Question: The world today resembles people that are in Egyptian exile. And what is happening today is similar to the Egyptian plagues. Because the Torah is the source of all religions and all spiritual practices, please comment on a very universal quote from the Torah that refers to the world as a nation.

It is written: The Torah, Exodus, 3:17 “And I said, ‘I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt, to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivvites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.’”

The word “you” implies the world. What does this mean?

Answer: That the Creator will lead us out from under the control of our common egoism, which, in principle, He created and supports in order to show us the real exit to a kind, mutual, correct existence. This is our immediate good future.

Question: It means that we are under the control of egoism. Is this the Egyptian slavery?

Answer: Yes, all of humanity is in it.

Question: Is it only the Creator who can bring us out of this state?

Answer: The same force that created the negative force inverts itself and turns into a positive one. That is, the force that drove us there will also lead us out.

Question: Further, it is written about the process: The Torah, Exodus, 3:19: “However, I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except through a mighty hand.”

What does it mean for our world today?

Answer: If we do not put pressure on the egoism that the Creator created and supports in us, if we do not apply even greater force to it that will force egoism to begin to change, to retreat, then this will never happen. The Creator holds it. It means that the Creator must defeat and overcome Himself. This is how we get out from under the control of egoism.

The fact that we are suffering now, that the world is suffering, is the natural state of the world that it must go through in order to clearly assess what is good and what is bad.

Question: Is this what the Creator is doing to us?

Answer: Yes. We should read the story “The Little Son Came to His Father” in our childhood and actualize this study within ourselves.

At the moment, he feels that he is a tiny toddler and that he has to figure out how to live. Therefore, he asks his father: “What is good and what is bad? I do not know where I am. I take every step and it seems to me that it is good, but it turns out to be bad.” And he receives an explanation.

Question: And his father explains to him that the king of Egypt will not let him leave. But I will make him do it with a mighty hand.

Who is the mighty hand aimed at: the king of Egypt or me?

Answer: The mighty hand is aimed at the king of Egypt that is within you, at the egoism that is within you so that you want the good force of nature to conquer the evil force of nature. All of this is only within us.

Comment: Then there is this sentence: The Torah, Exodus, 3:20: “And I will stretch forth My hand and smite the Egyptians with all My miracles that I will wreak in their midst, and afterwards he will send you out.”

My Response: All the evil that exists in egoism should be revealed and a person should see it, sense it, feel it, in the present and in the possible future. Then he will see how the Creator changes it all to the opposite, and by this a person praises the Creator.

We are talking about the ten plagues that tear a person away from his egoism. These are the ten qualities we call Sefirot, from which we break away.

Question: Can we break away without plagues?

Answer: If you yourself will want to break away without them, then you can.

Question: Will I be able to want it?

Answer: To do this, you need to engage in self-education; that is, convince yourself that even the little evil that is now revealed in you is revealed in you relative to others, and you must do everything in order to hate these qualities in you. Then you will gradually distance yourself from them, up to complete separation.

Question: Who are Moses and his brother Aaron to the world? What is this?

Answer: These are two forces that lead us out of the state of egoism into the quality of connection and love between us and between us and the Creator.

Question: How do they appear in a person? At what point?

Answer: A person begins to extract them out of himself. They exist within him. In general, everything exists within a person. A person is a small world. The only problem is that we need to tune in so as to find these forces in ourselves, extract them, start working with them, and treat everything around us in this way through these two qualities.

Then the world changes. If I look at the world through them, it becomes different.

Question: Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh. The Creator told them: “Go,” and they went. They say: “Let my people go.” And Pharaoh said: “Who is the Lord that I should heed His voice to let Israel out?” What is this?

Answer: People is a person with all his qualities. A person should get out from under the control of egoism under another control. This is called “let my people go.”

And the Pharaoh answers: “And who is this God?” because Pharaoh as if does not know that for certain. Pharaoh’s task is to trick a person so that he does not understand at all where he is. So that later he could clearly determine what is the Pharaoh, the Creator, Egypt, and outside of Egypt.

Pharaoh is our egoism that says: “I do not want to know any Creator. I do not know Him.” Because “to know” means to understand and obey.

