Entries in the 'Inner Work' Category

Short Stories: The Evolution Of Abraham’s Group–Isaac

Dr. Michael LaitmanAfter Abraham founded his school, he began to develop the Kabbalistic method with the students who joined him. Thus he created three systems: a system of studying, a system of dissemination, and a system of fulfilling the wisdom of Kabbalah.

The system of dissemination takes into account the level of a person’s development. Everything depends on how people can perceive the spiritual idea, to what extent it is close to them and can answer their expectations, and to what extent they can be shown that this system is beneficial for them.

Later, when they ascend and develop, they will be ready to understand other options that the wisdom offers them. Therefore, a person should always be approached on his level, in a language that he understands, so he be can attracted by knowing you can actually help him realize what he wants.

This is what Abraham engaged in when he explained that the ultimate goal of our evolution is love and bestowal, and those who wish to attain it internally, at least to some extent, should come to him.

This is how the next stage of the development of Abraham’s school began. At this point, it was called Abraham’s group, since all the members in the group began to work on the connection between them, accepting the fact that unity is above separation.

When the leap of the ego occurred in ancient Babylon and people wanted to build a tower to reach heaven, that is, to the uppermost force, it was putting pressure on the negative force.

Abraham, however, claimed that the negative force stems from the same positive force and has to be operated differently, by absorbing it as what we call the left line (the negative force). He believed that the ego that rises in people should be studied and worked with correctly. This is the reason that the period that followed the development of Abraham’s group is called Isaac.

The correct use of the ego is called the sacrifice of Isaac, which means that we bind our ego and threaten to kill it, totally ready to sacrifice it, although we understand that we will not attain the Creator without it. On the other hand, resemblance and equivalence to the Creator can only be attained if we limit the ego correctly. For us, it is like cutting our own flesh.

We learn to control our ego, to bind it, manage it, and place it under the attribute of love and bestowal without destroying it and without threatening it, and we become ready to break away from ourselves (since the ego is the whole self). This process is part of our evolution, and when we perform it, we are have the opportunity for the correct, productive, and focused work with our ego. This is the essence of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.
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From KabTV’s “Short Stories” 10/15/14

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The Force Of Overcoming, Part 2

Dr. Michael Laitman

Question: It turns out that all the overcoming is in the desire that will win in me?

Answer: If my parents punish me, forcing me to do homework, my desire to avoid the blows becomes stronger than the desire to rest, and I go and do all that is required.

We always act according to our desire. The only question is whether it is my desire that obliges me to act or someone else’s desire. If this desire arises directly in me, then I realize it with pleasure and it does not require me to overcome anything.

If I see that the desire in not mine, then it is called coercion. In the end, I also perform the required act on my own accord by making the calculation that otherwise I would be punished or have no money for food. But this is someone else’s desire, not my true desire, that forces me to act, and that is why I do this without joy.

The action itself does not contain any overcoming! I always do everything according to the desire: either emerging in me or that presses and forces me. But, overcoming by myself is in obtaining good desires that are useful for me. So, I purposefully absorb them from the environment.

For example, my parents wanted me to become a musician. And so my father took me to watch movies about musicians. He wanted me to be inspired by their life, glory, and world fame, and he also wanted me to want to be like them. But the only thing I remembered from this, is that eventually they all ended their lives and died because I was a child of 6 – 7 years old.

Using these examples, my parents wanted to instill the desire to study music in me, but I did not absorb it and suffered much from studying at a music school. This shows that overcoming applies to a person who understands that he needs it. He has no choice, and thus he overcomes his original desire and acquires a new one.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/27/14

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The Most Stubborn And Most Purposeful

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “Tzav” (Command), item 16: “Command Aaron” comes to crown that spirit of holiness up above, separate the spirit of impurity and lower it down from Israel by desire and prayer, and from the priests in the act of sacrificing the sacrifice, each by what is appropriate for him.

A priest is the heaviest and most egoistic part in a person (the fifth level), who by correcting himself, reaches the most sublime heights.

The popular belief is that the priests have the worst character, as they are rude, rigid, and have no feelings. This is because when the lowest ego is corrected it reaches the greatest heights in its opposite form.

The ego of the priest is reversed and ascends from the lowest level to the highest level, and thus the priest can be the leader of the nation, the spiritual guide. Being on a higher level than everyone else according to his ego, he now becomes higher than everyone else according to his altruism.

