Question: How should we treat various diseases? Are they a correction?

Answer: Of course they are a correction. Moreover, according to Kabbalah, it is desirable not to remove the agonies of death. They are serious corrections of our egoism.

It should be made as easy as possible, yes, but, in principle, only ease it. This is a general correction of egoism, which suffers and ends its specific sufferings in the state in which it feels itself at the lowest level of its existence. All the rest of our existence is smeared across all the rungs of the spiritual ladder.

Comment: We are familiar with physical suffering. But spiritual suffering is completely different. It is like an inner, emotional experience, but the physical is still more detestable.

My Response: You can rise above physical suffering so that you stop feeling it, but the spiritual one needs to be corrected and replaced by more sublime suffering. Here you have no way to escape.

Suffering is the absence of fulfillment in egoism. If you replace it with the lack of the ability to bestow and love, then it takes on a completely different tone—the suffering of love. This is already completely different; it is purposeful and carries sweetness in itself. We can replace all kinds of bad suffering with good suffering.

Question: When you were sick, your teacher Rabash said that you should rejoice in it. How can physical illnesses be used?

Answer: You do not need to bring them on yourself on purpose. But physical sufferings help, they lead a person to the goal.

You should not revel in sufferings, wait for them, or exalt them as something necessary, but if they come, you should try, on one hand, to somehow replace them with more sublime ones, and at the same time understand that suffering of any type cleanses a person from egoism, it elevates him.

However, at our level, this is a very long and wrong path. Therefore, Kabbalah is against suffering.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Benefits of Physical Suffering” 5/21/12

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Comment: We live in the age of rapid technological advancement. For example, there are cameras that make such high quality videos that it simply kills the film industry. People use it, and nobody can turn back the clock. This has seriously disrupted the whole industry.

My Response: So what? All these huge cameras disappeared, but man still remained. If he wants to offer something of high quality to the world and there is demand for his product, he will do it with a small device instead of a large movie camera.

What is the difference? Why all this bulky video equipment? Why do we need this? Is this mastery?

All great artists were poor, hungry, and never had many colors, they painted on simple, plain canvases. That is when one shows a skill! And it really was a skill!

Art should be expressed through pain, suffering, or striving.

Question: Yes, I have met artists who were poor and expressed their canvases through pain. But soon after, a patron would appear who would sponsor them, and it would be impossible to get anything out of them. When there is no pain, there is no advancement. Is this what the Kabbalistic principle is?

Answer: Only hunger! Only hunger in the general sense of the word, no matter what, can aim a person toward a goal. A person is suffering, slowly looking for a way out; without this, we cannot do it.

Question: How should such a hunger for learning be expressed?

Answer: Studying will surely let me reach the quality of bestowal. Although I do not know what it is, I do not want it, but I hear, see, and read that it is a general quality of nature. I have to get to know it gradually.

Kabbalistic books tell us that in nature, besides the quality of reception, there is also the quality of bestowal. What should I do about it? How do I find the second force of nature? With its help, I will be able to explore nature, understand the world I live in, save myself and others from suffering, and find what I want.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Benefits of Fasting” 5/7/12

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Question: You say that when spreading Kabbalistic knowledge a person may not even understand the material received, but some mechanism is triggered inside him, and this is more important than if he understands the explanation with his mind.

How does it work?

Answer: Yes, the main thing is that it first happens in feelings and then the mind understands.

Why do I need to care about the mind at all? It only serves the feelings. First I see a picture, feel it, and then I start thinking about it. It is this way in everything in the world and in everything in our perception. The mind is only a servant of my feelings. It defines feelings, measures them, sorts, compares, analyzes, and gives me an opinion.

Therefore, if I need to change my opinion about my feelings, this is one job, and if I need to change my feelings with the help of the mind, this is a different job.

Question: But how does the physical dissemination of Kabbalistic knowledge take place?

Answer: Only from above. We give a condition for the light to spread even wider, to penetrate even deeper.

Due to the fact that we connect externally with other people, we allow the light to act through us on them. In this way, they gradually change their opinion, their attitude toward us, to the world, to everything.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Subtleties of Dissemination” 4/21/12

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Comment: A group of historians and archaeologists claims that before the civilizations of Mayans, Incans, and so on, there were super-civilizations, and that some kind of super people lived in the lands of Israel and India. Scientists have evidence that the cut of stone in these places is so perfect that even modern technologies cannot do this.

