Question: Who is the neighbor?

Answer: Anyone. If a person does everything it takes to keep our system in balance, then the only thing that matters for him is bestowal. In fact, it is easy. Try to think about the other and you will see how all the nonsense, all the problems disappear from your head. Just like this—from myself to the others.

Question: Is a neighbor really any person in the world?

Answer: Yes. Try it. Even at the corporeal level. At the Kabbalistic level, we already deal with the system of connections.

Comment: In order to do something for someone else, I need to get some kind of fuel. I need to understand why I am doing this.

My Response: You will be given fuel. You will also be given calories in order to act.

Question: But it is not natural for a person to think about the neighbor, right?

Answer: Ask for strength so that it will become possible.

Question: Why do I need all this?

Answer: By doing this you reach equivalence to the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 12/26/19

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Question: Did a man or a state called Adam HaRishon, the first man, ever exist? Did he suddenly feel the tree of knowledge of good and evil within him?

Answer: Yes. The tree represents states that one can aspire to and grow.

By tasting the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he sees that it is detrimental because he begins to receive from this life in his egoistic desires instead of rising above them, and at the same time, he completely loses the whole upper world.

We exist in a certain space that is unfamiliar to us. This space can be perceived by us in its entirety only if we reveal all our inner potential, all our desires. Then it will be called the upper world.

This same space can be perceived by us in a very limited form, in our small gray world that we now feel.

The difference between the worlds is the difference between life and death, because the existence in our world is like death. I always desire something, but can never find it. Since birth, my life is a slow death.

Question: Why was Adam suddenly compelled to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? After all, everything was so wonderful.

Answer: The Creator deliberately set him up so that he would understand the state he was really in. As created beings, we can only feel something relative to something else.

When Adam HaRishon was in a perfect state, he did not feel it as perfect. He did not yet have analysis or synthesis, doubts, desires, aspirations, or their fulfillments. He did not know that there were differences between them. Everything is understood in comparison. Everything is felt through its opposite.

But he did not have that opposite. He had to fall into our world in order to gradually rise from it to the higher attainment, to the upper world, to see what the Creator had in store for him.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #7

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Question: Why do we not see any changes in the external behavior of the teacher in states of ascents and descents, while we do see such changes in the friends? How do you manage to be so full of energy all the time, while others are in states of ascents and descents?

Answer: I have already been through the states that you are in. Long ago I attained the recognition that these states are fleeting, and that following the evening comes the night, that after the night comes the morning, and then daytime, and that they are all helpful states.

I have understood that I must lower my head and wait, and that I may even hasten the time of dawn, the spiritual light. This is the reason that I am always in a state in which I can occupy myself by doing something.

There are states in which I must watch a political or social TV program that helps me think so that I can build up the necessary vocabulary and terminology and to understand better what is happening in the world, etc.

Other than that, I write posts on Twitter, I have meetings with the writers, who write articles to the press, several times a week. I participate in filming sessions of programs on a variety of different topics related to the wisdom of Kabbalah, psychology, etc., and I give evening lessons about The Book of Zohar. So, you can see that I work all the time.

I want to share a secret with you: I engage in different parts of the wisdom of Kabbalah according to the state I am in. There is no need, for example, for special sensitivity in order to study “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” or The Study of the Ten Sefirot. So, when my feelings become numb and I become like a log, I turn to these parts. On the other hand, when my feelings come to life, I engage in studying the articles in Shamati or the articles of Rabash.

Every day I need to prepare for the next day’s lesson. If the lesson begins at three am, I wake up two hours before the lesson, take a hot shower, warm myself up and make sure that I will not fall asleep. I have been living according to this schedule for over forty years, and so I have developed this habit.

I take my work very seriously. Although I know the material, I go over it before the lesson in order to get into the topic, to get into the state in which I can connect with the students, and to be ready for the contact with them, to feel them, so that they will be able to feel me.

At the beginning of every lesson, I introduce the topic to them for ten-fifteen minutes and try to present it to them in a new way. This means that it is highly creative work that requires constant mental effort, so even when I sleep, these thoughts do not leave me, and I experience it all inside me.

The students are the most important thing that I have. I relate to them with great awe. They are the basis of my life.

I think that those who come to the lesson physically or who watch them virtually feel that and advance from one day to the next.

