Entries in the 'Holidays' Category

The Root of All Exiles

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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The Path to Freedom

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As a rule, the people of Israel were hated and expelled from various countries. However it is different in Egypt, the people of Israel seemed to be pulled into it.

Answer: We were expelled from country to country until we had a desire to exit egoism. After all, we are liberated only when we want to get out of it in order to unite. Therefore during the entire period of exile, we only collected, added, and accumulated misery and misfortunes.

Today we have reached a state that we simply are obliged to realize ourselves, i.e., unite. This is the action that is necessary to ascend above egoism. Then we will come out to freedom, to the land of Israel. Now we cannot yet imagine this state when you do not depend on anyone, are not afraid of anyone, are not oppressed by anyone, and you feel freedom in the full sense of the word.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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A Leap of Faith Is Needed

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder” 3/4/13

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Get out from under the Control of Pharaoh

278.03And Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea­shore… and the people feared the Lord… (Baal HaSulam, Shamati 151, “And Israel Saw the Egyptians“).

Question: The process of leaving Egypt was accomplished by a leap of faith above reason.

The Creator miraculously demonstrated His full support to the people. Why were they afraid?

Now in fact, there is also a miraculous occurrence: thousands of people around the world are doing the same act of unification. Why are we afraid and not happy with anything?

Answer: Because after having shown our desire to leave Egypt, we fell under the power of Pharaoh, who would not let us go.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/25, “Nachshon’s Jump and the Parting of the Red Sea”

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Freedom in the Lack of Freedom from Love

938.05Comment: Most people perceive Passover as a week of celebration. Yet suddenly you are saying that this is a state one can be in every day.

My Response: The moment I discover within myself that I am under the control of Pharaoh (egoism) and that I somehow need to rise above it, to exit it, I immediately try to make every possible effort to overcome it.

But on my own, I cannot conquer the ego; I don’t fight it; I even love it. This is the most important thing a person must understand! After all, egoism helps me rise. It is said that one must thank for the bad just as for the good. Great is the one who can turn their enemy into a beloved one.

If you look at egoism the right way, then we need this force. That is why it is said that Pharaoh brought the people of Israel closer to the Creator. If we did not have an evil inclination, if we did not experience suffering, we would never feel the need for connection with the upper force, with the Creator.

But we are now considering this question on a practical, corporeal level. If we are in a state of constant egoistic growth, then Passover is an example of rising above the ego for us. It is not for nothing that it is said: in every generation, a person must see himself as if he was coming out of Egypt.

“Generation” here means every moment in time, because every change within me is considered a new generation. I must always feel as if I am coming out of Egypt even though immediately I fall into a new Egypt, and again I come out, and again I fall. In this way, I quickly complete all my corrections and reach the goal.

How is this achieved? The wisdom of Kabbalah gives a very simple explanation: through connection! The final goal we must reach is “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and this can be attained only through all possible efforts to draw closer to one another.

Kabbalah explains which efforts exactly. After all, our world is full of various ideas, theories, and practices. Everything people have come up with has been drawn from different philosophies, religions, beliefs, and psychological tricks as a substitute for the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Humanity has been searching for a way to tame its egoism because it tears us apart. It prevents us from living in families, from communicating with friends, and from interacting correctly with one another. What can be done with nature itself? Why is it set against us? And it is not just nature, man himself is set against himself!

People do not have the correct method of education. Therefore, they introduced laws that suppress, constrain, and diminish egoism in attempts to subdue it. Suppression is the foundation of all religions. But what we need is a method that would balance egoism so that each person could use it correctly and not suppress it!

The revolutionary aspect of the wisdom of Kabbalah lies in the free development of egoism and in rising above it afterward.

Kabbalah brings a person to a state of freedom. You are not ashamed, you do not scold yourself, you do not blame others. You simply must constantly strive to reveal the method of complementing egoism with its opposite force so they would work together correctly.

Egoism would raise the altruistic force, the force of love, and together they would work in a harmonious symbiosis, rolling back and forth: pe-sach, pe-sach.

It is impossible to do without the exile from the good quality of love into the qualities that Egypt embodies: cruelty, hatred, and control. But suddenly, when these qualities are covered with love, you no longer feel them as such, and you carry them out from love even though it might seem that you are strictly constrained.

In order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must care for everyone! So where is your freedom in that? On the contrary! You constantly think only about what others lack and how you could help them. In the end, where is the “I”?

It is a paradox, but through love, you forget about yourself, and then you are completely free. You are in constant motion, in constant care, yet it is sweet, and there is nothing more joyful. It is like a mother caring for her baby, and it gives her immense pleasure.

That is why we simply need to understand how egoism begins to work together with the quality of love in such a harmony that we no longer feel it as egoism. We need it; without it, we would not feel any positive sensations.

I can feel another precisely because I do not want it, but by inversely turning it into a new object, I receive new feelings. In other words, the greater the hatred, the greater the love.

It is written in The Book of Zohar that the students of Rabbi Shimon, who wrote it, felt deep hatred toward each other before each lesson, and then, as they began to unite, they created love. Only in this way were they able to attain this spiritual quality and describe it in The Book of Zohar.

They had to feel a burning hatred in order to then rise above it and reveal, in place of the consuming fire of hatred, the fire of love. Only from the contrast of these two qualities were they able to describe the immense illumination they attained.
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From KabTV’s “Conversations about Passover”, Episode #2

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The Heavens Tell His Glory

598We humans begin in a state where we know nothing, because we are born like small animals, and thus we develop in stages. Animals do not develop throughout their lives. They are almost the same on the day they are born as on the day they die. However, we people constantly develop.

