Comment: A group of scientists from Tel Aviv University examined the correspondence of the garrison force at the 600 BC Tel Arad fortress and concluded that the Bible was written several centuries earlier than has been believed until now.

As we all know, the Torah was written after the return from the exile in Babylon because there were not enough educated Jews who could write it. Now following this discovery scientists are re-examining when the Bible was written.

Answer: The first book about the wisdom of Kabbalah was written by Adam about 5,770 years ago. During the time between Adam and Abraham, there were several other writings by different Kabbalists. Abraham, as Rambam claims, wrote many Kabbalaistic books, but only one remained until our days, The Book of Creation. Abraham, who lived in ancient Babylon 3,500 years ago, gathered a group of people who became the nation of Israel with time. All the members of the group had to learn how to read and write. They spoke Hebrew because Hebrew and Aramaic were the languages spoken in ancient Babylon.

Abraham’s group was founded in order to attain the upper world in the connection between people. On this basis, they naturally understood the origin of the letters, the roots of the words, and felt the language of the branches, the upper attributes of the world, which have no names, called roots, and are named by their consequences in our world, which are called the branches.

Many books were written in the time between Abraham and Moses because all the Jews were highly educated from Abraham’s time onward. Since the exile in Egypt onward, the Jews left Egypt on a totally different level of consciousness and attainment because during their life in slavery they got to know their work in the ego. During the 40 years of wandering in the desert they began to write the Torah for all the nations.

It says that Moses taught his students along with his assistant Joshua. Moreover he taught all the people because the Levites engaged in the general education and teaching of the nation.

Question: How long did the writing of the Torah (Pentateuch) take?

Answer: The Torah was gradually created during the 40 years of wandering in the desert. Everything the nation of Israel underwent in practice took place internally in their spiritual roots, and they expressed this in the book called Moses’ Torah.

When they lived in the land of Israel after the building of the First Temple and then after the building of the Second Temple, they wrote all the other books including the “Prophets” (Naviim), the “Holy Scriptures” (Ketuvim), and the Mishna.

From the time the two temples were destroyed and before they were exiled, the Talmud was written, and all the other books were written while they were in exile.

The Torah says that there wasn’t a child from Dan to Beer Sheba who didn’t know the Jewish laws and who didn’t know how to read and write. They knew most of the books by heart because that was the ancient method of studying; students had to learn by heart what the teacher taught them.

Question: This means that there was never a break in literacy.

Answer: Since the time of Adam, in those circles where Kabbalists lived, there was almost universal literacy. Abraham eradicated illiteracy among the ancient Babylonians who joined him.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 4/14/16

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The Story About Rising on the Steps of Love

Question: What does Torah write about according to the wisdom of Kabbalah? Does it describe the historical events?

Answer: The Torah describes the upper system that governs the entire world, including me. It explains how I can reveal this system and establish the direct, “short” relationship with my Creator.

The Torah gives a person the opportunity of bringing him to the love of the Creator through the love of the neighbor as himself. Love is the deepest and the most inner and intimate connection. Torah brings a person to these relations with all of humanity and with the Creator. This is not only spiritual, but also the complete instruction.

Question: Still, did the events described in Torah actually happen?

Answer: These states occurred within a person who was in the process of attaining the Creator, correcting his properties to such a degree until they would be equal to the properties of the upper force, and climbing the rungs of bestowal and love.

Question: Did people like Moses and Abraham exist?

Answer: Of course, they existed. All spiritual states described in the Torah also were realized in the material branches of this world. Every spiritual root has to touch its material branch and become manifested in it.

Question: Who was the first man, Adam HaRishon, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: A man whose name was Adam lived 5,777 years ago. He is considered the “first man” because he was the first one to reveal the Creator, the upper force, and he wrote a book about it titled Angel Raziel.

He was a person like you and me. After him we are called people, “children of Adam” (Bnei Adam) since all of us came from him.

This is not because he was the first human being in this world after the monkeys. Just like other people, he was born of a mother and father. However, Adam is called the first man because he was the first who revealed the upper system and the upper force existing within it, which governs all of us.

Question: How long has the world existed according to the wisdom of Kabbalah: 5,777 years or 14 billion years?

Answer: Obviously the world has existed for 14 billion years. The Kabbalistic books describe the Big Bang and the evolution of the world. Baal HaSulam writes how the Earth was going through the periods of warming and cooling for the duration of 30 million years. People simply don’t understand what is really described in the Torah, and therefore they get confused.

