Question: There is a tale of an old  blind man who was sitting in the shadow of the temple when a passerby asked him: “Forgive me for my question, but how did you become blind?” “I have been blind since birth,” answered the old man. “What do you do?” asked the passerby. “I am an astronomer,” he answered. “I watch the sun and stars.” “But you can’t see them!”, the passerby exclaimed in surprise. “I see,” answered the old man. “They are here.” And he put his hand to his chest.

Can one live like this: blind, but not blind, and as a result you are sighted; deaf and at the same time hear music, and can be a musician? Can a person not feel his inferiority?

Answer: Of course. Because all our senses, in principle, come from our egoism. If we did not have these senses, we could be completely different.

Question: If this sense organ is cut off from me, let’s say I’m blind like this old man who says, “I’m an astronomer,” then how can I not feel that I’m blind?

Answer: Look within yourself.

Question: What will I see there?

Answer: You will see everything: the sky, the stars, everything! Within yourself.

Question: And if, say, I am deaf, can I be a musician? Will I hear music?

Answer: Whatever you want. You don’t need your five senses. You don’t need your body! If we didn’t have a body, we would be so happy and perfect.

Question: So, in this case I don’t feel any inferiority if I kind of live with myself?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Please teach me. How to live like this? How to achieve this? It sounds so good.

Answer: This cannot be explained.

Question: Then the last question about the sage. He said, “I am an astronomer even though I am blind.” Why do we freeze when looking at the stars?

Answer: Because this is the opposite part of the universe in which we exist. And it immediately tells us about its infinity and our finiteness.

Question: So, I see infinity in this? And can it be found in oneself, like he found?

Answer: It can be found within yourself. You can connect with these stars. You can feel how they exist.

Question: And with this I seem to be moving into this state of infinity?

Answer: Yes.
[322878]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/16/23

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Question: In the article “Purpose of Society,” Rabash writes that a person should be proud that he was given a chance to come in contact with practical Kabbalah, because for thousands of years it was concealed and people had no opportunity to get to know it. How can we realize the importance of this opportunity?

Answer: To do this, you need to work in a group and strengthen your connection with the friends more and more.

Rabash gives recommendations on how to arrange the group, how to be in connection with each other, and how to start coming closer to the Creator’s qualities. This is how we gradually will come to a state where we feel the Creator.
[322307]
From KabTV’s “Practical Kabbalah” 12/5/23

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‘Tis but a day we sojourn here below,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe,
Then, leaving our life’s riddles all unsolved,
And burdened with regrets, we have to go. …

O unenlightened race of humankind,
Ye are a nothing, built on empty wind!
Yea, a mere nothing, hovering in the abyss,
A void before you, and a void behind!
(Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat, #3 and #424).

Question: Omar Khayyam eventually came to the understanding of the meaning of life, that everything he enjoyed and lived for is nothing. Is this a correct conclusion?

Answer: In general, yes. Of course. He simply recalls how much effort he put into it and how he aspired. And in the end, it turned out that all those efforts were not worth it. This is evident from all his works.

Question: This is if we talk about him. But if we talk about any person? If a person suddenly realizes that all this is nothing, then, in my opinion, it’s a big tragedy. Or not?

Answer: No, he should already be prepared in advance that everything has a beginning and an end, and everything is actually nothing. And he calmly agrees with this.

Question: And what then is “something”?

Answer: To live life peacefully among friends, and together with them to understand and realize that the meaning of life lies in acceptance.

Question: So if I accept what is given to me, can it bring joy and peace?

Answer: Satisfaction.

Question: And if I want more, if I want something greater?

Answer: “Wanting more” is not good.

Question: In general, what is the essence of human life? If that is what we’ve come to, it surely wouldn’t be just bleep and gone, bleep and gone?

Answer: It is to understand that it is very limited; one must reconcile with it, and not demand more for oneself.  And it is to try to help others and accept help from them, and thus exist.

Question: Is there joy and happiness in this, and all the components?

