Entries in the 'Free Will' Category

The Epoch Of Free Choice

Dr. Michael LaitmanIt’s difficult to speak about the Holocaust because this topic is closely tied to people’s feelings. It’s easier to discuss wars that went on thousands of years ago, even though they were often waged between our people, for example, between the Hellenistic Jews and those who adhered to the fundamental principles. And on the whole, the people of Israel have certainly led many wars with external enemies: the Romans and others.

We know that all the past wars were an outcome of Israel not fulfilling its purpose. We know from the Tanakh and Gemara that if the people of Israel acted correctly, then no nation would rule over us. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee).” Even earlier the Ari had said that had we remained as guarantors for one another, like it was at the period of the First Temple, and had we not fallen from it, the impure forces wouldn’t have gained power over us.

However, our fall was laid down in the program of creation so that in this world, as an analogy with the spiritual one, we would go through the breaking of the kings of DaHGaT (the destruction of the First Temple) and the breaking of the kings of TaNHYM (the destruction of the Second Temple). In our material world we also had to go through these two breakings, and this is why we fell from the spiritual degree to the very bottom.

At the time, Rabbi Akiva laughed when he saw the wasteland in place of the Temple. “I never believed that this would come to pass,” he said, “and since the Second Temple was destroyed, now there is no doubt that the Third one will rise up and that complete redemption will come.” So, these two destructions and the long exile were necessary. It can be said that then there was no free choice yet, all the states were determined by the interaction of the Light and the vessel on the way down.

And today, when we came to the lowest degree and achieved the greatest egoism, a new world is starting to rise. It’s already “rounding off,” already manifesting the breakage, and as Baal HaSulam says, we stand on the threshold of redemption.

As a consequence, new laws are now acting on us, not the “mechanical” principles that previously propelled us forward along with all humanity. In parallel with its development, we went through various states of ascents and descents all the way until the present time, but from this point on, a new epoch is starting, the era of free choice.

After the breaking, after the fall and mutual inclusion with the world, today everything is ready for correction. And we are the ones who realize this correction through good deeds and the request that comes from broken souls. However, these broken souls aren’t capable of the request and good deeds. What can we do?

We are trying to unite into one whole as it was before the breaking, before the destruction of the Temple. And even if we can’t realize it ourselves, it’s our efforts that are the “good deeds.” I keep on trying until the point when I beg for help, until I cry: “Save me!” Thereby I raise MAN, the request for correction, and in response help comes from Above, called MAD.

And in this we have free will: We can accelerate our history, the process which we need to go through. If we don’t carry out in every second everything that we’re capable of through our free choice, then the missed and unrealized state doesn’t arrive as a long-awaited dawn in the property of mercy (Hassadim), but turns to properties of overcoming (Gevurot). As a consequence, in place of “still waters” come “turbulent waters,” instead of waters of Bina come the waters of the flood, and so on. And instead of going forward on the path of Torah and the Light, in loving your friend as yourself, we wander, spurred by troubles that don’t advance us but simply force us to actualize the actions that we missed. After all, one way or another, we are obliged to complete them.

This brings up a question. At first I was able to produce a certain action aided by unification within the group, by understanding and feeling, by the mutual inclusion with friends, mutual support, and so on. I could reach for what didn’t seem to be a pressing need, even if it meant artificially raising the importance of this action in my eyes. But now, when I’m being spurred on by catastrophes and necessity, am I actually realizing my free will? No. Does it mean that I am heading toward the end of correction like an animal fleeing the blows of a whip? And this is spiritual development? Where is the free will in that?

The thing is that misfortunes will lead us to think and reflect, and through their help, we’ll begin to grope around and recognize evil. However, for this we will have to pay and in such case, our free choice will be a lot more complex and multi-layered. After all, there are no concessions here; a person still needs to go of their own free will through every step on the 125 degrees of ascent, from the lowest point back to the end of correction. Otherwise he will not be a human being.

Thus, we raise a request for correction (MAN) and receive an answer (MAD) from Bina. If this doesn’t happen, we transition to the properties of overcoming, Gevurot. And this means misery and disasters, both personal and collective, including the Holocaust. On the whole, this process ripples through all of mankind, but the people of Israel are affected several times stronger since they are not fulfilling their function.

