An article from my column in Ynet: “Forever Following the Book”

Through sentences, words, and letters encoded in Kabbalah books, Kabbalists have opened the passage to a new dimension for us through which we can enter the story of our life and positively affect the events. The Hebrew Book Week held recently is a good opportunity to go on a magical journey following the books that have shaped our nation.

It is not without reason that the nation of Israel is called “The Nation of the Book.” Forever —books have been an integral part of our way of life, a key means accompanying our lives throughout the years of our development as a nation, as  a society,  and a country.

There does not refer to literature that burst on the scene just hundreds of years, and is dying out as technological developments penetrated our lives, but to different kind of books – books of Kabbalah, Holy books, also called “the language of the distinct, different, special.”

Holy books such as the Bible, the Talmud, The Book of Zohar, and the Midrash do not deal with rules of ethics and are not folk tales. They tell us about a special spiritual world. In addition to the great wisdom that flows from them these books, they also contain a special force, a real treasure, which can fulfill everything we desire, answer every question we have, and especially give meaning to our lives. But very few know how to discover this treasure. Those who do are the Kabbalists.

Kabbalists are ordinary people who have a great desire to discover the reasons for what is happening in our life and what our fate has in store for us, and they were the first to penetrate behind the scenes of our world. They discovered that there is a force of love and giving in reality whose only goal is to bring us to this sublime state, to be united in love and bestowal like this force itself.

They described the way to attain this in their books, the detailed guidance and the wonderful feelings they had, so that we can use it. Thus we too can read about this sublime force, about the “author” who writes the story of our lives, and learn how to change our lives for the better.

The Book of Human History

The first to feel the two worlds together, the nature of the world around us and the nature of the upper world, was Adam HaRishon (the first man), who described it in the first Kabbalah book he wrote called The Angel Raziel, “Raz” the secret language, that is, the revelation of the secrets of creation.

The book includes interesting drawings, and a person who reads it in depth immediately perceives that it isn’t a primitive man who hunted mammoths that wrote this book, but a great Kabbalist who tells us about the united soul called Adam, about its shattering into thousands of individual souls of all of humanity, and about its future connection in which they will reunite into one soul.

Dozens of books have been written by hundreds of Kabbalists, but the most outstanding book since Adam’s book is attributed to Abraham. Abraham did not intend to write a textbook but the Book of Yetzirah (Book of Creation) was basically a list of the major laws of how the spiritual world operates. Although the Book of Yetzirah is very special, it is still very hard to understand and light years away from us. It is thanks to the Book of Yetzirah and the method of connection between people, which he developed, that the nation of Israel grew and began to aspire for spirituality. Several generations later, Moses, the great Kabbalist, continued to lead the nation.

The Book of Books

Moses’ spiritual revelation gave him the power to take the children of Israel out of Egypt, and to lead them in the desert for forty years until they reached the borders of the Promised Land of Israel.

He describes the updated method for his generation in his book called the Torah, as in Light [Ohr]. In other words,  it teaches how to enter the spiritual world with the Light, the divine force. By using this book, every person can reveal the image of creation and build his life toward the ultimate goal.

Although the Torah is written as a historical narrative about the exodus of the nation of Israel from Egypt, it is in fact is a description of a person’s exit from his lowly corporeal state called Egypt, and his ascent to a spiritual state called the “Land of Israel.” Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai said, “Woe to the man who says that the Torah was meant to tell a simple story and a folk tale. If the Torah was meant to tell a historical story, even the leaders of the world are better at that. Everything that is in the Torah is actually upper events and upper secrets” (The Book of Zohar). Moses used the language called the “language of the branches”—the names of objects, feelings, and actions of our world, but by that he referred to the roots of the upper world, to the concealed upper forces, to the entrances and exits of the forces of nature and even to their destructive effects.

If we look at the Torah not through it’s external shell, we will see a totally different picture, detached from the reality of this world. Instead of human figures like Moses and Pharaoh, animals, and different people, we will see the spiritual forces that operate on us, and will gradually be able to use them in order to ascend spiritually. The key to deciphering the Torah is actually in the books of Kabbalah, in The Book of Zohar.

