Audio Version Of The Blog – 2/19/24
Posted on February 19th, 2024
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Michael Laitman on the Times of Israel: “Alexander the Great’s Meeting with Shimon HaTzadik That Saved Jerusalem”
It is written in the Talmud about a significant historical encounter between Alexander the Great and the high priest Shimon HaTzadik. Alexander, having conquered half the world, marched on Jerusalem. The Talmud recounts the moment when, under torchlight, Shimon HaTzadik, accompanied by elders, confronted Alexander, and the formidable conqueror knelt before the high priest and abandoned his planned assault on Jerusalem. From that moment on, the name “Alexander” was included in the list of Jewish names.
Alexander the Great felt the higher power. After his many conquests, he never became blind to it and when he felt that power in this elder, he thus climbed off his chariot and bowed before the great wisdom that he felt in this man.
Alexander the Great was a noble and smart man who did not just seek to conquer the world. Rather, he wished to fill the world with science and enlightenment, and to do so first and foremost in those cities through which his troops passed. He did have a wish to make the world Hellenic, but as a means of raising the pagan world to a level of enlightenment.
The high priest had an obligation to remain in Jerusalem. He had nowhere else to go as his mission was completely different: to fill the earth with spirit. The meeting of the high priest and Alexander the Great was a meeting of strength and intelligence, where with mutual understanding and respect of one another, they decided to save Jerusalem.
What is the spirit that Shimon HaTzadik had the mission to fill the world with, and which Alexander the Great recognized? It is the higher force of love, bestowal and connection, the source force that dwells in nature above and behind our inborn egoistic forces. It is a force that any person can access depending on how much we wish to elevate such a lofty spirit above our innate self-serving one. For instance, we could say that Hitler was incapable of doing so, but Alexander the Great could. Therefore, to this day, Jews often call their children “Alexander” in honor of Alexander the Great. It is indeed a unique case like no other in history.
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Question: The Creator gave us tablets and engraved the word “freedom” on them. This means that the heart is identical to the tablets. But I cannot do this engraving on my heart myself. How do my friends help me do this, or do I help them?
Answer: We work together to accept with all our hearts what the Creator wants from us. Thus, we engrave the words of the Torah on a living heart.
Writing on my heart means that I write on my feelings. Just as letters are carved on stone with a hammer and chisel, so do we. The deeper we can carve them, the more justified our existence becomes.
Question: But what is written on our hearts is erased. Is there anything we can do to carve the words of the Torah once and for all?
Answer: No, only if we are connected with the friends, then the records on our heart will be preserved.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Freedom”
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Question: For our great teachers there were conditions to hide the secrets of the Torah and reveal the tastes of the Torah. It turns out that while studying the tastes of the Torah, we follow a well-trodden path and must reveal the secrets of the Torah through our own efforts, and then this is our path. Right?
Answer: Not really. It depends on how close you are to others who are moving with you toward the attainment of the soul. After all, we attain a common soul.
Therefore, there are a few things here that we need to figure out. By being connected with a certain number of souls, each of us can receive help based on this connection. As Baal HaSulam writes: “This is why the great ones hide many things. And except for this part, there is great benefit for souls from what they receive from innovations of the Torah of others.”
There are different cases. We are usually very happy that we have a connection through souls in order to connect with others who have attained, and therefore we can ascend and reveal much more than each attains on their own.
Question: Were the great Kabbalists forbidden to reveal the secrets of the Torah?
Answer: No, it depends. Otherwise today we would not have any Kabbalistic books at all.
Question: Were there any Kabbalists in history who fell from their degree?
Answer: No. The Kabbalist goes through such conditions when he already holds on to everything with absolute confidence, and no one will ever push him off this path.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “One’s Soul Shall Teach Him”
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Question: What is the act of carving the words of the Torah on one’s heart?
Answer: The heart is egoism. And you must write down on your heart with spiritual light all the conditions, all the laws of bestowal.
Question: If I feel my heart is made of stone, what can I write on it?
Answer: Try, you will see that on one side, it is stone, and on the other, it is alive.
You will feel liberation from egoism to the extent that you begin to rise higher, higher, and higher in turning to the Creator. This manifests your rapprochement with the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Freedom”
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Question: The sage spoke a simple phrase, “A person must acquire both knowledge and wisdom.” And when asked what the difference was, he replied: “Knowledge is achieved by reading books, and wisdom is achieved by reading the book that you yourself are.”
What kind of book am I?
Answer: Life, the book of life, experience.
Question: Is this me?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What does it mean to read this book?
Answer: Do not forget, remember, understand how you live.
Question: So was this book written in myself?
Answer: It is written in you by your life. But only you can be imbued with it and understand it if you leaf through it.
Question: On one hand, it says “reading.” You just said, “It is being written.” What does it mean to write this book in myself?
Answer: Writing is my writing it myself. Every day, every minute, at every moment, I solve some problems or tasks set for me and take them into action. And here I just need to understand how all this happens, which decision is correct, and which is not.
Question: If this is a book that must be read, what is the correct solution?
Answer: I must think through what I am doing, what I need, why and how, make a decision, and act.
Question: How can one make the right decision?
Answer: I must make the right decisions as if each were the last, final decision, and I will not be given an opportunity to redo.
Comment: So you do not give any room for error at all. You seem to say: “This is your decision and that is it.”
My Response: How will you correct these errors? There is no error correction. Now I have made a decision and that is it.
Question: What is this book written with?