On the whole, all Kabbalists are very stubborn, coarse people who work on themselves only to change internally and resemble the Creator. This is not seen on the onside, and in everyday life, they are ordinary people. All their spiritual work is concealed from the eyes of strangers, and therefore it is called the concealed wisdom.

The more a person develops spiritually, the tougher, more stubborn and obstinate he becomes. The Upper Light sustains him in this state and in all his actions. A person is in a state of clarification at every moment in his life as to what happens to him and how he can direct himself to the right path.

He first clarifies this and then sorts it out, burns, cuts, and kills his egoistic intentions by four kinds of deaths and leaves only the pure desires. Only then does he begin to correct them by attaching them to his altruistic intentions. Instead of thinking about himself, he begins to think about others; instead of worrying about himself, he worries about others; instead of loving himself, he begins to love others. Thus in every situation in life he puts his intentions through others to the Creator.

Therefore, for the priests it is the most sublime, greatest, most serious, and most spiritual law and decision.

On the outside it seems that the priest’s decisions constantly change, but on the inside he focuses on one point. But, because the ego is constantly swinging in different directions, it turns out that a person seems to be going round and round in the Sinai Desert until he cleans it completely.

He doesn’t change his initial decision, but only more finely tunes it, like a missile that constantly corrects itself according to the system that observes its flight, each time changing the angle of its flight and getting back on its initial track. A person also thinks that there are constant changes inside him while the goal and the direction remain the same. This is his future adhesion to the Creator, with the attribute of absolute love and bestowal, in the complete unity of all the shattered souls,

If a person constantly aims at this, he follows the optimal path.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/27/13

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Curing An Element Of The General System

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Now we all are rallying around a sick friend. This is evident: thousands of people, men and women thinking and worrying about him. Together with this external expression there is also great internal work that is similar to a prayer in a way because it is very easy for us to hold on to this thought.

Answer: We affect the system we are in by our desires and our intention. All of mankind, everything that is on this planet and beyond it in different forms are elements of this system.

Thus we insert a special signal into it that is focused on one of the elements returning to its minimal balanced human existence. We affect the system this way so that it will have a positive effect on our sick friend. This is a very strong signal. If we keep on working this way, we will see an amazing outcome.

We don’t know and are not aware of the whole system, its plan, and its intentions. We don’t know each one’s fate, meaning each one’s role in this system, but generally speaking, we have to affect it as much as we can so that our friend will be equal to us.

We have to feel the problems of all the others and totally annul them so that we will have no more corporeal or spiritual problems other than attaining complete harmony among us since we are the only ones who are disturbing the harmony of the whole system. This is the reason that we have to summon this state in which the influence of the upper force that operates it is clearly revealed.

The system itself cannot reveal the upper force in it since we are its corrupt element. We have to spur the positive forces that will affect and correct us (in this case, our friend) to match the general harmony. Then we will feel the nourishing upper force in this system that evokes and directs it (the Creator). If we bring the whole system to the state in which the Creator is revealed, then through it we will be able to be in full connection with Him.

Thus our friend is an element that invokes us so that we will connect more strongly among us so that our desires and demands of the Creator, of the whole system, will be collective, identical, and accurately focused. Thus through him we learn how to be connected.

I hope that eventually we will see that he fully recovers. It depends only on our efforts.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/08/14, Shamati #5

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More Shade Than Light

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that a holiday hut, a Sukkah, symbolizes the soul of a person. How can one understand this?

Answer: A person sitting in a Sukkah symbolizes a desire. The measurements of the Sukkah symbolize the qualities of the human soul, and its roof symbolizes a Masach (screen).

That is, I don’t want to receive Light for my own pleasure, so there must be more shade than light in a Sukkah. This symbolizes my readiness to be satisfied with the minimum necessities, with everything else being for bestowal.

This is like the level of the Tzadik (Righteous), bestowal for the sake of bestowal. First of all, it is necessary to reach this to attain a beginning of resemblance and equivalence to the Creator. There are a few stages of approach to the Creator, and this is the initial stage.

The soul is our desire to receive, to enjoy, that is organized in a form like this by the right environment, the integration of forces, of preparation, as if it were found within a Sukkah. Certainly, this is not talking about a material Sukkah, but about such an integration of my desires within the environment that makes it possible for me to correct them gradually for the good of others.

