Entries in the 'Israel' Category

Connection And Unity Now!

laitman_944Question: Does the Purim holiday speak about the role of the people of Israel?

Answer: It speaks about an obligation of the people of Israel! The task can be different, but the obligation remains one: to unite and take all of humanity to a new spiritual level through unity.

Today, we are in a crisis that is similar to the same crisis that existed in ancient Babylon. The ego attracts us inward to a place that is very narrow, dark, and not understood; a place where we begin to devour each other. Humanity must rise above this state, and this ascent depends upon the people of Israel first and foremost. So, in our time, anti-Semitism has developed again because the nations of the world subconsciously feel that the people of Israel must do something, but are not carrying out their mission, and this causes harm to the world. It is precisely the separation between us that is the reason for anti-Semitism.

The moment that we begin to unite, a stream of Light will pass through us to all of humanity. People will understand what must be done, and anti-Semitism will disappear immediately. Even 2,500 years ago the prophets predicted that the nations of the world would lift the people of Israel on their shoulders and carry them to Jerusalem to build the third Beit Ha Mikdash (Temple). So, it is said that all of humanity will be drawn to the Creator, and all religions, faiths, peoples, nations, and races will unite into a single whole.

Question: What would you hope for the people of Israel and the Jews who live in other nations in the world?

Answer: First of all, I wish all the people of the world would understand the Purim holiday correctly and that with their pressure on the people of Israel they would take part in our general and common goal.

Also, I hope that the people of Israel would understand our universal role and understand and recognize the fact that the good of the world truly depends upon them. Everyone who is interested in knowing more can enter our Internet websites and archives, look at our books, read our Facebook pages, watch our Israeli television channel, and experience the live lessons of our education centers.

We must unite! Only in unity can we find a real solution to all of the problems! There is no problem that would not be solved through unity, and there is no problem that would be resolved through any other method.

Come, let’s transform this holiday into a reality where we truly solve this world’s problems between us, raising us to the next level of nature and redeeming us from all troubles. We will do this ourselves! We are doing this now together! Success for all of us!
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From a Talk about Purim 2/18/15

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The Special Force Of Holidays

laitman_744Question: Is there a special force that operates on us and affects us? Is there a special illumination that shines upon us?

Answer: A holiday is a special state in the world when the desire becomes similar to the Light in some way and the cooperation between the desire and the Light is called by a special name that matches the Kabbalistic Gematria (numerical value of the Torah). A holiday is typified by the accumulation of the previous levels up to a certain new qualitative level.

In our life, for example, psychology is a very meaningful field: child psychology, the psychology of the masses, social psychology, etc. In these frameworks we tend to picture ourselves in different situations and we feel them only because we want to feel them so much. But these are not spiritual states and have nothing to do with the holidays.

A person who is climbing the spiritual ladder, on the other hand, awakens unto himself and unto the nation a special wave of influence from that level, even if he hasn’t attained the level of the holiday, by the mere fact that he tries to rise to it by performing certain mechanical actions in our world together with the whole nation. This is possible only when they all yearn to attain it together.

During the holiday of Shavuot (Giving of the Torah), for example, we see the location of the planets, the moon, and the sun that match this spiritual action, which means that the upper force is also arranged in a certain way. If in addition to that, the whole nation yearns for it, it will receive a special illumination since the whole hierarchy of the system of creation is synchronized. But an ordinary person who knows nothing about the spiritual work and simply does what he has been taught doesn’t perceive this illumination and only has the psychological feeling of this holiday. However, people who yearn for the inner meaning of the holiday feel a certain illumination and therefore can perform additional corrections during this time.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/11/14

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Drunken From Wholeness

laitman_572_02Question: Why is the Purim holiday considered to be a family holiday all over the world?

Answer: It is not a family holiday. The Purim holiday is more like a children’s holiday, a holiday of happiness and joy, because it symbolizes a rebirth of the people. We are seemingly reborn on this holiday!

When we are separated from each other, we are not a people. Yet, when we begin to gather together, something new is born in us. So, on Purim, there is a custom to give each other gifts, Mishloach Manot (gift packages), especially wine and sweets.

