Comment: You say that when a person is in concealment, it is the most maximal, best period in the development of the soul.

My Response: The greatest pleasure comes from the juxtaposition of opposites, from solving a problem. In other words, when we see certain phenomena, qualities, or parts that do not fit together, and suddenly they find a resolution, then the pleasure of the Creator arises, the pleasure of the one who creates. That is why this is the greatest pleasure, the pleasure of creativity.

Such pleasure does not just remain with you; in it, you become equivalent to the Creator. You create! You build something! You are not just drawing on a piece of cloth whatever comes to your mind, or some things you have seen or imagined in your fevered brain, but you are painting within yourself. This is truly creation, creation out of nothing.

It is not like Isaac Levitan, who looked at birch trees and painted them. I do not in any way diminish his talent. Inner creation is billions of times greater.

When you face these opposites and you are tormented about how to connect them because they must give you the highest harmony, the next degree where they can be connected, then they lift you up. They are the two foundations of the spiritual ladder.

You create the rungs you ascend on yourself by linking them between those foundations. That is when you understand that you are truly creating, that you are in revelation, in the act of creating something new, and not just copying birch trees.

Question: Even a person who has absolutely no creative inclination, does he also create his own perception? How does he create? Say a person is just sawing wood; he is just sawing.

Answer: There is no such thing as “someone who creates nothing,” because each has his own soul; he is building it! He is sculpting a human being out of himself! He did not place some discobolus, a figure figure throwing a discus, in front of himself to make a likeness. He made a perfect likeness and is considered a master. The horror we admire!

One must build something new! In creating from nothing, a person becomes similar to the Creator!

“Creating from nothing” does not mean that he sees a finished picture in front of him; he creates it himself. It appears in the world for the first time! It never existed before!

Question: Are you speaking specifically about someone who is in the process of spiritual advancement?

Answer: Of course.

Question: And each person builds his own new reality?

Answer: Absolutely! It has never existed before.

Question: But then how do you say that all of it already exists in harmony and is pre-programmed?

Answer: The point is that when you build this reality, you must create an internal readiness for the final result within yourself. And when it is born, you feel: “Yes, this is exactly what I wanted!”

Can you imagine what pleasure it is when, through birth pangs, this is born from within you, and you see in what is born that this and nothing else is what you longed for, could never express, and never imagine?

Question: But did it have to be born like that?

Answer: It exists on the next degree, but you do not know that. For you, it is new. And relative to the Creator, it is also new because no one has yet realized it in matter, that is, in desires.

Comment: This sounds like a self-learning mind.

My Response: Of course! The whole of Kabbalah is a process of self-knowledge, nothing but self-knowledge. And in fact our entire existence is nothing but a process of self-knowledge.
[345266]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Creativity at the Level of the Creator” 9/17/10

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This repels many newcomers; they fly out of the group and do not want to continue studying. Or should they cross this barrier? What should people who encounter the methodology of Kabbalah for the first time do?

They understand perfectly well what you are talking about and admire the inner depth that you convey. But they cannot accept this method and constantly ask: “What is the point of all these actions: songs, dances, and other things?”

My Response: I see that for many people this is the most accessible and pleasant thing.

I look at a convention, thousands of people gather there, all dancing, singing, shouting. For them, this is an understandable way to express themselves and unite. It seems to me that this is what makes them happy. Would they really be pleased if I turned it into serious academic study there?

What else can you do if you want to lift people up, to inspire them? At least on this small level they can somehow express a longing for the Creator, for connection, even if not exactly for connection itself, but for something that draws them. I have seen this.

Still, I myself am not so inclined toward that. I have a completely different approach to attainment, to inward penetration. But we are talking about the masses who can feel and grasp things in this way.

By the way, after they dance, hug, and shout, when you listen to their questions, those questions are very deep and relevant, about the four phases of direct light and so on.

