From My Facebook Page Michael Laitman 7/31/22

This week, we will be commemorating the anniversary of the passing of one of the world’s greatest spiritual giants: Isaac Luria, known as “the holy ARI.” Although unknown to many, his writings form the basis of today’s wisdom of Kabbalah. It is thanks to him that Baal HaSulam was able to make the wisdom of Kabbalah accessible to the entire world in the 20th century.

The ARI was truly unique. Not only did he pass away at the early age of 38, but everything we have from him, volumes upon volumes of wisdom, he dictated to his disciple Rav Chaim Vital, who wrote down his every word, and he did it all within the final 18 months of his life.

The ARI took a wisdom that contains all the secrets of life, and stripped it from the countless stories and legends that enveloped it precisely in order to make it abstruse. He felt that in his generation, it was time to begin to reveal the true meaning of the hidden wisdom: the wisdom of Kabbalah.

When he first came to Safed, the city where he spent the final months of life, and where he taught his disciples, no one recognized his greatness. At that time, the greatest Kabbalist was RAMAK, and the ARI also went to learn from him.

But when RAMAK, a great Kabbalist in his own right, realized the greatness of the ARI, he praised him publicly in the highest terms so everyone would recognize his greatness: “Know that there is one man who is sitting here,” he said about the ARI, “who will rise after me and enlighten the eyes of the generation in the wisdom of Kabbalah. For in my days, the channels were blocked, and in his days, the channels will be revealed. Know that he is a great man, a spark of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.”

By saying that the ARI was connected to Rabbi Shimon, author of The Book of Zohar, the seminal book in the wisdom of Kabbalah, RAMAK was actually saying that all the words of the ARI are true and holy, and that anyone who wishes to learn the authentic wisdom should study with him.

It took many years, even centuries, for the great wisdom of the ARI to become known, but today we know that were it not for Lurianic Kabbalah, which is named after him, the secrets of the wisdom of connection, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, would still be concealed from us.

Thanks to the teaching that the ARI had founded, and which Baal HaSulam interpreted for us, we know how humanity should live, how to build a sustainable society where people care for one another and practice mutual responsibility.

In today’s tumultuous times, it is the great wisdom of the ARI, wrapped in the commentaries of Baal HaSulam, that enables us to make sense of things and find our way in the growing confusion of humanity. Through their wisdom, if we want to, we will sail safe through the troubled water.

[Image: Old city of Zfar by Leonid Levitas @Wikimedia Commons]
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Question: There is a very enthusiastic state in our group today. And our prayer is rather a gratitude to the Creator for our greatest teacher who unites us and gives us strength to move forward at every lesson! Our prayer is to adhere to the teacher at all times and to achieve everything to bring him joy, to bring contentment to the Creator!

Answer: Thank you very much! But the most important thing is not a teacher, but a friend. When you adhere to a friend, you definitely discover the Creator who is between you. The teacher is only on the side, he is pointing and correcting, like a coach. Your most important struggle and achievement of the goal is between friends.

Comment: Yes, however you give us a lot of strength to unite between us.

My Response: That’s right, but still follow your friends! Bow down to your friends, annul yourself before the friends, and adhere to them! Do everything for them, and then you will reach the goal.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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Question: Is there such a technique that when you want to convey internal information to someone, you yourself become lower than him?

Answer: You yourself do not become lower than him, but you deliberately make a conscious lowering in relation to him in order to help him enter into you, to come closer to you. Similarly, we talk to children in their language, relate to them according to how they can understand us, and explain everything to them while becoming as if we are like children ourselves. If I am talking to a child, I am not talking like an adult, but am trying to be on his level.

Question: Is it possible that you deliberately become lower than a person in order, on the contrary, to somehow enter into him and spread internal information in him?

Answer: No, you cannot spread information from your step down! The lower level will not be able to accept it. It will be like poison for it. Only if it rises to you, that is, acquires new Kelim (vessels), new desires, opportunities, and aspirations, then it can receive something in them in addition to its condition, and not otherwise.

There is no way you can go down and fill someone down there. You must help him rise up and fill him up there.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Public Speaking” 6/29/14

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A person who teaches Kabbalah has states when he can express his thought technically quickly and correctly, and there are states when he needs to express something emotionally without a special technique of speech, and then these emotions are conveyed even better. After all, he has to strain himself emotionally and send an invisible charge from himself to others.

This often works better than beautiful words. There is contact between the internal systems of the one who wants to convey and the one who wants to receive.

This is more effective than words because it enters directly without clothing in phrases that should pass into some meaning, and then the meaning in some way should pass into feelings, and the feelings should be felt and absorbed. This whole mechanical chain does not exist because the message goes straight from heart to heart.

It depends on the contact between the student and the teacher. It either exists or does not exist. However, it mainly depends on the student. If he wants to connect with his teacher and be as connected with him as possible, to drown in him, to be absorbed by the teacher, and asks for it, then it happens.

Question: You are talking about an internal request. How can we build it so that it really comes from the heart?

Answer: Gradually, by elevating the teacher in your eyes, above all your opinions, above all possible corporeal conditions. By understanding that you are given a great, unique opportunity to receive something from the teacher, and it is necessary to take advantage of it, to not neglect it, to not postpone it for later, to not accept it as something ordinary, and to not transfer it to some corporeal relations and corporeal benefits.

