Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

The Spiritual Roots Of Tradition

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Please answer my question: Does saying the prayer (Shema and Shema Yisrael) and putting on a Tefillin let you receive the light any faster? If not, please explain why Jewish tradition does this?

Answer: No. This is because these “traditions” are behaviors in our world that are identical to the higher correction that everyone must perform in his 613 desires, aiming them at “love your neighbor.”

Question: For centuries, Kabbalists have vigilantly complied with all the traditions and customs of its people. They emphasized the importance of their physical and spiritual performance. [Baal] HaSulam and Rabash were no exception. Why do we not apply spiritual importance to physical activities?

If physical actions are not so important, then why were the Jews fooled all these years? Why could everything not be explained clearly so that people do not lose time and hope in vain?

Answer: The time has come now to do that.
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A Text That Is Clean Of The Corporeal Shell

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, “Bo (Come unto Pharaoh),” The Passover Sacrifice, Item 189: When the Creator came to Egypt, He saw the Passover blood written on the door, and the covenant blood—how they were standing at the door.

Question: How can I keep the right intention while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: There is no doubt that I can’t keep the right intention, but I need to imagine the state I want to be in now.

First I need to totally detach myself from the voice of the announcer, as if I don’t hear anything. I know that I am connected to a pipe through which the Light flows unto me and it can either help me or harm me: it can become the “elixir of life” or the “potion of death.” It all depends on how I hear!

It is as if I put on earphones, but I turn the volume down and don’t want to hear. First I want to know what energy, what force, reaches me through these channels, how the Reforming Light should influence me. Do I receive it like a bat and sink even more deeply into the darkness, or like a rooster that expects the dawn? It all depends on my intention and so I have to clarify this first.

So first I block my ears in order not to hear anything. What should I do now so that the Light that reaches me will heal me? I don’t want the snake that is the symbol of medicine, to turn into a real snake and poison me with its lethal venom. The same poison can be used as a medicine even though it comes from the same source, from the same snake. In order to do that I have to prepare myself, to be in a group together with the friends, to want to connect with them in my heart and soul to become one man in one heart, to attain such a love into which we can all dissolve and feel ourselves as one whole.

To the extent that we can reach that by the Light that Reforms us into one body, we will feel the force that unites us, the Creator, internally. We will feel the source of the Surrounding Light. The Light determines the connection among us. The source of the Light is the Creator who is revealed in the vessel that is arranged correctly.

First I have to imagine this whole state accurately. When I see it before me by imagining it emotionally and even visually, I gradually begin to unclog my ears. Then I turn on the volume in order to hear the announcer’s voice, as long as I can keep the image I have created in my mind. But if what is going on disturbs me from keeping that image, I turn the volume down again. If it doesn’t disturb me, I follow that voice.

I try to hear the announcer and no matter what is being said: whether it is about Passover, the blood of the circumcision on the door, the details about the exodus from Egypt, I try to find all these discernments in that image in which we are all connected.

I don’t depict the image according to the corporeal meaning of the words which the “language of the branches” uses, but rather translate them into the “language of the spiritual roots”: Sefirot, Partzufim, reception and bestowal, the connection between us and the Creator, and the unity of the concepts “Israel, the Torah and the Creator.” I immediately get rid of the actual words, as from an unwanted shell. It is as if I clean the shell off the nuts before I begin to eat them, and thus I get rid of corporeal concepts and immediately move on from the branches to the roots.

I try to imagine what it looks like in the spiritual roots: what is the meaning of “lintel,” “Mezuzah,” or “blood.” Even if I don’t understand, it makes no difference. The main thing is my efforts, wanting to know what is being studied, to connect to what is being studied. The Reforming Light influences me according to my efforts.

We must constantly repeat these exercises over and over again, in every book that we study: the articles of Rabash and Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, The Zohar, the Mishnah, Shulchan Aruch, all the books are about how to connect the broken vessel.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabblah Lesson 4/22/12, The Zohar 

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To Inspire All Of Humanity

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How do we plan to inspire all of humanity? For instance, my husband is not interested in anything other than soccer.

