Question: When you are asked a question, you answer according to the following principle: first you answer once, and, inside the same answer, a second time. Why is the answer arranged like that?

Answer: Because first I have to answer the question itself, and the second time I have to answer in general where this phenomenon comes from, why it exists, in what form it takes place, and so on. That is, I don’t just want to answer the question, I want to give a general form of what kind of natural phenomenon it is.

Question: So you are not doing this because the person did not hear the first time and he needs you to explain the second time?

Answer: No. I don’t refer the question to a person at all. I look at the question as an opportunity to reveal some greater part of the spiritual world or the connections of the worlds.

Comment: It happens that you are asked a question and you answer as if you are on your own wave. The student says, “No, I meant this!” and still you keep going on your wave, and the others think: “Oh! You answered his question!”

My Response: I’m actually answering his question; he just doesn’t hear it. I’m not going somewhere to the side, but I just want him to see it from my side. Otherwise he won’t understand the answer.

Question: So you need to find a workaround, not a direct one?

Answer: This is not a workaround. I believe that my path is the most direct and general. I give both a linear path to the answer and a circular one, which generally includes the whole general problem and its specific solution.

Therefore I have two approaches: I always outline the general state and a specific answer.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Ask a Kabbalist a Question?” 3/6/13

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Question: How is a question formed? Where does it come from? Is the person who asks you a question just an irritant that allows you to give out information?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How should one prepare for this? How can you ask a question correctly?

Answer: The question, in fact, is to cling to me and make me want to lift the person who asks the question up like a child who runs up to an adult and asks to be held in his arms. This is the real question, and all the rest is nonsense.

Comment: I noticed that there are two types of people. The first type is when a person wants to hear from you something specific: “No, I am asking him this!” And there are people who understand and as if follow your flow. You start answering, and the person possibly had another question in addition. But he sees that you are now revealing this topic better, and he supports it rather than standing his ground.

My Response: These are big problems because we have a large number of people who want to hear, who are perhaps tuned in to a completely different wave. Then someone breaks into a general conversation and begins with his personal questions or with something he imagined to lead everyone somewhere to the side.

In this case, I try to react either harshly or not at all because it is important for me to maintain a common spirit so that people continue to ride together and rise. Therefore, if someone asks some questions from the outside, I can cut him off and that is it.

For me, the main thing is that the general flow is observed.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Ask a Kabbalist a Question?” 3/6/13

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Comment: You recently defined that the student can measure his progress by the extent that he tries to adhere with what the teacher tells him, meaning, the degree to which he replaces his opinion with that of his teacher’s.

My Response: This, however, is not an easy combination, it is not easy for a person to replace his opinion with the opinion of a teacher. This already is a high flight. Who can do it? I do not know.

This is possible when the student and the teacher are in adhesion, in connection. This is learning “from mouth to mouth.” The student rises by faith above reason contrary to his understanding and accepts the opinion of the teacher above his own and is happy about it.

This is a purely spiritual action that can only be done when you are inside a group that supports you because otherwise you have no strength for this; when you receive nourishment from the upper light it changes you. Thus you aspire to a state above reason and feelings. This is a completely different contact and is no longer our world.

Comment: Actually, this is impossible to do in our one-sided perception of the world.

My Response: Yes, you will have to change it. But this does not entail any physical changes. You just need to rebuild the system of values so that the opinion of the teacher, the opinion of the group, and that of the friends is higher than yours and you are ready to annul yourself before them. This is the minimum without which there is nothing more to do because in this way you rise above egoism and you have a new quality, the quality of feeling outside of yourself.

The quality of “feeling” the teacher, the friends, and the group means that you begin to feel something outside of yourself. In this “something outside of yourself” you will feel both the Creator and the upper world. You will make a substrate based on which you can feel this.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. How to Find out My Spiritual Level?” 3/21/13

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Question: Why is it that no method accepts criticism of its so-called guru?

Answer: This is certainly incorrect. After all, we are engaged in the correction of man. Let him do anything he wants, just do no harm. Therefore, there are two very interesting laws in Kabbalah.

The first condition: You can do everything you want except harm the group where you study or slander it because this prevents attracting people who want to join this group.

