Expansion and contraction are signs of spiritual life understandable only to those who have made very good progress. Due to the congress, to our connection, we reach a greater power of the spiritual vessel, nearing the revelation of the Creator. We can see these examples in our world: little children need books with big colorful pictures, large building blocks. For professionals, specialists with experience, a few words are enough to understand more than a beginner would from a long story.

Expansion and contraction happen inside the group and inside an individual as they draw nearer to or farther from the Creator. This is how the Creator plays with us because we are always between two forces, seemingly negative and positive. Therefore, only due to our connection in the worldwide Kabbalistic group (the world spiritual Kli) can we achieve greater force and quickly develop spiritual qualities in the general system.

You cannot notice many details inside a small ten, but if the ten expands, more discoveries can be made in it. Even our inability to unite is an important revelation for our advancement. Phenomena, properties, and flaws uncovered in a large group are also present in a small ten as well, but they are undetectable.

We thought that everything was fine, that we were united, but now we enter the common world Kli and realize how much disorder, contradiction, and misunderstanding there is. We need to realize that the general and the particular are equal in spirituality. We simply magnified the scale, and as if under a magnifying glass, we can see in the huge world ten all the things that were also present in a small ten. It is all one system.

Therefore, it is greatly beneficial to come out of the personal ten and see Europe as one ten. Of course, we will find confusion and lack of connection there, a mixture of all languages and a myriad of other problems. But have no doubt that all these problems are also present in every small ten speaking the same language and living in the same city.

The principle is: we enter a big Kli in order to see that which was impossible to notice in a small Kli. This is a specific benefit that really helps us advance.

The expansion, the breath we take when we go outside, fills us with cold external air. Do not fear this cold, this confusion, distance, contradictions, lack of understanding, and resistance of the groups and people unwilling to connect. After all, we find ourselves in Babylon where fragmentation reigns, but we happen to be the chosen ones who have to show the way toward unity, just like the group that Abraham gathered. Let’s internalize this tremendous work that Abraham did.

I must see the whole European congress as my own small ten I am used to, where I feel myself at home among close people. I will remain in the same ten, but I will see what is actually hidden inside it, in each of the friends and in all of us together. It is a very important exercise that increases my desire and creates a new Kli, with all the details of the shattering that were unnoticed before. Now I see everything and I am ready to work to make a spiritual correction.¹

Going out into the general world ten allows me to dive deeper into my own private ten. My ten had ten friends and now there is a whole group in place of each of them, each friend became a ten. Afterward, each person in that ten becomes a 10, and so on. Each time we multiply ten times: 10 —> 100 —> 1,000 —> 10,000.

Personally, I do not possess the instruments needed to detect such fine details. I need a microscope to see what lies inside each friend. In order to understand my ten, I need to reveal each friend who has a second ten within him, and a third, and fourth, etc., until our ten accumulates to 600,000 people.

All the billions of people are included in my friends in the ten as their private Sefirot. I only see the main, general Sefirot and cannot understand anything because this is an accumulation of all the private Sefirot that stand behind them.

If I cannot see the billions of people included in my friend in all the details, I cannot connect to them. Without a connection with them, I cannot connect to the Creator or perceive Him, nor can I understand or feel Him! Correction entails complete unity of all inhabitants of our world, of all souls as a single system. I keep seeing my private ten before me, but I begin to understand that inside it lies the whole world.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/19, The Benefit of Moving into a World Ten – Contraction and Expansion”(Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

¹ Minute 0:20
² Minute22:30

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Why do we see the world as distorted?

Question: I heard that a person perceives reality and the world as a real distortion. Is it true?

Answer: Yes, of course. We only perceive everything in our sensory organs, and since they are distorted, uncorrected, and shattered, then naturally the world also looks like this.

The fact is that the world around us is perfect, but we do not perceive it as perfect because we feel it in our shattered, defective sensory organs. So we can say nothing about the world itself, but only about the way we perceive it.

Our method is in correcting our perception. Then I will see the world as perfect to the extent that I correct myself. Nothing else is required. I do not need to correct the world. On the contrary, in Kabbalah, it is considered a completely wrong move. Look how people there have been and currently are correctors of the world throughout the history of humanity.

However, if we approach the world in the way the wisdom of Kabbalah advises, then by correcting ourselves we will see that, apparently, the world around us is ideal, perfect, infinite, and eternal. There is nothing that needs to be done in it other than to correct ourselves.

Therefore, the entire wisdom is built on giving a person advice on how to correct oneself. How to make oneself corrected, integral. Otherwise, we will sink into even bigger problems and greater incorrect perception of the world.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

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Question: What conditions are necessary to receive a response to MAN? Maybe we need to create a special service for this?

Answer: I do not know what service you can create and for whom. There is no need to build any channels other than proper communication with each other.

The common desire rising from the group will create that service, that channel through which all your private desires, connected together, form a huge desire called “MAN.” You will definitely get an answer to it. It all depends on how much you try to unite among yourselves for the sake of attaining the Creator.

