stems from the fact that we were together once, and certain mutual relationships, mutual sensations have remained in us. If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t feel envy, you wouldn’t feel others.
That is why envy is the basis to very good future relations, love, and merger into one common whole. All of it is with the help of envy. This is why it cannot be eradicated. On the contrary, it should be developed.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 1/5/20
Related Material:
Envy Is A Useful Quality
Envy That Helps Us Advance
It Is Good To Envy
New Life 1188 – Feeling Stuck In Life
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel
When the mind and emotions get stuck, a person must replace them with new versions by upgrading the operating software. At this point in the developmental process, a person who has prepared himself is ready to scream to the upper force to save them. Being stuck is actually an invitation from the general program in nature to enter a new beginning. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches a person how to advance by turning to the system with one’s whole heart.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1188 – Feeling Stuck In Life,” 12/10/19
 Video: Play Now | Download |
 Audio: Play Now | Download |
Lesson Preparation
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Lesson on the Topic “Are All United Around The Central Point” (Preparation for the Convention in The World Kabbalah Convention 2020)
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Questions and answers with Dr. Michael Laitman
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Selected Highlights
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
Desert Convention 2020, “Connecting to the Central Point,” Lesson 5
| [media 11] | [media 12] |
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