Question: There is some similarity between Moses and the current state of the people of Israel today. Moses does not feel confident about the people of Israel or the Pharaoh although he is in contact with the Creator. The current state of the Israeli nation is also quite insecure.

Answer: It doesn’t matter. If there is a specific direction, if we understand that we have no choice, then despite the conditions that force us to escape from Egypt and to jump into the Red Sea, we do what we have to do.

Question: But you say that the modern Israeli nation doesn’t feel that it is in Egypt. Perhaps a certain force should appear or someone who can explain and start this process?

Answer: This is exactly what we are trying to do. Our group, our organization, wants to show the whole nation of Israel that there is a way to be saved. Let’s change our lives! After all, things are constantly getting worse; the world is becoming more and more hostile, and the Israeli society is disintegrated and divided. Our security is in an increasingly growing danger.

The blows that we feel do not come upon the “nation of Israel,” but upon “Egypt,” upon our ego, since we do not want to exit it. Israel in us, the desire to bestow that wants to come out of exile and to ascend, does not feel the blows. When we are in the ego, it feels the pain, but the moment we leave it, we become disconnected from the “plagues.”

Question: What should we do in order to stop falling into the ego?

Answer: The only thing we should do is to unite. We have the method of connecting for the whole people of Israel, and it is the means to be free of all our troubles.
[R103732]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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Question: When we are talking about the holiday of Passover, why do we say: “Remember the exodus from Egypt?” After all, there were other exiles, from Babylon, Greece, and Rome, but we are reminded only about the exodus from Egypt. Why is this?

Answer: The Egyptian exile is the root of all the exiles. All the other exiles are as if superimposed on it. This exile is the most difficult and fundamental. A person rises above his egoism and, for the first time, realizes what the spiritual world is and what it means to feel the property of bestowal instead of the property of receiving that we are born and exist in.

We perceive the world through the senses that constantly want to enjoy and benefit from everything. The revolution in the sensory organs—when I begin to “exit myself,” to identify myself with the world, to give to others, to feel myself outside of my body so that my heart stays there—is called the exodus from Egypt. All the other exiles already happen outside of me.
[R103664]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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Question: The people of Israel were afraid to leap into the Red Sea (Yam Suf – Final Sea) until Nachshon decided to do this. It seems that it was not easy to do.

Answer: Indeed it is not easy. We see that difficulties arose in all stages of the spiritual process. There are always those who were ready to turn back. Our ego is so multi-layered that it does not immediately give us the opportunity to escape from it or at least to define it as bad.

It is difficult for a person to nullify himself before others. If I do not act first, it means I would prefer someone else to. Is this a desire for love and unity? At the moment, this has not been clarified yet. And we see that after that the “golden calf” and many other problems were to appear.

Question: What does “Nachshon’s leap” symbolize?

Answer: There is a quality in a person that can go above reason: “Better death than such a life.” So the person leaps into the sea, come what may. Of course this is not our present state. The act called “Nachshon’s leap” requires preparation.

It is required to pass to the next stage, but are we prepared to carry it out? In the meantime, we are far from realizing it, even though this moment is quickly approaching. There is no doubt that we are in the stages of redemption. Peace and perfection are achieved in the connection of hearts. This is our salvation; this must replace the current state of Egypt. Therefore all of our work, study, and dissemination are aimed at connection and unity. Only with the help of connection and a good mutual relationship can we be saved.
[R103820]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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There isn’t a more important state than our current state, since this is where our spiritual evolution begins. It is in our situation, in our condition, that the exit to the first spiritual level is possible. It cannot be any other way. Everyone starts off this way. We are given a special opportunity and we have to use all the means that we are given in order to bring ourselves to the feeling of exile, to feeling that we are in chains and in the worst possible state under the domination of Pharaoh.

Pharaoh controls even our smallest thought, our smallest desire, wherever we turn and whatever we do. Every impulse and every move we make stem from him; every thought and every stream of consciousness, every desire and all the desires that stem from it, are all determined by the ego. No matter which way we go and how far we try to move away from evil, we remain in the ego.

A person determines that he cannot leave exile, although he really wants to exit it and makes many attempts, many great efforts, and exerts himself, but it leads to nothing. When he cries out desperately with the last powers he has left for only this last cry, a miracle takes place and he comes out of Egypt.

