Question: How can one convince oneself that any actions for oneself are evil? Even some kind and positive group actions done for oneself are still evil.

Answer: Anything that hinders truth and devoted connection in one common desire is evil. It is impossible to give a clear definition of evil. Evil is opposed to connection in which the quality of the Creator is revealed.

Comment: I do some group actions, and they are beneficial, but at the same time, when I analyze them, I catch myself thinking that I did them for myself. But I do not feel bad about it at all. And I do not like that.

My Response: Why? Because you are giving yourself some incorrect definitions. Stop philosophizing!

Anything that leads to the connection with the friends into one single whole, into one thought, into one desire, into one action, into one intention, is good. The place where I dissolve into the group is good.

That is it! Do not consider any other theories.
[330427]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: Should I work not for the sake of the reward, nor myself, should I not want to receive anything?

Answer: No, you work to get a reward. But which one? It is to be able to bestow to the Creator.

Question: But I understand that bestowing to the Creator means making efforts and enjoying His work.

Answer: No, you do not have to make your conclusions. You must read the sources, or your understanding will give you such a philosophy that you will not know where you are. Our reward is acquiring the property of bestowal, becoming similar to the Creator.

Question: Should I cry out for the sake of such a reward?

Answer: Yes, you should get a sense of importance and need for this reward through the group so much so that you can live only for this. And everything else is your purely earthly egoism.
[330517]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: According to Kabbalah, the Creator clothes Himself in every person, in each of us. For example, when you talk to someone, do you perceive that person as the Creator speaking through them?

Answer: It depends on my focus and what I need from the interaction.
If I need to respond to someone on their level so that they understand me, I engage with them on that level rather than connecting with the Creator within them.

In this case, I view the person not as an individual, but as nature. They appear to me not as a personality but as a part of nature through which the Creator manifests in relation to me. So, I do not see the person before me. I see a mass of nature, of humanity, through which I observe the Creator, His actions, and His attitude toward me.

However, when I wish to see the person and his individuality, I need to perceive the Creator as He descends to the level of that person, wants to elevate and shape him, and He addresses me.

Then I address that person directly, while considering the Creator’s influence on him and my own influence on that person so that our influences—mine and the Creator’s—align within him and enable him to rise.

Question: Is this such a complex scheme? Do you separate people into two streams?

Answer: Of course! If it is a person with a point in the heart who needs to move forward, if it is my student with whom I must interact this way, I relate to them as the Creator does—as a unique, distinct spiritual individual and not just a mass.

This approach applies only to people with a point in the heart who work on themselves and reach a level where they represent a spiritual individuality. There are not many such people. But there are not supposed to be many of them.
[330141]
From KabTV’s “I got a call. The Creator in Man…“ 3/20/10

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Question: How can we stop being afraid of the Creator?

Answer: I believe that we should only be afraid of ourselves since there is nothing else in nature besides man’s negative force of egoism and the positive force of the Creator

We have nothing to fear from the Creator. There is nothing better, kinder, more perfect. Therefore, be afraid of man, of yourself, because we are the only source of all problems.
[330534]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: How does a person who wants to achieve the goal feel?

Answer: A person feels his main job is to constantly annul himself before the group and the Creator, nothing else.

Egoism is our reverse helper. It is specially given to us so we can annul it and thus become like the Creator. That is all you have to think about.

There are many thoughts, actions, and intentions around this, but, in general, this is the most important thing.
[330531]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/20, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: Do we come to the group in order to reach common hopelessness and helplessness?

Answer: No. We come to the group to reveal the Creator within it. However, when we start working, we reveal the impossibility of connecting by our own efforts.

Similarly, humanity must convince itself at its lower level that it is incapable of reaching a normal earthly human life. Nothing works for them in family life, in raising children, technology, work, culture, or science; whatever they do, they only harm themselves. Gradually, humanity truly becomes convinced of this.

Then they are invited to correct this with the upper light, the positive energy that works within us. Kabbalah explains that this energy can only be drawn from common work on ourselves in order to reach some common denominator.

