Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/3/23
Posted on December 3rd, 2023
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Michael Laitman on the Times of Israel: “The Power of Unity: The Need to Transform Israel’s Relations Inside and Out”
On one hand, we find ourselves in a situation where after being brutally attacked, we need to retaliate, according to the principle, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” That is, since we have been struck, we need to defend ourselves and fight back. This is part of our correction.
We have been in a situation of providing for Gazans, and yet it has proven itself to be a flammable and explosive mixture we keep by our side. Such a setup is unacceptable anywhere in the world. The time has thus come to deal with this territory, otherwise in the future, we will have to deal with it on a larger scale.
However, it is just one front against us, and we see nations all around us wishing for our destruction, from Hezbollah in the north, to the Houthis in Yemen, and of course, Iran. So while we defend ourselves in the current state out of necessity, we need to remember that there is ultimately only one action we can do to resolve these many tensions: We, the people of Israel, need peace, unity and understanding among ourselves. We will then cease the tensions not only with our neighbors, but in general, all problems and crises will then disappear from the world.
I regularly discuss the need for the people of Israel’s unity because I trust that it is how we can bring ourselves and the world to a better state.
The core of the terrible pressures Israel face from its neighbors is due to the fact that we do not give the world what we need to give.
What do we need to give the world? We need to provide a shining example of unity.
If we engage in acts of hatred among each other, such as the protests and demonstrations we busied ourselves with all year long until the tragic attacks on October 7, then our internal divisiveness will reflect back to us from other people and nations. In other words, our internal hatred, which flared up before the war, led to this war we are now in and to the way our enemies behave with us.
In principle, our enemies are not enemies. We enable their attitudes and actions toward us through our attitudes toward each other.
We thus need to convince ourselves that we need to reach a common love for each other. Then, there will be calm: no more people or nations will want to rise up against us.
Peace with our neighbors and with the world at large depends on how we, the several million Jews who live here, can construct ourselves into a unified society that blossoms with relations of mutual consideration, love, support and encouragement. The Torah discusses our mission as such, and I have been certain of it for decades.
It is written that “no calamity comes to the world but for Israel” (Yevamot 63). The attacks on October 7 were the worst we have endured since the Holocaust, and if we fail to learn to live with a united spirit dwelling among us—thereby also serving this unified spirit to the world—then we can expect even worse attacks and wars in the future.
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Question: What are the Kelim of holiness that we should guard? Is it the fear of forgetting about the connection between us? Or is it about the fact that in any state one should not forget from whom it comes and before whom I stand? Or is it regret that I am now separated from the others?
Answer: You can think about everything you have just said and regret that there is not enough connection with the Creator, that you are afraid to disconnect from Him, and that He may leave you.
You can put all these feelings and worries in front of Him all the time and ask Him not to move away, not to leave, and not to disappear.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “As Though Standing before a King“
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Question: We read that the ordinary pleasures of our life are a certain threat to the bestowing qualities, so how can we correctly combine the two types of pleasures: spiritual and corporeal? A person might have a certain reaction: “This is it. I will live without pleasure at all.” But this is also wrong.
Answer: Of course this is wrong. We must definitely receive pleasure from the Creator. And through the Creator, from everything else. If we go deeper into life in this way, we will begin to feel the Creator and everything else after Him.
Question: It is not a secret that we enjoy lessons, articles, The Book of Zohar, and working in a group. But these are also, to some extent, the pleasures of our world. Should we limit them in order to feel ourselves standing in front of the King?
Answer: No. You must connect and pass this pleasure back to the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “As Though Standing before a King”
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Question: In the article “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Baal HaSulam writes that spiritual correction lasts 6,000 years. What does it mean?
Answer: 6,000 years are 6,000 degrees that a person must go through in order to rise to the highest degree. Or rather, we are talking about desire, because the matter of a person is desire.
Therefore, everyone must go through all 6,000 degrees and through the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut, reach the world of Adam Kadmon, and then the world of infinity.
Question: As far as I understand, does this article only talk about creating a system of correction from above downward, but not about the actual correction of a person who is trying to develop spiritually?
Answer: Anyone who wants to ascend the degrees of spiritual worlds must begin to systematically study Kabbalah. By studying this system, he will begin to feel its influence on him; he will feel that he is in this system and how and what is happening to him.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 11/7/23
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Question: Are the sufferings we experience our personal sufferings or the sufferings of the Shechina?
Answer: It can be either way. Suffering can come from the Creator because we are the opposite of Him. They can also come from people themselves because they do not want to connect in order to be like the Creator.
Thus, suffering is determined by the vector of movement, whether a person is directed to the Creator or away from Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Two States“
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Question: Once a wise man was asked, “How do you not get tired of always being alone?” And he replied, “I have plenty to do. I have to teach two hawks and two eagles, calm two rabbits, train a snake, motivate a donkey, and tame a lion.”