On every day of the Sukkot holiday, we receive a new Light, with whose help we scrutinize our desires and correct them. The illumination that reaches us is called Ushpizin (guests). We receive honored guests in our Sukkah in this order: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David. They are seven Lights, each of them correcting in us a particular part of the soul: Hesed (the characteristic of Abraham), Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod and Malchut.

So, during the entire holiday of Sukkot, we correct ourselves by arranging festive meals for the Ushpizin. It is customary to eat and to drink only in a Sukkah because only there is it possible to make a correction.

During Sukkot we make blessings with four symbols: Lulav (palm), Etrog (citron), myrtle, and willow. Their form is similar to the innate characteristics of the four parts of the human soul—Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut—that together, comprise a complete HaVaYaH.

So, there is a tradition to choose the Etrog carefully so that there will not be any defects in it, for it symbolizes Malchut, the foundation of creation, the foundation of the soul. All of these symbols must be connected together, and then it is possible to bless, meaning attract the Light.

From the side, this process can seem like some kind of idolatrous ceremony. The person shakes the symbolic branches that are gathered together a few times, moving them in all the directions of the Light: right, left, middle, above, below, forward, and backward. However, if we read the explanation of the Ari in the book, Shaar HaMitzvot, it then will be clear that lofty spiritual activities are concealed behind this.

In fact, a person must carry them out within himself. The external actions are only a tradition, whereas the main thing is that agitation that he performs within his soul, correcting it. The correction of the soul is the purpose of a person’s life.

During each one of the seven days of Sukkot, it is necessary to carry out internal activities like these in a Sukkah that is built inside of us by attracting Ohr Makif there. If we arrange all of the parts of the soul to resemble the four symbols of Sukkot and we know how to bless them in all the directions of our desire—right and left, with bestowal and with reception—then, at the end of the Sukkot holiday, we reach the holiday of Simchat Torah.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/02/14

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Spiritual Fear Cannot Be Without Love

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn The Book of Zohar, it is written: Evoking fear on both sides of love (during the periods of “trials” and the periods of mercy and benevolence) is essential. During the time of mercy and success on His Paths, it is necessary to trepidation awakened before the Creator to avoid committing sins and to prevent our love for Him “cooling down.”

There is no such thing as the fear of punishment. There is no retribution whatsoever. Only to our egoistic desire does it look that we are being punished for our wrongdoings.

Similar to how we egoists relate to each other in this realm, we assume that there is either a reward or a punishment for everything. Our whole life goes by between these two categories and clarifications: “How can I feel better, how can I reward myself? How can I hide from punishments?”

​The ​spiritual path lies above this level. There is no egoistic reckoning whatsoever, neither with the plus nor minus sign. There, it has nothing to do with rewards or retributions. In spirituality, we are the ones who create a scale of spiritual recompenses and paybacks.

When one is given a chance to care about others, it is a reward. If for some reason one is unable to take care of others, one considers it to be a punishment.

The true reality can be attained only when we bring our bodily sensors outside ourselves and begin sensing life not internally, but externally. We have to acknowledge and feel it. That’s why it is said: “You will see your world while you are still alive.” However, moving in this direction becomes possible only if we connect fear with love.

From Baal HaSulam’s and Rabash’s articles and from our own experience, we know that love never comes without fear. Real, spiritual fear cannot occur if it is not accompanied by love.  We shiver because we are scared that our love can weaken or love of those who care about us will diminish. We are in distress, not because we just enjoy being together as two egoists who are delighted to be with each other. Rather, we worry that we won’t let the Creator love us because we don’t please Him by loving our neighbors.

These are mutual sensations. We experience them only at the level of fear. Fear is necessary to make us rise above our egoism and work with it inversely.

… In order to avoid falling to wickedness and diminishing our love for the Creator, we have to connect fear with love.

The same happens on the “other side of love,” at the time of stringent trials when He judges us for our deeds. Awakening of fear before the Creator is essential so that we won’t fall in​to the state of judging ourselves according to egoistic criteria.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, lesson 1

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The Creator Is Playing Hide And Seek With Us

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The holidays of the Israeli nation are a continuum of phases that a person goes through when he decides to follow the path of loving others. Every holiday is a stop along this path in the process of the complete fulfillment of this goal. What is the place of Sukkot in this chain of events?

Answer: Just like any other phenomenon, it is difficult to explain what the holidays mean from a Kabbalistic perspective because it is about something that a person doesn’t yet feel and still has to develop his sensitivity to.

