Entries in the 'Kabbalistic Sources' Category

Interest in a Critical Approach

530Comment: There are people who perceive your words as the truth, and there is a category of people who think: “He said it so many times and where is it?”

My Response: The fact is that everyone should agree with the truth. Not consent a priori like with some guru. For example, the Dalai Lama says something, and it is not discussed at all, no other thoughts are considered—nothing. That is, it is the truth. When he is present at any international meetings and says something, everyone is silent. Everything is the first instance, i.e., manifestation of God on earth. No one argues with him.

Therefore, he is invited to very few places, and he goes to very few places. He is just a respected person, like an idol.

But not me. I want to be checked, studied, and analyzed for each of my proposals, and everything to be approached critically: “Why did he say that? Why not the other way around? Is that correct or not?” It is all so that a person, by chewing over my every sentence, would change himself in accordance with it or against it.

I am interested in a critical approach. This is the most important thing for students. That is why I do not suppress them, I explain it again, I repeat it again, and I love it very much when they pester me. Let’s say he wants to push me down on my shoulder blades—please, “put the squeeze on me.” It helps me to express myself better. This is necessary.
[301501]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Criticism of Kabbalah” 2/20/13

Related Material:
Everything Remains in Space
Complaints Against A Teacher
Baal HaSulam—The Teacher We Follow

The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Who Can Endure Jealousy?”

Laitman_154Proverbs, 27:4: “Cruelty of wrath, and destruction of anger, but who can stand up before jealousy?”

Wrath is a natural phenomenon, so is anger. But jealousy means comparing yourself with someone or somebody comparing me with someone else. This is horrible! In other words, it is the deepest defeat of egoism.

When somebody tells me that I am wrong, well, I am wrong, in relation to something abstract.

However, when somebody places me next to someone and says that I am nothing compared to him or her, then that’s is. If a person cannot get around it, forget it, drop it, and so on, then there is only one thing left to do: fight against it.

One either destroys the one who said that or destroys the one he is compared with. It is even better to destroy both of them.

Question: This is the most terrible state. What should we do when someone has such a feeling?

Answer: There is nothing we can do. It is necessary to rise to the degree where these laws of nature originate. There, we will see their cause and their correct implementation.

Question: What is the reason for jealousy?

Answer: It is my egoism. That is, I am the victim. I was hurt, my ego. And without it, I cannot live. I have to do something here: either kill myself or kill him or her—one or the other. I cannot continue living like this.

Question: Can I be above this?

Answer: No. Well, I can, but this requires special education, training, psychological help and so on. Otherwise, if I remain in this, wait for murder.

Question: How do Kabbalists solve the issue of jealousy?

Answer: Kabbalists solve this issue very well. They believe that it is necessary to reveal the thought of the Creator: why you have received such a sign from Him and how you should rise above yourself through it. It turns out that you will thank the Creator for giving you such terrible feelings. In fact, they are only there in order to elevate you.

Question: You just said such a contradictory phrase: “The signs are terrible, and I am grateful for them.” Am I grateful for the terrible signs?

Answer: Of course. After all, they elevate me. This is why it is called “above our nature.” However, we need to go through this under supervision, in the group, and so on.

Question: Does a Kabbalist understand where this comes from and why? Then, is everything is  sweetened?

Answer: Yes. I recommend you to find a teacher who will help you overcome all the negative feelings. It is, in fact, possible.
[260236]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 12/5/19

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Hatred And Love”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “There Is No Righteous Man On Earth”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “The Wise Wife And The Simple Wife”

The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Hatred And Love”

laitman_608.01Proverbs, 10:12: “Hatred arouses quarrels, but love covers all transgressions.”

“Hatred arouses quarrels”—this part seems clear to us.

Love covers all transgressions“—this is also correct because there can be no love without transgression. It is necessary to reveal the evil in order to understand the need for good, to reveal hatred in order to understand the need for love.

Question: Can it be that one simply loves?

Answer: No. It is only possible for a mother toward her baby. Those people who have no animalistic reasons for this, like animals, can have no inclination for it.

Question: Does it mean they cannot love?

Answer: Love is when I am ready to do everything for the other. From myself to the other.

Question: Is it possible that I am ready to do everything for a person?

Answer: No. Our nature is not arranged this way. We cannot do that.

Question: Are we sinful by nature?

Answer: It is not called “a sin.” It is our nature; it is neither bad nor good.

Question: In any case, is our nature to treat others as a stranger?

Answer: “Bolivar cannot carry double.” It is shown well there. I am sorry, of course, but it will not work. It is either you or me. So, of course, it is me.

