Entries in the 'Kabbalah Dissemination' Category

Perceiving The Future Together

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Do animals feel nature as one system in which everything is connected?

Answer: Yes, they feel it at their level.

Question: And can they feel the future, for exactly that reason?

Answer: Animals can only feel some kind of threat to their life, but they are not able rise above the worry of their regular, beastly existence. This is called instinct.

Animals feel the connection to the general system, but for them it provides only the information at the level of animate. Animals know what will happen, thus they are more careful than men and their behavior is more logical.

Animals don’t make mistakes! They have all the required information in order to exist, which is called natural instinct. Man is lacking this.

Question: If I had such instinct, would it be possible that my life would be better? Maybe I wouldn’t be overdrawn at the bank, wouldn’t have an ulcer, and wouldn’t be living in constant tension.

Answer: That’s a good question. What is preferable? Since if you had such instinct, then you would be an animal and not a man. Animals have all the information for a good life, i.e., the feeling of connection with the goal of creation. And man doesn’t have this at all. Why? Because at the speaking level one doesn’t automatically receive connection to the goal of creation, but must acquire it through self development.

Every person has this potential, but one needs to advance gradually. You cannot catch the occasional passerby and begin to convince him that he needs to do this. A person needs to be ready for this. If he feels that he must know the future, then I am able to teach him how to do this.

Comment: I am ready for learning! I really must know the future because that will solve all the problems for me, and explain to me how to behave towards my children and my wife and what profession to choose.

Answer: You will know everything! If you have such a burning question that brings you to despair and demands a reply, then this is a sign that you can do this.

At the end of the course for integral education (the wisdom of connection), you will come to the sensation that all people are inseparable parts of the same system, without any difference between them, including yourself. And in the beginning, it is enough to reach this feeling towards a stranger, not towards a family member.

Question: Meaning, if I feel towards a stranger as I do myself, then based on that I will create within me the ability to see the future?

Answer: Yes. You will feel the integral sensation, exit from within your ego, and sense me, for example. You must feel me as you do yourself. If you are able to feel something outside yourself as yourself, then the whole of reality opens up before you. You open your senses and you can see all your surroundings in a real way.

Question: Why can’t I learn integral thought by myself with the help of my intellect, without needing someone else?

Answer: For whom do you exit yourself if not for someone else? This is not abstract philosophy, but it requires a lot of practice and many actions with whose help we examine all the “pros “ and “cons.” It isn’t simple. After all we need to exist beyond the feeling of our “I.” That is the first condition of integral thought.

When I exit my “I,” I begin to feel who is outside of me, and to the same extent, I feel everything else. I open the extent of my feelings, from the level of my five senses to a complete reality.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 2/23/14

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From Babylon To South America

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Is the European group of Bnei Baruch also to blame if the world experiences a disaster because of a lack of connection within Israel?

Answer: Today, everyone is responsible for this, meaning each one who studies the wisdom of Kabbalah and feels a connection inside Israel. When I refer to Israel, I am referring to all of our friends and groups all over the world.

All of us have received an awakening from the Creator, just as the group of Abraham received it in ancient Babylon. And so we are found today in the same situation of Israel (Yashar-El – straight to the Creator).

It is not important that one received an awakening 3,500 years ago in Babylon, came with it to this day, and another received this awakening in South America only a few months or years ago. According to the spiritual world, there is no meaning to these physical years.

All of us are already related to Yashar-El , directly connected to the Creator, and so must convey the Light through us to the world. If we do this, it will be good; and if not, it will be very bad. I hope that we will succeed.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/14, Chosen Topics on: Holocaust Memorial Day

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Developing A Second Wind For Our Work

Dr. Michael LaitmanWe must be concerned about fuel for advancement and the quality of the work, and not just run after the quantity. Otherwise, this will lead to a great fall. We must sit together and think about a method for approaching people. The moment you seriously begin to take care of the general public, you will get a second wind. Now, you feel tired after a long run. Even though you had great success, this no longer excites you and doesn’t give you the same vigor as you had before. You have gotten used to being successful and there is nothing new about it. Everything comes to an end and you have begun to get sick and tired of it.

It is like the four phases of Ohr Yashar (Direct Light). Why can’t the first phase go on forever? This is because, after it (Aleph-Lamed-Peh) finishes, the second phase (Bet-Yod-Tav) begins. After that finishes, the third phase begins.

