Audio Version Of The Blog – 7/24/23
Posted on July 24th, 2023
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How would one go about studying the works of Isaac Luria?“
Like Moses brought us the Torah, the Ari brought us the wisdom of Kabbalah.
The Torah and Kabbalah both discuss the revelation of the Creator—the quality of love and bestowal—to the created beings. At Moses’ time, the revelation was through the Torah, and at the Ari’s time, the revelation was through what became written in his Etz Chaim (Tree of Life) and his Eight Gates. The Ari’s revelation of the Creator is communicated in a different style and language, with descriptions of vessels, lights and the person’s work.
From the Ari’s time onward, we entered into a period of studying spiritual qualities and their connections, and the ability to enter such a study of the spiritual world depends on the connection between the students. We who study the works of the Ari thus try to connect among each other as much as possible in order to achieve the revelation of the Creator as described in the Ari’s texts.
It is as Rav Chaim Vital, the Ari’s student whom he left to organize his writings after his death, explained about the Ari’s approach to the connection of his students:
My teacher cautioned me and all the friends who were with him in that society to take upon ourselves the commandment to-do of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and to aim to love each one from Israel as his own soul, for by this his prayer would rise comprising all of Israel and will be able to ascend and make a correction above. Especially, our love of friends, each and every one of us should include himself as though he is an organ of those friends. My teacher sternly cautioned me about this matter. – Rav Chaim Vital, Shaar HaGilgulim, Introduction, 38.
Connection between the students is thus a key condition of studying the works of the Ari. As Rav Chaim Vital mentioned, there is a need to feel that each student is a single organ in one body, and the students need to be mutually dependent in their spiritual aspirations as is the interdependence of healthily-functioning bodily organs.
From the time of the Ari onward, a generation began where people’s desires grew to a new level, and they were ready to feel what the Ari passed on. In other words, desires in humanity underwent a certain development whereby more and more people could no longer simply believe in holy matters, but new desires meant new ways of yearning to discover the spiritual world.
Studying the works of the Ari thus involves longing to connect to the goal that he attained in his heart and soul. By dedicating ourselves to such a goal, we can become rewarded with our eyes opening to the spiritual world and the revelations that the Ari describes in his texts.
Therefore, together with the need for connection among the students to study the works of the Ari, there is also the requirement of calibrating the intention to the study. Rav Chaim Vital also discussed how the Ari guided his students to adjusting such an intention:
My teacher would say that the heart of the intention of reading in the Torah depends on aiming to connect one’s heart to its root through the Torah in order to complete the upper tree and complete the upper Adam [man] and correct him, for this is the whole purpose of man’s creation and the purpose of his engagement in the Torah. – Rav Chaim Vital, Pri Etz Chaim, Gate “Conducts of Learning,” Chapter 1.
Moreover, we cannot understand the writings of the Ari directly, because they are quite concealed. In order to unlock them, we require Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag’s (Baal HaSulam’s) accompaniment and explanations.
Baal HaSulam went to great lengths to write detailed commentaries on the works of the Ari, including the monumental six-volume set, Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot). It is not only Baal HaSulam’s efforts to interpret the works of the Ari through which he gives us access to understanding the Ari, but Baal HaSulam attained the Ari’s level of spiritual attainment, which is what let him understand the Ari and explain his works. Baal HaSulam himself wrote about such an attainment:
Know for certain that since the time of the Ari to this day, there has not been anyone who understood the method of the Ari to the fullest, as it was easier to attain a mind twice as great and twice as holy than the Ari’s than to understand his method in which many hands fiddled—from the one who first heard and wrote them through the last compilers, while they still did not attain the matters as they are in their upper root. Thus, each inverted and confused the matters. And now, by the Creator’s will, I have been rewarded with a conception [impregnation] of the soul of the Ari, not because of my good deeds but by a higher will. It is beyond me, too, why I have been chosen for this wonderful soul, with which no one has been granted since his passing until today. I cannot elaborate on this matter as it is not my way to discuss the concealed. – Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), “Letter 39.”
Therefore, since the time of the Ari onward, there was a change in the conditions for entering spirituality because of a change in humanity’s development of desires, and the Ari was the bearer of the change in the method of spiritual attainment. He brought us the wisdom of Kabbalah, and studying his works requires connection among the students, calibrating the intention during the study to the spiritual goal, and that we use Baal HaSulam’s texts as a prism through which we can penetrate into the Ari’s teachings.
