Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 10/16/22
Posted on October 16th, 2022 at 7:00 am
Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Ushpizin David – Sefirat Malchut”
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Selected Highlights
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Preparation to the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic “Ushpizin David – Sefirat Malchut”
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Selected Highlights
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Question: It is written in Kabbalah that if you ask for yourself, you harm your soul. How can I understand this? What does it mean “not to ask for myself”?
Answer: The goal of all our prayers has to be to correct myself and to come closer to the Creator. The Creator is the property of absolute bestowal, absolute love, and absolute connection between all. Therefore, if we are attuning to address Him correctly, we first must attune ourselves to these properties.
Question: If I am asking to have the property of bestowal, do I harm myself?
Answer: No, you do not harm yourself because you attune yourself to bestowal. You already want to be similar to the Creator.
Question: But I am still asking for myself to have this property.
Answer: But what for? It is for bestowal, meaning, in essence, you are asking not for yourself but for the ability in some way to bestow and serve others.
Question: If a person is asking for his health or wellbeing of his family, is it harmful?
Answer: Yes. It will not be harmful only if he asks for the entire world and for himself within this world.
Question: What if I am asking: “give me health” but with the intent to receive the property of bestowal after that?
Answer: It is also possible. Also it is generally possible if you ask for everyone including yourself. In this case, your prayer is effective.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22
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The Start Of The Countdown
The space that remained after the restriction was circular (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Chapter 1, Part 1).
After the restriction, the space remains circular, meaning not in the form of a triangle or some other asymmetric object, but exactly an object where one does not have any special qualities against the other, and therefore, it has the shape of a circle. This suggests that the entire process took place in the equality and perfection of all its constituent forces.
The fact is that the restriction occurred absolutely in all parameters. There was not a single special or greater or lesser parameter in relation to the others. All the desires, all the qualities, were absolutely equivalent. Therefore, the restriction had the shape of a circle.
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From a Kabbalah Lesson The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) 10/2/22
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All the holidays celebrated by the nation of Israel are derived from the science of Kabbalah. The Sukkot holiday is a symbol of the spiritual Kli.
We must build such a form out of our desire to receive that the Creator can clothe in and reveal Himself in it so that we understand who the Creator is, what He wants from us, how we can be in connection with Him, and how to rise from our degree of creation, from the level of dust, to a level similar to the Creator.
And to do this, we need to know how to build our Kli from the material of desire with the help of the restriction, the screen, and the reflected light.
The Sukkah is a symbol of the corrected Kli. This is a structure that serves as a model of our inner spiritual vessel. Therefore, there is a custom on the holiday of Sukkot to build a structure, not within our heart or the connection of hearts, but to build a Sukkah in an external form as a symbol of a corrected heart, a corrected soul.
The Sukkah is built from the simplest natural material. Iron or concrete cannot be used for its construction, but only wood, stones, branches, and leaves, things that the earth gives. This is how we build our corrected Kli, soul, in the form of a hut, a Sukkah. Like a child’s game, we build the desired spiritual state in material form.
Based on the details of the construction of the Sukkah described by Kabbalists, we can understand what a soul is, what it consists of, and what states it passes through.
Baal HaSulam and Rabash were very sensitive to this holiday and took care to build a good, beautiful Sukkah because it identifies a person’s attitude to correcting his soul.
Sukkot symbolizes that we have reached the corrected Kli in which there are four degrees, the four walls of the Sukkah, and the screen on the whole desire to receive, which is called “Shach,” the roof of the Sukkah. We are inside the Sukkah, inside the soul, and nothing remains outside because we have corrected the whole soul and we connect with the Creator inside it.
During the seven days of the Sukkot holiday, we invite guests to the Sukkah, the seven Sefirot. Keter, Hochma, and Bina are above the roof of the Sukkah, and under the roof are the Sefirot Hesed, Gevura, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. This is how we celebrate the entry of light from the degree of GAR into the VAK, into the body of the soul.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/21, “Sukkot”
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There is no limit to our gratitude to Baal HaSulam for everything he has done for us, for the efforts he has invested in order to pave the way for us to the palace of the Creator. This is a man to whom we owe everything.
And his eldest son Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (Rabash) continued his path, expanded it for us, and thanks to him we are on the spiritual path and hope to follow it to the very top of the world.
Before Baal HaSulam, the manuscripts outlining the Ari’s methodology were not organized and collected into one whole because some were extracted from the Ari’s grave and some from other hiding places. No one had collected them in one place and worked on them seriously to understand what they said. It was hard to even figure out how to approach them and start studying them.
It would seem that everything is so simple: They talk about working with the desire to receive at its different levels with the screen and the power of overcoming, as if about some physical laws. But the fact is that in order to understand the order of the entry of the lights into the Kelim and the relations between them it is necessary to be at a very high spiritual level.
