There are two approaches to life. The first approach is to devote most of our attention to this world, getting as much pleasure out of it as possible. This is why humanity conquers space and explores the depths of an atom. All this is work with the matter.

But the wisdom of Kabbalah says that instead of flying to distant stars we need to delve into the depth of a human being. The world is uncovered within us, we see the world within ourselves. A person perceives the reality with his consciousness and therefore, by changing it he changes the reality.

Reality is a reflection of our inner qualities. By correcting our inner qualities, we begin to see the spiritual world. And by returning to our original egoistic characteristics, we see this world.

That is why even in relation to the Torah there are two approaches. There are those who observe the commandments of the Torah only in their actions, thinking that the Torah describes external observance. And that is why such Torah is called external, because it is observed only through physical actions and words. But there are people called Kabbalists who believe that following the Torah is an internal action, carried out by changing human nature.

By working in the group according to the method of Kabbalah and attracting the Light that Reforms, a person begins to fulfill the Torah and the commandments not only with hands, legs, and words, but through the desire that is corrected with the help of the Light and divided into 613 parts. And this why it is said, “the opinion of the Torah is opposite to the opinion of the masses.”

The external approach is also associated with the study of nature by regular sciences, the aspiration to explore the depths of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels, and to transform the world by changing nature and governments externally. 

In contrast, the wisdom of Kabbalah says that if the world is the result of our perception, then it is necessary to correct only our perception, our inner qualities. Only in this manner can we change the world, humanity, man, and all of reality to such an extent that we will begin to experience the world as eternal, perfect, and limitless.

For this reason the opinion of the masses differs from that of the Torah, and there is nothing that can be done about this, it is not possible to bring them together. Little by little the upper Light operates on humanity, advancing it toward the need to acknowledge the truth and realize that all of reality exists within. There is nothing outside of us, everything is perceived within our awareness.

The passage from the general world-view, accepted by all humanity that perceives the world as external to them, to the world as a product of perception within human awareness, is called liberation. The eyes of the masses will open and they will begin to approach the truth.

Then the wisdom of Kabbalah will be revealed not only to specific individuals, but to all, and it will explain to all of humanity its mission and the purpose of man in this reality.

Everyone will realize that our world is not this planet Earth, where we are destined to be born and die, but that it is a small stop-over station, a starting point, from which we have to begin to develop further.
[203193]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/17, Lesson on the Topic: “Daat Baalei Baitam Hafuha Midaat Torah (The Mind of the Landlords Is Opposed to the Reason of the Torah)”

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New Life 819 – Jewish Culture: The Mezuzah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Why are we commanded to put a Mezuzah on our doorpost? What is the special protection that it provides and what is the purpose of keeping Mitzvot (the commandments) in our life?

Jewish customs, the Mitzvot, are in a structure of a branch and root. They are only the signs of the upper spiritual roots. Abraham broke the statues of the idols in order to show the Babylonians that there are no corporeal means that can protect a person. All the Jewish customs are meant to remind us to be in contact with the upper force through love of others.
[201587]
From KabTV’s “New Life 819 – Jewish Culture: The Mezuzah,” 1/26/17

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What is this picture that unfolds in front of us? It is nature that is revealed more and more both within and around us. We uncover nature deeper and deeper and see that we exist inside the system. Apparently, as we exist in it, the system advances us toward some goal.

On one hand, man is a product of nature. On the other hand, we are special creatures of nature that can reveal their maker.

Who created us? Nature. Who advances us? Nature. Where does it move us? Judging by the history of our development, by the process of evolution, we can figure out where we are heading to. So let’s investigate this and find out!

The wisdom of Kabbalah differs from religions in that it gives a person tools for the revelation of the upper force. It tells him what he must do, instead of crying and praying to the idols that we ourselves made in hopes to beg for a good life.

The most effective form of study that helps a person to advance is the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is the difference between the upper force that religious people imagine and the one that Kabbalists, who have contact and relationship with this force, discover. Kabbalists can address the upper force, receive from it, and have precise interactions with it.

And the upper force, meaning Nature wants us to be in such interaction with it. By working with the system of nature, we gradually begin to reveal within it the mind and the feelings that each time are one degree above us.

The problem is that we can’t imagine the upper force that is not clothed in the matter and form. If the upper force is the entire nature, then it as if disappears for us. However, it is revealed precisely in the connection between us in a very clear manner. We have to reveal the Creator as our friend.
[201732]
From the 3d part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/18/17, “Mismach Arosa,” (Arosa Document)

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Question: Why are there many religious texts and prayers that are close to religion in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: Kabbalah is the foundation. It was established before any of the religions. All the texts and all the books that we read like: Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and so forth, are Kabbalistic texts, they have nothing to do with religion. They were written by Kabbalists. They wrote about attaining the upper world and about the higher system by investigating it within themselves based on the connection between them and others. This is high, practical, internal psychological work.

I do not see a single book that can be seen as a basis for humanity besides the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalah was the source of scientific knowledge for scientists, philosophers, alchemists and many others throughout human history. They derived all knowledge from Kabbalah. It is a science.

