Audio Version Of The Blog – 9/24/21
Posted on September 24th, 2021
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Question: The term “Creator” (“Bo-re“) in Hebrew means “come and see.” Why is it said “see” and not “taste” or “hear?”
Answer: Vision is the highest organ that transmits a huge amount of information to us that is incomparable with all other organs of perception. It characterizes complete attainment.
Therefore if I say “I saw,” it is considered indisputable evidence. And “I heard,” “I felt” or somehow else, this is unreliable.
In many sources it is written “taste the Creator.” Taste is also a kind of attainment, but it is not vision.
Question: What is the spiritual root of vision? What is special when in the spiritual we receive information through vision?
Answer: Vision symbolizes the light of Hochma, the highest light that we can attain.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/10/21
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All holidays celebrated by the people of Israel stem from the wisdom of Kabbalah. The Sukkot holiday symbolizes the spiritual Kli.
We must build from our desire for pleasure such a form that the Creator can clothe and be revealed in it and we understand who the Creator is, what He wants from us, and how we can be connected to Him, how to rise from our level of creation, from the level of dust to the level similar to the Creator.
To do this, we need to know how to build our Kli out of the material of the desire by means of contraction, screen, and reflected light.
The Sukkah symbolizes the corrected Kli. It is a building that serves as a model for our inner spiritual vessel. Therefore, there is a custom on the holiday of Sukkot to build a structure not inside our heart or in the union of hearts, but to build a Sukkah in an external form as the symbol of a corrected heart, a corrected soul.
The Sukkah is built from the simplest natural material. For its construction you cannot use iron or concrete but only wood, stones, branches, or leaves—anything the earth gives. This is how we build our corrected Kli, the soul, in the form of a hut, a Sukkah, like in child’s play, we build the desired spiritual state in material form.
Based on the details of the construction of the Sukkah described by the Kabbalists, we can understand what a soul is, what it is made of; and what states it passes through. Baal HaSulam and Rabash were very sensitive to this holiday and took care of building a good, beautiful Sukkah because it identifies a person’s attitude to the correction of his soul.
Sukkot symbolizes that we have reached the corrected Kli in which there are four stages, the four walls of the Sukkah. And the Masach for the desire to enjoy called Schach is the roof of the Sukkah. And we are inside the Sukkah, inside the soul, and nothing remains outside because we have corrected the whole soul and unite within it with the Creator.
During the seven days of Sukkot, we invite guests, the seven Sefirot to the Sukkah. Keter, Hochma, and Bina are above the roof of the Sukkah, and the Sefirot Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut are under the roof. This is how we celebrate the entry of the light from the degree of GAR to VAK into the body of the soul.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/21, “Sukkot“
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My new article on Linkedin “Why Even China Can’t Stop Social Media”
It is now scientifically proven that social media is bad for our health. The content you can find there is bad for our mental and emotional soundness, especially that of adolescents. When social media just began, it purported to connect people and in this way make them happier. But people create social media, and people are inherently bad. As a result, social media does the opposite of its proclaimed intention: It makes us more depressed, insecure, and disconnected from the real world than before. Only when we change who we are, we will change how we connect on social media and elsewhere.
Nothing will change until we change our flawed nature. In the long run, all measures will fail until we realize that we have no choice but to dump the focus on regulations, restrictions, and penalties, and focus on educating ourselves, on teaching ourselves to be humane, which is the real meaning of being human.
Currently, China, for example, is imposing limits on the hours that teenagers can play online games. Instead of healing China’s teenagers, I think it will increase their craving for games. Moreover, the problem is not that they are playing games, online or offline. The problem is their disconnection from others. This is what sickens children, adolescents, and adults alike.
If, previously, people connected to each other naturally, since people needed each other’s help in many cases, today people feel much more self-sufficient. As a result, their tendency to see human connection as an asset rather than as a burden is waning. The more AI becomes ubiquitous, the more automation will take over our lives and make other people seem superfluous.
Instead of treating it as a problem, we should see it as an opportunity. This trajectory toward automation and disconnection, which will not change, is our chance to take our relationships to the next level. It is a chance for all people to connect in the heart rather than in the body.
We can reach beyond the screen of the phone only if we aim for the heart. There is no other solution to the excessive use of social media since this is exactly where we need to advance—into each other’s hearts.
For now, social media helps us recognize that disconnection is bad. But revealing the bad is not the same as recognizing it. Revealing the bad means that we see that social media is bad for us. Recognizing the bad means that we recognize the root of the problem: our alienation from each other. We need to work on fixing our disconnection, not on its symptoms, whether they are addiction to social media, bullying, substance abuse, or anything else.
If we use the symptom to recognize the problem and treat it at its core, it will no longer be a problem, but a part of the healing. May we be wise enough to recognize the bad rather than reveal it, and courageous enough to teach ourselves to love rather than to hate.
