Ruach provides Nefesh in this world (The Book of Zohar).

“Ruach” in Hebrew means wind and spirit. That is, Ruach is a movement.

The spirit, breathing, the breath—all are associated with what is moving. On the Ruach step a person’s spiritual movement takes place. He feels such a connection with the upper that he begins to make some conscious movements, and thus enters into communication with him.

He already knows which of his actions will cause the reactions of the supreme. A dialogue arises between them. This baby begins to understand what is possible and what is not and how to react. He learns from an adult to be aware, to absorb everything into himself. And this absorption of signals, the sense of an adult, makes him like an adult.

Therefore, these movements are called”spirit—Ruach.

Question: It is written: “Ruach provides Nefesh in this world.” What does it mean when it says “in this world”?

Answer: In this world is the state we are in. Each level I am on is called “this world,” my world, my state.

In our world a king, a monarch, a rich man, or a famous person can say: “This is my world.” And the same thing can be said by a poor man or an unhappy prisoner. But for everyone, these are different worlds, i.e., the state in which he is.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #18

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Comment: Alexey writes: “Michael, you once said this: “The one who is suffering, he is closer to the Creator than the one who is well.” I feel very bad, but I don’t feel that I am closer to the Creator. Conversely, let Him leave me alone, finally.”

My Response: This means, you are not suffering so much yet, dear Alexey. It means, you still have something to lose.

If you were in complete despair, then you would say: “I don’t need anything. Let it be the way the Creator does. I just want to be closer to Him.” And immediately everything bad is replaced by good.

Comment: But he has a feeling that he is suffering so much that he wishes that He would just “leave me alone.”

My Response: No, there is no crisis yet, no breakage.

Comment: And this turning point is happening exactly on the verge where the future is closed, everything is closed, I feel very bad?

My Response: So it seems to him in his egoism. Egoism should work inversely here and he would see a way out of his state, that in fact all this is done from the infinite kindness of the Creator.

Question: Is this why the Creator brings us “to the edge”?

Answer: Yes. So that we want to give up our egoism.

Question: Will humanity be brought to such a state or will we come to our senses earlier?

Answer: We must come to our senses very seriously. After all, the revelation of evil must happen completely. But it must be simultaneous with recognition! Recognition of evil! This is not just an evil that works in me, and in this way I decide to break away from it due to complete despair. It must be a conscious despair.

Comment: That is, we should come to our senses before it gets really bad? Because if you look at Prophets, what they wrote about today, it is better not to quote it.

My Response: Both yes and no. Because here it is necessary to add: everything that the prophets wrote is absolutely true. Undoubtedly. But all that they wrote we can feel not in physical action without entering into suffering, but thanks to our mind.

When we imagine such egoistic states and what they can lead us to, then we do not need to physically reach this. It’s like a smart child, you gave one slap and he understood everything and corrected himself. But without a slap, he will not understand, it will not awaken him to correctly understand the situation.

So we must correctly understand where and how we should add Kabbalah, awareness, and the dissemination of knowledge, so that even now, perhaps, from the slap that we receive, the whole of humanity feels and will still feel such an evil that it is necessary to rise above, otherwise it will be even worse. Because the wise man sees ahead. Then we will defeat the prophets, if I may say so.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/22/21

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Comment: Throughout the entire development of humanity, two groups of people, the successful and the weaker ones, have been trying to reconcile, but nothing has come of it. The strong, of course, always succeed and the weak cannot. Accordingly, the strong come to power and use the weak. The legislation of all countries works for the strong without protecting the interests of the weak.

My Response: This leads to all sorts of revolutions and as a result the strong concede to the weak. Then the strong are forced to feed the weak and help them because if the weak rise, they will begin to destroy the strong. Therefore, all this is a double-edged sword.

Thus, society comes to a relatively balanced state. Naturally, if I was born in a rich and powerful family, then I have a different fate than someone who was born, even perhaps with better tendencies, in the family of a farm worker. There is still a lot that depends on different social conditions. However, in principle, a person fulfills himself, we can do nothing about this.

