When Does a Teacher Become a Friend?

294.2Question: Can a teacher be a friend? When does a teacher become a friend, and does he become a friend?

Answer: It depends more on the student, on whether the student can understand that his teacher is his friend. It is not easy.

Question: So the teacher is ready to be a friend on his own?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it the student’s effort?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And then the second part of the question is: who was your teacher to you?

Answer: Today, of course, I can say that he was the person closest to me, a friend, a teacher, it doesn’t matter how you say it. But it is true on his part.

Question: What kind of life wisdom do you consider the most important thing to live by?

Answer: In general, the wisdom of life, according to my belief, is that a person desires the revelation of the Creator and agrees to accept Him as He reveals Himself to him.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/28/24

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Will Parasites Ever Be Punished?

294.4Comment: From a letter: “You always talk about kindness and love, but in reality, people treat each other like parasites.”

My Response: Of course.

Question: “And the kindest people in this world take the most blows from others and from fate. So the choice is either to be a parasite in life or to suffer from parasites. Please explain why one should be kind in this world, and why do you advise it?”

Answer: Because if we are kind, we become like the Creator. Then it will be better and easier for us both in this world and in the next.

Comment: But this person believes it is better for the parasites, those who use others and live that way.

My Response: That is just how it seems to him. In small, limited circumstances, he might be somewhat right. But overall in life, no.

Comment: So you are saying that we should still raise children with good relationships, with concepts of friendship, decency, and so on. And looking at the bigger picture, you say that this is correct.

My Response: Yes.

Comment: But if we narrow our focus, as he says, parasites just…

My Response: When you narrow your focus, you are limiting yourself to isolated cases. And then, of course, it seems better to be an egoist. But if you look at life as a whole, at what a person is left with, and where they end up after, then it is clearly better to be kind.

Question: Tell me, does this kindness ever come back to a person?

Answer: It does not exactly “come back.” It gives you the ability to understand why everything is made this way and how it is still better to act kindly.

Question: Is that important?

Answer: It is important.

Comment: Right now, you are not even saying that kindness will return to you as good.

My Response: We do not see that.

Question: But if we look at it globally, does it still return?

Answer: Not in our world.

Question: You are being so definitive: if you do good, good does not come back to you?

Answer: Yes.

Question: But we should not conclude from this that we should not do good? We should continue?

Answer: Yes.

Question: You started by saying that the Creator is good and does good and we must be like Him. Will this ever come back to me? Or should I not think about that at all?

Answer: The fact that you think this way and can act this way is already the Creator’s bestowal. This is already the reward.

Question: What about those who, as he says, are parasites, what happens to them? I would like to ask about them.

Answer: They calculate their dividends and believe they are happy.

Question: And you think they are not?

Answer: No.

Question: Can we say, as an egoist asking, that after they finish their life, in another world, will they be punished for being parasites? Or not? Will there be punishment?

Answer: Yes, without a doubt! And it will be in such a way that they will even not understand it at first.

Question: But it comes? Is this how the Creator teaches a person?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Through suffering like this?

Answer: It is not the Creator teaching the person; it is a general law of nature: everything a person does must be compensated for—good with good, evil with evil.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/12/24

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Start Acting!

534Question: When a person’s desire to receive awakens, they raise it through the ten to the Creator. What does it mean that this desire is corrected by the Creator, and how does it then transform into “Lishma“?

Answer: The desire to ascend to the Creator is expressed in a sense of need for Him. This need is prayer. It ascends to the next, higher degree. From there, light descends, and a connection between the upper and the lower begins. On this basis, the lower one is corrected, changes himself, and thus movement occurs from below upward. The result of this connection is the spiritual screen.

Question: So the very contact with the Creator changes a person. Is this what it means to receive a screen? And after that, they can already act for the sake of the Creator?

Answer: Yes.

Question: It turns out that the most critical point is when I raise MAN, and the Creator begins to influence me? How can we, as a ten, reach the state where we raise MAN, and He begins to change us?

Answer: Visualize it, start acting, and it will happen on its own.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/24, “On the Verge of Lishma”

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Work with the Commandments

276.02Question: How can we transform our ordinary life into commandments and connect everything to the Creator?

Answer: To do this we need to understand the meaning of the Creator’s directives. Everything in our lives can be directed toward actions for His sake.

Through the results of our actions, we will feel what we’ve accomplished and how much closer we’ve come to the Creator, and so on.

Correctly working with commandments means fulfilling them to bring Him contentment.

Question: But what if I still don’t understand what that means?

Answer: Then simply strive to be closer to Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Overcoming”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 10


Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 10

What Does RABASH Mean by “There Are People Who Do Not Know There is a King in the World”?

