Question: People love humor; it helps to perceive everything more easily and with irony. Is this the closest feeling to spirituality?

Answer: No, it is not the closest one, but people who are in spirituality love humor because it contains a comparison of two opposite qualities, which is the very thing on which spiritual development and the spiritual world is based.

Question: How do you use humor as a Kabbalist?

Answer: Since I know that everything is one continuous goodness and love and what seems scary to us, or gloomy, and even tragic compared to the spiritual process is just some kind of external game, like frightening faces that an adult makes in front of a child. It causes a humorous attitude in us toward ourselves, our life, our actions, motives, and forces.

First, humor is a call to look at yourself from the side, to be independent of what you feel, to make fun of yourself, and to see all your shortcomings from the outside. All this is nature. It is not me, instead it is the Creator or it doesn’t matter who.

That is, humor allows you to be frank, more balanced, kind, and humane. Humor cannot be evil because it is a correct understanding of human nature, agreement with its manifestations, and a kind, patient attitude toward it. Therefore, humor is especially appreciated by Kabbalists.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Humor Will Save the World” 5/20/13

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Question: What are the Moon and the Sun in relation to our perception? From the point of view of Kabbalah, what is the Earth in relation to these two objects?

Answer: The Earth is the receiving part. It receives the light of the Sun; it rotates around its axis and each time exposes its other side to the Sun. The Earth is between the Sun and the Moon and therefore obscures the Moon from the Sun. This determines the phase of the Moon.

Since everything is arranged in such a way that the Moon revolves around the Earth with a certain periodicity, we have a lunar calendar. The Earth, as it rotates around its axis, creates an earthly, circadian calendar, and as it rotates together with the Moon around the Sun, it creates an annual calendar.

In addition, the rotation of the entire solar system creates special periods that are marked in the Jewish calendar (29 years and so on).

From the point of view of Kabbalah, the Sun represents Zeir Anpin, the Earth represents Malchut, and the Moon shows the degree of connection between them. The measure in which the Earth has a screen can be seen in the phases of the Moon. The extent to which the Earth can protect the Moon from sunlight shows us the size of the screen.

We see this in the phases of the Moon in reverse because I do not see myself except for my reflection. The waxing moon means that my screen starts to grow and it grows until the full moon and then begins to decrease. Therefore, of the four stages of development, two are growing and two are decreasing and then there is a new period. This is exactly what happens in the development of the spiritual instrument, the Kli (vessel).
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Sun, Moon, Earth” 5/26/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Will AI ever replace the judicial system?“

Scientists in China have created an AI judicial system has been shown to prosecute with 97% accuracy from tests at the prosecutor’s office in Shanghai. It was trained on 17,000 cases, and the system was found to arraign on charges of fraud, gambling, dangerous driving, theft and igniting unrest. For the time being, it helps the prosecutor, while the final decision remains in human hands. Nevertheless, there is a tendency to think that AI will be able to fully replace the judicial system in the near future.

I am certain that it will come to pass because we are predictable and limited beings. Prosecutors themselves are often as corrupt as the people whom they prosecute, and so an AI judicial system could likely be fairer than the current system.

That brings up the question: Why is there so much corruption in our current judicial system to begin with?

It is simply a consequence of a society that is uncorrected and egoistic, i.e. that we each host a desire to exploit others for personal benefit. There is thus nothing we can currently replace it with.

Until we repair human relations on a mass scale, from prioritizing self-benefit to benefiting others, then our own corrupt nature will become increasingly evident in our various systems.

Based on the video “Will AI Ever Replace the Judicial System?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “How do you judge someone fairly?“

You judge someone fairly by being an intermediary between the Creator and the world.

The world can bring any charges against the Creator, and a fair judge can acquit everyone of almost all of these charges. That is, a fair judge should be neither a judge nor a prosecutor, but a defender, a “justifier.”

In other words, a fair judge passes acquittals, not sentences. How can we justify someone who is completely under the Creator’s control? If we see that he committed a crime, then the Creator committed the crime through such a person. We need to thus rise to a level above judgments, courts and investigations, a level of kindness and mercy.

A fair judge considers all other people as judges who judge him. In the Torah, judges were appointed collectively by the people. Naturally, they were held to great standards and expectations. A fair and true judge is both the Creator’s and the people’s representative. He must unite them, and be above the fray, so to speak.

Based on the video “What Is a Judge?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Do you think you have the qualities to be a judge? Why? What qualities are important?“

A true and fair judge is an intermediary between the Creator and the world.

The world can bring any charges against the Creator, and a fair judge can acquit everyone of almost all of these charges. That is, a fair judge should be neither a judge nor a prosecutor, but a defender, a “justifier.”

