Entries in the 'Conventions' Category

Permission To Reveal Kabbalah

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe constantly search how to improve our life, and all our thoughts and desires are aimed at it. The Creator constantly reveals new desires and an inner void to us, thereby sending us in the reverse direction, forcing us to flee from this emptiness.

He reveals something bad to me, and I start running away from it, in the opposite direction, to something good. However, at that point, He reveals yet another void in me, and I reverse my running again. This is how we are governed from Above.

Every instant, we experience a new desire and instinctively try to fulfill it to the best of our ability. In this way, the Creator leads us toward the goal to become like Him. Although a person is totally opposite to the Creator (since the Creator is absolute love and bestowal, and man is the force of hate and reception), yet, gradually, he is enabled to see his antagonistic nature and correct himself.

Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah, the method to know the Creator, the property of bestowal, is given to man to assist him in this life. To accomplish this, the Creator selects people He wishes to draw near to Him, but not all at once. Eventually, however, everybody, every person living on this earth will have to come to Him and will become like Him!

All of us have one purpose, but we are approaching it individually and gradually. There were people who started approaching the Creator thousands of years ago before us, in the recent centuries, and today, and there will be more in the near future.

Today, we are at the last stage of human evolution when all of humanity has to know the Creator and ascend spiritually again in order to return to the World of Infinity. We can be viewed as the first row of the last generation.

Man lives fueled by the matters of the corporeal world that he experiences on the path of his earthly life, until a question arises within, “What do I need this all for? I wish to know what happens ‘before’ and ‘after’ I die, and is there any sense in existing, living this life?” These questions come from the Upper degree, the source of life in this world. Hence, these inquiries elevate a person above his entire evolutionary journey.

A person starts seeking in search of answers, and, if the questions are truly above our corporeal world, he finds the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is because with his spiritual spark, “the point in the heart,” a person is like an electron in an electric field, a particle that carries a negative spiritual charge. He feels this “minus” and, therefore, keeps seeking fulfillment for his desire in the field surrounding him.

He can’t find it in our world, and this is the cause of frustration that permeates the world today. We have lost hope in a “better future” (communism or consumer society), and we have to find what we are living for. Otherwise, the entire world will drown in drug abuse, terror, despair, or antidepressants. A person won’t know what to do with himself since this inner void will drain his desire to live.

However, it will be these people who will discover the wisdom of Kabbalah as the only method to find higher meaning. They won’t find solace in religion, faiths, mysticism, “new age,” or meditation. In truth, all the above remedies are aimed at self-relaxation at the level of our world, although their questions come from the realms of a higher dimension.

Hence, we have received permission to reveal and circulate the wisdom of Kabbalah, and we are witnessing how people from all over the world have started to awaken and gravitate to it.
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From Lesson 8, World Kabbalah Congress 2010, 11/11/10

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The First Plague Of Egypt

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What greater evil should we disclose within in order for the Light to illuminate us?

Answer: We must come to see that our innate nature is Pharaoh (ego) who does not allow us to rise above ourselves. We ought to hate it, but we still love it; we keep enjoying living in it. When, similar to our present predicament, we start receiving blows, we become disappointed in our nature and understand that we cannot reach spirituality.

So, for the first time, we got to see our nature as the evil inclination, as our rival who is the opposite to the Creator, spirituality. This is regarded as the first plague of our Pharaoh.

As to the other nine plagues, I don’t think we will need another nine such conventions. We will be able to undergo them in our mutual connection on daily basis during our lessons. We will pass through them quickly because the key at each spiritual stage is its first degree.

Later on, it will all be just a routine until a certain stage is completed. For example, right now, we are to become aware of our own evil, and we have started this process. Next time, it will be the escape from Pharaoh, exodus from Egypt, and this is what is called spiritual birth.
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From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 11/12/10

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A Warm Wave Of Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A lot of newcomers mentioned that on the second day, they had neither the strength nor the desire to come to the Convention. However, having arrived, they felt that a warm wave of love suddenly engulfed them. What happened to them?

Answer: That was a so-called “sweetening” which occurred even though we have not yet reached a perfect state. The fact is that each line also consists of three lines. Although we have revealed only the left line, it, too, has the left, right, and middle lines within it. That’s what swept through them. In other words, the second day of the Convention saw a revelation of the right side of the left line.

