Entries in the 'Kabbalah Study' Category

The Year Of The Creator

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Leviticus,” 25:1 –  25:5: And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and you shall say to them: You may sow your field for six years, and for six years you may prune your vineyard, and gather in its produce, But in the seventh year, the land shall have a complete rest, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field, nor shall you prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest, and you shall not pick the grapes you had set aside [for yourself], [for] it shall be a year of rest for the land.

At first glance it seems that in the weekly section of the Torah Ba’har we are given laws that tell us how to work the land, grow crops, and cultivate the land. But if we examine this section from the perspective of our inner desires that are divided into the natures of the still nature, vegetative, animate, and speaking (the four levels of the egoistic desires), we can understand how to focus ourselves on correction in our spiritual work.

The desires on the level of still nature, for example, don’t develop or develop so slowly that they don’t feel their development during their existence, which means during a whole life cycle. The desires that keep themselves on a fixed level belong to the level of the still nature. I don’t want them to change but I have to make efforts in order to achieve that.

Let’s say I have to constantly love and care about my friends. That is, my level of interaction with them is constant and non-living because I don’t develop it. But at the same time, the level itself develops because I constantly work on its stability. It thus advances and the mutual relations with my friends change. When we remain on the level of still nature our character doesn’t change, but we ascend to an even higher level. Therefore our mutuality, love, and our incorporation in one another, the understanding we share and the support constantly change.

Question: Does that mean that the mutual relations between the friends become stronger if they rise to an even higher level?

Answer: They become stronger, but it is when I focus all my actions on keeping the stability of the nature of our mutual relations. Imagine to what extent the level of the still nature is actually alive since it belongs to me and not to the external nature that surrounds it.

Question: So what do our desires on the vegetative level vegetative symbolize? The Torah says: You may sow your field for six years, and for six years you may prune your vineyard, and gather in its produce.

Answer: This means that I process the vegetative level of the desire, which means that I include all my independent thoughts and desires in order to keep the relations with the friend in the strongest bilateral unity, in mutual guarantee.

I develop them on the next levels when I raise them from the still level to the vegetative level and then to the animate level and to the speaking level. On these levels I constantly make sure that all my actions belong to the still nature and this is how I keep the fixed level of mutual relations.

The seventh year is a very special action, which thanks to the fact that I have worked on all my six parameters (Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod), I receive from Above the next level of ascent.

I leap on it like a number in the counter without any additional exertion on my part. In the seventh year I don’t do anything, as everything comes to me from Above.

In other words, the still level of nature only seems like the still nature to us, since all the other levels stem from it. In order to advance I have to work with the still level first, which is symbolized by the land.

Then I have to work with the level of the vegetative on the land, in order to produce fruit to nourish myself. In order to do so I plow and sow the land with the help of a special type of the animate level (animals) that were created so that we use them in order to develop.

When we receive the fruit of the land we have to use them in order to nourish the land in the form of fertilizer. This is done either by the animate level or by the vegetative level. Then I turn them into food for the vegetative, animate, and human levels.

It turns out that the still level of nature nourishes the whole cycle, and so when I arrive at the seventh year I don’t work because Malchut connects and operates on the Returning Light (Ohr Hozer) and everything that I have done erupts from below. Thus, when I connect the work that has been done I can come in contact with the Creator.

This is the reason that the seventh year is called the year of the Creator. Everything that I have created by my exertion is poured into this year, receiving the power of the Light that raises me to the next level. I cannot rise to it by myself. When I internally fulfill all the efforts on the four types of desire, I complete the work and go on to the next level where the same thing happens but in a different quality and I undergo a totally different experience.
[155165]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/16/14

Related Material:
Still, Vegetative, Animate And Speaking
To Undergo An Operation Willingly
Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama

The Half Empty Glass Is Filled

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Will the fact that I correct my perception of reality help me succeed in life and be healthy?

Answer: First, it will help us understand the reason we don’t have success. This is a great achievement. However, the main thing is that by correcting our perception of reality to the right perception, we change our entire life. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah is about. It teaches us how to discover the true reality and a new world. We don’t need anything beyond that because we discover a world of perfect bestowal, full of Light, in which we don’t lack anything.

This correction isn’t meant to change our corporeal life and help us make more money, for example, or to improve our health and our family relationships, but actually to change all of reality from one end to the other. Thanks to the change of our internal attributes, we also change the external world because the world we see is the imprint of our internal attributes.

Question: I come home and my wife begins to yell at me. What should I change inside me so that she won’t yell at me, but rather will welcome me warmly?

Answer: We must change our internal attributes. There is nothing else we should change. Then, we will feel that the same people who treated us badly before suddenly begin to treat us nicely. This is the only correction. We must let the Light work.