Question: Will egoism always resist nature, the Creator?

Answer: Absolutely! We can never exit our nature while remaining in it. One contradicts the other.

Question: Pharaoh’s reaction to the request of Moses and Aaron to let the people go was simple. Pharaoh said, Exodus, 5:9: “Let the labor fall heavy upon the men”—upon the ones they want to lead out of egoism, upon these desires—“and let them work at it, and let them not talk about false matters.”

All this is empty speech for the Pharaoh. He is as if taking revenge; he says: “Do you want to lead the people out? We are going to burden them with work now.”

Can we compare this with the fact that in our world we are currently overwhelmed with work?

Answer: What does it matter whether they want or do not want? They only prolong their suffering by this. What else can be done? Piling even more work on them is what the Pharaoh does. Lock them up in some petty worries. Lock them up in such social, family, and other states that they will be just like little bugs.

Question: So these worries and problems that exist in the world now, the crazy amount of news, is this the empty work that is piled on us? Will all our actions at the level of this earth lead to nothing?

Answer: I think people already understand this. And in addition to this, there are wars, sufferings, fears, and anxieties.

Question: Is it in order to take us away from all this useless work?

Answer: Yes. It is such a state that a person is just like a bunny sitting under a burdock and shaking. This is such a pitiful state for such a great, potential being as human.

Question: Do you think a person is already beginning to understand this?

Answer: He already hears it in some things. He does not know how to exit this state, but he understands that “yes, this is me, this is us.” And what is next? He cannot see what is next.

If he had at least a tiny bit, a little bit of some small vision ahead, if he were able to see through a crack that there is still an opportunity, then, of course, he would have strength. Not in himself alone but in the unity between them. This is what needs to be revealed here! After all, people are right: “Where did we come from, what are we, and where are we going? Nothing. Everyone is for himself.”

Question: Yet, you are saying that the whole secret is in connection. Can you reveal this to us?

Answer: It is impossible to get out of this state we are in now. We will continue to turn sour in it until it as if cements us in the pyramids of Pharaoh.

This is what Pharaoh wants from us. So that we voluntarily agree to enter together with him into this huge tomb and lie down there nicely, the way they lie there. And so continues our eternal path in egoism. Without changing—like those mummies.

But if we go on the path of connection and unification, then we will be able to break this strong egoistic cloak that covers us, encloses us, shuts all our senses, and we will be able to rush out of there and escape.

Question: Is this what humanity is now facing? Are we, as if, under this “cloak”?

Answer: Yes, and we will definitely come out of it. We will definitely come out.

Comment: Then it is written: The Torah, Exodus, 5:22-5:23: “So Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Why have You harmed this people? Why have You sent me? Since I have come to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has harmed this people, and You have not saved Your people’”

My Response: A person does not understand what else he needs to do in order to exit the egoistic state. But for Pharaoh, this desire of a person to exit egoism is not enough. He needs an extra, additional great desire. So that a person will turn to him. And not with reproach but with a plea that the Creator would go ahead of them and lead them all out of Egypt by hand. This is what is still missing.

Therefore, the Creator sends Moses back. He says: “You go and ask.” And ten times back and forth in this way until Moses already feels that this is it, all forces, all intentions, and all possibilities have dried out and only then do they succeed in escaping Egypt.

Question: Is it when the last, tenth plague comes that Pharaoh says: “You can exit”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: The last plague is the death of the firstborn. What is it from the Kabbalistic point of view?

Answer: It is the condition that man had when he existed in the world even before all these revelations. That I exist in an egoistic world, I am in it, I am under the control of the upper force. This is how I develop and live.

The death of the firstborn means that I tear off all my original, primary egoistic foundations and break away from everything that connected me with the past.

Question: Why is it so scary for Pharaoh?

Answer: Because the connection with him, with Pharaoh, is really getting torn. That is it, a person refuses to be under his control and to be connected with him. A person is ready to rise above himself no matter what! Whatever happens, just not to be under the control of Pharaoh!

Only then Pharaoh lets the person go. This is what he exists for, to bring a person to such a state.

