Question: You said that when a person you knew well and with whom you felt a certain spiritual, human closeness dies, you look at it in two ways. As a Kabbalist, you understand that a person has simply completed his mission at this stage and continues on his path. On the other hand, you feel the pain of his relatives with whom you are familiar. How is such a double perception possible?

Answer: I had such close contacts with my teacher. I was by his side for 12 years, practically all hours except for sleeping and another three or four hours a day when I had to work. Plus, once a week we went with him for two days to Tiberius. We had a small house there.

Despite this, when he left, it was absolutely clear to me that this man had completed his mission, and now I must continue it. I remained at the level at which I was in spiritual, inner contact with him, and although I do not see him externally, our contact continues to develop.

So, in fact, I do not interfere with his physical absence. It helps me in many ways because I feel my duties, I feel a completely different task before me.

In general, Kabbalists do not meet the death of their teachers in the same way that we meet the death of relatives in our world. That is, it is not leaving us. There is no such thing as “leaving us”!

What does “he left me” mean? The body disappeared from the eyes, disappeared from this world. But he didn’t leave me! I had an inner contact with him, was together in one desire, in one aspiration, in one vessel. Our souls touched and mutually penetrated each other. In this mutual penetration, mutual spiritual actions remain and develop.

In no case do I feel separated from him and through him from all Kabbalists along this long chain to Adam. I feel that I am connected with them to the extent that I can realize it, feel it, understand it, and discover it for myself. I feel this clearly, just as a person in our world feels that he belongs to his relatives, his comrades, his colleagues, his people, and our world.

This is an absolutely clear feeling that you live with. And the fact that one leaves or both of you rise further together changes at the same time, of course, these feelings are transformed at a different level, but they still remain, there is no gap. Can an animal body somehow affect spiritual contact here?! In no case!
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Beyond the Last Line” 5/3/10

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Question: Are there cycles of souls?

Answer: Yes, they exist; you just need to understand what they are.

There has been claims by scientists that they discovered where the human soul is and how much it weighs. There are some enthusiasts who are always looking for something like that. I too would like people to eventually find their soul but not in this way, not by weighing or some kind of medical examination.

What is reincarnation? What is it for? Who is it reincarnating? What is transmitted from life to life through death? What dies, what remains, what just flows above our existences? If we define this, then we will not be confused.

Reincarnation in Kabbalah is understood as the reincarnation of souls, while humanity perceives it as something that passes from our life to the next life, that is, a person dies now and then is born again and again.

It is correct that he is born again. But is it the same person? What remains of his past life? What passes on through the stage of death, which we do not observe in our world, into a new existence, which we again observe in our life? This needs to be determined.

There is a special collection of information, what is called Reshimo, from the word “Roshem” (record), that really passes from life to life. Therefore, in each generation we develop and become more egoistic, smart, and dexterous. This is our development, unlike animals.

Animals develop much more slowly and people develop constantly, literally throughout their lives. An animal reaches the peak of its development in a few weeks after birth, at maximum several months. And after that, it just lives developing only physically, in an animal way.

A person also develops in an animal way, that is, he grows in mass, and at the same time grows in intellect, in mind, in accumulating information, in mastering communication with this world. Therefore, compared to animals, we have a huge amount of additional information that passes from generation to generation.

We see how the next generation is born with some skills that we do not have because it takes its information data from the previous generation, from the previous reincarnation and transfers it to the next one.

Since a person breaks off with the past and reincarnates into the next level of life, even the same earthly egoistic level without any spiritual appendage, he already behaves differently, treats the world differently, and perceives this world in a completely different way.

Look at how our children, and even more so grandchildren, perceive computers, mobile phones, all these novelties. It is absolutely natural for them! They are already born with this information. But this is not the soul.

This is where we do not differ much from a regular person who does not purposefully engage in Kabbalah, the development of the soul. He just does not have it. He has the so-called informational genes that accompany him throughout his life, develop, and pass from life to life.

