Entries in the 'Torah' Category

If We Only Knew Who We Are Working For!

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus” 2:23: And it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. We should understand that we have to look inside, not outside, ourselves. This is my Pharaoh and my Egypt and it is all inside me. However, I want to build a new self inside me and in order to do so, I have to work hard and kill certain desires inside me and make them collide with one another.

Imagine Moses’ state, the tiny spark of bestowal that grew in the huge ego called Pharaoh’s palace.

The time comes and the king of Egypt dies and I am in the state in which my ego finally dies. I understand that there is no use for it and I want to be free of it, but in the meantime, I cannot. I see that this ego is dead. I want to escape it, but I don’t know how to break free of it.

“That the king of Egypt died,” means that the ego ceased to exist, just as people die in our world. It ceases to exist only in my eyes, in my assessment, and it loses its control over me. I don’t want to be its slave! It still dominates me, but it is already against my will. As far as I am concerned, it dies as other great rulers do and I no longer take it into account.

I cannot be free of its control as yet, but I no longer consider it great and don’t agree to respect it and perform all its caprices. I am no longer its loyal slave.

Look at the world and how people try and do everything for their ego. If they only knew that it is a stranger to them. If only they understood and saw that they are working for a liar who cunningly takes everything they earn from morning to night by their hard work. A person tries and makes efforts, but 99% of the fruit of his hard work is stolen from him by Pharaoh who only leaves him miserable crumbs so that he will not die and continue working day after day.

Everything is arranged and organized around a person. Television, advertising, the press, and elections operate in order to make him a slave who has no way of escaping. But gradually, a person begins to understand that he is a slave, and this is what is now happening to the Israeli nation. A person realizes that he has to break free and escape this vicious circle, but he doesn’t know how.

This is very similar to our current situation; we realize that if we leave things the way they are, we will bury ourselves in our ego, but we don’t know how to escape. We need the force of Moses!
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From KabTV’s “The Torah Chapters with Shmuel Vilozny,” 12/15/14

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“You Shall Be Holy…”

laitman_740_03The Torah portion “Kedoshim” (“Holiness”) explains that we all have to achieve the level of sanctity.

“You shall be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy,” (“You people are to be holy because I, Adonai, your God, am holy.”), i.e., we have to reach complete renunciation of our ego. One is unable to get rid of one’s egoism, but one can gradually rise above it to the level of sanctity and transform the entire depth of one’s egoism to altruism, bestowal, and love. At the same time, egoism won’t disappear. However, because of it we will reach this high state.

The desire to exit from one’s egoism shows up under the influence of the internal pressure, which in its turn, depends on the presence of a soul. If so, one begins rising higher and higher until he reaches the level of Bina, the property of bestowal, the quality of sanctity, and begins following the laws of the Torah.

Then, one proceeds further because it is not the end of correction yet; rather, it’s a beginning, the first part.

Observance of the laws of the  Torah is the “processing” of our ego that we use in a way that is opposite to our egoism. If previously one strived to receive and enjoyed exploiting others, now one maintains oneself for the sake of others. This is called receiving for the sake of bestowal.

Question: Does the Torah say how the processing of egoism happens?

Answer: In general it refers to the rise above egoism. The first part of the Torah is dedicated to the means of achieving holiness. Later, it describes entering the land of Israel, the correction of the ego. However, the Torah describes only the ways suitable for the people of Israel, that is, those who attain this state.

As to correction of the entire world, it is described not in the Torah, but in other Kabbalistic books, such as The Book of Zohar and others.

Question: Does it mean that the Torah is not written for the entire world?

Answer: As a source, the Torah is meant for the whole world because it is written in the universal language that is available to all of humanity. But in order to use the text of the Torah directly, people have to be at the level of holiness, at which, for example, Moses wrote the Torah. That’s why we don’t understand what’s written in it.

Question: In other words, after we ascend above our egos, we genuinely understand and sense what the Torah says. How does the ascent happen: consciously or unconsciously?