In other words, a fair judge passes acquittals, not sentences. How can we justify someone who is completely under the Creator’s control? If we see that he committed a crime, then the Creator committed the crime through such a person. We need to thus rise to a level above judgments, courts and investigations, a level of kindness and mercy.

A fair judge considers all other people as judges who judge him. In the Torah, judges were appointed collectively by the people. Naturally, they were held to great standards and expectations. A fair and true judge is both the Creator’s and the people’s representative. He must unite them, and be above the fray, so to speak.

Based on the video “Will AI Ever Replace the Judicial System?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Who was The Zohar written for?“

The Zohar was written for people who want to reach life’s peak, the purpose of creation, and strive to change their intention from our inborn egoistic one—reception for personal benefit alone—to one where we bestow, love and positively connect to others.

The Zohar provides the force, called “light,” which makes it possible to invert our intention in such a way, and discover the positive force dwelling in nature within our corrected intention.

Therefore, The Zohar, like the entire Torah, can be either the elixir of life or the potion of death. If we wish to study The Zohar, then we should check our intention for approaching it.

If we wish to change our intention by drawing the light that we can attract through reading The Zohar, then with the help of its study, The Zohar—a commentary on Five Books of Torah—becomes an elixir of life, as it is written, “I [the Creator] created the evil inclination [human egoism] and I gave the Torah for its correction because the light in it returns to the source.”

If we do not strive for an intention to bestow, that is, to return to the source, but our egoistic desires motivate our study of The Zohar i.e. to be fulfilled and to set other goals for ourselves, called “idolatry,” then our study turns into the potion of death and distances us from the purpose of creation.

Therefore, we should take care and remember that while reading The Zohar, we should prepare our intention in order to be granted the positive force of nature: love, bestowal and connection.

Based on the Daily Kabbalah Lesson with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on May 27, 2010 on “The Book of Zohar: VaIkra.” Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: You said that not everyone has the left line. What is the advantage of having or not having it?

Answer: In principle, everyone has a soul consisting of two parts: the quality of bestowal (right line) and the quality of reception (left line). However, it can be that there is no third line in its explicit form. The third line aligns both lines, i.e., two opposite qualities in a person and gives the result. It builds out of it the image of “human” person.

There are souls in which this is clearly expressed and there are souls in which this is not. Just like the organs in our body there are more important ones and less important ones. There are some that develop in utero in a certain order faster than others, and there are those that even seem to appear like some kind of tail or other rudimentary organs. That is, a person in his intrauterine development simultaneously undergoes an internal development.

Thus, when organs develop in a person, each of them is important in itself. Although there are more important and less important ones, in the end they are one system.

There are no more important or less important things in the spiritual world because from the point of view of similarity to the Creator if you lack some cell in your body, it means that you are not similar to Him. According to this rule, there are no insignificant things in spirituality because spirituality is perfection. If a point is missing, then this is already imperfection.

Therefore, we must understand the importance of every person in the world. Each thing in the universe has its own clear purpose and it is forbidden to destroy it. Everything that is given by nature must exist.

Comment: You said that the Creator is the right line and that the middle line does not exist.

My Response: Yes, but when the quality of bestowal has to be adapted within us, it cannot be received only in the right line. Where is the quality of reception?

The right line is only the quality of bestowal, so the left line is necessary. The left one is only reception; it can only be the opposite of the Creator. Then the middle line arises, which—on the basis of this symbiosis, this connection, the mutual penetration of two lines into each other during shattering, during correction, and during mutual integration with each other—begins to work.

Question: Does it mean that striving is important, without leaving the left line one should strive toward the right one?

Answer: Yes. If you take the left line and go with it to the right one, you get the middle line.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call, Left Line“ 4/25/13

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “Why do we need technology even though we know it will harm us in the future?“

We initially take examples from nature, that what we see in nature we also wish to implement, and in so doing, we need naturalists and scientists who are interested to recreate what is in nature into mechanics. However, other people then come along who have no concern about nature, and who want to use these mechanics in order to conquer and control, which is where the good intentions end.

In short, it is our nature to take things that we create with seemingly good intentions, and hand them over to those who use them for power and exploitative purposes. We agree to it because those who enter such positions of power know how to manipulate others, and together with their power, they gain armies and money. Those who simply want to know how the world works are naïve and kind; they have nothing but their brains and weak hands.

We will continue bearing witness to such a process until we correct human nature, i.e. until we invert it from egoistic—desiring to benefit ourselves at the expense of others—to altruistic. It is possible to make that change, and by doing so, we will become like the general altruistic force of nature, and then experience life in nature’s wholeness and perfection.