His vital force again excites the body, he is born in a new shell, and in it he continues to further develop his informational data (mind and feelings that we define as egoism) until in one of the material reincarnations his egoism develops to the point where he starts asking: “What am I living for?”

That is, he is already asking not only within the framework of this world: “Why do I exist? How can I live better?”, but a higher: “What am I living for?” He seems to want to get up and look at the whole metamorphosis that is happening to him from top to bottom, as if from the outside.

Then the need for the development of the soul arises. Such a person comes to the science of Kabbalah; he has nowhere else to develop his soul. He begins to develop it from that initial informational gene that asks about the meaning of life, no longer the meaning of existence within this life but above it in order to actually comprehend its meaning.

A person no longer stops at any soothing meditative methods, but wants to directly, sensibly reveal the upper world in himself.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Reincarnation” 5/3/10

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are some solutions for technological unemployment?“

The solution to mass unemployment is to setup a system where people’s basic needs are met while they engage in connection-enriching education.

When we start learning, listening to and discussing on a mass scale what our nature is, what nature is in general, how nature works, how we evolve in such a nature, and what we can do in order to positively connect, and by doing so, reach balance with nature, then we will see an immense improvement in every area of our lives. Mass unemployment provides us with an opportunity to implement such a form of education on a mass scale.

We have no need for eight billion people to work for 8-to-12 hours a day. Half a billion people is enough to provide for our basic needs.

If we would evenly distribute responsibilities in order to reach a reasonable level of sustenance, then we would ensure that everyone would receive their optimal living conditions and life’s essentials. Outside of dealing with life’s necessities, say for around five or six hours a day, we would be free to engage in inner self-improvement via connection-enriching education and activities, which ideally would fill our media channels.

One way or another, we will need to rise to a new degree of existence, one where we positively connect and discover the positive force of nature dwelling in our connection. If we fail to undergo such an upgrade via positive means, i.e., via connection-enriching education, then we will receive suffering across the board—on personal, social and ecological scales—until we agree to exercise our free choice and rise to a new level of existence on our own accord. In other words, rising to a new level of existence is our realest work, and the work that so many people today are engaged in is largely unnecessary. If we apply ourselves to positively connect in order to rise to a new level of existence, then we would receive a whole new harmonious, peaceful, eternal and perfect life in balance with nature, and by doing so, we would realize the ultimate purpose of our lives.

Moreover, such work is for everyone. Mass unemployment is a phenomenon that would come to us for the purpose of giving us free time on a mass scale, and that we would use that free time to undergo an upgrade in our consciousness and connections to each other. Doing so requires establishing an educational system on a mass scale, not just education as we usually think about it, for instance, like schools and universities, but education in terms of all the influences we receive from society: from schooling through to the mass and social media we encounter on a regular basis.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Partnership Agreement” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 4, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash.

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Question: Where does the phenomenon of transgender come from, when a person is outwardly born a man, but feels like a woman and undergoes sex change surgery? Or vice versa?

Answer: This comes from the fact that we are all the result of the shattering of a common soul.

The Creator created one soul, one spiritual structure, which was specially divided into many parts so that we could know the Creator through them and reach His status, His degree, and merge with Him.

It was not just shattered into different parts in terms of power, qualities, and characters, but also by gender. At the same time, one part of the soul is engaged in mastering the technique of correction and attracting an upper force, the other is developing desire and arousing the male part to development with the help of the same upper force.

Since we are broken parts of a single soul, in the process of our correction, adaptation, and return to the upper world from which we fell after being shattered, we constantly mix with each other. Together, men and women give birth to both boys and girls.

It is the same in the spiritual world. We give birth to both male and female souls, and the Creator, the third force, determines, in principle, the fate of each of them in accordance with the final goal. In general, this is not a simple system.

For tens of thousands of years of humanity’s existence there has been constant physiological animal mixing, especially in our time when on one hand egoism has risen, and on the other hand it has reached a terrible, amazing mixing between nations in our generation.