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Why do we feel an emptiness in our life? It is in order for us to understand the need to take faith above reason upon ourselves. After all, we will never be able to fill this emptiness in the usual way. Only the Creator can fill it. That is why this emptiness is revealed to us.
If we just want to avoid unpleasant feelings, we hide from the state given to us by the Creator and escape the spiritual path. However, if we want to correctly use the feeling of emptiness, we must think about what faith above reason means and what the degree of bestowal is.
What is revealed to me now as emptiness is the place of a higher degree, above our world from the degree of Bina. I must try to fill this emptiness, but fill with the quality of bestowal, and then I will elevate myself to that place.
For this I need the help of the Creator because a person cannot do it himself. The main thing is not to run away from the feeling of emptiness, but to try to fill it with the force of Bina, with faith above reason, the greatness of the Creator, and the quality of bestowal. We must ask the Creator to give us this force.
I do not just feel emptiness, but fill it with the greatness of the Creator. This is the place where I have to reveal the Creator. Therefore, I ask the Creator to give me the possibility to live in this empty place and find spiritual life there in the place that currently seems empty to me. This is because I am used to a different corporeal life and spiritual life is an empty place for me.
The feeling of emptiness means that I do not see any hope in my state, neither in the present nor in the future. From my degree of Malchut, I do not yet feel any fulfillment and importance in the degree of Bina. The degree of bestowal is full of forces and feelings, but I do not feel them yet and I perceive it as emptiness.
Then I have a choice before me, to choose to accept that this is how the upper degree is revealed to me. It still seems empty to me, but I want to fill it with the greatness of the degree of the Creator, the degree of Bina.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/21, “Faith Above Reason”
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “If Darwin’s theory is right about life beginning in Africa, then why are African states less developed than Western states?“
It is possible that life was conceived in Africa, but our civilization began developing only with the emergence of human egoism, which is the force positioned behind our progress. This happened in Mesopotamia, ancient Babylon, around 4,800 years ago. The story of the Tower of Babel in the Torah narrates is about the outburst of human egoism at that time. In their pride, people wanted to achieve the heavens, expressed allegorically, to build “a tower up to the sky.” As a result of the ego that developed, they started hating each other and thus stopped understanding each other. This is called “the intermixing of the languages.” Then, they wandered away from each other because they did not want to and could no longer be together as a unified human society.
They stopped understanding each other, and then humanity began developing by means of its ego. This is how we have developed throughout history—by means of the ego that is inherent to us, from one generation to the next.
It is only in the person, in this special creature of nature, where the ego develops even over the course of a single lifespan. A one-day old calf is like a grown bull, i.e. it is already an animal that is ready for everything it needs to do in life. In us, however, the ego grows over the course of our lives, and we thus do not know what we need to do. As such, we need education and support from society.
Therefore, we are very far away from our early days in Africa and even from Babylon. Today, we are immersed in the developing egoism, which demands to be quickly tamed. If we tame our ego, then we will achieve a new positively connected society, and if not, then we will approach the level of the end of our civilization.
Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
How does spiritual ascent happen? I am being raised from the degree of Malchut to the degree of Bina, but I am not yet on the degree of Bina, and therefore I feel it as emptiness. And here I have a choice to return back to Malchut, and this will be a real descent because I have neglected the opportunity given to me by the Creator.
The Creator reveals the emptiness to me as a part of the upper level and invites me to ascend there. But I do not want to stay there and climb even higher.
I refuse to advance, I avoid the feeling of emptiness and ask the Creator to lower me back to ordinary life. Or I stay in an empty place and start to settle in. This means that I want to reveal that this place is empty only relative to my egoistic desires and not to the desires of bestowal.
It is as if I close one window on the screen and I want to see myself in a new window, in the light of bestowal. And then, I begin to see the future world. Therefore, all states of emptiness are given in order to use them correctly with faith above reason, by the power of Bina over Malchut, so that I want to stay in this state and exist in it.
This is the entry into the spiritual world. And we receive such invitations from the Creator many times every day, but we do not like them. Before, we had some sense of life, and now there is nothing at all. But we do not understand that through this emptiness the Creator wants to bring us to the spiritual world, to the upper level.
In these states of emptiness, we need to turn to the Creator and ask Him to fill this void with His greatness that will give us the joy of coming closer to Him.
This means to go by faith above reason by feeling the advantage of the properties and actions of bestowal, Bina instead of the properties and actions of Malchut given to us from birth. I want to reveal the qualities of bestowal in me, which means to reveal the Creator in myself.
Therefore, when we feel emptiness, we must ask the Creator to reveal Himself inside this emptiness. And if we ask together, we will certainly succeed. This is the shortest and most direct way to reveal the Creator.
And when I feel the joy of getting closer to the Creator, I must direct the whole fulfillment I have achieved: the feeling of joy, bestowal, and confidence to the Creator. And then I turn my state into a spiritual Kli, turn all the previously received filling into a lack, into a tool (Kli) for bestowing to the Creator.