At the beginning of creation we were in direct, constant, and revealed contact with the upper force that created us, but in that state we didn’t understand Him and were not aware of Him yet, as if we were an embryo in his mother’s womb adhered to her and existing thanks to her.

In order to make mature created beings out of us who understand the Creator and know Him, to study His attributes, t0 become like Him, and to relate to Him like He relates to us, there was the Tzimtzum (restriction) and concealment. The created beings suddenly were detached from the Creator.

It turns out that there is a created being—a man, humanity—and in contrast, there is the Creator, the force that manages everything and operates creation. There is nothing other than the force of the Creator and man who was created by Him, whom He wants to raise to His level.

In order to allow a person to grow, the Creator places a Masach (screen) of concealment between Himself and the created being, a thick partition. I don’t see the Creator behind this partition, but I have to try to find Him, as if by playing hide and seek,  trying to see Him in everything that happens to me and inside me,.

On the whole, there is no other work in the world other than the constant representation of the Creator before me. I have to try to discover the Creator in all my thoughts, desires and feelings, and in everything that happens around me. I have to receive everything as Masachim  (screens) that conceal the Creator behind them.

I have to feel that it is only the Creator who fills the whole world and operates everything, including me, of course. All my work is to remove the concealments and return to the state of a revealed contact with the Creator when I understand, know, and feel Him to the depth of the previous concealment, by turning the whole Aviut (thickness) of the partition into an area for His revelation!

This area, which previously created the concealment, now becomes the area of revelation that is called the upper worlds and by which I begin to understand and feel the Creator. I exert myself during the concealment in order to reveal Him, and thanks to that I grow and learn to understand and be just like Him.

The Creator wanted to teach me and reveal His attributes to me and this has been successful. Now we know and understand one another. I feel everything that He wanted to teach me by the concealment. After correcting the concealment to revelation, there is mutual love and openness between us and we reach complete adhesion. We must go through this process, as this is the whole plan of creation.

There are levels in the concealment, starting from the easier ones to the increasingly more difficult ones. Eventually I find myself behind five levels of concealment called the worlds. In order to get closer to the Creator and to know Him, I have to reveal Him on every level.

The five levels of concealment are divided into five parts and each one is divided into five other parts making a total of 125 levels that separate me from the Creator. On each level, I have to turn the concealment into revelation, the lack of understanding to understanding and the lack of feeling to feeling. And thus I acquire the Creator’s attributes and change from one level to the next.

This is nothing like scientific research in this world when a physicist remains the way he was after revealing something new. The levels of spiritual revelation change the researcher himself.

After all, the attributes of the Creator are opposite from my attributes. I totally receive and He totally bestows. Therefore, I have to change the Masach that conceals Him from reception to bestowal in order to reveal Him. Because my attributes are opposite from the Creator’s, the Masach conceals Him, and by turning it to bestowal, I advance and get closer to the Creator.
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From the program “A New Life” 10/05/14

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The Days Of Spiritual Ascent

laitman_742_03Question: What is the inner meaning of the Sukkot holiday?

Answer: Sukkot is a very important holiday because it celebrates a spiritual ascent. At the end of the year, we reflect on the results of our critical self-analysis.

If we’ve worked well over the course of the year, searching for ways to correct ourselves so as to return to the Creator, then we’ve discovered our guilt in a multitude of transgressions.

And this is precisely the result of our good work, scrutiny of ourselves, and our attitude toward the friends, which showed how full we still are of the evil inclination, hatred toward others, rejection, and egoistic calculations.

After sitting in judgment over ourselves, we deliver a sentence called the start of the new year—Rosh HaShana (head of the year). We want for the Creator, the force of love and bestowal, to be our head, our king.

Rosh HaShana is the coronation of the King as the greatest of all, embodying bestowal, love, warmth, and fulfillment. We value these qualities highly, which is why we extoll this force of nature and wish to become like it, up to total adhesion with it. This is the decision to make on Rosh HaShana, to continue to follow through on it.

Hence, there are two judgments on Rosh HaShana: one severe and one gentle, which precedes the ten days of repentance. During this time we must check our work on our unification and clarify how to achieve unity. After all, the more we correct ourselves uniting as one man with one heart, the more we resemble the one and singular Creator.

With this decision we draw the Surrounding Light, a special luminescence, and see which desires in us are not subject to correction since they cannot be corrected for the sake of bestowal and used to unite with the friends. The other desires, however, can be corrected and used to bring goodness, love, connection, and unity to the friends.