At the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Baal HaSulam writes about the fact that the world is divided into two parts: internal and external, “Israel” and “nations of the world.” “Israel” is also divided into two parts: the inner one includes those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to correct themselves, and the external one includes those who don’t care about correction. And in turn, the internal part of the “nations of the world” is their “righteous,” and the external part is their “wicked,” “those who cause harm.”

A connecting mechanism operates within this system: The way that the two parts relate within “Israel” is the same way that they relate within “nations of the world.” And therefore, when those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah rise above, then correspondingly, within the “nations” the people who yearn for unity and good coexistence also gain force. And conversely, if “Israel” disregards the inner Torah, the wisdom of Kabbalah, in other words, if they disregard their purpose, then within the “nations” the pyramid inverts also: The external ones rise above and take power over the entire world. Of course, these events are far-reaching and they negatively impact “Israel,” whose message and purpose descend, giving way at the top for the wicked and casting to the very bottom those who study Kabbalah and who are close to spirituality. This is how the “hierarchy of power” is laid. 

This is what happened with us in Hitler’s times. Israel acted contrary to its role, preferring corporeality to spirituality, and in accordance with this, within the nations of the world the destructive part rose above the good one, until the pyramid flipped over. And at that point, “the one who brings harm” came along and did his job.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/2012 on Holocaust Memorial Day 

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Which Game To Play?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During the workshop, the work was very intensive, but now I feel that I have lost the sensation that I acquired over the course of the workshop. So do I have to play this game my entire life?

Answer: You don’t have another choice. You play this game one way or the other!

You either play a game that the surrounding society presents to you, the society that doesn’t know itself what game it is playing. Or you play a real game offered to you by people who attained the upper layer of the universe. For you it is a game that tells you what you can attain. And so you choose. There is nothing else: You have two games to choose from.

One game is this life, and everybody plays it. They curse this game, not knowing by whose will they ended up here and when they will finish it, because they constantly lose in between.

Another game offers you an opportunity to attain a completely different level of nature, of the upper, spiritual matter, and do it in the course of your lifetime, even during its relatively short part. You only need to yearn for this revelation, to change your properties into bestowal and love: not to use others for your selfish interests, but to try to have a good, benevolent connection with them. That’s all. There is nothing else!

The theory is very simple. And practice depends on you. Choose which game to play. You either learn from people who want for you to do good and to create a world similar to the force of bestowal and love. Or you will learn from the examples of the surrounding world: mass media, TV, newspapers, and soap operas.

That’s the choice you have. The surrounding society shapes you anyway: either the group or the “street.” Only that! Ultimately, the choice is up to you.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1 

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To Be Free In Your Own Land

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is it possible to make independent decisions and at the same time to annul oneself before nature?

Answer: It is the same thing. To annul yourself, meaning your egoistic intention, and to implement the Creator’s commands with all your heart and soul means to be independent.

A person needs to ponder about why this is so. This allows him to call himself “a free nation in its own land” since he ceases to be a slave to his desire (the word “land” or “Eretz” comes from the word “desire” or “Ratzon”).

He wants to be a slave of the altruistic intention and that is called to be a “slave of the Lord.” He sells himself to be a slave of bestowal since in the meantime, he is not able to bestow independently. But this is already his first step towards independence, and afterwards he will become completely independent.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2012, Shamati #9

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Teaching To Care About The World

Dr. Michael LaitmanEach of us has a predisposition for performing actions that are unpleasant to those around us. We can divide right or wrong acts into one’s actions in relation to oneself and actions in relation to society. Naturally, we have to teach a person not to cause self-harm, not to hurt himself physically, because while self-preservation mechanisms exist within us, destructive impulses are present as well.

In the same manner, we need to treat the environment with care and concern. The environment is primarily the still, vegetative, and animate nature in which we live and which we need to preserve. It’s necessary to teach a person the correct attitude towards ecology since our food, climate, and our entire existence depend on it. We live inside nature, and its vegetative, animate, and even the still parts are of great importance to us as we receive everything from them. This is why we need to teach a person how to treat their ecological environment with great care.

And second, we need to teach a person to relate correctly to human society, to exert a positive influence on it because in the end, it comes back to him and creates a good atmosphere around him.