These are not just random questions from someone who does not know what he is talking about, but they come from understanding! They already feel these concepts and identify with them in some way. That combination is very correct in them. I envy them!
[345970]
From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. To deceive myself,” 6/7/11

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Comment: Professor Tatyana Chernigovskaya, a psycholinguist and neurobiologist from St. Petersburg University states: “The future is already here. It’s a different world—not the one we lived in just five years ago. Modern children should be taught how to train their memory, sustain attention, classify information, and to know where to find trustworthy sources, as well as how to behave in a state of constant stress and time pressure.”

Answer: It would seem she is right. But here is the problem. Such a world is neither needed by us nor by our children. Why should they live in constant tension and distrust of all information? Why prepare them for negativity and bring it closer ahead of time?

No! I want to prepare children for a bright future. I want to explain to them how to make the future bright instead of submitting to the “fate of the new age.” The future should be such that it is good for all of us.

This is possible, and Kabbalah shows how to achieve it through proper connection between people in spite of egoism. That is what I would teach children today.

Connection brings forth positive forces of nature, even ones we are unaware of. It will lead humanity to happiness.

Children, and not only children, need to be taught how to build the right kind of connection in which we reveal the kind force of nature, a kind humanity, a kind life, safety, joy, and light. This must be the goal of our education. This is what children should feel. This is the environment in which they should grow.

Otherwise, we will raise gloomy, withdrawn, emotionally repressed egoists, ready for battle and misfortune.

By envisioning a proper future, a kind future between us, we awaken positive qualities in children, positive forces. And then they will call this new world to life.

After all, we are the ones who build the world. It is the result of our relationships.
[225937]
From the KabTV Program “News with Michael Laitman”

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #34 “The Advantage of a Land” (10.25.2021)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 61-63 (7.9.2006)

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, Article 1.1-1 “Purpose of Society” (1984)

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4th part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “You Are in Partnership with Me”

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Question: Does the dialogue between a person and his desire to receive happen when he is in Lo Lishma or in Lishma?

Answer: A person is not yet in Lishma. The dialogue between him and his desire to receive happens before that. It is the degree that allows him to rise to Lishma.

Question: So I must receive this strength from the Creator in order to ascend? Since the strength of faith in the sages comes only from the Creator?

Answer: Yes, of course.

Question: In that case, should I turn in prayer to the Creator so that I have this strength to rise and perform an act of bestowal?

Answer: That depends on the person, how he positions himself in relation to the Creator, desiring to be in adhesion with Him in all states: in descents, ascents. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, he wants to simply be connected with the Creator.

If he strives toward this state, then he begins to see how he can be connected with the Creator.
[346132]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/2025, “To be as an Ox to the Burden and as a Donkey to the Load”

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Question: We do not want to work for the sake of our desire to receive. We only want to serve the Creator and our friends. How does faith in the sages help with this? Is it some special help from above in response to our prayer? Or is it some additional effort? Or is it the light of the Torah, meaning a special state?

Answer: This happens when we are able to “exit ourselves” and adhere to faith above reason.

Question: Is faith above reason acquired in response to our actions or in response to our prayer?

Answer: Only in response to our actions when we annul ourselves before our friends.

Question: Do we then adhere to the sages who have already made this correction?

Answer: Yes.
[346135]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/2025, “To be as an Ox to the Burden and as a Donkey to the Load”

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Question: How can one imagine a Partzuf? How does it manifest in a person?

Answer: A Partzuf is the measured reception of light for the sake of bestowal.

If I have a certain desire and I fulfill it for myself, it is an egoistic desire. Let us say right now that I have a desire that can be filled with some pleasure—light. When the light enters the desire, it instantly neutralizes it. It is like annihilation. The pleasure that fills me nullifies even the strongest desire.

The desire cannot persist if it receives what it wants. Therefore upon receiving pleasure, the desire disappears. The desire vanishes, and the pleasure is no longer felt. That is, receiving pleasure destroys the pleasure itself, and in the end, I remain empty. This is exactly what is happening in the world today.

The feeling of emptiness drives us forward into the unknown. Suddenly we sense that pleasure no longer gives us the feeling of enjoyment. As a result, we become depleted.

