From Enormous Pain to Enormous Pleasure

232.09Comment: Empathy is the ability to feel emotions that correspond to the emotions of another person and compassion is the sympathy for someone else’s suffering.

My Response: It is as if you relocate into another person and feel their experiences.

Question: How can one develop this within oneself? As I understand it, if this feeling were cultivated, we would live differently.

Answer: Yes, then we would educate people accordingly. I believe this is possible. We simply do not engage in this. In general, from the age of 13 to 14, people are already capable of deeply sensing another person’s suffering. And they need to be educated for this.

Comment: This would absolutely, completely change the world.

My Response: Of course, without a doubt.

Question: So compassion can be cultivated in a person?

Answer: One can cultivate the understanding of compassion for another person and give a person the ability to comprehend how to perceive it to the point where in their compassion, a person will be able to share in another’s suffering, partially take it upon themselves, and thereby neutralize the suffering of the other.

Question: And will you not burn out from doing that?

Answer: No, because by neutralizing their suffering through your participation, through your empathy, and through your compassion, you gradually divide their suffering into many smaller parts, and in this way, the person calms down. And in doing so, you can lead the entire world to balance, to an inner state that can already be called bliss.

Question: So if compassion were shared equally among all the inhabitants of Earth, would it bring bliss to the world?

Answer: Yes, this is precisely what we must achieve in our unity. Because, in principle, we are certainly facing very serious problems ahead. After all, egoism is growing, and the upper light is being revealed more and more in relation to our egoism. That is, related to our egoism, we will feel increasing pressures to such an extent that if we cannot unite and share it all among ourselves, we will not be able to endure it.

Question: Now I understand the essence of what you always say: “Unity, connection, good thoughts, and good relationships.” The foundation of all this is compassion, is it not?

Answer: Yes, but it is practically not even compassion. It is the sharing of the enormous suffering: the opposition between the enormous desire and the enormous light that is meant to fill that desire, and the lack of intention “not for oneself,” which would allow the light to fill the desire.

Question: So fulfillment is only possible if it is for the sake of others?

Answer: Yes, that is why we need balance here. This can only happen through understanding how to learn compassion, how to share the opposition between absolute fulfillment and absolute emptiness among everyone.

Naturally, it will turn out neither less nor worse. But if we want it to be shared in this way, then the contradiction itself disappears. This is the special property of unity.

Question: And then, this bliss comes?

Answer: Yes, at that point, the sensation of opposition, impossibility, and inner cry transforms into satiation, into something higher, into pleasure. There is no longer any difference between enormous pain and enormous pleasure. They merge into one.

Question: And what, then, does pain become in this case?

Answer: It turns into pleasure because you have balanced them with one another.

Comment: That is something truly elevated.

My Response: That is how it happens, on a higher level.

Question: So pain is given to us in order to turn it into pleasure?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: And the greatest pain ultimately becomes the greatest pleasure?

Answer: Yes, if you know how to reconcile these opposites, you receive pleasure.
[347365]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 8/15/25

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Open the Common Heart

938.04Question: We made a great effort to gather together. We received strong impressions from one another. But nevertheless, we want to add something more in order to be closer to the text and to what is happening. What else can we add besides the great effort we already made to come together physically?

Answer: Open your common heart, enter into it, and direct this shared point toward the center of all reality, the center of all creation.
[347236]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/25, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“

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The Result of Joint Work

528.03Question: You said that we must build the Kli of the fourth phase and then receive the light of the three previous phases in it. How is the fourth phase built in our joint work?

Answer: We desire to draw closer to the Creator, we raise our prayers, desires, and requests for what we lack in order to be similar to Him in qualities to Him. This influences the Creator, and in this way He changes our desires within us.
[347331]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/2025, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“

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Judgments Over Souls Are Always Just

249.01Question: Why was it only one student, Chaim Vital, who understood the teaching of the ARI, and not the others? Why specifically him?

Answer: It is impossible to know why it was arranged so from above with the souls. Baal HaSulam writes about himself that he did not know why he was granted such a mission.

But we must understand that this is only from our earthly perspective that it seems as though there are chosen souls and unimportant, “secondary” ones because we look through the prism of our egoism.

However, when it comes to the spiritual, there is no such thing as great or small. There everything is measured in bestowal, and the greatest is the one who bestows the most, the one who serves everyone, stands lower than all, and provides them with support and foundation.
[17415]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam Letter 39

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 9/1/25

Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #57 “Will Bring Him Closer to His Will” (11.11.2021)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 113, 114 (8.23.2006)

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 6, Item 24

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4th part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “Heaven and Earth”

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Selected Highlights

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Audio Version Of The Blog – 8/31/25

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The Single Root

526Question: When we read Kabbalistic books, is it necessary for us to always look for the connection between the root and the branch?

Answer: We must remain in this all the time; otherwise, we will not enter into the material and will not absorb what is being said.

Question: How can we connect to the one root common to all when studying The Study of the Ten Sefirot?