Question: And where is “love covers all transgressions”? How can we then explain this? What kind of secret is here?

Answer: If we correctly treat all the sins, hatred, and everything else that we reveal between us, we attract the force of connection until we reach love that covers our hatred. The hatred remains inside. And through it, we reach the level of love.

Question: How do we attract it? Do we begin to hate our hatred for the other?

Answer: Yes. But this comes from above. Otherwise, this is only about a mother with her children. And also, up to a certain limit. Nature has shown us such things. During famine and so on. When all of a sudden, the maternal instinct disappears.

Comment: This is really terrible.

My Reply: This is not terrible. It is nature. There is nothing terrible in nature; it is simply what it is.

Question: In this simple truth, does King Solomon say that man hates and all his work is to invoke love in order to rise above hatred?

Answer: Yes
[260205]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 12/5/19

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “There Is No Righteous Man On Earth”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “The Wise Wife And The Simple Wife”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “He Who Guards His Mouth”

The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “There Is No Righteous Man On Earth”

laitman_272Comment: King Solomon inserted tremendous wisdom in his sayings, and behind its external simplicity lies a great depth.

Ecclesiastes, 7:20: For there is no righteous man on earth who does good and sins not.

My Response: I would say it differently: that there is no righteous person on earth who would do anything righteous without sinning before it. And each time, to the extent of one’s sin, one can act righteously. One against the other.

Question: What do you think sin is?

Answer: Sin is any condition where I can harm others. It does not have to be in action; it can be in intention. When I realize this, then I immediately proceed to the next state where I correct myself by the correct kind attitude toward others, and this completes my correction.

Therefore, the fact is that you see good actions, but maybe you just do not realize that before a person did some good, it was evil, conscious evil, and there was the decision to switch to good and the state of good that you already see.

That is, four steps occur from the evil state to the good state, and then it is implemented.

Question: So before I did any kind deed, did I sin before it?

Answer: If you did a good deed, then yes, you sinned beforehand. And if you do not feel that you have sinned beforehand, then your deed is not good.

It is truly the case. There are such stories and parables, where every cheerful and truly wise person has an opposite and depressive opposite inside.

Raikin [a Soviet stand-up comedian] was such a character. It was thanks to these states which he experienced, that when he felt completely repulsive states toward the world from himself and toward himself from the world, he went on stage and could depict the opposite. Otherwise, he would not have these emotions, this understanding, how to say, the opposite. It is always like this.
[260327]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Micahel Laitman,” 12/30/19

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “The Wise Wife And The Simple Wife”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “He Who Guards His Mouth”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Two Are Better Than One”

The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “The Wise Wife And The Simple Wife”

laitman_961.2

Proverbs 14:1: The wisest of women-each one built her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her hands.

A man’s desire is called his wife. A wise desire is aimed toward unity. Therefore, uniting with others creates a combination of forces that can lead to the Creator becoming revealed. Particularly through connecting the positive and negative qualities.

Question: And the foolish wife?

Answer: A foolish wife cannot connect anything. She cannot understand how to unite above her hatred, egoism, and individuality, and therefore everything is destroyed.

Question: Is the foolish wife my desire for my own benefit? Living for self alone? Is that foolish?

Answer: Yes. As we see with the European Union, they had no time to get together and they already broke up. The Soviet Union collapsed. Everything falls apart rapidly. America is next in line, followed by China.

Question: Do you call this a foolish wife?

Answer: This is egoism that we are unable to properly direct toward life, rebirth, and prosperity. It only destroys. America will be dismantled into its states. China will be split into provinces. It will all happen very distinctly.

In the end, if the world doesn’t work on its unity, it will start falling into smaller settlements, as in the past. We will be left with villages, provinces, and principalities all over again.

Comment: But it was like this in the past.

My Response: It doesn’t matter. We tried to unite through our egoism and only now do we begin to realize that egoism cannot unite us. We can see it very clearly in Europe.

In the end, what has to be done? If we use egoism correctly we will be able to unite the whole world. If not, we will only create greater distance between ourselves, like in Sodom and Gomorrah, meaning, not helping each other out: “What’s mine is mine.”

Question: So, is the wise wife the one that works with egoism correctly? By rising above it, annulling herself? While a foolish wife grabs everything for herself?

Answer: Yes. The next generation will have even more women in control all over the world because women care more about reciprocity, various interconnections. But this will not last very long. Soon, the ugly side of it will come out.

Question: So, will women be in control of the next generation?

Answer: Women will be more in control of the world than men, and it will seem to be beneficial to the world.