Question: How will my wife know that I have corrected my internal attributes?

Answer: It is only up to you. Only you determine how she will treat you. Every person determines how he feels the world. We can feel that we are in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), the good white Light, by ascending above time and space, like Einstein dreamed. We can do that. It only depends on changing our internal attributes, which can be corrected by a special method, by the wisdom of Kabbalah. The wisdom of Kabbalah allows a person to change his attributes, and then he feels that he is in a world of absolute goodness.

 Does that mean that we learn how to pay attention only to the full half of the glass that is half empty?

Answer: It isn’t a simple psychological exercise that enables us to pay attention to positive things and disregard the negative ones. By changing our attributes, we actually change the world around us. The half empty glass is actually filled!
[155151]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/8/15

Related Material:
Draw Yourself A Good World
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is A Wisdom For Perception Of The World
How To Succeed In The School Of Life

The Treasure Hidden In Our Pockets

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, “The Last Generation,” Part 2: …in fact, there is nothing more natural than coming into contact with one’s maker, for He has made nature. In fact, every creature has contact with his maker, as it is written, “The whole earth is full of His glory,” except we do not know or feel it.

Actually, one who is awarded contact with Him attains only the awareness. It is as though one has a treasure in his pocket, and he does not know it. Along comes another and lets him know what is in his pocket. Now he really has become rich.

Now when he discovers this treasure, he knows that he has ownership of this and he knows how to use it. Before, he put his hand into his pocket and he didn’t know what kind of treasure was in his possession, whereas now he discovers it in his pocket and he knows how to use it.

Question: So what is this treasure that we have in our possession without our knowing about it?

Answer: We are in a world that is concealed from us. We don’t see more than one percent of all of the reality that surrounds us. Essentially, we see only a small, compressed, and completely distorted world. We don’t pay attention to the treasure we possess.

Question: Does the wisdom of Kabbalah make it possible for me to discover this treasure?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah gradually reveals the entire map to us to the degree that we can use this treasure correctly. In the meantime, only this world is revealed to us, and we are destroying it. So how is it possible to reveal more to us? The wisdom of Kabbalah explains to us where we can develop and what kind of goal we can attain.

Question: And a treasure is waiting for us at the end of the road?

Answer: We discover it gradually. Gradually we are allowed to put our hand in our pocket and use part of the treasure if we know how to use it correctly. If we learn to use it correctly with the powers and knowledge that are given to us, then they become revealed before us.
[155410]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 2/15/15

Related Material:
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is A Wisdom For Perception Of The World
Kabbalah Is The Physics Of The Integral World
Are We Awake or Still Asleep?

A Question That Leads To Eternal Life

Laitman_109Question: I grew up in a village, and since then I have been very connected to nature. When you look at a flower or at a cloud in the sky you see that there are no questions; they dwell in tranquility and goodness in their place.

You ask yourself, “So, where am I? Why isn’t there harmony and beauty like this in my life?” Why are human beings, the most developed creatures in nature, at the same time the most miserable?

Answer: The more developed the creature, the more he suffers. Do stones suffer? Their inner force acts to hold them in that form, and that’s all. The plants already suffer, for they are developed. They require rain, sun, and warmth, they suffer from cold, and are subject to all kinds of external pressures.

However, for animals, it is even worse. They need to flee from things all the time to protect themselves and to search after food constantly. Nature doesn’t supply them with everything in abundance. They must be concerned about themselves.

For the human, as it is written, “…his hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him…” (Genesis 16:12). He truly depends upon everything, although he is the most developed of all.

Question: But why is life so difficult for people? My wife works in a kindergarten and says that with every passing year, the children are more miserable. Their lives are so difficult as if already from a young age they suffer, live under constant pressure, relate to each other violently, and nowhere is there a good atmosphere, not at home and not in kindergarten. Why do we live under constant pressure?

Answer: It is to bring us to the goal of creation. We need to ask ourselves difficult questions, live difficult lives, otherwise we don’t attain it. This is especially true in our times, for at the end of the 20th century we reached such a point in human development about which the Kabbalists spoke: Beginning from the year 1995 and on, humanity has entered the period of the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah (Mashiach) is not a person on a white donkey as many suppose. Rather, it is a force that attracts and brings us out to the next level of development.

Question: Is this the goal of creation about which you have spoken?

Answer: Yes, we need to reach the state of Adam, the level of “Man.”

Today, we live according to the beastly level and not according to the human level as we are concerned only about our bodies and how to build our nest, our home. Do we attain the meaning of life with this? All of the meaning of our existence for us is how to organize our lives, which is also what animals are engaged with.

In comparison to them, in sum, we are more complex organisms, but no more than that. We don’t become happier though this because we haven’t attained the meaning of life. We don’t know why we are born, how to live, who manages us, and what happens after our death.