At the moment when this thought, this desire, “Come what may, no matter what, just not with Pharaoh, not under him,” appears in a person, then everything happens. This is called the “death of the firstborn,” i.e., of the entire basis of a person’s egoistic existence.

Question: Does humanity need to reach such a cry, such a scream, such a state? Is it only possible then to escape from the control of egoism?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Is it possible for every person to come to such a state?

Answer: For every person, according to his measure. It will happen.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/18/22

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Preparation to the Lesson

Shamati #164 “There Is a Difference Between Corporeality and Spirituality”

Shamati #154, “There Cannot Be an Empty Space in the World” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot, Vol. 1, Part 3,” Chapter 6, Item 5

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is a hologram a potential spouse now? If so, what are the benefits?“

Akihiko Kondo is a young Japanese man who married a hologram of a virtual character three years ago, and he is not the only one. Thousands of people in Japan have relationships with fictitious characters. Kondo says that thanks to his relationship with the hologram, his wife, he was able to overcome severe depression.

We live inside a hologram. That is, the world is a kind of a virtual entity, and therefore there is nothing special about it.

One of my students asked me about this phenomenon, whether we could establish a spiritual connection with a hologram, since in Kabbalistic sources it is written, “man and woman, and Divinity between them.” A spiritual connection needs to be a result of people wishing to exit themselves, and entering into a realm where they bestow, love and connect. It does not necessarily have to be toward a male or female spouse.

It is beneficial for us to practice various forms of our relationships with the world and the universe on holograms, because what we perceive surrounding us are nonetheless images that we ourselves depict. Through such exercises, we can discover a connection to the upper force, with which we can enter into a mutual connection.

The upper force is a spiritual force of love, bestowal and connection that governs our lives. Ultimately, behind our every aspiration is a deeper wish to connect with the upper force, and it is possible by developing an equivalent force of bestowal within us. We can do so by training ourselves to be in a state where we wish to love, bestow to, and help everybody exit their egos and enter into the same intention to bestow, love and connect.

Based on the video “Relationships With Holograms – A Kabbalist’s Response” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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The tree of knowledge of good and evil symbolizes the special governance of the Creator when the Creator gradually transfers his qualities to the created beings. This is exactly the same as we behave with young children by awakening all kinds of questions and curiosity in them, as a result of which they develop and thus grow.

Question: What do the terms “good” and “evil” mean in relation to the Creator? What is it about?

Answer: Regarding the Creator, good and evil are very simple. Connection and love are good and the opposite of them is evil.

Question: What does it mean that Adam ate an apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

Answer: In principle, all this is an allegory, because we are not talking about a person himself, but about his soul, which consists of two parts: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow.

The desire to receive is Eve, the desire to bestow is Adam, and our soul consists of these two parts. We must make sure that we use both the Adam part and the Eve part in our soul as correctly as possible.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/14/22

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My new article on Linkedin “Of Pope Francis, and of World War III”

Last week, a conversation with Pope Francis was published, in which he related to the Russia-Ukraine war as the start of World War III. In a conversation with the editors of European Jesuit publications, and which was first published by the Italian Jesuit publication La Civiltà Cattolica, the Pope said, “The world is at war. For me, today, World War III has been declared.” Subsequently, he lamented, “What is happening to humanity that we have had three world wars in a century?” I do not believe that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a third world war or that it should devolve into one. However, the fact that there is such a danger, or that there is war at all, shows that we have not drawn the right conclusions, which puts us in harm’s way again.

It is clear to everyone that no one has anything to gain if the war in Ukraine escalates into a global conflict. That said, the war is yet another indication that we still do not know how to govern our desire for dominance and control.

We have come to a point where our ego does not settle for controlling others. Nowadays, people are willing to destroy others for simply behaving or even thinking differently from them.

If we want to prevent wars, we need to help all the nations realize that war does not bring any benefits, that we do not want it and do not need it. This is a process that must involve everyone, since each country must have its neighbors going through the same process, or belligerent countries will exploit other countries’ efforts to end violence.

If countries do not adopt this approach, they will continue to compete against each other, exploit each other and deplete the earth of resources. We are already seeing the consequences of this attitude on our planet, but they will grow far worse in the very near future. Hunger, extreme heat, extreme cold, and countless other problems will overwhelm humanity and force nations to stop abusing others and focus on their own survival.

