Entries in the 'Daily Kabbalah Lesson' Category

Get To Know Yourself, Get To Know The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Creator created a perfect state where we are perfect and exist in adhesion with Him. However, in order for us to feel this state, we must first develop a sensibility to it and learn to discern its components. This sensibility must come from within us; we must acquire a spiritual perception. It’s impossible to receive the sensation externally, even though the Creator is omnipotent.

The creature has to sense its own state in relation to the Creator’s. It has to delight in adhesion and the perfection between itself and the Creator and feel the similarity to Him because there is nothing more perfect. For this, the creature has to contain two states, two details of perception, or two qualities: what it is and what the Creator is. It must be able to distinguish the difference between these qualities in depth. Only then will the creature feel the value and the loftiness of adhesion with the Creator.

The created being must include two opposites within itself. Coming from a perfect state created by the Creator, we must first of all get to know our own nature, as if the Creator doesn’t exist. And then, step by step, we have to go through the stages of getting to know the Creator’s nature.

Then we will reach the goal: We will feel our nature and the Creator’s nature, and the separation and unity between them. Ultimately, this will give us strength and a sense of greatness of the perfect state in which we already exist.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

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48 Hours Until The End Of The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Let’s imagine that in 48 hours an asteroid will collide with our planet and completely destroy it. How can correction be accelerated in these remaining 48 hours before the destruction of the planet?

Answer: If people felt that there were 48 hours until the end of the world, they would be overcome with such a great desire for salvation that they would perhaps hear that everything depends on the desire! If for the sake of salvation we would aim our desires toward connection between all the people in the world and wish for the upper force to correct our connection, it would happen instantly. This is the law of nature: If the desire evokes the Light, the Light acts upon it and correction happens instantly.

When the Light acts upon a common desire to unite, then in this common desire we instantly begin to feel the upper world. And if we’re all connected in our perception of the upper world, we no longer sense our reality and our world. Let it blow up! However, there will be nothing to blow up since all explosions are forces that we weren’t able to correct.

First of all, if we unite, our world won’t blow up. There will be no force of destruction because by uniting we cancel out the evil force on all levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human.

Second, if this was the desire of all humanity, we would reach a state where our world would disappear from our senses and we would exist only in our perception of adhesion, without any material form that is now imagined in our desires. Our desire will draw forms of bestowal.

Question cont.: What if people say: “We have 48 hours, so let’s have fun!”

Answer: This is unrealistic because unless you can prevent or change something, the knowledge of the impending end will erase the remaining minutes and prevent you from really living. Imagine that you are heading toward an abyss, and the moment you’re about to fall, your car turns into an airplane. But if you don’t have this solution that allows you to rise to a higher level above the catastrophe, you are already dead.

Question: How can we start feeling the necessity for uniting?

Answer: We’ll have to unite on our own; otherwise, nature will force us to do so.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/2011, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 02.27.11

Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Is Peace in the Work”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Fourteenth Commandment” Item 250
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 92, Lesson 53
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Lesson 9
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Through The Prism Of Two Desires

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe must change in order to attain the Creator since we attain Him in new vessels of perception, in new desires. Obviously, the desires themselves are not new, but they connect within us in a new way.

We have the desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow. In order to reveal the Creator, we must create such a connection between these desires within ourselves that would enable us to recognize Him. The Creator has 125 consecutive forms of revelation, when He reveals Himself to us closer and closer, sharper and sharper. It is 125 degrees, along which we ascend and become able to see and feel Him more and more.

How do we find the Creator? As soon as we create a connection between our desire to receive pleasure and the desire to bestow, where the will to bestow would rule over the will to receive at the first spiritual degree by giving it a form similar to the Creator, we instantly see the Creator through these desires and their unity.

In other words, I must create within me a common property between the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow so that it becomes identical, equal, and adequate to the Creator at the first, the smallest degree of His revelation. In that case, I will see, understand, and feel Him.

In our world, there are various phenomena as well. To understand them, I have to become more intelligent, acquire additional sense, and study some more. Then, I will start sensing what is going on, in what way, and what these phenomena are.