Answer: A person has to act consciously. The Torah gives us a direction: “You shall be holy,” that is to pursue this rule constantly. That’s why we have to completely master our egoism and elevate it to the level of sanctity.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/9/14

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Tattoos Are A Sign Of A Passing Reality

Laitman_028_02The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:28: …You shall not etch a tattoo on yourselves. I am the Lord.

A person engaged in spiritual work is not allowed to eternalize an egoistic reality. It is temporary. You exit this reality and it does not exist; it must burn out!

And if you etch a tattoo on yourself, it remains until your death. The skin is the uppermost layer of egoism, the outermost egoistical part. Therefore, the Torah is written on the skin of an animal.

In this case we are talking about the fact that you have no right to use the skin as a monument of your states. By doing so you seemingly stop your movement, you do not want to go beyond the highest egoistic substance.

Nowadays, tattoos on the body have become very popular. We are in the final stage of egoistical development where a person is attracted to tattoos, but they are a reflection of the intrinsic properties that we need to go through to get in to the upper world.
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In Righteousness Shalt Thou Judge Thy Neighbor

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: On what level must a judge be to sentence another person?

Answer: This is a very complex question. After all, everything that a person carries out is done when the Creator turns a blind eye. The Creator allows him to commit a particular transgression against society and even against the Creator Himself.

The question arises as to how one can recognize that what happened is the revelation of evil for the sake of future correction. This question is not very simple. Why does the Creator arrange for everyone that disclosure will happen specifically in a bad way like this and not in a good way?

It follows that the situations were incorrect from the start and work on them is unfinished, both by the person and by society. In order to discover the incorrect situation that there is between them, they must first undergo some kind of transgression and then a correction.

Suppose that someone committed a murder and was caught. This is a problem of society as a whole, since particular conditions exist in it for carrying out a deed like this. How is it that from today’s circumstances, we reach their full correction tomorrow?

All of us are connected into one system. This system breaks down like it does in mechanics: There is some kind of a problem in an engine and one of the parts is broken (analogous to murder). It follows that it is not one part that is to blame; rather, it is in its coordination with the other parts.

So it is necessary to take a new look at the entire engine and find out why this part broke down. Maybe this didn’t happen at all because of the engine? That is to say, the Creator arranged all of this for us.

The correction comes only by covering the broken part. Since it was revealed this way in society and helped it determine its general integral breakdown, all members of society must carry out the appropriate corrections in working with it, taking its breakdown upon themselves and connecting with it as if it were a corrected part.

It follows that society must give a guarantee to a thief or murderer and correct itself so that under the pressure from society that together with it, they will rise to another level. This is where the general recognition of evil happens: the discovery of the overall error, the overall defect. Why didn’t they see this? Why didn’t they discover this in time?

There is collective work here. Nothing is private or individual! You don’t catch the murderer and haul him off to court where the judge immediately passes sentence on him according to the laws regarding punishment: There is no death sentence or ten years in prison. Of what exactly is he guilty?

Only an integral system is prepared to give the right answer to an error like this. Moreover, when we find the right solution, the right completion, we discover adhesion with the Creator within this picture.

The egoistic system of our world is based on the transgressor being guilty and so must be disposed of. It is up to him to express remorse and to sit and suffer. And what is the end of the matter? He takes upon himself the general defect of society and absorbs the entire breakdown of society into himself, and so it follows that he apparently is guilty.

Together with this, society accumulates uncorrected parts like these within itself and attracts all the social evil upon itself from generation to generation. Society forces the transgressors to suffer in its place, when it is cleansed of this egoistically: “Go and suffer instead of us.”

Question: Under our physical conditions is it possible for us to realize a different legal system?

Answer: Can we morally and spiritually establish a balanced system? Can we say how it should look in the perfected state and how imbalance, the loss of proportion and inner tension, is created in it? For this it is up to us to see this system.

Question: Does this mean that only a person who is found on a spiritual level can be a judge?

