Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Approaching Perfection For The First Time

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We can compare the group to a car that functions only when all its parts are in order. If one of them breaks down, the car will stop. On one hand, this is very exciting, but on the other, it is a bit scary. Could it be that if one person loses the right intention during the convention, nothing will work?

Answer: No. There are 125 degrees that separate us from perfection. The ideal system is still far from us, so in the meantime we are required to do the most corrupt spiritual work on the first degree below. Here you needn’t worry about everyone’s utmost perfection. It is enough if we just try a little—and we will get our first toy car. Even if it isn’t a Porsche, but some piece of junk without an engine, still it’s a car.

On the first level, only the initial, “weightless” perfection is required of us, the weakest connection that still has many deficiencies. If in general, we come to the convention with the right desire, it will be enough to attain a 1/125th degree of perfection. It’s in our power to do it.
 


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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/6/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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The Spanish Dilemma

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion (from the Spanish group): We can do some dissemination work today. Half of the people in the group believe that we should do it, and the other half thinks that we need to participate in the Gathering of Friends. What should we do?

Answer: Dissemination is more important. It will increase your desire to connect. Whatever you say, it’s better to be involved with the general public.

We can see that on ourselves: Had we sat in friends’ gatherings and meetings without going out to the streets during the last three moths, we wouldn’t have attained what we have today. It has rebuilt us, it has changed us. Dissemination is at the basis of change. Thanks to dissemination, we have a greater need to unite, to come together, to understand the material better, to simplify it, and so on.

Dissemination builds us, and I am very glad that the groups are starting to understand this. Baal HaSulam wrote about this, and we shouldn’t try to outsmart him, thinking that we can manage on our own without the groups in which we work and without the world to which we bring the message of connection. Despite the childish arrogance, we should be a bit more critical of ourselves, which will help us take part in dissemination.

Read what Baal HaSulam wrote and put his words into practice.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/6/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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The Importance Of Volunteering At The Convention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Tremendous efforts are required in planning and running the December convention. What is the right attitude toward volunteering at the convention?

Answer: It is hard to express the importance of everyone putting forth maximum effort, professionalism, and desire. It will be a great loss for those who miss this opportunity.

We are talking about a major event at the beginning of a special, fateful year, a truly momentous transformation of all humanity that must move to a new path. It will take place either by great suffering or by the Light that we awaken from within by our exertion and efforts to achieve unity. It is by our desire and efforts that we evoke the Light that will reform us.

It is important to understand that we don’t draw the Light directly; rather, we strive for unity, over and over again, although we may be exhausted: These efforts in particular bring us the Light. Even when we feel rejection, frustration, and reluctance, we still make efforts resisting our own resistance, and then we will evoke a most powerful Light. I hope we will reveal great, burning hatred between us and at the same time, with the same intensity, yearn for love. It will be very good if these two poles manifest in us. Let’s hope this happens at least to some extent.

So, it isn’t the time for personal calculations of one’s efforts now. No efforts are necessary here, but true self-sacrifice. Everyone must take part in the work as much as possible.

Unfortunately, it is very hard to give each one a job. We cannot supply work for all the volunteers, but at home you can prepare and shoot video clips, prepare a variety of materials for dissemination to attract new people, and so on. Look for something of your own if you see that all the jobs are taken here.

Question: What duty should I take in order to utilize it in the best possible way?

Answer: Choose something that is the most suitable for you. Each one should check himself and find a job according to one’s abilities. If you know something about electricity, ask the electricians. If you know how to cook, go to the kitchen.

Question: Perhaps garbage collection would be more beneficial?

Answer: Not necessarily. Everyone should do his best. If you are a specialist, you should volunteer where you can be the most helpful.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/2011, “The Peace”

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Yearning To Meet The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is written that we need to yearn to know what we are studying. To know is to connect, as it is written: “And Adam knew his wife Eve.” We want to discover, to establish connection with the forces and states that The Zohar talks about. We want to be in them.

We don’t know what they are in and of themselves, but we want to discover ourselves within them since they are the advanced states of our connection, of the formation of the general Kli (vessel or desire).

And then, out of the desire to connect to these forces and states, according to the measure of the collective aspiration, we discover the Light that Reforms. It comes closer to us to the extent that we yearn for it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/2011, The Zohar

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When The Snakes Surrender

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts),” Item 528: When a person passes away from this world, this animal comes out on four flying seraphim. They fly in front of him and it does not let all those evokers of judgment and sentence approach him. There are several messengers of peace around him, which are the seraphim. When they travel and are seen, those serpents and seraphim that come out of the serpent, who caused death to the entire world, surrender.

The snake, the beasts, and the angels, all of these are inner forces of the level lower than that of man. We are speaking here of the form in which these forces and inclinations come forth from each one of us, how with their help we connect between us, between all the souls, and gradually create a network between us, which becomes more and more corrected and thus comes closer and closer to the real Malchut of Infinity that always serves us as a criterion. Thus in all of these actions, we need to see the forces of connection between us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/2011, The Zohar

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Thousands Of Names For Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Zohar, Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts),” Item 525: These are the seraphim with six wings, which sanctify their Master three times a day. They are meticulous with the righteous as a hair’s breadth, and are poised to punish—in this world and in the next world—those who slight the man from whom they learned even a single matter in the Torah and are not respectful of him…

When we begin to ascend from this world to the levels of spiritual connection, our relationships receive these holy names either from the side of goodness or the side of evil. Either I love or I hate, and there are thousands of names that stem from my love or hatred: angels, seraphim, demons, and spirits, which came from the left or the right side, either out of hatred or love, and the connections between them.