As long as this wisdom existed among the people of Israel, both the Greeks and the Romans drew knowledge from it and then disseminated it even in Europe. When the people of Israel descended from their spiritual level from “And you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) to the level of “mutual hatred,” the wisdom of Kabbalah was hidden from the people and remained only among a small group of people. Since people became disconnected from the perception of the upper world, they themselves began to imagine it within completely different frameworks and attributes. And from this arose religion, Judaism and from that, Christianity and Islam. So we have become disconnected from spirituality in a 2,000 year exile; we have to explain that Abraham and Moses were Kabbalists and that the Talmud is a Kabbalistic book.

We cannot and should not prove anything to people because everything will gradually be revealed to humanity. People will suddenly begin to understand that the Kabbalistic ideas are correct. Humanity has been divided into many different levels according to their yearning to discover the truth. There are people who want to study the various sciences, to be involved with the arts, to achieve self-realization, etc. And there are people who just want to live normally, and for this religion is necessary for them. But there are people who want to accurately attain the meaning of life; they are the ones who come to the wisdom of Kabbalah.
[199283]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/25/16

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“But the words of the Torah are sublime secrets” (The Book of Zohar, “Beha’alotcha,” 58). What does “sublime secrets” mean? There actually are no secrets. We just are not ready or don’t want to discover them. The secret is with respect to us. The whole world is open!

The upper world, the world of forces, is here. Supposedly, we control it and do what we want in it. But in fact, we have no access to it. It is not possible for us to manipulate the higher forces because our inner characteristics are very limited. If we were to expand them, we would begin to exist within an entirely different world.

Comment: Often we “accuse” the wisdom of Kabbalah of being mysticism, but, in fact, all religions are based upon mysticism.

My Response: People are accustomed to accusing others regarding something in which they are themselves immersed. But the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only about a method through which a person can discover himself individually and not in any other way, and it is not something easy.

It is natural for us to accuse the wisdom of Kabbalah of being mysticism, of fortunetelling, and so forth! After all, there is nothing more hated in our world than the wisdom of Kabbalah because it says that we must correct our nature, change ourselves. Who would want to do that?

Comment: But it is being done in the name of a higher purpose: attainment of the Creator!

My Response: The simple person doesn’t see that and doesn’t want it. For him it is better to shut his eyes like a child.

Question: What is the difference between what the wisdom of Kabbalah tells a person: “Change your nature and rise to the level of the Creator!” and what religions say: “Perform some actions in this world and you will assure yourself of the next world this way!” After all, in both cases, isn’t the person performing actions to gain the next world?

Answer: Certainly, the person is performing the same actions according to his egoistic nature. But to become equal to the Creator, a person must turn himself inside out. This is an absolutely different approach, so few agree with it.
[200538]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 8/14/16

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Question From Facebook: Buddha did not create religion; Jesus did not create religion. If that is true, who created it and for what purpose?

Answer: Three religions exist in the world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Buddhism and all of the rest of the Eastern doctrines are not religions, but currents and methods. They exist without any pretense about anything and without imposing anything on others.

Religions were created as egoistic copies of the wisdom of Kabbalah and come to us instead of the Kabbalistic principle: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches only how to achieve love of others. It is called the inner true Judaism.

When they began to carry out the principle “Love your neighbor as yourself” between a small number of people, they discovered that, as soon as they applied it, they came across difficult problems that tore the people to pieces.

The principle “Love your neighbor as yourself” arouses intense egoistic desires and drives within a person. These are described as the “Wars of the Jews” according to history. Beginning from the tenth century BCE, for a thousand years, terrible things happened among the Jewish people. There was constant, internal civil war.

Even though people struggled to hold onto the level of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” they discovered that they could not. Therefore, the Kabbalists who managed the nation during the period of King David, King Solomon, and the rest of the kings gradually began to loosen up the higher level so as not to approach people with demands that were too high to implement this general rule.

People could not tolerate this general rule, for according to the thought of creation, the law of nature, it was necessary to reduce a person to the lowest egoistic level. So, immediately after they attained the highest level of altruism called the “First Temple,” they began to fall from this level. According to the program of creation, this was necessary.

The people had to maintain this level, but people did not succeed. The sages of the Sanhedrin that stood as their head understood that they would not succeed in holding the people to a level like this, for the people were not prepared to survive physically or spiritually.

So everything gradually deteriorated to a level where the people began to carry out ordinary physical actions instead of spiritual laws. For example, to show love, they would express this with a material gift. If they wanted to create a partnership, it was created externally, not internally. Instead of correcting oneself, a person began to immerse in a Mikveh (ritual bath), etc.

In this way people moved from the inner implementation of the law “Love your neighbor as yourself,” meaning rising above the ego, to the performance of external actions called Mitzvot (commandments).

Beginning from this period until our day, religious tradition became a copy of the spiritual actions that a person performs in his heart. The books of Kabbalah say that one must write a Torah on the walls of one’s heart. It is specifically this which is required of a person.