The second condition: When it seems that the Creator tells you: “You will not succeed—why are you here?” You must stay and check! In general, you are given all the opportunities to intensely and fruitfully study, analyze, prove, ask, and convince.

This method requires a very tedious approach. You must bite into it and start implementing it on yourself together with the people who surround you, and not believe anyone. On the contrary, you must doubt everything.

Otherwise, how will you be able to rise and adapt to your teacher and try to be like him? It is from the denial—that he is not right—that you will understand what he is standing on and how he builds himself. This is the only way. After all, everything we have exists based on positive and negative.

If you do not have the opportunity to criticize and be in the state of opposition, how will you be able to build a state of similarity to the group, similarity to the teacher, and similarity to the Creator?

Coming from this point of view, you can see that all other methods are baseless because people who are engaged in them cannot make anything out of themselves. This is because from the beginning they are prohibited to have such a comprehensive, fearless, and critical attitude toward the very teaching, toward the inner movements, toward the friends, the teacher, and even toward the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Criticism of Kabbalah” 2/20/13

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Comment: You told me how your teacher Rabash was patient with his haters. He tried to justify everyone because he perceived everything as an interaction with the Creator, as a common system.

My Response: Yes, but all the same, in interaction with the Creator there are such images that are pleasant, decent, and noble and there are ones that are opposite them. Therefore, I do not have to love everything. If I love everything, I will not correct anything.

Question: Then what is the essence of this correction? Was Rabash processing what was revealed to him within himself and then giving out this information?

Answer: He was not saying anything to anyone. He was only teaching his profession: how, by controlling yourself, one can begin to control the immediate environment and build the next degree through it. This is the profession of the Kabbalist.

But he was not giving out any useful information. Today I do it because the world has become common, round, and interdependent. The world depends on how we develop relative to it and how it appears to us relative to ourselves.

This interdependence forces the Kabbalist today to come out of his corner and take some interest in politics, economics, and so on. This is why I write relevant blog posts. Kabbalists of the past did not even dream that they would have to answer such questions and be engaged in this.

Comment: Rabash, however, was very secretive. Apart from the information he passed to you, he did not really get in touch with anyone.

My Response: He did not have to. Who could he talk to? There is nothing to talk about with believers, they simply believe. There is nothing to talk about with non–believers, they do not believe. He only spoke with those who came to him and wanted to study, to sit down and study.

Even when a person comes and sits down, what is there to talk about with him? There is nothing to talk about. You open the initial material or give him to one of your students so that he can study with him. Rabash never studied with the new ones. He always passed them on to others. That was all.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Love the Enemy” 2/18/13

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Question: Do you think there may come a time when students will be able to see you as a friend?

Answer: I would like that, but it is unlikely. I do not see this yet, and I am afraid of spoiling the energy for the students that gives them a special idea about me.

The fact is that when a teacher becomes the same in the eyes of a student as the student himself, a problem arises. He loses the energy of movement; there are all kinds of doubts about the knowledge that he receives from the teacher; he disregards him. In order to feel close to the teacher, the student must be ready for the state where he deifies his teacher. This is not easy.

I know this from my own experience—when you cook food for the teacher, go to the sea with him, to the sauna, take care of him in the hospital, and he is sick and helpless, and you have to feed, wash, and clean him. Rabash had both hands and face burned, and I was with him for several weeks.

These are all complex processes for the student and teacher that come from above, and they must work with each other in this way and understand why they are given this. The teacher understands. For a student, however, this is a terrible problem! We need to understand what happens at this time, what thoughts, tips, and preventions are given to the student.

Comment: Our entire world is built on hierarchy—the president and his entourage, for example. But their relationship is certainly different than what you describe with the teacher.

My Response: With a teacher, you are given such thoughts, desires and circumstances that you have the full opportunity to disregard him. It is very hard for you to tune in to something good. Very hard. This is work, and this is a struggle.

We say that in the group you need to elevate your friends, the ten, and the Creator in your eyes, that the importance of the goal determines the energy that you can expend on moving toward it. But with a teacher it is even more difficult. The reason is that in the group you have the support of your friends. Regarding the Creator, you also have the support of the group. With regard to the teacher, it is not enough to see from the friends that they exalt the teacher.

Moreover, it depends on how the teacher behaves. Some do everything to attract people who would idolize him, respect him, and be attached to him, which is a purely Eastern technique of cunning in processing a person. This is an anti-Kabbalistic entity.