Answer: A judge is the Light of AB SAG, Ohr Hochma and Bina. Together they work on the desire and reveal it on two sides: Din (judgment) and Rachamim (mercy). Only the right integration between them can reveal the Kav Smol (left line) that makes it possible for a person to be a judge.

Even the ancient Greeks depicted the goddess of justice holding scales in her hand, trying to balance between good and evil. This is a natural human impulse. However, it is not possible to find the Kav Emtzai (middle line) in our world, since it is higher than human characteristics.

The judge must be impartial, so to ensure this, they give him a good salary for then he supposedly wouldn’t require additional money. But the truth is that a judge must be a person who is necessarily even more self-sufficient and simply doesn’t require anything else. Rather, you obstruct him with money. This is an entirely different approach.

We are not concerned about his inner state and suppose that it is up to us to fill his pockets with money so that he will not be tempted to take a bribe. On the contrary! This is how we destroy judges.

Moreover, the judges cannot be completely detached because they live within society and depend upon it. But in truth, the judge must be completely detached from society. This is what we are cultivating within us: the quality of judgment, the judge.

The judge is the highest person in a society! This is a person who is ready to be connected with the Creator; and from this high level, when he understands what the Creator is doing with the society, he can bring correction to a society because judgment is only a system of correction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/02/14

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Don’t Regret A Corrected Level!

laitman_238_02The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:28: Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh…

It is forbidden to regret your egoistic losses in the spiritual work.

In the past you wanted to conquer the world and to take it all: wealth, domination, honor, and knowledge; to control everything, to enjoy everything, and that everything should be yours.

Now, however, when you cross the point of no return in the opposite direction, towards the upper attributes of love and bestowal, when all the forces, desires, aspirations, and hopes turn to bestowal unto others, you should under no circumstances regret the dead desires in the state where you left them, this is called “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh.”

Very often we hear a person complaining: “What a pity that I have suffered so many years…” He regrets his dear dead desires and the years that were wasted in vain: “I have invested all my life in them!” This is how our ego works.

Therefore, at each new stage we must not remember the past. The past doesn’t exist! You have corrected the given level, like a stage in a spaceship, and you should yearn to move forward.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/16/14

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A Stormy Desire Towards The Light

laitman_276_01The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:27: Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.

Hair symbolizes the ways the Light of Hochma spreads from a special unit of the world of Atzilut, from the Partzuf of Arich Anpin. We should constantly add a desire to ascend to this system.

The word “Se’arot” (hair) stems from the Hebrew word “Sauer” (stormy), which means thrilled and excited in one’s desire. Therefore we must constantly try to keep a certain level of tension, of yearning for the current of the Light of Hochma, and then it will descend.

It says: “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard” especially the hair that descends from above the beard. The point is that we distinguish between 13 parts of the beard in the spiritual work, each of which needs a special correction since it is a gradual descent of the Upper Light to the lower consumers, to our souls.

The Light of Hochma, which seemingly flows in a weakening system, is like a power station and different substations of transformers in our world, which gradually change the high voltage from let’s say 50,000 volts to 220 volts or to 115 volts. Thus, you need to constantly control this process in order to maintain your desire in suspense since the descent of the Light depends on that.

There are many back link systems today like counters that determine the consumption of electricity during different hours along the day. A small computer is installed that calculates the consumption of electricity, and in the power station they know how many kilowatts you consume at a certain time during the day or the night. This means that you are linked to the power station.

In the spiritual work there is a similar back link with the source of Light. You need to focus your desires so that thanks to them the Light will be extracted from the source and will descend downwards. Unless your desires for the Light reach the source, it will not begin to generate energy and be focused on you.

This is an action called “Se’arot” when you suffer wanting that the Light of correction should descend on you and allow you to work in order to bestow.

Comment: Despite his lack of understanding of these internal processes, a person still yearns to keep them on a corporeal level. Religious people, for example, keep these commandments at least externally.

Answer: We shouldn’t make analogies between the two worlds. We are the way we are and we should be just the way we are born.