It is impossible to study Kabbalah like physics, it requires spiritual attainment. And this, of course, is beyond one’s power. Baal HaSulam was able to do this because he was honored with the embryo of the Ari’s soul’s in him. That is, the same upper light was clothed in him as in the Ari, and he began to attain the spiritual like the Ari.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/7/22, “Baal HaSulam Memorial Day”
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Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
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Medium published my new article “The Facade of Internet Neutrality Exposed”
After years of avoiding this sensitive issue, the US Supreme Court finally agreed this month “to decide whether social media platforms may be sued despite a law that shields the companies from legal responsibility for what users post on their sites,” writes The New York Times. “The case, brought by the family of a woman killed in a terrorist attack, argues that YouTube’s algorithm recommended videos inciting violence. …Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law intended to nurture … the internet. …The law said that online companies are not liable for transmitting materials supplied by others. Section 230 also helped enable the rise of huge social networks like Facebook and Twitter by ensuring that the sites did not assume new legal liability with every new tweet, status update and comment.”
However, the freedom from liability seems to have been abused. “A growing group of bipartisan lawmakers, academics and activists have grown skeptical of Section 230,” continues the story, “and say that it has shielded giant tech companies from consequences for disinformation, discrimination and violent content that flows across their platforms.” However, according to the plaintiffs, “The platforms forfeit their protections when their algorithms recommend content, target ads or introduce new connections to their users.”
This may sound like a legal battle over power and control, but Section 230 can cost lives. “In one case,” continues the newspaper story, “the family of an American killed in a terrorist attack sued Facebook, claiming that its algorithm had bolstered the reach of content produced by Hamas.” The lawsuit was rejected but one judge said “Facebook’s algorithmic suggestions should not be protected by Section 230.”
Freedom of the internet is a problem. Because human nature pushes us to exploit whatever we can for our own good, when tech giants can exploit a platform by promoting content that will increase their income, no morals will inhibit them. As a result, they promoted videos of ISIS beheadings, and other gruesome acts of terror to people they identified as potential sympathizers. The lawsuit claims that promoting such content not only boosts sales for tech giants, but also encourages potential terrorists to act.
There is certainly a need to restrain circulation of violent videos or content that incite to violence. Also, one of the arguments against social media is that if they target specific content to specific people, they are no longer uninvolved “billboards,” as they claim, but active players in shaping the minds of those using their platforms.
On the one hand, it is impossible to return to the days when there was no targeting. On the other hand, who will decide to what extent to target and by what criteria? After all, we are all subject to the same weaknesses that tempt social media giants to misuse their platforms. How, then, can we guarantee that whoever is in charge of monitoring content will not fall prey to the same errors as the owners of social media platforms?
The only solution I can see is to launch a comprehensive, thorough, and long-term educational process that will make us aware of our interconnectedness. Only if we realize, at the deepest level of our being, that when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, will we stop exploiting, oppressing, bullying, and otherwise harming one another.
At the moment, we are nowhere near the understanding that we need this process. We are persistently and insistently pushing ourselves down a tunnel that will end in a nuclear world war. If we launch this educational process in time, we will reverse the trend that we are on. If we do not, we will inflict inconceivable suffering on each other until we realize that we are dependent on each other.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “A Hard Awakening – There Is Antisemitism on the Left”
The 2022 report by the policy planning think tank Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), titled Annual Assessment: The Situation and Dynamics of the Jewish People, has revealed many things about the current state of world Jewry. Particularly, it has acknowledged a painful truth: While there is antisemitism on the Right, there is more of it on the Left, it is more sinister, and more institutionalized. Now we can talk about the peril that lurks for the Jews in the “enlightened” Left.
It may be surprising but the US, France, the UK, and Germany, certainly among the strongholds of democracy, are also today’s most active hotbeds of antisemitism. This is true not only in terms of antisemitic attacks, but also, and perhaps mainly, in terms of ideological justification for hatred of Jews, the Jewish state, and excommunicating them from the circles of society.
For example, the report talks about “Normalization of the antisemitic discourse,” where “Antisemitic discourse is becoming normalized and is penetrating mainstream national politics on university campuses and on the street,” with “a clear rise in anti-Israel or anti-Zionist expressions from progressive groups that have significantly crossed into antisemitic territory.”
Worse yet, “Identity politics in the progressive discourse places Jews into the ‘oppressors’ camp (white skin color, social privilege, and power). On this basis, Jewish support for Israel is sometimes equated with complicity with racist policies.”
