Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

The Kidnapping Of The Boys Is Like A Knife In The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How must we begin to correct the situation? The event that is most worrisome these days is the kidnapping of the boys. What should we do?

Answer: The boys were kidnapped because we have not realized our role and have not connected as a people. Now, after these tragic events, the people have begun to connect.

But they are connecting because of trouble and not because they want to reach mutual bestowal. This is not the right connection.

Baal HaSulam wrote in the newspaper The Nation that Israel connects under the pressure of external factors like nuts in a sack. Understandably this also helps, but not much.

As long as we have not begun to hate our egoism more than anything else in the world, the correction will not begin. Direct all of your hatred for the kidnappers at your ego, then it will help. The solution is only in the fact that we don’t have anything to hate besides our egos. We must teach all of the people about this. We have no choice, for this is the only thing that will truly help us. The method was given to us for this.

All of the people are now enraged against the terrorists, blaming the poor boys who hitchhiked. But it is written: “I will place over you a king like Haman and against your will you will return to the good” (Sanhedrin 97b). This is what is done through the terrorists. Is there something that they can do through their own desire and not through the desire of the Creator?

Rabash told a story about how a school teacher gave a student who misbehaved blows, and the student had to kiss the stick. In this way, the student acknowledged that the problem was not with the stick, rather everything was found in the hands of the Creator. If you curse the terrorists, it is as if you are cursing the Creator, since indeed, all of the means are found with Him.

We harm ourselves with this even more, as it is forbidden for us to hate the people who bring troubles upon us since they are indeed doing the will of the Creator. We must direct all of this hatred at ourselves, our egoism.

As it is written: “Neither them nor their reward” (Berachot 5b). Why do we feel pain and then try to heal it if we could aspire to love and correct everything from the start? All of our problems would disappear immediately!
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Those Who Followed Abraham

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In what way is Israel different from other nations? Why do they have a special role?

Answer: The desires of GE (bestowal) are called Israel and AHP (reception) is called the nations of the world. The matter of creation is a desire to receive, but it is so small that it can only yearn for bestowal called Israel. Therefore it is written: “You are the fewest of all the nations.”

There was a man who lived in ancient Babylon called Abraham who wanted to reach a good life, to be free of the ego in which all the people of Babylon were immersed. The people decided to build the Tower of Babel, but their languages were mixed and they ceased to understand one another, so they lost contact with one another.

Abraham understood that the goal is actually to be connected and that by connection can we establish a system in which we will discover the upper force that operates and manages us. How many people followed Abraham? There were 5,000 men out of 3 million.After all, a person needed to have a special kind of purity.

The pure people who joined Abraham, according to their intention, their yearning to resemble the upper force that is absolute bestowal, are called Yashar- El (straight to the Creator). All the others who yearned in the opposite direction, in the direction of the ego, are called the nations of the world.

The goal of creation is, of course, to bring everyone to the level of Yashar-El, to a different level of existence. But in the meantime, it is only that small part of the population that agrees to such an ascent. Abraham led these people out of Babylon and guided them to Israel. They differed from others thanks to their vessels, which were the root phase, and phases one and two. These are vessels of GE that were ready to understand this idea and were attracted to connection.

We exist in a field that doesn’t operate on a certain individual but only through our connection. The moment there is a connection between several people, they summon the Creator’s influence upon them, the influence of the field, according to the connection between them above the ego. Then they feel that the upper force and the Light is revealed in them.

We are all in the field of the constant Light that is in a state of absolute rest. If we don’t connect, we don’t see it and don’t’ feel anything. But if we begin to connect with others, then even in a connection between two, and all the more so between ten people, we begin to perceive this field like “a radio receiver.”

This perception inside us is felt as the revelation of the Light and the Creator, of the upper force, as if we perceive a radio wave. This is what Abraham explained to the people of Babylon. There were those who understood him and followed him since it was clear to them that this was the only way to overcome the crisis that was developing in Babylon.