Thus, man’s relationship to society and society’s relation to man are the most important aspects of upbringing. Everything else is just professional skills that we need to give a person so he or she will be useful to others and make an honest living for himself or herself.

What we lack in our development is mainly the ability to give a young person and even ourselves, adults, such an upbringing, such an outlook on life, whereby wanting to change our situation, we would take care of society that can change us for the better.

As we said before, a person isn’t capable of improving his life by himself. This can only be done by the environment, which obligates me, supports, and changes my system of values and priorities. Because of that, new desires appear in me and I set new goals for myself.

This is why a person’s future depends only on the choice and creation of his or her environment, especially in our global and integral generation that is entirely interconnected. Any person in the world determines what will happen with everybody else. If some country starts treating another badly, this changes the entire life of the latter, and it needs to defend itself and care for its safety.

This mutual interdependence will force us to build and shape a system of global upbringing. Above all, in the process of this upbringing we need to teach ourselves and others to understand that our future depends entirely on our environment.

A question arises whether a person has any free will and possibility of choice at all? Can he actually do, accomplish, and realize anything the way he wants? And we see that he doesn’t exactly succeed in that.

If so far I developed thanks to my intrinsic properties, the genes with which I was born and the surrounding environment that formed me (parents, kindergarten, and school), then going forward I, a grown up, can choose how I can change as well. But the realization of my transformation always occurs through the help of society due to the fact that I choose and structure my order of preferences and decide whether it’s worth to be under the influence of a given society. This is why I have freedom of choice, but this choice is only exercised in choosing the environment.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 3, 12/29/11

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The System Is In Need Of Intention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During one of the lessons you said that the intention for bestowal cannot be personal and individual. Isn’t it my personal relationship towards the society, to my neighbor?

Answer: We are in a system of mutual interconnection. It is also called the system of the worlds (Olamot), meaning concealments (Alamot). The upper force and the structure of the system itself are concealed from us. We don’t see that we are tightly connected to each other.

We are familiar with the “animate” relations: here are my parents, here are my relatives, these are the ones I love, these are the ones I hate, these love me, and those hate me. However, the finer, higher levels of the system are concealed from me. This is what my world is, my concealment.

By revealing the highest, the altruistic, system, of our interconnection, we will understand that whether we want it or not, we are tightly fused to each other. Now we are not active participants of this system; however, it already needs our active participation. The time has come to assimilate ourselves within it, to consciously join its flow, in order for each one to fulfill their function in it.

However, from our side, we don’t want it or understand it, and that’s why we feel ourselves to be in a bad condition. Of course, the general system continues to function, but due to our inactivity, we feel the defects of its work and we are puzzled. “What’s going on? What’s missing there?” This is reality and we call it the “crisis.”

Furthermore, the difference between what is desired and what is actual, between our initial state in the world of Infinity and the return back to Infinity from this world, is only in the intention. We change neither the system, nor the basis of our nature. Each one retains their characteristic traits, their connection to the reality, each one remains at their place.

The structure of our interconnection does not change as well. To someone you are a student, to someone you are a friend, and to someone you are close…Friends connect with the teacher, with each other and with the world. All of this doesn’t change, but is merely revealed to us. That’s why some extrasensory people know what’s going to happen in the future.

Freedom of will and all of our work is accompanied only by the conscious, sensible participation in the life of the system in order to become an active part in it by our own will, to “flow” with it as the Force (meaning the Creator), which controls it, wants it to flow. In essence, this is what our task consists of, to reveal the general flow and to merge into it. Let the rider and the horse move in sync. This is how we will move forward.

This way, our work is always done in intention: To what extent do I pull the system towards the Force, how much more do I understand it, how much more am I participating in its activity, how much more with its help do I reveal the Force instilled in it in order to flow together with it, and thus give pleasure to the Creator.

This is my task. This is what I participate in the life of the group for, among the partners, the friends, which I am given. Besides, I am carrying out the task for the world, I am awakening all of the parts of the system, building and activating it until it all completely assimilates to the inner force, until we flow together with it.

At the same time, of course, I have my own intention. However, it cannot be realized only inside of me. I will not make it come alive if I am not connected to others, if I am not working with them in harmony, if we are not cooperating in action, in understanding, in realization, in the maintenance and servicing of the system. Someone among us is a valve, someone is a piston, someone is a wheel, and so on. Everyone works in their own way; however, we are all aspiring towards the same goal.