My Response: Yes, of course. When we go down under the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, there are blocks of 40, 60, and 70 tons. How could it be moved and installed with such precision without modern technical means? Even today it is difficult to do so.

Moreover, these blocks were brought from afar, tens of kilometers away. How were they delivered? How were they installed?

This is an incredibly difficult engineering challenge! It is beyond our power even today, and even more so at that time! Therefore, scientists have assumptions about superhumans.

I think they just misunderstand it. In many countries we find such paradoxes that people of the past used a kind of electric batteries, they made correct calculations based on the stars in the sky, and they had a different approach to nature.

The modern approach is rigid, as if digital, computerized, and their approach was based on the use of the general force of nature. They knew how to use methods that we do not know about today.

Now, moving to integral humanity, becoming generalized and round, we will gradually acquire a mind that will be in similarity with nature.

When we, like all nature,  become tied together by mutual guarantee, by a common obligation, and people understand that they are one single whole, then we will have a new mind, new thoughts, new desires. In this case, we will be able to understand nature itself because we will be like it, we will be together with it.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Mysterious Civilizations of the Past” 5/19/12

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What do you think about the Hebrew language?“

The Hebrew language emerges from our dialog with the source force of our lives, the force of love, bestowal and connection that is called “the Creator” in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

According to Kabbalah, the Hebrew letters are the forms that our desire receives from the Creator. In other words, every letter is a new form that we acquire when we become somewhat similar to the Creator.

Our matter is a desire to enjoy, which is opposite to the desire to bestow enjoyment, which is the Creator’s form. Therefore, when we apply an intention to bestow enjoyment upon our desire to receive, then it is considered that we acquire a form similar to the Creator.

There are 22 of these forms that we can acquire upon ourselves, and in addition, the five last letters, the MANTZEPACH. When we apply these forms upon ourselves, we create words, which are spiritual actions. That is, when we transition from a state where we are immersed solely in the desire to enjoy for ourselves alone to a desire to bestow enjoyment to the Creator, then we hold a dialog with the Creator. We reach out to Him and we change ourselves through the forms that we accept upon ourselves. By doing so, we express our desire and our language to the Creator. He then understands us, and He begins speaking to us through these letters, these symbols.

We can then know the Creator when we have received the 27 forms from Him, and we can then identify the form that the Creator reaches out to us with.

Based on the video “What Are the Hebrew Letters?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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Question: From a letter: “Kabbalah is a mystical movement in Judaism. In essence, it is a method to read and understand Torah. It is based on the idea that the text of the Torah can be interpreted at four different levels the highest of which is revealed through special mystical practices. So, Kabbalah is mysticism and not truth?”

Answer: What nonsense! I have not heard a single word of truth right now.

Kabbalah is simply a set of laws of nature that we must observe if we want to live in harmonious union with nature.

Question: What is this set of laws, what is nature?

Answer: There is nature, it is everything that exists including people, including everyone and everything, our world, our worlds, galaxies. Basically, it is everything that we can imagine. It all represents one unified whole that exists with the help of mutually interconnected forces. Kabbalah explores these interconnected forces.

It explains to us that only by fulfilling the general law of nature, the general interconnection between all parts of nature, will we be able to understand, perceive, feel and exist in this nature.

If we do not reach the desire to attain this nature, then it will gradually throw us out from itself. And in the end, we will still be forced to accept its integral law as the general law of everything that exists.

Question: You talk all the time about one law that governs all this nature and us. What is this law?

Answer: This law is called the Creator. That is, there is a force that contains all parts of the universe at any level: inanimate, vegetative, animate, human, and others that we do not yet know. We may call them mystical, it does not matter. But all these levels exist, interact, and are interdependent on each other.

Question: It turns out that we are inside the Creator, inside this law?

Answer: Of course! Inside the Creator. And we are obliged to obey this law. Of all the forms of life known to us, we are the only form of life that is aware of itself and is aware, in some way, of the presence of the Creator, its source, its root.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 1/26/23

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Question: Why is it necessary to divide a group into tens, into groups of ten people even at the physical level? Why does such a connection work best of all?

Answer: A gathering of people works better when it consists of ten people because this is the number of souls that corresponds to the spiritual structure. Therefore, we try to be similar to it in our actions.

Question: What if there are fewer or more people?