The same happens in the wisdom of Kabbalah. In order to arouse a merger, a mutual permeation of the desire to receive and the desire to bestow in each of us at the first spiritual degree and further on, at all 125 degrees, I need the Light which would make this change in me. I, myself, am unable to perform it since while I am at the lowest degree; I do not have the slightest idea of what I must become at the next one, like a baby that doesn’t know how it will look when it is one year old.

This is why we are given the studies. We must sit and learn from the authentic sources, and the most powerful source from which to draw the Light is The Book of Zohar. When we study this book together, it is regarded as “faith above reason” if while doing so, everyone thinks about how he will unify with the others. This is because in the connection between us, we create the Creator’s form, the correct pairing between the will to receive and the will to bestow so that the desire to bestow rules over the desire to receive, thereby giving it the right form.

If I wish for it to occur during the studies, it is sufficient. There isn’t a greater commandment, and there is nothing more vital. In that case, I draw the Light so that it would align these desires for me.

It is the Light that performs it. I don’t need to know anything else. So does a small child wish to grow, and that’s why he runs, plays, and does whatever he may. So do I, like a child, do whatever it takes only to get the Light to come, reform me, and bring me back to the source, to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Everyone Is Equal In Spirituality

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a little person bring many people to the unification on which his correction depends? Does he really have the necessary instruments to accomplish that?

Answer: There are no little or big people. We reside in the world of Infinity, a complete, integral system. However, if there is some flaw in what is whole, it is not complete any longer, and its wholeness is broken. Therefore, everyone is as important as all the others.

Imagine that this system has an input and an output, but the path through it leads through all its elements without exception, which are linked into one chain. In this case, does it matter how many internal elements are flawed and are tearing the chain apart, a thousand or just one?

Obviously, the fewer flawed elements that remain, the easier it is to fix them, and from this point of view, one flawed link is preferable to a thousand. However, if we examine the output of a flawed, fragmentary system, we see that one flawed element is sufficient to break the system.

Therefore, every one of us is important, and there are no little or big men. All of us are needed, and we must think about all. From the Creator’s point of view, there is no difference between people, between the souls, whatsoever.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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Fear Playing Lottery

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the path of the Light and the path of suffering? What is this suffering for? Is it our egoism?

Answer: Undoubtedly, we experience suffering in our will to receive pleasure. However, pain can be felt even in the will to bestow. It all depends on how you define suffering.

Imagine, if you will, that I found Kabbalah, entered the group, and studied for a long time. But in the end, I suddenly won a multi-million dollar lottery! Now, my life has changed. Is it, in your opinion, the path of the Light or the path of suffering?

I can call it a path of suffering because now this money confuses me, and I don’t know what to do with it. I was thinking only about Kabbalah, but at this point, I have to think about the money since it is such an enormous sum. In what do I invest it so that it doesn’t devalue? How do I use it correctly?

As it turns out, this is the path of suffering since instead of advancing in a smooth, simple, and straight way, I am swayed off the path to go around, make a long loop. Whether I like it or not, I have to become involved in material matters, giving it my time and loading my mind with these thoughts. I cannot break away from it, and it is a huge problem which is a true pain where the desire to bestow and the spiritual goal are concerned.

As to the will to receive pleasure, you ought to say that it is the path of the Light and that you have received a reward for your righteous work. You think that it is a blessing sent to you from Above. Therefore, everything depends on which scale you use to measure it, from what have you chosen to receive pleasure.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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Turning Many Into One

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is a law: “In spiritual life, ‘take after the individual,’ and in corporeal life, ‘take after the collective.’” However, it doesn’t mean that I need to run to a town square where thousands of people are gathered, ask them what they want, and start sharing their desires. “To take after the collective” means to care about the unification of many people because only through this unification will I transform my Kli (vessel), my desires.

I run after them in order to add them to myself and link to their internal desires. I don’t look at their material, animate needs, but rather I strive to uncover their internal desires that tie them into one network.

If I desire to become engaged in this upper spiritual network that connects all into one, it is regarded as “taking after the collective,” where my desire is to bring the collective to oneness and participate therein. As a result, the many become as one for me.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/2011, “The Freedom”

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There’s No Need To Go Off To A Monastery

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible not to worry about our material lives, including work and family? What should we do if the bare necessities force us to pay more attention to this than the group? How can we focus all our attention only on the point of free choice?