Even 500 years before Darwin, the great Kabbalist the Ari wrote that a human being developed from a monkey and this development took tens of thousands of years. All evidences obtained from the archeological excavations are true. Kabbalah is a science rather than a blind belief. It is based on Kabbalists’ research of reality. This research gives them the understanding of the world.

Question: Not everything described in the Torah seems to be like real events. For example, I never in my life have encountered a snake who could speak or a sea that could split.

Answer: The Torah does not speak about our world, but rather about the upper world. However, all spiritual roots reach our world and govern it. For example, the original serpent is our egoism, which sits within us and tempts us all the time.

The serpent, Adam, and Eve described in the Torah are the inner, spiritual properties that exist in each of us. The Torah speaks about the inner, spiritual properties within a person. When a person develops himself through the study of Kabbalah, he attains the forces existing within him, that relate to each other like Adam, Eve, the serpent, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This is an inner dialog within a person.

Moses and Aaron exist within each of us. Everyone reveals the book of Torah and finds it within himself. The nation of Israel and nations of the world, Nebuchadnezzar, and Maccabees are all different forces of our soul.

Within us there is always a battle between the good and evil forces, which we are created from, as it is said “I created the evil inclination and Torah as addition to it as a remedy for its correction.”

The force of evil is constantly growing within us, manifesting itself with greater strength each day. At the same time, we have to attract the force of good, the Light of Torah that returns us to our source, through the study of Kabbalah. Thus we will constantly balance the growing force of egoism with the good force.
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Israeli Radio Program 103FM, 02.28.16

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New Life 706 – Jewish Culture: The Light In The Torah
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe

Rav Laitman tells his life’s story, about his grandfather, a synagogue in Russia, and his search when he arrived in Israel. The desire to know what is behind the Jewish rituals brought him to the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalah teaches us that there is a special force in nature called the Torah.

The Torah is not a book but the force for the correction of a person’s ego. When we connect, together we can draw the force of the Torah, which will build the love between us and reveal the Creator to us.

In the material world we have different symbols indicating the upper spiritual roots. The Light in the Torah is a force that is in nature like other forces, and we can reveal it in the connection between us. This force is not in a book in the Holy Ark written on parchment. The book is only a symbol of that force. This is the reason that it says: “I would rather they left Me and kept my Torah, since the Light in it reforms.” We have to pay attention to others, which means to want to reach the state of good relations between us, so that we will be as one man with one heart.

The Light gives us the answers to existential questions such as: What are we living for? And why can’t we receive everything?

Everyone understands the Torah according to his own capabilities. Thus Kabbalists don’t see stories in the Torah but the phases of correction. The Light is a natural force that can be identified with the suitable device, and that device is the special connection between us.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 706 – Jewish Culture: The Light In The Torah,” 3/17/16

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Question: Why do you believe that you are allowed to teach the Torah to people who are not Jewish?

Answer: According to the Torah, the goal of creation is to bring all the created beings to adhesion with the Creator. Adhesion is attained by the correction of the ego to love, as it says: “love thy friend as thyself; this is the great rule of the Torah.” Jews are a nation that has to fulfill the Creator’s rule first, and then teach it to the whole world. This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah says and what I believe. I will refer to the following items:

The source of the prohibition

Contemporary Rabbi Yoel Shwartz, says: a non Jew who studies the Torah commits a sin. It is forbidden for Jews to teach the gentiles the Torah. The prohibition for a gentile to study the Torah is first mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud: Rabi Yochanan said “A gentile who studies the Torah should die, as it says, ‘Moses commanded us a law, an inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.’ (Deuteronomy 33:4). This is our legacy and not theirs!” (Sanhedrin 59:1).

“It is forbidden to teach the Torah to gentiles” (Hagigah, 13:1). Rambam quotes Rabi Meir as the authority, “a gentile who studies the Torah should die, and they are allowed to study only what is related to the seven commandments” (Mishna Torah, the Laws of Kings 10:9).

Shmuel Abuav who lived in the 17^th century said: The Christians use the Jewish writings in order to prove the reliability of their faith and it is therefore forbidden to teach them the Torah.

However, there are quite a few examples of famous rabbis who taught the Torah to gentiles. A teacher of the German researcher of Judaism Johan Raichlin was the composer of the classic commentary of the Bible, “Our Story.” Such people knew the Halacha and couldn’t consciously break the rules of the Torah!

Rambam said that it forbidden to teach the Torah only to the gentiles who don’t acknowledge the Godly nature of the Torah. “We can teach the Torah to Christians because they believe that our Torah was given to us by God through our teacher Moses (Pe’er Ha’Dor, 38).

