Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor in it in vain.

The Creator must build the structure of our soul, not us by ourselves. So how can we enter this house built by the Creator? On what foundation does it stand?

The entire foundation of this house is my ten. This is as if I am digging holes in the ground and pouring piers into them that I will use to support the house I will build. This foundation is inside my egoistic desire; I dig holes in it and lay foundation piers in them. Or the house will not stand.

I have to strengthen this foundation, go deep into the ground, and cast the sole of the foundation on which I will install concrete piers. When I erect as many posts as required according to calculation, I will already be able to build walls between them, floor coverings, and so on. This is our work both in spiritual and corporeal construction. The same principles apply in all worlds.

Each pier the building stands on is our connection. We must connect through all possible kinds of connections: the first time according to the qualities of a friend, the second time according to the qualities of another, the third time according to the qualities of a third one. This is how we build a building that has ten main Sefirot.

Then, inside this frame, we begin to build floors and lay floor coverings between the posts. This is already through a simple connection between us on the same level when each completes the other by annulling himself in order to be connected.

There are many details in this, which due to the reflection of spiritual roots are also present in our corporeal world. Mainly, connection happens through different forms of our mutual self-annulment.

To build a connection between us means to build the Temple, the building of our soul. We try to build this connection and see that we are not able to do it, starting all over again every time from a new rejection and despair. Then we realize that we are lacking the force of the Creator to hold us to support the building.

We connect with one another, but the Creator must hold this connection. Then we add one more, then another one, and the Creator holds it all. We need Him as the force that holds us together when we try to get closer to each other.

We need the Creator as the basis of our work, we need Him to organize it, to preserve the successes we have achieved, and to correct our mistakes. We need Him every step of the way. We put our desire in, and the Creator corrects it, joins one to the other, and holds it together.

It is impossible to do anything without the help of the Creator, and without the work of the Creator, nothing will be built in the correct form.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/22, “Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor in it in vain”

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Question: What does a person discover for himself when he enters The Book of Zohar?

Answer: A person begins to feel the immense world that this book tells about. The world suddenly opens up in front of him from all sides, like a spherical screen.

Moreover, it does not just move apart like a screen, it’s as if it gradually disappears, like a sphere filled with dark light that slowly evaporates, and there is a feeling as if you are in a cosmos of sensations of interconnection between you and the general force, the Creator.

By the way, many of the people who have been in outer space feel that way. They are disconnected from the influence of Earth’s inhabitants, and although they are under constant pressure from Earth, they still feel that humanity has a different purpose, that the universe is full of thought, and that this is a grand vision. They speak about this sensation, not because it exists in space, but because the Earth is not pressing on them there.

Question: How many times have people tried to visualize a spiritual state and invent some images or 3D graphics, but it is all very limited. And according to the sensations, a person perceives only light? How is it possible with the help of words and images to convey this?

Answer: Nothing can be conveyed! No hints! There are articles and if you feel something according to the article, you feel it; if not, then no.

These feelings cannot be conveyed because we are not adequately attuned to them. If in your five senses there is a sensation of salty, bitter, sweet, or some sounds, or some smells, or touches, etc., then something can be conveyed to you. You’ll remember or tune in.

And if you don’t have this sense organ and its archive, if a certain set of impressions is accordingly absent, then nothing can be done.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Entering The Zohar 3/22/13

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Comment: Sometimes what you said yesterday seemed like it was the most important to us. But then soon after, you are already attaching importance to another process, then the next one, and so non-stop. Then it seems: “Where do we go”?

My Response: This is because a person who is at the beginning of the path is confused by this.

Let’s say we are walking along the road with you and I give you all sorts of instructions: “Think about the goal, take a wider step, take a deeper breath, swing your arms wider.” For you it looks like they cancel one another, but in my mind it does not.

A person feels and hears what he is able to perceive from all the information. This is how we are arranged, otherwise we simply would not be able to do anything. In this way at least we do what we hear.

Comment: Many of those who come to Kabbalah think in a standard way. Let’s say we have chosen a direction, as in business and we are going toward the goal, then we begin to face a process in which it’s not the final profit that is important, but the process itself. A person begins to get confused and thinks that they themselves do not understand what they are doing, meaning there is no clear corporeal framework.

My Response: Yes. This is why a person chooses something narrow for himself and holds onto it, like a little child to his toy or doll, and thus continues to go. This is natural for beginners.

