Entries in the 'Perception' Category

Everything Is Predetermined

laitman_746_01In the News (from The Wall Street Journal): “As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.

“Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.

“Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident?… For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist.”

My Comment: The existence of a higher intelligence with the plan of creation, predestination, and the system of control of creation does not deny the existence of freewill in the created beings. Kabbalah reveals the nature of the Creator and everything that was created by Him in order to enable every person to reach the peak of knowledge, eternity, and perfection of existence.
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The Entire Universe is Within a Man

laitman_739Question: Why does the wisdom of Kabbalah explore all the laws of nature by bringing a person inside the study as one of the parameters and trying to understand it through the entire universe?

Answer: Do we have any other opportunity to study and possibly exit our skin, our body? The whole picture of the world appears inside my feelings only. And if I disappear, then this picture will disappear in relation to me.

This world exists without me, and if so, does it exist in a way I see it or in some other form, in different wavelengths; that I cannot say. I still perceive everything only from my body.

Question: How does a Kabbalist see the world?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science of “reception” (Kabbalah), so a Kabbalist explores one’s perceptions of reality. Due to certain actions, one begins to change oneself and explores how, depending on the internal changes, one’s worldview varies as well.

A Kabbalist changes one’s internal properties, the form of desire, perception of, and communication with what is happening outside in the surrounding reality. A person begins to work with one’s desires and connection with external reality in such a way where new worlds will be built upon this.

Now we feel we are in a huge world that contains many different objects and phenomena. A person who begins to actively work with one’s desire, builds a new world upon it, a new reality.

A person remains living in a physical body and still perceives an earthly picture of the world in the five physical senses. This picture is constant, as the necessary foundation. But in addition to it, the Kabbalist creates five new senses with which one feels an additional world. A Kabbalist sees this world, feels it, works with it, and lives in it, in addition to the body that exists in the five physical senses.

This additional sense is called the higher or spiritual world. And the old perception through the five physical senses in which a person existed before and remained there is called this or our world.

If there are other people who also have this perception in five additional “out of body” spiritual senses, they can communicate with each other.

Question: If I were able to realize that the whole picture of the world is perceived by me, according to my internal properties, would it be able to open many new phenomena for me?

Answer: First of all, we must agree that all perception depends on a person, on an observer. And if there were no people, no one would reveal the existence of the reality of this universe. It exists only in our perception.

It did not exist before humans appeared on earth and found it. After all, it is apparent only in relation to a person. For example, ten years ago I discovered that the universe emerged fourteen billion years ago. But in fact it is me that perceives this reality in my mind versus this reality existing objectively in such boundaries of time and space. All of this is relative and exists only in a person.
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From KabTV’s “Meeting of the Worlds” 5/12/14

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The Upper Mind That Is Concealed In Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You say that the Israeli nation was chosen by the Creator in order to help all of humanity get closer to Him. But we don’t live in ancient times or in the Middle Ages anymore and don’t see that the modern world needs the Creator. Only religious people speak about the Creator, not people in the ordinary world, and no one feels the need for Him.

Answer: The Creator is equivalent to nature. The whole huge system of nature, the immense power that includes and sustains all of creation is called the Creator. This definition is totally different from the common religious definition.

The problem is that because our mind and our feelings are so limited, we cannot recognize the fact that the upper force also has feelings, understanding, a plan, and organizes the process that leads to a certain goal.

We picture this force as a still force, like the force of gravity that simply pulls and that’s all. We think that only us humans have minds and thoughts and nature doesn’t.

But today there are many scientific publications that speak about the upper force that develops all of matter. This force has a plan and a goal that are predetermined, and it advances us according to this plan. Our situation is no coincidence and nothing in the world happens by chance.

Even ordinary evolution, which seems to us as arbitrary, is in fact predetermined. Each time different desires connect and there is a struggle between them, they are carrying out the precise plan that is predetermined. The only thing is that we don’t know it, but today scientists are already beginning to speak about it.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/28/14

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Changing Our Vision To Manifest The True Reality

Dr. Michael LaitmanIf we ignore the bodies that divide us, then all of humanity is one common desire to be fulfilled. Everything material in this reality in the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels all desire pleasure.

They manifest themselves differently at each stage. Pleasure for a stone is when it has the inner strength to sustain itself in its current solid state. It exists and does not allow outside forces to split it.

The plant does not just preserve itself, but also develops, expands the scope of its life, and takes up more space than what it originally started with. It enjoys the sun, water, and air, and its capacity to absorb these things give it a strong sense of life and vitality.