Now he begins to understand and to feel what it means to be under the influence of the light. He comes out of his enslavement to his desire and voluntarily becomes enslaved to the light, by choosing to be under the domination of the attribute of bestowal, above reason.

He knows that he is becoming a slave, that he is enslaving himself, and that he isn’t free anymore, but he is free of the desire to receive and from his beloved self, about whom he constantly worries. He is under another kind of domination and actually wants to be under this domination.

There is no neutral state on the way between egoistic Egypt and complete bestowal. A person immediately moves from one kind of domination to another, but he wants it and yearns for it even when he is still in Egypt. Besides the repulsion, the hatred, and the rejection he feels towards the state in Egypt, he also yearns for the total domination of the light so that it will totally rule him, guide him, and manage him.

This is how we should prepare ourselves internally. Let’s hope that we are somehow ready for that and as for all the rest—the Lord will complete the work for us.
[R132569]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/13/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we acquire the force called Moses? After all, you say that it doesn’t exist in nature.

Answer: Moses (from the Hebrew word “Moshech” –  to pull) is the attribute that awakens in us and raises us from the bottom of Mount Sinai to its summit, to the peak of the general hatred. When a person climbs above it, he attains the Creator who is at the peak.

It is impossible to bypass this mountain; we must climb it. This is the way for the entire world. Today, all of humanity is at the foot of Mt. Sinai, surrounded by the enormous hate that separates us. But at the same time, the method called the Torah is revealed. The Torah is the light that reforms at the summit of the mountain.

We don’t have to make any special efforts, and there is nothing to fear. When we acquire the enormous hatred, we are at the bottom of the mountain where we receive the method by which we gradually can ascend by mutually complementing and helping one another.

Then Mount Sinai becomes the temple mount, at the top of which there is the temple, the place where the Creator is revealed.

This is basically the essence of Pesach (Passover). This is the reason that the calendar of the nation, of the new humanity, begins on this holiday.

Before the receiving of the Torah, mankind developed like animals, but from that moment onward, there was a connection with the Creator, with the force that can raise us continuously above the ego and help us climb the mountain of hatred by getting closer to one another.

At the same time, we attain the Creator to a greater degree, because two forces already appear in us, the egoistic force and the altruistic force. When we build ourselves from these two forces a state called the attainment of the Creator or the soul appears between them.

The two forces descend from above, and we make efforts not to mutually annul them but to connect them by placing our resistance between them, trying to recreate the harmony between them by connecting and adding all the disconnected parts. Then this harmony creates our soul, our upper existence.

This is the reason that we consider Pesach to be the major and most important holiday, because symbolizes the beginning of the creation of man, Adam, (from the Hebrew “Domeh” – to resemble the Creator).

There are, of course, many subtleties, laws, and different nuances that only speak of how to properly cover the ego with the attribute of love, and that’s all. Everything comes down only to this!

We can study this holiday down to the smallest detail, about why eating certain things is allowed and why eating other things is forbidden, about why Pesach is seven days, why we drink four glasses of wine, and why there are other customs that are described in the Haggadah.

However, these are merely actions that we must perform on every level to create the right connection between plus and minus, which are the attributes of receiving and bestowal, hate and love. We cover the hate with love, and together they will give us the sense of attainment, adhesion to the Creator.

Thus, we don’t simply come out of a small ego to love, but from our world to a perfect eternal world. This is the reason that Passover is indeed a special holiday.
[R156970]
From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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Question: The night of the Passover Seder is a special night for the people of Israel. It is thought that on this night this people was born and began its new way. So really, in what way is this night of the exodus from Egypt so unique?

Answer: A person begins to feel that he is in the Egyptian exile, in slavery to his ego, which is called Pharaoh, and that it is necessary to depart from under its dominance, to flee; yet he cannot do this. He begins to scream internally, he is no longer prepared to endure a life like this. He invests effort in regard to the group, the environment, the teacher, and the books. He really feels that he is in prison, in darkness.