Answer: I don’t think that you are unable to influence your husband. After all, a wife always influences her husband. His opinion will change. A woman knows how to make this happen.

The ability to influence a man was purposefully given to a woman. If it were not for her influence, men would simply be lost. It is indeed so because without a woman’s desire, which a man realizes in life, he would realize his own desires simply like a child. It would be something odd.

The reality is that the world stands on female desires, the desire for a home, family, children, and all things that are serious and necessary for our lives. This is first.

Second, what does it all mean in regard to the world? We serve as intermediaries between the world and the Creator. We have to show and explain to the world our method, which brings a person closer to love and bestowal and makes him correspond to the upper Light, the general force of nature.

We can base it on the opinions of thousands of scientists who research nature and discover a singular global quality through which nature connects elements, creates life, and operates it. If we explain and disseminate this to people, we will reduce the world’s suffering. The world will move toward goodness, connection, and life.

However, if we don’t do this, we will experience even greater suffering. We have no choice but to disseminate the method of the correction of man, of human nature, to the world. If we want to, we will accomplish it. We simply have to give it importance.

We can think about love and bestowal only when we actually disseminate the method of correction. Let’s try together.
[75935]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1  

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The Creator’s Pranks

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: During our work at the workshop, I had a feeling as though I was a guard for my friend. Is such a state justifiable? Or is everyone equal in a circle and has a right to make sure their friend is not diverting from the goal and from the topic of the workshop?

Answer: I have to perceive the group as something absolutely perfect: an eternal, infinite, and perfect system. I enter it as a small one into something huge that is forming me.

If being in the group I see or hear something unpleasant from my friends, something that seems to be bad or imperfect, I have to understand that this is because I am this way. In other words, the Creator sets me up so that I would perceive everything precisely in this way. He is playing with me since, as it is written, “there is none else besides Him.” I have to justify Him and say that I perceive everything in the negative way because of my incorrect properties.

If I exist in connection with my friends, I cannot see anything negative in them, but only perfection! Everything else is either my or the Creator’s fault.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1 

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The Group That Has Adopted My Heart

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can we correct the situation when the heart doesn’t agree with the good intentions that I understand in my mind?

Answer: We are not the owners of the heart, the environment controls it. If I want to think about something serious and sublime, I take a book or watch a movie, or talk to myself. But if I want to change the desire in my heart, I need external influence.

It all depends on how I arrange my life. You have to regard ordinary life like a theater, that is, to give it only as much importance as necessary. I have to go to work and lead an ordinary life like everyone else. Yet I don’t treat it as my real life, but rather as a theater play, in which there are actors who play their role as was determined by the Creator and they’re not even aware of it.

The one thing that can really influence me is the group. In all of reality there is only this one tool, which I can influence and which can influence me. I can prepare myself to have a more sensitive perception of their influence and then I will get it.

So, all my work is concentrated only within the group. There’s no other way to change a person’s heart. Sometimes people think that it’s possible to study and to disseminate more and thus to advance. But the study is no substitute for the group. A person’s advancement is only possible through the group.

The group can be very big or very small or even virtual and not physical. But in any case I have to be around people who are like me, towards whom I can practically annul myself, give them presents, respect them, and see them as the greatest in our generation. I have to act before them by seeing myself as a total zero, as dust under their feet. Then through the group, the Light will influence me because I annul myself. This is an actual annulment and not some imagination like in relation to the Creator in front of whom everyone is ready to lower their heads. 

Then I will see to what extent these actions are efficient and how they could have helped me if I had done them many years ago. I don’t understand why I haven’t heard about this until now. After all, it is so simple. In fact, I did hear but didn’t carry it out. It takes a long time until a person finally hears and begins to do something.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2012, The Zohar 

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There Is A Place For Everyone In The Convention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: In the conventions, especially in America, there are people who stand on the side and don’t connect easily. What is more, since they know in advance that they will spend three days leaning on the wall, it sometimes deters them from coming to the convention. What would you suggest that they do? How can we help them?