The Light influences the desire and constantly changes it. Eventually, it becomes qualitatively new from reception to bestowal, from Hochma to Bina. So, the same thing will happen in our work as well. It is impossible to play the same game until the end of life.

When people fall in love, they swear that they will love each other until the end of their lives, but it is clear that love will fade before we die, for we evolve quickly. In our day, development is very rapid, so people marry and divorce a number of times in their lives.

It means that each state will end and we shouldn’t wait for it to happen. Already, in advance, we should understand that even though our dissemination work is productive, correct, and good, and we cant diminish its importance, it already requires additions. It is up to us to think about the quality of the work, for every new level is attained by improving the quality.

It means that the connection with people must be more qualitative. The next stage is precisely the same as the previous one, but with a greater level of connection. We need to meet with the same people we already have contacted and begin to teach them the method of correction. It is necessary to send explanatory material to them, to have workshops and unification evenings with them, and to teach them through the television channels and the Internet to continually keep them interested. It is as if we enrolled them in a school, and now it is up to us to begin the first grade.

As a result of this, we will become a conduit that connects people with the Creator. We are not yet this conduit, rather, we have only reached the first point of contact.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/14, The Book of Zohar

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True Religion And The Religion Of Exile

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: As I understand it, the wisdom of Kabbalah came from Judaism and all of the Kabbalists of the past were very religious. What is the real connection between the wisdom of Kabbalah and religion?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah is the foundation of true “religion.” Baal HaSulam writes about this in the article, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose.”

The three major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are based upon the teachings of our father Abraham. But Abraham specifically discovered the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is the foundation of all religions, and he described his discovery in the Kabbalistic book, Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation).

The main principle of the religion that was discovered by Abraham is “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” So it is also written, “And you shall love your friend as yourself is the great general rule of the Torah.” In principle, this is meant in every sense. Or minimally: “What is hateful to you, don’t do to your friend.”

The entire Torah speaks about good relationships between people. Relationships of this kind existed among the people of Israel before the destruction of the second Beit HaMikdash (Temple) 2,000 years ago, which was destroyed because of the sudden eruption of unfounded hatred.

Everything revolves around only one point: Good or bad attitudes among the Jews determine what will happen with them and the entire world in general. This is precisely the reason for anti-Semitism; it is because the Jewish people cannot reach agreement among themselves and because of this the whole world suffers.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is involved only with how to attain the right connection between us, and this is the foundation of the entire religion. And what has been considered religion in the last 2,000 years is the maintenance of all kinds of traditions that seem to be enough for people.

This is the form religion takes in exile when we were separated from the principle of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” from the yearning to unite. This is the form in which the Jewish people had to ripen for 2,000 years, to go out to the nations of the world and be mingled with them, and after that to return to their land.

But after we physically returned to the land of Israel, we needed to revive the wisdom of Kabbalah, so that it would live among us and help us build a people and a nation in the same form as it once was: with love and unity between us.

There are no restrictions on this. If a person studies the method of connection, it makes no difference if he is religious or secular, what country or community he came from, or if a person is a man or a woman. Everyone must study this method and as soon as possible because our good future depends upon this.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to realize this unity, and in a practical manner makes feeling this possible during the workshops and in the connection in the discussion circles that we have brought everywhere. Thousands of people have already participated in our roundtables, and they feel that within half an hour of discussion according to the method of the wisdom of Kabbalah, they suddenly experienced an unusual feeling, an illuminating, an awakening of inspiration and warmth. And this feeling spreads to all the participants.

Comment: I was able to participate in these roundtable workshops that were transmitted according to the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah. And I remember that in the beginning the people who gathered were very skeptical and even cynical, they regretted the time they were wasting. But at the end of the evening, people simply floated from excitement and emotion, they were moved to tears and embraced each other. This was an outbreak of vital force and warmth that melted all of the ice and indifference that separates our hearts.
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From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

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We Must Hurry!

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is anti-Semitism growing all over the world?

Answer: It is in order to push you and bring you closer to the goal. This is apparently necessary in order to awaken Israel to correction. What can we do if we don’t awaken any other way?

According to the general plan, we have now come to a state that we have to correct in order to ascend to the next level. But we are not doing this, and therefore it is necessary to spur us by pressures. It is because this is the only way the desire to receive understands.

If you wave a carrot in front of a person trying to tempt him, he will run and his egoistic desire to receive will grow. But then, having a big ego, he will not want to correct himself if he refused to do so when he had a small desire. If life were beautiful and wonderful all over the world, people wouldn’t want to think about anything but corporeal comfort.

