It is written, “Anyone who mourns for Jerusalem is rewarded with seeing its joy.” This means that we need to pray for the public, but what should we ask for? Does the public have a desire for spirituality? The fact is that all the desires existing in the public belong to a person working on correction. Desires are within people, and a Kabbalist must develop intentions. Desire and intention are two separate categories; they do not exist in the same place. When a Kabbalist works with a screen, restriction, and reflected light, the desires start falling into place and change according to the intention with which he wants to use the desires.

The intention is called Rosh (head) and the desire is called Guf (body). We work on the Rosh, on the intention, so that it will suit the Guf, and then we will be able to use the Guf, meaning the desire. The disappearance of such compatibility after it existed is called the destruction of the Temple. If such compatibility between the intention and the desire is restored, then it is the construction of the spiritual Partzuf, its birth.

The vessel is the intention to bestow. The entire correction consists of achieving the correct intention. The desires exist. They are just arranged incorrectly, unequipped with the correct intention. There are no new desires. The shattering, restriction, and concealment all happens so we can scrutinize desires and start connecting them. Like a baby, who was born and starts growing, we correct the shattering and grow our soul.¹

We work on the intention to make it in order to bestow, directed to bringing contentment to the Creator. In order to bestow to the Creator, it is necessary to concentrate the correct intention and select from the shattered desires those that will be able to work under its control. By doing so, we build the spiritual Partzuf, the extent of our bestowal.

This is why there were breakages, preparations for the correction that occurred through no fault of ours. There is almost no work of the lower one in this. The Egyptian exile, the desert, the destruction of the First Temple, the Babylonian exile, then the Second Temple, which was also destroyed, and the exit to this last exile—how could all this happen?

It was just preparation from above. Now, all we have to do is make a final correction. Only the work toward the final correction is considered the person’s work; all the rest was preparation.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/11/19 “The Ninth of Av”
1 Minute 32:20
2 Minute 37

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“Everyone Who Mourns For Jerusalem Is Rewarded With Seeing Its Joy”
Jerusalem: Not Stones But The Spirit
Jerusalem: A Symbol Of Unity

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Is Israel an apartheid state? What are the facts that prove or disprove this opinion?“

I have no interest in such labels that people pin on Israel. I evaluate Israel solely according to the authentic Kabbalistic sources that I have been studying for the past 40-plus years.

In any case, taking into consideration the amount of Arabs in Israeli society, from studying at universities through to assuming respected professions such as lawyers and doctors, I wouldn’t consider Israel an apartheid state. Apartheid is something else entirely. But again, whatever name-calling is addressed at Israel doesn’t matter to me. What matters is the intensifying need of the people of Israel to carry out their role in the world: to unite (“love your neighbor as yourself”) and be a conduit for unity to spread worldwide (“a light unto nations”). If the people of Israel will observe such a condition, then it will be good for them and for the world. If they don’t, then it will be the opposite.

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Is it Possible to Level Our Desires?

Question: They say that our desires can be leveled, like it is customary in oriental techniques. What can be done to want very little? After all, the less you want, the less you suffer.

Answer: This is true, but only if I begin to evaluate my desires in terms of pleasure or suffering. Then I can come to the conclusion that I should be willing to suffer less. This is a certain volitional exercise with which I achieve a more comfortable state.

Question: So how do I control these desires?

Answer: In principle, I do not control them, but the desire to enjoy or suffer less controls and determines how much I can reduce my desires.
[248979]
From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah,” 12/03/18

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Evolution Of Desires, Part 4
Evolution Of Desires, Part 3
Evolution Of Desires, Part 2

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 12

Lesson on the Topic “How to Act at the Time of Descent” 

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Even if we manage to think about the friends and stop caring about ourselves, in the next moment it disappears. It will never become a constant thought, but will change at a frantic pace. After all, we need to scrutinize all the crumbs of the desire, all of its fragments. The vessel of the soul was shattered into pieces and then fell from the height of the world of Atzilut through all the worlds: Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, continually breaking into such tiny particles, the smallest atoms, which can no longer be divided.

Now we need to restore this soul, assembling it from these atoms. I receive the foundations of creation in my hands and think about what to assemble from them. In our world, we need to know the laws of valency to make up some substance from the basic elements. It is the same in the spiritual world; I begin to learn how I can connect the elements of creation on myself. What does it mean to connect two, three, or four atoms for the sake of bestowal?

How are they connected on the inanimate level into inanimate matter that does not move and develop by itself? Then, the foundations of creation must be connected into vegetative matter so that the connection of atoms causes development, that is, becomes more similar to the Creator. A plant already has life in it. It turns out that I took the still, inanimate matter and brought it to life! This already is a completely different degree.

I then create a connection on the animate level that exists on its own and has some kind of free choice: moves freely, excretes, and absorbs. This is how we build all kinds of connections between us, starting from zero and even from minus, coming from hatred to unity.

Imagine, how much we must connect with a friend in order to create vegetative matter, that is, for the group to become a “plant” and begin spiritual life, reaching such a connection above rejection that it begins to emit and produce materials, scrutinizing what is good and bad for itself. The friends in the ten begin to grow all the time.¹

The main action is provided by the environment, not actions of a person himself, but of the environment he is in. You can be a perfect seed of some elite sort, but if you are not planted in good soil, then nothing will come of you. The environment is more important than the seed itself, that is, the root of the soul.

There are even stories about Kabbalists who initially had no chance of reaching spiritual development. According to the root of their souls, they could not ascend to high degrees. Only thanks to the environment they joined, without any idea of what they were saying and doing there, only through their constant presence, did they receive a new soul. It is even possible to achieve the state when the Creator will change your soul, not because the former soul was bad, but it was shallow, not suitable for the elevated role. It turns out that a person as if moves from the heel of Adam HaRishon to the heart or brain of the entire system of the general soul.