They receive a portion of spiritual knowledge each day, feelings, and a new perspective, etc. What is more, it is not just an event or a phenomenon, but real internal renewal, it is actual work.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/2/18

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Comment: One of the famous Kabbalists, commentator of the Tanakh, David Altschuler wrote that before the time of King Nimrod, all people were equal and none of them rose to dominate others. But Nimrod began to dominate and rule on Earth. Then people began to build the Tower of Babel.

MyResponse: The Tower of Babel, Migdal Bavel in Hebrew, from the word “lebalbel” (confuse), means confusion, mixing of languages. This means that egoism became higher than people, and they ceased to understand each other.

Question: Here two characters appeared, Abraham and Nimrod, symbolizing good and evil, a positive and a negative force. Abraham claimed that it was necessary to unite above the contradictions that had arisen, and Nimrod proposed to disperse and settle all over the world. What is the resistance here?

Answer: Abraham called for the same unity as before. Only earlier it was natural, and now when contradictions rose up, it was necessary to achieve connection above them. Nimrod advocated for what is called capitalistic development, for a rational decision.

Both of them were right. Because, on the one hand, Abraham said: “We lived well. Now egoism has risen, and it separates us. Let us unite!” Nimrod, however, thought: “Why do we need to unite? Everything that comes from nature is good. If egoism has appeared, it will develop us. Why should we level ourselves again?”

Question: It is clear that a conflict arose between them. But since the Torah does not speak about corporeality, what does it mean, from an internal point of view, that two forces manifest in a person: Abraham and Nimrod? What are these forces?

Answer: Abraham called on people who possessed these two points to raise the point of unity, to raise it even higher, because it is for this purpose that egoism was developing.

Nimrod claimed that egoism was necessary for its own self, so that by using it we will begin to develop corporeally and technologically.

Nimrod, from the word “mered” (revolution), opposed integral nature. He was convinced that egoism should be used wherever possible.

Question: Is egoism not nature? It seems that Nimrod was going in a natural way, following his nature.

Answer: It depends on what he was following. Nature is based on balance and is in internal homeostasis. Egoism, like cancer, violates everything.

It turns out that, on the one hand, nature is built on competition, and on the other hand, it is built on interaction, on the balance of two opposite systems. One system is Nimrod, and the other is Abraham. The problem is how to balance them.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 5/13/19

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Question: What is the correct way to read Kabbalistic books if you are not yet familiar with Kabbalistic terminology?

Answer: The approach is the same as in regular studies—the gradual acquisition of skills.

I remember the first time I came to Kabbalah classes. I was told: “Sit down, open the book, read.” I opened it. It was An Introduction to the Science of Kabbalah, one of the prefaces to The Book of Zohar. We began to read. And that is all. No introduction, no preparation.

It is different today. There are introductory conversations and preliminary events. And before, everything was very simple: if you want, sit down and read.

Question: Perhaps that is why there are lighter books that you can use before you start the serious literature?

Answer: Yes, there are a lot of such books today. But I personally believe that it is necessary to teach the way I was taught.
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From KabTV’s “Questions about Kabbalistic Books” 10/22/19

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Comment: Now Israel has gained some independence in this land.

My Response: This is not independence at all, but only a condition for us to start working on our real independence so that we, while living here, form a community called a nation (although it is not a nation), which would create a serious mutual connection between us in equivalence of form to the Creator.

The fact that Israel now exists is only a condition for the creation of a group within which, in mutual consent and love, in the cultivation of these qualities, one can gradually come to the quality of mutual bestowal, that is, to the revelation of the Creator. Then we will gain independence; otherwise we will not.

Then it will be possible to call this group, which will connect with each other, a nation. Otherwise, it is not a nation, but just a rabble, broken parts of a former nation who were once united on the condition of mutual bestowal and love.

Question: Then this group, this united nation called Israel, will include not only the Israelis living on this land, right?

Answer: Anyone who wants to. Just like in ancient Babylon. Who came to Abraham? Those who had a point in the heart, a craving, an inner deposit, that I want this, that this is above everything else. Such people will join us. The rest will not, they will just leave, they will not live here. I see such a migration in the future.

Here will come those who have a point in the heart, who want to become the nation of Israel, who aspire directly to the Creator, who gain spiritual independence.