The Ari was a very special soul and a giant among Kabbalists. He lived and worked in this world as a merchant, but simultaneously acted at spiritual heights above time, space and motion, and it is difficult to speak about such levels of greatness. The Ari is indeed a very special phenomenon, and it is truly a gift that we have the ability to enjoy his works.
Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on the “Memorial Day for the Ari” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on July 23, 2023. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Question: You say that we should not feel sorry for a person when he receives blows; otherwise, he will not overcome them. How can we find the line between feeling sorry for him and pulling him out of the descent?
Answer: You can pull a person out of a descent, but very carefully so as not to harm him. You understand that the descents are given to him so he can rise from them, begin to feel new states, and master his next one. If this does not happen to him, then it is a pity.
In no case should you help him. You should help him only so that the process he is going through really happens correctly, that is, to bring him closer to friends and contact with others, to give him the opportunity to understand the meaning of what is happening so that he treats his descent correctly, realizing that a descent is not a descent, but the acquisition of a new egoism above which he must now rise.
Comment: When people use this method, it seems that in principle, they do not feel what they are doing.
My Response: We all are in different states. There are people who are beginners, and there are still those who do not understand. There is nothing you can do.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Harmful Pity” 8/22/11
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All laws of Judaism come from Kabbalah, which has fallen into our world and somehow left its imprint in it especially in terms of social mutual support.
In any country, anyone can be a street child, except for Jewish children. There is no such thing! The people are educated to take care of children so much that you just cannot leave them on the street.
Let’s say you arrange a wedding after which you have 50% of the food left, you have no right to throw this food away until the poor come and take with them everything they want.
You have no right to harvest the entire crop from the field because you have to leave the so-called peah. Peah (paces, remnants), the strands of hair that descend from the sides of the head of religious men symbolize the light of Hochma descending from the head into the body.
Therefore, it is forbidden to pick up from the ground the fruit that has fallen from a tree. You may only pick them from the tree, and what is under the tree is not yours, but is for the poor. Before you eat challah (bread), you should cut a piece for the benefit of the poor. All these laws of the separation of tithes from each part come from Kabbalah.
I think that over time humanity will begin to apply them based not on Judaism, but from a spiritual source.
Direct internal correction will make them think and care about others, and therefore, they will behave this way regardless of any factors.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Prison” 8/16/11
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Question: When a person feels suffering, discomfort, and pressure on himself, how can he change it?
Answer: Only if he joins the right society; there is no other way out. Therefore, education should take place under the influence of the surrounding society.
Question: And if he is already in such a society?
Answer: If he is already in the right society, then it cannot be that he suffers. So, he is not in the society. Physically, maybe yes, but internally no.
If I am among other people, but they do not feel close or dear to me and I do not feel like I want to be together and to connect with them, then this is not called my society.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Pain = Help from the System” 8/29/11
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Question: Why hasn’t there been a deterioration of the traditions Kabbalists introduced many years ago?
Answer: Because they are all based on the laws strictly prescribed in the Tanakh (Torah, Prophets, Scriptures), Talmud, and Mishnah. They were composed by people who were in clear attainment of the upper force, the upper world. Therefore, what is written there cannot be changed in any way.
If today archaeologists find an ancient Torah, they say: “Look, it is the same Torah!” But how could it be otherwise when you cannot change a single letter, a single squiggle, because there are laws for the image of each letter?
A letter is a symbol. The way to write it, at what angle each element should appear, all this is precisely verified based on Kabbalah. Because the letters symbolize Galgalta Eynaim, AHAP, Parsa, the light of Hochma, the light of Hassadim, and various correspondences between them. All this has been established and described by Kabbalists once and for all.
Even if you are not a Kabbalist, you should know these rules by heart. Your calligraphy should be like the same font on the same typewriter. It cannot be otherwise!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Kosher Pork?” 7/30/11
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Question: One of your videos talked about the road to heaven lies through hell. Michael asks: “Does one not become cruel after going through hell?”