It turns out that there is no other choice but to be pressured. This stems from the adaptation between the Lights and the vessels and not because someone Above has decided to punish us. If we are influenced by the lack of Light, don’t correct this lack and don’t take care of it properly, this lack of Light keeps growing. Then it increasingly accumulates until it explodes in the form of a pogrom or a holocaust.

These are the laws of nature that are only fulfilled in ways such as through Nazis and others that emerge throughout the world. They don’t determine or decide anything by themselves. Everything comes from Above as a result of the lack of adaptation between the Lights and the vessels.

After such a blow, the nation that should have already advanced and disseminated the wisdom of Kabbalah, which means the method of correction, reaches a peaceful period. It is because those certain vessels are gone now since they all died, and so there is a certain limited period of peace. But at what cost! The pressure between the Lights and the vessels forces us to perform the correction in some way, and if we don’t advance along the path of Achishena (hastening time) then it is along the path of “in its time – Beito” (the path of suffering).

Don’t delude yourselves that we are in a better situation today than we were before. Then we had a place to run to and now there will be nowhere to run and the whole world will be like this. Anti-Semitism is growing all over the world and it is because we are not advancing and are lagging behind in our corrections.

If we see how evil increases each day, it is a sign that we are not doing our job each day.

Question: What else should we do so that anti-Semitism will disappear?

Answer: We must go out to the public even more actively and explain and gather people around the idea of mutual guarantee, which is the condition for reaching “love thy friend as thyself” by the Light that Reforms.

In the meantime, however, we don’t manage to advance in the necessary speed according to the timeline. This is the reason that our debt keeps growing every day. No matter how much you profit, your debt to the bank only grows. What should we do if our profit isn’t enough and we don’t have enough time? This is a great problem. We must hurry!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Come Quickly To The Promised Land

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Where are we today? The people of Israel left Egypt, received the Torah on Mount Sinai, understood that they had some kind of task, a mission, and what was next? What kind of task has been placed before us today?

Answer: Our actual task today is to develop the people of Israel in the land of Israel so that they will know what they must do to sustain themselves and continue to exist.

When our people will ensure their existence, they must explain why they exist, for what higher purpose. Only if we carry out this higher purpose and yearn to bring all of humanity to adhesion with the Creator do we merit being connected with Him.

This knowledge must reach the people, and we will attract the Light that must illuminate us when we go to meet it through our yearning to connect and provide an example for the entire world. However, if we don’t connect, then that same Light will illuminate us through its backside.

If we are not ready to approach this Light, it will be revealed to us in an opposite way, and as a result, we will experience terrible misfortune such as wars, disasters and another holocaust like we passed through 70 years ago.

We see from day to day how the world situation is developing and becoming worse. Everyone in the world is beginning to talk about anti-Semitism as if it were a normal phenomenon. No one is ashamed anymore, and no one considers it to be bad. England, Scandinavia, and Spain, essentially all of them, are recognized as being openly anti-Semitic, as if it were self-evident.

In fact, they are right, after all, we have not transmitted the method of correction to the world. We have not carried out our obligation.

Comment: The problem is that not everyone believes that this is really our obligation, our function.

Answer: It is necessary to listen to what the sages, the Kabbalists, say. We have no other choice. We will never attain the truth as long as we have not corrected ourselves and have not attained revelation. So we cannot sit and wait until the truth becomes known to us. It will never be known to us if we don’t advance toward it.

We welcome everyone in this world to connection and a simple unity. We are not required to wait until the heavens open and we see the spiritual world. Sit in a circle with others and in 20 to 30 minutes you will see how you begin to feel this higher power. In the center of this circle, in the center of our connection, we feel the origin of a unique force.

This is possible and this must be done quickly among all of the people of Israel! The problem is that it is not for nothing that these people are called “stiff-necked.” In spite of it all, you must not despair, for the people of Israel in relation to the entire world are like the Cohens and Levites among the people of Israel.

Although we are not ready to be Cohens and Levites, the people of Israel who yearn to be Yashar El (straight to the Creator), will be required to become them, since the world will require this from us.

The moment that we begin to seriously realize this task together, and the moment we begin to carry out this unification of the people of Israel, the entire world will settle down. Everyone will look at us and say, “See what they are doing! We will wait. They have initiated something special.”