To prevent this scenario from developing further than it already has, humanity needs to understand that we must learn to work together or nature will destroy us. Currently, many nations are still dreaming of conquests and subjugations of other nations. We must gradually make these nations understand that doing so will only harm them, and harm everyone else, as well. Unless we help everyone realize that we are dependent on each other for better or worse, and we must act accordingly, we will all be in big trouble.
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do old people and teenagers have in common?“

As a part of a school project, twins from the 10th grade met with a 77-year-old woman, keeping her company. The project ended a long time ago, but the connection that became established between the twins and the 77-year-old woman grew stronger, which developed into a very close and special relationship, where they spent more and more time together, eating together, and sometimes even staying over at the elderly woman’s place. The older woman mentioned that the girls brought light into her life.

Indeed, teenagers and elderly people can very beneficially complement each other. Teenagers, who have several deficiencies and insecurities, and who seek to make their way in life, can receive answers to a lot of their questions from elderly people. Older people have a surplus of knowledge, understanding and warmth, and they no longer have children whom they can pass it on to. For instance, the elderly woman in this example received vitality through her connection to the teenagers. There is also research showing how much elderly people become enlivened when connecting to children. Unfortunately, we see nowadays that after retirement, many elderly people become lonely, stay at home, and their health deteriorates, similar to flowers that start withering away.

There needs to be a system connecting those at the beginning and the end of their lives. Neither knows how to make this connection, but when that system is operating, then we would see great benefit for both age groups. I would very much recommend creating such connections as broadly as possible in different ways, shapes, forms and for different ages.

Based on the video “How Can Teenagers and Elderly People Complement Each Other?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: Why is the nature of the Creator bestowal and love? Why did He take precisely this form and no other in relation to us?

Answer: He created an egoistic quality, according to which each of His creations wants to be filled with Him, the Creator. Such a desire is called “inanimate,” “vegetative,” or “animate.”

And if the creation wants to be filled not just in the form of inanimate, vegetative, and animate, but from the sensation of another, meaning, no longer within himself, but in another, then it is called “man.”

The Creator feels us outside of Himself. And if we reach such a state and can feel something outside of ourselves, then we will be called “Adam” (Man) – from the word “domeh” (similar to the Creator).
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/7/22

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Question: What is the right name for the force governing us: the Creator, God, thought, the upper force?

Answer: Whatever you like. Whatever is more convenient for you in each case.

Question: In the science of Kabbalah, it is written that “Bore” (the Creator) is from the words “Bo” and “Re” (come and see). Where to go and what do we see there?

Answer: The Creator is a quality that we can approach and attain. That is why we call it Bore. If you get closer to Him in qualities, then you will understand who He is, what He is, and you will be able to explore Him.

Question: In the science of Kabbalah it is said: “What we do not attain, we do not know by name.” What does it mean?

Answer: The fact is that we attain everything in our senses and not outside of them, and therefore, we cannot name anything in an objective form. We attain everything only in a limited, predetermined condition. Therefore, the Creator is called Bo-Re.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 6/7/22

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Question: Baal HaSulam says that it is necessary to consider the Creator not as a person, but as laws of nature. It turns out that if you follow the laws of nature, you get rewarded, and if you don’t, you get blows. Can it be viewed this way?

Answer: Yes. It is not important. We must try to act all the time in such a way that we come closer to the Creator in the selflessness of our actions.

Question: Let’s say, by observing the laws of gravity, I live. And it does not matter if I understand them or not. Is it the same with the Creator? He says: “We need to connect with other people.” I comply, that’s it, I’m fine. If I do not comply, I feel bad.

Answer: No. Bad or good ,you cannot determine; otherwise, you will act in order to make yourself feel good and not bad.

Comment: In general, if I observe this law and somehow come closer to others, then I should understand that I will somewhere get some kind of reward for this although I do not see it.

My Response: It is still a reward.

Comment: But I do not see it.

My Response: It does not matter. You do not see the money in the bank either.

Comment: Yes, but I can always withdraw it.

My Response: Here too you hope that you will withdraw.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 5/31/22

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