Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Dissolving In The Cup Of Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanDuring the workshop, imagine you are in your soul and that the ten people sitting with you in a circle aren’t just people but a connection that creates the vessel of your soul. We discover such a connection among us as we receive material, a desire, the general collective vessel, in which the Light is revealed.

The desire and the Light together will give us the feeling of the spiritual level on which we will feel a special force that builds and sustains this level, which means the Creator, and which includes all the desires and the Lights. We have to imagine all this during the workshop.

A soul is our mutual bestowal. You are sitting in a circle of ten people and you have to imagine a network of mutual bestowal that connects you all. Each one feels that he annuls himself in it and that he is incorporated in the general desire. There is no I, you, or he that bestows upon others; everyone bestows upon everyone. To the extent that each one totally disappears and instead of ten people and the field among them, there is only the connecting field that remains and the people seem to disappear.

This field is called a spiritual “vessel,” our attitude, the desire to bestow upon one another. Accordingly the Light dresses in this desire of mutual bestowal.

This desire of mutual bestowal is called a “soul,” and the Light that fills it is called the “Light of the soul,” its life, its vitality, NRNHY. There is no other reality! It is into this reality that you enter more deeply each time and begin to feel that this is where all of humanity is, all the forces, and all the relationships. This is where you discover the Creator.

You become unlimited, because before that you annulled yourself and entered the field that connects you. By that you erase all the boundaries: It isn’t by absorbing an unlimited amount but by being incorporated unlimitedly in others, as if getting lost in them.

Thanks to that you begin to feel this whole vessel. This is called a desire to bestow that actually reshapes you and gives you a limitless form.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/12, Writings of Rabash

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.29.12

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt “Safra de Tzniyuta,” Lesson 8

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Writings of Rabash “Igrot,” Letter 21

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Volume 1, Part 3, Chapter 12, Item 6, Lesson 27

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Article “Exile and Redemption”

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The Features Of Future Employment

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”: The unemployed will receive their needs equally with the employed.

In principle, this is how it should be today. After all, those who live in cities, having lost a source of income, are unable to feed themselves. They do not have livestock and land, and they do not know how to cultivate the land. However, a person, in any case, should have something to eat: It is his natural urgent need.

Question: If we are talking about a single system of humanity, each must perform some task, like a cell in the body. Then, where will the unemployed come from?

Answer: So, we have to organize society in such a way that everyone has something to do. But in reality, we are speaking about spiritual “employment.” As for its material counterpart, it can be minimal.

In the past generations people lived very simply. For example, a seller at the market could sell one pot during the whole day and that was enough for him. There were no cars, automation, productivity was low, and yet people worked a few hours a day and did not need more. Today, there is no need for so many workers. Instead, people will study, and in everything else assist and support each other.

Our task is to fill people’s free time productively. Today, about 90% of working activities of various kinds are redundant. If you burst this bubble and reduce everything to the level of healthy, good, rational life, there won’t be work for everyone. After all, we will produce reliable products with much greater durability, instead of short-lived products that need to be repaired or replaced. It turns out that a maximum of 10% of the working population will need to work.

Today, the overproduction of extra things, which are imposed on consumers by advertising, is well established, so these things are dumped and make way for new ones. This applies to manufacturing industries and medicine, and everything else. Whatever a person does, he does it to his own detriment. The pharmaceutical industry produces extra drugs; the defense industry produces military weapons; in short, everything is reverse compared to how it should be.

So, in the end, half a billion people will work, or we will divide work among everyone so each can work, say, two hours a day. And the rest of the time will be dedicated to spiritual work: People will study and learn to help each other, etc. It is necessary to guarantee the same level of living to everyone regardless of whether a person works or not because the point is not whether he works, but whether you can provide him with work. If you are to blame someone, don’t blame him but yourself.

So, you have to create the same standard of living for everyone. You can add to it respect from others, competition in giving to the benefit of the community. One can and should compete for the contribution to the common cause, for meritorious service to society:

– Look, how happy people are at my concerts!

– Look, how perfectly I manage the company!

Moreover, it is not just a director but the owner of a company. We don’t need to expropriate anything as it was done in Soviet Russia. If a man owns a factory, he takes care of uninterrupted production and of decent working conditions for his employees, and at the same time, requires that they perform their duties diligently. He is proud of what he does and receives the same salary as his subordinates or the unemployed. The remaining part of the scale of pleasure is filled by respect from others and nothing more.

Indeed, does the director’s body need more than the bodies of others? No. He has a company car and a chauffeur, but this is for work. And in everything else, he is like the rest.

Thus, we use the potential of everyone to the greatest extent possible. In this case, at the “animal” level, everyone receives equally with everyone else, but earns honor and respect at the human level. All this will work only if people become involved in the system of integral education.