However, when do we reach true development? It is when we begin to feel ourselves as human beings in corporeality, and then begin to develop human levels of growth. Within those levels, we reach the large will to receive and fulfill it completely. Then within us, in that large will to receive, a point in the heart develops. Suddenly, it awakens, and we feel that it is more important than the entire will to receive we had acquired with all of its possessions.

From there, we continue developing the point in the heart, and search for how to develop it until we reach the place where it aligns with its ultimate fulfillment through four phases, and there we begin again to develop on the level of four phases.

Therefore, each time we enter a new stage and another new stage until we begin to feel that we are truly in exile. We cannot feel that we are in exile unless we accurately interpret within our emotion and intellect what redemption is. This is already a revelation from above that brings us the upper light, the reforming light, i.e., when we feel that we are in a dungeon that holds us and presses on us from all sides, and we are unable to get out of it, to escape from it, to make even a small movement, even though the pressure is immense.

This can more or less be considered a picture to describe how we feel ourselves, within egoistic desires, under pressure, in the bondage of Pharaoh.

Afterward, we continue on out of a lack of choice. Although this brings pain to the will to receive, the importance of the goal that we constantly develop suppresses the pain and gives us the ability to rise above it. Still, we feel as if there is a barrier in front of us, as though we want to pass ourselves through a mold the shape of which is utterly mismatched with our nature.

It is similar to how when cakes are made or children play with sand molds in different shapes. We fill them with sand and retrieve a shape. Therefore, we feel as if, with all our traits, with who we are now, with our approach to life, our thoughts and attitudes, we simply cannot enter into that mold. It does not fit us in any way.

This is the pain of self-birth, what we feel during the Exodus from Egypt. After several years and many difficult exercises, in which we truly do not understand how it is even possible to pass through them, nonetheless we agree and pass through. When we do, we do not understand it, but we receive a new land, new heavens, i.e., a new approach to life, a new perception, new importance, a new way of thinking. Everything in us changes, and we receive a new operating system.

From that moment onward, we begin to attach to ourselves, to reveal within us the desires from the past that awaken, and to correct them: first the unintentional sins (Shgagot), and then the intentional ones (Zdonot).

This is called “The heavens tell” His glory, that is, the heavens “tell” or reveal the Creator. It is because the quality of bestowal that gradually awakens within us is called “heavens,” the quality of Bina, which gradually reveals itself. Not only does it reveal the quality of bestowal itself, but also its greatness. This is what is meant by “the heavens tell” the Creator’s glory.

This is what it means that this night is different from all other nights. How is it different? The difference is that until now, the will to receive was always revealed to us. But this night determines that this will to receive must undergo correction so that it will be entirely in order to bestow. That is why it is entirely Matza (unleavened bread), i.e., we abstain from all desires of Malchut and cleave to Bina. We dip twice. These are all signs of Bina ruling over Malchut in all her desires.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/2007, Writings of Rabash “Concerning the Exodus from Egypt”

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The Special Holiday Passover

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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Attain the Light of Pesach

20Question: Now is the period when the lights of Pesach (Passover) influence everyone. But if there is no Kli, you may miss this opportunity. The fear that I will miss it, is this the Kli for the light of faith?

Answer: This is one of the components of the desire to attain the light of Pesach, the light of the Creator.

Question: How can you become that maximum component so that on one hand it does not interfere with the influence of the light, and manage in this short period to become necessary to the Creator?

Answer: For this, you need to study together with us, not necessarily physically, to understand what is written in the articles that turn us correctly toward the Creator.

And then it will turn out that all of us are standing before Him with open hearts.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 4/14/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam “What Is Greatness and Smallness in Faith?”

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Everything Begins with Pesach

laitman_740_02At this time, we approach a state when humanity faces a need to change its attitude to life, to itself, to its developmental goals. Humans have to realize that there is a purpose in life and that nature leads us to achieve it.

We will advance towards mutual understanding, benevolent attainment, and comfortable existence to the extent of our correspondence with the program that guides us.

The goal we must reach is above this world, beyond life and death. Eventually, we will transition to the level of immortality. This world gradually will dissolve and we will enter a totally new dimension. By the way, nowadays all worldly sciences confirm this fact. We are going through this process as we speak.

Everything starts with Pesach (Passover), i.e., when we realize that we are capable of rising above our egoism and we shift to unity and reciprocity by observing the rule of “loving our neighbor as ourselves,” or at least following the rule of “not doing to others what we do not wish for ourselves.” In other words, when we feel like brothers and maintain mutual guarantee. This holiday is about realizing that exiting from the ego is possible.

When one “leaves Egypt” and rises to the next level one regards the prior state as absolute wickedness and clearly sees how it can be used correctly. This explains why it is said that attainment happens at the foot of Mount Sinai (derived from “Sina,”  hatred) when all human properties “stand around the mountain,” whereas our aspirations, the point of Moses, rise to its peak.

Mount Sinai represents a huge egoism and it is absolutely essential to make us rise above our qualities that stand for the entire nation gathered around the Mountain.

The final goal of human advancement is to reach the peak of the Mountain where Moses and the Creator are.
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From KabTV’s “A Talk About Passover” 3/18/15

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Escape from the Darkness of Egyptian Exile

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: 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.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalists Write: The Night of Passover Seder,” 3/4/13

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