First, we have to think about how to resemble our spiritual figure, while externality is a relative concept.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/9/14

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Winning The Game Against The Ego

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe whole Torah is only about a person’s inner states. Jacob’s family of only seventy people reaches Egypt and settle among the Egyptians. The seventy representatives of the Israeli nation are the seventy major altruistic attributes that go down into the desire to receive, into their ego.

First they reach high positions in Egypt and become managers, but gradually the Egyptians, meaning a person’s egoistic desires, begin to enslave their altruistic attributes and subdue them.

Question: Why does the Israeli nation go down to Egypt?

Answer: The point is that it is impossible to develop spiritually in this world and advance to the spiritual world if you don’t ascend to new levels on the spiritual ladder, which is supported by your ego. The levels of the spiritual ladder are built from the material of the human ego, and the more the ego grows, the higher a person ascends by increasingly overcoming it. This is the only way to ascend from this world to the level of the upper world, from Malchut to Bina.

Therefore, it is impossible to manage without the slavery in Egypt, without Pharaoh, and without all the wicked figures that are revealed that the Torah tells us about. They are all in your heart.

The children of Israel go down to Egypt since there is famine is the land of Israel, meaning that there is nowhere to advance spirituality if you don’t attach your ego to it each time, correct it, and then ascend. This is the only way the spiritual levels are built. Therefore Jacob’s family has no choice but to go down into the ego.

However, they didn’t take into account that a new king rises in Egypt, “a new king that didn’t know Joseph.” The new Pharaoh is the same desire to receive that suddenly begins to grow sharply in a person. A person wants to develop the attribute of bestowal within him, dreams about ascending this life to a more sublime form of existence. Suddenly, arising in him, he sees only thoughts and desires that pull him away from this and which hold him by his arms and legs..

He feels as though a heavy load has been placed upon his shoulders. This means that a new king rises in Egypt that does not know Joseph. The new ego does not want to play games with a person, has no accounts with him, and only wants one thing: that you should work for him like a slave.

It obliges you to live like everyone else in this world, like all the Egyptians, and to be even more egoistic than them. Unfortunately, the Israeli nation today manages to be loyal slaves of the ego.

The Jews win Nobel prizes and are very successful the world over and even take pride in the fact that they are more successful corporeally than everyone else. We have taken the greatest pride in being the European basketball champions, have learned the Greeks’ games and began to play these corporeal games even better than they did..

Our ego is ready to work for its own benefit and this is called Pharaoh. If the desires for bestowal, spirituality, connection, and unity, which should be an example for everyone, are revealed within us, Pharaoh which is the force of the ego that manages us, immediately kills them.
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From KabTV’s “The Torah Chapters with Shmuel Vilozni” 12/15/14

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Miracles That Slow Down The Advancement Of Humanity

laitman_629_4The Torah, “Leviticus” (Kedoshim), 19:26: …neither shall ye practice divination nor soothsaying.

Question: Why is it forbidden to practice divination or soothsaying?

Answer: The point is that divination or soothsaying can provide a person with answers to questions that trouble him, but he has no right to use that since such actions are not aimed at bestowal but actually at satisfying his ego. It doesn’t mean that he closes his eyes and advances like a blind man. There is no such thing in our spiritual advancement at all.

“Neither shall ye practice divination or soothsaying” means that all the actions you perform in your mind and heart should be aimed at bestowal, that such actions aren’t focused on you, like in the case of divination or soothsaying. Here you should simply determine the way you act in complete bestowal unto the Creator, unto those around you, and move forward. Then you don’t feel the need for divination or soothsaying. You should ascend above your ego without seeing your future since the next level has to be in complete concealment.

Imagine that a certain airline’s plane disappeared and no one knows what happened to it and whether it was hijacked, sank, or exploded. Suddenly I appear on the radio or hold a press conference and say that I can find it. My announcement causes a stir all over the world and they do actually find the lost plane. At the same time I explain to everyone that I managed to do it because I engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah and that the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about the next world etc.

Comment: This is where the powerful popularity of the wisdom of Kabbalah stems from…

Answer: Yes, but it is forbidden to do so. Everyone will immediately run to Kabbalists spurred by their ego, all the people in the world would want to become Kabbalists, but what’s the point?

