Obstacles—Help in the Spiritual Work

Question: What tests and obstacles does a person engaged in Kabbalah usually encounter? How can you recognize that it is an obstacle and not help?

Answer: An obstacle is also help. Help cannot come by itself. It comes precisely in the form of obstacles. For everyone who moves forward, the entire path consists only of guided obstacles where one moves forward as a result of a person’s struggle with them.

Comment: It is considered that help is when a person receives help.

My Response: Do not help in any way. The desire of a person to move forward is help. The fact that one is not allowed to move forward and all sorts of obstacles are placed before him is also a help. It is both of these forces, one that pushes forward and the other that does not allow him to go forward, that develop him.

Question: Which helps more?

Answer: The preventing force.

When disruptions do not allow a person to move forward and he is trying to figure out how to go through them and what to do with them, this is a real help. As it is written: “I will make for him a help made against him.”
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 6/23/19

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All the elements of a Kabbalistic meal are specifically created so as not to detach a person from thoughts about his spiritual purpose so that he understands where and with whom he is, why in this way he is attuned to the upper world, to the Creator, and why he should not break away from it.

All the blessings, conventions, and laws are necessary only for a person to constantly feel in every action and every thought that he is in the field of the Creator. When he begins to feel this field, then he will do it all in a natural way.

The work itself, the efforts themselves, should show a person that with their help he can come closer to the Creator all the time.

No one forces him to do them. As a person begins to understand their meaning, he chooses for himself one or another level of observing these blessings.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/9/21

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Question: What did the mixing of the properties of the Creator and creation lead to?

Answer: At a certain stage of development, the creation only received, and then there was a mixing of the altruistic properties of the Creator with the egoistic properties of the creation, which caused the breaking.

That is, the desire that received for the sake of others to pass through itself all the highest pleasure, began to receive for itself without passing it to others.

In our world, the breaking is manifested in the fact that today any person can not only receive, but also give only with an egoistic intention.

But thanks to this, there is a connection between us. If everyone only received, there would be no connection between people at all, like between small children who do not understand, do not feel each other. In order to take something or give something, you need to feel the others.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/23/21

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Comment: Our viewer Galina Azaria writes: “Michael Laitman, I am very grateful for your instructive, informative programs. I am interested in one question, and no one else will answer it except you. Who is the Messiah? Will the Messiah come soon? If he comes, will there be changes on our planet? Why are so many people waiting for him? Who is he?”

My Response: The Messiah is not a person. It is a special force of nature that pulls us out. Therefore, it is called “Messiah” from the word “Moshech” (to pull out). It pulls us out of our egoism and thus brings us closer to each other and helps us create a better atmosphere, a better society, better families, and so on.

This positive force acts even now, but in a very small capacity. However, we are getting closer to the state when all of us will think and hope that this force will be manifested more.

Question: Despite the fact that we are egoists? This is a bit contradictory. He pulls us out of egoism, and egoists suddenly think “Let the Messiah come.” Why do they think that?

Answer: In principle, we theoretically agree to exit egoism, and no one wants to admit that he is an egoist. Therefore, if the Messiah pulls us out, it will be like the current pandemic. Some kind of a virus comes into the world and annoys us until we wish to free ourselves from this egoism.

He must show us that this is necessary. No one in the world feels that this is what hinders them.

Question: He must demonstrate to us that this is evil. Will he then pull us out according to our request?

Answer: Gradually, according to our consent, he will pull us out.

Question: What is above this line?

Answer: There is the same life there, only not egoistic; instead you live for the other, and everyone lives for the other. This is a completely different system of relationships, connections, and values. Then everything is fine.

Question: What kind of system of values? Does the concept of “love” exist there?

Answer: There is nothing else besides providing service to the other. A person feels his freedom, his destiny in this.

Question: Does it mean that you do not even think to grab everything for yourself?

Answer: The thought is there. However, if a person rises above this, he has great pleasure. If there is no thought to grab, then what will be the pleasure from bestowal and love? Therefore, “to grab” remains.

Question: Does ascent above your nature bring great pleasure? Is this what a person will want to come to?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 7/8/21

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And Joshua rent his clothing and fell to the earth upon his face before the Ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust upon their heads.

And Joshua said, Woe, O Lord God, why have You at all brought this people over the Jordan, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to cause us to perish? Would that we had been content and dwelt on the other side of the Jordan! (Prophets, Joshua, 7:6-7:7)

Joshua sees his mission is impossible. He cannot do anything. Therefore, he says to the Creator: “You have given us all the opportunities, but they are impossible to implement.”

So similarly the children of Israel complained earlier: “It would have been better if we had stayed in Egypt!” Or as Moses said: “Why did You give me such a people?”
The same thing is repeated all the time.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/12/21

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The Spiritual Basis of Man

But attaining its emanator is a deficiency toward itself, and this is its being. (Baal HaSulam, A Sage’s Fruit Volume 2, “From My Flesh I Shall See God”)

The attainment of the Creator is originally embedded in the soul. A person yearns not for comprehending itself in life, but for attaining the root of life, the Creator.