The ten days of repentance separate in all my desires the part that is not yet correctable from that which can be corrected. This separation is called “His left hand over my head”—a left embrace that leaves outside those desires that cannot be embraced.

And then begins the holiday of Sukkot, when “His right hand will embrace me.” During Sukkot, a special luminescence shines on those who wish to unite with all the creatures and cleave to the Creator, to the upper qualities of bestowal and universal love.

The holiday of Sukkot lasts seven days, in accordance with the lights that we need to obtain: Hessed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yessod, and Malchut, or the guests that take turns visiting the daily holiday feasts: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David.

It is written, “I have created the evil inclination, and the Torah whose Light returns to the source.” The Creator has made bad qualities, rather than good: the evil inclination, our ego, which prevents us from uniting, treating each other well, and bestowing to others.

Love of others is the great rule of the Torah, but we don’t want to observe it. The evil in us is everything that opposes our unification with others. This is the meaning of the excerpt, “I have created the evil inclination, and the Torah as a spice.” The Torah is not the physical book resting on the shelf, but a special method of utilizing the force of nature called “Light.” If I make use of this Light, putting myself under its influence, I convert all the evil, intentionally made by the Creator, into good.

From an egoist who rejects and detests others without any reason, I turn into someone loving, until I unify with everybody as one man with one heart.

Until Sukkot we engaged in judgment over ourselves, clarifying what can and cannot be corrected. And it turned out that we are full of evil, like a pomegranate that’s filled with seeds but is rotten through and through.

On Rosh Hashana we’ve decided that we want to become bestowing and raise the Creator, the force of love, to reign over us. Over the subsequent ten days of repentance we check the ten Sefirot of our soul, the ten parts of our desire, clarifying what can and cannot be corrected. For we contain impure desire (Klipot) that aren’t subject to correction, which we therefore simply restrict, separate, or freeze.

And the correctable desires become corrected in the days of Sukkot. This is the first correction of the desire, and it is done by virtue of the surrounding Light that shines on us. The symbol of the surrounding Light is the Sukkah, a special tabernacle or canopy.

We make a shade because we don’t want to receive the Light for ourselves, for our own benefit; rather, we desire change, connection with the Creator, the Light, for the sole reason of giving it to others. That is what a righteous person is—one who takes only what’s necessary for his sustenance, and gives away the rest. Such is the corrected reception symbolized by the Sukkah.
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From a KabTV’s “A New Life” No. 439, 9/30/2014

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Benevolence Under The X-Ray

Dr. Michael Laitman Question: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is the most significant day of the year for the people of Israel. What is the spiritual meaning of this special day? How should we relate to it in order to correspond to its spiritual roots and to transfer our life to a new degree?

 Answer: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is not simply a tradition. It reflects a special spiritual state in a person’s development. We shouldn’t look at this day separately, but as a part of the entire year’s cycle.

Upon the completion of a year, that being a cycle of internal changes, we evaluate everything that we went through, which is called “repentance.” Thus we decide that it is necessary to rise to a new degree, to begin the new year (Rosh Hashanah), cross to a new state, a higher, purer, more exalted one. So we crown the Creator, the force of bestowal and love, setting Him up to reign over us as the most sublime property.

This is when we begin to judge ourselves: are we truly in the property of bestowal? All our properties are divided into ten parts, ten Sefirot. And we are clarifying which desires in those ten parts can be corrected, and which cannot.

In essence, a person’s soul needs to be corrected. And a soul is all our desires, which are still corrupted and need correction.

 Question: What exactly needs to be corrected: one’s actions or the soul?

Answer: In our world, actions are performed with hands and feet, or through words. But the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that most important is a corrected intention, which is the true desire of a person.

Actions alone aren’t enough, because I can perform them simply out of habit. Then, it is actually more difficult for me not to do them than to do them. And these can be the actions that I otherwise would never have made in my life had I not been accustomed to them from childhood.

In this case, it is no longer fulfillment of a commandment but traditions instilled in childhood that are performed automatically. For someone it might be difficult to carry them out, but for someone else, it is difficult to not do them.

This is why we are not speaking about an action, but rather an intention. An action, after all, does not change: As we have been doing it, so we will continue. But in intention, in a person’s attitude towards the performed action, there is always change.

