In the News (from JN1): “For many in the world, Rabbi Michael Laitman is the leading Kabbalah expert. A Russian Refusenik who later emigrated to Israel in 1974. He studied under the renowned Kabbalist Rav Baruch Shalom Ashlag (or Rabash).

“Since then he has founded the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute. Rabbi Laitman gave a lecture at The World Arvut Convention and interpreted The Zohar, the primary literature of Kabbalah. He explains that Kabbalah is a method to connect man and the world and it isn’t a mysticism or faith. He says it is meant for all people and those of any religion can practice Kabbalah.

JN1’s Jordana Miller interviews Rabbi Laitman and some of the participants.
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In the common desire that encompasses all of humanity, great shifts and unifications occur all the time. This system lives and develops, and everything in it shifts and intermixes all the time like waves in a sea. For this reason, many people enter it, draw closer and then further away from the upper goal.

We need to bring together a mass of people (not quantitative, but qualitative) who truly will wish to acquire the quality of bestowal, the quality of the upper world, the inner force that forms the universe, along with the force of reception, the only force that acts in our world. I believe that we have reached this point, and not because we are so strong and special, but because the world needs this. Baal HaSulam wrote that he achieved what he has because the world needed a revelation of the method of correction, and not because he was special.

The same thing is occurring today. After Baal HaSulam there was Rabash, then me, and then you. This whole chain exists only due to the fact that the world has already “hit rock bottom” and exists in complete crisis.

And the crisis is extremely complex and horrid. We don’t see it; we are poorly informed about it and know almost nothing. If we would listen to what instructors, decision-makers, and different organizations and institutes are saying, we would gasp in horror from the threatening state that we are in.

All this is evidence of the fact that the world truly needs the upper force and its correction; there is no other way. This is becoming revealed more and more every day. Over the next two months we will find ourselves in a great financial crisis and will see Europe’s catastrophe, and over the next two years there will be an enormous ecological catastrophe. The winter that has begun also will bring about plenty “surprises.”

All this will force humanity to ask the question concerning the system of governance, the governing force, and what can be done about one’s own state and the state of the world in such circumstances when nothing helps. And then they will be forced to hear what we are telling them.

Thus the world needs us, and this is why we are given attention from Above. We are formed into the group, force, and system that will be able to tell and set an example for the world of how to correctly bring ourselves into balance with the upper governing force. And then in this harmony we acquire absolute existence.

The world will ask itself this question. In spite of the problems with food, heat, safety, and other things that are necessary for life, the world will ask more and more about the meaning of its existence. After all, when a person feels poorly, he does not ask how he can run away from or compensate for his problems, but searches for the cause of the suffering, their meaning, and why he experiences these problems at all.

We will very quickly be assured that in addition to various revolutions and protests in all the countries today, a new wave is rising in the world concerning the purpose of the existence of the human being who is so small and helpless before nature and what he himself has ruined in the world. We will see that we have a special purpose and a high predestination and for this reason we are being moved forward.

This was always the case. If there was no need to begin the correction in ancient Babylon, Abraham, a Babylonian priest, would not have turned into a spiritual leader. And the whole spiritual stream, all the religions and faiths, derived precisely from his revelation of the upper world.

We still will discover how much the world needs us. We don’t feel it yet, but we still need to prepare ourselves for this. This is why I put so much emphasis on dissemination.

When we talk about the intention for the sake of the friend and the group, we shouldn’t forget about the world because presently we are the carriers of the spiritual knowledge, the spiritual method. Each of us needs to feel obliged to engage in the upbringing of humanity.
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From Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/27/2011

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Question: Today, the New York group will be disseminating on Wall Street. How can we use this action to feel that we are “one?”

Answer: We must help each other and be together with them in our thoughts. I am very glad that there is a very strong core who always work on Wall Street. I hope that the other groups around New York and individual students will soon join this action, and that they will all unite in the end.

I hope that they will get together for the convention and will participate together with us in the same activities, forgetting all differences and personal animosity. Everything needs to be left aside as if it does not exist. However, do not cancel it out. Simply rise above the animosity, separate from it, and make a restriction over it.