The Book

The Book of Zohar or as Kabbalists call it “The Book” explains the five books of the Torah and tells us exactly what Moses meant. It is the basic and most important book in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Rashbi, the author of the Zohar, was the first Kabbalist who described how our thoughts and our reactions to the force that operates on us from Above rise back to the upper world, operate in it, and thus affect all the future events that will descend unto us.

Before writing The Book, Rashbi gathered a group of ten students around him, “a ten” since “the Torah can only be acquired in a group,” (Babylonian Talmud). The soul of every student matched a certain spiritual attribute in the upper world. When they connected into one soul, they were fully compatible with the Ten Sefirot, the whole structure that exists in the spiritual world. The true connection between these attributes has led to the revelation of the Light of the upper Zohar among the ten students.

“And Rabbi Shimon used to reveal the secrets of the Torah and the friends listened to his voice and responded to him in a connection each replying his share,” (Ramchal, “Adir Ba Meromim“). Because each of the friends represents an attribute of the spiritual world, their story which the whole Book of Zohar tells, is actually the description of the way these spiritual attributes descend into our world; how these ten forces lead this world; how every person can use these forces for his own sake and for the sake of others.

The Tree of Life

1,300 years later, the ARI received The Book of Zohar. He was given permission to renew the method that existed since the days of Adam. He absorbed all the Kabbalistic information since the time of Adam, processed it, and rewrote it so that the method for individuals became a method suitable for the masses. All the sources he absorbed and taught in Safed were later published as The Tree of Life, a book that teaches the way to the spiritual world and explains how we can ascend and attain eternity and wholeness. It also talks about what many are fascinated by, reincarnations. Reading and studying the ARI’s books immediately raises a person above the level of our world.

In addition to the Tree of Life, the ARI wrote twenty other books in which he presents all the laws of the creation using a clear innovative scientific method. In the introduction to his book he says that since the method was established, anyone can study Kabbalah, that the desire itself is the only criterion of whether a person can enter the spiritual world, and so with the science of Kabbalah, which he developed for his generation, anyone who has the desire to attain the goal of creation, regardless of age, gender, or nationality, can do so. Indeed after the ARI’s time many began to open up to Kabbalah and to climb the spiritual ladder to the upper world.

The Ladder

Eventually both The Book of Zohar and the ARI’s books were not intended for the systematic study of Kabbalah for the masses. Although Kabbalah is a science, there was no suitable textbook to study it until our century. The greatest Kabbalist of the 20^th century, called Baal HaSulam after the Sulam Commentary he wrote to The Book of Zohar, emerged in order to fill the gap in Kabbalistic literature. He also explained all of the ARI’s books and compiled them in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, which is the major Kabbalah textbook of our time.

The Study of the Ten Sefirot includes everything all the Kabbalists who preceded him wrote throughout thousands of generations: Adam, Abraham, Moses, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and the ARI. He included many Hasidic writings and writings of contemporary Kabbalists and even referred to the views of the great philosophers of the world like Marx, Nietzsche, Locke, Darwin, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and many others.

All we need to learn about how to create the future we desire is in the writings of Rav Yehuda Ashlag. “I am happy that I was born in a generation in which it is allowed to publicize the wisdom of truth,” says Baal HaSulam. “If you ask me how I know that it is allowed, I will reply that I was given permission to reveal and to explain every single word. This has nothing to do with the ingenuity of the sage himself but with the situation of the generation, and therefore I have said that I was awarded with the revelation of the wisdom because of my generation.”

A Call for a Change

At the end of the Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Baal HaSulam rightly asks whether the language of Kabbalah books is not quite understood, “Therefore we must ask, why then, did the Kabbalists obligate each person to study the wisdom of Kabbalah? Indeed, there is a great thing in it, worthy of being publicized: “There is a wonderful, invaluable remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Although they do not understand what they are learning, through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls…Hence, even when he does not have the vessels, when he engages in this wisdom, mentioning the names of the Lights and the vessels related to his soul, they immediately shine upon him to a certain extent.”

However, they shine for him without clothing the interior of his soul, for lack of able vessels to receive them.
“Yet, the illumination one receives time after time during the engagement draws upon him grace from Above, imparting him with abundance of sanctity and purity, which bring him much closer to achieving perfection” (The Letters of Baal HaSulam).
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From Ynet article 6/16/16

Filed under: Israel, Nations of the World, New Publications - 1 Comment →

Hidden Gene

Question: Is there something in the genes of human DNA that is known to the wisdom of Kabbalah, but not to geneticists?