All in all, two forces are being spoken about. After all, there is nothing except the force of reception and the force of bestowal. It is only that in our world we somehow find simple names for them, using the spoken language. But in spirituality they have exact names, according to the actions they perform, the forces and the coarseness (Aviut) of desire, which they activate, and according to the results they bring.

But all in all, the two forms of our relations are spoken about here: attraction and rejection, connection and separation. And between them there is our free choice, our exertion and efforts in using these two forces in order to continually strengthen our spiritual Kli (vessel), until all the forces of the shattering reveal the connection between us, which is 620 times greater than it was before the shattering.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/2011, The Zohar

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 11.09.11

Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “The Need and Importance for the Study of Faith”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts),” “The Palace of Desire, Tifferet,” Item 745, Lesson 28
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 8, Item 29, Lesson 13
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Lesson 5
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Saying Goodbye To Childhood

Dr. Michael LaitmanEvery person reaches a critical point once in a lifetime where he has to leave his parents’ home and start his own life. This is a very sharp and unpleasant transition. There are people who never get used to life’s new demands.

Today, this same transition is global. Until now, nature led humanity forward, enabling it to succumb to childish, egoistic games. We developed in our egoism and didn’t fight ourselves, but now our childhood is over and our adulthood begins.

In the same way that a person reaches adulthood, humanity has ended decades of youth. Our egoism has grown, and now we have to manage in the world on our own.

However, the world isn’t what it used to be. We are in a new global and integral world that is mutually connected, and in which we have to find our place and become a part of. We are not children any more. We have grown.

Of course, humanity doesn’t want that and doesn’t understand it. Just like a person who reaches adulthood and is suddenly faced with endless problems, he must rent an apartment, go to work, take on different responsibilities, and provide for himself everything that others have provided up until then.

Of course, he doesn’t want that. It is much easier and more convenient with mom. It takes time to get used to the grown-up’s world and to find the nice things in it. Humanity isn’t ready yet. It still prefers to dance to the tune of its egoism as before.

We are already in the new world, and we have to adapt to it. It demands our full cooperation and concern for everyone, yet people still want to go on playing like kids. They haven’t experienced enough pain to enter the new reality.

They should be told that the new world demands our full cooperation, that our work is to connect, and that we will solve all our problems only if we create the right mutual connection among us. The entire world is like one person now. Look at it as if looking in a mirror.

If you don’t feel that you are unemployed in certain areas, that natural disasters shock you in other areas, and that still other areas suffer from diseases, look at the general shape of this world. You will see that we have a systematic problem and we all have to be connected to one another, to work together in harmony for one cause, which is general balance.

Imagine that you had some medical tests yesterday and the doctor gives you the results today. It turns out that your body’s organs are not operating in harmony, but rather like children. One does too much, one does too little, and one doesn’t do anything at all.

After all, balance is the right connection among all the body parts and is the basis for feeling good health. So, now you can come to the right conclusion.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/11, “The Peace”

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Thinking Of A Newly Born World

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn order to get a slight idea of the difference between corporeality and spirituality, imagine that the world is a shop you have entered to buy something for yourself. And next to you there is a shop for newborns where you enter to buy something for your baby.

It’s clear that you will feel completely different in that store and will have a completely different attitude to the purchases. You will do it with a thought of bestowal. You will think only about making the other (the baby) feel good because by nature you love him more than yourself. You will always choose what this other one needs with this intention, whether it’s diapers or baby formula. Everything will be aimed only at the baby and how to give him the best possible thing.

Maybe you are able to think that way about someone other than your baby, such as your friends, the entire society, or even all of humanity, or perhaps even about the Creator. This depends on the height of your attitude to others.

This is the difference of working for your own sake and working for others. It’s just difficult for us to understand what the force of faith means, which lets us feel the importance and necessity of thinking not about ourselves, but about others, something we did not do before. In our world there are examples of that, but they are egoistic and we care about the neighbor only when we feel that we need him.

So how can we do the same thing, but against our egoism, above it, and build our attitude to the neighbor upon constant nullification of ourselves? We can understand this when it comes to the people close to us. If we love them, then we even experience pleasure by limiting ourselves for their sake. That is how we measure the force of our love and bestowal: by how much we give to them and take care of them.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/08/11, Writings of Rabash

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The Keys To Life That We Pass On To Our Children

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt is an adult’s obligation to teach a child and to give him all of the necessary preparation for adult life during childhood. And the same thing happens in the spiritual world: The upper level gives the lower level all of the “keys,” all of the means for continuing to build itself.

The lower level just has to figure all of this out and make a free choice to keep going. There is nothing else to do but this. All the forces are already at our disposal.

Therefore, the small state (Katnut) is considered fundamental, while the great state (Gadlut) is an addition that sometimes appears and sometimes disappears, depending on the efforts of the lower one. But he always keeps the small state, which serves as a good, healthy foundation for creating the next great state, which is new every time.

Therefore, the small degree, called Hafetz Hesed (one who desires mercy), fear of the Creator, the level of Bina, “artistry,” or faith, is what has to be transmitted to the next state, from the fathers to the sons, from the upper level of the spiritual ladder to the lower level.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/08/11, Writings of Rabash

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