During a tsunami, an earthquake, or a big fire, all the animals run together, and none of them would attack another. The main objective is escaping true death. Now, we must act the same way. Forget all the disagreements, get together, and join the convention events.

Participating in dissemination of our materials is the most important thing. We will be elevated from Above only and only by making the world understand that it needs us. If the world does not need us, we will not budge; nothing will happen with us.
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From Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/27/2011

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A letter from my student: At seven in the morning on Saturday, several people from our “Arvut special forces,” Wall Street, New York, traveled to Boston, one of the oldest, most beautiful, and enlightened cities in the USA. We were invited by our friends at the Boston group who had spent several weeks establishing a relationship with the organizers of the “occupation” camp there.

The sympathizers at the camp were eager to take leaflets, but the movement wasn’t growing and mutual inclusion was not happening. We were told that the Boston movement was a small scale movement. It was unclear what work was needed and how to incorporate the message of mutual guarantee in the masses since there weren’t any “masses.” However, since our friends said, “You have to,” Arvut responded, “You got it!”

After all, four hours spent shaking in a double decker bus was not the end of the world, and it was an opportunity to catch up on the sleep we missed while connected to the convention in the Arava desert. We arrived on location at noon, and our friends greeted us with so much warmth that we had no choice but give back at least double what they had given us!

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The world needs to unite and is looking for a way to do so. In the meantime, unity seems unfeasible to it.

We see that Europe cannot unite: Different conflicts and new cold wars are going on there, only to keep the people busy somehow, to distract them. Lots of various egoistic motives arise, and people need to overcome them, yet they don’t understand or feel that.

Undoubtedly, it is important to set some kind of an example for the world and to introduce the altruistic force into it.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we exist in the one and only desire that was created. We are a certain part of that desire, and if we fill this part with the attribute of bestowal, it will begin to spread gradually to all other souls, people, societies, counties, and cultures.

We are all connected to one another, and what happens in one part in the world “infects” its other parts virtually. Our unification includes a great number of students from all the continents, nations, races, religions, and different mentalities. Since we are a great mass of people who are aimed precisely at a certain goal, we certainly make up one big, strong whole.

When, for example, our friends in New York go out to the streets, we see that people meet them with interest and ask questions and that university professors bring their students to talk with them and to learn about what our friends offer. This means that we are a strong influential group that has its own goal, outlook, and idea based on serious scientific data and not on mysticism or different beliefs. This group actually penetrates the different levels of humanity and gradually shapes it according to its own form.

We should definitely reinforce our dissemination because the world is about to collapse. Undoubtedly, we will eventually reach a state when people will begin to listen to us. We can already see that.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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Politicians already partially understand the need for universal interconnection, and bankers and economists understand it even better because they are connected with this system. They suddenly discover that their money is not theirs because it circulates in one common system, and they cannot run anywhere with it. They see that egoistic connections no longer work—a different system does.

I have money in my bank account. I want to take it, but I am told: “Hold on, sir, this is not your money, it is in the common system. We have invested it into manufacturing, upbringing, and education, and it circulates there.” “But I want to get it back, after all I brought it in.” “Yes, you brought it, but no, you cannot get it back.” Bankers are now discovering this. They are simply horrified by the world they find themselves in.

They are already prepared to listen to us because of the problems and suffering that they experience by losing their billions. The power of money, political power, is slipping from their hands because the world is becoming round. And they do not know this world; they do not know how to work in it because they have always worked with “reins.”

Things would be much easier for us if everyone felt this.
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From a TV Program “The Integral World” 10/30/2011

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Question: In the post “Clearing the Darkness” you talk about the need to explain to the world what is happening. People simply need a method! Do you have a method that you can explain in simple words? I didn’t hear it yet, but maybe you or your students can explain it to me like to a five year old? What is this method practically?

Now the lessons are split in lots of small parts that barely connect. It’s very confusing what you are offering.

Answer: I hope that your friends will help you find simple explanations from my lessons—sometimes I don’t succeed in this. But we do not explain this to the world at all because it wants only egoistic fulfillments it can understand.