Gradually he sinks into a state that is called the “darkness of Egypt,” the night of the exodus from Egypt. This night is absolute darkness; no hope is left for him, no chance in life. He doesn’t feel that he is prepared to continue to live within his ego, since he hates everyone, and he is unable to relate well to anyone.

He strives to love the friends, to love the other as himself, but he sees the opposite, he becomes worse and worse. The Pharaoh in him, his ego, becomes stronger and more brutal. So in the end the person is broken, for he sees that he has no chance of leaving this servitude.

He passes through very difficult inner states, which ultimately are amassed together: all of his attempts to flee from his ego, to rise above it, all the victories of the ego that show a person how strongly this Pharaoh is holding him from within. He really finds himself in the middle of the struggle of two forces: On the one hand the person pushes since he yearns to go free, and on the other hand the ego hangs on to his legs not letting him flee.

Ultimately, these two forces reach the peak of the struggle between them, and the person finds himself between them, feels absolute darkness. This state is called the night of exodus, the darkness of Egypt. And so suddenly he hears a call from within this darkness: “You must leave! You are ready to do this! You can get up and flee from your ego, here and now, at midnight, that is, from the darkest state. Don’t take anything with you to the new state, except those things that you really need for bestowal, the attainment of unity, the connection, the love”.

In this case the person is ready to leave and flee from his ego; he wants to rise above it. This is called his spiritual birth.
[R103509]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder,” 3/4/13

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Rabash, Shlavey HaSulam, “What Is If They Swallowed the Bitter Herbs and It Didn’t Come Out, in the Work”:

So a person who begins to follow this path and who wants his actions to be for the sake of Heaven, discovers the truth that the more he performs actions with the intention of in order to bestow, and also that he is distant from it, which means that there is a special merit in this work, that the truth is being revealed to him from Above, and that a person is far from any actions of bestowal.

Our advancement is based only on the different revelations that are unpleasant for our ego, for our desire to receive. Every time it turns out that if we are immersed in our ego, we cannot advance spiritually.

I am immersed in my ego, and the Light comes from Above and emphasizes the level of ego I am on. As a result I feel a big minus (-) that reflects the depth (H) of my desire. To the extent that I feel bad, I have to discern what I have to do in that very bad feeling. I can be grateful for the evil since by that I discover to what extent I am opposite from spirituality and bestowal. The evil is revealed in my ego, in my desire to receive in order to receive, and if this desire disappears, I will not even know that I am immersed in evil. The depth of the bad feeling is the index of truth for me; it is the right sign.

So from this state I ask for adhesion; I want to be above this, above the border of Egypt, above my ego, above the Machsom (barrier). Here I begin to build the Returning Light (RL) and implement the first restriction on the whole lower part (Tzimtzum Aleph – TA).

This is how the spiritual Partzuf is built of two parts; “a head’ and “a body.” Because I have implemented the first restriction, I already have a “body.” Later I may be able to raise part of it and to connect it to the “head” and this will already be a real Partzuf above the Machsom.

Thus, through the stages of Ibur (gestation), Yenika (suckling), and Mochin (mind), I transfer all the “shattered vessels” from the bottom upward.

We already begin to feel that this is practical work that can be performed. But we shouldn’t forget that it is done by the Light that Reforms (the Surrounding Light – Ohr Makif – OM), and that we can summon it only by the connection between us.

Actually, everything that we have learned and read about can be put together into one simple feasible picture of Ten Sefirot, and we can see that the whole world, all our states, are only meant to provide the right spiritual pattern for that at any given moment.

Let’s hope that the state we are creating will remain in each one as a clear pattern. The perception of the world, my attitude to everyone, my feelings, everything that I want to understand and to feel has to go through this pattern. Then we will be able to solve all the problems that come from the Creator, from the Light, correctly by responding correctly and supporting Him, and allowing Him to reveal the right actions.

Question: How can we actually thank the Creator for all the bad states?

Answer: It is true that lying won’t help us here; you cannot cry and honestly kiss the stick that beats you. But if you feel that the stick is beating your evil inclination, if you don’t want to identify with it but with the good inclination, then you already see the differences in a certain inclination to the Creator.