In this world, there are people who have yet to be given development toward the Creator. Why? It is because, within each person is a soul that extends from a different part of Adam HaRishon, the collective soul. Some parts need to develop now, whereas some were meant to develop 3,000 years ago, and others will only develop in another 200 years. We have no control over the timing of development. It is thus not worth questioning or debating it. The plan of development is beyond our understanding as it was created before we were born, before we separated from the collective soul. A person’s role is simply to do the work, not to complete it. It means that we must, in every moment, do whatever we can.

Therefore, all stages of development exist in every moment of humanity’s history. This is how it has always been and will continue to be. We need to act with understanding according to these stages. Some people are ready for spiritual progress and depend on the method of Kabbalah, while others still lack such preparation, so they respond differently to Kabbalah. Others are entirely unable to understand this concept and will always dress it in various physical forms. This, too, is a stage that exists, and such people should be left alone. We can learn such an approach from the example of Abraham and his father Terah. Terah was an idol worshiper, while Abraham worshiped the Creator.
From a Talk on the Article “What Is Half a Shekel in the Work – 1,” 5/15/2002

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Questions about Spiritual Work—200

234Question: What is the free spiritual action of “Israel” that fulfills the Creator’s commandment?

Answer: To be like the Creator.

Question: What is the correct way to work above disturbances in order to be in true bestowal to the Creator?

Answer: The correct work is not to listen to your egoism but to do what is pleasing in the eyes of the Creator.

Question: We live in a world of action. How can we act in a way that allows only good, not evil, to flow through us?

Answer: This can be achieved only by fulfilling the commandments. Fulfilling the Creator’s desires is considered a commandment. By carrying out His will, we gradually distance ourselves from evil and move toward good.

Question: How can one “circumcise” his evil inclination? Do we negotiate with it, confront it aggressively, promise it some reward, or make a sacrifice?

Answer: You must turn to the Creator and ask Him to remove all egoistic desires from you, nothing more than that.

Question: How can the entire group construct a screen together, or is this an individual effort?

Answer: It depends on the connection between you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/24, Writings of Rabash “The Act Is What Decides”

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Reading the Primary Sources

525Question: While reading numerous excerpts from the primary sources, our attitude toward the Creator changes significantly. An incredible love for this state arises, which is something difficult to describe. It is a kind of elation, an inclusion in something extraordinary. How can one receive correctly, so as not just to enjoy, but also to bring contentment to the Creator?

Answer: How can you receive correctly? You must receive only if you can turn this reception into bestowal. Then you agree so that by receiving from the Creator, you can bestow to Him, and be closer to Him.

Question: When reading the sources, I always try to build an intention. Is this intention itself already an act of bestowing, and then it is okay to enjoy?

I struggle to grasp this moment because an extraordinary delight comes from the light, greatness, and wisdom of the Creator revealed in the reading. How can I avoid being consumed by this and instead immediately bestow to Him?

Answer: No, you must definitely be impressed. It is these impressions that we must turn into the opposite, into an attitude toward Him as the source of these impressions.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/24, Writings of Rabash “Overcoming”

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To the Extent of Similarity to the Creator

530Question: You said that turning to the center of the ten means turning to the point where everything converges. How can we do this? After all, we are so different, even our prayers and intentions are different. What is this point?

Answer: In the entire universe, you will not find a single particle identical to another, let alone something as complex, chaotic, and unsynchronized as a human being, one person is never the same as another. Such a thing does not and cannot exist.

We just need to understand that we all relate to the Creator. Each of us and all of us together. We all imagine Him in more or less the same way, to the extent that we can align our impressions and perceive Him as Good and governing us with good. We feel this good to the extent of our similarity to Him.

If our qualities are similar to His at the degree we are currently on, we perceive His governance as good. If not, we perceive it as evil. Based on this, we either imagine the Creator as good or as evil.

When we compare and combine our various perceptions and try to envision the Creator as good who does good, it doesn’t matter how each of us individually imagines Him. He becomes One for us, one crown, one head, and then we are connected with Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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The Sign of An Advancing Ten

944Question: Is an advancing ten characterized by beginning to feel concern for others?

Answer: Yes, that is correct. A correctly advancing ten begins to feel not only its internal work, but also its work toward others, toward the surrounding world, all of humanity, and even the inanimate, vegetative, and animate parts of nature. Much change lies ahead for us.

The fact is that we ourselves consist of inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature. This is why we perceive the external world in these four forms: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human.

We must reach a state where we truly care for and think about the general correction of everything imaginable, because all of it is me.

All that I perceive inside and outside of myself is, in essence, me. My perception is simply divided into internal and external Kli (vessel). This is what we study in the advanced parts of Kabbalah: Galgalta veEynaim, AHP, or Mocha (brain), Atzamot (bones), Gidin (tendons) are the internal part, and Basar (flesh) and Or (skin) are the external part.

In other words, everything I can conceive of is within me. Therefore, caring for everything and correcting everything constitutes the complete correction of a person’s soul.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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