David asks:

Please explain the phrase that the Torah is given for sinners. And if I do not feel like a sinner, does that mean I cannot study the Torah?

Answer: You can study the Torah. But for the Torah to teach you, you need to feel a little bit like a sinner.

Question: And there is no way around this?

Answer: That is why it is given.

Question: So I should need it?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What if I need it for knowledge? There is so much in it.

Answer: No, knowledge has nothing to do with it. The Torah is needed only for correction, for extracting the egoism from a person, and for making a person stand before the Creator one-on-one.

Question: So the path I take through the Torah is my path to the Creator?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Did He intentionally give the Torah specifically to sinners? Was it given precisely when we sinned?

Answer: Essentially we are born sinners. And then as we gradually recognize ourselves as sinners, we can appreciate the Torah, its depth, its power, and its ability to correct.

Question: What does studying the Torah mean to you? “I study the Torah…”. What does it mean?

Answer: I study the Torah, which means I act so that the Torah penetrates me and I can absorb its words, its strength, and its convictions. So that this becomes an unshakable part of me, and I think only about how to implement what is written in it. That is, essentially, what we must do.

Question: If you reduce it to something very simple and concise, can you say what is written in it?

Answer: About love, but not in our usual sense.
[329791]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 4/15/24

Related Material:
Preparation For Receiving The Torah: The Light Of Correction
The Torah Is a Gift from the Creator to a Person
How Can We Be Honored with the Hidden Part of the Torah?

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, News, Q&A, Spiritual Work, Torah - No Comments →

Question: Translations do not give me anything. Even though I do not understand Hebrew, I try to feel the Hebrew letters. And this has an effect.

Can translations serve as a conduit for feelings? Should we still read, for example, The Book of Zohar in the original Hebrew and try to feel it?

Answer: Yes and no. It is not necessary. The Book of Zohar will start to appear before you as a network of forces and attributes within and around you, like an internal and external matrix, and you will begin to feel it.

Question: Do you feel this clearly when you read The Zohar?

Answer: Of course! It is such a power! I am simply astonished, in awe, trying to understand, accept, and interact with it in some way, somewhere, somehow. It is as if you are in some inner and outer space with which you interact.

You study it.

Question: But do you get some kind of satisfaction from this? Or is it a completely different sensation?

Answer: There is no satisfaction comparable to this.
[329950]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Unlimited Bliss“ 3/7/10

Related Material:
The Key To The Book Of Zohar
Feel The Book Of Zohar
The Secret Of Reading The Book Of Zohar

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Spiritual Work, Zohar - No Comments →

Comment: You once said that old material is not worth listening to.

My Response: No, there are very good things in the archive. It is just that in subsequent explanations, the presentation of the material becomes more professional as more precise words are found. An accessible explanation is a profession after all.

For example, Baal HaSulam had a very good, unique language—academic, precise, and polished. But in the same era, there were many great Kabbalists, such as Rav Kook, whose works no one understands despite him having written an enormous number of books.

The greatest Kabbalist Baal Shem Tov did not write a single book at all. He deliberately did not want to write. And there were many like him who could or could not write and did so better or worse. For instance, Chaim Vital, who received spiritual heritage from the Ari, eventually collected and published these works at the end of his life, and his son and grandson continued his work.

All this is done gradually because the adaptation of materials to our world is carried out according to the souls that descend here. Can you compare the people who sat before me fifteen years ago and those today? They are completely different people.
[329501]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Old stuff” 2/1/10

Related Material:
The Great Kabbalists And Their Works
What Are Kabbalists Working On?
Kabbalists On Spiritual Work In The Group, Part 17

Filed under: Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Are Kabbalistic materials from twenty years ago appropriate for our time?

Answer: We record everything. There are very good materials from those years.

I’m moving with the group. The group is moving forward and no longer needs to chew through the material as it was in those years. Twenty years ago, for the first time, I took the Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah with students: Sefirot, worlds, soul, structure. I chewed it all out for them in a way I can’t do today. I see people in front of me who don’t need to be told this.

Now I have to speak briefly. I express some new, more analytical internal data; synthesize the material from different sides, in different planes, and in a different way, and they already understand this.

