Audio Version Of The Blog – 1/10/23
Posted on January 10th, 2023
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In The Study of The Ten Sefirot, it is written that there is a difference between Atzmuto and light. Atzmuto is something unattainable—the root of creation. And light is what emanates from this root, spreads, and continues to generate many different kinds of creation.
Baal HaSulam writes that the light differs from Atzmuto precisely in its form because the property of creation, the desire to receive, is already inherent in the light. And Atzmuto does not have that.
Question: Can we say that Atzmuto is the essence of the Creator? There is no thought in the Creator at all to receive something for himself?
Answer: The Creator is the source of everything that exists. Everything is in it. But we cannot talk much about Him because we do not know anything about Him.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of The Ten Sefirot (TES)” 1/1/23
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Question: Antonio Stradivari lived more than 90 years and made more than 1,100 stringed instruments. 650 Stradivarius violins made more than 250 years are still considered to be among the finest instruments.
The latest technology cannot even come close to the sound of a Stradivarius violin. The International Association of Violin Makers has tried many times to reveal the secret of the master, and they have come to nothing. There are all sorts of logical explanations: the wood was different, the times are different, all sorts of things.
Tell me, please, what is the secret of such masters like Antonio Stradivari?
Answer: We must first understand what happens in our ear, why exactly, and what can cause such a reaction from its strings.
Question: Meaning, how can these sounds enter us like that? Is there a secret in this?
Answer: There is a secret. But I think even Stradivari himself did not know about it—he just worked this way. And the secret lies in a special combination of sounds that affect the heart. Here we need to think about how the heart responds first, and then the ear hears. That is the most important thing, and no one knows it. Stradivari did not know these internal mechanics either.
Question: So he was more like the executor of some will?
Answer: His hands and he in general were moved by an inner instinct.
Question: It didn’t happen without the Creator, right?
Answer: No, of course not.
Question: So an ordinary person is chosen, and later we talk a lot about them. But in fact, the person is chosen and a secret is carried out through him. This secret is suitable for anything and not only the violin or the cello?
Answer: Yes, anything, not only musical instruments. The sound should not pass into the ear but into the heart, and only then it comes out through the ear.
Question: Does it come out of the ear?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So I don’t hear with my ears?
Answer: No, with the heart.
Question: Does a word have such a quality as the sound, as you say now?
Answer: Of course. This is exactly how a word is pronounced.
Question: Is it necessary to find a word that penetrates into the heart and only then is heard?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Are there such words at all?
Answer: Yes.
Question: How do we find such words in our science? We are studying a science that is not curiosity, not knowledge. How can we find such words that will penetrate the heart?
Answer: It is very simple. I asked my teacher, Rabash, about this. He said: “Have you heard what is said in the Shema prayer? Shema, Michael.” I was surprised: “Why “Michael” if it is a Shema, Israel prayer?
Because Israel is a common name. But in fact, you can substitute any name there.
Question: Is this an appeal to the heart: “Shema, Michael”?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is the Shema prayer considered one of the highest prayers?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Have we now reached the point where prayer is first heard by the heart?
Answer: Yes. And only then is it heard by the ear or heard at all.
Comment: You keep saying that the prayer of an ordinary person is higher than the prayers composed by sages, the Kabbalists.
My Response: Yes, because he feels it. He has an inner resonance of his heart with the upper word. Therefore, this is the highest appeal to the Creator.
Question: Meaning, when a person pronounces an appeal with feelings, he hears it first from above?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Is this appeal not born in him?
Answer: No, of course not.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 12/1/22
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Comment: As a rule, you give a person information in such a way that he cannot use it for his own benefit. But it happens that when a person tries to convey what he heard from you, he lacks something, he cannot do it without the original source, that is, without your intervention.
My Response: Of course, it happens. The study carries both theoretical and practical loads. These are practical exercises, mastering, checking, learning from experience, and working on mistakes.
Question: What did you mean when you said that you give a person exactly so much that a person cannot use it for his own benefit?
Answer: I usually give people the amount of knowledge they need at the moment because more information will harm them.
Why do students go to school every day? Because every day they have to receive a new portion of the material that they need to master, and the next day they receive another portion, and then another one, and so on for ten to twelve years. Then maybe another five to ten years and generally every day throughout life. In portions!
I do the same. I am no different in this from other educational systems.
Comment: But it seems that they have a time limit; the child first goes through school and then the university.
My Response: It is the same here. It is just that there, when the official terms are over, the school year ends and that is it. You have to know a certain amount of material, pass exams, and so on. Whereas for us, a year may pass and some will learn two-year’s material during this year while others just a half-year’s material. It depends on the person.
Comment: Many schoolchildren, in principle, are not interested in history, geography, or biology, and they study these subjects by force.
My Response: This is because of the way it is explained to them. We should not say that they are not interested in these subjects. If they were shown the same history or geography in the form of fascinating movies, then it would be interesting for them, and they would absorb the material.
The learning process was made boring by the people themselves. We can make it so that the child will sit with his mouth open from morning to evening.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, As Much as Required” 6/13/14
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Comment: There is a factor in the classification of sects that the group separates itself from the rest of the world, for example, by clothing, food, a special language, and a clear regulation of behavior and interpersonal relations.