Question: Many people told me that they felt something special on the third day of the Convention. They don’t know what it was, but it completely changed their inner perception of the event.

Answer: True. Although the middle line belongs to the left line and despite the fact that we have not yet attained revelation, this line still brought us a certain illumination from Above. That’s why many people felt so.

However, we shouldn’t overestimate what happened; it was, after all, a very small illumination. Together with our core group, a lot of new people also attended the Convention, so it was a bit difficult. Nevertheless, we reached a very significant change in the way we are progressing. That, by the way, was an actual entry onto “Jacob’s Ladder,” just its left side, however.

After all, we have only come to the recognition of evil, realizing that we are unable to attain spirituality in our own selfish desires, that it goes against our nature, but we do not know how to break it yet. Still, that was already a beginning, and from now on, we will be able to use completely different concepts.
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From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 11/12/10

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This Is My Pharaoh Suffering

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe have acquired something big and precious during the Convention: We have discovered for the first time that Pharaoh is sitting inside us and hates us, and we have to get rid of him, to run away, to exit Egypt…but are incapable of it.

We would have never realized that we must run away from him. We hoped that we could reveal spirituality in our egoism, in “Egypt.” But we did not even think that this is “Egypt.” Yet now we are beginning to understand that we must break free from it.

Our egoism, Pharaoh, received a blow, and this disappointment passed through him. Now we see that we have to distance ourselves from the desire in which we reveal disappointment and bitterness.

However, had we not gone full out till the end, we would not have felt disillusionment; we would have sensed that, truly, something is stopping us. There is no middle ground in spirituality; we have to go till the end.

Hence, now a certain new sensation has manifested in us. That same disappointment, the force of suffering that we now feel (since I invested so much effort, had so many hopes, and nothing happened) is my Pharaoh, who received a beating and is now suffering.

However, the Pharaoh has to feel the beatings since otherwise we will not be able to run away from it. Indeed, we run only from evil.

If I reveal my egoistic desire, my nature as evil, I will want to escape from it. And, perhaps, I will have to experience more of such blows before I decide that I must do it. I literally have to come out of my skin, to exit my “body.” This is called that Pharaoh is receiving blows, the “ten plagues of Egypt.”

We achieved this only because we nevertheless united between us. One is always revealed against the other, as it is said, “in Your Light we will see the Light.” Thanks to this unification and our preparation, we realized that we suffer because of our egoistic nature. And this is a big achievement!

Millions of people who participated in the Convention virtually were together with us. They, too, went through the same states.
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From the Lesson on the Weekly Torah Portion 11/12/10

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Ask The Creator To Do It!

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe forget that we mustn’t do anything besides asking the Creator to do it! Instead we think about how I should force my heart to open up, how I can connect with others, or how others can connect to me. However, we shouldn’t think about this at all! We imagine the connection inside our egoistic mind, yet it is nothing like what we think!

This is the level of the Upper World; we are revealing a new reality! We must only ask and that is all! We learn that everything happens by virtue of request. We raise the prayer, the MAN, and in response comes the Surrounding Light, MAD, and corrects everything, while we are simply present during the correction. Everything comes from Above, and on our part only a demand, plea, and aspiration are necessary.

The problem lies in this point: Do we turn to the Creator or do we try to do everything independently? This is the point where we make a mistake and get stuck for many years, unable to change the direction even slightly, to understand that there is nothing besides an address, a demand, a request!

In order to achieve this request we have to make efforts, but it is only to accomplish this. If we try to independently build the right social system based on love and friendship, this will be a lengthy path that will bring us to the understanding that we are moving away from the goal, that we are insincere, that we hate each other and do not move closer to unity.

Kabbalah has to bring us to a very precise analysis: Don’t try to connect to another person, you are unable to do this, you are an egoist and so is he. Only the Upper Light can do it; it has to come and meld us together – only it!

Therefore, don’t look for a connection with each other because it is written “husband and wife and the Shechina between them,” meaning there is me and my friend, and the Creator between us. “He who makes peace in the Upper will make peace in us” (Oseh Shalom BeMromav, Hu Yaseh Shalom Aleinu).