Suppose theoretically we are ready. A part of humanity, for example, Bnei Baruch, desires this. But when we start working on connection, we, like all of humanity, also feel the impossibility of it. Even if we want to yield to each other, care for each other, empathize, and suffer together, it does not work!

The Creator deliberately makes it so that we cannot correctly adjust ourselves and become masters of the world (we cannot be masters of the world because we are created beings), but He makes it so that we become disappointed in our own strength and feel the need for Him. This is when we appeal to Him, and He builds a system of correct integral connection between us called Arvut (mutual guarantee).

Only after this can we constantly work with this system of connection. Its revelation between us is called the entry into the upper world, because in that case, we begin to see the entire creation in connection among us through an organ of perception called “the group,” “the ten Sefirot.” Then we can move forward calmly, without error, while understanding what we must do.
[330420]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/20, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Comment: An ordinary person thinks that they do everything in this world themselves: “I am so amazing, so astonishing, so wonderful.” But in Kabbalah, a person realizes that they are influenced by a system. They start to feel this system and understand that it is not them. In this way, they begin to attain themselves.

This is the huge difference between the two layers: the external perception of the world and the inner perception, which is inherent to a person studying Kabbalah.

My Response: Yes that is true. But it is difficult for me to talk about this because I perceive the world a little differently than others. Sometimes it is hard for me to connect with a person who only feels what they perceive. I can no longer imagine such a state.

I try to get closer to them to explain my philosophy, worldview, and feelings. But, as a rule, I do not succeed very much in this. It is hard. We see this with all Kabbalists.

After all, a person in our world lacks a spiritual organ of perception. Therefore, we attract them like a child with “toys,” and “sweets,” until they start to engage in the process of their own development and begin to feel the upper world within themselves.
[330342]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Am I a Puppet?” 4/10/10

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From a letter:

I am a teacher with little experience and I am not Jewish. But I have always been interested in the fact that you teach your children to read from the age of three. I know that a lot of attention is paid to memorizing text.

“You” refers to Jews.

It is known that elementary school children could read the entire Torah fluently from memory. They could even tell how many times and on which page a particular word is mentioned.

I have many questions. Of course, we were taught a lot at university, but your answers are especially important to me. I take a lot from your programs. The first question is: What does starting education at three years old give?

Answer: It gives development.

Question: “What does such rigorous memorization of text give?” she asks.

Answer: It is also memory development.

Question: What is the purpose of this for the child?

Answer: So that they know the Torah well, can recall any part from memory, and quote it.

Question: Why specifically the Torah?

Answer: To develop abilities in a person that cannot be developed by anything else. By nothing else. I have talked with many people who studied the Torah this way, and they say it is impossible to convey this to those who have not studied it. The texts of the Torah “bind” a person’s mind into one harmonious whole.

Question: So in principle, is the goal to bring a person closer to this harmony?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How does a Kabbalist read the Torah?

Answer: A Kabbalist does not read the Torah, they see it. It evokes images within them. Not the ones illustrated in books. They see their own personal images behind the words.

Question: Are all these layers sort of removed?

Answer: This is impossible to explain.

Question: Another question from her: “Progress has brought us to the point where memorizing texts is unnecessary. Information can be obtained instantly. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this, in your opinion?”

Answer: The fact that we can juggle texts, books, and encyclopedias however we want, and find quotes in seconds, is natural, on one hand. But on the other hand, it extracts the soul from all this. It results in pure information.

Question: And is there a soul in learning the Torah this way?

Answer: In this way, yes. Of course!

Question: Her last question: “I have just started teaching. What is the most important thing to teach children?”

Answer: The most important thing to teach children is to have the right attitude toward the material you are teaching them. They must understand that the learning process itself develops them. Therefore, it doesn’t even matter what you study, but the process itself turns a small child into a person.
[330034]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/8/24

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “Letters 50 & 51”

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Selected Highlights

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