Comment: You say that a paper book is still more important than an electronic one because it has a spiritual root while an electronic one does not.

My Response: Now everything is moving to electronics, everything will be in electronic form; this cannot be changed. But the book itself is simply symbols that a person writes with his hand and reads with his eyes.

Basically, I do not think it matters much for our generation. Today I also read basic literature from the screen although we learn from books.

Question: But you said that now even paper is not what it used to be. Does the texture of the paper on which the book is printed play a role?

Answer: Real paper is, of course, papyrus. From that came the word “paper.” Also, records were made on sheepskins that were prepared in a special way. When you take the skin, it splits into two parallel layers. The book is written on the outer part of the inner layer.

Question: Why was this done?

Answer: Because a book is a desire of a person that he describes in writing.

We can correct all our desires in four and a half stages. They are called Mocha [marrow], Atzamot [bones], Gidin [tendons], Basar [flesh], and Or [skin].

The skin is the last part that belongs to Malchut; it can only be corrected halfway. This divided skin of an animal (we, after all, are also animals and correct our animal part) can be corrected only halfway from the inside.

The other part cannot be corrected; those desires are too great for us, we do not have the strength for this. Therefore, the book is the maximum attainment of spirituality through four and a half degrees of our desires.
[309253]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Book or iPad” 5/21/12

Related Material:
A Book Is Knowledge That Is Around Us
The Advantage Of Printed Books
Printed Text, Audio, Or Video Media?

Filed under: Kabbalah Study - No Comments →

Question: From a letter: “Kabbalah is a mystical movement in Judaism. In essence, it is a method to read and understand Torah. It is based on the idea that the text of the Torah can be interpreted at four different levels the highest of which is revealed through special mystical practices. So, Kabbalah is mysticism and not truth?”

Answer: What nonsense! I have not heard a single word of truth right now.

Kabbalah is simply a set of laws of nature that we must observe if we want to live in harmonious union with nature.

Question: What is this set of laws, what is nature?

Answer: There is nature, it is everything that exists including people, including everyone and everything, our world, our worlds, galaxies. Basically, it is everything that we can imagine. It all represents one unified whole that exists with the help of mutually interconnected forces. Kabbalah explores these interconnected forces.

It explains to us that only by fulfilling the general law of nature, the general interconnection between all parts of nature, will we be able to understand, perceive, feel and exist in this nature.

If we do not reach the desire to attain this nature, then it will gradually throw us out from itself. And in the end, we will still be forced to accept its integral law as the general law of everything that exists.

Question: You talk all the time about one law that governs all this nature and us. What is this law?

Answer: This law is called the Creator. That is, there is a force that contains all parts of the universe at any level: inanimate, vegetative, animate, human, and others that we do not yet know. We may call them mystical, it does not matter. But all these levels exist, interact, and are interdependent on each other.

Question: It turns out that we are inside the Creator, inside this law?

Answer: Of course! Inside the Creator. And we are obliged to obey this law. Of all the forms of life known to us, we are the only form of life that is aware of itself and is aware, in some way, of the presence of the Creator, its source, its root.
[309342]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23

Related Material:
Kabbalah Is an Integral Science
Universal Technique
Kabbalah—Delving Into Nature

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

There are many interesting places around Lake Kinneret [Sea of Galilee]. There are two ancient cities: Safed and Tiberias. The Jordan River flows beyond the Kinneret.

However, now it is a very pitiful river. But it was always very small.

In principle, it represents that very thin, small, almost drying upstream of water or force that descends from the quality of Bina, reaches the foothills of Jerusalem, and flows into the Dead Sea.

Question: The streams of Bina seem to pass into the body, that is, into the Zeir Anpin. What does Zeir Anpin represent?

Answer: Zeir Anpin represents the stream, which descends to Malchut. Malchut is the Dead Sea, which, in principle, is called the Salty Sea, not the Dead Sea.

There are a lot of interesting places along the Jordan River from Kinneret to the Dead Sea. There is Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the world, which was the gateway for subsequent conquests.

Next come the foothills of Jerusalem. Jerusalem itself is like Yesod, like a source of contact between Yesod and the Creator, and Malchut is located below, where the Dead Sea is. It collects the remnants of water descending from Bina.

Jerusalem was not originally the capital of Israel. It was a conquered city. At first, the capital city was Shomron, in Samaria, and then it was moved there. We know what kind of internecine fights were there about this.

But, of course, there is no such place as Jerusalem was once at its height, and as it is today at the baseness of its fall after destruction.
[309172]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10

Related Material:
Spiritual Geography, Part 5
Malchut And Bina, Salt Water And Fresh Water
The Dead Sea Is The Embodiment Of Malchut

Filed under: Kabbalah Study - No Comments →

Question: Does an ebook affect the inner desire of the person who reads it?

Answer: I would not say that it matters today because the person himself has become such.

But during the lessons, we still read excerpts from ordinary books that are published in a normal typographic way. But on the texts, of course, I work on the computer.

And the student who is sitting with the computer, let him work with it. The main thing is whatever he will experience within himself.

Question: But how did the system appear, that began to depict everything on the screen?