Wine symbolizes Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom). Hamantashen, triangular shaped cookies, symbolize Ohr Hassadim (Light of Mercy). Hassadim and Hochma must connect, be clothe one another, and this will give us spiritual elevation.

On the Purim holiday, there is a very interesting custom of drinking wine without any restrictions,  Ad De’lo Yada (until one doesn’t know). If on this day a person is as drunk as Lot, this is a sign that he has fulfilled the tradition of the holiday.

That is, if we maintain the Purim holiday spiritually and unite, then with this we lead all of humanity to unity and raise them after us to the level of adhesion with the Creator. All of humanity attains eternity and wholeness, and this state can be materialized in someone about whom it is said, “…until one no longer knows the difference between ‘Blessed be Mordecai’ and ‘Cursed be Haman.’” In other words, a person completely forgets about all his limitations. He goes into a space where there is nothing but eternity and wholeness. This state can be compared only with the state of a person who is drunk with happiness without drinking any alcohol.

On the Purim holiday, all the streets of Israel are full of the sounds of singing, dancing, and carnivals, which are called, Adloyada. We put on costumes and seemingly change our identities, becoming someone else.

Question: Why do we say that a time will come when all of the holidays will disappear and only the Purim holiday will remain?

Answer: This is because all of the holidays symbolize transitional steps on the way toward complete unity and attainment of the Creator, adherence with the higher power. All of the holidays are classified up to this level: Rosh Hashanah (New Year), the exodus from Egypt, receiving the Torah, and so forth. They precisely represent the stages of the work toward unity between us, whereas Purim is the final holiday that symbolizes the completion of correction. After that, we attain wholeness and eternity one hundred percent.
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From a Talk about Purim 2/18/15

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Purim Is A Call To Unite

laitman_933Purim is the great holiday of redemption; it is the holiday of the exodus from exile. The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us about the history of the evolution of mankind starting from Adam onward. Before him there were human beings and civilizations but Adam embodies the beginning of a new history, the history of the spiritual development of humanity.

He was the first to discover that living was not just to survive in the plane of this world but to ascend from this world to the next level, to the spiritual world, and to become a totally different entity, to become a human.

The word “Adam” stems from the Hebrew word “Edame” (to resemble), to resemble the Creator who exists on a different dimension. And since he was the first to discover the possibility of ascending from the animal state to the human level, to the level of resembling the Creator, he is called Adam.

But it was only Abraham who succeeded in realizing resembling the upper force, ascending the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature all the way to the human level, by feeling that he was in a new dimension. This happened 20 generations after Adam.

What is the reason that Abraham succeeded in doing so? It was because humanity, who were only a small number of people populating  ancient Babylon at the time, suddenly found itself at an egoistic dead end.

The good relations between the Babylonians who lived as one family suddenly became filled with lack of trust, theft, and abuse of each other, such egoistic relationships from which they didn’t know where to go.  And they thought: “We must rise to the heavens and discover the reason for what is happening to us.” At this time in ancient Babylon, two leading personalities stood out representing two different viewpoints: the ideologue and scientist of his time Abraham and the king of Babylon Nimrod.

According to Abraham’s ideology, humanity existed in order to unite above the ego that keeps people apart. By uniting they could attain the next level of their development.

The ego intentionally brought them to a dead end so that they wouldn’t succumb to it, otherwise it would bring them to their mutual annihilation. They had no other choice but to simply connect above it. Moreover, there is such a force in nature that can be drawn so that it can help us perform this action.

Nimrod on the other hand, believed that they had to follow a different path: to disperse all over the world like a family that cannot live together and get along with one another. They had to disperse and to go in different directions so that everyone would feel good.

Thousands followed Nimrod and only a few followed Abraham. According to the well known historian Titus Flavius Josephus, the Babylonians dispersed all over the world and began to settle in India, China, Africa, Russia, and Europe. Later they grew into nations that laid the foundations of the present general global civilization. Abraham, on the other hand, gathered his followers who agreed with him and understood his viewpoint, and they followed him to the land of Canaan, the location of the current state of Israel.

