Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

My Self Is Actually Not Mine

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: It says in the Torah: “I am thy Lord,” what does it actually mean?

Answer: It means that the Creator controls everything. If you consider any thoughts, or desires that you have or actions that you perform as your own, it is only because you are confused and have the illusion that it is you. Actually “you” don’t exist at all.

Question: So when do I become myself?

Answer: If I become equal to Him, then He and I “sound” in unison. My self actually doesn’t exist. My free will, my independence, is only to perform consciously and willingly what the Creator does with me.

I am merely a “zombie,” but I was given the chance to grow a “head,” a mechanism, an understanding, and a recognition so that I will understand where I am, who created me and who performs all these actions. I am given that so that I will agree or disagree with His actions, so that I will accept Him and feel Him as good, will identify with Him and will only want His full control. Then I will see that He withdraws and doesn’t want to control me because now I want to control myself exactly as He controlled me and no other way.

This means that I am in adhesion with Him. He makes room for me to the extent that I agree with Him. He created me, I am totally under His control, and He only wants to build this “head” from me, the understanding and the recognition, so that I will resemble Him, and be like Him.

With this goal I can join the game—I constantly agree or disagree with Him alternately, in order to understand Him through these changes and eventually to want only His control over me with my heart and soul.

In any case, we are never detached from the Creator—He is the first and He is the last, and there is none else besides Him. The only thing missing is our recognition of the force that controls us.

Question: But doesn’t a father want his son to be independent? Doesn’t he leave his hand leave him alone for a moment? Can’t we operate on our own even in bestowal?

Answer: If the Creator left us we would disappear from HaVaYaH, from existing. He creates the illusion of whether I agree or disagree with His actions in order to allow the growth of a “head” in addition to the “stomach.” First you worried about filling your desires, and now you are given doubts, and a space is opened from which He seems to be absent. Thus the Creator raises you in small portions of imaginary independence, while you may be satisfied or dissatisfied with His control.

And so, in contrast to religions, we arrive at a critical clarification and examination and eventually reach an agreement, and from that we reach adhesion when the Creator’s control over us is felt as undividedly good and absolute. This actually stems from the initial disagreement and my rejection of His actions. “As the benefit of the Light from the darkness”—I constantly try to clarify things, have doubts and resent the Creator, disagree with Him and curse Him, until I reach adhesion with Him.

This is why it says that “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.” A person who develops by the wisdom of Kabbalah seems like an actual “offender,” since he goes through such doubts and serious questions, but without this he cannot reach adhesion.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.29.12

Writings of Rabash “You Stand Today All of You” (To: “According to the above-said”)

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “Beresheet (Genesis),” “For He Did Shower Rain,” Item 422, Lesson 107

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 2, Item 1, Lesson 1

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Baal HaSulam “600,000 Souls,” Lesson 2

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Divided Unity

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “600,000 Souls”: In reality nothing exists in the world besides one single soul, which is divided by man’s egoism into 600,000 parts and a multitude of spiritual sparks.

A unified soul was created, and nothing else. Only it exists, and we are always inside of it. And if it seems to us that this is not so, that is because we are flawed. To me the general vessel divides into my “self” and “others” instead of appearing to me as an integral whole where there is only “we”. And all of my work amounts to correcting my own perception.

Until now I was in a world whose parts seemed disconnected and void of interconnection. That is how I am built on the inside. That is how it was always comfortable for me to see the outer world, and I was on good terms with it. However, today the world on the outside is taking on different forms: it turns out that the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature are tightly interconnected. True, this is not so important to me, yet ecology also matters since my ill-considered actions evoke unpleasant changes in natural phenomena.

But most important is that human society itself is becoming a single “mechanism” to me. Stated differently, the world today is being expressed as a single soul, a single vessel, while I do not wish to recognize that unity. I see that I involuntarily enter the world, that reality literally “pushes” me inside, although this is against my wishes. I want to remain an egoist, but the reality of the single soul is being revealed to me.

Thus, the picture of the broken world is only being depicted in the “curved mirror” of the flawed human consciousness. The faster we understand this and correct our perception, the faster we will achieve success.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/12, “600 souls”

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Growing Inward And Upward

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the elevator by which we rise to the center of the group?

Answer: I rise by absorbing the desires and aspirations of all the friends. I subdue myself and raise the others by seeing them as more important than me, and thanks to that, I receive power from them.