Men are in decline. They are ready to pass everything to a woman and treat her like a mother. Only afterward will we realize that it is much worse than the governance of men.

I am telling you what will happen. Because a woman will fight for her abode, for what is hers. And in this regard women will be much more vicious than men. When a woman fights for her territory, she doesn’t take anything into consideration. It is the most important thing for her.

It is not the case for a man. He’s content to go to a bar or do something else.

Comment: … to watch sports.

My Response: Yes, but not for a woman.

So, for as long as they are working toward it—it seems to be good for us. But soon the turning point will come, as it usually happens with our egoism, when it begins to work against itself. Then women will start to destroy each other. Meaning, they will use anything at their disposal in order to destroy the competition in a very uncivilized, primitive, and personal way.

Question: Are you referring to our corporeal world?

Answer: Yes, our material world. This is what is yet to come.

Question: Does it have any upper spiritual roots?

Answer: Certainly. A foolish wife sees herself as a master of all. She is ready to go to war with whomever rises against her. Meaning, she can be a major destructive force.

A wise wife, on the other hand, understands that everything has to be solved together. Therefore, instead of a single home we should be building a community for everyone.
[260101]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/5/19

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “He Who Guards His Mouth”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Two Are Better Than One”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Do Not Grab A Dog By The Ears”

The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “He Who Guards His Mouth”

laitman_962.3Proverbs 13:3: He who watches his mouth guards his soul; for one who opens his lips wide there is ruin. (King Solomon)

Question: What is this about?

Answer: This is about what you need to understand, whom you are dealing with, and acting only to the extent that you can influence the world in a good way, kindly. Lead it with your morals, your influences to the right actions.

Take care of what you give to the world so that it is clear to everyone, and so that they can use it for their own benefit.

Question: What is beneficial for the world?

Answer: The only beneficial thing for the world is connection.

Question: That is, everything you can do and everything you can say should be only in the direction of connection. Is it called “to guard my mouth”?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What does it mean “the one who opens his lips”?

Answer: This is when you do not control your influences on the world and can do a lot of harm to the world by this.

Question: Can a person not set the world on fire?

Answer: No. Our nature is such that we inadvertently act supposedly for the benefit of ourselves, and therefore to the detriment of the world.

Comment: But you are contradicting yourself. A person cannot avoid setting the world on fire with every word.

My Response: No, we are talking about an ordinary person, not a Kabbalist. The Kabbalist clearly controls and feels what influences he gives to the world, what his message is, and how the world will perceive it. Even if the Kabbalist himself is not very happy about it, in the end, he will teach the world. If not today, then tomorrow, the world will understand that it must move by a different path.

Question: Can a Kabbalist give only good information to the world?

Answer: A Kabbalist can give the world only good information because he feels the inner force of nature and from there draws the method of his entry into the world, that is, of addressing the world.

He can do no harm. The world might not understand this, but there can be no harm from a Kabbalist. Although usually his exit to the world seems very unpleasant, abrupt, and untimely.

Question: Does this stop a Kabbalist?

Answer: It does not because he sees what benefit he can nevertheless bring to the world, how much he can move the world forward in the right direction; therefore, he does not think much about himself. Although, later he suffers.
[260563]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 12/23/19

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Two Are Better Than One”
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Do Not Grab A Dog By The Ears”
Are Biblical Kings Myth Or Reality?

The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Two Are Better Than One”

Laitman_198Comment: The synonym for the wise man is, as it is often said, King Solomon.

It was the best time in the Jewish state. In his time the Temple was built. He wrote great books. He was engaged in education, and in general there was a hold in all matters.

There are quotes that are attributed to him. They are very deep and at the same time very simple. Please comment on them.

“Two are better than one, since they have good reward for their toil.

“For if they fall, one will lift up his friend, but woe to the one who falls and has no second one to lift him up.

“Moreover, if two lie down, they will have warmth, but how will one have warmth?”

Everything is so simple.

Answer: No, it is not simple. These are great and seemingly simple facts, but unattainable for the ordinary person to simply take and implement.

This refers to the internal unity of people, above hatred, when each of them is a separate entity. This is huge work of a person on himself, moreover, according to a serious technique.

Question: Do you think it is not just said: it is good to be together and not alone?

Answer: No, this is King Solomon. Would he just say that?

Question: Do you mean he clearly understands that people cannot be together?