Western Europe, too, is experiencing “progressive” antisemitism. In France, Muslims and progressives rise above the ideological chasm between them and unite for the “noble” cause of bashing Israel and Jews. “The growing recognition of the cardinal role of Islamist antisemitism in the resurgence of Judeophobia is challenged by ‘woke’ ideology and the intersectionality movement, which jumped from academic theory into left-wing political activism,” details the report. “This ideology incorporates a post-modern corpus of theories, a fusion of the Frankfurt school’s neo-Marxist ideas and the ‘French theory’ that garnered considerable academic truck (sic) in the United States beginning in the 1980s. The common fight against imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, and widespread class stratification has thus manifested itself in a convergence of struggles between the radical left and radical Islam, and has in some cases translated into virulent antisemitism.”
Across the channel, the UK is experiencing its own wave of woke antisemitism. “Jewish communities perceive a lack of support in combating antisemitic phenomena,” says the report, “particularly within progressive left circles. British Jews grapple with a frequently imposed framing of Jews in progressive discourse. This framing is an obstacle to fighting antisemitism and contributes significantly to failures to recognize and stand against antisemitism among the broader left.”
I am glad that the cloak of civility has been lifted, or is at least beginning to be lifted from the face of the Left. The “civilized” and “enlightened” nations have always been our worst oppressors. This was true in antiquity, when Babel demolished the first Kingdom of Israel, and Rome demolished the second. It was also true in the late Middle Ages with the Spanish Inquisition, and in the previous century with Germany’s Third Reich.
As the report details, public figures on the Left do not portray themselves as antisemitic. Instead, they disguise their venom behind highbrow contentions of injustice to Palestinians, migrants, people of color, underprivileged population groups, gender equality, and everything and anything related to identity politics. However, the implicit, and sometimes explicit culprit will almost always somehow turn out to be Jewish, the Jews as a whole, or the Jewish state.
This is not antisemitism from the street, from the populace; it is institutional antisemitism, antisemitism as a policy and as a political instrument. Antisemitism from the street is violent, and can be homicidal. Institutional antisemitism is suave, and can be genocidal.
Besides noting the rising antisemitism on the Left, the report also notes the disunity within the Jewish community, particularly with regard to dealing with antisemitism. I will address this issue in one of my coming posts, but I should point out here that joining the ranks of the Left will not save Jews from the whip when it lashes. Now that it is clear that antisemitism is spreading through all parts of society, and especially in democratic countries, it is time for Jewish unity as an antidote for Jew-hatred.
You can find more on contemporary antisemitism and its history in my books, New Antisemitism: Mutation of a Long-lived Hatred, and The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism.
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Medium published my new article “With a Grain of Salt”
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meet for the U.S.-Russia summit at Villa La Grange in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Joe Biden said Thursday that “the risk of nuclear ‘Armageddon’ is the highest it has been in 60 years after Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed his threats as his military retreats in Ukraine.” However, according to a story published in the Los Angeles Times, the statement “appeared to go beyond U.S. intelligence assessments.” In fact, “National security officials say they have no evidence that Vladimir Putin has imminent plans for a nuclear strike.” In this case, I too believe that we should take both leaders’ statements with a grain of salt.
In the end, the Russians, too, fear the consequences of using nuclear weapons. Humanity has never seen what a nuclear world war looks like. The precedents in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as horrific as they were, are nothing compared to the massive and prolonged destruction that a nuclear world war will inflict, especially given the power of today’s atom and hydrogen bombs.
The threats by Russia and its allies are unnerving, but I think that this is their intention — to demoralize and frighten. I do not think that there is a genuine intention to employ tactical nuclear warheads or any other kind of nuclear weapons.
If humanity plunges into a nuclear world war, we have no idea where it will lead us or how it will end. I think that everyone realizes this and will act accordingly. There is simply too much at stake, too much to lose to gamble with a nuclear war.
Besides, such an attack would turn the entire world against the aggressor. No superpower, however strong and however weaponized, can stand against the entire world. Therefore, threats to use nuclear weapons and disheartening declarations about a possible nuclear Armageddon are, in my opinion, unrealistic, at least at this point in time.
That said, as a whole, the world is certainly moving in a negative direction. If we cannot understand that war is not the way to achieve political or economic benefits these days, we will eventually plunge into a third world war.
The developments in Ukraine should worry all of us, and encourage us to nurture stronger ties among all parts of humanity in order to avoid a possible breakdown of global society.
If we can learn the lesson from this painful war, perhaps it will give some meaning to the misery that millions are experiencing. If we cannot learn from it, we will need another war, most likely a crueler one, to accept that we must lay down our arms and treat humanity as it really is — a single entity whose parts are interconnected and interdependent.
Eventually, we will learn that war is not the way. I only hope we learn it not through a nuclear ordeal.
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