I do not do that. I studied with Rabash who was an absolutely simple person that walked freely through the streets of the city at a brisk pace; in no case did he break away from the people, as they say.

Next to him, I felt that this is exactly what a person should be. There is no other way if we are all equal under the Creator. And I respected him for that.

However, there were those who said: “Well, what is this? Is this a rabbi? Is this a respected spiritual leader?” Where are these hundred and fifty kilograms of weight, where is this importance and slowness in communication? Where is his splendor in conversation when you ask, and after five minutes he slowly turns to you, answers a couple of words, and you are already satisfied that you heard some kind of response from him? There is nothing of this! Because everything is based on actions.

It was the same with Baal HaSulam, because we are dealing with nature, with science, with the methodology of changing a person. There is no relation to religion, no manipulation; you are given a technique, and you are taught how to use it. That’s all.

Comment: Still, many people treat you with great reverence.

My Response: I am trying to transform all this into clearly businesslike ways of changing a person in his work on himself. Let him respect me only to the extent that he needs to listen to what I have said. That is all. I do not need anything more from him!
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Confessions of the Kabbalist” 2/23/13

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Comment: There are people who perceive your words as the truth, and there is a category of people who think: “He said it so many times and where is it?”

My Response: The fact is that everyone should agree with the truth. Not consent a priori like with some guru. For example, the Dalai Lama says something, and it is not discussed at all, no other thoughts are considered—nothing. That is, it is the truth. When he is present at any international meetings and says something, everyone is silent. Everything is the first instance, i.e., manifestation of God on earth. No one argues with him.

Therefore, he is invited to very few places, and he goes to very few places. He is just a respected person, like an idol.

But not me. I want to be checked, studied, and analyzed for each of my proposals, and everything to be approached critically: “Why did he say that? Why not the other way around? Is that correct or not?” It is all so that a person, by chewing over my every sentence, would change himself in accordance with it or against it.

I am interested in a critical approach. This is the most important thing for students. That is why I do not suppress them, I explain it again, I repeat it again, and I love it very much when they pester me. Let’s say he wants to push me down on my shoulder blades—please, “put the squeeze on me.” It helps me to express myself better. This is necessary.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Criticism of Kabbalah” 2/20/13

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Question: In a situation where your words cause a student to refute them and he tries to as if win a dispute, why does it give you the opportunity to say more than if the students listen to you in a state of admiration?

Answer: A person who develops a critical approach has some thoughts of his own. He does not just say: “Ah, nonsense!”

There are people who wave it off without even hearing anything. There is no point dealing with them. They lack the normal absorption of thought and the opportunity to learn.

And with those who delve into my words—even if they are wrong and are deeply mistaken and hear me from a completely different angle, from a different, very distant state—I still begin to work gradually to bring them closer. He helps you express your thoughts. This is why I tolerate him.

There are students who pester me. But although each of them is very opposite to the whole group, it is still worth expressing myself regarding him because this will then help individuals similar to him.

I give a lesson not only for those who are here or in the world in general. The recorded video and audio lesson will be revealed later somehow. After all, what you give out into the world—what you say, what you think and feel—remains in space. Like with Baron Munchausen, then it thaws and sounds.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Criticism of Kabbalah” 2/20/13

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Question: When you say that a person who attains spirituality burns from the inside and it really begins to be felt, do you take analogies from what you perceived yourself?

Answer: Of course from myself! Everything that exists in the world, a person lives through himself. Look how everyone lives their life: short or long, more or less prosperous, suffering, with problems, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Question: You are talking about such scorching things! Did you really have to go through this yourself to feel all that?

Answer: By going through it, I saw that if I deviated to the right or left line, I would either turn into a “flatbread,” or it would be something perfect—a soft down pillow that would smoothly slow down my train.

Question: So, when you went through these states, did you clearly feel each of them?

Answer: Yes, because a person usually walks in the middle line. He still hits a barrier that slows him down, but it is like hooks grabbing you when you need to stop. These grips slowly slow you down.

Question: And everyone will have to go through these states?

Answer: Of course, it is a must: the right and left lines upon which you build the middle line. It depends in what form, that is, to what extent. In accordance with my soul, I had to study so much and disseminate so much. There are such souls among the souls, not high, but just special. They are required to be teachers or leaders in charge, and so on.