The nations that dispersed all over the world began to be called by their places of origin, their families, their tribes, or the place they settled in: Germans, Russians, etc. Abraham’s followers, however, called themselves “Israel,” stemming from the Hebrew words “Yashar –El” meaning straight to the Creator. This means that they were focused directly on the upper force, on the upper plan of nature that unites and assembles everything into one.

Abraham’s group was comprised of representatives of different communities who felt that his idea was right and thus joined him. This is how a nation that assembled on the basis of a common idea was born. This is the difference between the Jews and other nations.

Abraham’s descendents were Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph who were the next levels of development of this group, levels of increasingly greater connection. The group that left Babylon together with Abraham found itself facing great conflicts and disagreements, which is called the exile in Egypt. It should be noted that we speak about historical events in light of spiritual actions; therefore, we call geographic and historical categories according to their spiritual state.

It is said that there was famine in the land of Israel and the Jews went down to Egypt, which means that the nation felt a spiritual hunger resulting from the confusion and weakening of the connection between them. Thomas Mann describes the conflicts and ideological disagreements between the sons of Jacob very nicely in his book Joseph and His Brothers.

The state of Egypt (Mitzraim) symbolizes the concentration of evil in which the Jews felt the strong domination of the ego called Pharaoh (egoism) and tried to break away from it. They decided that they couldn’t remain in the state of mutual hostility, hatred, and the domination of Pharaoh because it didn’t allow them to be close to one another. Thus they realized and understood that they had fallen from the attainment of that little spiritual level they had been on previously. They realized that they had no choice but to escape from the state of Egypt. This happened at night, in the dark, hastily.

But before that, they went through the ten plagues of Egypt, which they felt on their flesh, and were thus freed of the domination of the ego, the domination of Pharaoh.

When they left Egypt, meaning mutual hostility, they gradually united and arrived at the state of Mount Sinai, which stems from the Hebrew word “Sina” (hate). They had to ascend above it in order to attain the Creator.

There is an attribute in the Israeli nation called Moses, stemming from the Hebrew word “Moshech” (draw or pull), which is the embodiment of the slight connection among them that takes them out of Egypt and can pull them above the hatred in order to connect with the Creator and receive the method of the formation of the nation from Him. This method is called the Torah.

The Torah is the Light that corrects the ego of the entire mass of people to create one unique desire that is above separation, hatred, and mutual accusations, and is actually yearning for establishing good relations above all that.

When the connection between people becomes homogeneous, straight, and equal and all the previous desires are integrated, creating one inclusive unique desire in which one person bestows unto others and loves them and everyone does that together mutually, this one desire turns to the upper state, to the Creator, which means to nature, with mutual love. The Creator (Elokim) symbolizes the upper force, the upper attribute, the upper leadership.

When they yearn for bestowal, to the upper force, to love Him and for mutual adhesion with Him, they attain that state. Now they are already called the “Israel,” and they begin to feel the next level of their existence by ascending from the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature to the level of the Creator, the level of the upper force of nature that is concealed from us.

They transcend the Machsom (barrier) of concealment, discover Him, and thus actually begin to feel and to live in Him to such an extent that the existence of the corporeal body becomes unimportant. It is because the body is a corporeal entity and a person doesn’t actually care whether it dies or not since on that level he already exists in a whole and eternal state.

Today anyone can reach this state, just as our forefathers had.  They wrote about it in the Torah calling it the “First Temple.” In this state, the whole creation is revealed, the upper force, the limitless existence of humanity beyond time and place.

They lived in that state for several centuries, and then the ego began to undermine their state and began to draw them apart from one another again, controlling them by mutual accusations. They realized that it was necessary so that they could ascend even higher above the ego and reach the next level, but they didn’t succeed in overcoming it and fell into the state of unfounded hate.

This state is called the “exile in Babylon.” A thousand years later they returned to the same Babylon that Abraham had taken them out of, but now it wasn’t the same small country in Mesopotamia anymore but the giant empire of King Nebuchadnezzar who ruled 127 states. Being an intelligent leader, the king dispersed the Jews in all the states and thus kept them apart and disconnected, but it was even better at the time.