Answer: I definitely suggest that they come and be included in the crowd as much as they can. As it is written: “Educate a child according to his way.” People who find it difficult to connect in a circle will find one another. They may form their own circle, and within it, there may be someone who will shake them up a little.

Don’t object to the convention and don’t force yourselves. Everyone has a place there. After all, we are all different, and there are people who cannot connect with others. They sit on the side and listen, absorbed in their own thoughts. Or on the contrary, there are those who make too much noise. These people still don’t feel where they are and in what they are included. Their inner pace isn’t synchronized with everyone else yet, and either the euphoria or their introversion is controlling them.

Most of our friends already know and understand the method. They are working on advancement in a more or less methodical manner and are experiencing ups and downs. If a person really understands that he is detached from the general flow aimed at the goal of creation, it is especially important for him to come because it is a sign that in the meantime, he is going through special preparatory states. The influence of the environment will help him through it. I strongly recommend that you register.

On the whole, there are special people with special sparks. This is how they were created, and it isn’t a matter of heroism or weakness. The main thing is to realize what is within you. Just carry out the role that nature has given you, and eventually, if everyone makes his special and unique efforts, we will all become truly equal, with no traces of the previous differences.

Ultimately, everyone does equivalent work. We simply don’t understand yet how perfect the general system is.

But on the way, there are differences among us. Some people have special jobs; it is as if they have their own history, their own development. Accordingly, they should be treated differently. They look different from others, and their ups and downs are different. They act differently externally and go through different internal states—in contrast to any logic of our world.

Similarly, in the scientific and philosophic community, there are exceptional geniuses. Quite a few clever people have demonstrated exceptional attributes. In our case, it is even more prominent. However, for such people in particular it is very important to be with the community because in relation to them, we are like humanity in relation to us.

The sparks in the heart are divided into two parts: GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim) and AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh). Those of us who belong to GE are special. Sometimes, they feel a strong aversion toward society, but it is very important for them to come to conventions even though they feel no need to mingle with the friends, regarding them as humanity. It is still essential.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/2012, Writings of Rabash

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Experiment Commissioned By Nature

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is the role of the group on our way to a true question?

Answer: A person who is in a complete isolation from the laws of an integral system can approach building this system and learning its lessons due to the group. Kabbalah is an integral science about a common nature. There is nothing artificial or alleged in it. In order to learn the general law of equilibrium of all nature’s parts, we have to create a laboratory and try building the system’s simulator. The same way things are done in other sciences as well. Even though our model is not real, we’ll begin understanding some laws of Nature and relationships among its parts to some extent.

The group is such a laboratory. Kabbalistic books are instructions to work with. And we are researchers, scientists, who do experiments not on themselves, but on the group to the extent of being united. What efforts are required from us? Under what conditions? What for? All our experimental activities are for this research and are concentrated just on the point of unity.

We are not different from other scientists who explore nature. Thus Baal HaSulam writes that materialistic psychology lays a practical basis for the popularization of the science of Kabbalah in the masses. Psychologists also deal with groups learning a human nature and a nature of society based on them. Thus, we also can formulate and explain our guidelines for working with the society, the whole of humanity, using the same terms. It is just necessary to find the right words clear to the wide audience.

Anyway, this approach is consistent with approaches of scientists and psychologists. We study higher, deeper, and at the same time, hidden laws of nature which a regular person can’t reach.

Physicists, for example, study elementary particles without having any knowledge of their weight. The massive Hadron Collider required investments of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of specialists, and the construction of a huge technological complex taking into consideration it being used for studying the foundations of the universe and not some immediate tangible benefits. Scientists want to learn what happened in the universe billions of years ago even though we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us and the situation in the world is getting worse day by day. Where is the logic? But still, the project keeps moving forward.

We deal with the most important and high science capable of saving the humanity. The subject of its research is the basis of the Creation, in nature itself, which commissions this “experiment,” because all our good future depends on it. Thus we have to find new words and new examples for people to understand what we are talking about. And it will happen—the point of contact between the science of Kabbalah and the masses is very close.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/12, Wiritngs of Rabash

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Dissemination: What We Can And Cannot Do

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Lately, I have questions about dissemination. Could you please clarify your attitude toward dissemination, what can and cannot be done?