Answer: There is an additional spiritual charge that remains a mystery to a regular person.

For example, in the people of Israel in different generations were people who weren’t born Jewish but joined the nation and became very significant individuals in it, although initially they seemingly had no Jewish genes. There were many such cases, especially in the times of the Temple.

Consequently, this information is not necessarily transmitted through the physical body, through parents. There is a part of spiritual information in it that leads to inner spiritual development and obliges a person to fulfill his destiny without any connection to the parental home.

For example, the parents of Rabbi Akiva weren’t Jewish by birth and converted to Judaism later. But it didn’t prevent their son from becoming a great Jewish sage, one of the greatest in the history of Israel. And where did it come from? It turns out that we can’t judge the spiritual DNA, the root of the soul, according to the material DNA.

The root of the soul is part of the system of Adam HaRishon. Adam is not a person, but a spiritual system in which we all are included through our corrected desires. And then we all unite into one spiritual body. Such a spiritual body, where all parts are in harmony with each other is called Adam, the first man.

If every person corrects his desires and is ready to unite with the same corrected desires of other people, seeking to unite like brothers into one body, one desire, then we all are connected.

And then inside this connection we feel the first man, Adam HaRishon, the joint desire assembled from many private desires. Each one annulled his egoism and connected with others above it in order to be with them in one desire, like in one body.

There are such souls, separate parts of Adam, who very much aspire for this unity, and they are considered to be high souls. And there are those who are not very eager for it, and even those that are completely indifferent to it.

Such a spiritual gene, called, Reshimo, is present in every human being in the world, the desire for unity: positive, negative, or zero.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/12/16

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Question: Karl Marx wrote in, “On the Jewish Question,” “Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world – both the world of men and nature – of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and man’s existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it.

“The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange. …

“Judaism could not create a new world; it could only draw the new creations and conditions of the world into the sphere of its activity, because practical need, the rationale of which is self-interest, is passive and does not expand at will, but finds itself enlarged as a result of the continuous development of social conditions. …

“Only then could Judaism achieve universal dominance and make alienated man and alienated nature into alienable, vendible objects subjected to the slavery of egoistic need and to trading.

“Selling [verausserung] is the practical aspect of alienation [Entausserung]. Just as man, as long as he is in the grip of religion, is able to objectify his essential nature only by turning it into something alien, something fantastic, so under the domination of egoistic need he can be active practically, and produce objects in practice, only by putting his products, and his activity, under the domination of an alien being, and bestowing the significance of an alien entity – money – on them.

“The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.”

Question:  How is it possible to blame an entire people and compare it to the rest of the people?

Answer: As a scholar, Karl Marx was working completely logically and correctly maintained that specifically for Jews there are characteristic traits and the most egoistic behavior.

And it cannot even be otherwise because specifically this group of people was on a high spiritual level in the past from which it fell below everyone through their damaged egoism. That is also what is said in the Torah, if the Jews ascend, they rise higher than anyone. But if they fall, they fall below everyone. In absolute, (absolute value), their ego is the greatest!
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Question: In Jerusalem an extraordinary Gay Pride Parade was organized as a protest against one of the Rabbis who called homosexuals, “perverts” and the additional 250 Israeli Rabbis who support him. How do you relate to pronouncements of this kind?

Answer: I consider the Jewish people to be a single family in which there are different children, including these. And even if someone doesn’t want them, there is nothing to do, they are our children .Of course, nobody chooses to be born with these tendencies. After all, they are given to us by nature. So homosexuals struggle with having their natural tendencies recognized as normal because they cannot get rid of them anyway. We know that sexual attraction is a most powerful factor, even more than a craving for food. Humanity is constantly increasing its sexual inclinations. We see this everywhere, even on the Internet. So one must respect this and not relate to it childishly.

It is necessary to stop all of the pronouncements “against” and “for” and to become organized as a single family, because the main thing is the unity among us. We cannot do anything about this issue; we need to accept it as it is and not make it any harder than it is for people in whom such an attraction is latent from birth. It is up to us to let them live in peace and find appropriate partners for themselves, unless otherwise impossible.