All the others didn’t understand Abraham and remained in Babylon to flow in the current with their ego. Since then, the whole world is divided into two parts: Israel and the nations of the world. It may seem strange that Israel is so important while it is only a nation of several million people, but it determines the essence of the process. We see that this division has been maintained throughout human history until these days.

It isn’t about a geographic location on the surface of the earth, but about a spiritual idea. There are people who follow Abraham’s idea, like Israel, and others who follow their own nature, like the people of Babylon.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Write It On Your Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn Moses’ time writing wasn’t customary. People learned everything by heart, which means in their heart. A person isn’t meant to write; he is meant to create in order to correct himself, “to write on his heart,” to make all of his desires a suitable vessel for the perception of the Light, for the perception of the essence of creation.

If we are part of a system that is ready, what is there to write? All the books that we write are a result of our lack of understanding, and so we want to express different feelings and sensations in the form of black and white. If the black and white complement one another there is nothing to write. Everything we write stems from a deficiency.

The Torah doesn’t require all the writings. People used to learn the Torah by heart until they actually fulfilled it. My vessels have to be corrected, my internal letters, the letters of my work, and not just the letters in the book.

I can rewrite a book ten times, but it won’t help. I have to actually change according to the letters.

Moses taught his students the whole Torah, which means how to reach correction. The Torah tells us about the process of correction that this group has gone through.

Question: Did these events actually occur in corporeality?

Answer: Some may have also occurred in the corporeal world, but not necessarily. It says “it happened in the land of Egypt…,” but the Torah tells us about inner, spiritual actions that take place inside the desire. It doesn’t necessarily have to take place in our world. The spiritual root has to somehow touch the corporeal root, but only to some extent. There can be just a minor touch in the corporeal world, but in the spiritual worlds these are great and very meaningful actions.

This means that archeologists may find something in their excavations that may prove that something happened in Egypt like the parting of the Red Sea, etc., but the Torah tells us only about what happens in the desire to receive that is in every person and which has nothing to do with the corporeal world, since this whole world is fictitious.

For those who begin to fulfill the Torah in its internality, which is called the Torah of truth, this world begins to look like a meaningless external picture. After all, a person sees the forces that are behind things and this is what he speaks about; this is where things are actually fulfilled.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Payment For The Revelation

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Shamati #199, “To Every Man In Israel”: Every man of Israel has an internal point in the heart, which is considered simple faith. This is an inheritance from our fathers, who stood at Mount Sinai. However, it is covered by many Klipot (shells), which are all kinds of dresses of Lo Lishma (not for Her Name), and the shells should be removed. Then his basis will be called “faith alone,” without any support and outside help.

If a person has an inclination to the upper force, it is because he has a spiritual gene, a Reshimo (reminiscence), that is called “an internal point in the heart.” This point awakens and draws a person to the source of Light, and he therefore is called Israel–Yashar-El (straight to the Creator).

He is given a chance from Above to reach the root of his soul. This is done when he removes the Klipot, which means the dresses that cover this Reshimo.

This Reshimo is shattered, which means that, in the past, it wasn’t just a Reshimo, but a connection with all the other parts of the general Malchut. However, now, the force of separation resides between them, and in order to attain the Upper force, one must first attain the force of separation. Our exertion is actually the payment for the revelation.

These Klipot grow thicker each time and increase the force of separation that operates inside a person. To the extent that he removes the Klipot and can connect to others, he becomes a vessel for the upper force.

The work of removing the Klipot that interfere with the attempt to adhere to the other parts of the vessel is called God’s work since it is done by help from Above when a person becomes a partner of the upper force and thus gets to know it, gets closer to it, until he reaches adhesion.

This is the work we must engage in since it is only by that that we fulfill the Reshimo that is invoked in us. The moment the Reshimo is invoked, it is referred to as the moment the Creator puts a person’s hand on the good fate, and a person must make sure that this Reshimo doesn’t disappear, that it isn’t covered, but that it is fulfilled.