Therefore, in our world, in this plane, it is useless to look for justice. We will never have it here. We can invent all sorts of laws, but we will not change anything.

Look at the unfair laws we have: everyone has to work eight hours a day. But it is impossible to demand the same hours of work from each person.

If I am created by nature as agile, strong, and fast, I will do a million things in eight hours and earn a lot. And the other who is lazy and not very smart barely moves and will not earn his daily bread even in ten hours.

We must understand that nature created us different for some specific purpose and not for the exploitation of the weak by the strong.

Obviously, it is in the right combination with each other that we come to some common denominator, a common perfection. Moreover, the majority of people are not distinguished by a great mind, special qualities, or their sharpness.

Question: Why is there such an imbalance in the percentage ratio?

Answer: According to the pyramid of human society. At the bottom there is a more or less general mass, which by nature has small desires and needs and accordingly drive and everything else. At that, I do not mean the origin of a person because a stupid and lazy laggard can be born in a successful family.

I am talking about the power of desire, about abilities. Very few such people who are at the peak of the pyramid are born. When this small part begins to exploit a large mass, it turns out that on the one hand, they are stronger, but on the other hand, there are fewer of them.

This is where mutual dependence and mutual imbalance arise. How to bring all this to balance? All social theories are based on this. In this way, depending on the amount of egoism that is aroused in both the upper and lower parts of the pyramid, humanity moves from formation to formation.
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From KabTV’s “Close-Up. Hope for Peace” 9/9/09

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Question: A ten in which we engage in internal spiritual work and in dissemination advances toward the future, to the next state.

If I suddenly drop out from the ten and feel discomfort and shame, can this state be called hell, from which I will later be able to feel the taste of bestowal unto the group, or is it just a preparation for more serious emotions?

Answer: We can say that it is hell to some extent. Of course there is what we call more serious levels later on, and you are yet to be “fried” with shame. But it is a good thing.

Believe me, I have been in this line for 40 years and it is still a wonderful page in my life, my whole life in fact, and I don’t regret it at all. I am over 70 and many of my friends I studied with at university or had been in touch with have already passed away. But I don’t think that my fate is worse than theirs.

Do not turn down an opportunity to get closer to the upper laws, to the upper world. After all, you do understand that it is for good. Each day that you invest is an investment in your general spiritual savings account. It is saved for everyone and enters each one’s soul specifically. So do not underestimate any single lesson or any group activity, but carry on and advance.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 6/23/19

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Preparation to the Lesson

Lesson on the Topic “Faith Above Reason” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 42 

Selected Highlights

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My new article on Linkedin “Thirty Years Ago Today, My Teacher Passed Away”

On a cold and rainy evening in February 1979, as I and Chaim Malka, my study partner of several years back then, were about to start studying our usual ancient Kabbalah books, I suddenly got tired of the endless and seemingly futile search for the truth. “Let’s go look for a teacher,” I said to Chaim. “Where would we go?” he asked. “Let’s drive to Bnei Brak,” I replied, “we’ve never looked there.” Chaim wasn’t keen on driving in this weather, much less to a Jewish Orthodox crowded city with narrow, semi-paved roads, and where kabbalists were unlikely to be found. I urged him nonetheless and he, reluctantly, agreed.

When we got to Bnei Brak, late that evening, there was no one on the streets. They were empty, wet, and cold. At a crossroads, I suddenly spotted a man about to cross the street. Hurriedly, I lowered the window pane and hollered toward him: “Where do they study Kabbalah around here?”

It was a very unusual question. In those days, no one spoke about Kabbalah, and among Orthodox Jews, the topic was a taboo. Even more unusual was the man’s response: He looked at me calmly and replied straight away, as if he had been waiting for me to come and ask him just that. “Turn right, go all the way down to the end of the road where the orchard begins,” he said. “To your left, you’ll see a house. That’s where they study Kabbalah,” he concluded and went on his way.