So what is the essence of the patent for endless pleasure?

If there are two entities and I receive from one and pass on to another, then any light can flow through me. I receive it not for myself and transmit it to someone else in order to please them, and so on in a circle.

Imagine a vast volume containing many parts separated from one another. What does “distance” mean? Each part feels its own egoism. And above this egoism they begin to build connections among themselves where each receives for the sake of the other.

As a result, a constant, endless pleasure circulates between them, and never nullifies any of them. It is perfect and fills everyone completely because none of them receive for themselves. Each one receives in order to pass it on to another. But the pleasure that flows between them and is passed from one to another ends up circulating among all.

Thus, a person who received for themselves—even if they could hold onto, say, just one kilogram of pleasure—would “plug themselves up” and be unable to receive more because they would already be full. But when receiving for the sake of bestowal to others, an infinite amount of pleasure can flow through them, not only in quantity, but in quality. That is, everything that can possibly be imagined, everything that is felt as pleasure by all other desires, this person begins to feel within themselves. In the end each of us as a separate small egoist grows and experiences this light as the light of infinity.

Such are the opportunities available to us thanks to our ability to unite and begin to include ourselves in a single unified system. This is what we are gradually beginning to approach in our development today.
[58616]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/11

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Question: Usually people sing and dance at our conventions and unity evenings. About 50% of the people are genuinely inspired to join in, and 50% do it through effort. Should you enjoy our method or should you do it through effort, and thereby draw the light?

Answer: Both.

Look at how mass festivities, pop bands, singers, and “Madonnas” of the world inspire people. What can you do? That is how the masses find a way to express some common opinion, a feeling of unity. That is the way everything is made. We can’t invent anything else. The most important thing is the overall common impression.

Of course, if you ask me, I feel unity most during study when all of us are learning together, absorbing one idea, being inside it as one. I hope we will reach such a state where we feel how a new thought, a new idea, a new feeling is born in our unity. It will appear precisely in the connection between us, in the adhesions, and this thought will be felt by us as a third force, as the Creator. But we will get there gradually.

Naturally it will be revealed more during study than during dancing. But both are necessary.

In the end, over the course of a few days of a convention, people receive a certain impression that is created by everything together: the study, the questions and answers, the workshops, and the cultural events.
[346008]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Songs, Dances,” 9/20/10

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Question: When answering a person’s question, do you tell them what they want to hear?

Answer: No, I answer what they are able to hear. I do not indulge people; I try to respond on the level at which they can hear me. Otherwise, what is the point of replying at all?

Why ask me if I’m just going to say what they want to hear? Let them just listen to themselves, then.

Comment: All students go through various states, and when they talk to each other, each one says, “I know this or that piece of information.” And so, each one brings their own distortions into the common understanding.

My Response: That is typical for people who haven’t yet come to a clear revelation of the truth, they guess at it, imagine something about it.

Personally, I never had that kind of experience, I don’t know why. Maybe because I was very close to my teacher, and I had sufficiently accurate information. I could always ask and get a clear answer.

Comment: Suppose someone shares a feeling that they can move through walls or fly above the ground.

My Response: That is just some kind of childish fantasy.

A Kabbalist in our world cannot do anything physically out of the ordinary, because the physical world operates according to its own laws. In this world, you can’t move anything outside of the regular laws of nature.

If you have some ability, it means that ability already exists in nature. Where have you seen anyone walk through a wall? If it were possible, then anyone could do it with some practice. What does that have to do with being a Kabbalist?

A Kabbalist’s qualities operate on the next level, beyond matter. In the realm of matter, he cannot do anything special.

Question: Does a Kabbalist know how everything works, but cannot go against it?

Answer: Against what, exactly? What do you expect him to change? We are given nothing to change except our attitude toward the Creator and everything around us. When you change that, you change your own perception, your perception of reality. That is it, this is an inner wisdom.
[345309]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Can Kabbalists Walk through Walls?” 9/16/10

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