Audio Version Of The Blog – 6/3/23
Posted on June 3rd, 2023 at 10:55 pm
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Question: How do you define talent?
Answer: Talent is a special ability for a certain kind of creativity.
Question: Do you think all people have talent?
Answer: No, not everyone.
Question: Does one need talent to study Kabbalah?
Answer: We need a special type of soul. Those who have it, feel the desire for this kind of activity and this knowledge. Those who do not have no intention or aspiration to Kabbalah.
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From KabTV’s “Talks” 5/18/23
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Question: What do children and elderly people have in common? After all, at some point in their lives, they become exactly the same.
Answer: Children and the elderly feel the simplest common values of this world. The main thing is that the body is comfortable, and everything else is the meaning of a small life.
Children try to find meaning in their games, in anything. And elderly people are like that too. That is, both of them “descend” to a state where they need very little from this world.
Children are still not interested in many things because it goes beyond their desire. And for the elderly, this has already gone beyond the scope of desire. Children have not yet experienced the peak of egoism, and the elderly have survived it and are not pursuing anything anymore.
A Kabbalist is in this state almost all his life. He is not running after anything. Let’s say you offer me a huge limo instead of my car or some huge apartments instead of two small rooms. What for? What will it give me? Basically, I do not need anything from life anymore. The child does not need it either, he has his own toys and he feels good.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is Childhood and Old Age?” 4/24/11
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Question: Did you say that one can receive from the teacher by bestowing to him?
Answer: You are obliged to. You can receive when you connect with the teacher; otherwise, you will have no place to receive. But it is possible to connect with him only to the extent of the equivalence of qualities.
You cannot come to him and say: “I want, I want, I want!” It will give nothing but rejection between you. To the extent that you bestow to him, you can receive from him.
Question: What exactly am I bestowing?
Answer: Desires, qualities, feelings, and even some actions in our world. Why have I been with my teacher for 12 years? I was his driver, deputy, and assistant; I took care of him like a nurse at a hospital bed. For what? Naturally, only in order to receive from him. Would this old man be dear to me if I did not want and appreciate what is in him? Of course not! A person should be aware of what he is doing everything for.
In our life, we instinctively treat only children with love, and everything else, on the contrary, with rejection.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To Receive from the Teacher” 4/13/11
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Comment: We are used to the expression “reading someone’s thoughts.” You replace it with the words “know the roots of movement.”
Answer: Why should I read a person’s thoughts?! Do I not understand what kind of device it is? A small biological device that is engaged only in maintaining itself in the most convenient form. Its body strives for homeostasis because all inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature strives for it, and it egotistically reaches for maximum fulfillment. What else do I need to know about him?
Question: But in order to convey information to a person, don’t you need to absorb his understanding? If you feel it much deeper, you could find greater communication with him.
Answer: Yes and no. So what if I understand how he lives? For example, there is a small child in front of you. How will you find communication with him, at what level? You still have to go down to his level, make yourself small like him. Communication can only be on one level.
Question: But an adult has his own world. Let’s say he goes to work, goes out somewhere, to the child it seems to be something unusual, he does not even understand what it is about. For a Kabbalist, what seems to be like miracles to a child are a natural process that takes place around him.
So there are some things that you cannot explain even on our egoistic level?
Answer: There are things that I cannot explain and that you cannot feel. I can take you, like a small child, to my work, I can take you into the big world, and you will see something there and perhaps understand a little because you have five senses like in an adult, only they are not developed.
Therefore, I will be able to explain something to you a little, that is, I can develop your five material sense organs. But if they are developed in you, and spiritual ones are not, what can I do with you?! Nothing.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What is a Miracle” 3/6/11
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “US Lawmakers Highlight Discord between America and Israel”
Several events that have taken place over the past week highlight where the United States and Israel do not see eye to eye. One such event is the White House’s first-ever national strategy to combat antisemitism. To Israel’s surprise, the Biden administration avoided a clear endorsement of the mainstream, widely accepted definition of antisemitism drafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), after progressive entities (including several Jewish organizations) argued that the IHRA definition does not allow for what they describe as “legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies.” Progressive groups also urged the Biden administration to leave out a definition of antisemitism entirely or consider alternative definitions.