The nations of the world will feel this because within them are the roots of the shattering due to the sin of Adam HaRishon with the tree of knowledge, and if Israel begins to correct this sin, then the nations of the world will feel this, “Oh, they are making this correction! We didn’t even know that it was possible to correct this at all and come closer, whereas the Jews are doing it!”

The nations of the world will immediately change their attitude towards us. We will begin the correction and it will be known immediately to the entire world. We don’t even need to advertise anything about it. Not long ago, I published a large article in the largest American newspaper, The New York Times and, after that in the English newspaper The Telegraph and in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera. However, in the future, there won’t be a need to advertise anything. The nations of the world will write about it themselves because they will feel it themselves.

However, if we don’t bring them this correction and don’t carry out our task, the anti-Semitism, which we are now witnessing, will continue to grow. So, come. Let’s cross the wilderness quickly and reach the land of Israel.
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From KabTV’s “The Torah Chapters with Shmuel Vilozni” 2/2/15

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How Can I Control The World?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We often observe how there is a certain state of mind among people. The desire to change, lose weight, and the feelings of happiness or depression are transmitted through those airborne droplets. How can one perceive such sensations as personal sensations or as those imposed by the environment?

Answer: The more we delve into the nature of the system, the more we see that everything depends on everyone else. This is a deep, mutual relationship, consisting of thousands of relationships between us. Of course we do not realize it, but the connection remains; it is constant and can’t be ignored.

I can be separated, hidden on a desert island or in a deep forest, but as my distance from society grows, I condemn myself to a limited, miserable life. For example, if I were in space by myself, I would soon find that all of my senses had atrophied like a cell or a small piece of flesh that was cut off from the body.

The study of a measure of our communication with each other is very important because it puts us in a position that is relative to the true environment. First of all, it concerns human society and how I am supposed to be associated with it.

How can one discover such connections and learn how to feel them? In what form should we give and receive? in principle, that is our goal, and this means that we must study the integrated system—the means to achieve a happy life.

Comment: When something in us is uncorrected and we feel the reason, then we instinctively begin to care for ourselves.

Answer: We do not have any physiological or mental illnesses, or personal, family, or common global problems. There is only the fault of the system in which we find ourselves. Therefore, we see that politics, economics, finance, and the lives of nations and peoples are mixed and depend on each other.

If I try to dominate someone, then I definitely get the opposite reaction. At one time, Europe wanted to rule Africa and Asia, but now it is at the mercy of its immigrants.

Question: So, if I have something uncorrected, should I look for the cause within myself?

Answer: The interesting thing is that I am not the reason for this! I do not blame myself for the fact that I am who I am or the entire system for the way it is. However, I can help change the system, and then it will affect me. Actually, the method of integral education gives people an understanding of how the world works and how it can be managed.

Question: Suppose that I realize my condition is caused by the general state of the system. What should I do with such an understanding?

Answer: You come into a group of people who want to improve their quality of life as you do. For example, there are ten of us, and we begin to communicate with each other through a variety of exercises and games.

If we will connect properly, then we start to feel the connection over our egoism, personal motives, and habits. Sometimes, this feeling arises in a group of people bound by a common mission or in a family in which personal interests are inferior to the collective.

At that moment when we connect and become as one, this “one” becomes an integral feeling. Through such feelings, we begin to pick up the integral force contained in the world, just as a satellite array absorbs signals from space.

Question: How can such information help me in life?

Answer: Society is a closed system. If small parts are balanced, like the tenth we talked about, it will certainly make all of human society healthier. People will gradually see that with this approach, it will be possible to correct all human shortcomings.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/12/13

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The Nation Of Cohens

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is “the nation of Cohens (priests)?”

Answer: Imagine those who went through spiritual ascents starting with Abraham, Aaron, and Moses, and then broke and fell into this world. Now, they should become the nation of priests, that is, intersperse among all the nations of the world.

In fact, we don’t know where part of our ten tribes are since they disappeared among the other nations. Now, they are subconsciously ready to resume spiritual work.

As soon as we start our work of establishing correct interaction, balance, similarity, and integration of the will to receive with the desire to bestow, including opposite properties that obviously exist in the people of Israel, we will immediately see an upsurge of the Cohens in the world (our ten tribes) and the start of their spiritual mission. It’s as if a huge magnet will agitate the periphery. It will pull and elevate other nations.

Question: How can one determine that one comes from the nation of Cohens?