My Response: I do not see any peculiarities in the global Kabbalistic group. A person works like everyone else; he must have a family, children, and take care of them. He freely communicates with his parents and relatives, goes on vacation with his family.
He has a TV, radio, telephones at home, no one lives in isolation. We are disseminating to wider society. We do not have a specific dress code. No one is obliged to wear a Kippah if he does not wish to.
Our only peculiarity is that we study Kabbalah from three to six in the morning, but this is how all Kabbalists usually study.
We do not differ from others except for the internal behavior between each other. We must strive for connection with each other, for an internal connection of hearts. As the Torah says: “To be as one man with one heart.” This is our characteristic.
Nothing else is required from a person, only to support a friend by showing him the importance of the goal that is achieved by connection between us. That is all. We are no different from others. Only by this requirement. The member of the group undertakes to carry it out to the best of his ability.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kabbalah about Cults” 12/18/13
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Question: Some people have mental disorders and think they are in the spiritual worlds. A Kabbalist who has attained spirituality also feels a certain duality. Where is the boundary between mental instability and a person’s spiritual attainment?
Answer: People come to me and say: “I am already in the world of infinity. I corrected everything, and what about you?” There are such interesting impressions a person gives about himself. From the outside, of course, you can see, or cannot see whether he is in spirituality. If it is an outsider, he can conceal himself.
Usually, each of us sees the upper world with his inner sense, with the quality of bestowal developed in him only if he has already entered into constant contact with the upper nature and the Creator has been revealed to him, and not just for a moment.
After all, if he really wants it or suffers a lot, he can feel the manifestation of the upper force implicitly for a short period of time. But this is not an obvious feeling of the Creator, but a feeling of warmth that you are entering.
A person clearly knows and understands spirituality only when he has already passed the barrier between the two worlds. How can you determine whether one is behind the barrier or not?—By the quality of bestowal and love, which constantly embraces him toward everyone. But it can also be deceptive.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Split Personality” 12/21/13
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When you start to read The Zohar, you need to attune yourself to swim along with the flow of the material that the great authors of The Book of Zohar have prepared for us.
They tell us that the only creation is the desire to receive. This desire has two forms of perception of reality, perception of the Creator who created it.
There is a perception inside the desire directly, which is called top – down. Thus, the desire can feel only what we are feeling now within ourselves. This perception is called this world.
And there is another form of perception above the desire, outside of it, when I fill not myself, but supposedly others. This perception is unusual for us because we were not born in it.
It seems strange and alien to us, although the authors of The Book of Zohar say that this perception is natural because it comes from nature, from the Creator, and besides our small world that we feel in ourselves, all the other huge worlds are outside of us.
The Zohar directs us so that we also gain external perception outside our body. Therefore, we must adjust ourselves to the perception of reality that exists not inside, but outside of us in order to see in it what The Zohar indicates.
In whatever forms this book tells us—about events in this world, about fairytale characters like angels, spirits, palaces, no matter how real or unreal it may seem to us—in any case, it always tells us about what is happening in the form of perception outside of us.
Therefore, a person who wants to understand what The Book of the Zohar wants to tell him and what it wants to reveal to him within him, should set himself up in the same direction by striving not to fill himself, but to feel what is really outside of him.
This form of perception, of course, is in us, it only presupposes a person’s attitude to everything as to himself!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/09, The Book of Zohar “VaYishlach (And Jacob Sent),” 12/21/09
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Can you tell me more and more about the Hebrew language?“
A little while after I had started studying with my Kabbalah teacher, Kabbalist Baruch Ashlag (Rabash), a letter reached us from a prisoner who lived under terrible conditions in a prison camp in Siberia.
The letter was written in Hebrew, full of very complicated rhymes that I did not understand, and it was by a person who had no prior learning of Hebrew, nor was he connected to Israel or the Jewish people.
Rabash told me that probably what had happened was that, out of suffering, the prisoner came to feel Hebrew and the internality of the language.
How could it be, that out of great suffering, a person with no seeming connection to Israel or the Jewish people, starts writing in Hebrew?
The Kabbalistic explanation is that his suffering led him to a certain kind of connection with the source of his suffering, which is in the depths of creation, and there he found expression in Hebrew.
Kabbalists, i.e. people who hold a connection to the deeper layers of creation, see that it is indeed possible for a person to discover the Hebrew language in such a way as shown by the prisoner. That is, Hebrew is the base language that exists in the center of the world. It is at the root of all writing, talking and expression, and it lets us express our innermost feelings.
If we reach the depths of creation, then we discover life’s causal point—the common root to us all—and in that root, we have a single language and one force—of love, bestowal and connection—that created us, and which guides us gradually toward its revelation.
Based on the video “The Siberian Prisoner Who Discovered Hebrew Out of Suffering” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Tanner Mardis on Unsplash.
Preparation to the Lesson
| [media 1] | [media 2] |
Zohar for All “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “The Donkey Driver,” Item 90
| [media 3] | [media 4] |
Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 30
| [media 5] | [media 6] |
Selected Highlights
| [media 7] | [media 8] |
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