Many years went by before Babylon was ruled by King Ahasuerus and the wicked Haman who came up with the idea of annihilating the Jews. He began to denigrate them before the king: There is a certain people scattered and separate among the peoples throughout all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws differ [those of] every people, and they do not keep the king’s laws; it is [therefore] of no use for the king to let them be. (Book of Esther).

A wise Jew named Mordecai, who was a relative of Queen Esther, the beloved wife of Ahasuerus, lived in Babylon in those days. He decided to prevent a conspiracy and make it known to the King. But Esther said that neither she nor the King could do anything since the Jews were separated. If you reunite I will tell the King about the conspiracy. You will begin to pray from above and I will begin to act from below and we will destroy wicked Haman and all those who conspire against us. What is more, it will be the beginning of our return to our homeland, to the land of Israel. (Book of Esther).

Mordecai told the Jews who lived in the city of Shushan, the capital of the Babylonian empire, about that. He called them to fast and to get closer and to be as one man in one heart according to the Jewish law that was accepted at the foot of Mount Sinai. Thus, by rising above the ego and fully connecting, they returned to their root and were rewarded with the return to the land of Israel, which means that they acquired attributes that were equal to that land. Ahasuerus freed them and allowed them to return to their land. Later Esther’s son and Ahasuerus helped them build the Second Temple and the exile in Babylon was over.

Several centuries later the Second Temple was destroyed because of the hatred that once again broke out among the Jews and once again they were exiled from the land of Israel. Today we are coming out of that exile, but every place and every state around the world has its own Haman and especially around the State of Israel.

But the rescue is exactly the same as it was during the time of Queen Esther: If we unite, we will easily get rid of all our enemies. They will free us of their evil presence and will help us just as they did in the past to restore and rebuild the Temple. It is also written in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, that the nations of the world will carry the Jews on their shoulders to their land and will build the Third Temple with them.

Having returned from the corporeal exile and living in the land of Israel, we are in a spiritual exile and have to come out of it, which means to ascend to the level of spiritual redemption from the ego that tears us to pieces, to connect in order to ascend to the level of eternity and wholeness. This is the call of Purim, the holiday of unity. We have all the necessary conditions in order to do it right here and now.
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From a Talk about Purim, 2/18/15

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Commemorative Holidays Are Levels Of The Spiritual Ascent

laitman_285_02There are levels in the spiritual ascent that have each have a unique quality and value, and are called commemorative dates.

A commemorative holiday is a special date in the spiritual work that has nothing to do with the other days of the year that correlate to the movements of the sun, the moon, and the earth.

When a person ascends to a level of a special holiday (Moadi), it affects his past, present, and future, and everything he has done throughout his life in a special way. What is more, it can raise him to a new level either temporarily or permanently.

These special holidays differ, but each time they have a qualitative effect on a person, and therefore they are noted in the Torah.

All that is said in the Torah says and that we should know is about the spiritual ladder on which we ascend by correcting ourselves as compared to the Creator. There is nothing but that.

Our lowly, worthless, empty life and every event that takes place in our life is added to this ladder since it is based on the correction of the desire. The desire is the only matter of creation that includes the levels of evolution of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature.

The desire grows continuously, rises, and is corrected. This movement perceives and absorbs the matter of all the worlds and the force that controls this matter.

These special dates are special levels on which there are vertical and horizontal elevators as a result of previous accumulated merit. They suddenly erupt, connect and therefore provide the result.

The vertical elevator refers to descents and ascents, while a horizontal elevator refers to the connection of a great number of small souls, of fragments, that on the current level suddenly begin to merge. Even in our world, a commemorative date is a massive event.

Theses include the rise of individuals in their comprehension and creation also can be attributed to them, but only one that develops in our perception of something massive. Thus, these two phenomena are part of the commemorative dates.

Consequently, there are horizontal elevators for the masses and vertical elevators that connect the holidays, interestingly, complementing one another. On the one hand, a single figure has an impact on history, and on the other hand, the masses have an impact on history. History means advancement.

The question is whether one can be used instead of the other. Practical experience shows that a housewife cannot run the country, but will the masses be able to replace a special figure if they are connected?