Question: If the Creator is pure bestowal and has no will to receive, how can He want anything? A want signifies deficiency, which violates “there is none else besides Him.” So to talk about what He wants from us is nonsense since He has everything, there is no deficiency!

Answer: In relation to us, the upper one is perceived as the force that wishes to bestow, fill, and love, as the force that created everything and guides everything towards a set goal. Since it wants to bestow, it means that it feels a lack of such opportunity, senses a deficiency, as it said: “More than the calf wants to suckle the cow wants to feed.”
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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” (abridged version): The role of the people of Israel is to prepare the world to a particular purification so that it could accept the principle of love towards the fellow man, similar to Israel. Everyone makes a contribution to this, and thus, each of the people of Israel brings the whole world to good.

The correction of Malchut of Infinity occurs in stages. Some of its parts are more “transparent” and others more “coarse,” as there are more and less important organs in the body. This difference is characteristic of the period of corruption, while after correction more corrupted parts may reach a greater height.

Now, we do not see the real situation. For example, the nations of the world are the most “coarse” vessels; however, after being corrected last, they will rise above the rest. And vice versa, the vessels that are starting correction today are simply purer, and that is why they wake up first. On the other hand, they are “coarser” than previous generations.

Thus, the process goes in stages. Baal HaSulam writes at the end of “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” that corrections are carried out from light to heavy, and they are started by those who came to this need, in other words, by Israel, which means “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-El).

If in the general desire there is an impulse to move forward, the point in the heart (•) that feels this calling, then this layer of desires is called “Israel.” The next layer feels pains in life and suffers from the lack of the meaning of life (?), but it still does not feel enough aspiration to reveal the purpose of creation. Finally, there is a layer that simply suffers, albeit perhaps not a lot, and that can be satisfied with little.

In essence, it all depends on the upper layer: If it corrects itself, the Light comes from it to others because AHP can be corrected only by connecting with the carriers of the upper force, with those who have the vessels of bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: If it is impossible to go against one’s desire on the inside, then what actions can we make against the desire, only physical ones?

Answer: Physical actions also count. After all, before we are able to do spiritual actions, we can only act physically.

For now a person studies, disseminates materials, and connects with the friends in a physical group by working together. This is the way he acts, even though he is not yet capable of inner actions. And this really helps.

Even the strongest and best inner actions still do not replace physical ones, which we do in the corporeal world in a large mass of people. We see how dissemination in this world, and especially being in touch with people in different countries who went out to the streets to protest, advances students in their inner understanding.

A person goes out to give out leaflets, and he spends time between people who know nothing about the inner structure of the universe and scream demanding bread and other necessary material things. And then he returns to his books and his inner development, and he suddenly sees that he feels more, understands more, and advances.

All this is because I have received an impression from them; I absorbed their desire. And even though these are corporeal desires, it does not matter. They still advance me because this external desire impresses me.

This external desire rises to a higher degree in me, the degree I am on. It is written that the “Creator dwells among His people.” Thus it turns out that I reveal the Shechina inside the people on the exact height that I am able to reveal it.

This pertains to the greatest Kabbalist: If he comes with his desires with the purpose of connecting to the desires of the people, then through their desires, he receives an impression inside his own, at the height accessible to him. This is why it is written that one must not distance himself from the people.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question (from the Hebrew blog): The advice is to expand dissemination and to educate the public. We should not rest on our laurels just because people come to the mutual guarantee centers. We should organize various study groups in schools for a nominal fee and through them introduce the values of mutual guarantee.

I have no doubt that parents will be happy to send their children to these study groups. It is desirable to do this namely in secondary schools because teen’s behavior begins to deteriorate at this age. Of course, children should be stimulated by prizes or awards. I would be glad to hear your opinion.

Answer: This needs to be worked out and carefully implemented so that people gradually realize the need to unite in order to solve all our problems.

Question: Do I have to hate my ego all the time? It’s all I have. If I go after the things I want, I am nothing.

Answer: If you use it correctly in order to rise above it, you should appreciate and love it as help against you.

Question: What is the “stony heart”?

Answer: Our desires that we can never correct ourselves. They are corrected by the general Light of all the souls at the end of correction.
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