That is, the material for beginners is no longer served in the simplicity that it was once taught. On the one hand, this is a big disadvantage. But, on the other hand, there is an archive.
[329552]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Expiration Date of Kabbalah” 1/31/10

Related Material:
Accessible Explanation is a Profession
The Value Of The Kabbalistic Archive
A Common Basis For Different Methods

Filed under: Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Spiritual Teacher - No Comments →

Question: Is there any difference in the presentation of Kabbalah for people in the past and for those who come now?

Answer: Of course! There is a big difference in the explanation, in the approach, in the specifics, and in the style of presentation. Once upon a time, 20 years ago, you could only speak to people in accordance to what was written in the original sources. For example, the Torah mentions a serpent, and you explained what a serpent is, and so on.

But today, people do not ask about this because they understand this is some kind of allegory. A person requires a specific explanation of what Kabbalah is talking about and what we can achieve with its help.

That did not happen before. Everything was figurative and descriptive. Six hundred years ago the great Kabbalist RAMHAL described Kabbalah as a dialogue between the soul and the body: the body said, the soul said, the body said, the soul said, and the whole book, two hundred pages, was like that. RAMBAM wrote in the form of all kinds of philosophical thoughts and sayings.

That is, each generation, even each society, imposes its own form of presentation.
[329599]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Old Stuff” 2/1/10

Related Material:
The Classical Wisdom Of Kabbalah And The Evolution Of The Urgently Needed Planetary Consciousness
The Difference Between the 20th and 21st Centuries
A Wonderful Quality of the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Filed under: Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: After one of your lectures, as a rule, a person comes to study the wisdom of Kabbalah all fired up. He or she felt something unusual. This feeling lasts for a while, and then it cools down. Is this his problem or not?

Answer: No, this is how it should be!

Why should I keep him under my influence? Absolutely not! It is necessary for him to start understanding what I have told him and what I have suggested of his own freewill. Under no circumstances should he be left in a state of enthusiasm because then it will be like a drug for him.

He will no longer receive any sustenance from me. The next time he meets me, he will no longer have that initial admiration and perception. He will turn on the analysis, the requirement of the conceptual apparatus, because he needs to progress.

It is like with children: the first time we can entice a child, but after that, we want to involve them in actions.

Question: Usually, those people who initially admire everything become “seasoned wolves” later on. You look at them and their childlike innocence is gone. But how can a person avoid going into a kind of isolation?

Answer: I cannot say anything here. You do not need to think about what he should be like. He will be as he should be. We do not determine his future states. Whatever happens to him is how it should work out.

The main thing is to give him information about internal development, about external opportunities, what he should do, how he should study, read, work in a group, and disseminate—in short, how he should absorb all the material.
[329228]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Light Narcotic” 1/21/12

Related Material:
Like a Baby in Its Mother’s Arms
Seeing a Person’s Future
Make The Future Yourself

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

I started studying Kabbalah in 1976 when I was 30 years old. Three years later, I came to Rabash. But even before coming to Rabash, I started to read The Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary, studied the Introduction to the Wisdom of Kabbalah and other sources. I could not understand anything, but I was already trying to figure them out.

When I came to Rabash, then everything went along the same line. Before that, I sort of went through everything myself: science, philosophy, religion, and I saw that all that was just a delusion, absolutely everything, including science!

They lead a person astray from the right path to the goal of creation, to the meaning of life. So what if I find out how two solutions mix and what happens as a result? Nature around us is a huge sphere; I will scrape some properties, some knowledge, from it a little bit and study what I have scraped together. Am I going to do this all my life? Well, I will scrape together a little. And why? As Einstein said: “Like a little boy, I collect pebbles on the ocean shore.”

All great people have also asked these questions. And the most important thing that pushed them forward was the comprehension of the basis of the universe, its integral formula, that is, the connection between all its parts—what it is for. The whole connection: these X’s, Y’s, Z’s, and so on, what is inside the formula, equal to what? The meaning of life!

“What is it? Will I comprehend it or not?” Science will not give man an answer because he works with his brains and his properties like an animal that begins to scratch the ground with its hoof and sniff what it has found there. So much for science!

Moreover, I do not detract from its importance at all, but simply say that it is necessary to understand its limitations.
[328745]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12

Related Material:
A Universal Foundation For All Sciences
A Profound Change Of Our Perspective
An Era Of Small Ideals

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Science - No Comments →

The science of Kabbalah reveals the possibility of expanding one’s senses and awareness into an area opposite to the material one, to a new level, into a new dimension. Therefore, I completely surrendered to it, but with strict control over myself.