This is possible when a perfect correction is attained. In this case, the masses become the most outstanding figure by perceiving and absorbing all the individual Kabbalists and becoming as one man in one heart like at the gathering at Mount Sinai.

Comment: But then Moses was the leader.

Answer: Moses is the collective figure of the nation that yearns for the Creator who can gather and assemble its highest points that are detached from whatever is below. The sum of these yearnings is called Moses.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/11/14

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The Nation’s Servants

laitman_937According to The Book of Zohar everyone should reveal an action below. Therefore Aaron performed an action below, seven days of holiness during which he didn’t come out of the Tent of Meeting, and then he offered sacrifice on the eighth day in order to invoke the action from above by which general unity is revealed. Then all the worlds that the priest (Cohen) awakens receive the blessing, and the priest himself is filled by the wholeness as required.

It is about the need for Aaron’s bestowal (the complete attribute of bestowal) unto the people (the other attributes) just as unto a group, which by gathering, affects the force that is above it since Aaron cannot influence it.

He has to perform an action below in order to unite the people and then they influence the upper force. Then the upper force can influence Aaron even more so that he can unite the nation even more strongly and then they influence the upper force even more. This is a continuous cycle.

It turns out that Aaron and the nation depend on each other. The upper force responds to the request of the nation, to its call, to its prayer (the prayer of many).

Aaron can only be a teacher and raise the prayer of the nation upward, but the nation operates him. It is thanks to the nation that Aaron receives spiritual elevation and all the others ascend through him in their turn.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/18/13

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The Ways From Babylon Are So Different

Laitman_115_04The Zohar, “Shlach Lecha” (Send Forth), Item 83: Israel are happier than all the nations in the world for the Creator wanted them, called His name by them, and was glorified in them, for the world was created only for Israel, so they may engage in Torah. It is so because one connects to one, ZA and Malchut, and Israel below, in this world, are His existence, whereby their good deeds they raise MAN for their Zivug, and they are the existence of all the other nations, who exist for Israel, who do their Master’s will.

The general soul was divided into two parts: GE and AHP. The desires that belong to GE received the sparks of bestowal during the shattering, and are therefore attracted to the Creator. They live in this world and ask about the meaning of this life, about their goal, and about the purpose of our existence here.

These questions don’t stem from a practical useful benefit but from an inner instinctive aspiration to discover the Creator, the source of our life. Such desires are called Israel, which means Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), and therefore, when the Light operates on the desires, it is this type of desire that emerges first before all the others.

The scrutiny is focused on the connection between us above our ego, which we define as the force that prevents unity. These circumstances were first revealed in a state called ancient Babylon.

There for the first time began to appear these desires feeling the urge to reveal the Creator, while all the other desires yearned for the revelation of their ego. Thus, they drew apart in different directions, according to their vector. Some went to one way and the others to another.

Israel were those who discovered the method of correction and fulfilled it. This entire method is about attaining “Love thy neighbor as thyself” with the help of the Light that Reforms. Thus, a person resembles the Creator and wants to delight Him by all these actions.

All the other desires didn’t yearn for that at the time but only wanted to fill their ego and began to develop in a capitalistic manner. They lived a simple life in groups, as one nation, as one community in ancient Babylon before the ego erupted in them. They cared only about their simple wellbeing and about how to provide their bread and the basic necessities for human existence.

However, when the egoistic desire to enjoy grew in them, and some of the people began to aspire for the revelation of the Creator, the other part continued to develop its desire to enjoy, the ego. This ego pushed them to acquire more than they needed. This is where the evolution of human society begins in the form that it has evolved until this very day in order to acquire greater wealth beyond a person’s basic needs.

This determined an entirely different  lifestyle and goal of life, compared to the goal of life of those who yearn for the Creator, of Israel, and, so, the two groups drew further and further apart. The Babylonians who called themselves Israel focused straight to the Creator and began to fulfill this work and thus drew further away from the others.

With time, newer parts of the Babylonians began to join Israel to the extent that the Light operated on them and clarified the desires from one generation to the next. Thus, more and more people began to feel the yearning for the Creator according to the correction of the desire to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/14

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