Comment: But the Creator actually operates that way! When Moses said that the people wouldn’t believe him, the Creator answered him, “Throw your rod to the ground,” and the rod turned into a snake. This means that Moses performed miracles on behalf of the Creator.

Answer: The Creator did that in order to harden Pharaoh’s heart even more and to give the people the chance to escape from him, so that they would have no chance of thinking that he was actually right and that he had certain powers. You can imagine that if I really did say something about the plane the human ego would rise to such a level that we wouldn’t be able to explain anything to people. The ego would also leap in us and how?! Since they would all begin to bow to Kabbalists.

By performing that action, I would bury everyone in their ego and we would have to wait a few more centuries until all this will sink and then start anew from scratch. The upper system of connection is very meticulous with regard to any spiritual matter that can enter a person since by such things he may not hear us and therefore it says: “…neither shall ye practice divination nor soothsaying.”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/9/14

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The Kabbalists About The Nation Of Israel And The Nations Of The World, Part 15


The Israeli nation must fulfill its mission.

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar“: Thus you see that the redemption of Israel and the whole of Israel’s merit depend on the study of The Zohar and the internality of the Torah. And vice versa, all the destruction and the decline of the Children of Israel are because they have abandoned the internality of the Torah. They have degraded its merit and made it seemingly redundant.
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A World Without Borders

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Leviticus,” Parshat Kedoshim, 19:23-25: And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as forbidden; three years shall it be as forbidden unto you; it shall not be eaten. And in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy, for giving praise unto the LORD. But in the fifth year may ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you more richly the increase thereof: I am the LORD your God.

Question: What is the intention of division into three, four, and five? What is this gradation within a person?

Answer: A person who is involved in correcting himself has five levels of ego within himself. In the first three levels (0, 1, 2) he can’t feel his egoistic desires yet, just as a little child who is also unconscious of himself. After he goes through these three years, he attains the fourth level, the level of the sacred.

In the fourth level, the level of Bina, he must give all the fruits that he grows in the present level. This is called bestowal in order to bestow. And on the fifth level, his reception will be intended in order to bestow and so on this level, he can consume the fruits of his effort.

In the physical world, when talking about fulfilling a Mitzvah (precept) of consuming fruit, we take into account only what grows within the boundaries of the land of Israel, and not what is outside of the land. So from generation to generation, there have been constant debates about where the true borders of Israel stop. According to the Biblical borders, all of the holdings of King David, which existed even before the first Beit HaMikdash (temple), belong to Israel.

This included quite a wide area that included Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon. And so when we bring fruit that grows from there, a problem is created. On the one hand, the Israelites didn’t grow the fruit, but on the other hand, it is not clear in whose territory they were working. There are a great many questions here, but they don’t affect us since we are involved with spiritual correction not physical correction.

It is said: “And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food.” In spiritual work, when you come to a desire and begin to work with it, it transforms from the level of the still to the vegetative. You can use it in order to bestow, only after you pass it through the first four phases: 0, 1, 2, 3 without using it, for in the fourth phase of Bina, everything is transmitted to the Beit HaMikdash. Only in the last phase is it possible to use it for yourself, because now your reception will be in order to bestow.

Question: Do you suppose that the physical borders of Israel must be like those in the days of King David?

Answer: According to the Talmud, there was a time that the borders of Israel stretched from the Nile on one side, including the Sinai, and on the other side, to Babylon.

I suppose that we don’t need to argue about this at all because the correction that is forcefully approaching us now will, in any case, destroy all the borders and blur them between the different people, their cultures, and all the different forms of life. The correction will unite everything and the mixture of the people will itself become the same Babylon, except corrected.

Question: Why doesn’t this directly affect Israel? Why is the mixture of different people taking place everywhere, whereas Israel is apparently left on the side?

Answer: It is because Israel must be the teacher, the leader of the overall correction, and must provide the demonstration of the correction.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/09/14

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