This power pushes me and enables me to adhere to the center of the group correctly. First, it helps me imagine this center, because I am always confused and keep losing this concept. I have to hold on to it like to a gun sight and constantly correct myself.

We started from this central point because we will deal with it all the time. We grow only on its basis, starting from this point and rising higher and higher. The growth doesn’t simply represent a physical height, but an increasingly growing concentration of the inner connection.

Therefore, in the future workshops, we have to clarify what a desire, a feeling, and an attainment are, how they are connected and to what extent, so that we can attain our root in them, the Creator.

This is practical work which we have to perform all our life and not only in the workshops. I am constantly in a workshop with myself: before the lesson, after the lesson, 24 hours a day, in order to connect “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.” I have to listen to the friends, not just when they say certain words, and hear what their hearts say. I receive all these impressions through the center of the group, through everyone.

The Creator treats us as a corrected system, but I can’t see it this way. Instead I judge it according to my deficiencies. If I correct my egoistic defect just a little, I will join the corrected concept of the group, as the Creator sees it. In order to do that there is no need to wait for the specific time of the workshop: Our whole life is a workshop called internal work, the work of the Creator!
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, ”Talk About the Workshop”

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What Is Born In The Center Of The Group?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What do we give birth to together in the common center of the group?

Answer: Every time in the center of the group, we give birth to the force of connection, unity, guarantee, bestowal, and love above our egoism, on its foundation, but rising above it. And so, we create the condition for the revelation of the upper Light, a place for the revelation of the Creator. It is called Shechina, because Shochen, the Creator, ascends the throne in it.

The center of the group, from the perspective of desires, is a sensation of the extent to which we want to connect all these desires together. Man sees that the whole world depends on him, and on the other hand, he sees the extent to which he depends on the whole world. It is a twofold feeling. One moment, I feel myself standing in front of a perfect system; the next moment, I see that the system is all broken because of lack of my participation in it.

We always reveal two polar opposite qualities. But by reconciling them by compensating with the upper Light, we reach the middle line. This middle line includes in itself a multitude of components; it is not necessarily a direct path but something in the middle between the right line and the left line. It is not simply their averaging-out but their compensation of each other to 100%. A 100% thief and a 100% altruist-philanthropist connect in the middle point and use both qualities in all their force, not by half.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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Spinning Around The Central Point All Week Long

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can I “clean” myself from all the worries in my private life and only focus on the internal work towards the center of the group?

Answer: This is a question of a person who separates his private life, meaning his job, home, and family, from the group, which means separating corporeality from spirituality.

On the whole, we are in our desire to receive in which we feel all of reality. This desire is divided into many kinds, into four phases, in which we feel all of reality divided into the levels of the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking. We live only in the desire, and we feel whatever is evoked in it; “it looks like this is my life and my world.” We can’t feel anything but this desire, nor think or understand anything else. Everything takes place in it.

If I understand that and stabilize myself this way, my whole life becomes one endless workshop and not just the hour a week when I come to a special discussion. In the workshop, I make an effort to attain a truer reality with the help of the right environment in which I will feel the source and the root of reality, the upper force, the Creator.

Here everything depends on how strongly I can connect with the right environment. In the workshop it’s easier to do that because I see all the friends in front of me. But I can also imagine myself in this situation all the time. If I perform this work all week long, I will eventually feel that there is still a difference when we gather in order to connect. I will see that the connection that I felt all week long, which was created in the workshop, is different in quality, in the level of unity.

Therefore, I should constantly see myself inside the desire to receive, which depicts reality in the form of this world for me, and through this reality, I should look for its source that is attained through the center of the group.|
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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Shavuot Is Full Of Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanRabash, Letter 52: And by the exodus from Egypt they received the level of faith…and after Passover, the purifying work begins in preparation for the receiving of the Torah. And when the Torah is dressed in a person’s soul, this is the time of Shavuot, the time of the giving of our Torah.

Until Passover, the period of “the enslavement in Egypt” continues, which means a person feels troubles and blows because of his ego so that he will want to detach himself from it and rise above it to the attribute of bestowal. A person makes new efforts each time through the group, wanting to rise above his ego and be included in the connection. This is the labor in Egypt that continues until its full measure, and then the Light gives a person the power of correction.

But it’s only the ascent above his ego, which the holiday of Passover symbolizes. Then we begin to count 49 days until the holiday of Shavuot, when we detach ourselves from our ego and rise to the level of Bina. The dairy foods we eat in Shavuot symbolize bestowal—a holiday full of Light.