We drove as the man instructed, and indeed, the house was there. We got out of the car, and knocked on the door but no one answered. The house was nearly all dark. We tried the door and it was unlocked. We went inside and there was no one there except for one room that was lit and voices came from in there. We walked in hesitantly and found five or six elderly men reading in The Zohar and murmuring words in a language I did not understand (it was Yiddish). The elder gestured to us to take a seat, and we sat silently next to the men, on the benches around the old, wooden table where the men were studying.

The elder among them, who invited us to join them and was clearly the teacher, turned out to be Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (RABASH), the firstborn son and successor of Rav Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), the greatest kabbalist in the 20th century and author of the acclaimed Sulam [Ladder] commentary on The Book of Zohar. Finally, after years of searching, I had found my teacher.

For the next twelve years, until his final breath, I stayed with RABASH, assisting him in everything I could, and learning from him all that he could give, and he had given me more than I could ever have imagined anyone could give. Thirty years ago today, he passed away in my arms, leaving me his notebook where he wrote all that he had learned from his giant father, and with a legacy: to tell the world about the true meaning of this great wisdom, and show them a path of light in a dim present and a foreboding future.

I wrote my first three books under the guidance of RABASH. Following his passing, I wrote another book, and people began to come to me in search of a teacher. I had no desire to teach. I wanted to seclude myself with the books and the wisdom I had learned from RABASH. But they insisted on coming and I realized that the times were changing and the doors to the wisdom of Kabbalah were opening.

Together with my first students, we established the first study group, and Bnei Baruch [Sons of Baruch], a group of students who strive to walk in the footsteps of my teacher, and of all the kabbalists before him, came to be.

Thirty years later, Bnei Baruch is no longer a group. Today, it is a worldwide movement that strives to help the world unite in love above all differences. Thanks to my students, the teachings of RABASH are learned and loved throughout the world. These students are fulfilling my teacher’s dream. Therefore, today I am confident that with the help of my teacher, and the dedication of my students and friends, the teachings of the man of light, whose love radiated from his every word, will spread far and wide, and illuminate our lives.

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My new article on Linkedin “Why Homeschooling Is Booming”

Homeschooling has been on the rise in the US and all over the West for several decades now, but the years 2020-2021 brought with them a leap in the number of homeschooled children. As of March 2021, nearly 5 million K-12 children were learning at home, twice as many as in 2019, and almost 9 percent of school-age children in the US. In light of the dismal state of the education system, it is not surprising. If we want children to be happy when they go to school, we must revamp the entire paradigm of education.

An essay titled “Homeschooling: The Research,” published on July 01, 2021, proves that the phenomenon is not exclusive to a particular faith, race, ethnicity, income level, or even level of schooling. According to the essay, “A demographically wide variety of people homeschool – these are atheists, Christians, and Mormons; conservatives, libertarians, and liberals; low-, middle-, and high-income families; black, Hispanic, and white; parents with Ph.D.s, GEDs, and no high-school diplomas.”

Homeschooling has been gaining popularity not because people are so keen on teaching their children by themselves. Its expansion is first and foremost a testimony to the collapse of the existing paradigm. It is not surprising. If you force an education system that was designed during the Industrial Revolution, and whose initial goal was to teach basic literacy and how to operate a lathe, it is a recipe for disaster.

What’s more, the education system does not really educate. It provides some knowledge, but it does nothing in terms of cultivating children’s social skills and human relations. School children of all ages are easy targets to bullying, drug and substance abuse, violence and sexual predation at a place where they should be protected and cared for—at school. In such an atmosphere, they are unable to learn properly, and develop survival skills rather than educational skills. Many of their emotional problems stem not from the domestic environments or from their own personalities, but from the stressful and intimidating atmosphere they are subjected to at school.

For many parents, such stress on their children is unacceptable, and they are opting to relinquish part of their income and take their children’s education into their own hands. As the research shows, despite their lack of teaching experience, the results of their efforts exceed those of the system that was meant to be professional and superior to parents teaching their children.