Answer: One can do so in accordance with one’s internal aspirations. Someone’s nationality doesn’t matter, nor does one’s origin or parameters. Suddenly, it will become apparent that one comes from the lost tribe. It is an aftermath of the shattering of the spiritual structure.

There are certain parts of the general soul who know exactly where they come from. Those are the Jews. However, there are parts that are unaware of why they are dominated by an inner rejection of  Jews. And yet, they are connected with the Jews very tightly and this explains their negativity. In any anti-Semitism there is always a bit of a Jew.

Question: It is said that Aaron constantly exerted to strengthen peace in the world and that’s why the Creator ordained him to be the high priest, so that he would bring peace to the upper congregation. What does the upper congregation mean?

Answer: The upper congregation are those souls that have already attained the state of merging with the Creator and serve as conduits between Him and those whom they are supposed to teach, unite, stimulate, and assist. They are great spiritual teachers who represent an interaction unit between us and the upper force of universe.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 5/14/14

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It Turns Out That There Is Sunlight!

Dr. Michael LaitmanEducation means feeding the students from one day to the next with a certain portion of material in quantity and quality. The quantity and quality change every day according to the changes that you want to bring about in them from day to day. This means that the changes that take place in people and the changes in the material must be mutually synchronized, as one affects the other.

We must establish an open university that will provide a simple daily portion on TV and the Internet. Education cannot be completed in five sessions but should be a continuous process. We must take that into account because this is our job.

It involves updating the material, songs, and clips daily, in order to keep shooting at one point until an opening is made in the heart of stone, and a deficiency is created.

Question: Does a person need to be aware of the fact that he is undergoing an educational process?

Answer: Yes, he should know that. After all he is taught in order to adapt to the upper force that manages his life or his death and arranges his existence in all the worlds. Thus, he learns how to succeed at every moment in both small and great matters.

We should not conceal anything from people, as it is written, “For they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” Otherwise, we will be like those about whom Baal HaSulam writes who conceal the wisdom of Kabbalah from the Israeli nation, thus keeping them behind an iron wall.

We must open people’s eyes. We will be surprised by the depth at which people’s perceptions will suddenly open up, although today they may seem totally blocked and interested only in food and football. This will be despite the absolutely corporeal passions that occupy them today.

All of this isn’t their fault but is a result of the concealment that everyone is in these days. There is a curtain placed before them that creates a shadow, and they say that there is no sunlight. If the curtain is removed, they will say, “Wow, it turns out that there is sunlight!”

What they say now is a result of the concealment;  a person is a consequence of the upper providence.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Life Management Instructions

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: There are 24 books in the Tanakh: the Torah, the Books of Prophets, the Holy Scriptures. Why are they called holy? Aren’t they written in ink and on paper by earthly people of flesh and blood?

Answer: Their authors didn’t write about this world. Rather, they are written about a system of governance of this realm. Our reality is run from a higher level.

Our world, like a computer, is controlled by some operating system. Everything is under its control: atoms, molecules, the inanimate, vegetative, animate nature, and people.

Everything that exists in this world is governed by the two forces of attraction and repulsion, plus and minus. There is nothing else! This explains why we must understand exactly what impacts us and figure out whether we can somehow influence the forces that oversee us.

Is it possible to improve our destiny? If we knew beforehand where these two forces were leading us, could we rearrange our future? All of humanity constantly dreams about what the next day will bring.

Contemporary society has become very powerful, but at the same time we feel helpless because we don’t know what to strive for. In this respect, the books of the Tanakh are extremely helpful because they describe the entire system of governance.

Imagine owning a machine or device that you don’t know how to operate, nor do you have you any idea what it is for. All of a sudden, you are given an instruction booklet with diagrams and descriptions, including the functionality of each button like instructions for a mobile phone.

Humanity has developed to such extent that it must get acquainted with its system of governance. That’s why the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed.

Question: Where is the governing system located?

Answer: It is inside us. In the end, we will discover our internal management system through which we will change and reorient our lives. This system is called a soul.

Question: How are holy books connected with our internal control system?

Answer: The Scriptures tell us about the structure in general, as well as its parts that are inside us. The Tanakh is a holy book because it explains how our nature operates and particularly the way humans are managed.

If we understand what this book talks about, we can change our destiny for the better, reach higher goals, and attain other dimensions.

Then, not only we will correct our poor lives and improve our earthly existence, but we will also ascend to states beyond this world. The Tanakh is full of surprises!
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 1/22/15

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