There is a record of spiritual information inside us called Reshimo, which is revealed from time to time and demands its fulfillment. This is man’s spiritual basis. This is the reason we feel the urge to know everything: Who am I? What am I living for? Where am I headed, etc.?

A person cannot remain indifferent to these questions because if he does, then who is he and what is he living for? It is very important for him to discover his origin and destiny, at least the starting and ending point of his earthly existence. Otherwise, we simply live as beasts and even worse than beasts because they do not have all these questions.

The question is how to realize our internal impulses and find answers to them.

Here, the wisdom of Kabbalah comes to our aid and explains everything very clearly. Later, if we wish to achieve revelation, we have to make serious efforts.

That is, it feels itself as an emanated being. All its events aim toward it, and this is the deficiency that it feels— that it will be able to attain its emanator.

The higher the soul, the more strongly it yearns for that.

Even from the people who come to us to study one can see how strong, stable, and consistent their yearning is or, on the other hand, how inconsistent they are and can easily leave everything and go. This is the first point.

Second, a person is tested by being given all kinds of obstacles in life and he shows to himself and to the upper forces that develop him the extent to which he is ready to stay on track, to keep developing, and has no intention of giving in to or to follow any corporeal interruptions.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 6/23/19

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Zohar for All, Chayei Sarah, Item 74: All the deeds of wicked Balaam were from the side of impurity.

All the villains: Balaam, Balak, Pharaoh, Haman, and others are the result of the serpent. The serpent is their common property, and they are all partial manifestations of it.

In the beginning of his deeds he took a serpent from among the serpents and tied it before him. He split the head of the serpent and took out its tongue. Then he took certain herbs and burned them all and made a single incense out of them. Then he took the head of that serpent and split it into four sides and turned it into a single incense (Item 77).

Making incense is making the most of your egoism.

Balaam is a property that pulls us to be so selfish that we do not even know what it is. Only as we climb the spiritual levels do we begin to feel it.

In fact, everything that is written in The Book of Zohar talks about people who are already spiritually ascending and feeling these problems.

Around it, he drew a single circle and would say things and do other deeds until he drew upon himself the spirits of impurity, which informed him what was needed. And he acted by their words, according to what they knew from the side of that serpent of the firmament (Item 78).

The task of Balaam is the same as that of the snake. All the negative characters in the Bible are intended only to continue the same work, that is, to come to a person at the right time and sting him with their egoism.

The fall of a person into egoism shakes him up. From this state, he begins to see a distant goal and to rush toward it. Therefore, he needs such a shaking, what is called the awareness of evil.
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From KabTV’s “The Power of The Book of Zohar” #16

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Prophets, Joshua, 10:11: And it was as they fled from before Israel, and were in the descent of Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them to Azekah, and they died. There were more who died with the hailstones than whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.

Question: What does it mean that the Creator threw stones at the enemies of Israel?

Answer: He makes people’s egoistic desires so heavy that they are unable to escape anywhere. They are obliged to die, to surrender, which means to stop being in their egoistic desires.

A person stops using them. This is his correction. The Creator burdens his desire so much that he cannot remain and somehow maneuver in his egoism. This is the end of his authority over himself.

After all, self-control implies that he can move from one desire to another, to manage himself. And when huge desires rule over him, he can do nothing.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 7/26/21

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Question: By vessels (Kelim) in Kabbalah we mean our desires. What is the breaking of the vessel (desire)?

Answer: If a desire to enjoy for the sake of the other can appear in a person, then such a desire, in principle, is not forbidden by anyone and is even encouraged by people because at that time a person does not think about oneself and does something not for oneself, but for the sake of others.

But in general, if such a perfect desire suddenly turns from receiving for the sake of another into receiving for oneself, then such an inversion, such a change of intention, is called a fall, breaking of the desire.

To correct it, we need a special upper force that can change the intention to receive for ourselves into the intention to give to others.

According to the axis of time, the process of the breaking the vessels took place at the beginning of creation before the human appeared. At the beginning of human origin, a desire to receive for the sake of others was created, which passed the breaking and turned into a desire to receive for oneself.

Question: Are these some potential states of a person? Does one still have to reveal them? We aren’t studying history, right?

Answer: It is not about any kind of history. Everything happens in the same desire, outside of time, space, and movement. All this is inside us, like our whole world in general. Someday it must be revealed.

A person will have the possibility to receive not for one’s own sake. But first, one must understand that such a state exists, one must investigate it, and then begin to realize it.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 7/23/21

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Question: Someone left a comment about your video clip entitled “It Is Time to Learn How to Govern Creation” that says: “I want the upper world.” What does “I want” mean?

Answer: This is a very correct feeling. A person begins to feel that it is precisely the fact that he lacks the feeling of the upper world that creates emptiness in him, and therefore, he is moving toward its attainment. He cannot explain why, but he really needs it.

He wants to understand himself, to understand the Creator, to understand his destiny, how to reach perfection, the purpose of life, its meaning, and what he lives for.

Question: Can this desire attract and frighten a person at the same time?

Answer: Yes, but in general it attracts.
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From KabTV’s “Kabbalah Express” 7/19/21

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