Entries in the 'Q&A' Category

Working In The Name Of Joy

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: We talked about feeling joy from fulfillment, but what about feeling joy while exerting effort to achieve it?

Answer: I feel hate and resentment toward someone, and I have to build the attitude of love above it so as to fill him, thereby fulfilling myself. To achieve this, I exert certain effort for I must work above my egoism. If I channel the Light through me in order to fill the others, I transform my egoism into “help against it,” and instead of receiving, egoism works in bestowal. For me, this is a challenge, and I must convince myself that it makes sense.

On one hand, thanks to the fact that I channel the Upper Light through myself to someone else, my egoism gets pleased. On the other, I am attaching the desire that I am fulfilling to myself, and it becomes part of me, which also pleases me. I receive the Light from the Creator and the Light that returns to me in the form of spiritual feedback from fulfilling the other.


If I attached another’s desire to myself, it is called “love another as you love yourself.” This is described as “the righteous get rewarded twice.” Beside the fact that their own will to receive gets filled, they take pleasure in fulfilling the desire of another.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Happiness” 10/28/10

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The World Depends On Me

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How many people must hold the intention simultaneously in order for the spiritual connection to get revealed?

Answer: Only I. If I uncover my desire to unify with the others, I discover that they are already united. It seems to me that they are not unified in order for me to work on them and them on me. Yet, all of this is in relation to me.

As long as I am not corrected, I see my corruption in them and work on them so that they influence and strengthen me. Thanks to their support, I correct myself and then see that they are becoming more corrected as well. After all, “every person judges according to their own flaws.”

It turns out that I must worry only about my own correction. What about the others then? If I see that the world is broken, I have to correct it. This means that I correct myself. In this case, if I treat the others with the intention to bestow, I don’t see them in the broken state. Rather, I see the Shechina (divinity) in them, the revelation of the Creator Who fills the entire world.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, The Zohar

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A Human Is Defined By His Intention

Working Inside The Spiritual Network

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What can be done if, during the reading of The Zohar, the intention weakens because the mind keeps trying to understand the content of the text?

Answer: We shouldn’t pay attention to it. Intention must become increasingly stronger during the lesson since the friends should think about it together. And if each of them holds the intention, it cannot be so that someone drops out of it.

Here we truly get connected in the spiritual communication network between us, not in the material one. If I hold the intention to bind myself to “Israel” (those who aim directly to the Creator), the Torah (the Light), and the Creator are one” so that I, the Creator, and the group became as one whole and reveal the Light that fills the entire reality; if all of us strive to experience this condition and, due to reading of The Book of Zohar, the Light has to reveal it to us, then this intention will “burn” in us more intensely. But if I feel that my intention has become weaker, in this, I depend on the all the others 100%.

In this respect, we are truly working inside the spiritual network. Thereby, we enter the spiritual world and act in it to the best of our ability to hold the intention and bind “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” together.

We already act this way in the spiritual world and only have to uncover it for ourselves. Therefore, we demand the Light to reveal it to us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/10, The Zohar

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A Human Is Defined By His Intention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What is my intention and why is it so important if my mind and feelings are not taken into account in spiritual advancement?

Answer: Intention is the human within me; it defines what I want out of everything I have within. Everything I am filled with – perceptions, mind, hopes, fantasies, dreams, the past, present, and future – all of this gets mixed and discerned by me: What do I want out of all of this?

I don’t comprehend this mixture. Everything is tangled: Today it’s one thing, tomorrow another. But what I want is regarded as my intention.

In other words, now I look above my life and everything I have and decide what is the most important to me. It is the point where I can make a decision: I can either submerge myself in the “cocktail” I have mixed and forget about everything, returning to my daily life. Or, I can rise above it and wish to excavate from all this mix only what I can use for my advancement, the future life. This is what I must decide, and this is why intention defines the human being in me.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/10, The Zohar

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Unity Day – 11.28.10

Unity Day Around the World, Preparation to the Lesson
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Unity Day Around the World, “We Are the United World Group”
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Everything Is For The Best If You Rise Higher

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: The Creator is concealed, but instead of Him I have the group. How can I see pure bestowal in it?