Further, animals have an even greater desire for enjoyment and they move from place to place in order to fulfill this desire.

A human being’s case is a special one. There are people, who like animals, look for greater connections with pleasure and guarantees for their preservation throughout their entire lives.

Everyone in one way or another is familiar with the desires related to food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge. However, some people have a special impetus, for they want to connect with the higher force and experience pleasure from it.

A person with such an impulse wants to know why, for what reason, and in what reality one lives, where one came from, who rules a person, and what happens to one after the death of the body. A person feels that these questions have an answer. In the desire to be fulfilled and in this primordial requirement, a person starts experiencing a qualitatively new enrichment while wondering what lies beyond life in our world.

There are a lot of people like that on Earth. In particular, such questions arise in those who fall into depression and seek refuge in drugs, etc. Most of them think about the fact of their existence and the meaning of life. For them, a life without any meaning is not sweet and they do not feel that satisfying normal desires is enough.

Such existence seems animalistic to them, and providing for oneself, having one’s own well-built “crib,” and taking care of offspring does not, in principle, separate humans from the animal world. Here we are still at the same level, and on the same line on the graph of the animals.

On the other hand, a true person is the one who wants to rise above one’s bodily life and understand why one lives. This question came to the fore on a massive scale during the days of the Tower of Babel, when people opened egoism to the maximum level at that time. Many people wondered why this happened and what the purpose of the ego was. They asked themselves, “What would we get from building a tower to heaven and why do we need an architectural masterpiece like the pyramids of Egypt?”

There was no answer. This is when Abraham appeared. He had studied the problem of sudden flashes of egoism in the relations between people and came to the conclusion that all of this was intended to help people unite above egoism. He saw that if they could do that, then the negative force of the same egoism would raise them above it to a new, spiritual height, a qualitatively new level called “the world to come.”

The world to come is a reality entirely aimed towards bestowal. We leave our lives in this world as it appears to us now, emerge from this endless egoistic battle in which one devours the others, and rise to another level of being. There we will treat each other with love, as it is written, “Love will cover all crimes,” and this relationship will be passed down to the levels of the still, vegetative, and animal natures.

Abraham was the property of mercy (Hesed) and taught people how to live according to the principle of love thy neighbor as thyself. Because of this, his students gained a new perception of reality, seeing the world through the prism of bestowal. I used to seek personal gain everywhere; I wanted to use everything to my advantage, and now, it is the opposite. I switched to helping others, loving others, and feeling the pain of others.

This is when my world changed. I turned the paradigm of greedy reception and absorption into the opposite, and this is the polar transformation of my ancestral properties that allows me to open a new reality.

In other words, it all depends on my perception. There is no objective reality; it is only what I see.  At present, my perception is based on the force of reception, and I have to change a setting inside me to see and understand the reality through the prism of the power of bestowal. If I do this, then everything will appear in front of me in a different form.

Moreover, Abraham discovered that the program of nature managing the development of the human race would lead us to this state. Replacing the concept of total reception with the concept of total bestowal, replacing hatred for your neighbor and using others to benefit yourself with love and using yourself for their benefit, will transform your world.

A person is used to living in this world and everything here seems natural. One does not understand that, in fact, all this is just the fruit of a certain perception of reality, and it all depends on the mechanism of our perception. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to change it.

Thus, Abraham brought people to ask questions about the meaning of life, people who had matured and demanded to see the true reality, to reveal the cause and the program’s goal. And he taught them how to change their vision to manifest the true, complete picture of reality.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/25/14

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How To Acquire A Practical Approach To Life

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: My younger brother has just graduated from university and now he ponders where to work and what to engage in. His indecisiveness forces him to weigh all the options for a long time. What would you advise him?

Answer: I would advise him to establish a stronger connection with the environment and perhaps even with different communities. I would have this be taught at schools and universities. I would also open different courses so that everyone would be able to attend them and to learn what kind of lifestyle is best for him in regard to what he wants and how to attain it.

Today there are many unemployed people who don’t know where to turn. There is no other way but to allow a person to actually interact with his environment and choose the sort of life he considers the best for his nature, his attributes, and his habits.

Question: Isn’t there a risk that I would follow any advice at work according to my desire?

Answer: If I hear different opinions, I will learn to compare them and thus eventually become wiser. Why is the computer smart? It can simply perform many calculations at a high speed. If I have many options and lots of experience, I will also become a genius. This is the whole wisdom.

Question: So how can we upgrade our “computer” so as to become smarter?