You have a very clear goal: to attain the Creator. Therefore, it does not matter to you who is sitting nearby. If a person wants to be with you in achieving your goal, then he is your companion, and you can progress. That is how you should look at each other, purely as consumers.

Do not look at the appearance of a friend, at his character and habits. It does not matter to you what and who he is. What matters is that he strives for the same goal. Therefore, he can be your companion, an assistant without whom you will not achieve your goal.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamenatals of Kabbalah,” 8/18/19

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New Life 1162 – The World At A Crossroads
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

We are at a crossroads in which egoistic development has been exhausted and a general, integral relationship between humans must be developed. Today, all countries of the world are in an uncertain position in terms of ecology and international relations. Egoism separates us so much that we are willing to harm one another in order to feel on top. Human competition is having a devastating impact. Technological advances have created a situation in which we are all more dependent on one another, less protected, and subject to many dangers. We need a method to correct human nature and establish new values in order to maintain proper relationships. We need to understand that we are interdependent in all aspects of life like a family and that it will only be good for each one when it is good for everyone. In balance, we will solve every problem including climate issues and experience a safe, good, warm, and supportive human connection.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1162 – The World At A Crossroads,” 9/24/19

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Hardening of the Heart – An Invitation to Build a Yearning for the Creator”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 101

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On the next degree, an even greater lack is felt: the lack of love. The need for love is a treasure and I suffer from the fact that there is no love in my heart.¹

The need to love is a new Kli. In our world love withers because we receive what we desire and enjoy it. How can we enjoy love in such a way that it would constantly continue to grow? I must feel the need to love and enjoy not by using my loved one for pleasure, but in the yearning for it.

This yearning is my Kli and the only joy that I desire. I don’t want to reveal the Creator, but I am fulfilled by my yearning toward Him, by the greatness of the one that I fulfill. Such love never withers. If such love existed in our world, there would never be any divorce. We must work on such love.

We change our attitude toward unity. Our Kli becomes different, we gradually approach it from a new angle: instead of wishing to reach the goal, I enjoy my desire for it. I want to remain in this yearning and receive fulfillment from it like from my first love, from romantic thoughts, from the fact that I enjoy looking at the subject of my affection, from hearing their voice. The Creator gives everyone such an example in life, from it one can understand how this works in spirituality.

We can live in the pleasure of striving for the Creator. Then we will no longer be deceived as before when we wanted to reveal Him and enjoy this love. This is a lie, and this is how we kill it. Love can be enjoyed only if you go above your egoistic desires. Any relationship below this level destroys love.

Therefore, the spiritual and the corporeal are two different worlds. In corporeal life, we love the way we can, but in spirituality, love must be built on faith above reason.

Baal HaSulam, “Letter #19”: “This means that, during the preparation, the beauty and grace appear and the essence of perfection that one yearns and longs for. However, at the time of correction, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” then, “I shall see an opposite world,” because only fear and longing are the essence of the desired perfection. Then one feels that, during the time of preparation, one was lying to oneself.”

Indeed, in this manner, our spiritual vessel is not limited, we can feel eternity in it—the Creator. The need to love is pleasure: joy from yearning, desire, and longing. It is in this very yearning that love is achieved, not in receiving it and satiating oneself with it, which destroys it all. We see that such love ends and turns to ruins. The desire to love is not a void, but a fulfillment that never ends. Each time you can increase it, like love for a baby that never ends, it is there for life.

The goal of the Bulgarian congress is to learn how to love, to reveal a genuine desire toward the Creator, and to make the greatest leap toward the first spiritual degree. Genuine love is realized in the group, in unity for the sake of bestowal that the Creator can dress into. It means that the Creator dresses into His creations.

Everyone experiences their first love in their youth; it is given to us from above as an example of selfless platonic love. But we understand that it is impossible to achieve perfect love in our corporeal desires except under the condition that we rise above them. That is why we are given an example in our childhood of enjoying not the physical relationship, but the dreams of our beloved.

This is the attitude I should have toward the Creator: enjoying my yearning for Him so that it would completely fills me. I am content just thinking about the Creator, dreaming of bringing Him joy. This is a limitless Kli that can always be expanded further. This is not the romantic desire we felt in childhood but a desire to bestow, which is very deep and serious. It is more important than this entire world and all the desires to enjoy.

Inside, there are many different properties, wars are waged not for life, but for death, and all about this relationship: for the pleasure of striving toward the Creator. This means bringing joy to the Creator. What else can we give Him; what can we add to His perfection? Only our aspiration to Him.

It is said: “Beware of reaching out for love.” I do not want to receive what I want because this would destroy my love, weaken it, and it would immediately vanish. Therefore, I only need the aspiration.

This originates from the beginning of creation, from the four phases of direct light. The quality of stage four (Behina Dalet) is restriction and yearning. I do not want to receive anything, because I felt shame and understood that I am destroying the way the Creator is relating to me, and in this case, nothing can ever happen between us. It is good that I have developed a feeling of shame, a warning about my inability to love. Therefore, I restrict my desire.