Once we visited a former student of Rabash and he, looking at me, said: “I look at you and how many years you have been doing this. I remember once you had a fight with everyone, including Rabash and refused to go to the coast with him. Then I went with him. And there I asked him: “Rav, why don’t you expel this Laitman? Look what he allows himself!”

Rabash replied: “I would kick him out, but he has a special soul.” I did not understand it then, but now I see that you do not give up, you continue and keep hitting one spot all the time.”

Why am I saying this? Not to spotlight myself. There is nothing special about it because the Creator appoints and removes. But everyone simply has a mission, and it must be fulfilled. I feel it pressing on me, and I am implementing it. Is it possible to escape from it? It is forbidden. Whether you agree with it or not is your problem.

I am trying to agree, to justify the Creator’s plan, in relation to myself at least. Therefore, I have no questions about how I live. I feel that it must be done.

And what is interesting about Kabbalah, the more you study, the more you realize that this image you are playing now does not really exist. Nothing remains of a person! It is in our world, in its history, we remember great or famous people, positive or negative. But there is nothing left at all! That same integral point remains in the huge system, which played its role because the Creator played it that way. And that is it.

So, I have a very simple mission. I am trying to do the maximum of what I feel from my science. As much as it works, it works, as much as it does not, it does not.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. To See the Future” 2/5/13

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The odd synchrony between new eras and revolutionary kabbalists”

This week, we commemorate the anniversary of the passing of the great kabbalist Isaac Luria, known as the Holy ARI. It is therefore a good time to reflect on an odd synchrony between his arrival and the global events of his time. However, before we speak of the ARI, we should speak of the founder of the wisdom of Kabbalah, as such, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, also known as Rashbi.

Rashbi, author of The Book of Zohar, the seminal book of Kabbalah, lived at a critical junction in the history of humankind. He lived in the 2nd century CE, not long after the ruin of the Second Temple and the exile of the people of Israel from Jerusalem and dispersion throughout the world.

That period, the first CE centuries, was a time of radical global transformations. The world was shifting from paganism to monotheism. Rome was gradually declining, along with its pantheon of gods, and a fledgling religion that became known as Christianity was accelerating its expansion. That time also saw the dimming of the Greek culture and the beginning of a darker epoch in the history of humankind: the Middle Ages.

When the Middle Ages had ended and a revival known as the Renaissance began, a new kabbalist with revolutionary teachings emerged, as well. Isaac Luria, The ARI, lived in the mid-16th century. That was also when the Renaissance was beginning to spread throughout Europe. It was also the time when Martin Luther lived and spread his ideas. These two revolutionary movements, Renaissance and Protestantism, had changed the world forever. Lurianic Kabbalah, named after Isaac Luria, The ARI, was equally revolutionary; it changed the way Kabbalists studied and taught Kabbalah, and paved the way for explaining it in a manner that the world can understand.

The third great kabbalist who lived at a pivotal time in history was Rav Yehuda Ashlag, known as Baal HaSulam. He lived through both world wars and warned of an impending genocide of the Jews years before it happened. He also lived to see the establishment of the State of Israel and the emergence of the Soviet and American blocs.

In his writings, Baal HaSulam wrote extensive and clear commentaries on the writings of his two predecessors, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s The Book of Zohar, and the writings of The ARI. He is the one who truly made Kabbalah accessible to everyone, and who pioneered the spreading of the wisdom of Kabbalah to the entire world.

While I do not see a direct connection between the arrival of revolutionary kabbalists and the advent of ideological, religious, and cultural transformations in the world, there is still a connection between the two in the sense that they both express the appearance of an evolutionary change in humanity. The world changes in its physical expression, and Kabbalah changes in its spiritual expression, but both processes demonstrate the advent of a new phase in the evolution of humanity. Therefore, while they happen simultaneously, they are not derived from one another.

The odd synchrony between the arrival of new eras and the appearance of revolutionary kabbalists is therefore created not because they are connected to each other, but because both are connected to the same source, the engine of reality, the creative force of giving that engenders everything, sustains everything, and develops everything to its ultimate goal: complete unity of all things, bound together by threats of mutual giving and love, in utter oneness.
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