Moreover, this mixing is not so much physical as internal—in culture, in mentality, and in dependence on each other. As a result there is such an agitation in the souls when they cannot accurately associate themselves with their roots, including sexually.

And here a person gets confused with his orientation both spiritually and physically. Even in spiritual work, we sometimes observe that a man who should realize himself as a man actually tends to a more feminine version of soul correction. Conversely there are many women who would like to be in the place of men in their spiritual realization.

I think this is a necessary degree of our development. It contains a very serious plan, when by mutual penetration, rapprochement, and mixing from above, we begin to better analyze, absorb, and separate the sexes.

This will lead to the fact that men in both the spiritual and physical world will understand women better, and women will understand men better. But today there is no such understanding. For this you need to be a serious Kabbalist in order to really be able to enter into the inner world of a woman and understand her, and vice versa.

One of the goals of Kabbalistic education is to give people the opportunity to come to the right interaction with each other. Otherwise, our world will become a world of people who don’t see each other. They only occasionally meet somewhere, have intercourse, and run away. And even if you live together with someone, such cohabitation is not something in common.

In other words, our mutual mixing is necessary even in such unpleasant, unnatural forms of egoistic development because only in this way can we come to a special kind of egoism, which consists of all possible forms, and then everyone will be able to understand the other more and better.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Reincarnation” 5/3/10

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What was the relationship between ancient Israel and ancient Rome?“

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, Rome and Israel, and their confrontations most notably in ancient times, are viewed from a spiritual perspective, i.e., they represent two clashing philosophies of life.

At the root of the matter, there is a contradiction between the upper force of bestowal, the Creator, and the force of reception, the created being. In other words, there is a contradiction between the qualities of love, bestowal and connection belonging to the upper nature, and to the nature of the created being, which solely wishes to receive fulfillment and enjoyment in its pride, strength, knowledge and wealth.

Therefore, the philosophy of life of ancient Israel, which is the group that emerged from ancient Babylon and became a nation, was formed on the basis of equality—“love your neighbor as yourself”—and accordingly it existed in the sensation of the upper force, i.e., in understanding how it develops in relation to its ultimate goal in life, which is a state where the created being equalizes its qualities with those of the Creator. Such an approach opposed that of the barbarians.

The Romans were barbarians in terms of their attitude to life because they believed that life consisted solely of the body’s existence.

The attitude that the Romans represented is that of the most powerful, proud and domineering egoistic force. This worldview states that conquest, suppression and enslavement give meaning to human life.

Israel, however, represented the meaning of life differently: that the meaning of life is to rise above the bodily drives and reach a state of “love your neighbor as yourself” as a means of equalizing in qualities with those of the Creator, i.e., qualities of love, bestowal and connection. The Roman approach was thus in total disagreement with the approach of Israel. Thus, as two opposed attitudes to life, two philosophies, two foundations, two ideas, they collided and terrible wars broke out between them.

The Jewish people had no such concept of shutting themselves off from others. On the contrary, the approach of Israel was an inviting one: “come and live like us, united.” There was also a special place for other nations in the Temple, according to the principle in the Israel approach that everyone can remain in their religion and philosophy of life, but love should cover all and connect between us. Today, however, nothing remains of this.

It should be noted that we are discussing only the ancient nations of Israel and Rome, which have nothing to do with today’s Italians. These are completely different nations.

Based on KabTV’s “Close-Up. Formula of the Creator” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 8, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash.

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Pesach (Passover)” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” 

Selected Highlights

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Question: How does the feeling of slight superiority over others affect our psyche? Let’s say a person suddenly gets power in some department at work, I am not talking about state power over millions of people. What is going on in the psyche of a person?

Answer: A person should receive such an education that makes him feel not higher, but lower than others in order to make an effort to pull himself up to the others. He must feel that he still lacks something to be like others.