Answer: Ultimately, yes. We see that you can’t expect anything more from anything else.

Question: Where is the upper force here? Where is the Creator in all this?

Answer: In the satisfaction of a person precisely from these comforts that he can acquire in his measured, limited existence.

Question: So, in a way, I am saying that everything given to me by You is all good? And that’s it, this is my joy? And is the Creator here?

Answer: That is where the Creator is, in the fact that you are agreeing with Him and that you don’t ask for more.
[322315]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/9/23

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What It Means that We Should Raise the Right Hand over the Left Hand, in the Work”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Lesson on the Topic, “Preparation for the Convention”

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Comment: Our reservist soldiers are fighting in Gaza. They are already fathers, businessmen, have life experience, and are established guys; they are already mature, you could say. They fight shoulder to shoulder and live in military unity, for them the words “mutual guarantee” are no longer just words, but actions.

They want unity in everything and everywhere. It is good for them to live like this. But they see that the country is again in strife, disputes, and criticism. Political campaigns have started again, and they feel bad about this.

Now short videos have started to spontaneously arrive from the battlefield; there are already thousands, maybe tens of thousands of them. The soldiers speak in front of the camera and say: “I, so-and-so, have been fighting since October 7^th. To all commentators, politicians, everyone: If you have nothing to say about our unity, close your mouth!”

The question is this: What do we have to do for them today?

My Response: Support them with our desire for unity so that we do not harm, but only help each other.

Question: Should we then really close our mouths if it suddenly says something against this?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it possible to do this, at least in a time of war? Are we really that corrupted?

Answer: I think that at least for the duration of the war, we can do this, artificially. Then it will become a norm.

Question: Can a person say to himself: “I will keep quiet. I am full of criticism, but I am keeping quiet”?

Answer: I think he can.

Question: What is important here? To have some kind of examples or what? How should one feel about this?

Answer: It should just be such a nationwide appeal, to the whole nation. We must understand that otherwise we will not survive.

Question: Do you mean to keep one’s mouth shut if a person wants to criticize something or say something against unity?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Do you like this appeal: “Shut your mouth”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it a correct assumption that if we do not close our mouths, if we are in arguments, if we are even in hatred, then we betray them?

Answer: We are not only betraying them, we are betraying ourselves and the country, and in general we are leading everything to destruction.

Question: Are we betraying our children too? That is, God forbid, their death, is it on our conscience? Can you say that?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What should a politician, who warned that this would happen, knew what to do earlier, and turned out to be right, do? Today he does not hold back, he talks about the fact that he was right that they did not listen to him. What should he do?

Answer: It is not necessary to say that he was right, so as not to arouse contradictory opinions and reviews against him. We just need to call more and more for unification.

Question: What if it burns in him? He was right!

Answer: It does not matter. He must put peace, connection, and unity above the fact that he burns.

Comment: For the sake of all these guys in order to win.

My Response: Yes! Of course.

Comment: But he is not just a man, he is a great politician.

My Response: It does not matter. No matter what kind of politician he is, and no matter what he is right about, we know that all this is relative.

He should bend himself and act only for the sake of peace and unification.
[323596]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/1/24

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Question: The article “Rabbi Shimon’s Exit from the Cave” talks about how Rabbi Pinchas stands on the shore of the Kinneret and talks with two birds as he wonders where Rashbi is hiding. In The Book of Zohar everything is coded in such a way that it is unclear what is being said. Why couldn’t it have been written more simply?

What does it mean that he talks to the birds and asks where Rabbi Shimon and his son Rabbi Elazar are?

Answer: Rabbi Pinchas wants to come in contact with Rabbi Shimon; therefore, he turns to all the forces of nature. As a result, he receives the desired contact, which, of course, is carried out, not through birds chirping in the trees, but through the spiritual forces of the animate level.

He contacts Rabbi Shimon, sees him emerging from the cave, and is ready to meet him.
[323169]
From KabTV’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 12/24/23

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Question: Rabbi Shimon and his son escaped from the Romans and hid in a cave for 13 years. What does “cave” mean from a spiritual point of view?