This is a very big problem of the interaction with the teacher because a person is given difficult conditions here. Yet, if he observes them more or less, he can obtain contact with the Creator through his teacher. At the same time, they should build such a chain when the lower one is completely immersed in the upper one.

We study this from the system of building blocks of the upper system where each degree enters the higher degree, and that one enters an even higher one, and so on. Therefore, if the lower degree enters the upper one and exists there as an embryo inside its mother, then it can develop with this upper degree, at least in the first nine degrees. This is called nine months of fetal development.

Then it goes outside and gets its own external model of development, which also depends on the upper one, like a baby who was born and develops next to its mother. The nursing period lasts two years, growing up six years, childhood and adolescence twenty years, until full maturity.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Public Speaking” 6/29/14

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes that the condition for the independence of the state of Israel will be met if the nation becomes the basis for the spiritual development of all humanity. How do you envision it?

Answer: If we strive to be the spiritual center of the world and to show the whole world the quality of bestowal, love, and connection, then we will get the strength to hold ourselves, to support others, and to achieve it so that we will be understood, loved, and respected.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual states” 4/26/22

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Question: When you talk about the spiritual system, you always radiate confidence that everything comes from one source. Are you 100% sure of what you are saying?

Answer: Why should you believe me? So what if I say,”Of course, I know; of course, I see; of course, I feel; of course, it is in me; of course, I am in Him.” What is the point of saying that? It is still empty words for you.

I am passing on the knowledge of this system to you gradually to the extent that you can adapt it inside you and begin to implement it in some way. Some of you are implementing it and some of you are not yet. But as long as you are able to absorb it into yourself and at least partially comprehend, understand, and realize it, we are moving forward. Of course, I would like to go faster.

But what can you do!

Comment: When you explain, you kind of give us hope.

My Response: I do not give you any hope. I convey what I feel. And if you do not implement it, then you will not have any hope. You can feel it only to the extent that you have the appropriate tools.

Comment: You clearly convey to us those feelings that you yourself perceive; although, when we talk to each other, we speak more in your words.

My Response: Naturally, it is similar to when children hear something from adults, they repeat their words after them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. First Aid in Descents” 2/16/14

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Question: When a student unquestioningly follows the instructions of the teacher, is it not idolatry?

Answer: No. He worships the knowledge and insights of his teacher, not the person himself.

Comment: In this case, anyone can say, “I bow not before a person, but before his ideas, before his qualities.”

My Answer: In principle, each person can determine what he worships and whether he is an idolater. How do you know what and how, and toward what he leads himself. There are no external indicators in spiritual things, only internal ones.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 4/5/22

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Question: The German philosopher Herder argued against war as a legitimate course of action and criticized the age-old justifications for the use of military force and subjugation of one nation by another.

What should replace the glorification of military achievement, heroism?

Answer: Nothing. A hero is someone who can prevail over himself, over his egoism. The hero is the one who defeats himself. By this he is glorified.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 3/4/22

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Question: If previously the process of new students coming to your community consisted primarily in the fact that people met physically, got acquainted, and influenced each other, today this is not the case. Does it reduce the degree of connection and the impact of communication?

Answer: I think that, on the contrary, it is perceived more clearly and explicitly.

If, for example, a friend of mine is ill now, then I really feel that I am missing something, i.e., something has formed in me that needs treatment, recovery, and replenishment.

I believe that our world group in the virtual world of communication, if you can call it that, has first of all grown. If there used to be 2,000 of us, today there are already 6,000 or 7,000 of us clearly present at systematic lessons and taking part in the life of the community.

If today we made a virtual, all-inclusive congress, the number of participants would be close to 10,000 people. We see that such communication helps us. It does not oblige people, but on the contrary, does not bind them. You come in whenever you want, attend lessons, and discuss various topics through computer communication.

But time did it all. Therefore we need to actively explore virtual space.

Comment: It is quite possible that by using modern technologies we can also allow such a form of development of your community as a real virtual world in which we will sit in the same hall wearing augmented-reality glasses and study together in one huge congress hall, just as we do today sitting in front of computer screens.

My Response: It is not a problem at all. Today I feel my students from South America to North America, across the entirety of both continents. I feel students living in Africa, Australia, and Asia, in absolutely all countries. They feel like they are with us.

Comment: Imagine such a picture that other people will be able to enter this virtual huge congress hall.

My Response: We are open to everyone. We never hide or close anything. And why? Our task is to connect all of humanity to this.
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From KabTV’s “Virtual World” 2/9/22

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Question: How do you manage to annul yourself in front of your students like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma?

Answer: What can I do? You see how you are forcing me to adapt myself to you. Unless it is in serious contradiction with the teachings of Kabbalah, with advancing, I annul myself before you. If you want to study something else—please. I may gradually correct this, but in general, I follow your requests and desires.

So it is written: “Train a child according to his way;” that is, as he wishes. You educate him, but in a way he can perceive. We must find an adequate approach to everyone so that they can get hold of the material. Do not present it by force but in a wrapping he can accept and swallow.

Even such a great Kabbalist as Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma could not do anything alone and was completely dependent on his students. They were small, but there were many of them, and they wanted to come together for the upper goal. And he was ready to always be with them because only together can people reach heaven. This is what we hope for.
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From the International Convention “Rising Above Ourselves” 1/8/22, “Deriving the Greatness of the Goal from the Friends” Lesson 4

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