If he doesn’t make enough effort to fulfill the Reshimo, the Reshimo disappears and arrives in a different way at a different time, perhaps not even in this lifetime, since a person didn’t manage to cope with the external conditions and therefore will receive the Reshimo under different conditions, until he fulfills it.

As it is written, “Every man of Israel has an internal point in the heart, which is considered simple faith.” Simple faith is when a person cleans his spiritual Reshimo from all the corporeal dresses, from the intention of in order to receive, until only this simple point remains, and “This is an inheritance from our fathers,” from higher levels, “who stood at Mount Sinai,” and could overcome the hate that separated them.

However, it says that the point “is covered by many Klipot (shells),” which means forces that are against connection, “which are all kinds of dresses of Lo Lishma (not for Her Name), and the shells should be removed.” Then, his basis will be called “faith alone,” which doesn’t require anything for oneself and is ready to work for others “without any support and outside help,” which means that he doesn’t need anything for himself and is ready to work only for the sake of the society.

To the extent that a person acquires simple faith, he has the power to connect to others and to bring everyone to the level of faith. This is actually the correction of the vessel. There is faith that is the level of Bina, and there is complete faith that is the next level, when Hochma is dressed in Bina.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/14

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 06.23.14

Preparation for the Lesson

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Workshop

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Writings of Rabash, “Igrot,” Letter 23

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“The Book of Zohar” — Selected Excerpts, “Torah and Prayer,” Item 182

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 71

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Nation” 

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Stealing the Sesame Seed From The Scale Of Merit

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee), Item 22: And one who commits one sin, which means that he cannot overcome and conquer his filthy self-love, and hence steals or does something of the sort, sentences himself and the whole world to the scale of sin. This is because with the disclosure of the filth of self-love, the lowly nature of Creation, is reinforced. Thus, he subtracts a certain amount from the sentencing to the final scale of merit. This is similar to a person removing from the scale that single sesame seed his friend had put there.

Thus, to that extent, he slightly elevates the scale of sin. It turns out that he regresses the world.

Question: How can I pull the entire world behind me and cause it harm if I am not in spirituality yet?

Answer: It makes no difference whether you know about it or not. You are still part of the system.

We know that about 130 million babies will be born this year, and as grownups we know that we must build factories that manufacture baby food, diapers, and so on for these babies.

The babies don’t understand and don’t know all that is done for them, but we still take them into account despite their lack of understanding. The system works and takes those who belong to it into account. At the moment, they don’t actively participate in it, but they will grow up and participate in it later.

We are also in the system like those babies. The system works for us, and we influence it like the babies who influence the world. This world turns around for them and provides them everything that they need to grow.

If you don’t see that you are part of the system, it doesn’t mean that you are not connected to it. You still affect it very much. If you were connected to this system, not as a human being but as an animal, you would receive and carry out orders instinctively without ever making any mistakes. An animal is never wrong since it is totally managed from Above by the system.

Then, there would be no problems with you at all. You would be connected absolutely to the system, having no freedom: not in your hands, your legs, or your head. You would be managed totally from Above and wouldn’t exist as an entity.

However, if you are born with some internal freedom that you must fulfill through your freewill, you need instruction and guidance. This refers only to the part that is called Adam (a human being).

Question: But how can I tilt the world to the scale of sin and steal a sesame seed if I am not in the spiritual world?

Answer: You are in the system, and your time has come to participate in it consciously. So far, you have participated in it as an animal activated by urges that the system summoned in you.

However, now, you are not completely activated because you also activate the system by yourself to some extent. Accordingly, you receive instructions as to what to do and how to do it.