And always when we climb the steps, the former filling turns into a lack. And it is so upon every ascent.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/21
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Question: On Rosh HaShanah a person decides to start a new life, and despite the fact that he needs to rise above his nature, he still wants to test all his qualities during the ten days before Yom Kippur.
By comparing them with the qualities of the Creator, he sees that he cannot be like the Creator in any of them and on Yom Kippur he decides to make a restriction on them, which in our world is expressed in five limitations.
After that, after the five days symbolizing the five Sefirot, the holiday of Sukkot begins. What is the essence of these holidays?
Answer: The New Year (Rosh HaShanah) is preceded by a series of days when people ask for forgiveness. They sort of evaluate their actions, what good and bad they have done, and in general, they understand that they have not done anything particularly good.
This is how a person checks his actions and comes to the conclusion that he is obliged to obey the upper will of the Creator because “There is None Else Besides Him.” He accepts the upper will as the only ruling force in the world. From this state, he begins to evaluate himself. He really does a very serious analysis of his actions and deeds, which continues until Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur is the inner state of a person when one realizes that only continuous egoism acts in him and that he must rise above himself. After all, the main commandment of the Torah is “love your neighbor as yourself,” and he is absolutely far and even opposite to it. Therefore, he asks for forgiveness.
This is the principle of Yom Kippur, when a person is ready to stop using their egoistic desires. There are only five of them in a person. Therefore, they are represented in our world by five restrictions: the ban on eating, drinking, etc.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 10/7/19
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Prophets, Joshua, 14:13 – 15: And Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance.
Hebron, therefore, became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he fulfilled the will of the Lord God of Israel.
And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-arba (the city of Arba); Arba was the greatest man among the ‘Anakim.’ And the land had rest from war.
Question: Hebron is probably the most turbulent place on Earth. What is in it? Historically, this is the first capital of King David, the second holiest city after Jerusalem. The cave of the Patriarchs where our forefathers are buried is there. But why is it such a turbulent place?
Answer: Because it is for this place that a symbolic war between Israel and the rest of the world is waged because everyone wants a connection with the Creator.
Connection with the Creator happens through the forefathers. Thus, Hebron is the point that connects every nation with Him. Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, are all serious bonds between the Creator and a man only if he would symbolically conquer Hebron.
However, he will conquer from the point of view of connection with Him, at least an external connection, because all those who misunderstand the connection with the Creator believe: “If we reign there, then this place will be ours.” They do not understand that only internal unity, which can be reached by rising above egoism, gives this connection.
Therefore, for as many years as Hebron has existed, and it existed even before the people of Israel entered there, there were wars over it. The Turks, the Crusaders, and the Arabs all wanted Jerusalem and Hebron.
Question: You have also been to Hebron. What do you feel about this place?
Answer: Absolute emptiness. It is possible to say that there is some kind of connection, but this feeling is very vague. The only feeling that I have and have always had awakens on the grave of Rabbi Shimon. I could see it even in Rabash. I could really feel there that he was physically close to the Creator. How to explain this, I do not know.
And in other places, there are absolutely no feelings. Not at the Wailing Wall, not in Hebron. However, when Rabash asked Baal HaSulam: “Why did you go to Hebron,” he answered: “Because it is said that a person should try to reach the degree of his forefathers.”
Question: Will there ever be peace in Hebron?
Answer: Only when we are done with all our uncorrected desires.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/9/21
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Question: Ariel writes: “I do not understand anything you say, but there is a feeling that this is the truth. How do I deal with this?”
Answer: Let it be. It is simply that this is really the truth; this is actually how it is. It is about what is happening in the world, it is what Kabbalists have predicted for the world throughout history. So let’s not try to rewrite history to suit ourselves, but understand that it is unchangeable. What is written must happen.
All we need to do is use our mind to try and make this history happen a little above us, a bit over us. In other words, we hear how the Creator scolding us, how He is directing us and showing us where and how to change. And this should be enough, His pointing His finger should be sufficient for our advancement.
Question: Ariel writes that he does not understand what you are telling us, but he feels that it is true. Is it good or bad that a person does not understand?
Answer: It is good. This indicates that he has a correct, normal perception.
Comment: Actually, a person is usually guided by knowledge. He understands that he cannot grasp what you are saying within reason. He only has a feeling that it is true. So he stays and listens.
My Response: Yes. That is enough because a soul is a feeling and not knowledge.
Question: When you met your teacher, how did you feel? Did you understand what he was talking about?
Answer: Virtually not. Practically, I did not understand it. I felt that it was the truth. That is all. But what the truth is, I did not know.
Question: How can this be? This goes completely contrary to this whole world.
Answer: It is how it is from above. There is nothing you can do here.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/22/21
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