It is said: “Israel, The Torah, and the Creator are One.” The Creator is the general program, which we aspire to implement. We are not simply uniting into a system, but we are keeping the course towards Him. We cannot find the connection without it, since it must lie on a certain formula, the goal of the program. It needs to be clear for us, for the sake of what and how we should be uniting. We discover the system in the aspiration towards the force acting within in, towards the general program. Without this, we cannot even make a step, including in the interrelationships between us.

So it turns out that my intention is related to the collective work with friends, the goal of which is to reveal the Creator.

In the end, I only add this intention, and not the action. In the same way, a government control system can be activated by the “stick” of a tyrant squeezing the last juices out of the population, or by the wisdom of a kind ruler pursuing happiness for the citizens. The structure is the same, the connection remains the same, nothing needs to be changed except the internal program installed into the system. Education, taxation, banks, hospitals and so on, all of these remain in their places. Only the intention completely re-builds the order of “energy flows,” changing their destination. In the end, intention changes everything.

This is what we are discovering today. “The world lives as stipulated,” “I have not changed Myself,” the system does not change, we only add our intention to it, the screen and the reflected Light. And then, everything flows in a new way according to our approach. Earlier, we pulled everything towards ourselves because of the tyrant who ruled within us, but now we are pursuing the wellbeing of a close one, and this already a different ruler.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/12, “Questions and Answers”

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An Addition Of Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanOur reality is one, and everything depends on a person who perceives or reveals it. First we reveal just a small part of reality, this world. Then, as our vessels expand and our sensitivity increases, we feel an increasingly more complex and rich reality, called the Upper World.

How can we rise to the perception of a higher reality? After all, we are always talking not just about it, but about the person who receives, feels, reveals, and attains it. So how can we rise from the level of a regular person to the level of an attaining person?

The difference between the two lies in how sensitive they are to their reality. If we perceive it by means of just the vessels, qualities, and senses that we were born with, then we are living in our world, and we perceive our existence inside of it. If, however, we develop an additional receptivity within us, we will feel “an addition of reality.”

Kabbalists say that we can feel this addition if we begin treating our reality more sensitively, in a special manner. This is a special attitude – essentially, the realization of the importance and respect for the quality of bestowal which exists in the upper reality.

And that means we should care about just one thing: how can we begin to respect the quality of bestowal, how can we raise its importance in our eyes? This is why Kabbalists write articles, books, and letters for us, giving us different exercises and explaining how we should unite so that by virtue of various efforts, the upper reality, meaning the quality of bestowal, will become very important to us.

However, the main objective is not even this, but for us to see importance in the Source of this quality, the Upper Force, the Creator, the Root. When a person attaches importance to the Root, he begins to feel new phenomena. And then he understands what was happening to him before, his history.

It turns out that throughout all of his life, at every moment the Creator built this process for him and a person always properly progressed towards spiritual attainment, toward the development of new sensations. This is the only thing he was doing, although he did not know about it.

And now, in the present point, I have to understand that until this moment, everything was carried out by the Creator, and I have to be grateful to Him for the proper course and the impulses to move forward. But from now on, everything is up to me.

We know that we aspire forward correctly when we actually see that in the past, the Creator constantly pushed us forward in the right direction. And now, at every moment, we are in the state of choice.
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From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #5, 2/24/12

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Through The Glasses Of Integral Vision

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the method of integral upbringing, special attention is paid to the correlation between the mind and feelings. In the corporeal world of egoism and alienation, desires and thoughts are hidden deep inside a person and are often inaccessible by his consciousness. Usually, as a rule this generates negative feelings: anger, irritation, and hurt. What is the right way to connect feelings so they would not hinder communication between people?

Answer: The method of integral education, first and foremost, takes into account the fact that feelings and desires are primary.

We do not know where they come from and how they appear in us. All the qualities of our mind and thoughts are intended for realizing these feelings and fulfilling ourselves.

Our basic desire is the desire to enjoy. Who, what and how are the consequences. Enjoy! And this is why our entire mind only develops to the extent of our desires and only to serve them. Big desires develop a big mind in a person. Egoism, which grows from generation to generation and over the course of a person’s life, develops his mind.