Answer: You can only do that by being incorporated into societies that are not too big. You should start working in workshops of ten people. I acquire a sensible approach to life by those who surround me, even if they are mistaken or are not highly educated. For example, I can sit with a musician, a manual laborer, a teacher, a shoemaker, a cook, or a scientist in the group of ten.

The moment we all sit together in a circle and exchange opinions, I build a vessel of connections with nine people in my mind and feelings. The more I am incorporated in each of them, the greater volume I acquire until I include all of humanity inside me.

I then divide my desire to receive into many cells and determine the different connections between them. It is like a game where one desire reflects your nature and another desire reflects your friend’s nature and so on. Now whenever a desire to receive on a different level appears in me, I implement the necessary strategy, which is one of those I acquired from the environment. This means that I have acquired a practical approach to life.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/11/13

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People Are Too Dependant On The Opinion Of Others

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (ScienceDaily): “A natural desire to be part of the ‘in crowd’ could damage our ability to make the right decisions, a new study has shown.

“Research led by the University of Exeter has shown that individuals have evolved to be overly influenced by their neighbours, rather than rely on their own instinct. As a result, groups become less responsive to changes in their natural environment.

“Lead author of the report, Dr Colin Torney, from the University of Exeter’s Mathematics department explained: ‘Social influence is a powerful force in nature and society.’

“’Copying what other individuals do can be useful in many situations, such as what kind of phone to buy, or for animals, which way to move or whether a situation is dangerous.

“’However, the challenge is in evaluating personal beliefs when they contradict what others are doing. We showed that evolution will lead individuals to over use social information, and copy others too much than they should.

“’The result is that groups evolve to be unresponsive to changes in their environment and spend too much time copying one another, and not making their own decisions.’”

My Opinion: Humans never have their own opinion on anything, and everything that was formed in them is the product of their environment. If one wants to have his own opinion, it is possible only when he receives it after revealing the Creator. A person has only the desire to obtain an opinion. Therefore, no person, except a Kabbalist, has his own opinion.
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A Civilization Of The Mindless

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Lately there is such a direction as behavioral economics. Many studies show that humans are not rational creatures, but instead, they are managed by sensory impulses, and they often act to their own detriment. Do you agree with this assertion?

Answer: A human being is a desire to receive and the desire to receive is devoid of logic (rationality). Each one chooses exactly what to enjoy for himself. But apparently my rational choice is contingent on education, habit, and values.

There are also other factors: fear of death, a desire to succeed, and looking good in the eyes of one’s peers in his environment. The survival and sexual instincts play a role that is no less important.

Question: For quite some time, psychologists have attempted to identify those hidden forces that don’t permit us to make rational (logical) decisions.

Answer: Today, on the long road of development, and through our increased power, we see that our entire civilization is completely irrational. It acts destructively towards itself and deliberately chooses the way of suffering.

For example, a mother teaches her child: “Be conciliatory towards others, be quiet, then you will have more friends.”  Whereas he says adamantly: “I don’t want to!” We see  examples of this not only in children. Adults and entire groups of people fight, kill, and destroy each other only out of envy, vanity and a desire to dominate.

It is completely understood that the aspiration to fulfill our inner drives and our irrationality is what manages us and we only employ our intellect later, when it is necessary for getting what we want.

Question: The expression, “Humans are emotional creatures” indicates that he feels the awakening of some desire within him. To what is he sensitive?

Answer: He is sensitive to what he is missing, which is to say, according to what he needs. He pays attention to himself all the time: “What do I want? What kind of desire is aroused in me now obliging me to fulfill it? I am a slave to my desires; they dominate me.”

Question: If intellect only serves the desires, where is wisdom found?

Answer: It is found within the desire. The desire to receive is our nature. This is apparent on all levels. Atoms maintain their form, plants absorb beneficial substances and emit harmful substances, and animals multiply. All of this is the desire to receive and fulfill itself with all kinds of pleasant things according to a program that exists in each individual.

That is how wisdom manifests itself on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate. Except in humans, the program for life for all other living creatures cannot be changed. Every cat will eat fish for pleasure, even if it has never tasted it previously. Everything is different with humans. You don’t begin eating Chinese food if you are accumstomed to a Slavic cuisine from childhood. What can be derived from this is that humans undergo a unique program that we call education.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 7/11/13

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A Required Occupation That Is Controlled By Destiny

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Some people get tattoos of the three-letter holy names because they suppose that each name has its own unique power. Is this effective? Has the person written a “recipe” for success for himself?