Answer: There are always disturbances in the group, and it is precisely with their help that we can do wonderful exercises, practicing to become similar to the Creator. Any negative must be used precisely as it was intended in order to turn it into a positive.

Everything is for the best; we only have to act correctly, without backing down from what is happening and by building the right attitude to it. “Everything is for the best” does not mean that we accept the inevitable ahead of time, as people commonly do. Rather, above the disturbance or example we received, we must first of all discern the final point, the corrected state. Then I will find the way to turn the incorrect into the correct, to unite myself in the present, the disturbance (which may be related to the friends, the Creator, or even my personal circumstances), and the goal of creation.

I will find out how to correct any aspect, be it a desire, intention, thought, or event. Not only will I be able to justify it and attribute it to the Creator, but I will also attach it to a connection with Him. I will understand to what extent I have to reconstruct my desire and way of thinking in relation to the given event, and how much I have to change my perception of the event in order to see that the Creator has brought me goodness.

The sign of this will be joy: I am happy because the Creator has given me the opportunity to come that much closer to Him. That is how our efforts gradually accumulate into a great possession.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, The Zohar

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No Idols

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: When we read The Zohar, we try to imagine something that we are not able to perceive as of now: the general soul of Adam HaRishon and unity. Doesn’t this mean that we are transgressing the law of the Torah by “creating an idol”?

Answer: This isn’t so. I don’t picture any material images of this world. I simply wish to sense a connection with others. For the time being, I picture this connection in my limited imagination and therefore see it as conventional relations. But being described is a feeling, a desire, and not material images. Though it may be egoistic, we are nevertheless trying to draw closer to a spiritual form. A person builds himself out of what he has.

We have to strive to reveal your connection with others. It already exists, only it is concealed from me. I try to find this connection through darkness and fog and wait for The Zohar to lift the veil that’s covering my senses and reveal the true picture.

I will see this picture with my heart rather than my eyes. Then I will truly feel everything that The Book of Zohar describes. Right now, I don’t know how it will be exactly, but it certainly will be in a form of interconnections.

After all, nothing exists but the types of interconnections among the parts of a spiritual desire, which are called “the soul.” The Light of NRNHY runs between these desires. Ultimately, this Light is the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Hakdama, BeLaila De Kala (The Night of the Bride)”

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Invitation to The Bride’s Chamber

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: Why is it said that in order to get corrected, broken souls have to rise to the World of Atzilut if at first we have to go through all the worlds of BYA, step by step, starting with Malchut de Malchut of the World of Assiya?

Where am I: in Malchut of the World of Atzilut or some place in the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, and Beria? If the Land of Israel is located in the World of Yetzira, whereas the most sacred place of the Temple that only the High Priest can enter is located in the World of Beria, how can I possibly be higher than him?

Answer: When I ask for correction, I rise together with a point in my heart to Malchut of the World of Atzilut, an assembly of souls of Israel. Our correction happens in Malchut of the World of Atzilut; it is our homeland, our Keter. Anything lower than the worlds of BYA is, in fact, dispersal of Malchut, her nine lower Sefirot.

All the worlds, Partzufim, and souls that are lower than the Parsa (beneath the borderline of the World of Atzilut) belong to Malchut de Atzilut. In other words, in order to get corrected, I have to rise there and connect with Malchut of the World of Atzilut. But where does the correction of me and my soul happen?

The common soul of Adam HaRishon is present in the worlds of BYA (starting with its “head” in GAR de Beria until the “feet” of the World of Assiya). If I raise my soul into Malchut de Atzilut and ask for correction, I receive the Light that Reforms from Above (it descends to me from the World of Infinity through all the worlds and is “meant” specifically for me). With this Light, I correct the connection between Zeir Anpin and Malchut of the World of Atzilut, which relates to me. Thus, I correct the broken connection between Malchut and Zeir Anpin (Shechina and the Creator).