If we take an animal, its development practically ends a couple of weeks after its birth. It already has all its given instincts, and it adapts to the environment. This is why animals never make mistakes. They know how to behave, how to save themselves, and how to interact with the environment. Their mind and feelings are instinctively in balance. In this case too, desire is primary and the mind secondary. An animal understands what it is able to realize in its desires and what it is not, and this correspondingly limits its mind.

But a person has a big problem here. The thing is that when his egoism develops, it gives him desires he is not able to realize. This is why he shuts away, isolates himself, becomes more brutal, competitive, etc.

If his desires were to be correlated with all the other desires (his and the environment) so that they would harmoniously complement each other, there would be no conflicts, and his mind would expand infinitely.

Since integral society is a society of absolute inclusion of everyone in everyone, this means that a person acquires the desires of the entire community. He understands what matters to the society, and accordingly, his mind stops being personal and becomes integral, and he reasons with it. It is like putting on glasses of integral vision of the world, and he understands that he and the world are one whole; what is good for me and what is good for the world are the same thing.

There is naturally no contradiction in this harmonious correlation between him and the world. He can simply open up without any fear; he understands, sees, and feels everything in accordance with this, and actively participates in every action, in everything. Absolutely all his reasons to be unhappy or compete with others disappear.

So we need to bring a person to this state without limiting his desires, thoughts, and mind, and we need to act in a completely different way from the beginning to give him the explanation that he is included in everyone else and that a certain common desire is being created.

This collectivity of all the desires is that new thing that we are creating. We are creating the system of “Adam” our common desire and our common mind in accordance with it. Something integral appears above us, and we exist in it.

This way we do not pay any attention to the person at all, but only at his aim, his inclusion in this collectivity, the next degree of our development. We do not limit him; he does not feel that he is under certain pressure. He does not have anything to hide. He practically remains as is, but his entire development is directed towards integration.

The harmony between feelings and the mind develops as he begins to feel greater and greater interconnection between himself and the others, with what the current world dictates to us but we are not yet ready for.

Integral education intends to direct man towards beginning to feel “we,” the collective humanity, and act based on it. Only then he will feel like his state is free. This is exactly where his freedom of will and freedom of behavior will manifest, but only once he includes himself in it.

But if he comes out of this state again, he once again falls into his small egoism, and the same problems start all over. In this way nature helps us by showing us that rest can only be found in integration, and in isolation a private prison and absence of freedom.
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From a “Talk About Integral Education” #9, 12/15/11

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Choosing To Be Born

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the meaning of the expression “There is no coercion in spirituality”?

Answer: There is no coercion in the spiritual world because eventually it all depends on a person’s exertion.

In this world receiving rules, and in the upper world, bestowal. In both cases I am obliged to obey, and this is coercion. After all, these are nature’s laws.

Take the law of gravity, for example, this is a fixed force that immediately pulls me to the ground. Can you resist its coercion? “I don’t want it to operate on me, I have my own plans.” That won’t work. The law operates, whether you like it or not. It is the same with the laws of bestowal and receiving. All of reality is full of coercion.

You are free only when you choose. What kind of a choice is this? The choice is to switch from receiving to bestowal with the help of the group, the Reforming Light, and the teacher. Actually, receiving and bestowal are one law, one force. Your choice is in how to obey it: positively or negatively. You make that choice by yourself.

So what is your choice? Is it worth it or not to join bestowal? You know everything that happened previously and something of what will happen in the future. We can’t yet feel and touch the place where the choice is made. Yet actually, an amazing void opens up for you there.

We often mention the fable of the worm that lives inside a radish. When he makes a hole in the skin, a whole world is revealed to it. It is a very narrow opening, and it is the worm’s choice to be born or not. Every time you make that choice, another small part of you is born, and you enter the new world that is already prepared for you.

Although it is a very slight and fine action on my part, it is as if I operate a huge system by simply pushing a button. The place I make the choice is exactly the “spirituality” where there is no coercion. I open up a new world for myself, and my attitude towards it becomes free.

The law operates in both places, but when I enter the world of bestowal, I acquire freedom: All this is mine—the corrected desire to receive with the intention of in order to bestow, and I control it. I am really free; with this desire, I can carry out any action of bestowal that I want. This is the only thing that I want, and there are no restrictions.