Answer: How will it help your life if you write a recipe with three ingredients on yourself, for example: ten grams of salt, five grams of pepper, and a liter of water? You have to bake the cake and not just write the recipe.

This recipe must be made by taking powers from the soul, finding out what water, salt, spices, flour, and yeast are—all the ingredients needed for preparing a cake. They must be found inside, joined correctly, and thoroughly blended.

And while you are preparing this concoction, you don’t see anything good in it since you need to put it in the oven, and this is not simple process! Only after you put this unpretentious concoction in the oven will it begin to rise to a beautiful cake. And then you can cover with honey or whipped cream.

Question: Have I understood correctly, that this is not just talking about a tattoo, but about ritualistic ornaments and pictures on the wall? If I don’t prepare my cake myself, then none of the various magical accessories will help me? But didn’t they come from the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: It is constructed in people’s perception this way. It is like buying someone else’s diploma. A friend finishes school, he gets a diploma, and you photograph it, write your name on it, and hang it on the wall. Will this help you?

You cannot go to a university and become an expert with this diploma. You are only deceiving yourself that you have something.

Question: How can Kabbalah truly help me to change my destiny?

Answer: First of all, if you want to change your destiny, it is up to you to learn. No unique skills are required for this. It is written: “It is not the wise who learns.” This is for everyone. If is his destiny, he must study Kabbalah!

We have reached a situation in this generation where everyone must learn to change their destiny. It is impossible to escape from this. If you flee, then you will get caught by the ear, with the help of the police and the courts, and you will be sat down at the study table.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 12/21/14

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A Kabbalistic Book Opens The Upper World

Dr. Michael LaitmanKabbalah is a very important science, which includes all of the other sciences. It explains to a person how to act after we complete our development in this world.

Today we find ourselves in this exact situation, having exhausted our egoistic development that has resulted in a dead end. Therefore, the science of Kabbalah is being revealed so it can help us revive, start a new life, and move to the next level of existence.

All of the achievements of our world cannot help us in this because they act only within this earthly plane. A different science is required in order to rise to the next level and continue this life.

Kabbalah is the science that does not belong in our world. It is designed to put all of humanity in an elevator that takes us to the next floor, where we start a new development. The next floor is not where matter develops and it is no longer part of our world. This is the real development of the feelings and the mind, which relate to our inner feelings and not to the physical body.

This is a kind of development where we gradually lose the sense of our body and begin to exist in another dimension where there are no bodies. We do not feel them because they disappear from our perception. We no longer need physical bodies because we act in inside our feelings and mind without the involvement of this crude matter of the body.

This approach seems incomprehensible to an ordinary person, even though our imaginations are rather developed thanks to Hollywood and science fiction novels. All this did not appear by accident, but in order to prepare us for the wisdom of Kabbalah and to be able to understand its wisdom.

Therefore, Kabbalists kept Kabbalah a secret for as long as mankind needed for all generations to be ready for it. Kabbalah was revealed 5,775 years ago for the first time by Adam, the first Kabbalist.

All the thousands of years from that time until our generation, Kabbalists kept the wisdom of Kabbalah a secret only within their inner circle and did not widely disclose their knowledge of it. This was similar to my parents not wanting me to read their medical books as a child because they were too advanced for my age.

Kabbalists are the scientists that study this science, attain what it says, and  learn how to use it, while at the same time looking for people in their environment suitable for such study. And if there was such a person, they quietly tested him, talked to him about life in a philosophical kind of way in order to find out whether he was ready and interested in such things. If they saw a man inwardly mature and attracted to the topic, then they started to teach him.

So the wisdom of Kabbalah was passed down from generation to generation. The Kabbalists also wrote books in secret. And even if they did not hide the books, the Kabbalistic text was encrypted in such a way that a person could not understand it if one did not have the proper code, that is, if a person does not know how to relate to the book, what it talks about, how it associates with a person, and the true meaning when this world and the next world are mentioned.

Kabbalistic books are written in the language of branches pointing towards the spiritual roots, but a person thinks that it talks about this world. But, this is not about the plane of this world and a person within it. We are talking about higher powers, not material things.

If the Kabbalists would not have given us the key to the correct reading and understanding of this science, even by opening the book, a person would still not understand what they read. A person would have thought that Kabbalah talks about animals and plants. Some words that have been used are “intercourse, hug, kiss, a female and a male force, and childbirth.” One may think that this is some kind of sensuality.