If you want it yourself, if you receive and urge and exert yourself, you learn these instructions and try to make yourself a beneficial part of the system. If you don’t, you become the harmful, detracting part.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 06.22.14

Preparation for the Lesson

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Workshop

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Writings of Rabash, “Shlavei HaSulam,” “Concerning Above Reason”

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“The Book of Zohar” — Selected Excerpts, “Two Points,” Item 124

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 71

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Nation” 

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One Big Workshop Throughout Israel

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: A thousand people are praying together for the return of the kidnapped boys. Isn’t this enough to save them?

Answer: No, this is not enough; this prayer has not been organized correctly. I would suggest organizing nationwide roundtables, a common workshop. Come, let’s get ready and gather one workshop throughout the whole nation some evening. People who are ready for this will participate in this event, except for children, the frail elderly, and nursing mothers who cannot leave their babies; let’s say 80% of all the people.

If we aim to connect in order to discover within that the power of mutual bestowal through which we want to give contentment to the Creator, with this we awaken the Light that Reforms.

And the Light will already carry out the work. Only this will help, because it will influence the Light that Reforms. This is because we prepare a place, a deficiency, upon which the Light can bestow. All of our work is to prepare the place, and for this we need many people who are arranged and organized in circles, who know the general rules of the workshop and the laws of conduct in it, and who talk about the necessity of connection.

There is a formula, it is only necessary to activate it and make it work. Do you understand this formula? So please, realize it.

Question: Do the people gathered around the roundtables have to be people who have spiritual attainment?

Answer: No, they have to be the most ordinary and simple people. Indeed Baal HaSulam writes that a farmer who plows a field to feed others is doing more important work than the High Priest in the Temple. After all, this work is closer to others, is more understandable and more noticeable, and belongs to lower, more mundane desires, so certainly it will work.

The lower the desires we work with are, meaning the closer and more understandable they are to a person, the greater the Light that we awaken, according to the general rule of the inverse order between Lights and Kelim.

Only if the High Priest included all the desires of the people—including them within himself and raising with them, like Moses, the leader of the people, in that he made a Zivug de Haka’a (striking interaction) with the Light—is this considered a high action. But if he doesn’t take the desires of the people but enters into the Kadosh HaKadoshim (sanctuary) with his egoistic desires, then he dies by being struck by the Light, from a Pulsa de Nura (whip of fire).

So come, let’s organize one big workshop throughout the country together. I don’t guarantee the final result, but simply use the formula, a condition, which we can carry out in order to awaken the Light that Reforms.

Nobody knows what the result will be, but surely it will bring good changes thanks to the Light that we have drawn through our actions. The Light will advance us towards the good, towards correction. How this will be revealed in the world, I cannot say, but without a shadow of a doubt, the situation will be better because of the Light that Reforms.

This is called the prayer of many. We have no other means.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/14, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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The Connection Between Tsunamis And Anti Semitism

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why couldn’t the nations of the world receive the Torah themselves, but have to receive it through the Israeli nation?

Answer: It is the role of the Israeli nation to convey the Torah to the nations of the world. First the nations of the world received the religions through the Israeli nation. All the major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the Torah of the time of exile.

The vessels of receiving cannot be in contact with the Light and there has to be some conductor between them, an adaptor. The desire to receive and the Light are opposite to one another, so there is a need for an adaptor that will connect the desires to receive and the vessels of bestowal, Galgalta ve Enyaim (GE), so that GE will raise these deficiencies to the Creator.

The major religions in the world have made great preparation for the correction. They are the Torah of the time of the exile and they must exist until they are transformed into the true Torah, which means to the wisdom of Kabbalah. Everyone will be connected only with the Creator. The connection between the desire to receive and the Light cannot be done by different methods.

The Israeli nation was exiled after the destruction of the Temple and is among the nations of the world. Afterwards, it cannot avoid being an adaptor for them, whether a good or a bad one. So the nations of the world regard the Israeli nation in a very special way and it is impossible to change that. There is always a special attitude towards Israel, whether negative or positive. Israel is always the adaptor and the conductor of the Light. They will always be in the center of events, and be the nations of the world’s target.

Question: What should we do in order to be a corrected adaptor?