I see it and wait for the person to develop. There is nothing you can do, as this is how we grow.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Contradiction” 3/20/13

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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “What I Wish for Israel’s New Chief of Staff”

Herzl “Herzi” Halevi, the current deputy chief of staff, will soon become the 23rd chief of staff of Israel. Congratulations. The Israeli army faces countless challenges, from terrorism through conventional warfare, to nuclear weapons. On top of it, it is a melting pot of the Israeli society, where all the factions live together, work together, fight together, and die together. It is clear, then, that the task of Israel’s top commander is not an easy one.

What makes this task even more daunting is the fact that there is really no way to carry it out successfully. The army cannot stop terrorism, cannot thwart the nuclear threat, and cannot win a conventional war because there is none, and if there were, it would mean that the army’s deterrence has deteriorated to the point where a war could break out, so once again, it is a failure.

In order to end the Sisyphean struggle on multiple fronts, it is time for the army to consider a new focus for its efforts. Since the IDF is already a melting pot where all factions of society work together, even if against their will, it makes the army willy-nilly the ideal arena for enhancing social cohesion and solidarity.

It is not as if the army does not know this. Every army base is peppered with slogans that praise unity and mutual dependence. However, signs and slogans do not anchor unity in people’s hearts; mutual efforts for a common goal does that, alongside a constant educational effort to explain the paramount importance of these values.

Our biggest problem has always been division. Even the mighty Roman army could not defeat Jerusalem were it not for the infighting among the factions within the city in the final days of the First Temple.

Nothing has changed since then. When we are united, we are invincible. Israel’s solidarity is so potent that it not only vanquishes any enemy, it turns foes into friends and makes Israel welcome among the nations, the opposite of our current status in the international arena.

Enhancing solidarity should therefore not be a byproduct of the army being a social “eggbeater”; it should be a key component in our defense strategy.

Israel will not defeat its enemies until it defeats its internal enmities. Once it achieves this, it will discover that it has no enemies, and that its only nemesis has always been division.
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Filed under: Israel, Israel Today, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: The Klipot remain with us until the end of correction. How can we protect ourselves from them?

Answer: Only by getting closer to the friends, only when a person clings to his friends and wants to be one with them. There are no other means because the Klipa is the desire to move away, to push away, to isolate oneself from others in order to concentrate inside oneself.

There is a common Klipa in the group that acts to separate friends; it is pride, envy, etc. And there is specifically the Klipa of Al Menat Lekabel (Amalek) that acts against the greatness of the quality of bestowal, the upper force, the Creator. It says to a person: “Your benefit, your profit is more important.”

Question: Does it mean that it is impossible to go through all the spiritual work and all the clarifications and not fall into Klipot?

Answer: Naturally we must fall and rise, fall and rise. In this way, from our falls, we will raise a little part of Klipa with us, a little of this husk, a little of egoism, a little envy, jealousy, and everything else. By raising these pieces of our egoism, we will correct them.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/21/22

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Question: Usually, we rise after falling into the Klipot. Is there a state when you fall into them and can’t come back?

Answer: No, this practically cannot happen because the Creator, the upper force, takes care of everyone and raises everyone anyway. So it doesn’t matter if one fell or didn’t fall. It is also said about this: the righteous man will fall a thousand times and rise.

Question: So there is only a difference in time, one fell and got up in a second and the other in a year?

Answer: It depends on the speed at which a person prepares himself to rise.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/21/22

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Question: You once said that corporeal love is just a hormonal craving to calm the “evil inclination” and that there is no love within our framework. Did I understand correctly?

Answer: Love is a mutual attraction based on the ascent above mutual egoism, rejection, and hatred that arises in people who consciously work on it.

This feeling arises in order to become integrated with each other: I am in his desires and he is in my desires. To the extent that we rise above egoism, annul it, and wish instead to work with the desires of other people in order to fulfill them, to love your neighbor as yourself, precisely here love appears.

But what does love itself mean? It does not come from us. Precisely because we destroy our personal egoism and become included in each other, light enters into this mutual inclusion. The Creator, who is love, becomes revealed.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Hormonal Love” 5/1/13

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There are two states to that rose:

1) Katnut—the beginning of her formation, in which there is only the Sefira Keter in her, in which her light of Nefesh is clothed, and her bottom nine fall outside of Atzilut, in the world of Beria.

2) Gadlut—when her bottom nine rise from the world of Beria into the world of Atzilut and with them, she is built into a complete Partzuf with ten Sefirot (Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai [Rashbi], Zohar for All, The Rose).

