Audio Version Of The Blog – 5/22/21

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“A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step”

244Question: Christopher Columbus reputed to have said: “You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

What does it mean in Kabbalah that to cross the ocean, you have to completely lose the sight of the shore?

Answer: That you simply need to close your eyes to everything corporeal and go only by the guidelines that the Kabbalists have given us until the promised land appears. Literally.

Man must be sure that it will still show up.

Question: And if it is not showing up, not showing up, not showing up…?

Answer: Keep going. This is the ultimate romance!

Comment: Yes, there is a delight in this.

My Response: But you must prepare this delight for yourself by yourself. And drink it yourself! According to Baal HaSulam, the science of Kabbalah is prepared for those who are ready to make efforts for 20 and 30 years. And 40, and 50!

Question: To lose sight of the shore absolutely?

Answer: Yes. And one does not feel like he is moving forward! Columbus still had his guidance by the stars and so on. And for the Kabbalist, his orientation is only internal.

Comment: That is, you do not feel you are moving forward.

My Response: What can you focus on? There are no stars! There is nothing! That is the fact!

Comment: That is, you cannot put any check marks: “I have crossed 5, 10, 20 kilometers, etc.”

Answer: You can make checkmarks every day. But these checkmarks are marked only by your aspirations toward the group.

Inside it, you walk. It can be physical, it can be spiritual, it can be the connection with your teacher and your friends. And when you work on it day after day, it takes 10 years, 20 years, and maybe 30, but in the end, you reach it. “The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/21

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The Mystery Of The Unification Of The Masculine And Feminine, Part 15

294.4Will women save the world?

Question: Knowing how huge male egoism is and how much it has become hardened in the process of evolution, will women save the world?

Answer: Yes, women will save the world. If they want to, men will bend under it everywhere and always.

When I visit different countries, special communities and peoples, I always wonder who is in charge of their family. Who rules: a male voice (“I am the master!”) or a female voice?

The man replies: “Of course I am!” But as soon as his wife takes a look at him, everything becomes clear. And so it is everywhere, in all cultures. It comes from a spiritual root.

Women need to give men the right direction in life. After all, they can run away anywhere, and women, as a mother, must control them a little on the way to the Creator. Men need it.

If it were not for women, men would make this world a complete sandbox, or numerous tourist routes, or races, football, anything except a normal life with the right development. This is indeed the case. Therefore, the feminine part is very important, especially in Kabbalah.

We can see how much in the last 100 years a woman has rushed forward, become independent, strong, broke through to all the authorities, and so forth. All this is precisely because we are moving toward the correction of a world in which female power, strength, her quality and devotion are necessary to achieve the highest goal.

So, men, listen to the women. In each group, try to increase the strength of the female part as much as possible. Women should be promoted and try to exploit their consistency to make the group more stable.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 3/3/19

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“The Ceasefire Doesn’t Cease The Fighting” (Linkedin)

My new article on Linkedin “The Ceasefire Doesn’t Cease the Fighting

As soon as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, politicians, pundits, and a plethora of regular folk took to social media platforms, news media, and just about anywhere they could write or speak, to express their opinions on the timing of the ceasefire and the achievements of Operation Guardian of the Walls. But whether people are happy with the results or not, one thing is clear: Nothing is over. It will also never be over until we decide to stop fighting amongst ourselves.

We established our nationhood only after we agreed to unite “as one man with one heart.” Since then, the success or failure of our people has depended on our unity. When we fight against each other, we bring upon us enemies who destroy us. When we unite, we are untouchable.

The composition Masechet Derech Eretz Zuta, for example, written at approximately the same time as the Talmud, states the following: “Even when Israel worship idols and there is peace among them, the Lord says, ‘I have no wish to harm them.’ …But if they are disputed, what is it that is said about them? ‘Their heart is divided; now they will bear their guilt.’”