Answer: Our root is the Creator. We must strive to make Him as mutual as possible for all by connecting among ourselves and in Him.
[347393]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/2025, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“

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Learn to Be Grateful

239Question: How can one “thank for the bad as for the good”?

Answer: RABASH gives an example of a father who gives his son one dollar every day, and one day suddenly gives him five dollars, to the great joy of the son. And the next day, he goes back to giving just the usual one dollar.

So why does the father act this way with me? He wants me to relate to him with love, and the shortfall of four dollars, which I now lack, I should make up with my love, with my bestowal! That I should look not at how much I receive from Him, but at how much I can thank Him.

Because of the fact that I suddenly received five dollars from Him, I expanded my desire, but from the perspective of receiving. And now I can fill this additional desire with bestowal. That is, He gave me the opportunity to expand my desires and to rise to greater bestowal.

But I must work on this. All the time, every day, I received one dollar and was grateful to the father for that dollar. And suddenly, one day the father gave me five dollars. My desires expanded, I received greater pleasure, and naturally I was grateful to the father. But for what was I grateful? It was for having received the extra four dollars!

The next day, from yesterday’s height, with an enlarged appetite, I already expect again to receive five dollars, but I get the same one dollar as before. Now I feel an empty desire of four dollars. What am I to do with it? Fill it with the light of love, the light of bestowal, of gratitude!

Now I understand that the father is giving me the opportunity to give to Him precisely in this empty vessel by filling it with the light of Hassadim instead of Hochma. He fills my desire with the light of Hochma, and I fill His with the light of Hassadim. From where else could the possibility to bestow come, if He does not empty my desire?

How could I thank Him and connect with Him even more strongly, become more similar to Him, if He did not first give me greater fulfillment and then take it away? And then again give more, and again empty it. As it is said: “The clothing of the light and its departure create a vessel fit for use.” Now I have a vessel.
[48254]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/11, Writings of Rabash “The Merit of the Little One”

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Readiness to Hear the Voice of the Creator

942Question: Suffering helps us adjust our direction toward the Creator. In addition, we must constantly be ready to hear the voice of the Creator. How do these work together?

Answer: Suffering, in a sense, moves us forward. But what really matters is whether this suffering comes, not from our egoism, but from the fact that we do not feel our proper place in creation, in all of Malchut. If we are not in our place, we feel it as a lack of balance of forces. Therefore, we must try to gather ourselves, our feelings, our goals, and strive toward the Creator in a more correct way.

Question: Aren’t we preparing every day to hear the voice of the Creator?

Answer: That you must ask yourself. It all depends on how connected you are with each other and whether you form a Kli, a group of ten, directed toward the Creator and desire to draw closer to Him.

Question: So readiness to hear the voice of the Creator is not my personal desire, but a group one?

Answer: Both yours personally and the group’s. The main thing, however, is the group’s desire.
[347126]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/25, “Being Sensitive to the Calling of the Creator”

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The Humble and Modest Master of the World

213In the place where you find His greatness, there you find His humbleness (Shamati 47). We are under the rule of the egoistic desire that attaches importance only to the pleasure it can receive and cannot feel what is happening inside another person. This quality is called pride. It is not a flaw; it is simply a trait given to us from above.

If a person has a strong, developed egoistic desire, he or she does not feel others. The stronger one’s own desire, the more it locks one into sensing only oneself. A person cannot truly feel another at all; one only considers what loss or gain one may get from them.

To actually feel what is happening inside another, one must exit oneself and be in the spiritual world. Therefore, it is no wonder that we all feel detached from each other. In our world, we call this trait pride. But true pride exists only in the spiritual world where it awakens in a person in relation to the Creator.

When a person begins to correct himself, a special desire to receive awakens in him that compels him to disregard the Creator, to feel above Him, and to strive to rule on his own. It manifests in various forms, against which a person receives ten blows known as the plagues of Egypt.

He cannot lower and humble his pride by himself and requires special help from above. The more one humbles oneself, one accordingly reveals the greatness of the Creator in that place, and the more one discovers how humble the Creator is.

Humility is a symbol of perfection. Only one who feels some lack in something and wishes to fill himself, to feel himself in power, he demands honor, power, and recognition of being above others. But if a person is in perfection, this is the degree of Bina, and desires only to bestow (Hafetz Hesed). He needs nothing and therefore does not evaluate himself in relation to others at all!

On the contrary, if one feels oneself in perfection, a person wishes to convey this wonderful sensation of perfection to everyone. After all, it is the nature of the good force to do good, and the same desire to do good arises in the creatures when they acquire a good nature.

This is what happens with us if we can reveal the greatness of the Creator. And this depends only on us, for the Creator does not change, only we change so we can see Him as great. And then we reveal in our sensations that He is humble, because we ourselves have become the same. We perceive everything only within our own qualities.

If we discover that the Creator is great, it means we ourselves have become great. And if we reveal that the Creator is humble, it is a sign that we have become humble. This is how the law of equivalence of form works, and how we advance toward the cognition of the Creator.
[90226]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam “In the Place Where You Find His Greatness”

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