Answer: The book of life is written with doubts and blood.
Question: Does blood mean suffering?
Answer: Of course.
Question: So this whole book, it is scary to say, is in blood, that is, in my suffering, in what I went through, and what humanity went through? That is my book.
Answer: Yes, we have been living this way for thousands of years.
Question: Is this the correct scripture? Is that how it was supposed to be written?
Answer: Yes, there is no other way.
Comment: That is, I do not regret anything, nothing that happened, all the suffering that happened, including the most terrible. It turns out that all this was necessary to write a book.
My Response: Yes.
Question: What are the last lines in it? What does this book lead to?
Answer: It encourages us to open our eyes even wider and look at the world clearly. And we would see that it is only we who paint a picture of this world and ourselves in it. In reality there is nothing else.
Question: Except what?
Answer: Except that we determine all this.
Question: Do we determine the existence of this world? Just the way it is?
Answer: Yes.
Question: What is it really like?
Answer: There is no world.
Question: What is it there?
Answer: Whatever you define is what it is.
Question: But do I exist?
Answer: Whatever you define.
Question: That is, I determine that this is such a world, and I determine that it is me in it? And that’s all?
Answer: That is it!
Question: What is there?
Answer: There is nothing except your impression of how you draw it.
Question: Let us say that I come to this, although it is not easy to understand. I come to this, so what? And that is where this book takes me?
Answer: Yes.
Comment: They say that after all we are led to happiness.
My Response: What happiness?! Is someone telling you about sky-high happiness? About the fact that there will be some kind of happiness at the end of days?
Question: What do they lead to then? I want to believe…
Answer: Toward that you get to know the world in which you found yourself in.
Question: And is this how I am led by these sufferings and blows, just to get acquainted with this world?
Answer: Yes.
Question: But they beat me for some reason. Not just for me to get to know the world. Is there something I should gain from all this?
Answer: You do not gain anything from this except a place in the cemetery. Nothing else.
Comment: I still want to hear something from you about some kind of plan.
My Response: You do not need anything! Thoughts like yours, they only drag a person into all sorts of impossible dreams, thoughts, and so on.
Question: Do you say, “We need to calm down”?
Answer: Of course.
Question: If possible, let us summarize. I read this book of life, write it, live my book of life in order to come to the point of…?
Answer: Do not ask for anything.
Question: Can we stop here?
Answer: Yes.
Question: So I ask all the time, and it works. And you say: “I must come to the point that I am not asking for anything”?
Answer: Nothing! So this is the world, this is life, and I exist in it in order to calm down.
Question: Can we say that by this I accept everything that comes to me? Is this the result of this book?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Do I just accept everything?
Answer: Everything.
Question: I still want to add. Is all this good? Is it something good? Or do you not want to answer this?
Answer: I do not want to tell you what does not exist. A person is very scared, and therefore he still hopes that he will get something good from this hard life at the end.
Question: Do you say: “All the good is that you accept everything”? Is this the result of my life and this book?
Answer: Yes, the result of your life is to understand the real nature in which there is a clear law. And if you fulfill it, then you fulfill it; if not, then no. And to this extent you agree.
Question: What law is this?
Answer: This is the law “to each according to his work on himself.”
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/9/23
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Comment: You have said more than once that the perception of reality, i.e., everything that surrounds you, is your dialogue with the Creator.
My Response: Not only mine but everyone’s! We are all in direct, constant dialogue with Him because the Creator is nature, and what we feel in us or around us is all nature or the Creator.
If we clearly understand that this is His address to us and want to tune in to Him, then we relate to nature differently, i.e., we try to find mutual understanding, a two-way connection with the Creator.
This means that we already treat the environment around us and ourselves as His manifestation. That is, I myself am also a manifestation of His thought.
Question: How do you perform this action?
Answer: I begin to listen to that point in me that feels everything. What does it feel? It feels the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Creator is Everywhere“ 12/24/11
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Comment: During seminars, connection meetings, and conventions, we go through different states, find some point of unity among ourselves, and try to constantly hit it. But it seems that these actions will no longer have the same force as the first time.
My Response: No, it is not like that. There should be even more impressions from these actions! Here we are not dealing with momentary egoistic findings when we use the effect of surprise or some kind of novelty.
We do not need novelty! On the contrary! As we move forward, our egoism is pumped up from time to time, and by climbing it we feel much greater internal actions during the same external actions.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Head Against the Wall” 12/21/11
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Question: What is the root of honor?
Answer: It is in egoism.
Question: I have no desire to climb the spiritual degrees, but I invest as much as possible in the work and leave everything to the will of the Creator. Is that correct?
Answer: No, it is not correct. It is necessary to also make efforts by yourself.
Question: When a person has done a lot of work at a convention, has become a great righteous in his own eyes, and sees himself above the rest, he becomes a big problem for the ten. How can we help him get out of this trap, since as a rule it does not end well for him?
Answer: Usually in this case, the person leaves the group. But we have to wait. Maybe we should just talk about this case, not about this particular friend, but in general, as if it happened in a different place.
Question: Is the desire of a student to reach the state of righteousness an egoistic desire?
Answer: If a friend wants to reach this desire at the expense of others, then it is egoistic, and if he simply raises himself, this is not egoism.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Honor”
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Preparation to the Lesson
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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Does It Mean that Charity to the Poor Makes the Holy Name, in the Work?”
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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 2, Part 7, Item 41
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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Foreword to The Book of Zohar”
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Selected Highlights
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