The book Shem MiShmuel states even more explicitly that “when unity restores Israel as before, Satan will have no place in which to place error and external forces. When they are as one man with one heart, they are as a fortified wall against the forces of evil.”

But our vocation is not only to unite, but to set an example of unity for all the nations. This is why whenever we quarrel among ourselves, even if only verbally, the nations punish us. The Talmud (Yoma 9b) explains that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Israel and destroyed the First Temple because the people of Israel spoke to one another “with daggers in their tongues.” But when the people of Israel display unity, everyone wants to learn from them how to unite. The book Sifrey Devarim writes that in the days of the Second Temple, during the three festive pilgrimages, gentiles would “go up to Jerusalem and see Israel … and say, ‘It is becoming to cling only to this nation.’”

To this day, people want to learn from the Jews how to unite. Interestingly, it is often rabid antisemites who wish it the most, and express anger at the Jews precisely for not setting a good example from which they could learn. Vasily Shulgin, for example, a senior member of the Duma, the Russian Parliament, before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, dedicated almost his entire compilation, What We Don’t Like About Them, to disparaging the Jews. However, he also details what he and everyone else would do if Jews were to change their selfish ways and rise to the level they once possessed: “Let them … rise to the height to which they apparently climbed [in antiquity] … and immediately, all nations will rush to their feet. They will rush not by virtue of compulsion … but by free will, joyful in spirit, grateful and loving, including the Russians! We ourselves will request, ‘Give us Jewish rule, wise, benevolent, leading us to the Good.’ And every day we will offer the prayers for them, for the Jews: ‘Bless our guides and our teachers, who lead us to the recognition of Your goodness.’”

Therefore, if we want to defeat Hamas, we must first defeat the hatred we feel for one another. If we do this, we will discover that Hamas is no longer our enemy, nor is anyone else. And if we cannot believe this simple message, it is a sign that our hate-filled hearts are blinding us to the truth that hatred of each other is our worst, and only enemy.

Merging Of Opposites

630.1Within the framework of brief explanations about spiritual states, the way they unfold, develop, and how we absorb these states, it is necessary to talk about the way Kabbalah reacts to opposites, and how it makes it possible to balance them. In our life, we face many contradictions from all kinds of physical influences (cold, heat, pressure, vacuum, etc.) to sensory parameters: hatred, love, joy, despair, and so on.

How can we balance these states so that they do not exist in us alternately, but can exist in general harmony, that is, so that we would perceive them simultaneously although it seems to us completely impossible?

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that it must lead a person to a state of perfection. It explains that there can be no perfection when it exists only in one state and in the other there is absolute imperfection, the opposite of it. There can be no perfection in a state of despair and there can be no perfection in a state of joy if it is later replaced by despair. Thus, here we need a completely different approach, a different solution to the problem.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is engaged in. It sees its mission in bringing all the qualities of a person, all his states together, and giving one big, perfect solution to all of them.

The answer is to rise above everything that happens in between, above the good and bad states, when they cannot connect in any way, or get along together at any level, in feelings and in the mind.

Their connection occurs when a person rises from the egoistic state to the so-called area of faith above reason, that is, he begins to work with his qualities in the direction of bestowing and not receiving. Working inversely with all sensations, he perceives everything as absolute good.

It is not like in physics and in our lives in general, in our relations with each other, when there are contradictions and we do not know what to do. At most, we are somewhere in the middle, trying to find a middle ground.

There is no middle ground in Kabbalah! Kabbalah believes that it is a vicious action, when we restrict ourselves on both sides and believe that we can do nothing else, raise our hands, and agree to some average value.

We should choose not the average, but the maximum value from two opposite values at the same time. When we rise above our egoism, then these two opposing systems become one because one becomes the desire and the other becomes the fulfillment.

Then we have a very clear feeling that in this way it is possible to make absolutely all decisions, as well as to resolve absolutely all conflicts. This is precisely the method of bringing the world to a perfect state.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States”

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