Thus, we will take the correct course and strive for the general correction because our goal is not an “animal” existence, but the peak of human development.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Last Generation”

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Change The Rules Of The Game

Dr. Michael LaitmanChange is possible only by the Light that Reforms. This Light comes by itself in order to advance us to attain the state in which we are. It constantly increases its illumination on us, or in other words, it constantly illuminates and the Reshimot (reminiscences) are revealed, change, and intensify, and thus we feel that we are changing.

When we want to do something, to reveal something, to develop technologies, and to advance, it is all according to the Reshimot. They oblige us and we act. Suddenly Newton discovers the law of gravity, suddenly Einstein develops the theory of relativity, then other scientists come along with new discoveries, and so the world advances. Different people come along, good and bad, and it seems as if they are advancing the world. And so under the influence of the Light, we live in the developing Reshimot.

But if we want to awaken this Light so that it wouldn’t illuminate in order to increase our egoistic desire but in order to change it, to correct it, and transform it into a desire to bestow, we have to do something on our own that is called “exertion.” This action is voluntary since we have to change our desire. We are making this change with the spiritual spark that is concealed in us, in our desire, and which helps us understand that things can be different, that we can play with our desire differently, and instead of using others, can act in their favor and attain love and bestowal for others.

The Light continues to illuminate our Reshimot, and we can only change its influence on us. If we somehow understand and approach this issue, then according to the extent that we fulfill the Reshimo that is evoked in us in order to use it in bestowal and not in receiving, the Light that illuminates for us brings about such a result, by performing the change in us.

So, everything depends on us, on how much we, no matter what state we are in, in the Reshimot that are revealed in us every moment, are wanting to fulfill the Reshimot instinctively in bestowal instead of in receiving.

If we really want to fulfill the Reshimot, our action is divided into two parts at least. First, we gather in order to work on the connection among us. The connection that we want to fulfill among us resembles the connection between the shattered souls in order to make the general soul from them since this is our goal. This is the aspect of the desires, the vessels. From the aspect of the Lights, we want the one Light to illuminate in us, to connect us, to reveal the Creator for us, meaning the general collective force of bestowal that is revealed among us.

This is why we read in Kabbalah books about the actions that are fulfilled within a group of people who try to connect. Of all the books, the most effective is The Book of Zohar since it describes these actions, this system, in the most perfect way.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/12, The Zohar

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How Difficult It Is To Begin To Speak Through The Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The last workshop was more difficult than the previous one since instead of a short question you read an entire paragraph from an article and then asked us to discuss it. But it wasn’t at all clear what exactly should be discussed.

Answer: I did that on purpose in order to force you to talk from the heart, from within feelings. If, during the reading, you follow me through your feelings, then you don’t need to remember the question and to think. You simply feel and say only a few words about it. That’s enough!

This is exactly what I wanted to achieve: to direct you to emotionally penetrate into the text so that together we would feel what is hidden there behind the words. If we try to follow the feelings that come after my words and not to look for the answer through the mind, then it works.

I don’t want you to discuss through the mind, but to begin to connect between you through the impressions you received from what you heard. In each paragraph there was some emotional development. And together you had to find your overall impression from it. Building a mutual Kli (desire, vessel), means to come to a shared impression.

A group, in general, is a shared impression in separate Kelim, desires, that connect in order to operate together. When they are ready for this one, shared impression, then this is revealed in them.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Affliction Is A Test For Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe love the Creator as the source from which we derive pleasure. Clearly, this is egoistic and conditional love. If the Creator sent us affliction instead, we would certainly reply to Him with hatred.


But when a person, called “a worker of the Creator,” doing spiritual work suffers, he associates the affliction with his egoism and tries to relate to the Creator with love. It means that he divides himself into two parts, the part that receives and the one that bestows. In the receiving part, he feels suffering, but he desires to transcend above it. And then, he relates to his sufferings as a “check” that his love does indeed cover all of transgressions and that he can rise above all the states that give him pain.

Then, he understands, sees, and knows for sure that his attitude to the Creator is independent of his ego. Otherwise, he has no means or criteria for testing.

Therefore, the relationship with the Creator is based on the fact that he annuls himself for the sake of bestowal, that he perceives his original egoism as worse than death. But only under this condition can he be sure that his love for the Creator is unconditional and perfect.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/12  

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The Light Of The Soul Breaking Through The Fence Of The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “600,000 Souls”: It is said that there are 600,000 souls, and each soul divides into several sparks. We must understand how it is possible for the spiritual to divide, since initially, only one soul was created, the soul of Adam ha Rishon. In my opinion, there is indeed only one soul in the world, as it is written (Genesis, 2:7), “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The same soul exists in all the children of Israel, complete in each and every one, as in Adam ha Rishon, since the spiritual is indivisible and cannot be cut—which is rather a trait of corporeal things. Yet, saying that there are 600,000 souls and sparks of souls appears as though it is divided by the force of the egoism of each person.