Therefore it says: “There is no coercion in spirituality.” I am born, and I transcend from a rotten apple into a wonderful world, sunshine, fresh air and singing birds. When I go through this narrow passageway, I acquire a new attitude that is based on bestowal and I become adapted to the big world. In it, I am free.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Where Is Democracy?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The Creator limits my freedom according to nature’s laws, but what if I don’t want that? After all, He didn’t ask me. Where is democracy?

Answer: Actually, the Creator develops modern people differently, and accordingly they ask the relevant questions about Him. This is the way it should be. This is why our world is changing, so that the questions about Him will be evoked in us. As a result, all the questions and claims should be aimed at the Creator. It is all meant for a person to reach despair.

On the one hand, it seems that there is freedom in this world and that I can do whatever I want to. On the other hand, my “childish” mind gradually perceives that the world is controlled by a system of laws and that I can’t do whatever I want to at all, even if I really want to do so. There is a difference between what is desirable and what is.

Gradually I understand that it is all about the laws of the world, which are ironclad rules. They are revealed to me more clearly and oblige me more and more. As a result I don’t feel so comfortable and so good, but on the whole this is how I learn.

At the beginning a child enjoys everything and his requests are fulfilled. Later we begin to limit him. We teach him the rules of life and demand things from him. This is how he grows.

You are talking about democracy, about freedom. But what kind of freedom is this? Freedom from what? Freedom for what? Freedom under what conditions? After all, you are not living in a vacuum; you already have certain attributes, you are already something.

“Freedom” for you is when you immediately get everything that you desire: “I want a palace!”—here you go. “I want to be strong and clever”—here you go. This way you are free of any limitations, you are omnipotent.

But you didn’t choose your mind and personality, which means that you aren’t really free. Furthermore, your desires depend on the values that you were raised with, which isn’t freedom either. There are already preliminary conditions instilled in you, which influence you. So what kind of freedom is this? It isn’t the way you imagine it. You simply haven’t clarified this.

On the other hand, the Creator really wants you to be free. Then you will be free of what he has inserted into you and instead, you will build the opposite attributes above that. You will find true freedom among the 613 “sins” and the 613 “commandments,” which is something new, a third factor, the middle line, the spiritual world. It doesn’t exist without you. If you don’t create it, it will not exist.

In the meantime, don’t forget: You are a created being and thus not free, you are limited in your qualities and in your desires.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/15/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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The Phenomenon Of The Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhen we speak about the Light we refer to the phenomenon that takes place in the desire. This means that I want to do good to someone without any personal accounts of self-profit. The more I check myself, the more I see that I really have no urge for personal benefit. This is the Light: It is as if some spirit is dressed in me and I want to bestow, to love others, and to want only the wellbeing of others, because by that I please the Creator.

When I work in a group, I summon the Reforming Light that builds in my “body”, in my desire, the phenomenon called the Light. Thus the surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) influences the desire so that it can feel the phenomenon of the Light internally.

Question: Where does the Ohr Makif come from?

Answer: It comes from a higher level. I can’t receive it inside me and so it “surrounds” me and prepares my desire, my vessel, in order to enter it later on. This Light is also inside me, but I don’t feel it yet. It is as if it is operating from a distance: Something ripens in me, but I feel it indirectly, according to the results.

One way or another, everything is inside a person: all the lights and all the worlds, including the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

Question: In order to feel that, do I have to work in a group?

Answer: You have to follow the advice of Kabbalists, which we call the “faith of the sages,” and carry out their recommendations. You are brought to the group from Above, and you begin to work in it, even without asking any questions. Only later does the issue of freewill come up when you understand what is happening and can find your way around and realize: “So this is what I should do! I should love the friends…”

You approach the mutual work and from a “study circle” you become one whole, acquire one heart and one thought, make great collective efforts, and act in front of one another in order to evoke a deficiency in the friends and to raise the Creator’s greatness in their eyes.

Then people discover “the field that the Creator has blessed.” They don’t wander in the field like the sons of Jacob, but rather acquire the force of Joseph, which brings them together and takes them through the land of Egypt to the Land of Israel. This is all our work, and this is where our freewill begins.
[69564]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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