I am representing the “bride’s friends” that support the Torah, which The Book of Zohar describes in the chapter called “The Night of the Bride.” I help her connect with the “Groom” and, therefore, I am called “a son of the bridal chamber.” By doing so, I correct my soul since Zeir Anpin and Malchut got separated only because of me, so that I would re-unite them and thus assemble all pieces back together.

When I re-establish the first connection between Malchut and Zeir Anpin, I correct my first spiritual level, Malchut de Malchut of the World of Assiya (see Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to The Book of Zohar ”). The second time that I manage to reconnect Malchut with Zeir Anpin, I correct my Yesod de Malchut de Assiya, and so on. Each time I support Malchut and thereby elicit her union with Zeir Anpin. This is how I correct my soul.

In other words, we always raise our request (MAN) to Shechina, meaning to Malchut of the World of Atzilut. But our correction and revival happens in the worlds of BYA since Adam HaRishon was born in the worlds of BYA and doesn’t sense anything outside of them; these worlds are his environment. He rises and falls together with them.

Since I want to please the Creator, my intention raises to Malchut de Atzilut. Because I do so, I get corrected in the worlds of BYA, within my environment.

Let’s hope to rise to the level at which we, like a High Priest, enter the “Holy of the Holies,” meaning Bina of the World of Beria. This is how I raise Zivug ZON (Zeir Anpin and Nukva) to AVI (Aba ve Ima).
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What Should You Spend Your Time On?

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: What should I do if at The Zohar lesson I feel like I am just wasting my time? Should I try to overcome this by faith above reason and suppress this sensation?

Answer: There are studies on human life showing that out of 70 years that we have to live, we spend 30 years sleeping, another 10 years eating, 5 years washing and doing an enormous amount of other things until at the end, after accounting for all these years, we have about one free day left – so what will you do during that day? You’ll probably sleep through it….

That’s why I ask you: What fills up your life so much that you feel sorry wasting your time on The Zohar lesson? Just think about how you live in this world for 70 years and then die, whereas here you have the opportunity to reveal eternal life. So perhaps it’s worthwhile to work for it a little.

You can persuade yourself and lie to yourself as much as you want; anything to stay in touch with this source. When a person comes to Kabbalah he first imagines something imaginary and unreal. However, we understand that the world to come is the quality of bestowal in which the Creator becomes revealed.

That’s when we acquire attainment and understanding of the Upper World. If you have attained this in your Kelim, that means it is yours and it doesn’t matter whether you are alive or your biological body has died.

The animate body was given for you to start with and to accompany you so that by starting with it you will be able to attain spirituality. Once you attain it, it means you have won, and if you haven’t attained it, you will receive another chance to do it later on.

Therefore, if the Creator has given you this opportunity and you are already sitting in the group reading Kabbalistic books, that means from now on the problem is only inside you. So don’t miss this opportunity!

Alternatively, you can decide that you do not agree with the Creator and go back to your regular life: “The shop is open and anyone can come in and borrow, but the Hand writes….”
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From the lesson on 11/25/10, The Zohar

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Through All The Worlds Without Any Boundaries

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: By attaching the desires of other people to me, I expand myself inside, but don’t I still feel only what is happening inside me? Is there any point in existence in which I really feel what is happening outside of me?

Answer: Of course there is! And moreover, you will feel it much greater than you now feel yourself here in this world. Imagine that you are seeing what is happening thousands of kilometers away from you the same way you see something at a distance of one meter. There’s no difference and no distances!

Just as you see an object’s external form, you are able to see through it, seeing everything taking place in it as well as all the causes and effects. This is called attainment. In spirituality nothing is bounded by space or by the depth of attainment. The causes and results of the phenomena you observe are not concealed from you; you see them in all their dimensions and qualities.

That is why it is called attainment, which is the final and greatest possible perception and understanding. It is impossible to compare this to anything in our world because in our world we don’t have attainment, but are looking only inside ourselves.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/10, Writings of Rabash

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