“But where are they?” he was asked. The wise man answered, “They are within me. Two hawks are my eyes, two eagles are my hands, and the rabbits are my legs. The most difficult is the snake. It is always ready to attack, bite, and sting with poison and that is my tongue. The donkey is stubborn and it is my body. The lion wants to rule. He is proud, arrogant, and thinks that the whole world should revolve around him. I have a lot of work to do.”
Is it right to look at the world like this, or at least approximately like this?
Answer: Approximately, yes. What I see and whom I see, I see it all within myself. And that is all my work.
Question: His work, as this wise man says, is always to tame, stop, hold back his tongue, his lion, and so on. Is it correct to be constantly in such a game?
Answer: In such a state, yes.
Question: In relation to what should this happen?
Answer: In relation to one’s egoism and universal compassion.
Question: So compassion should stand before me? And with that in mind, I go through all this. It turns out that everything around me exists for me—everything. And should every person think like this?
Answer: Of course!
Question: Can you say why it is done this way? After all a person doesn’t have such an understanding.
Answer: It is so that you gather such impressions throughout your life and then find a solution.
Question: I have gathered these impressions: There I am beaten and here I am beaten; there I was offended and here my “I” was leveled to the ground, simply trampled on! And I have to say that it is all within me?
Answer: All of it is you. And all of it is for you to understand the plan.
Question: You said that compassion stands before a person. So is that the plan? Aim for compassion?
Answer: Yes.
Question: And I really have to tame everything within me?
Answer: Yes, calmly tame.
Question: So we have constant work and there can be no rest?
Answer: Yes, that is how it is written.
Question: Even as we age and retire in our world, do we still continue this work?
Answer: Yes, until the last moment.
Question: How can one keep this compassion before oneself and live and work with that in mind?
Answer: By remembering that you stand before the Creator who is absolutely kind, benevolent, wise, and is constantly taking care of you!
Question: The most terrible pain and these are my thoughts? The most terrible humiliation and I say, “This is taking care of me”?
Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/26/23
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Question: Kabbalistic sources say that working in the Torah and the commandments leads to benefits and pleasures received in the Kelim of bestowal. Why is there so much talk about pleasure if one who works in bestowal does not seem to have to think about them anymore?
Answer: A Kabbalist receives pleasure to please the Creator. Otherwise, what will he give to the Creator? By making calculations, he receives pleasures, feels them, evaluates them, and transmits them to the Creator.
For him the most important thing is the Creator, and the pleasure and everything he does with them are only means of turning to the Creator, achieving the Creator, filling Him.
Question: Why is it that when you feel pleasure from any work in the ten, thoughts immediately come that this is the wrong pleasure, not from what it should be?
Answer: Because it is very important for us that our pleasures are correct and we do not deviate in the opposite direction. After all, if pleasure for its own sake passes through our egoism, then we do not move toward the goal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/23, Writings of Rabash “What Does It Mean that the Creation of the World Was by Largess?“
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Question: The souls that form the general system of Adam HaRishon are in the three worlds of BYA—Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. What does it mean?
Answer: Souls that are still disconnected from spirituality, from the divine, are in the worlds of BYA in all sorts of states of ascents and descents, and are studying the results of their actions. They undergo preliminary corrections there.
We are talking about people who leave our world and begin to attain spirituality gradually.
Question: What is the connection between the system of Adam HaRishon where the rudiments of all people’s souls, all our desires and thoughts are, and the world of Atzilut, the world of correction?
Answer: The world of Atzilut is above the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. There is a border between it and the worlds of BYA called Parsa. It is necessary to cross it in order to ascend to the world of Atzilut.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 11/7/23
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Comment: When you write, you are silent.
My Response: You speak, there is an inner conversation going on within you.
Question: Is there power in silence and writing?
Answer: Yes. Writing is a very effective tool. I would say it is necessary to use it too, perhaps less often. Look how much is written! Everyone is scribbling.
Comment: Splashing out their ego.
My Response: Yes, but in reality, of course, it is necessary to restrain ourselves.
Comment: You once said that all sorts of romance novels and so on, were written only 300 to 400 years ago. Before that, there was a constant search for the Creator and only that was written about.
My Response: Yes, they wrote only about connection with the Creator. People were searching for a way to get connected with the Creator. Then all kinds of technology came along, and people started to travel more, to communicate more, and to lose their inner voice.
They began to pay attention to the connections between people, especially connection between men and women. Throughout the history of mankind there were no novels, novellas, or such genres when it would be possible to talk about or write about it. It all started somewhere with Shakespeare and beyond.
In Judaism, there was none of this at all. And there were no songs about love. Who there even thought of singing about love?
Question: What is “Song of Songs” then, which speaks exclusively about love?
Answer: But it is directed only toward the Creator! That has nothing to do with the retelling of some gender-related feelings.
Question: Was the “Song of Songs,” which was written by King Solomon, his declaration of love to the Creator?
Answer: Certainly, there is genuine love from the soul to the source of the soul, the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/21/23
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