For this reason, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the interior of the Torah, while religion, which teaches and maintains the Mitzvot until today, is called the exterior of the Torah and doesn’t require a person to yearn for love of others, but only to study and perform physical actions mechanically.

In our day, the period of the implementation of the external part only has finished. According to the law of nature, we must begin to ascend to the next level, meaning from the external implementation of the Mitzvot of the Torah to the interior implementation. The stipulation of “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” must remain our principle, our idea, until we discover that there is an inner meaning to all of our actions.

Question: In the past, people could not hold onto this level. Can they do so today?

Answer: Today, we no longer have a choice. We have done the preparatory work for beginning to apply this principle gradually by connecting in small groups, in groups of ten. That is how Moses united the people after they left Egypt.

We try to apply the law of “Love your neighbor as yourself” in our groups and try to show and teach it to all of humanity.
[201405]
From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 12/21/16

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Question: If we know from Kabbalah that prophecy is very harmful to the development of humanity because it limits it, why don’t the Kabbalists combat this phenomenon? On every television channel today you see fortune-tellers and astrologers.

Answer: Indeed. In the 21^st century, on every television channel [in Israel], not only fortune-tellers appear, but also “grandmas” who read cards, throw beads and coins in the air, and whisper various incantations. Every year they produce astrological calendars with advice of what to do and not do is written for each one of the signs of the zodiac. And this is the 21^st century!

But the worst thing is that all this is attributed to the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to raise the bar and sell it at a more expensive price, while none of this has anything to do with Kabbalah.

Question: Do you think it is necessary to make some campaign to explain this, or will it all disappear by itself?

Answer: No, Kabbalists cannot engage in public relations work. If I were to be fighting all the slanders about the wisdom of Kabbalah, I would not have enough time for anything else! There are billions of people in the world. If each one of them were to say half a word against the wisdom of Kabbalah, how would I be able to carry on public relations work with each one of them?

Their attitude toward Kabbalah comes from their limitations, from their inability to comprehend it easily. But we will still continue to develop, even though in comparison to the 20^th century, this century will be darker and it will pass.
[201525]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 1/1/17

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Question: Most people in the world define themselves as believers no matter what religion they belong to. On the other hand, you talk about unity.

Religion and the wisdom of Kabbalah have their vectors aimed in different directions. Kabbalah always moves forward, religion always returns to the past. There is no common ground between them. How is it possible to find a point of contact?

Answer: It is not necessary to search for one. People will remain in their religions! We don’t bother them about that. Some pray toward the east, others toward the west; this one bows to a stone, that one to a cross, it does not matter. There are close to 2,800 different faiths in the world; it makes no difference.

Kabbalah calls upon people to rise above all religions and cultures to create a single united human society.

Question: From a practical point of view, doesn’t it seem that people who believe are in a state of complete absence of freewill and that every religion divides into “us” and “them.”

Answer: Religion is just like in a family, every culture, and every profession. Anything can separate people.

But it is possible to successfully transcend religious differences. They don’t need to separate us. The time of religious wars has passed. It is not a problem if I believe in one thing and you believe in something else.

Everyone understands that for the world not to explode, we must establish the right mutual connections between us. What relevance is there between this and religion? You live here, I live here, we must reach an agreement like neighbors. If we are hostile toward each other, what is the benefit?
[200127]
From the Webinar “The Year in Review” 12/26/16

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Question: There are now more than 3,000 different spiritual faiths and practices in the world. When a person has a problem, he automatically turns to some force with an internal scream. To whom or what is a person turning to at such a moment?

Answer: If you want to turn correctly, you must only turn to the Creator for help in connecting with others and discovering Him. This means that in the wisdom of Kabbalah we are asking the Creator to change us. Generally, all people ask the Creator to remove the disturbances that are in their way, meaning to change the world “according to a person’s desire.”

Such a “consumer” attitude toward the Creator like this will begin to change when very strong feelings appear in the person that everything that is happening in the world is a result of his attitude toward the Creator.

If we are talking about a Kabbalist, then everything depends on the level he is on. Likewise, a Kabbalist passes through states that bring him below a regular person. When he is in descent, he is able to ask for himself and to carry out deeds that are difficult to define in advance.

But this happens only during a descent. When he is active, when he has power, clearly he always asks for help in changing himself because he understands how the system operates.

A Kabbalist understands that blows are goodness and kindness; they are help and concern from the Creator, because precisely thanks to these blows, he can connect with the Creator above them.

The problem is that the blows don’t happen only to him but to all those who are close to him until the completion of correction. But in the beginning of the correction, everyone is vulnerable to the Creator!
[199950]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/25/16

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Question: The wisdom of Kabbalah was concealed for ages and endless methods of different philosophies have dominated humanity. The wisdom of Kabbalah is a certain worldview. How can I give up my familiar worldview in favor of the Kabbalistic one?

Answer: It’s very simple, all the other methods give us nothing. People will gradually find out that the other methods aren’t good.

Of course, will help them with our explanations, but they have to find out themselves. The wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t compel or force anyone. But undoubtedly, a person must still actively find out exactly how he can change his life.
[199045]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 7/3/16

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