Then the book speaks of heaven and earth, spirits, demons, angels, and different spiritual forces. Ignorant people who come across these books would build a whole mystical theory around this. I have heard such stories about Kabbalah and I wondered how this particular man could fantasize so much. But these people seriously believe what they say about Kabbalah, using different names from The Book of Zohar.

If a person does not receive knowledge from a decent Kabbalah teacher who gives one all of the keys to this science, one will not be able to correctly open and understand the book. This will only confuse a person. “To open the book,” means to be connected to what is written within it. To each person, the book should be an open world, the upper world.
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From the program “A New Life” 12/18/14

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A Flight To Inner Space

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person understand the Creator‘s greatness and His providence?

Answer: The whole goal of creation is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings in order to do them good. The Creator does the created beings good by revealing Himself to them and by filling them. The Creator is dressed in the created being, which means that the Light of Hochma is dressed in Light of Hassadim.

But do we know how to advance towards the revelation of the Creator? By what attributes do we look for Him and in which direction should we advance? How do we make sure that we don’t draw away from the right path? We have to be stabilized in order to do that. If I were in space not knowing where I am, I would find my way according to the stars.

It is the same in spiritual work. We cannot say anything about any phenomenon, outcome, force, or attribute if we don’t measure it in relation to something. It is important to make sure in relation to what we measure something.

For example, we assess the behavior of animals that devour one another and it seems very cruel to us. But the point is that we assess it wrongly, in relation to human feelings. This is why we reach wrong conclusions. It is the same in regard to any phenomenon.

The problem is how we should assess every phenomenon. This is important both in spirituality and our world, and in order to assess phenomena, we use tools such as compasses, measurements, and specific units to measure distances, weight, and different frequencies. Humanity has created these systems of measurement in order to determine and measure different phenomena.

Before measuring systems were invented, it was very difficult for people to communicate. If I wanted to exchange my chickens for your donkey it was difficult to measure how many chickens the donkey was worth. Today we have money for that.

The increasing accuracy of different measurements allows us to measure different attributes. This is exactly how we bring up a child, teaching him how to see himself with regard to his environment in order that he has the right orientation with regard to space, the furniture in the room, his parents, to other children, and to himself.

When we enter the spiritual world, we have no means by which to feel it. It is because we lack a standard and we don’t know in which way we should change ourselves and what we should do with our attributes.

Therefore, it is impossible to exist only by the positive force, so we need to use the two forces together. This is the reason that there is always light and darkness. It is impossible to see anything in contrast to one light and neither is it possible to see anything in the dark. The only way to see something is in the contrast between light and darkness. This principle is true in every aspect.

Just as a small child begins to recognize attributes and differences through his close environment and to gradually learn how to establish increasingly wider connections until he knows all of humanity, so we also establish connections between us in the group and begin to know the spiritual world.

It is impossible to do this in any other way. The Creator is revealed in the group, in the relationships between us. If our relationships are egoistic, there is no standard of measurement since there is only one force at work, which is help against us. We also need the opposite force. When I develop the force of bestowal and it begins to operate against the force of receiving, I can begin to turn and manage myself and measure the diversion.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, just as in any other science, the main thing is the measurement: NRNHY, KHB ZON, Partzufim, levels, Hassadim, and Hochma. It is all based on measurements, when different things are compared and thus new phenomena are discovered.

It is written: “Thou shalt not make other gods,” which means that different forms intentionally appear before us so that we will be able to measure and format the Creator in relation to them.

When the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) fills Malchut of Ein Sof it does not leave a shadow within it and everything is totally filled with the white Light. It is thanks only to the fact that phase four, which becomes coarse, appears within it and sees itself as opposite from the Light. From this oppositeness, we can begin to measure things.

Therefore we cannot manage without “other gods” although they are fictitious and a lie and don’t really exist. But we need them in order to measure things in relation to them. This is how the Creator plays with us. This is the reason that He created the evil inclination and the Torah a as a spice, “since the Light in it reforms.”

Thus we have 613 desires and opposite them there are 613 lights by which we acquire our senses. If there are 613 lights that fill 613 desires, we have 613 elements by which to measure. We can assess and clarify many near and distant concepts with regard to every desire and the light inside it. We can find out in which direction they operate, whether in the direction of Hassadim or Hochma, bestowal or receiving.

It turns out that after we correct our desire to the intention of in order to bestow, according to the principle of “the advantage of the Light from the darkness,” we get a chance to know the Creator, the Light of Ein Sof. Other gods stem from the Creator, so that we should know them and stabilize ourselves by using them. Without them, there is no way we can get to know the one upper force, the One who is “there is none else besides Him.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/09/14, Shamati #15

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