The correction comes from us. When we connect, we awaken positive forces, Light that can reform the relationships between us. In this respect, it is up to the LGBT community to reconsider the purpose of the Gay Pride parades, not because it is forbidden or permitted for them to be held. It is clear that in a democratic nation it is permissible to hold parades like these. The question is, do we specifically want to emphasize what separates and divides us? Or maybe it would specifically be better to search for what connects us among the differences?

As long as we don’t harm others or exploit the weaknesses of others, every person is allowed to realize the lifestyle that is appropriate for him in his private life, including religious belief or sexual orientation. But it is important to do this without cutting off the ways that lead us to communication and building a single, united people.

So I don’t agree with the pronouncements of the Rabbis. This is human nature and there is nothing to be done with this. In any case, it is necessary to get along and live in one nation. After all, it is impossible to live with mutual hatred all the time. We already need to leave the state of “exile” and gradually approach building the Third Temple.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/21/16

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In the News (newsru): “According to the New World Wealth, in recent years, when many countries in the Middle East were destabilized due to the sharp growth of extremism, many Arab millionaires went to Western countries.

“Reporter Imad al-Marzouki on the Al-Masdar site wrote this week that, according to the same New World Wealth, rich Jews from Western countries move to Israel. …

“According to published reports, as of 2015, French Jewish millionaires in 2500 moved to Israel. At the same time in 2007, France had left 7,000 millionaires. A similar phenomenon is observed in other Western countries, including the UK, Italy and Russia. …

“Expert Iyad al-Manan, said today, after the Arab countries plunged into chaos, and the West was marked by a surge of anti-Semitism, Jews began to feel Israel more secure than anywhere else . Arab millionaires, on the contrary, prefer to send their money to the West because of the destabilization of the region, and these two trends are gradually increasing.”

My Comment: It is said in the Torah that in the end of days the Creator will gather His people from all the ends of the earth.
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Question: Why specifically on the 17^th of Tammuz was there a siege on the Temple and its walls destroyed?

Answer: Indeed, the physical destruction of the Temple happened on this day because everything that happens in our world comes down and evolves from the upper world. This is first realized as an “energy field” and then also in our material world.

The Temple is called the world of Atzilut; it is the dwelling place of the Creator. Around the world of Atzilut exists what is called a Parsa (barrier, wall). Outside of this wall, under the world of Atzilut are found all the rest of the characteristics of our world. The function of the wall that is between the world of Atzilut (the characteristics of the Creator) and our world (our desires and characteristics) is to make it possible for only those who are worthy of being on this level to pass to the world of Atzilut, into the Temple. It apparently filters the characteristics. In this way it restrains those who are not worthy and throws them back.

The destruction of the walls of the Temple symbolizes the world of Atzilut acquired the same characteristics that also exist in our world, found outside of its walls. As a result of the destruction, a mixture of all the characteristics of the world of Atzilut and our lower world happens. After that, a gradual recognition that the characteristics of the world of Atzilut are different in spite of everything and a clarification and compilation of the characteristics of the world of Atzilut begins from the general heap of mixed characteristics.

It is up to us to move through this state and build the “Third Temple” from the right characteristics. Then it will no longer need a wall because everyone will dwell within the Temple. About this it is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). “Atzilut” (derived from the word “Etzlo” – approximate to Him) is the characteristic of the Creator to which everyone will ascend without exception. The entire world will acquire these characteristics and there will then be no restrictions on anything.

If we imagine the ruined Temple in the form of iron filings and the world of Atzilut as a magnet, then those filings whose characteristics match the magnet will begin to be drawn toward it and ascend from the lightest to the heaviest. It is written, “They shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31:33).
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/11/16

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Question: On the seventeenth of Tamuz, Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and when he saw his people dancing around the golden calf, he broke the first Tablets of the Covenant. What does this mean from the Kabbalistic point of view?

Answer: From the point of view of Kabbalah, the Torah is not talking about the objects and phenomena of the material world. It is unlikely that Moses, who was 80 years old, could come down from the mountain with the heavy stone Tablets of the Covenant.

Also, Mount Sinai is not a mountain, the tablets are not tablets carved in stone, and Moses didn’t have glowing horns on his head as Michelangelo scuplted him. The people of Israel—who, from the times of Abraham, were educated in spiritual attainment—could not engage in the casting of a golden calf.