It depends on how devoted the person is to the group, doing everything one can. Those people who in the beginning were very unsuccessful, could not understand and integrate into the group, felt great resistance, but did not leave, precisely those people achieve great success later.

Therefore, every day it is necessary to take care of improving and enhancing your environment, in order to receive optimal influence from it, which will help you become even more devoted to the friends, and through the friends, to the Creator.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
1 Minute 31
2 Minute 1:22:51

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Make Space For The Creator In The Assembly Of Friends
See The Friends As New

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 8/16/19

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Society Dictates Desires

Question: Our desires are controlled by society. Why is it set up this way?

Answer: Our desires are defined by the desires of the society because we exist in interaction with it, in constant interconnection with all the desires within the society: personal, private, global, no matter what. Therefore, my desire is defined by the society surrounding me.

Question: Does it mean that the society controls our desires?

Answer: It does not merely control them, it defines them! It points me: this one—yes, this one— no, to what degree, etc. Everything depends on the environment in which I exist.

A desire at the human level can change its location and fall under various social influences. According to this, it will also change the desires.
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From KabTV’s “Basics of Kabbalah” 12/3/18

Related Material:
Evolution Of Desires, Part 3
Evolution Of Desires, Part 2
Evolution Of Desires, Part 1

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What are your reasons for supporting Israel?“

I support Israel for a single reason: that Israel becomes a source of the world’s connection. Through the special connection that Israel has the potential to bring—a connection above people’s innate divisive drives (“Love covers all transgressions” [Proverbs 10:12])—the world can elevate itself to another level of existence, both corporeally and spiritually:

Corporeally, this means that all human conflicts and natural disasters would cease. We would feel a life filled with happiness and confidence as a result of the balance with nature that such connection would yield.
Spiritually, it means we would rise to a new dimension of eternity and perfection. This is due to awakening the force of connection and love dwelling in nature to reveal in our newly-created connections.

Therefore, I support Israel for this sole reason.

Today, it is very sad for me to see the contrary, how Israel is the source of all of the world’s problems (“No calamity comes to the world but for Israel” [Yevamot 63]). That is, the more that the people of Israel fail to apply efforts in the direction of connection—connection above our differences for the sake of positive global connection—the more the world sinks deeper into division and conflict. It is as Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) writes in item 69 of his “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” that “they cause poverty, ruin, robbery, killing and destruction in the whole world.” Why? It is because the people of Israel possess the method for the correction of human nature, i.e. correction of the egoistic, self-centered drive to benefit at the expense of others, which is growing rampant in our era. The more the ego inflates without an effective form of regulation—the connection above differences that the people of Israel have a method and a role to realize—the more problems and crises abound in the world.

Moreover, the more the nations of the world feel problems in their lives, the more they feel hatred toward Israel. This is because they subconsciously feel that the people of Israel are the source of their problems and are holding something significant away from them. Anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism thus rise due to the people of Israel’s failure to implement the role required of them in the world.

Therefore, the people of Israel need only come to the realization that they hold their own as well as humanity’s life and well-being in their hands. By starting to tilt the scales toward connection, they will bring harmony to themselves and to the world, whereas by continuing to tilt the scales toward division through their indifference and rejection of their role, they will continue inviting problems to the world and hatred to themselves.

It is thus my hope that the people of Israel will acknowledge their role and start making efforts to connect sooner rather than later, because if things keep developing as they currently do, then not only will the elimination of the State of Israel become a reality, but we will experience wars and major suffering on a global scale the likes that we have never seen before.

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From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 8/16/19

Today, on Friday, August 16, 2019, the street upon which the central building of the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Institute is located—called in Israel, Kabbalah L’Am –Bnei Baruch Association—will have its name changed to “Rabash Street” in commemoration of the great Kabbalist Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (the Rabash)—a decision made by the Municipality of Petah Tikva, headed by Rami Greenberg.

Rabash was a special Kabbalist who acted for the unity of all the people of Israel: religious and secular, all races and factions as one. He was very concerned that the true Torah of Israel—unity of the people—would reach the ears of all people and increase unity in society: a power capable of healing all of the world’s problems.

As a result of Rabash’s many years of devoted work, a group became established—men, women and children—who wanted to realize the vision of Kabbalist Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), as he specified in The Writings of the Last Generation: a vision of a corrected and unified human society. This group became known as “Bnei Baruch” (i.e. “the sons of Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag [the Rabash]”). We, as members of this group, understand that it is a long path, as Rabash himself described in his first article, that “although we have not yet achieved this goal, we have the desire to achieve it. And this, too, should be appreciated by us, for even though we are at the beginning of the way, we do hope to achieve the exalted goal.” (Rabash, “The Purpose of Society,” 1984.)

We—the members of Bnei Baruch, the students of the method of connection and the wisdom of Kabbalah that Rabash received from his teacher and father, Baal HaSulam, and passed down to us—have a strong will and determination to continue the path of our teacher. We are currently in a lab-like environment, learning upon ourselves how tocreate a new unified society and increasing our understanding of what that means, because we are still unworthy of being such a society.
Rabash is our teacher, the source and fountain from which we have received our entire method. Therefore, we are very moved and delighted that the residents and municipal authorities of Petah Tikva recognize us as a positive force and valuable addition to the city, deciding to change the name of the street where our world center is located, to the name of our teacher, Rabash.

We will endeavor to give back to the city’s residents, and to all who know our teacher and what he stood for, our maximal efforts to realize our teachers’ vision of a new unified society. I very much hope that we will reach a state where Rabash’s great name will be promoted in the world, as the one who opened the path of Torah, the method of correction, and that his method will bring about the unification of human society in Israel and around the world

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