At the beginning we feel that we exist outside of the common soul because our ego fences us off it. Ultimately, everybody attains completely this one common soul, the spiritual vessel, the corrected desire of the creature who is in adhesion with the Creator in the world of Infinity.

The Creator created only this one soul of Adam ha Rishon. But because of the force of shattering, which has entered us, each of us senses only himself. However, by virtue of actions called “the Torah and commandments,” a person has an opportunity to attract upon himself the Light from the common soul, if he wants to draw closer to it.

The soul is a collection of all souls merged into a single whole. The more a person aspires towards it by the means of the group, the friends, and the study, the greater is the illumination that he invokes from there. This illumination helps him to remove the partition that fences him off this soul and to reveal it.

That is, everyone discovers that they are inside this soul. But all parts, into which, as it seems to us, we are now divided by imagining different people, they differ from one another and stem from different roots. Some relate to 600,000 souls, and others to the sparks. But this determines only the differences on the path: who comes first, who at the end, and who in the middle in the process of correction; who belongs to the degrees of HBT–HGT–NHY, “fathers,” “sons,” or the entire world. And ultimately, everybody discovers the common soul in its entire fullness, without any difference between us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/2012, “600,000 Souls”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 08.28.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Kabbalah for the Student “600,000 Souls,” Lesson 4

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt “Safra de Tzniyuta,” Lesson 7

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Article “Exile and Redemption” 

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You Will Not Learn Without Trying

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”: The adoption of laws altruism, based on love of neighbor, in a literal sense. Equal distribution of profits so that each works according to their abilities and receives according to their needs.

We must realize that Baal HaSulam does not take these principles from Marx. In general, he does not build his approach on the concepts of scientists, such as Marx, Einstein, and Freud. Just looking at the corrected, perfect form of the vessels, souls, he sees what stages we should pass in our world, advancing towards the goal to the end of correction and perfection.

We are not talking about bodies, not about the social formation, not about the relationship between people, nations, parties and political movements. No, we are talking about souls, how they will unite into one soul and come to the goal, to the end of correction in the world of Infinity.

How can we bring about spiritual correction with the help of consecutive material actions in our world? It is said: “From Your actions we will know You.” First, we perform an action and then understand it. So it is in real life. For example, at a new workplace, first I blindly carry out the instructions of the supervisor, learning my duties.

Similarly, a kid copies grownups and due to this instinct later begins to understand what is happening; why it is necessary to act in one way rather than otherwise. A child always begins studying by practice: He repeats a few times the example he saw and only after that we can explain to him the logic of the situation. And then, perhaps he will add something from his understanding and will perform the task even better than we do.

So, everything new begins with the imitation of the old. That is why when studying the works of Baal HaSulam, we must understand what he sees our situation through. His gaze penetrates all the worlds from extremely external forms appearing before us today to the picture he sees at the end of correction. He sees the overall process through which everyone must pass on the way to the goal. And the goal is that we reveal ourselves in the final form, without bodies, without this world, in the world of Infinity.

So, the point is not in Marx, not in someone’s famous quotes and socialistic views. Baal HaSulam simply uses Marx’s theory and other theories, definitions, symbols, and names to explain what states we have to go through and how we should act. He could find other words to describe all that we have to take on the way to the final correction. You should not consider him a socialist or ascribe any political sympathies to him. It is convenient for him to use the existing concepts to show us the right steps of correction.

So, he begins with the love for the other: Initially, we must educate ourselves in this way, knowing that we are talking about the correction of vessels-desires after the breaking. Unification is the only tool that allows us to return to the corrected state. So, at this level, in the context of our understanding, this unification is defined by the principle: “Love your neighbor as yourself” and even more.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Last Generation”

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Bestowal Upon A Friend

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is bestowal upon a friend?

Answer: Bestowal to a friend is to do what he wants. If we are friends and get together in a group in order to achieve the goal, I have to help him in everything possible so that he can achieve it.

He may lack some essential material things, and then I must first of all take care of this. But once he receives the basic necessities, I should help him reach the goal, to achieve it.

He needs me to give him strength, a push forward, inspiration, to go together with him. This is called to help a friend, as it is said: “Each one shall help his neighbor.” So, I tell him what a great goal is ahead of us, that we are together, and together we will reach the goal. I show him how I love him, believe in him, and need him on this path. I awaken him, and through him, I also obtain strength.

Otherwise, we will not reach the goal; one cannot do this. A minimum of ten people is needed.

This is called bestowal to the friends. What else can you give them? If a friend doesn’t have bread, then you will give him half of yours. But everything else, except the basic necessities that you can give, it is only strength along the path, inspiration, and the greatness of the goal. You need to be a real psychologist next to him; thus we work with each other.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/26/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot 

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