Moses’ descent from Mount Sinai is a descent from the spiritual level where he revealed the Creator and then came down from it to connect with the people, meaning that the Torah speaks about spiritual degrees. The upper degree is Moses, who is on the level of the Creator, where he reveals Him and is in contact with this force of bestowal and love.

The lower degree is that level to which Moses descends to be with the people. In Kabbalah, the AHP of the upper descends to Galgalta ve Eynaim of the lower. Moses comes into contact with the general egoism in order to begin correcting it. Here, he sees that his detachment from the general egoism upward to the Creator happened at the time when this lowest egoism of the people fell to the next lower degree.

We are talking about three degrees. The upper degree is where Moses is in contact with the Creator. The middle degree is the one to which he descends in order to be with the people of Israel. The lowest degree is like the nations of the world, the same Egypt that the people of Israel already had left, but now are there again.

After all, as soon as Moses broke away from his people by climbing up, these people immediately fell to the lower degree because no one was holding them. This is a connection of the nation of Israel that wasn’t yet a nation, but simply a desire that rose from egoism and fell into it again.

When Moses saw this, he felt that the Upper Light he received from the Creator disappeared in this egoistic desire because the Light and egoism are incompatible with each other. So, the shattering of the Light occurred, the Light seemed to disappear, and accordance with it, the golden calf is diffused, dissolved, and destroyed as well.

However, the correction is impossible without it because the entire process leads us to the recognition of human nature, its connection with the lower level, called the nations of the world, and the impossibility of combining the Upper Light with material egoism.

Question: Is this the first contact between the Creator and the creature?

Answer: No, there can be no contact because Moses must be in the middle. He is the quality of Bina, the Creator is the quality of Keter, and all of humanity is on the level of Malchut. However, the shattering creates a connection through Moses between level of the Creator and level of the creature. These opposite qualities enter each other, and then it is possible to begin the next stage of correction.

Now, when Moses rises to the Creator, his interaction with both the Creator and the people that sinned is completely different. After all, the people that fell to the level of the golden calf have much more egoistic desires that are passionate, Egyptian, and real! Therefore, Moses now raises to the Creator much more internal, real, and deep desires to be corrected.

He spends forty days on Mount Sinai again. However, these are a completely different forty days. They are forty degrees of rising from Malchut to Bina. However, it is not from that Malchut where they were during the exodus from Egypt, but from the one on which they created for themselves the same Egypt at Mount Sinai.

The second forty days is completely different in its quality of ascent from the golden calf to the Creator. Naturally, the tablets Moses receives the second time are completely different. They are suitable in their quality to the state of people who fell to the level of the golden calf. With such tablets—meaning with such connections between the golden calf and the level of the Creator—they can begin to work on themselves.

Mount Sinai symbolizes the enormous hatred (“Sina” means hatred) that is revealed as an incongruity of qualities of the Creator and the creature, that is, qualities of complete bestowal and love, and qualities that wish to live just for themselves. When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai the second time, from the height of the level of attainment with the Creator and connection with Him, he comes down from it on Yom Kippur.

On the one hand, this is a day of the recognition of our nature. On the other hand, it is a day of forgiveness. From this day onward, the correction of the people begins, and the next stage is Chanukah and other dates that symbolize spiritual actions.

Hopefully, we recognize the correct work with the Tablets of the Covenant that are within us. We only can identify them and implement them on ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/11/16

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Question: On the 17^th of Tammuz, after no animals remained for the Kohanim (priests) to sacrifice, the established sacrifices ceased in the Beit HaMikdash (Temple). What were the sacrifices?

Answer: Sacrifice is a very interesting action. If I reflect on the subject of who we are, we are beasts. I exist within my body and constantly think about it. As long as it is alive, I am also alive, and when it dies, I no longer exist either. The sacrifice of my animal indicates that I am truly sacrificing my entire beastly life to the Creator.

Sacrifice (Korban) is from the word “Karov” (close). It symbolizes a person getting closer to the Creator. The person nullifies his egoistic desires one after another and rises above them. In that way he approaches the Creator, the characteristic of bestowal and love, by nullifying his beastly ego. He gradually reaches closeness to Him.

The 17^th of Tammuz, the date on which the priests were finished with their sacrificial animals, indicates that they could no longer bring themselves closer to the Creator. They fell from a spiritual level and returned to the level of the beast; they became “beasts” themselves. Today we must raise ourselves from this level since that is also what is said about our world: “They are all like beasts” (see Psalms 49:13).