Question: Is a person born to suffer?

Answer: No, it is precisely the opposite! All of the sufferings that we feel are only the force of nature pushing us to attain wholeness, harmony, happiness, and Light.

Question: Is it important to ask ourselves about the meaning of life?

Answer: Yes, because, during your lifetime in this world, you can exit to the level of the eternal world, as it is written, “You will see your world in your lifetime” (Masechet Berachot 17a).

People who begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah reach that question, “What is the meaning of my life?” A person must ask about this! Even if everything is good with him, he asks, “So, in all of this, what am I living for?”

He wants to know why everything is arranged like this. He doesn’t have much of an answer, and he doesn’t know how to direct himself. Get up in the morning, go to work, come back home in the evening, and what else? He wants to know that it could be that a more lofty goal exists so that he can justify his existence because it is very difficult to say that I live only to provide for my family and that my children live only for this.

We already have developed to such a state where we must ask ourselves the question about the meaning of life, and find an answer for it.
[155266]
From Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 1/18/15

Related Material:
Where Is Happiness Hiding?
Man Does Not Give Up
The Era Of Understanding

Why Are We Living In This World?

Dr. Michael LaitmanWhy are we living in this world?—Every child asks this question beginning around the age of five, and this is because within us is found a Reshimo (reminiscence), a spiritual gene that must be developed. It pushes us from within.

This gene, this desire, requires fulfillment, an answer to the question, “What are we living for? What is the meaning of life?” Later, we forget this question, and in our pursuit of life, we no longer return to it since we don’t have time to think about it and regard it as a useless thought.

However, we see that this question constantly draws our attention in all kinds of situations throughout our lives, and considering how many people are in despair, get divorced, need drugs, and require antidepressants, we see that in spite of everything, this question still is very strong.

This gene is planted in us because at the end of our development, our evolution, we need to reach a state in which all of us ask the question, “What are we living for?” Why live?” “What is the meaning of life?”

It is possible to ask this question in another way: “Why does nature, which is so perfect and purposeful, create a person with such great potential, but leave him without an answer to the questions of how to build one’s life,  and what to achieve in life?”

We see what tremendous wisdom is latent in every cell, in every body, in the connection between us, and we see how much information we haven’t yet discovered! However, even from what we have discovered with the help of science, we see such a wonderful wisdom hidden in all of this rich mechanism, and yet, we who are at the summit of this science, at its peak, don’t see any meaning in our lives. How is such a thing possible? Without a doubt there is a purpose to our existence, but we don’t know what it is and we need to discover it.

So, someone who asks himself about the meaning of life ultimately reaches the wisdom of Kabbalah.
[155154]
From Israeli Radio Program 103 FM, 1/18/15

Related Material:
Man Does Not Give Up
From Animal To Man
A Happy Life For Our Sons

Times Earthly And Spiritual

laitman_281_02Question: I sent you a table covering the time of Queen Esther. I would like to know your opinion on the correctness of these dates.

Answer: There are almost no dates of certain events in the Kabbalistic sources. Otherwise, we would not have doubts and would have something to rely on.

The fact is that the sages do not tie themselves to earthly dates, and everything that happens in Kabbalah refers to the spiritual world, that is, a person’s inner world. Therefore, I was never interested in historical facts and dates and have not seen them in Kabbalistic books.
[154708]

Related Material:
So Is History Real Or Not?
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah And Corporeal Sciences
A Toolkit Of Light

Love Expands This Narrow World

Laitman_712_03Question: You said that the wisdom of Kabbalah is an internal part of the Torah. Does this mean that Kabbalah refers to religion?

Answer: Due to the study of Kabbalah, a person completely changes one’s perception of reality and begins to take a different attitude to one’s familiar concepts. The Torah refers to the use of force of the Inner Light, its correction, and rise above the current perception of reality.

The fact that a person reaches the love of neighbor, takes one out of his limited and confined world into a spacious, eternal, and higher world. This technique allows a person to really begin to live in a completely new world, and not just to psychologically calm oneself. A person moves from one world to another, changes one’s organs of perception that depict one’s entire worldview.
[154436]
From the Radio Program Israeli 103FM, 2/8/15

Related Material:
What Is The Difference Between Kabbalah And Religion?
The Goal – Love Of The Other
Real Immortality

The Wisdom Of Kabbalah Is A Wisdom For Perception Of The World

laitman_254_01Question: Why do you say that each one sees his own reality in front of him, which he portrays through his own characteristics, if all of us see the same world?

Answer: We all see one world at the moment, but each one of us can change the reality that he senses. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a method for the right perception.

I will see that basically reality is much wider than it seemed to me and that everything in it advances in a good direction. And this will not be an illusion or self-deception. To the degree that I discover the world and bring Light into my life, that is the picture that I see in front of me.