Answer: If a person goes through very serious trials, I would even say oppression, of course, it could make him cruel sometimes. But I have met people who, after suffering a lot in the dungeons of the NKVD [the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs] and others, on the contrary, had their hearts aching for others, they empathized with them very much, and made them softer.
Question: Were there any that broke down?
Answer: Not that they broke down but assumed the same behavior and became like their guards.
Question: You say from time to time that suffering makes one softer. Those who have become better and begun to empathize, has suffering softened them? And those who have not, did they, in a way, say: “Then we will do the same too?”
Answer: Yes.
Question: Does it depend on anything or anyone?
Answer: It is virtually inexplicable.
Question: So it could be that a kind man entered the dungeons and came out as a beast, while a cruel man entered the dungeons and came out as a good man?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Can this be explained?
Answer: I could not see cause and effect. I have talked to people for whom hitting their heads against a wall and losing consciousness was a break, a respite. Such were the sufferings.
And they came out as normal people, very compassionate.
Question: Is it very hard to explain?
Answer: Do not try to explain it now. This is a long story.
Question: Then let us “rise above the ground.” Is this path ordained for every person, one way or another?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Where does it come from? Where?
Answer: It is hard to say. I would simply say: we do not know.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/12/23
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Question: Suppose you have an opponent who has certain qualities that you do not like. But when he becomes your ally, then, on the contrary, you start to appreciate his qualities. Is this acquiring the desires of others?
Answer: Of course. If you turn any person into someone close to you, then everything he has becomes your acquisition.
In spirituality nothing can be destroyed; things can only come closer and unite. You will see that even qualities that you initially thought were bad that when you approached someone with them, you wanted them not to have such qualities, but suddenly they become positive in your eyes and nothing needs to be changed.
There is no quality that is good or bad in itself. Everything depends on how it is used.
Question: How should we nevertheless accept the bad qualities?
Answer: Do not pay attention to them. You simply have to say, “I see everything incorrectly because of my egoism. After I unite with this person, I will see how to use all of his qualities correctly and how we can complement one another.”
Question: How does unity happen?
Answer: When you quarrel with your wife or girlfriend, then everything she has inside, you pull out as something negative. But when your relationship with her is good, then everything she has inside is loved and positive. Is this not clear?
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Positive Qualities of a Maniac” 8/18/11
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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do so many married people today have lovers on the side?“
Due to the growth of the human ego, today we live quite a long time.
In the past, people lived 30 to 40 years, and even earlier, people died at the ages of 20 to 25. Our life span has gradually increased to a point where it is common to live to around 90 years of age today.
We thus find ourselves dealing with the problem of whether we can psychologically withstand such longevity. For instance, some studies claim that increases in cancer are due to our longer lives, that if we lived 20 years less, we would not develop various tumors; and if we lived even another 20 years less, then maybe these tumors would not emerge at all.
Therefore, people’s longer lives today are one of the reasons for an increase in divorces, and people find that they cannot live together for so many years.
Longer lives are one outcome of the human ego growing to overblown proportions. Another phenomenon of our massive egos today is that we simply cannot be satisfied with the variety of pleasures that surround us—and sex is life’s biggest and most accessible pleasure.
It thus turns out that people increasingly justify their infidelity, so much so that it ceases to even be called “infidelity” because of how ordinary it has become.
I think that in the coming years there will be no families left that live their entire lives in a single marriage. We live in an era where we have fashioned sex, alcohol, drugs and sports to cover our dissatisfaction, a feeling of hopelessness and a lack of confidence that we generally feel. Humanity turns to these means as a way to blow off steam, as a certain shake-up that the modern person needs.
Therefore, in no case can I criticize anyone. I understand its necessity in today’s world.
This phenomenon can change according to a change in our attitude toward the world and toward life. Moreover, such a change does not need to be carried out even in a person, but in our environment, i.e., our social, cultural and educational influences. If the values in our society change and become softer, with more support and encouragement of positive mutual connection, we will then become fueled with a new sensation of confidence and security. In other words, the more we feel our lives become filled with satisfaction, hope and confidence, the less we will be attracted to the many problematic games and their relaxation in the form of sex. Our lives will then become calmer and more balanced.
Based on KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Lovers” by Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 7, 2011. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 19, “Concerning Joy”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic “The Ruin as an Opportunity for Correction”
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Selected Highlights
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