Answer: We live in this world where a person has to get married, work, and be a full fledged citizen. We perceive the external conditions as lawful because this world was not created precisely in this way by accident, being detached from the process we have to go through. Everything descended from the spiritual world and surrounds us out of necessity.

All of the twists and turns that humanity undergoes as a whole and each person individually have to take place precisely in this way, no matter the form in which they are expressed. There are no accidents. That is why a person has to live a normal life and take care of all the necessities as is commonly accepted in his society.

What does “commonly accepted” mean? A person has to take care of the things that are vitally necessary and ensure a normal existence for himself. He has to have a family, a home, children, a pension fund, go on vacation, and so on. The morning hours have been allotted to us for studying Kabbalah, although we “steal” them from rest or sleep. In addition, we have to devote an hour or hour and a half to Kabbalah before going to sleep, provided that a person has the opportunity to do so.

That is how our world is built. By nature a man spends less time taking care of the household than a woman and that is why he has to make up for it by studying Kabbalah. That is what the Kabbalists of the past did as well. Rabash worked as a simple blue-collar worker, laying roads or doing construction work, yet he would get up two or three hours before everyone to study. In the evening after work, when everyone rested, he also sat and studied.

Therefore, we shouldn’t leave behind all of our material worries. It’s just that we have to give the appropriate meaning to everything. Some people scorn this life and want to fly up high above it like little angels, thinking, “The only thing I care about now is my soul.” Well, that is an incorrect approach because the “soul” is your desire for pleasure which has been corrected by the intention to bestow to your neighbor. But until then, you do not have a soul. This has to be clearly understood.

First discern your corrupted egoistic desire and try to correct at least a part of it. Then you will acquire a soul. This can only be done with the help of the environment as well as normal, commonly accepted participation in all the worries of regular life.

The science of Kabbalah talks about the correction of the world, the correction of all people because it has a very realistic attitude to every person and his life, and to human society as a whole—in a word, to everything. Kabbalah sees this world as a result of the spiritual world. It is precisely in the conditions we find here that we have to undergo the correction.

We do not shut ourselves off from life in the slightest, the way it is done in some other methods. Leaving the world, going off to a monastery, a cell, or sitting in a lotus position in a faraway mountain—none of this is in accord with our method because a person has to be involved in regular human life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/11, Writings of Rabash

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From Words To Real Feelings

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe study of Kabbalah holds a special quality. The Light, meaning the force of correction contained in Kabbalistic books, brings a person back to the source.

The Light is the inner essence of the method, and that is why the science of Kabbalah is called the inner part of the Torah. When we study it, we awaken the inner Light concealed in the study, in the group, and in our interconnection. This force really builds the connection between us, bringing desirable changes to every person. As a result, the intention of bestowal comes to replace the egoistic intention above all of one’s desires.

Together with the group, a person constantly thinks about the state he is in during the preparation to the study, and during the study itself he demands changes by means of the Light that Reforms. This is all he needs. Only this kind of preparation touches on his free choice, the only free action in his life in this world and on the entire ladder of the spiritual degrees.

Therefore, it is best to focus on this as much as possible, talk about this with yourself as much as possible, and thus discern all of the details so they become clearer and more heartfelt. That is how they will finally enable us to detach from words and shift to feelings and inner understanding. Then all of this will live inside of us as an extremely important foundation of being, the only thing we should care for. Everything else will come along of its own accord.

Then I will see that my entire life and the entire life of the world revolve around this axis in order to bring everyone to this decisive moment—each person in conformity with the root of his soul, more or less powerfully. The Creator’s goal is to bring every person to this point.

No matter what I received at birth or what I have attained thus far, this was given to me from Above. However, now, being in the group, I have to elevate the importance of the goal—bestowal and unity with the Creator. This is done by means of studying in the right environment where I demand the Light, the “miraculous quality.” If a person does not stop thinking about this, then he realizes his life as efficiently as possible.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/11, Writings of Rabash

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