Moreover, among the creators of the document, titled “The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism,” the White House included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a partner in building “cross-community solidarity” to combat antisemitism. This is disconcerting since the FBI has concluded long ago that leaders of CAIR are linked to the designated anti-Israel terrorist organization Hamas.
Another issue that has been on the table between Washington and Jerusalem for quite some time is the inclusion of Israel in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The program enables most citizens or nationals of participating countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. Recently, 16 senators, led by Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas urging the Administration not to include Israel in the VMP until Israel meets certain conditions of reciprocity that they believe are necessary for inclusion in the program.
The letter completely ignores Israel’s complex security issues with the Palestinians and demands that all American citizens of Palestinian origin will be given a free pass into Israel and will be free to travel within Israel with no questions asked. Even though one of the initiators of the letter, Brian Schatz, and one of the signatories, Bernie Sanders, are Jewish, they show no sympathy for Israel’s position. On the contrary, they are leading the demand for Israel to act against its own security interests.
I am bringing up these two issues not in order to criticize the US for its policy or to rebuke this or that senator for advocating an anti-Israel policy. I am doing this in order to stress the obvious truth that US-Israel interests are becoming increasingly discordant, and that Israel should not expect the US to take Israel’s best interest into consideration.
Also, the fact that one of the initiators of the VMP letter is Jewish, and that one of the signatories is a known Israel-basher Jewish senator, proves that a significant portion of American Jewry has no regard for Israel’s security. The conclusion Israel must therefore draw is that it can no longer rely on American Jewry to support it and work in its favor in the US government. The alliance that Israel has had with the US for decades is clearly weakening, including with American Jewry, and I am not sure how long it will last.
It is time for us, Israelis, to stand up for ourselves. It may be painful, but we must realize that US interests are often different from ours, and often contradictory; we cannot rely on them, and we should not expect America to cater to Israel’s needs. We need to do this for ourselves, and we could not begin too soon.
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Question: The world’s population is eight billion now. If previously a person met several hundred people during his life, today it is tens and hundreds of thousands. Does it have something to do with the growth of our desires?
Answer: Of course. The fact that today we meet a lot of people in our lives suggests that our desires have become large and complex. They are differentiated among themselves, added, subtracted, multiplied, and so on.
That is why the corporeal world in our imagination has become so complicated.
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From KabTV’s “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 5/14/23
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Question: Does it matter which medium a book is written: paper or electronic media?
Answer: No. This is not critical. There are different mediums for different times. An ebook acts in the same way as a regular book.
Question: Why were books previously made on papyrus or animal skins?
Answer: What else could they have been made on? At first, pieces of wood were used, also sand or fired clay tablets were used for writing. They did what they could.
It was necessary to have a material that could be made into some form so that it would be recorded and preserved as a transmitter of information.
Therefore, the carriers were earth, stones, wood, and plant leaves. Then they started making papyrus and turning natural materials into something flatter and more suitable. At first, they wrote on special clay tablets and then animal skins.
People saw that the skin of animals consisted of several layers, and if it was cut lengthwise in thickness, it became thinner. They divided it into two parts and wrote on the inner elastic part since the ink on it did not corrode, did not spread out, and remained for a long time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. What Is a Book” 4/4/11
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Question: Why do you introduce the concept of the principles of the universe? After all, this has never been shared anywhere before.
Answer: The Kabbalists of the past have a description of the principles of the universe, but only in a free presentation as if you were describing our world in a novel as great writers did. Kabbalists were practically philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, and educators, but they presented everything in an artistic form and not in the form of a methodology.
Therefore, in Baal HaSulam’s articles and letters, the principles of the universe are described in an artistic style. We take them and format them in a more concrete form so that it is more clear to a person what is happening to him and around him.
As a rule, these principles are the preface to our articles and outline the method of correction that we are obliged to offer to the world.
In other words, based on the principles of the universe, we describe what the past, present, and future are, and how from this moment onward, we need to behave in order to move forward in a mandatory movement regardless of us.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Principles of the Universe” 3/27/11
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