Answer: Of course. It is the disclosure of internal hatred that is necessary in order to discover the extent to which we must reach in order to become so close to each other, to warm one another. This is not bodily warming, it is when you work on my soul and I work on your soul.
[260054]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman,” 12/5/19

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of King Solomon: “Do Not Grab A Dog By The Ears”
People At War
A Long Way To The First Spiritual Level

The Meaning Of Kabbalistic Books, Part 1

laitman_531.01The Many Faces of the Torah

Question: When we open the Torah, we find a collection of historical stories with many characters. How should we correctly relate to them?

Answer: If the Torah did not come from a special source but was an ordinary book written, suppose by a person in the Middle Ages, then it would just be an interesting historical novel.

The Torah itself is presented in very interesting language, and when you start reading it, you cannot stop, because it captivates you. There is something in it that makes you never get tired of reading it.

I speak of this as an ordinary reader who has nothing to do with the origin of this book, religion, history, geography, or with anything else. It is just written in an interesting style.

Some perceive the Torah as a historical document, others as fiction, or, perhaps, as a collection of instructions or legal documents. It contains a lot of information about the interaction of people and nations in ancient times, about their view of the world.

In general, the Torah is a very interesting book. We see something similar in Josephus Flavius, if it is possible to compare the Torah and his works at all. To some extent, he retells the Torah and describes it as a historian.

Josephus is a truly stunning historian with a broad outlook and a deep knowledge of historical facts. He wrote his works while in exile in Rome where a huge institute was created especially for him, where hundreds of people worked for him.

But all the same, what he wrote cannot be compared with the Torah itself.
[251953]
From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 12/18/18

Related Material:
What Is The Torah?
What Does The Torah Tells Us?
Understanding The Meaning Of The Torah

The State Of The World Depends On Israel

The Zohar, “VaYechi,” “Do Not Recall Our First Sins,” 412 – 413: If Israel performed good deeds before the Lord, the nations of the world and idolaters would not rise against them. But Israel is causing the other nations to raise their heads in the world, because if Israel had not sinned before the Lord, the other nations and idolaters would have surrendered to them.

If Israel had not continued their evil deeds to the other side of the Land of Israel, the other nations of the world and the idolaters would not control the Land of Israel and they would not have been exiled from their land. It says: “We have grown very poor since we have no good deeds, as we should have.”
[184467]

Related Material:
The Kabbalists About The Nation Of Israel And The Nations Of The World, Part 11
The Kabbalists About The Nation Of Israel And The Nations Of The World, Part 10
The Kabbalists About The Nation Of Israel And The Nations Of The World, Part 9

The Future Of Education

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: I am an education student. You say that education is the only way to correct the current situation, but education is a long process that takes years. What is more, I am trying to do something in my local environment and I see that not only does it not improve the situation but it actually make things worse. What would you recommend now in light of what is going on lately in Israel?

Answer: Our problem is that we develop in a way that we seem to be the horse chasing the cart. We advance by impulses that nature summons within us. We change and then we see how evil we become in our new state and what we can do in order to become a little better.

Thus we always try to improve yesterday’s state, never today’s state, and certainly not that of tomorrow. This is the reason that our education system is ineffective, and as you say, “education is a long process.” If we bring up our children incorrectly now, we will only see that we were wrong in 20 to 30 years. You are right, this is a problem!

Therefore, even great experts in the field of education cannot provide the educational system that is right for the generation growing up today and which will run the world in 30 years so that they will have this method and be able to use it correctly.

We cannot come up with such a method by using our own minds! After all, we have not developed to the state in which we can develop the education system nor teach it to everyone so that we will be properly educated in the future either. We don’t know where nature will lead us in 30 years, but the educational system has to be corrected now in order to fill, correct, and complement all the differences and contradictions between us, as well as all the states that will be revealed in the future. We cannot even imagine what a person, an Israeli citizen, will be like in another 30 years.

This is the reason that I understand your question. You are right that the current educational approach is unsuccessful and that it cannot be. Only a person from the future can provide us with the right method, which means someone who knows the state into which we should develop. Therefore, this person already precedes his time and provides us with an educational system so that we will be ready for the future, although we haven’t yet reached it and haven’t yet developed internally for it.

This is the reason that we need the wisdom of Kabbalah that teaches us about us and explains the whole process of our evolution, to what state we reach at any given moment in our history, and how we should unite so that we will be ready, not only today or tomorrow, but also for the day after tomorrow and always. It is because this method is eternal and ready for any and everyone. Therefore, the educational system has to stem from the true sources of the wisdom of Kabbalah. It doesn’t mean that we actually need to study this wisdom, but this system stems from it, from the deep understanding of man’s nature and his environment.
[164040]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 8/2/15

Related Material:
The Proper Education For A Person
Education Of Parents – Guaranteed Benefit For Children
A School For Young Parents