Question: What about the people who once came here?

Answer: They came because they were pushed out by fate, pushed out by the suffering, the hatred of all mankind. It is correctly dictated by the fact that we are not fulfilling our mission: to bring correction to the whole world, to all nations.

That is, all that ancient Babylon, which is now settled around the globe, when in real need for this, must learn the science of its own correction, of improving itself, of rising to the level of true independence from all suffering and its source, in order to become eternal and perfect.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” # 6

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What does it mean to covet thy neighbor’s wife?“

The states in which we progress should be aimed only at bestowal, and not for self-benefit.

Our state is very interesting regarding our spiritual path. On one hand, we are alone and the whole world is inside us, as it is written, “A person is a small world.”

On the other hand, all of our inner desires appear as characters existing outside of us. The same applies to our like-minded friends: it seems to us that they exist outside of us, and we later gradually start seeing that they are all inside us.

“Neighbors” refers to these like-minded friends of ours.

To spiritually progress, i.e., to discover our connection with the Creator, we need to process their desires, which are called “wives,” from a spiritual degree, i.e., a degree of bestowal. This means that we need to dress into these desires and work on them for their benefit, and not for self-benefit.

This has nothing to do with genders as we understand them in our world. The female part represents desires to receive, the fundamental matter of creation, and the male part represents the desire to bestow, which is the nature of the Creator.

Therefore, by working to benefit the desire to receive, and not to use it for self-benefit, we act at a spiritual degree, like the Creator Himself, and we thus implement the commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.” In other words, we operate at a degree of “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The Ten Commandments are located at the level of the ten Sefirot. The commandment “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” is the most serious of all the commandments because it deals with the lowest internal egoistic quality, namely using the desire to receive in order to receive for self-benefit alone.

The prohibition on such an intention lets us fully apply an intention to bestow upon our desire to receive, so that we can enter into a mutual connection among each other at a higher spiritual level, where we are not divided by gender.

Based on the TV show, “Spiritual States” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on December 26, 2019. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Does the correct interaction between people assume that I receive something from society and give something to it?

Answer: Naturally, like in a living organism.

Question: What is the rule for such interaction? How do I know how much I should receive and how much I should give?

Answer: This is not regulated. As far as I am able to give, I give, and as far as I need to receive in order to be able to give fully, I receive.

Question: There are seven billion people on the planet, does everyone determine how much they need?

Answer: These seven billion have only been around for the last hundred years. Before that, there were two billion of us. So, the quantity does not matter here.

We have evolved over thousands of years. Today we gradually realize that we are developing incorrectly, and we need to come to some other interaction, to internal homeostasis between us, to maintain a balance in communication. Nature itself, all our qualities, all our states, teach us this. So, it will take another couple of hundred years, and humanity will still come to this.

Question: Do I understand correctly that there are forces in nature that we ourselves can call upon, and they themselves will produce this balance?

Answer: Sure. Not ourselves. We are under the forces of nature.

Question: So, will these forces balance how much I need to receive from society and how much to give?

Answer: Yes. Little by little, we will grow wiser. We will call from nature the emergence of those forces that will act on us and change us. We will enter into such a state of connection between us, into such a correlation that we will receive from each other as much as necessary and give as much as necessary to maintain our society in absolute, ideal balance.

Question: But do you understand that this is a theory that needs to be tested?

Answer: This is not a theory. One day our times will become history, and then this theory will become reality.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States”, 5/13/19

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Question: How can you completely reverse your perception of reality, your assessment of a situation and life?

Answer: You cannot think about how to reverse yourself. How do you know that this is possible? You need to navigate where you want to go and what you need it for.

You can reverse yourself under the influence of a relevant society but only if there are certain prerequisites for it, serious intentions. There must be some special estimates here.

It cannot be that a person says: “I am tired of being who I am. I want to be different.” He must carefully check everything, plan, create his own way to implement it. Nothing is going to just happen.

Question: Does society need to stop and start asking itself the right questions?

Answer: And why would it do this? Here we face the question: “What comes first?” What causes the question that arises in society? What affected society? What brought imbalance in it? And so on.

And then we can talk about what is needed to bring oneself back to a state of peace or balanced movement.

Life itself asks the necessary questions.
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From KabTV’s “Ask the Kabbalist” 1/12/21

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