When children feel imprisoned at school, they cannot flourish. At home, where they feel free, they can do much better even with less professional assistance.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that homeschooling is the ideal educational method. Children need to be among peers of their age group. Also, not all parents are suitable teachers, just as not all people are suitable for any expertise. People who excel in educating, and who are naturally disposed to it, should engage in it. However, the system must be one that caters to the needs of the children and not one that forces them into templates created centuries ago, and which do not fit how they think, feel, perceive the world, or match their aspirations.

In the absence of a system that provides minimal educational requisites and human relation skills, homeschooling is the lesser of two evils. However, as I said, it is not the right way to bring up children in the future.

Rearing children should be done in small groups, with boys and girls apart, as coed settings are certainly the cause of many problems. Additionally, there should be more connection between schools and parents, more discussions about what the children want, need, and where they are learning. Subsequently, children should learn according to their preferred course of learning, the one that suits them.

There is a saying in Hebrew: “Teach the child according to the child’s way.” It means that because each child has unique attributes and qualities, each child should learn according to those characteristics. In this way, children grow up feeling satisfied and fulfilled.

Last, but certainly not least, is the issue of social learning. Since we spend much of our time communicating with others, and since we learn from one another all the time, schools should dedicate much of the time and educational programs to teaching human relation skills. In order to become productive and confident adults, children must learn how to communicate positively and productively with one another. This will help them at work, at home, with their own children when they become parents, and wherever they communicate with people.
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My new article on Linkedin “Exposing 9/11 – The Case for Finding the Elusive Truth”

I’m all in favor of declassifying the documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Regrettably, in the absence of commitment to a timeline or to exposing any actual content, the move to declassify the documents seems more declarative than substantive. According to the DOJ’s letter, the FBI will “review its prior privilege assertions to identify additional information appropriate for disclosure. The FBI will disclose such information on a rolling basis as expeditiously as possible.” The smokescreen surrounding the 9/11 attacks is an example of an error that governments keep making. Hiding the truth, any truth, about any event in history, denies us the ability to draw correct conclusions for the future, and we all pay for it.

As in the case of the move to declassify the 9/11 documents, the motive behind seeking declassification is often monetary compensation. However, compensation of any kind does not tell us what really happened, and if we don’t know what happened, we are missing the more important lesson: What we should do in order to prevent such misfortunes from happening in the future.

Every catastrophe/disaster/debacle in history gets different interpretations from different people according to their personal perspectives. Therefore, even after we expose the “truth,” we should keep looking for a “truer” truth, for deeper reasons, and for new insights since there will always be more to find.

To me, the reason for exposing the truth is not to blame anyone. Human nature is rotten from the core, as we’ve known since Biblical times, so I do not expect people to be righteous or believe that compensation will do any good to anyone. The reason I think we should always be looking for the truth is that if we want to build a better tomorrow, can we do this if we do not know our past?

The more we know about why people do what they do, what is their nature, what moves them and why, the more we will be able to establish a stable and solid society. Transparency is key to the proper building of a society. If we hide nothing from each other, we will be able to communicate more easily, we will know what to expect from one another, what to avoid, and how to strengthen our connections. This is why I think that the truth matters. Not for revenge or compensation, but as a lesson for the future.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is your ideal vision for the future of the Earth?“

The cells of any living organism, despite being egoistic, nevertheless by working with each other they unify into a single mechanism, one altruistic system, where each cell attaches itself to the organism and becomes entirely immersed in caring only about how to integrate into the organism, how to provide life to the organism and its general functioning, as otherwise it will itself lose life.

This should be the common attitude in human society: if we want to survive, then we need to accept the same law of how cells function in any living organism, and everyone should take care of everyone else. That is how we should envision our future.

Over the course of our life on Earth, we develop by means of egoism. We have grown to become increasingly egoistic over our development, but now we have arrived at the end of egoistic development and are in a completely different dimension. We need to understand that a new reality and a new system are opening themselves up to us, in which we are increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Accordingly, we need to accept the integral system that we are parts of as the law of life between us. Therefore, if we accept this as a fact, we will see our future life be good.

I hope that this is precisely what we will see.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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