Answer: The world needs dissemination, meaning integral education and upbringing (mutual responsibility). This method has to be circulated widely and openly, without connecting it to Kabbalah by any means. It can be done from a separate website, as well as openly on the streets, by giving out leaflets, newspapers, CDs, and any other media.

Kabbalah can be circulated only from its site and only virtually so that outsiders will not associate it with the integral upbringing—until people realize themselves that Kabbalah is that very system of man’s upbringing and correction.
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A New Game

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: You said that we have to imagine ourselves in a corrected state. How can I be sure that I imagine it correctly?

Answer: It’s impossible to imagine a correct state. The Light will gradually create this picture for us. This can only be done by the Light!

Our attempts resemble those of a child who does something with persistence, and even though he’s unable to accomplish a task, he still continues trying. You’ve seen the persistence of a  child who is playing or trying to do something. As a result, he acquires sensations, thoughts, and experience and thereby becomes an experienced adult. This is the only way it can happen.

We don’t reveal anything new here. We utilize the same Light as we did when we were children when we were trying to become adults. We are utilizing the same principles that are instilled in nature. This is the same exact law and there isn’t anything else.

You make attempts, you play with building blocks, but they fall down. You try to assemble a construction set, but you can’t. You do something, jump, and run around like a little monkey. However, these efforts evoke the upper Light, the concealed force of nature, which is responsible for your development.

This force developed us on the animate level and we became adults. Right now we’re consciously playing the next degree so that the same force will develop us and elevate us to that degree. Whatever it is you play, that’s what you will become. This is the way it works.

Today we’re playing a game of “Becoming Similar to the Creator.” If we continue playing this game, we’ll succeed! People develop through playing. You have to imagine yourself there. Imagine yourself as an adult; this is most important. You may ask: “What does it mean to rise to the next degree? After all, this is what we want to accomplish.” Go ahead and realize your desire! Fantasize about what it means and play this game, but base it on the knowledge you’ve obtained.

You read lots of articles and listen to the lessons: What is the meaning of the upper degree, the quality of bestowal, above egoism, a screen, Reshimot, Partzufim, the Light of Hassadim, the Light of Hochma, and so on? How do transitions become actualized? Try to constantly imagine that you are there and you’ll achieve it! All of nature operates according to this principle. There’s nothing new to add if you compare it to the development of a child.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

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Egypt In The Eyes Of A Slave And The Eyes Of A Free Man

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person count 400 years (levels) of his stay in exile if Egypt is in total darkness?

Answer: It is impossible to count that, and this is why the escape takes place suddenly, in a hurry. A person does not know when he will come out of exile. Suppose the 400 years of exile are to end today at 13:30, but you can’t know that. Don’t you see that according to the story, the escape is sudden? You are told only what you must take with you: the components that make up your spiritual vessel so that later you will be able to rise above it.

According to the story, after we come out of Egypt, we leave nothing behind. I take all the gold, all the sheep and the cattle, all the property, and leave behind me an empty, destroyed country. I destroy to the ground the country that once flourished, big and prosperous with beautiful cities, and I leave.

Of course, I leave for a better life, and there is nothing to lose. There is no reason to stay in Egypt where there is not even water to drink because everything has turned to blood, and everything is dead.

This is how a person sees the corporeal world that he leaves. In fact, the beautiful palaces are still there and so are all the good things, everything is flourishing, but in my eyes it looks like a destroyed land in the dark. This is how it is perceived in my new discernments that oblige me to disrespect all the luxury and see it as trash and to want to escape from it.

However, if I looked at everything through the eyes of a slave, I would see the rich land and think that that there is no need to escape. After all, the land of Egypt is surrounded by a desert.

But suddenly I decide that staying there is the worst thing, and there is nothing worse than that. It isn’t just a desert, but a place of awful destruction and lowliness. It is all in the eyes of the beholder.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/2012, TES

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