The 17^th of Tammuz symbolizes the downfall of even those great people who were on a spiritual level and those characteristics that were in every person when feeling the Creator fell to the level of the beast. Descent for the purpose of ascent is a mixture of the characteristics of the Creator with the characteristics of the creature.

So the 17^th of Tammuz also symbolizes the collective fall of the people, the fall of the highest Kabbalist Kohanim among the people and the fall of every person from his spiritual level so much so that after that nothing remains besides absolute destruction. As a result, we begin to realize the conditions for correction.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/11/16

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Comment: If you look online, you can find quite a few responses from Israelis about the terrorist attack in Nice, such as, “Now you can feel what we feel,” or “Now you see what happens to us in Israel.” Generally speaking it is impossible to change Israeli Jews.

Answer: It is indeed impossible to change Israeli Jews but they are right in a way because it is very unpleasant to live in Israel, to fight, to suffer, to realize that you are being pressured on all sides, and to see the indifference and even the arrogance of your own people in France, America, and in other countries. If the Jews are sent to the gas chambers, everyone will be sent there, including the anti-Semitic Jews.

Everywhere they live they adopt attitudes that are radically opposite to Israel so they won’t be associated with the Jewish state.

Comment: It is surprising since, in fact, the safest place for them to be is Israel.

Answer: They don’t think so. They look at the map and for them Israel is a tiny piece of land. “Where could we find a place to live there? We will be torn to pieces there.” They estimate everything according to kilograms and kilometers.

Question: What kind of blows will hit the French people and the French Jews?!

Answer: We have already seen that blows don’t help. Even before entering the gas chambers they would still express their opinions because their egoism is spiritual and no corporeal afflictions will correct it. The only thing that can bring about a change is the influence of the Upper Light, by gradually teaching them the wisdom of Kabbalah by social circles, drawings, and articles.

Question: Will that help them more than afflictions?

Answer: Yes. The sufferings will increase their resistance and their oppositeness because their arrogance, boastfulness, and foolish pride puts them in a more rigid position.

I am not deluding myself that the terrorist acts will force them to wake up. What would a series of revolutions and terrorist attacks lead to? Nothing, they will not learn anything. Only the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah can change people. Let’s hope that we will succeed.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/17/16

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Question: It is said on the 17^th of Tammuz, Antiochus Epiphanes burned the Torah and brought a statue of an idol into the Temple. If we look at that from a spiritual perspective, what does that mean?

Answer: The Torah doesn’t simply refer to the tablets or to a scroll of paper with something written on it. The Torah is Light, a spiritual force that descends from an upper level that is filled with love and bestowal unto people who aspire for this level.

The Temple refers to a person’s heart. The fact that a person is above his egoism is called holiness. So when the state of love and bestowal disappears, the Upper Light, the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) disappears and the holiness also disappears, and instead a statue of an idol (of egoism and self-love) is placed in the Temple, which means in our hearts.

This is the reason that humans bow to idols. Of course, we should thoroughly purify our hearts, our attributes, our intentions, and our feelings of all the egoistic idols until we are able to aim our desires at the full connection between us, so that each of us will think only about the wellbeing of others.

Question: Is the fall from the holy level of connection also an act of destruction?

Answer: Yes, but it is essential because otherwise the Creator will not be able to insert His attributes into the created being. The attributes should be opposite and at the same time include each other inside them, the Creator should include the attributes of the created being, and the created being should include the attributes of the Creator.

Then they will begin to create attributes that come in contact, that can resemble each other, one opposite the other; the Creator descends to the created being thanks to the incorporation of the created being’s attributes inside Him, and the created being can rise at least a bit above his life, which means above his attributes and desires, and reach the level of the Creator.

Thus they mutually cooperate. This sums the whole principle of the correction called Tzimtzum Bet (the second restriction).

It is important to say that the mutual penetration of the opposite attributes doesn’t stem from the 17^th of Tammuz or the 9^th of Av but from Adam’s sin, because it is there that the system of mutual connection and the equivalence of form of the created being to the Creator already exists thanks to the sin and the clash of the polar attributes.

Thus the chain of ascents and descents should regularly take place in every person. So I wish you all successful descents, which should be followed each time by an ascent!
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/11/16

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