Answer: In the spiritual sense, the “cave” is that part of Malchut that has unique properties that can be comprehended to the highest level.

That is, these were special conditions that enabled Rabbi Shimon and his son to unite and in connection with each other achieve the entire ladder of spiritual elevation.

Question: Why were they in the cave for precisely 13 years?

Answer: Because 13 years is a perfect stage, what is called Bar Mitzvah. It is believed that a child who has reached the age of 13 becomes an adult man and must fulfill all the commandments.
[323374]
From KabTV’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 12/24/23

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In Rabash’s article, “What is ‘The Torah Exhausts a Person’s Strength,’ in the Work?”  it is written that there are three stages of work: the first—when we work in Lo Lishma (for ourselves), the second—when we work in Lishma (for the Creator), and the third—613 commands or deposits.

Question: What is this third stage?

Answer: The third stage of spiritual work is a complete dissolution in the common Kli. But we rarely talk about this. The main thing for us is to overcome the state of concealment we are in and get out of it.

Question: Does a person have to go through all three stages in any state a person engages in spiritual correction?

Answer: Yes, in the state of complete concealment, partial concealment, partial disclosure, and full disclosure.
[323364]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/23, Writings of Rabash “What Is, ‘The Torah Exhausts a Person’s Strength,’ in the Work?”

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We, the chosen species, with reason and knowledge, have become a toy in the hands of the blind nature, which leads us astray, and who knows where? (Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”)

Question: Igor writes: “I have a hundred questions about this one passage. Why does such a great Kabbalist, Baal HaSulam, call nature blind?”

Answer: Because it acts according to its own law and does not turn anywhere. And that is why such a movement is called blind.

Question: So it is still directed by someone or something, and it moves without changing. Is this called a “blind state”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: He asks: “Is it blind nature that has led us to war now?”

Answer: This is the so-called blind nature, yes. It controls our egoism, and it leads us constantly, constantly into contradictions among ourselves until we realize the harm of such relationships and want to correct them.

Question: It deliberately brings us into collisions, and the stronger the collision, the faster we realize something?

Answer: Of course.

Question: “How can those who have knowledge and intelligence, as it is written here, be called a toy in someone’s hands? After all, do they have intelligence and knowledge”? That is, us.

Answer: It does not matter. In fact, nature still controls them. It increases or decreases the egoism in each of us and in all of us together, and we are thus controlled.

Question: But do you agree that we are intelligent and knowledgeable?

Answer: Relatively. But not higher than our egoism.

Question: So it is higher than us? Does it decide everything?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Igor asks about the same sentence: “It says that we are being fooled. Somehow I really do not like this.”

Answer: We are shown how limited we are, how stubborn and unidirectional we are, and how we lead ourselves to bad results.

Question: That is, on one hand, they say that we are reasonable, but on the other hand, we can be fooled. Doesn’t this indicate some kind of contradiction, that we are not intelligent?

Answer: No. Our mind works only within very limited boundaries and in no way prevents us from being stupid egoists at the same time.

Question: Igor asks, “They say that it is unknown where it (nature) is leading us. You say all the time that it is known where it is leading us—to unity, love. Yes or no?”

Answer: Toward unity and love, but in a very tough way.

Question: We do not know where it leads?

Answer: Yes, because we are in continuous struggle with each other throughout life, throughout history.

Question: So our task is to succumb to blind nature?

Answer: No! What are we going to do with this? On the contrary, we need to find out that we are in the hands of blind nature and that the only thing we can do is to correct ourselves.

Question: Is this what it wants from us, blind nature?

Answer: Yes. Awareness of evil.

Question: Can we say that we are the ones who are blind?

Answer: Of course.

Question: And that is why we perceive nature blindly?

Answer: Yes. But we cannot do it any other way; it is very difficult.

Question: So, you have no complaints against humanity?

Answer: I have no complaints against anyone.
[321315]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 11/6/23

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