Question: What advice would you give to a new student who finds himself at a Kabbalah lesson for the first time?

Answer: Our Source is called “Infinity” (Ein Sof). From there, through the world of Adam Kadmon (AK), the light descends to the common Tabur (navel). Below are the Partzufim of the world of Atzilut: Atik, Arich Anpin (AA), Aba ve Ima (AVI), and ZON (Zeir Anpin and Nukva). And below them are the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya.

We study about what is happening in the world of Atzilut. For us, it is of utmost importance because here is where governance is conducted and where the past, present, and future are contained. It is concluded with the Parsa (border, separating line), which restricts the spread of the light of Hochma (Wisdom).

Below, in the worlds of BYA, are the broken souls, and all the way at the bottom below the common end line (Sium) of the light coming from infinity is our world. Here, we exist in our bodies until we are awakened spiritually.

The souls raise their desire, their appeal for correction, to Malchut of the world of Atzilut. It utilizes the connection with Zeir Anpin and raises the souls’ desire to Him.

To the extent that Zeir Anpin connects to Malchut, they become a joint Partzuf called ZON and ascend to AVI. Zeir Anpin ascends to Aba, the fatherly Partzuf, while Malchut ascends to Ima, the motherly Partzuf.

ZON obligates “father and mother” to give them all the necessary lights, corrections, and fulfillments and then they return to their place. There, they become “big”; they acquire the adult state of Gadlut. This helps us clarify the meaning of the two states of the rose, that is, Malchut: Katnut and Gadlut.

In the first state, it represents only the point of the upper Sefira— Keter, whereas its other nine Sefirot are below the Parsa. Also, here are the forces of Klipot (filth, shells). This is the meaning of the phrase “a rose among the thorns”: Malchut among the Klipot. It is Malchut’s first, smallest state.

In her adult state, Malchut elevates her lower nine Sefirot, makes a Zivug (mating, coupling) with Zeir Anpin by unifying with him and thereby becomes a genuine rose, blossoming to its full beauty. Malchut can become this way only when her “thorns,” meaning Kelim (vessels) that are unconnected and unfulfilled by Zeir Anpin, ascend to a Zivug with him.

All of this is evoked by the broken souls when they unite together and it is they who bring about the correction of Zeir Anpin and Malchut. Herein lies our entire work: to bring about the correction of ZON until they reach their ultimate state.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/10, The Book of Zohar “The Rose (Shoshanah)”

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Question: What is the “greatness of the Creator“? What does “His greatness is concealed from me” mean?

Answer: This means that you do not feel Him, do not see Him, do not understand Him, and cannot influence Him in any way. Accordingly, He seemingly does not influence you.

Question: Does it mean that a Klipa protects us from the light of the Creator?

Answer: Yes, it protects us from coming closer to the Creator. If not for this, we could hurt ourselves a lot. It is similar to how we are afraid to leave a child alone with some kind of devices or circumstances that could harm him.

Question: We are studying that the Creator is the power of love, bestowal and unity. If the force of love is revealed to me, how can I use it to my own detriment?

Answer: Of course you can. You will want more from Him than you can use correctly. Then you will have to be limited.

Question: Does it mean that the Creator’s love for the created beings can be used to one’s own detriment?

Answer: Of course. Big time! This is a terrible force! Therefore, there is a Klipa that does not allow you to do this. It conceals this possibility.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 8/21/22

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Question: In The Study of the Ten Sefirot, it is said that at the beginning of creation in the upper light there was neither beginning nor end. How can we understand this?

Answer: There was no time; that is, nothing was changing.

In order for time to appear, it is necessary for the desire to feel itself in some state and these states would begin to change and give the desire its qualities. Then the desire will begin to separate one state from another, and a feeling of change from the first state to the second, and to the third will appear in it. This is what characterizes time.

If there were no changes, we would not feel time. That is, it is a subjective feeling of each of us.

In principle, time is a change of states. Therefore, there is no time in spirituality; there is only a change of states.

In our world, we feel time because our body is constantly moving somewhere both internally and externally. It is being influenced and it is influencing. We feel all these changes as the framework of time in which we exist.

In other words, in spirituality, if I do not do some actions myself, consciously, then my states do not change, and therefore there is no time.

In our corporeal world, it doesn’t matter whether I do something or not; changes still occur instinctively and unconsciously, i.e., they are embedded automatically. This is why there is a sense of time in our body.
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From KabTV’s The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES) 8/14/22

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