Any time we turn toward one another without the force that connects us together, it is a false address. When we hug, we do not want to hug or we do it on the level of our world. Do we really demand love, unity, or friendship from one another? It is only on the level of this world. Who of us can become a guarantor for another, or even for himself? Where do we have the strength for it? We can only aspire to each other through the Upper One, who fills all of the space between us.

If we demand for Him to fill the emptiness, to connect us together, and to always be present among us, then it will happen, and easily so. The science of Kabbalah is meant to bring us to this correct attitude, while we always run away from it, being inside our egoistic nature.

Let us not forget that “There is none else besides Him”! The Creator carries out the action, but in order for it to happen we have to precede His action with our desire. This is called “making a covenant,” where we sign an agreement with the Creator: We demand and He carries it out.

Similarly to how small children walk and pull adults after them, we are pulling the Upper Force so it will correct the nature it created; then we will become equal to the Creator. We cannot attain mutual guarantee or even really desire it. As soon as we start to talk about unity, we have to remember the condition: “Israel, the Light, and the Creator are one.” Myself, my neighbor, and the Creator between us; only the three of us together will be able to achieve true conciliation and perfection.

Precisely the aspiration to unite in the group will quickly bring us to the realization that we have to turn to the Creator for all the help!

From Lesson 8 , World Kabbalah Convention 2010,  11/11/10

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I Ask And The Creator Executes

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Many years ago at a convention in Sitrin (Israel), you said that in order to break the Machsom, we must be in one thought at the same moment and have a very big, single desire. During that entire time we tried many times, we did a lot of actions, but we were not ready.

I feel that at this moment now everyone is ready. I spend the entire lesson trying to break this membrane in me, the egoistic Klipa, I want to make “an opening in my heart.” I lack everyone’s synchronization. I do not want this tomorrow; I want it right now, at this very instant! Please help us become synchronized right now so that we would be able to break this barrier!

Answer: Once I turned to Rabash with almost identical words, and he responded that he is not standing between the Creator and me. One must find this connection himself. He himself must demand it. And mainly, he needs to understand that he does not break his own membrane, the Creator does it.

If you are trying to break it and find yourself unable to do it, then it is a good thing, but you need to stop trying to do it on your own. Which forces are you using to do this? The same force of egoism? How are you breaking it – are you using a big ego to break a small one or vice versa?

Only the Creator can do this, and no one beside Him! A teacher is a guide on the way. He only brings you to this state, but he cannot do anything for you. And the Creator cannot do it unless you demand it from Him. This is because your desire for an inner change must precede His action.

From this follows:

1. Stop attempting to break the membrane, the egoistic Klipa of the heart, on your own.

2. Stop awaiting anyone’s help but the Creator’s in responding to your request.

We have been studying this for many years in all the Kabbalists’ articles: Everything is only done by the Upper Light. It created the desire, it changes it, it prepares it for changing the intention, and just like it broke the desire, only the Light is capable of correcting the intention over it, if the desire were to demand it.

There is no one in between; everything depends only on the desire itself: the request, the raising of the MAN. And the action from this is only realized by the Upper Light. Begin to only concentrate on two actions: I ask, and the Creator executes.
From Lesson 4, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/10/10

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Accelerate The Time Of Liberation

Dr. Michael LaitmanFrom Baal HaSulam’s article “The Last Generation”: If all the nations of the world agree to that, then wars will no longer be in the world, for no person will be concerned with his own good whatsoever, but only with the good of others.

This teaching of equivalence of form is the teaching of the Messiah…It is then said “and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.”

The Messiah is the biggest Light of Yechida that corrects everything when it descends. When we obtain a strong desire to reach the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), this Light will appear with all its might and will correct all desires.

Even much lesser Lights that we receive now create a connection between us and allowed us to organize a huge Convention which is the result of help from Above rather than our own achievement.

All that we see around us, our friends and the whole world, is the image of the Creator who stands in front of us and shows Himself through this picture. Even now, the power that we call “Messiah” is already here; it pulls the whole human race from its current state to the end of correction. These processes are called “the labor pains of the Messiah;” they represent the revelation of the power of the Messiah in the world, the very first state in the process of “birth.”

One way or another, by going through stronger affliction and wars or because of the growth of our understanding and desire to become corrected, this correction must be completed by the year 6000 according to this world’s calendar. This term is defined by six Sefirot of Zeir Anpin (VAK) and is divided into three periods, which are two-thousand years each, reflecting the influence of ZA (Zeir Anpin) onto the three worlds: Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. Thus, we are obligated to achieve the state of correction.