Question: Is reality itself changed or my perception?

Answer: The reality that I see exists only in my perception. From where can I know that it truly exists in a form like this outside of myself? I perceive the world according to my characteristics, but this doesn’t mean that it exists in this form objectively. If the person possessed different characteristics, he would see another world with completely different colors and shapes.

We are so used to a reality that we perceive through our five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touch that it seems real to us. But things aren’t like that.

A person is like a device with five sensors that are tuned to particular frequency ranges and he is used to living in a world like this. But if we turn the five regulators to other frequency ranges, we will see a completely different reality. Science has reached a discovery like this today, and thousands of years ago the wisdom of Kabbalah spoke about this. So the wisdom of Kabbalah (the Hebrew word for “bondage” means to “receive”) is called this because it is a wisdom for perception of the world.
[154252]
From the Radio Program Israeli 103FM 2/8/15

Related Material:
Are We Awake or Still Asleep?
We All Are Little Artists
The Perception Of Life: A Dream Or Reality?

Clarification Of The Unexplainable

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah talks only about what’s going on inside us. The terms “Israel” and the “nations of the world” stand for our internal properties. However, we use these definitions as if we talk about corporeality. Yet, these notions never imply this realm. Rather, they refer to the internal qualities of a human being.

Kabbalists use common, plain, earthly words to describe spirituality because there are no other words in our vocabulary. Even if we saw the other realm, we would not be able to find accurate words to express our impressions. We would fail to give names to the phenomena that take place there.

If we were to write the titles of all objects in the room on post-it notes, there would be lamps, doors, windows, and bookcases since each thing has a name. If we correct our properties, we would move the wall that separates us from spirituality. We would remove the wall that hides the upper world from us, but, we still wouldn’t find the right words to describe what we actually see there.

It is impossible to find the correct words to name the forces and actions associated with the other realm. How would you explain to others what you saw in spirituality? Let’s say somebody asks you: “Please, tell me a little about what’s there! I am eager to know!” You wouldn’t be able to describe a thing!

Kabbalistic books explain the unexplainable. Kabbalists were the ones who found a solution. We all live in this world, both Kabbalists and common people. We all know this reality.

So, Kabbalists have said: “We will tell you about spirituality.” They wrote books about the spiritual dimension: The Torah, the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, Mishnah, The Zohar, The Study of the Ten Sefirot. All these books are called sacred; they are not ordinary books because they describe the upper world.

However, we cannot describe spirituality using spiritual words since there are no words there. That’s why these books tell us stories as if they are happening in this world, when in fact, all of them are about the upper reality.

Spirituality is parallel to this world. It is a dimension of forces, desires, impressions, and sensations. It is a domain of feelings! However, the feelings there are not egoistic as they are here on this planet. Rather, they derive from the property of bestowal that doesn’t exist in this world. These are the sensations of love, bestowal, unity, reciprocity, only positive feelings.
[153482]
From KabTV’s “The Torah Chapters with Shmuel Vilozni” 2/2/15

Related Material:
The Language Of Kabbalists: Hard To Use, Impossible To Go Without
Physics And Lyricism
The Language Of Branches That Connects The Worlds

The Moon Exists Only When You Look At It!

laitman_928In the News (from Lenta.ru): “The wave function is an objective reality.

“The wave function describes the state of micro particles. Connected with it are the majority of the manifestations of the quantum theory, distinguishing it from classical physics.

“The modulus squared of the psi-function determines the probability of a particle to take this or that state. It can be represented as a sum of states, and the measuring process is reduced to extracting one of the possible states.

“Scientists hold one of two opinions about the wave function:

  1. Psi-function is real, i.e., is part of an objective reality. Objectivity means that this property of the wave function has nothing to do with the human and his ideas about nature. The wave function is indifferent to what a person “thinks” about it.
  2. “The wave function is a mathematical object, introduced because of the lack of knowledge of the quantum world. That is what Einstein thought: ‘Does the Moon exist only when you look at it?’ – He said. This concept means that the wave function is only the instrument of knowledge and has no relation to the objective reality.

“The interpretation according to which the future can influence the past does not contradict scientists’ experiments.”

My Comment: Kabbalah says that NOTHING EXISTS except two: the Creator and Creation. The Creator is the desire to give, fill, love, by eternal and constant Light, that fills creation, the desire to receive: enjoy it.

It turns out that the whole picture of the world that we “see” is nothing but our internal properties that we see (feel) in front of us on a background of white light. In other words, the perceived world is our “guts,” “turned inside out,” so we could see them better and correct.
[153821]

Related Material:
Life Is Perceiving What Seems Non-Existent
This Strange Reality
Where Is Immortality?