How great it is that I found a solution: the restriction after which there is only the reflecting light, only the yearning toward the Creator. The restriction stays between us, I do not reveal Him, because this is called the disclosure of nakedness. We cannot do that. I always remain in love above reason, and the romantic love fulfills me completely.

I cover the source of my love with a screen so that I will relate to it above my animalistic desires, above the desire to enjoy.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/19, Preparation to the Europe Convention

¹ Minute 1:17:35
² Minute 1:20:30

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How should the Israel-Palestinian conflict be solved?“

The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the people of Israel’s hands.

In order to understand how Israel holds the solution, we need to understand who are the people of Israel, what is their role in the world, and how the world responds to Israel in relation to the fulfillment or lack of fulfillment, of their role.

The nation of Israel was founded as a group who gathered from all parts of ancient Babylon under a common unifying concept: “love your neighbor as yourself.” Since this nation was based on an ideological foundation, not a biological one, then the world feels it as a strange phenomenon.

As the nation of Israel once attained unity above the growing divisions in ancient Babylon, so it is today: there is a subconscious expectation from the nations of the world toward Israel that they usher in the same positive force of love and connection that they once attained, and pioneer an example of a new society led by values of love, unity, mutual support and consideration. The more human society feels torn apart by division and hatred, the more it feels the people of Israel responsible for the world’s misfortunes.

Therefore, Palestine is only one of many characters frowning at Israel. Accordingly, Israel needs to respond to all of its enemies the only way it ultimately knows how to: by turning to its long-ignored power of unity.

First, the people of Israel need to understand that beneath all the surface reasons the world points out its hatred to us, whether it be oppression of Palestinians or too much power in countries we have assimilated into, there is fundamentally a much more significant and subconscious demand upon us.

It is a demand for our unity.

Neither Jews nor non-Jews know about it, because it is an ideological foundation that was lost around 3,800 years ago, and while we were all born and raised through a range of egoistic desires, we have no idea what it means to live in a unified state. Since we lack any feeling or experience of the kind of unity that our ancestors once attained, then we feel no lack for unity like we feel no lack for a sixth finger on our hand. We simply fail to see that if we unite, we will solve not only the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but our unity will have a positive rippling effect throughout humanity, solving myriad other problems too.

The people of Israel have no ears for this message. Those who understand it, Kabbalists, are very small in number, and so there is no solution in sight on any mass scale.

The solution is solely that the nation of Israel listens to what the nations of the world want from them: to implement the unity that the nations of the world are crying out for behind all the surface anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism. We will then all live in peace.

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Rise Above Corporeal Senses

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,”: However, it is quite sufficient, for this is the rule: “All that is measured and extracted from His Providence so as to be realized into the nature of Creation, is completely satisfactory.” Similarly, one cannot wish for a sixth finger on one hand, because the five fingers are quite sufficient.

We are arranged so that it is enough for us to have five fingers on our hand. Would it bother us if we had a sixth finger? For example, a monkey has a special finger to grasp branches. It would be nice for us to have it too. Yet, I do not need it anymore! I do not feel any need for one more finger. It is the same everywhere, in all my senses I do not feel that I am missing something.

Telescopes and microscopes are only quantitative enlargements of sensory organs, their expansion. But if I use all my senses, I do not feel that I am lacking an additional sensory organ. I can say that I would like to hear ultra and infra sonic waves like dolphins. But all this comes from nature, this is just an expansion and not new sensory organs.

Thus, everything we have in us does not cause any feelings of lack, it is quite enough for us, and therefore we are not developing further. The only way to develop is to rise above our senses: not how much I will receive in my sensory organs, but how much I can work with them in the direction of bestowal.

Here I specifically start to feel not myself, but the world around me, I rise above myself. Here is a completely different science about the world—the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Question: What if five fingers are enough for me? I just live like that.

Answer: When I live in what is enough for me, it is the animate level. If I want to understand the source of everything that is happening, then nothing other than Kabbalah will help.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 9/15/19

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Question: Humanity is evolving all the time; does this mean that it is becoming more compassionate, kind, and just?

Answer: No way! In the process of the development of egoism, we become more callus, rude, and have stopped being sensitive to each other. Of course, you can ask: “How can this be? After all, humans used to be barbaric!” Yes, but they were better able to understand each other. The more sensitive we become, the more sophisticated we are.

Question: Are our studies and dissemination advancing quickly enough or are we not advancing fast enough?

Answer: The speed depends on you.

Question: How will my egoism desire the truth if it depends on society and also negates this society by transcending it?

Answer: First you must learn all of this in your ten and only after that think about something else. It could be that this will take you a few years. Therefore, it is impossible in the meantime to talk about any other society. Do not build any illusions. All of this must be properly organized in the ten.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah.” 7/28/19

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