When we establish such a connection with nature, we will then use nature by truly imitating it. Without imitating nature by first changing our nature to match it, we will end up enduring a long and painful path of suffering, and still carry the obligation to change ourselves at some point.

Technology has expanded globally, showing how much more interconnected and interdependent we are today than ever before, and we will keep seeing ourselves become increasingly tied together on this small planet so much so that we will feel no way to escape. We will continue becoming more and more dependent on each other until we reach a stage where we will see that we will be unable to go to war with each other, or do any kinds of crimes.

At the same time, we will appear as everyone’s enemies. The world will appear to keep shrinking, and we will understand that we harm everyone through our inborn egoistic intentions toward each other, and we will not give ourselves such a chance. Within such a tension, nature’s positive forces will emerge and change humanity, inverting our attitudes to make our connection positive and balanced with nature.

The first stage toward that change will be when we become afraid of breaking positive human connections. In the wisdom of Kabbalah, this state is called “restriction,” i.e. where we restrict the use of our egoism, our desires to enjoy at the expense of others. We will have to restrict our egoism otherwise we will receive more and more blows.

Based on KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur on July 18, 2022. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is your review of the NGL app?“

One of my students recently asked me about a phenomenon related to the NGL app: that it lets its users express their opinions anonymously, and it became a place where people curse, threaten and express themselves in the most aggressive ways possible. It is clear that by becoming anonymous, we feel freer to express our evil.

My student asked me: Are there any benefits to everyone being able to freely express their evil? The only benefit is that it leads us to recognize that we are indeed evil and that we will exploit anything we invent as a means to harm each other.

We seemingly invent something good—an app that lets people express their opinions without any policing of their thoughts—and then the evils of human nature reveal themselves. It then becomes one of many tools in our hands that advance us toward realizing the evils of our human nature, that human nature is a negative quality that wishes to benefit at the expense of others.

My student then proceeded to ask me why we are made in such a way, and why a good and loving creative force would create such evil and bad beings? It is because from such a corrupt being eventually comes good.

The good that will emerge is a state where we will all feel completely good, eternal and perfect. While we are in the egoistic evil force, we are held back from feeling the true goodness in reality, but we can reveal how we are held back in a positive way by learning and understanding how our nature works, and how it develops toward an inversion to a good and harmonious state. Doing so is similar to coming downhill in a car, with our foot on the brakes, keeping that motion gradual, otherwise we will lose control of the wheel. That is what lies ahead of us.
Based on the video “How the NGL App Reveals the Evils of Human Nature” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Oren Levi. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: There are several stories around The Book of Zohar. Which of them is reliable?

Answer: It is unknown. Since this Book was hidden for a long time, I do not believe in any assumptions, except for what real Kabbalists say: the Ari and Baal HaSulam.

Rabbi Shimon is buried on Mount Meron. This is what it is. I know only one thing: Rabash went to the grave of Rabbi Shimon, and I felt from him how high he rises, adhering to the source.

He never went anywhere else: not to the Wailing Wall or the graves of Rambam, Ramchal, or Rabbi Akiva; only Rabbi Shimon. For him, it was just recumbency.

Question: Rabbi Shimon was Rabbi Akiva’s student. At what age did he begin to study with him?

Answer: At that time they used to begin at a very early age. In principle, he studied all his life, but I do not know at what age he began. As a rule, children began to seriously study the Torah from the age of three. This is what is written in The Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot, as well as in the scriptures, that a man is obliged to teach his son the properties of bestowal from the age of three.

Comment: I have heard two versions of how Rabbi Shimon became Rabbi Akiva’s student. The first is that he had outstanding abilities still in early childhood. The second is that he came to study when he had already married, and Rabbi Akiva did not want to accept him. Then Rabbi Shimon began to allegedly threaten him that he would tell the Romans about his studies of the Torah, and then he accepted him.

My Response: Personally, I have not read about it and I do not even want to read about it. What difference does it make to me? We are talking about a person’s inner attainment.

I do not look at this world in its animal shells. What difference does it make what is happening in them?! I look at this world only from the point of view of the forces that govern it and determine everything. Why should I look at something that makes no sense and does not exist on its own?

Comment: But these stories are told to the students of Kabbalah when they are taken on a tour of Mount Meron.

My Response: They are told this in order to draw people to a more internal study. What can you do? A person should be gradually drawn to attainment. Start teaching quantum physics to beginners and tell them that there is no time, no distance, no movement, that everything is eternity, infinity. Try to explain the quantum world to them. How many people in the world understand it at all? And spirituality is even higher.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Zohar – Myths and Legends“ 4/14/13

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