Answer: This happened because we also have a screen inside. We also see everything around us inside ourselves, on our screen, but it seems to us that we observe it outside of ourselves. Everything we see outside of us is inside of us. This is such an illusion of realization, there is nothing else in it.

As a result, we will come to understand that everything we see is our inner state, and by changing ourselves, we will write a book within ourselves on four and a half degrees of desires.
[309286]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Book or iPad” 5/21/12

Related Material:
Acquiring A Screen—Spiritual Birth Of a Person
The Screen Is Maximum Equivalence To The Giver
The Screen Is Your Contribution To The Spiritual Reality

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Lake Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee) is a special place, the quality of Bina in our world. Although compared to Lake Baikal or the Great Lakes in America, it is just a small lake, but through its strength and influence on all mankind, nothing is even close. No wonder there are various monasteries scattered around the Kinneret, including ancient ones built on rocks.

Question: Does the fact that there is less and less water in the Kinneret mean anything?

Answer: This suggests that the quality of Bina is running out in our world. We see it all over the world, as it is gradually being depleted.

But it is for the best, it should be so. We must gradually move to the upper source (call it an alternative one).

Question: Do you think it is no coincidence that Rabbi Shimon and his friends chose this place to write The Book of Zohar?

Answer: There is nothing accidental. Everything happens under the influence of upper forces and in unison with them. It was impossible to write or even feel these forces anywhere else. Therefore, Lake Kinneret and everything that exists around it is really special.
[309123]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10

Related Material:
Malchut And Bina, Salt Water And Fresh Water
The Whole of Life Is Inside Water
He Made Heaven From Fire And Water

Filed under: Kabbalah Study - No Comments →

“Spiritual time” means a certain number of new changes of form that stem from one another. Former and latter mean cause and consequence.

Concerning the spiritual definition of time, understand that for us, the whole concept of time is only a sensation of movements. Our imagination pictures and devises a certain number of consecutive movements that it senses one by one and interprets them as a certain amount of “time.”

Thus, if one had been in a state of complete rest with one’s environment, he would not even be aware of the concept of time. (Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 9, Item 34)

Question: Can you give an example of any spiritual states that have cause and consequence?

Answer: Of course. Let’s say there is a glass on the table that I push, and it changes its position. The force with which I push it is the cause, and its movement is the consequence.

The same is true in spirituality only on a more internal level. A person changes all the time and goes through all kinds of states.

This is the meaning of our existence—that we can change in this way until we reach a state where we feel that we are changing ourselves in accordance with the purpose of creation, that we ourselves are moving toward this purpose.

This is the movement. This is life.

Question: Is time then both cause and consequence?

Answer: Time is a quantitative movement per unit of time.

Question: Let’s assume that the fact that I feel fear of the upper force is already a consequence. Is the upper force always the cause?

Answer: Yes, the cause is always from above. It is on a more subtle level than the consequence. This is why we say that the cause is always the Creator.
[309323]
From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23

Related Material:
The Force that Determines the Form of the World
What Does a Change in Desire Entail?
Matter Woven From Desire By Light

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: For what purpose did the Creator create such a space called “our world” and the ability to move in it? All the changes still happen inside our desires, so what is this space where I can move my body and move from one place to another for? What does it give us?

Answer: It does not give us anything. It just seems to us that we are moving.

Question: Even if it only seems to us, still, the Creator, nature, does not create anything without purpose. Is this created for a reason?

Answer: It is in order for us to learn how to ascend from lower degrees of nature to higher ones. We can see even in our technological progress as we develop, and as a result of it we begin to work with higher degrees of nature, with its higher qualities.

As a result of such transformations, we will receive an opportunity to take into account the thing that is at the core of our movements.

Question: In principle, the Creator could have created some kind of reality where we would simply be in a static state and all movement would be only internal. Why do we need externality, even if it only seems to be to me? I do not understand how it helps me to come closer to the qualities of the upper force.

We live in some kind of reality where there is space, time, and motion. People are always traveling somewhere, flying, and moving. What for? It does not change anything internally. Or does it?

Answer: This has very little effect on internal states. We are not yet in such drastic changes to change us with movements of a different type.

There is even an expression: “Change your place, change your luck.” By changing the place, you change your internal conditions. At least, having moved physically to a right environment, you are already under the influence of this environment.
[309293]
From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 2/12/23

Related Material:
A Special Place Called Our World
Our World—Reception in Order to Receive for Oneself
This Is Our World

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Perception - No Comments →

The geographic area of Israel corresponds to the structure of the upper world, the world of Atzilut. Mount Hermon in the north of the country is Keter (the crown), from where all the upper light descends and spreads downward. Similarly, streams of water descend from Hermon and the Golan Heights, which revive and nourish the land of Israel.

These streams pass through Galilee, which is a purely Kabbalistic part of the country where Kabbalists lived and The Book of Zohar was written. The cave where The Book of Zohar was written, special places, graves, Mount Meron, and the ancient Kabbalistic city of Safed are also there. These places are very strong in their influence on man.