In such a state he has the opportunity to grow. After all, when he feels his flaws, he has the opportunity to grow and the opportunity to control. If he loses the feeling of his flaw, then he loses the opportunity even to lead, to position himself correctly in this world.

A leader should see others above himself.

Question: But he is a leader after all. He looks at the people and he sees that he is smarter and stronger.

Answer: It is in this that he is a leader, that he sees others above himself and understands that he still needs to grow for the sake of others and seek all kinds of methods of self-improvement. By studying himself and the opportunities he has to rise above himself, he understands what he can teach others.

It is in this state that a person can begin to control others. It is because the feeling of my being lower than others is actually an elevated feeling: “I am above others in this, I am better than others in this, I am special in that I feel lower than others.”
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 3/22/22

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Comment: Armen writes to you: “I want to eradicate evil from this world. I hate evil, teach me how to do it.”

My Response: It is very simple! To do this, you must accept one and simple axiom, that all evil is only within you. If this evil did not exist, you would not feel it and would not see it in any manifestations around you.

The evil that Armen sees is a projection of his evil and he sees it from the outside. Therefore, it seems to him that this is bad and that is bad, and so on. That is, he sees evil everywhere in inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human qualities. How can you make sure that you see only good? Correct yourself.

Question: Let’s say I see evil, hotspots, and so on. How can I eradicate the evil within me?

Answer: Be patient and come to us. I cannot recommend anything else. Then gradually, day by day, you will master the method of eliminating evil and approaching good.

This is, in principle, the main thing that the wisdom of Kabbalah studies.

Question: Is it being revealed today because such a time has come?

Answer: Yes, today almost everything is already open. Now we just have to master it in practice.

Question: Is this your main advice?

Answer: I cannot advise anything else. Everything else in our world will collapse and die, disappear. Only everything that is necessary for the recognition of evil and good will remain.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/3/22

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Comment: Anna writes, “Dear Michael Laitman, I am so inclined to say to my children: ‘Forgive me that I gave birth to you in this terrible world.’ I just cannot tell you how much I am afraid for them.”

There are more and more such letters.

My Response: There is nothing we can do about it. We must believe that we are in the complete control of the Creator and therefore, we must continue our life as much as possible, and as much as we understand it, in some kind of proximity to Him, that is, in the quality of bestowal, in the quality of connection between everybody, and to wish that the world would unite.

I think that we will still try to come to general correction in a good way, although if not, then, of course, the same kind force that is prepared for us in order to bring us closer to each other will be felt by us very harshly.

Comment: But you are talking to an ordinary, down to earth person who wants to live a simple, normal life.

My Response: It does not matter what he wants. What matters is what he has to do.

Question: Will we not be able to just live a simple life anymore?

Answer: No, we will not be able to. We will simply be tormented by upper forces that must bring us closer to each other and teach us how to interact with each other correctly until the Creator is revealed between us as a force of good, the force of love, the force of connection.

Can you imagine how much more we need to mature before that?

Comment: I can imagine. A person does not want to.

My Response: No one wants to suffer. Yet, we should not want suffering, rather we should want to make the world a better place without being forced to it by suffering.

Comment: Especially women who give birth to children who want their children to feel good in the future.

My Response: Naturally. This is the best force in nature. It is they who should make the entire world and all men to think about peace, about good connection, and about correction, precisely for the sake of their children.

Question: So, will we be having children anyway?

Answer: We have to! This process must continue. We will still come to peace in the world. The problem is in which way. We must try to explain to everyone that there is an opportunity to reach common connection, good connection, not in an evil way, not with the help of our nature, which will force us to correct ourselves, but in a good way where we ourselves understand that the process of correction can also happen with our participation.

There are two ways between us to reach the same goal. We will try to reach it in a good way.

Question: What is required of an ordinary person?

Answer: To try to find good connections with other people. And to tell everyone how crucial it is. Otherwise, nature will force us to do this in an evil way.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/16/21

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