From now and further on, we enter the era of the Messiah, and therefore the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed. This gives us a chance to become corrected right now rather than continuing to wait for the end of the given term.

Egyptian exile continued for only 210 years instead of the “determined” 400 years; similarly, we shouldn’t wait until the calendar indicates 6000. In spirituality, we can accelerate time and bring the final state closer so that we can implement it right now. It means that “Isra-el” (someone who strives directly to the Creator) “accelerates” time and moves it forward. This is why we can already (as we speak) be present in the time of liberation, at the arrival of the Messiah; it all depends on us!

The preparation period has ended and the informational genes (Reshimot) of the final stage have begun to emerge, revealing the method of their use: the science of Kabbalah and The Book of Zohar; now everything is in our hands.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/10, Baal HaSulam “The Last Generation”

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The Birth Of A New Degree

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I came to the Convention with an enormous desire to break my egoistic shell. I keep having thoughts that I am able to do something right now, yet I am not doing it. I am afraid that this Convention will go by, but nothing will change in me; only impressions will remain. What do I need to do right now, right this minute, right this second, at this precise moment?

Answer: First of all, all of us ask ourselves this question. Right now you are connected with everyone, you have the same aspiration, anticipation, and this is what will remain from your entire life. Nobody knows how your life will be spent, but this moment is inscribed on your “spiritual account” for good.

It is written that when a human soul lands in the divine court, two questions are asked of it: “Did you study the Torah (did you want to attract the Light that Reforms?)” and “Did you await salvation (to rise above your ego and ascend to your second nature)?” This is exactly what we are trying to realize here. And it is good if every one of us feels that there is something that he must do, but he is incapable of doing it.

This is very unpleasant and reminiscent of birthing contractions because we want to birth our next state, but we are unable to do it. But a new degree is born within us from Above precisely thanks to these efforts.

So what should we do? Open our hearts a little bit more, connect with others a little more, feel that the Creator must be revealed between us and manifest in us slightly stronger, thereby bringing us closer together and lifting us to the second nature.

This is exactly what the Kabbalists write about. Today we are in a state when all Kabbalah material has been revealed to us, everything has been explained dozens of times. We need to do a little more, but not in studying or circulation, but specifically in unity like the one we have now, at this Convention.

Try to feel everyone in your heart, and let the Creator do this job! Pull Him where you feel that you are incapable of doing it! The Creator tells Moses: “Come to Pharaoh!” same way we take a small child by his hand. This is because Moses in us, the point in the heart, is afraid of Pharaoh. Naturally!

We are incapable of doing anything against this monster, our ego. I feel that I want to conquer it, but I am unable to. But a moment after I do not want to conquer it at all for he rules over me. And this goes on over and over.

This tiny spark that remains in me from the previous spiritual state is unable to do anything. I must grab on to the Creator with the help of this spark, and then I will be able to resist my ego. Our ego is such a monster that we are unable to do anything against it.

I just hold on to the Creator’s hand and want to be with Him like a child who pulls the adult by his hand and asks him to get him what he wants. This is how we should advance: “I want to connect with others! I want to achieve our unity! I want to achieve the desire where the Creator will be revealed!”

I grab on to the Creator through this tiny spark, but it is merely a spark, while I must catch Him entirely, unite with Him. And then suddenly the ego, Pharaoh, begins to gradually vanish and disappears… Yet I stay with the Creator united with other points in my friends’ hearts, and this is how the spiritual degree becomes revealed.
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From Lesson 4, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/10/10

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Ascending To The First Level

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn spirituality, if you aren’t going all the way, then you aren’t working with your entire desire. Then it bears no relation to your spiritual progress. However, you don’t even know where “all the way” ends, what is the maximum. You can only imagine it in some way.

Thus, we have reached a state where we wished to reveal the spiritual world completely – everything we could only imagine. With this maximal intention we arrived at the Convention. We wanted this and nothing less, so the “heavens would be revealed.”

But what became revealed to us instead? How much we are internally unable to come even one inch closer to it! We cannot accept the need to unite, to cancel ourselves.