Therefore, in Passover we leave the “left line,” and in Shavuot we receive the beginning of the “right line.” Then we receive the Torah, which means the “middle line.” Then we can connect our ego with the power of the Torah, with the Light we receive from Bina which reforms, and continue to build ourselves.

The holiday of Shavuot seems light and “airy”: We wear white clothes and eat dairy foods; all symbolize bestowal, Light, and the “right line.” A person hasn’t acquired vessels yet; he hasn’t discovered the ego. The first contact with the “right line,” with the Light, isn’t real until we fulfill it in the “middle line,” which we have to build by ourselves. A person takes from the “left line” the parts he can attach to the “right line,” and with the help of the Light, fulfills this connection by receiving a soul, a vessel that will enable him to bestow.

Every holiday we have symbolizes a certain level at which, after having fulfilled the previous stage of development in one line, we move on to the other line, in order to form the third line. Then we dress these three lines in our perception of reality according to the timeline.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, Writings of Rabash

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At The Epicenter Of World Correction

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the connection between the center of the group and dissemination for the entire world?

Answer: First of all, we need to strive toward the center of the group to realize the great rule of the Torah: Love thy neighbor. Otherwise, it will not be the center.

And through this central point, which determines the beginning and ends at the end of correction, through these definitions, I relate to all of reality and the entire world (the 99%). After all, I want to see all of humanity in this central point, and I surely will see it there!

To the extent that I correct myself in the center of the group, in relation to the rest of the world (toward the ninety-nine percent), with all of the positive and negative qualities that I discover in it, with all of the opinions and perceptions already formed inside of me, to that extent, I will see all of humanity in the center of the group, already corrected and ready for my realization. In this way, I will act from the internal part of the world outward.

By these means, I will establish spiritual dissemination. Then, I will see how effectively it helps the world, and how the world is moving forward and changing.

While the external form remains, in the same way, this world is obliged to exist until the very end of correction, until all of this imaginary reality disappears from our perception. That is why we need to apply effort in external dissemination as well.

However, then we will be able to define the right relationship toward the internal and external and distribute our strength. Our evaluations will change.

So, the center of the group is a point toward which we are aiming before everything else, as if we were setting out from all of the worlds of BYA into Malchut of the world of Atzilut, and then from Malchut of the world of Atzilut, wanting to join into ourselves all of the desires of all of reality and raise them ever higher; we discover ever higher qualities called Zeir Anpin, YESHSUT, Bina, and so on. With these new qualities and understanding, we correct and build the Shechina, the collection of all of the souls.

This is because, when addressing it with my uncorrected qualities, it is as if I am building it; I am joining it as a beneficial, active part. The Shechina is rejoicing in the fact that she no longer needs to separate her organ from herself, but can return it and connect it to herself.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 05.28.12

Preparation to the Lesson

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Shamati #8 “What Is the Difference Between A Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra“

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “Beresheet (Genesis),” Let Us Make Man,” Item 414

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 7, “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words“

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Baal HaSulam, “600,000 Souls“

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A Formula For Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalists wrote their books for two groups of people: For the group called “the level of the forefathers,” people like them who have attained spirituality and who will be enriched by these texts and connect so that they can perform corrections in the general system, thus preparing our ascent, and they also wrote for “the level of the sons,” which is us, in order to give us something to hold on to by which we can draw the Reforming Light.

We are in the same system, but we cannot evoke its influence upon us by ourselves. In the meantime it influences us by itself, and we advance by sufferings. But if we evoke the Lights, we hasten time and begin to advance more quickly by making the way easier.

How can we do that? According to the advice of Kabbalists, we perform different actions that are similar in quality to this advice. Their attribute is bestowal and so according to the level and the state we are in, we need to express our readiness to bestow. We give each other “presents,” we connect, we speak about it during the lessons, and we clarify the words of the Kabbalists. Then our inclinations, desires, and efforts become adapted to the system that they describe. We want to know what we study; we want it to be revealed in us, and then the Lights come to us; they are still unrevealed, but “surround,” and bring us closer to the revelation.

So all our work, all our life, and all our existence has to be aimed at evoking the Reforming Light. This is called “to study the Torah.” It says: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice for it, since the Light hidden in it returns a person to the Source.” We operate according to this formula. We must examine all its components to properly use them to reform every component and the formula as a whole.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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