If Hermon is Keter, then Galilee, from where the waters descend into the Sea of Galilee, is Hochma descending to Bina. The entire area extending to the Kinneret personifies Hochma, which in Hebrew means “wisdom.” Indeed, it was there that Kabbalistic wisdom was being revealed for hundreds of years.

And Lake Kinneret [the Sea of Galilee] is Bina—the property of mercy, the property of water, the property that brings life to everything, and therefore, this lake is special. There is Miriam’s well in it. Miriam is a great prophetess, the sister of Moses.

As Chaim Vital writes, one day his teacher, the great Kabbalist, the Ari, took him to Lake Kinneret. When their boat sailed up to the well gushing from inside the lake, the Ari gave him a drink of this water, and Chaim Vital suddenly began to understand everything—the upper world opened up to him.

It is interesting that when you look at the water of the lake from above, you see how the Jordan River flows in the middle of it. Moreover, the water of the river flows in its own channel, not at all mixing with the water of the lake. The water of the Kinneret and the water of the Jordan River symbolize two different qualities. Indeed, the Jordan River descends from the upper mountains, passes through Bina, and flows further, just as the light of Hochma passes through Bina and descends.
[308994]
From KabTV’s “Kabbalistic Geography” 10/10/10

Related Material:
Spiritual Level of “Conquering the Land of Israel”
The Land Of Israel On The Map And In The Soul
Entering The Land Of Israel

Filed under: Kabbalah Study - No Comments →

Question: Black holes are known to absorb everything within their gravitational field. Using the most powerful Hubble telescope, astronomers discovered a black hole that has become a mother and given birth to several stars. They describe how black holes give birth to stars. A black hole sucks gas clouds into itself, gas clouds heat up to certain temperatures, connect with plasma streams, and become nurseries for future stars.

In which case does a black hole give birth to a star?

Answer: When there is a clear transition from darkness to light. That is, when it can no longer pull in, but must push out. There must be some pulsation law at work here.

Question: Can this be applied to our world, which everyone seems to compare to a black hole? They say that our world is like a black hole. We live by consuming, exclusively by consuming.

Answer: We ourselves are inside a black hole.

Question: We are inside a black hole ourselves. In what case can we give birth to something like light or stars?

Answer: It is only possible with different qualities, not the ones we have now.

Question: Meaning, there are properties of a black hole in us? We resemble it, right?

Answer: Yes, we resemble a black hole. We absorb everything into ourselves.

Question: In what case can we not absorb, but give?

Answer: To do this, we must change our nature from taking to giving.

Question: That is, like a star born out of a black hole, can we give birth to something like light if we transform ourselves? How do we transform and give birth?

Answer: First, we need to realize that black holes are the basis of all nature. This is a massive force of ego, which pulls everything into itself, sucks it in. And then? We need to understand how we can break out of this black hole.

Question: Would it be painful to realize we are a black hole? Will it be bad for us? Why would we want to break out of this?

Answer: Yes, because the black hole only consumes it therefore cannot develop. It only pulls everything into itself; it has no future.

Question: So it turns out black holes are inside us?

Answer: Black holes are inside us. These are huge egoistic voids that we would like to fill, but we cannot and will not be able to.

Question: And that is what we have to come to?

Answer: When we discover these black holes, that our egoism is a pure black hole, the source and origin of all other black holes at all levels of the world, nature, then we may ask the question: “How can we correct it, complement it, and turn it around somehow?”

Question: Will this mean we are getting ready to give birth?

Answer: Yes, this is the act of birth.

Question: So humanity will conceive in order to give birth?

Answer: It is already happening gradually.

Question: What will we give birth to? In terms of relationships or states, what will we give birth to? What do you call birth?

Answer: I call birth an inverse change from wanting to receive to wanting to give. I realize this way is flawed, so I try to change myself.

Question: And this very attempt is what brings results?

Answer: Of course. Nothing in nature is above human reason, above human desire.

Question: So, we have to want it, is this the point?

Answer: Yes, this is sufficient.
[308573]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/13/22

Related Material:
The Secret Of Black Holes
In This Contrived And Illusory World…
The End Of Creation

Filed under: Egoism, Kabbalah Study, News, Science - No Comments →

Coming closer to each other and the property of our commonality will give us the opportunity to connect with nature and see that we can use its laws in a completely different way. This will be a completely new discovery for us.

The sciences will be based not on man’s opposition to nature, but on the interaction with it, on harmony. This is a different mind, different desires, different thoughts, and completely different discoveries.

Modern science and current technology will completely step aside. They are in crisis because they are a manifestation of our egoism. We treat nature egoistically and from this, we create our sciences.

When we are in harmony with it, we will reveal it completely differently. We will not have physics, chemistry, geology, and astrology separately, but there will be one science about nature, which is called Kabbalah. Then we will be able to do great things, something that our ancestors, who were not yet so far removed from nature, partially were able to do.
[309214]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mysterious Civilizations of the Past” 5/25/12

Related Material:
Delicate Balance of Nature
Natural Disasters And The Role Of Humanity
Nature Does Not Tolerate Imbalance

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Science, Society - No Comments →