Preparation for the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Hanukkah by the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 10, Item 26
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom,” “Two Forces In the Will To Receive: Attracting Force and Rejecting Force”
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Question: Science believes that the term “ego” was introduced through Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis. But Kabbalah is much older than psychology. When did this term first appear in it?
Answer: In Kabbalah, this term was originally called the desire to receive pleasure. It was introduced by Adam 5,778 years ago.
The desire to receive pleasure is the matter of our world.
Question: And when did the word “Kabbalah” appear?
Answer: I cannot say with full certainty when the word “Kabbalah” began to occur for the first time, but the ancient Greeks translated it as ‘reception’—that is, ‘receiving,” the science of receiving, of disclosure.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/10/17
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Thought is the greatest force in creation. But we don’t see how thoughts determine everything happening. Studying Kabbalah lets us see the network of #forces permeating and governing the world. Also, it reveals how we control the world with our thoughts, consciously or not.
The Creator is the corrected you, because you’re made opposite to the Creator, the quality of unconditional love and bestowal. We study ourselves in order to correct ourselves to the opposite, and receive equivalence with the Creator. Kabbalah is #spiritual work.
#Hanukkah is a stop midway, from the ego (Malchut) to the quality of bestowal (Bina) and onward to perfection (Keter). We celebrate Hanukkah as a complete severance from the previous egoistic state, and as a firm foothold toward the state of complete spiritual correction.
How can we see the #future? All states exist, we just need to learn to see them! The future changes according to our attitude towards it. A Kabbalist knows that nature/the world can’t be changed, but a person can change upon request. How do you endure states? Don’t endure-enjoy!
Discordance is necessary to develop greater balance and #unity. The rule of overcoming discordance: nobody is right, the right decision lies in rising above discordance. Mutual guarantee provides an opportunity to constantly rise above revelations of discordance.
#Egoism differs from altruism by the intention: I want to do something for myself or for you. I can hug you, and it would be for me, or I can spank you, but it would be for you. It’s not the action, but the intention that determines the essence of an action.
Our path comprises 2 stages: concern for self (Lo Lishma, for oneself) & concern for others (Lishma, for others). In this measure & only through others do I fulfill the Creator as per the rule “from #love of others to love of Creator,” “He is among His people”—so He is revealed.
By rising to the #spiritual level we acquire the desire to bestow in addition to our initial desire to receive, and we can balance between them. By correctly combining these two desires to receive and bestow, we create from them a third component called “the human.”
Happy #Hanukkah, the holiday of light! May it be easy, pleasant and warm! Let’s open our hearts to one another and grow closer to the light, the quality of love and bestowal!
From Twitter, 12/15/17
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New Life #300 – Return to Nature
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz
Summary
The strong monkey takes care of all the weak monkeys in the band and does not destroy anything. Humankind needs to learn from the examples nature gives us. The egoism of humankind destroys the world like a cancerous tumor because it is insatiable. We do not need to go back to living in the trees, but we do need to correct our attitude toward one another and all of creation.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #300 – Return to Nature,” 2/13/14
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Thought of creation: creatures opposite to the Creator, in the will to receive (egoists) must affect their correction & become like Creator, the will to love/bestow. This is done in 2 stages: from the ego to neutral state (#Hanukkah), and to the action of love & bestowal (Purim).
The upper force unites us and thus reveals new senses in us. I start sensing the whole world as parts of my body. Everyone becomes a part of me. This sensation is called a soul. And what fills it is called the Creator. And therein lies the rational miracle of #Hanukkah!
The meaning of the holiday of #Hanukkah: in unity we draw the upper light. And from there the light passes through us to the ego, and defeats it (Hanukkah) by turning it into its opposite, from being enemies to being adhered with the Creator (Purim). This is a true victory!
#Hanukkah is a stop on the path. But there are no stops in spiritual work! A “stop” means receiving the quality of Bina, bestowal, GE and immediate resumption of the work in AHP, to “bestow while receiving,” achieving complete correction of the soul, GE + AHP = holiday of Purim.
#Hanukkah is a victory in the fight against the ego, for unity above and despite the ego. If we unite by rising above the egoistic forces separating us, we enter attainment (revelation and realization) of the upper (spiritual) world, eternal and perfect.
A #miracle is a change in perceiving reality. There’s one reality, but as I acquire new qualities, I perceive the world differently. Like a newborn, I come out to a new level of perception under the influence of the upper light. This is the entrance to the upper world.
From Twitter, 12/14/17
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We are entering a special period of the Hanukkah holiday. This holiday has a very interesting story, but we are more concerned with its spiritual meaning. Man, as a common soul, was created completely opposite to the Creator.
After all, qualities of the Creator are bestowal and love, and qualities of the creature are reception and hatred. However, the program of creation is intended to lead a person from oppositeness to similarity to the upper force.
This program is implemented through the Light that reforms, which is awakened with the help of special methods: the work in the groups organized according to the example that Moses showed during the formation of the people of Israel.