Kabbalah gives us great opportunities because you must constantly move against your egoism. Do you want to move? That is egoism for you. Try to use it to see how right or wrong it is, whether you need it or not, and how much you are just busying yourself with it. Some other properties, desires, and values in you push you toward this.

And we start working against your ego! We make any comprehension, any movement, not because you are carried forward, but on the contrary, with difficulty, with a tremendous force of opposition.

A scientist is driven forward by egoism, which pushes him to research. But here, it is the other way around. Therefore, there is a considerable opportunity for self-control and analysis: “Am I doing this right or not? For what? Why? Do I need this at all?!”

Question: A scientist is drawn in by egoism, but a Kabbalist is repulsed from his work. What makes a Kabbalist do this?

Answer: It is the importance of understanding the meaning of creation, comprehending the Creator, but not from a scientific point of view like a scientist, even though it is also importance for a scientist.

In principle, all scientists want to grasp the Creator. Subconsciously, any person in our world who lives only to feed himself still has the thought: “I want to understand the Creator,” otherwise he would not exist. Every atom and every molecule exist only for this purpose because in the end everything will come together in this comprehension.

But unlike scientists, you go against your desires and properties. And it is precisely because of this that you have a vast opportunity for self-control.

Therefore, I do not study anything extraneous because I very clearly see, precisely from the analysis of what other sciences do, how much this is work within egoism, and therefore, does not rise above our world, no matter how scientists think they are above it.
[328750]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Difference Between Kabbalah, Science and New Age” 1/28/12

Related Material:
The Essence Of The Science Of Kabbalah – A Synopsis
Connection Of Kabbalah And Science
The Wisdom Of Kabbalah And The Rest Of The Sciences

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Science - No Comments →

Question: Can we say that at some point in history humanity took the wrong path?

Answer: Of course! Since the time of Aristotle and Plato.

At one point they shouted: “Under no circumstances give science away to the ignorant! They will misuse it, they will sell it to the rich, they will put it at the service of progress!

But we need spiritual progress, not technological progress! We cannot open universities to everyone!

Science should be pursued only by people who with its help want to understand the meaning of life, the lofty matters that lie beyond the boundaries of our world!”

Science should develop only in the form in which it raises a person above our world! Anyone who might use it for evil purposes has no right to engage in it!

Even the invention of, say, a special meat grinder is also evil. You do not need it, and you can live without it! After all, in the end, it is by adapting science to our world that you begin its development.

There is no other way, either external development or internal. The world followed the external path of development. Historically, this happened 3,000 years ago.

Question: But was there another option for development? Or did we still have to go through this stage?

Answer: It is hard to say because in order to understand the answer to this question, you need to be in two worlds, in the duality that we are talking about.

Everything comes from the Creator, and at the same time depends on our freewill, on our choice.

We are not able to compare these two free functions; our mind is not adapted to this. To understand this, you need to be in both worlds: the spiritual one and ours at the same time. Then you will not have contradictions; you can perceive absolutely opposite facts and information as complementary and not mutually exclusive.
[328806]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Dead-End Path of Human Development” 1/24/12

Related Material:
A New Stage in Human Development
The Next Phase Of Human Development
Does the Development of Humanity Yield Happiness?

Filed under: Crisis, Egoism, Free Will, Globalization, Kabbalah Study, Science - No Comments →

Question: For thousands of years all religions have been saying that there is no knowledge, there is only faith. Many of us came to Kabbalah to comprehend the Creator, that is, to gain knowledge. It seems there is some contradiction here.

Should we have both knowledge and faith or is faith only above knowledge?

Answer: The point is that the faith we practice in the wisdom of Kabbalah is not an ordinary faith, but faith in the fact that the Creator is the upper force of nature.

It is precisely Him that we attain in our mind and feelings by becoming like Him in the measure of bestowal. In this way, we begin to understand the Creator and the world He created.
[329446]
From International Kabbalah Convention 5/18/24, “Working In Faith Above Reason”

Related Material:
Rise Above I Feel Good or I Feel Bad
Believing In The Creator’s Greatness
Faith: A Reward For Work

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Events, Kabbalah Study, Religion, Science, Spiritual Work - No Comments →