As soon as we started talking about the connection between us and the inner work we have to do, our desire immediately cooled down. We are not ready to attain the spiritual world with that price tag!

This means we had misunderstood the Upper World and did not realize that it was the quality of bestowal, above our egoism. Yet we felt this necessity. After three days filled with many inner actions, we came out disappointed. And this disappointment comes from the fact that we are unable and do not desire to attain true spirituality. We desire to remain in our definition of spirituality as something that is simply good, eternal, and pleasant in our current, egoistic desires.

What did we reveal? It was the left line, our own evil inclination, the fact that we desire to receive spirituality inside our egoistic desires just like in the material world. Why didn’t we receive it? It’s because it’s not necessary to receive anything in spirituality. It is open. If you want to bestow, then go ahead. Everything’s permitted and anything is possible. No one can steal that from you.

In other words, inside our ego we revealed that our definition of spirituality was incorrect. And this will become revealed to us on all 125 levels! Now we still don’t see that our nature is opposite to the spiritual nature, that we are unable to attain it, and that we have one single opportunity left: only to cry to the Creator, to ask Him. This is already the right line. We have to rise above ourselves and the middle line will emerge from that.

Nevertheless, we have accomplished great work. The despair that took over us, the pain and futility that became revealed in us showed us the inability to attain the spiritual world inside our egoistic desires. In essence we were asking for spirituality to become revealed precisely inside these desires, rather than in the bestowing desires. Now, after this realization of evil, we will enter the right line, will correct ourselves, and attain the middle line.

Therefore, what we accomplished at the Convention is a great attainment. It really is the beginning of the spiritual path already. This has never happened on such a big scale and in the great egoism of the last generation. Baal HaSulam writes, “I am happy about the sinners that become revealed because the reason for it is the ‘holiness of the day.”’

A great Light had to pour from Above in order to show us how much we don’t desire and aren’t capable, how opposite we are to spirituality, the degree to which we do not want to think about unity and love between us. All of that is “holiness of day” because we united together and nevertheless desired to ascend spiritually in some respect.

We revealed the degree or desire above which we have to ascend. However, for now we are unable to do so, yet we have to do it in order to ascend to the first degree of the spiritual ladder.

That is why I am very happy with the results of the Convention and I very much hope that in the near future we will already reveal all three lines as the middle line.
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From the Weekly Torah Portion on 11/12/10

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Egoism’s Misfortunes Turn It Into A Vessel

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn order to acquire a new perception, we need a big desire that will allow replacing the tendency to consume with the aspiration to bestow. This transition towards an inverted perception of the world with an aspiration to bestow is extremely difficult. It is similar to birth, and birth is always an extraordinary phenomenon, even during the age of modern medicine.

The infant breaks away from a special place that he was attached to. Here he used to receive special nutrition and protection; here he was subject to special laws of development. The environment did not reject him; rather, it nurtured him. Now he enters a hostile world, a new environment, where he must struggle to live and grow. This is an unparalleled revolution in his life.

The same happens during the spiritual birth. A new universal sense becomes revealed, a sense of external sensations (outside of the womb or this world) based on bestowal, and thus, we begin to perceive a new world in it.

At the Convention we took a big step ahead in this direction. We really wanted to be born, we slightly experienced contraction and saw that we are unable to do it. We felt something stopping us and throwing us back right away. In combination with the good force that draws us forward, we felt a bad force that pushes us back into the mother’s womb, does not let us leave its boundaries, this world, and does not let us feel the new world.

We need to feel several contractions like this before we are born. The quantity and the frequency depend on us. Anyway, the birthing process will not end without them, and we will not make it outside.

Two forces collide during birth: our pressure from within and the opposite snatching from the outside. Their confrontations beget a new strong desire in us to end up in the spiritual world. We cannot do it without this desire.

Birthing contractions in the Torah are referred to as the “plagues of Egypt.” Our egoism must experience ten (the full dosage of) afflictions, which become imprinted on the desire and turn it into the shape of a vessel, a Kli. This way a shapeless “piece of clay” becomes a vessel ready to receive the Upper Light, the spiritual world.

We must experience the contractions in order to take the correct shape, without which it is impossible to perceive anything spiritual. We entered this process at the Convention. With regard to the Light, it is around us and is waiting for a place to enter.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/10, “Come unto Pharaoh – 1″

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