The Talmudic scholar of the Middle Ages Menachem HaMeiri said that if a gentile studies the Torah out of curiosity, it is not forbidden to teach him. This became relevant in modern times when the question of whether it is allowed to teach Jewish matters at universities arose.

The American Rabbi Jacob Weinberg said that when a gentile studies the Torah for academic purposes, there is no prohibition to do so. He was a lecturer at the non-Jewish University of Giessen in Germany who taught the Torah and the Talmud.

In the 19^th century the Lithuanian, Rabbi Israel Salenter dreamt of turning the Talmud into one of the subjects at non-Jewish universities and at that time only gentiles studied at universities.

Teaching mixed groups

Halacha authorities such as Jacob Weinberg, Isaac Klein, Moshe Finestein, Ovadia Yoseph and others claimed that the prohibition to teach the Torah refers only to a group that is totally non-Jewish, but it is possible to reach the Torah to a Jew in the presence of gentiles even if they can also study.

According to Rav Finestein a non-Jewish slave of Raban Gamliel, Tabie, is mentioned in the Talmud as a great expert in the Torah. Tabie acquired his knowledge when he was present in the lessons given by Raban Gamliel to his Jewish students. The sages of the Talmud had no problem teaching the Torah even when there were non-Jews among the listeners.

The seventh Rabbi from Lubavich welcomed the study of the Torah by modern means of communication and in modern languages although this form of teaching included many non-Jewish readers and listeners.

Constraint: The prohibition to teach the Torah to non Jews is cancelled if there is a government decree because disobeying such a decree might endanger the Jewish community. Today any attempt to separate Jewish and non-Jewish students in academic institutions might arouse negative responses. Thus a Jewish lecturer may believe that he is constantly under the government decree which nullifies the prohibition to teach the Torah to non-Jews.

Is there a prohibition to teach the Torah to non-Jews?

Rav Isaac Ilinburg (1550-1623) noticed that his Italian colleagues taught the Torah to non-Jews. He emphasized that neither Rambam nor other Halacha authorities ever mention the prohibition to teach the Torah to non-Jews.

He thus concluded that parallel expressions in Masechet Hagigah are not the Halacha at all. He said that he was not ready to publicly declare that only for fear of the reactions of his colleagues.

Rav Arie-Leib Ginsburg (1695-1785), the author of The Lion’s Roar, holds the same opinion.

Summary:

History provides us with plenty of examples of non-Jews who studied the Torah and used their knowledge not in order to harm the Jewish nation but in its favor, in order to contradict false accusations against Judaism.
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New Life #369 – The Heroes Of The Bible: Moses
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

Summary

What is Moses’ heroism? How does he lead the people of Israel toward fulfilling the connection and unity between them, and how is this historical story related to our life today?

Moses was raised as a prince at Pharaoh’s palace until the age of 40. When he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew man, his point in the heart was awakened. The killing of the Egyptian symbolizes Moses’ reluctance to be part of the Egyptian culture, values, and idols.

Staying at Jethro’s home is an intermediate stop before the next 40 years. Moses’ heroism is in accepting the mission he was given and not evading it. Moses serves Israel; he takes them out of Egypt and brings them the Torah, which is all about “love thy friend as thyself.”

Everyone gets a chance to be like Moses during his lifetime, but we evade it. To come out of Egypt, out of the house of Pharaoh, means becoming free of the domination of the ego and coming out to the love of others.

Moses demands and receives powers from God. Anyone who wants to help others advance receives the powers to do so. Egypt is the egoistic force; Jethro is wisdom in understanding the ego. The giving of the Torah is receiving the method to correct it. Today heroes are those who can lead our society and free it from being slaves to our egoism.

It is a pity to wait for the 10 plagues today. It is better to advance on our own toward connection, toward brotherly love.
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From KabTV’s “New Life #369 – The Heroes Of The Bible: Moses,” 5/13/14

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New Life #368 – The Heroes Of The Bible: Yael And David
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Yael Leshed-Harel

The Biblical heroes Yael and David are human figures who, despite their weaknesses, act for the nation and its unity. What makes them special and what is demanded of them in order to win the battles of Israel?

Summary

A woman usually thinks about the wellbeing of her children. Yael acted for the wellbeing of the whole nation.

The feeling that the whole nation are her children is what gave her the power to act wisely and use her female power. Her heroism is in being able to widen her heart, to widen the boundaries of love and include the whole nation.

The idea behind the story of David and Goliath is that every ordinary person who follows his truth and the upper force will win.