It is only thanks to the Surrounding Light that we feel that we are bad. Fifty years ago everyone still thought that a bright future and prosperity lie ahead. Then the global trend of decline became apparent and we began to sink into the dark. A person with a point in the heart (•) also begins to enter evil, the darkness that comes to him by the Light that Reforms. But at the same time the Light illuminates the point in the heart so that the evil pulls a person downward while the point rises higher and higher upward.

So we need the following inner division:

1. A point in the heart,

2. The evil in us.

Only then will I discover whom I identify with.

Question: How do you get rid of disturbing thoughts about a reward, about a gift that the Creator will give me for my work?

Answer: You will have to constantly cope with these thoughts in order to ascend without asking for anything and only identifying with the point in the heart time and time again. This “ping pong” game continues until the Light that Reforms comes through the connection in the group and takes you to the next level.

There, a stronger Light will come and will again reveal the outcomes of the shattering in you. It is because we used to be connected once and then the Creator who created the connection between us shattered it. Now we have to participate in the correction, to wake up and to summon Him. Then the Light comes and does all the work.
[104549]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Nowadays we live in a time when a person stops sensing other people. Sociologists and scholars write about this. I don’t see the other, I don’t want to see, I don’t want to feel. What kind of time is this?

Answer: If I don’t feel the other, truly the other, outside of myself, don’t feel myself within them, then I don’t feel the world at all.

Question: So, I must always see myself through someone else?

Answer: Through someone else, yes.

Question: And the fact that we now see ourselves as so ugly, why is that?

Answer: Because we shut ourselves off, close ourselves in, limit ourselves, and don’t want to see anyone except ourselves. That is my world.

Question: So if I don’t let anyone in and I don’t enter anywhere myself, am I ugly? Is that my world—an egoistic one: here I am, alone?

Answer: I see myself.
[342696]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/7/22

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Question: Do you know how many elderly people are abandoned now? A lot! And for some reason, their children do not care about them. They do not even call them. What about my responsibility to my parents? After all, there is a natural bond with them.

Answer: But why is there an attachment to parents? Do I think that they should be concerned about me all my life; why else did they give birth to me? As long as they live, they should think about me. Or if they do not relate to me, so they do not. I leave them, and that is it.

Question: How can a child feel this way toward his parents?

Answer: He doesn’t feel it.

Question: Does he feel any pain, nothing?

Answer: No.

Comment: His parent is dying and he…

My Response: He does not feel! Because he has outgrown his animal egoism and does not feel any connection to his parents, that he should help them, provide for them, think about them, and so on. Do not invent what does not exist! It cannot be brought back!

Lately, this has all been dying down, and today it does not exist. If you help your children, then they need you. You can be close to them. But if you stop helping them, then they do not need you. That is how it happens.

Question: If I, as a parent, help my children, do they need me then?

Answer: Then they will need you, and you will be close to them to some extent.

Comment: I am just confused by one thing: that you generalize. There are normal relationships too.

My Response: I am talking about the trend of nature! That is why I generalize.

Question: And what next?

Answer: In our generation, parents can still give something to their children: guide them, leave what they have earned to them, etc. But in the next generation, there will already be a gap.

There will be such relationships between parents and children that if they have the same spiritual goals, then they will be somehow connected through them. And if not, people will start to completely forget about their parents. And parents, frankly speaking, will also not think about their children.

Question: What will parents think about?

Answer: About how to spend time peacefully with their elderly friends and companions.

Comment: With their dogs and cats.

My Response: Yes. There are various clubs opening for playing dominoes, I do not know what else.

Question: What is good about this?

Answer: Nothing! A person just needs to understand how he should be connected to others today. It is a totally different system—not a system of an earthly animal connection.

Question: Is the “parents-children” system not an animal system?

Answer: It is a system in which parents and children reveal a common goal for themselves. And then this goal connects them together.

Question: What is that goal?

Answer: That goal is the attainment of the meaning of life. For parents, children, and grandchildren, it is always the same. If they reveal it, attach to it, then they will feel the need to connect with each other and help each other in this.

Question: What common goal of life are you talking about? That parents and children have one goal that they strive for?

Answer: Then parents will be able to push their children toward the right goal. Then there will be unity between them, both earthly and spiritual, for the revelation of the Creator between them.

Question: What is the revelation of the Creator?