Answer: We simply have to fulfill the role of the adaptor. I have to be incorporated in the deficiencies of the nations of the world, to process them inside me and raise them correctly to the Upper Light. I have to connect all the nations to the Upper Light. They tell me that if I don’t work properly, I am responsible for their feeling bad. This is the reason that they hate me, since instead of being nicely and positively influenced by me, they are influenced negatively, their lives are miserable and they suffer. The nations of the world blame Israel more and more for all their problems. It happens subconsciously, since they feel that Israel is to blame.

We encounter this spiritual phenomenon, which has no corporeal reason, all over the world.  You can find anti-Semitism even among people who have never had any contact with Israel: South Korea, Polynesia, New Zealand, etc. People who have a soul feel that they depend on Israel.

Imagine how difficult and unpleasant it is to feel that you depend on someone. You constantly think about him because it is as if he controls you. He determines your fate and everything that happens to you and your children. He is part of your life, like a relative. He constantly sustains you and this is a very difficult psychological feeling that suffocates you internally. This has been going on for ages.

This is exactly what we are trying to explain with our dissemination, both to the Israeli nation and to the nations of the world. First we have to show everyone that we all share this problem, that we need one another, and that we cannot carry out our mission by ourselves. We need to work mutually in the struggle against our general global ego.

First we have to explain the reason for all the problems to everyone: the political crisis in the Ukraine, the global economic crisis, the crisis in education, global climate changes, etc. Indeed, what is the connection between Israel and a typhoon or a tsunami somewhere?

But immediately after Japan was hit by a tsunami, the level of anti-Semitism rose there sharply. It may seem that there is no connection between the two. Is Israel responsible for the Pacific Ocean ceasing to be so peaceful all of the sudden?  But the Japanese internally feel that Israel is responsible.

They perceive this by their feelings and not by their intellect. A person doesn’t understand why, but he feels this internally and is strangled by this thought. He doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t have to know because love and hate need no justification.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/17, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A Step Upward Is A Step Toward Each Other

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe rules of the group, the rules of the workshop in a circle, and the rules the global world should behave according to today are the same rules. They are the rules of mutual integration, mutual cooperation, and connection to such a degree that we become like one person with one heart.

In the upcoming convention in America we must learn that the wisdom of Kabbalah and the wisdom of connection are the same thing. The wisdom of connection that we are now going out to the world is the first explanation. In the meantime there is no mention of the upper worlds and their structure in the terms of Kabbalah. This is because in the meantime, in any case, we haven’t discovered them.

But after this, we will truly begin to relate to one another with an intention of bestowal. The moment we do enough exercises and attract the Light that Reforms from Above, we will suddenly feel that we are relating to our friends with an intention of bestowal. And then within this relationship we discover the Light: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida of the world of Assiya.

And after that, the Light will become stronger and stronger, according to my attitude towards the friends. In the Kelim I correct, in accord with the intensity of the connection between me and others, I discover the Light of NRNHY.

And the levels of spiritual ascent about which the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks are the distances between us. They are determined according to the degree of our approaching each other, the connections of our hearts, our desires into one desire.

The higher that I ascend on this ladder from this world to Olam Ein Sof, so I approach the shattered souls more strongly, and become like one whole body together with them. And then all the Lights are gathered and concentrated into one beam, and all the Kelim (vessels) are connected into one Kli and we return to a state called Malchut de Ein Sof.

The main goal of the convention is that we speak about the wisdom of Kabbalah and the wisdom of connection as one wisdom, one method, without any division. There is no artificial division that exists between them. This is the same wisdom that explains how we—this humanity and this world that is scattered and pulverized into fragments—become one whole again.

And so our practical work today is to go out to the whole world with the wisdom of connection or with integral education. And after we begin to discover the connections between us, we discover that we have reached the wisdom of connection, which is essentially the wisdom of Kabbalah.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/16/14, “Preparation for the Convention in America”

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