A shepherd is one who leads the nation, who wants to protect the nation and to lead them to the upper force.

There is an inner war here: David defeats Goliath, acquires his enormous strength, and uses it positively. If one nation conquers another nation it absorbs its values and its spirit after a while. David is a hero for harnessing the strength of Goliath in order to follow his own way, in the positive direction. Goliath symbolizes the egoistic use of power, in order to harm people. David uses power in order to increase love. David was fueled by Goliath’s strength and then went his own way, toward love of others.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life #368 – Jewish Culture: The Heroes of the Bible – Yael and David,” 5/13/14

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The Torah describes spiritual properties, not physical characteristics. For example, there is the property of “Moses” in every person. Even the Creator exists in every one of us. After all, a person is a world in which there is absolutely everything!

Therefore, the Torah speaks about how one can balance his inner world and connect, correct, tune, and calibrate it correctly.

Only then can one use it to reveal the Creator through the correct interaction of all of its parts. The inner harmony that is formed within a person gives him the sensation of the upper existence. This is the force that fills, balances, and governs everything.

When all parts balance and complement one another within us and there is nothing left that would work in a corrupt way, then the common property called the Creator is formed. This is the revelation of the Creator.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/12/15

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The problem of the world is that a correct connection between people doesn’t exist. A correct connection is a system in which all the parts are found in mutual relationships between them and in harmony, where all are concerned about the welfare of the entire system and nobody is concerned about his own welfare. In a situation like this, the system is perfect.

When people attain a connection like this between them, they begin to feel nature and not themselves. The nature that they begin to feel is called the “Creator” because they discover its mind, program, and purpose.

Beginning from Abraham, people began to attain the harmony of nature in the connection between them, they discovered the Creator. The students of Abraham behaved according to the general laws of the world, to the extent that they discovered the Creator. This behavior came to be expressed in daily activities and in the relationship with the environment, and it was derived naturally and directly from their sensations. The activities that the members of the group of Abraham implemented seemed like they were only mechanical actions to someone who didn’t belong to this group and didn’t feel nature and the system of connection between people.

A harmonious mutual connection between people is called “love,” so it is said: “I created the evil inclination, I created the Torah as a spice.” The intention of the word “Torah” is the power of the Creator that is designed to correct the relationships between us, the relationships of egoistic mutual rejection. Involvement with the correction of the egoistic nature of a person is called keeping the Torah, and learning the Torah is called learning the possibilities for correcting the ego.

The general Mitzvah (commandment) of the Creator is correction of the ego to the level of “and you shall love your friend as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). When a person mechanically performs the associated activities without correcting himself, his ego, this is called maintaining the customs. Since the days when the people of Israel fell from the level of “and you shall love your friend as yourself” to the level of “unfounded hatred,” they have been found in a state of maintaining the customs.

In their internal essence, the people of Israel are a group of people who are found in mutual Arvut (guarantee), yearning to be “as one person with one heart,” and filled with mutual love.
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New Life #508 – The Whole Truth About the Upper Force
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Tal Mandelbaum ben Moshe.

Summary

There is an operating system surrounding the universe and the different forces of this system operate our world. Above these forces there is one force. The goal of our spiritual development is to get to know the upper force, to understand that it operates from inside us and speaks inside us.

All the Holy sources teach us how to discover the upper force. The wisdom of Kabbalah tells us that we shouldn’t blindly believe that this force exists, but should explore, study, and discover it by ourselves.

The great Kabbalists, who were very wise people that lived thousands of years ago; they developed many levels, and wrote books in which they encoded the inner secrets of the upper system. All these books actually teach us how to attain the upper force.

Today the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed, inviting everyone to learn how to develop his soul and get to know the upper force; it is the attribute of love and bestowal, the good and benevolent force. This is how the ancient Kabbalists actually broke through the borders of time and space and conveyed the message about the force of love and bestowal to us in the books written through “love thy friend as thyself.”
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From KabTV’s “New Life #508 – The Whole Truth About The Upper Force,” 1/22/15

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Question: Why is there a prohibition on incest?

Answer: There is a prohibition on incest because there cannot be a connection between the upper Partzuf and the lower Partzuf in the spiritual body. The two Partzufim that are opposite one another mustn’t ascend to the same level since it leads to the shattering of the vessel.

On the whole this is also reflected in our world according to the principle of root and branch. Basically the Torah doesn’t speak about the corporeal states of the body in which we continue to keep the laws of the spiritual world according to the principle of “in His image and in His likeness,” but in the corporeal world, these are no longer laws but customs.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/6/15

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