Answer: The revelation of the Creator is the revelation of mutual connection and love.

Question: Only between them?

Answer: First and foremost.

Question: In this unit of children and parents? To reveal this force?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And do they not want to reveal it now?

Answer: They do not want to. Who told them about it? Who pushed them toward it? Who?

Question: So these natural connections, that is not “someone told them”?

Answer: No, of course not.

Comment: This is my father, my grandmother, my… no?

My Response: No, nothing at all.

Comment: You are harsh today.

My Response: I am not harsh. This is what is being revealed in the world. Am I harsh? It is you all who made the world this way.

Comment: But this truth that you are talking about now… I can imagine how many comments will follow.

My Response: I am for revealing this truth and not hiding it so that people can see what a low, base state they are in, and what it leads to.

Question: What conclusion should a person draw after your harsh words? That there will be a gap between parents, children, and grandchildren, and that this is natural?

Answer: If they do not find a common goal, then nothing will connect them. Nothing will connect them!

Comment: That is, you are calling on them to look for this common goal.

My Response: Yes.
[341795]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/6/20

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Comment: Special studies show that people feel happy when a country has a high average income level, low unemployment, significant economic freedom, and a relatively open labor market.

At the same time, generous social welfare benefits and low inequality do not contribute to the sense of happiness. For example, Norway has one of the highest suicide rates. Happiness is determined by life expectancy, access to education, GDP per capita, and purchasing power, among other factors.

Scientists attempt to define happiness externally. Yet, a person is not happy.

My Response: Happiness is connection with eternity, with a purpose that one seeks to grasp. Yet, as one approaches it, it continuously recedes, and one keeps striving toward it. It is an infinite process.

The aspiration toward an eternal goal and its gradual attainment is called the sweet suffering of love. That is, the simultaneous feeling of suffering and love creates the sensation of happiness.

For example, people may have yearned for each other for many years—suffering, moving toward one another, dreaming—and now they have finally met. At that moment, all past sufferings, all impulses toward closeness and mutual perception merge with the feeling of actual unity in the meeting.

The more these two opposing forces continuously increase and sustain one another, the more they create a sense of happiness in a person.

There can be no happiness without suffering. And suffering must inevitably lead to happiness. This is why it is called the “suffering of love,” as the feeling of love cannot arise without the prior experience of longing, suffering, and lack.

These desires emerge precisely in the search, in the movement toward love, and form what is known as a vessel for the perception of happiness. And once I reach happiness and become fulfilled, this feeling quickly fades. Therefore, I must once again restore a sense of some distance.

Even if I physically remain with my beloved, I must immediately think about how to arm myself with even greater desires for them, greater aspirations despite their presence. And then, it will seem as though they are not so near, not so close anymore. And I will begin striving toward them once again.

We must understand that the feeling of happiness is possible only in the middle line, between the left and the right, where the left line is the constant revelation of striving, longing, and emptiness and the right line is connection, love, and fulfillment.

The middle line provides a strong link between the continuous growth of desire and its constant fulfillment. Then a person feels as if they exist in a state of eternity and perfection, not shifting from one state to another, not swinging between the left and right lines, but existing in both simultaneously.

We cannot give a person any other explanation, because developing such perceptual tools requires internal work that they do not yet possess. This is precisely the purpose of the science of Kabbalah, which in translation means “the science of reception.”

Comment: As far as I understand, happiness does not exist in this world, and there is nothing to search for.

My Response: In this world—that is, within a single egoistic desire—happiness cannot exist. And within a single altruistic desire, it cannot exist either. Only on the basis of both desires, if resistance is introduced between them—negative, positive, and in between them resistance (our effort)—only then, upon this resistance can we experience constant happiness, eternal and perfect life.

Comment: It seems that we have already mastered the egoistic desire and are beginning to understand what it is.

Answer: No, it has not yet been mastered. We will be able to master it only in accordance with the emergence of an altruistic desire within us. Then we will begin to perceive a completely different kind of egoism. Right now, we experience only a very limited, animate-level egoism.

We must begin to perceive egoism that desires to work together with the quality of bestowal and love, that understands it must act in harmony with it as one half of the whole system of the world.
[193802]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/12/22

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