When these groups unite in a special form, they attract the Light that reforms to themselves, which affects them gradually. Through this Light called the Torah, the creatures receive correction.
This correction is implemented in two stages. During the first stage, the desire to enjoy for oneself is corrected so that the intention changes to bestowal and the desire itself is not used. In other words, the task of the first stage is to reduce the desires to receive and concentrate only on obtaining the intention for the sake of bestowal.
Once we complete this correction, we again begin to reveal desires to enjoy and actively work with them, receiving now in order to bestow.
The first stage of achieving the qualities of bestowal for the sake of bestowal, the degree of Bina, is the war that is called the War of the Maccabees, and the point of transition from bestowal for the sake of bestowal to reception for the sake of bestowal is called the “stop,” or Hanukkah, which means “Hanu-Ko,” or “stop here.”
During Hanukkah, we celebrate a very important point: the completion of acquiring an altruistic intention, the degree of Bina. Our desire to enjoy is not used yet. We just reduce it and increase the intention for the sake of bestowal. In this way, we come to this stop, to Hanukkah, when we can only see its Lights, but cannot use them.
We can also see vessels, although we cannot use them. After all, it is impossible to see a Light without a vessel, but only for the sake of bestowal, above the desire itself. After Hanukkah, we learn to use even the desires to receive with the intention for the sake of bestowal so that “the darkness will shine like the Light.”
Therefore, Hanukkah is the celebration of Light because we use only the intention to bestow, and the Light cannot be used. We can only look at it. “To look” means to use the Light above the vessels of reception, and the use of the Light inside the vessels of reception is already complete and truly used.
This is how the place of this special holiday is determined that completes the special first stage of correction we celebrate during these days.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/17, Lesson on the Topic: “Hanukkah by the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Question from Facebook: My reactions to the things around me are my reactions. I understand the external world through my reactions to external things. What does God have to do with anything here?
Answer: There is no God. We don’t make our appeals to Him at all. We make our appeals only to ourselves, to that which is inside us, and it is these internal settings that we need to change, to set them to a correct perception of reality. Then we will be able to reach the correct goal by a much shorter and a much more pleasant route.
God has nothing to do with it. He doesn’t exist. We create God within ourselves.
Our very best, most optimal state, the highest, most positive force that turns all of us into the most wonderful and the most successful, is called God. That’s the kind of God I can agree to.
Question: Are my reactions to the surroundings still my reactions?
Answer: Of course.
Question: Do I understand the external world through my reactions to all that happens to me?
Answer: Naturally. What other way can you know what the outside world is? It is that which you perceive. That’s why everyone has a different impression of the external world.
Question: And all of it, one way or another, steers me to my most optimal state?
Answer: Only if you know how to head in that direction.
Question: Then why do I feel so much discomfort all the time?
Answer: Because you get confused, you don’t understand, you are constantly going around in circles staying in the same place and that’s how you spend your life, achieving nothing and not solving life’s riddles. But in life there are no riddles! Riddles are in how I can achieve my most optimal, most amazing state! But I myself don’t know what that state is!
Ask people what they would have liked to achieve in their lives and they will tell you such nonsense: money, fame, knowledge, honor, power, and health. But all of these end. And what is the deeper meaning of all this? Regrettably, an individual doesn’t know, he doesn’t ask himself this question. That means that we need to explain all of this. This is the reason for the existence of the science of Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 10/19/17
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Question: What does it mean: “The Creator hears everyone’s prayer”?
Answer: The Creator is the upper system, the system of Bina, called Elokim.
This system hears all of our pleas because we are its consequence; we live inside Bina—not at its height, but inside of it—since it gives birth to us, takes care of us, and supports our existence so that we would desire to become like it. It is completely bestowing and we are all receivers. That is how we were created.
Bina gave birth to us and takes care of us, and we gradually reach a state where we find that we are opposite to it. We do not care that we are opposite to it; we do not even identify that this is so, but an aspiration to attain this degree of Bina awakens in us.
This aspiration is called the point in the heart. This point awakens us because the degree of Bina is always working on us. This goes on until we start to turn to it, wishing to come closer to it. We suddenly feel that it is important. We aspire to it as if yearning to return home, to attain our source.
What do we aspire to? To the root of our life, the place where it originates. We aspire to our source in order to find answers to the questions—“Where do I come from? Why do I exist? For what purpose?”—because the root contains everything. We do not know about the future, but the root exists, without a doubt.
Therefore, we aspire to Bina since we contain a spark from there. This spark connects us to the degree of Bina. Our will to receive is completely on the degree of Malchut, which Bina gave birth to.
This is how we exist inside an inner sensation between two worlds: between the degree of Bina, the upper world, and the degree of Malchut, the lower world. This is already contained in us. Now our work is to constantly respect, awaken, and grow this spark. That is what we do with the help of the work in the group.
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From the 3d part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/17, “Working with Disturbances”
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