Answer: It is preferable to divide into tens. But if there is no other option, then, of course, we gather in the amount that we have.

The fact is that each of us can grasp ten people, like ten fingers on the hands in front of him. Our most correct impression is through the tens.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Ten People”

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Question: Why are there stereotypes of people?

Answer: It is because all our internal properties consist of five parts, each of which is divided in turn by another five, another five, and so on.

But these are very clear gradations. We do not take into account the root part because it is the root, and four parts come from it. From here we have a division into types of characters, types of races, and generally everything.

Question: Why, as a rule, do we determine the type by appearance? Let’s say: this professor, this murderer, this alcoholic?

Answer: Because there is a correspondence between a person’s appearance and his qualities since at each level they manifest themselves differently. Naturally, a person is already in such behavior, and in communication, and in movements, and in conversation, and in thoughts—in everything. After all, each property of the four main ones (HaVaYaH) is divided into four more, four more, and so on. Hence the division into groups.

Comment: At one time, an experiment was conducted on how public opinion affects a person: they took students, showed them some face and gave them a brief description: “This man is a murderer, cold–blooded…”—so and so. “Describe how you see him.” And the person would begin to describe: “Yes, he actually…”

My Response: This is a completely different matter. People were given such a tip and probably wanted to show how a preconceived opinion leads them away from the truth.

But, in principle, you can more or less judge people by their appearance. Although, this does not apply for example to major scammers, internal freaks, or maniacs, they may have a super-intelligent look.

And today it is impossible to say anything about it at all because our egoism has reached such heights in its development that the most seemingly calm, intelligent people suddenly find themselves under such pressures, such impulses that were not peculiar to them before. Therefore, no one believes anyone now.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Human Types” 4/21/12

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Question: People communicate with each other mostly during meals: either they sit in a cafe or drink tea at home, and so on. Why does such a ritual of communication take place during meals?

Answer: This has been and is the case in all cultures everywhere and always because the most pleasant state of a person is when he is getting saturated and filled.

Filling the soul with the upper light is called Taamim (flavors). This corresponds to the intake of food and liquids in our world. In the spiritual world, our coming closer to each other causes us to receive light, and in our world to receive food. In other words, we call the upper light (food) upon ourselves, and this brings us closer.

In the spiritual world, on the contrary, everything goes according to the work of the person, i.e., coming closer to each other causes us to have the opportunity to receive light.

This is the real Kabbalah; it is the most obvious, best action a person can do because the connection with others gives us the opportunity to reveal the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Most Delicious Food” 5/27/12

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Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the meaning of Purim in the Bible?“

The story of Purim describes the near-genocide of the Jewish people.

Haman recognized the Jews’ division as an opportunity to eradicate them. “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples” (Esther 3:8). Haman said that in his view, the Jews would be able to be destroyed because they were separated from one another.

However, Mordechai, the hero of the Purim story, worked to bridge the Jews’ division, which is what eventually saved their lives: “the Jews gathered themselves together to stand for their life” (Esther 8:11).

Purim is as significant for Jews today as it was for the Jews in the story itself. Also, it holds immense importance for society at large. A major aspect that needs to be understood about the meaning of Purim in order for us to understand its modern relevance is in relation to Haman: Who or what is Haman in our present times? That is, who or what is behind society’s increasing estrangement and polarization?

The immediate response according to our primal instincts is to personify the blame, that a President, or a group of politicians, financiers, executives or other conspiratorial schemers are behind our woes. However, beyond the face-value finger pointing, what is really behind today’s social division is the divisive mindset that Haman represents: the desire to seek money, honor, control and power despite everyone and everything. This divisive mindset shuts us off from each other, separating us, harming us and masking the harm that we do to each other.

Today’s tumultuous social atmosphere is a calling for us to seek our common voice as a humanity that shares common values and purpose. If we use this calling to connect a little above our primal instincts, then we can create a much more harmonious and peaceful world.

Whenever the Jewish people were at risk of ruin, it was our unity that saved us. We can use the Purim story as an eternal reminder that our unity can get us out of the worst situations, and that by uniting, we set a constructive and positive example for the rest of humanity.

Although we Jews have an innate obligation to set the standard for choosing unity over division, people of all races, colors, shapes and sizes should make the same strides toward unification before heading into greater turmoil and crises. Our destiny is in our hands.

Based on the post “What Is Purim?” by Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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