The key is a person’s attitude to those around him. After all, love for one’s neighbor as for oneself is the great law of the Torah. This is the point of view from which I need to check myself in order to see how much I am capable of loving my neighbor.

The upper force is a force of bestowal and love, and our goal is to become like it. This is why we need to reach the degree of man, Adam, which means similar to (Domeh) the Creator. But how can we check this? Where is that doctor who will irradiate me with an X-Ray and tell me exactly how similar I am to the Creator?

Such a doctor does not exist, so a person needs to check himself on his own. This kind of X-Ray machine requires a special Light, which checks us. This Light is called the Light that Reforms.

If I am studying the true Torah, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, then thanks to it, I start to see the truth. I see how egoistic I am, what exactly is it in me that is bad, and what needs to be corrected, as if I shine an X-Ray on myself.

This is only visible to me and others may not notice it. And after I have seen myself on the X-Ray image, it becomes clear to me what needs to be corrected. The Torah arranges this image where I only see intentions, and only to the level of the depth which I am capable of correcting. Everything else I do not see, and it can remain until the next year.

Immediately after the onset of the new year, I find myself in these X-ray sessions, which are called ten days of repentance. I irradiate my heart, clarifying my intentions with respect to those around me in each action, and get back these images.

Kabbalah explains that Malchut ascends to Bina and compares herself to it. Malchut is our egoistic desire, which rises to Bina, the desire for bestowal, clarifying the extent to which it differs from it, how far we are from caring for our neighbors, from good relations, and how we are only thinking about our own benefit.

 Question: What is shown on these X-ray images?

Answer: This image is black-and-white. It shows how much white there is in you, that is, the intentions for the benefit of your neighbor. And the black color points to the intentions for your own benefit, which you can correct.

Thus, the scope of our work is revealed to us. This is personal work that is in store for each of us, but it is aimed at the commonality, at bestowal to all, and through them, to the Creator, which is from the love of the created beings, to love of the Creator. The Creator is a force, integrating everyone together, and not something that exists outside. It is written: “The Creator dwells among his people.”

Thus, if I strive to unite with everyone and want to turn into one whole with them, then I reveal the overall integral system that generalizes our unity, which is called the Creator. This is how it is revealed in our perception.

Therefore, during Yom Kippur we need to strive to love our neighbor as much as possible and wider, and even beyond the people of Israel, extending it to all mankind. This is the reason why during Yom Kippur it is customary to read the story about the prophet Jonah, whom the Creator instructed to lead the city of Nineveh, which symbolizes the world, to correction.
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From the TV Show “The New Life” #438. 9/30/2014

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Isolation For The Good Of The Society

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What does the “Thirteen Parts of the Correction of the Hair” mean in relation to the ego?

Answer: This is an external manifestation of desires that are given to be corrected. We correct them like all of the usual desires, but they reveal themselves as outward and external.

This means that according to the stimulation that is revealed on the skin, which is in contact with the hair, the head, and also the chin, it is understood what must be done with this person and in what manner he must be isolated from society. This is because he is currently not useful to the society because he is in a pathological state and becomes a source of cancer. Through his egoistic desire, he only infects society.

Isolating this person from society means not just physically keeping him at a distance, but isolating him from contact with others. He doesn’t need to be associated with anyone else in society in any way until he corrects himself separately. Time will usually do this when he is alone with the Creator.

Problems like these appear on higher levels and correct a person, as in the case of Moses when he hid his hand inside, took it out, and there was leprosy on it. He put his hand in again, took it out, and it was clean. This is a manifestation of a very deep, egoistic pathology.

Question: Suppose that in a group there are people who are in descent, they are sleeping in the lessons, and they don’t want to participate in events. Their time has not yet come; it is not allowed to touch them.

But there are people who are harmful and they begin to convey their philosophy. These people must be suspended for a time, which may even be permanent. Is this a state of leprosy that begins to gnaw at everyone and can even bring down the whole group?

Answer: Certainly, for the leper is a very strong person, very advanced, but he discovers problems like these within his ego that he must somehow conquer by himself so as not to influence the group. He does this by himself, since he is on the level of a priest and can isolate himself, but cannot heal.

Moreover, he doesn’t isolate himself physically. Rather, he is working on himself all the time so that he will not affect the group. This is called “expelling him from the camp” where he is warned not to influence the group detrimentally, and so he gradually heals himself of the leprosy.
[141133]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/20/14

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